Midsummer Madness
It was because of the summer. There was no other explanation.
Of course, there IS, silly, you’ve been drooling over him since he came here.
“Oh, shut up!”
Telling your inner voice to shut up is just about as useless as denying that you have a thing for your new neighbor. It continued to hum in the background while the neighbor in question continued shoveling up his garden. Half-naked.
“Sweet heavens have mercy on me!” murmured Jay and took another sip from his glass.
The water tasted like desire. Maybe it was because after the cool and rainy June, July came sizzling and the quicksilver jumped over 100. It was a perfect day to work half-naked in the garden.
And a perfect day to fuck by the pool, no?
Jay rolled his eyes. His inner voice had a dirty mouth. Well, it did not have a mouth… whatever. In any case, he could never say out loud the things it whispered to him. Otherwise, he would be outside instead of only admiring from afar the tanned body, which moved as if the man was seducing the ground beneath his feet.
Jay licked his lips and tilted the glass towards them but it was empty and he seized the opportunity to move away from the window. Having filled up his glass, he drank it all and filled it up again.
“I have to do something!”
“I told you to shut…”
Clearly, the heat had gotten to his head. He was arguing with himself out loud.
~*~
---The previous night in the forest by the village...---
“You know we are not allowed to play in the river, Meer, get outta there.”
“Nope! You come in,” said the dark-haired fairy. ” It’s not playing what I have on my mind.”
Seaan blushed and looked around but apart from a few fireflies, there was no other movement. His heart fluttered like butterfly wings. The naughty sprite knew Seaan could not deny him anything and he had used this to get him in a mess, as usual. They have only stolen a few kisses behind the trunks of the great trees so far… but this night was special. July had come to unleash the madness of summer.
“We are in for a big trouble.”
The boy in the water winked at him, “I love big trouble almost as much as I love you.”
Seaan closed his eyes, removed his clothes, and slid close to the shore.
“How much do you love me, little one?”
“More than eternity.”
~*~
Jay was out in the garden before he could believe he was doing it and before he could escape back, he heard the husky voice of his neighbor.
“Hey, mate, could you pass me some of that water, please? I’m too dirty to get back in the house.”
Dawson raised his hand to wipe off the sweat trickling down his forehead. Down his perfect chest and his muscled abdomen and…
“Holy cucumbers!”
“Pardon me?”
Oh, Christ, did he really say that? There was a total mix-up between his voices and he had to lock himself up before he became the talk of the village. It was not his fault though. No man had the right to shovel the garden in such tight jeans, especially a man like him.
“No, it’s for the roses," said Dawson startling him from his reverie.
“What roses?”
“I thought you asked if I am going to plant cucumbers.”
“No… Yes! So you are going to plant roses, huh?”
The deep brown eyes looked at him curiously and the sensual lips opened just a bit to let out his tongue which passed over them as a relief to the dry heat.
~*~
---Meanwhile in the forest by the village…---
“You did what?”
His father looked as if he was on the brink of a heart attack. That is if fairies could get a heart attack. Meer rolled his eyes at the blond fairy by his side who gave him I-told-you-we’ll-be-in-trouble look.
“Get over it, Dad, you know me and Seaan are destined to be together.”
The man still looked shocked but suddenly started laughing so hard that tears came out of his eyes.
“Well, we have no interference policy but the people in the village got it good this time.”
“How so?” asked Seaan.
“Since you two made love in the river, lovelies, everyone in the village who drinks that water would be compelled to show their true feelings to the one they desire.”
~*~
Dawson licked his lips and stared at Jay's fingers wrapped around the glass and that got him even thirstier. Not for water. Well, for that too, but imagining these fine fingers around something else brought to him another kind of thirst. He had to take a very deep breath to calm down.
“Yes. Can I get some water now?”
Damn, that neighbor of his was the cutest thing Dawson had ever seen in his whole life. He had noticed him staring out of the window the entire morning. The very same window that Dawson himself looked into every night since he came, hoping to catch a glimpse of that slender body to have something to dream about.
He could hardly get anything but a dream with him. Gorgeous as the little man was, he probably had a myriad of suitors only in this village and besides he had not shown any interest in him. Dawson was not self-conceited but experience showed that he was successful among the boys. Not this one. Jay was paying him as much attention as to the scarecrow he put by the fence three days ago. And now, the first time they actually talked, the cutie-pie was more concerned what he intended to grow, or this was what he heard from his low whisper.
I wish you could whisper like this while I am deep inside you.
No, he could not possibly say that to the one man he wanted in his life for more than one night. Dawson drank some of the water to wash away the bitterness that filled his month. It tasted like desire. He looked in the bright eyes fixed on him and lost it. He grabbed Jay by the waist and pulled him close.
“Ever been loved in a rose bed, sweetheart?”
He was too impatient to wait for an answer and his moist lips met the younger man’s dry ones in a scorching kiss that never broke on their way down to the ground.
A TWIST IN THE TALE - Xindhi
“WHAT DO YOU MEAN you’re not coming?”
I clutched the phone, refusing to believe what I'd already suspected. Maybe the impulse to reserve a cabin in the middle of nowhere and send Tim a surprise invitation was my final attempt to keep him. It would’ve been funny if it wasn’t pathetic. Subconsciously, I knew he was slipping away. After every late night at work it became worse, and I couldn’t do much about it.
“I’m sorry, Tim. There’s no need to…” he sighed. “I’m seeing someone else.”
“Are you breaking up with me over the phone?”
He kept silent for a while. I doubted it was guilt but his voice sounded tired.
“I guess I am”
“So you’re a coward on top of being a slut?”
A second after, I realized I shouldn’t have said it. Not because it wasn’t true to a certain extent. It just didn’t feel right. We had too many good moments during the year in which we both gave our best to be serious about our relationship.
“Yeah, screw you, too.”
Then we laughed, together, like we always did. It was our parting laughter and when it faded, I wished him all the happiness in the world and pressed the red button. At this point I wasn’t sure when I would be ready to see him again as a friend and if it was possible at all.
* * *
THE ICE in the silver bucket was melting. The light of the candles flickered over the remaining cubes and danced in the bottle. I gazed at the ruby liquid for a long time, lost in a rumble of thoughts, before deciding to take advantage of it. Not in the sense of ‘I’ve just been dumped and I’m feeling sorry for myself, so I’ll drink myself stupid’, of course. That was a tad too dramatic for me, but I needed to relax. After another week from hell in the office I was going to fall asleep after the first, mostly the second glass anyway. What was I thinking when I invited him here? He needed a lot more attention than I could’ve given him but wasn’t it always like this? I didn’t have any right to blame him, he’d just gotten tired of waiting for me.
Maybe it was all my fault.
“It IS your fault.”
The cold, clear voice came to me like a gush of the wind rising outside. Did I just get drunk from one glass of wine? Or had Tim decided to come after all?
A splendid laughter broke the silence before the words rippled like river stream going downhill.
“He is not coming. You do not need him.”
The words were almost inaudible in the end, and I wasn’t sure if I heard them, or they went right through me. My skin crawled when the door to the living room creaked but no one came in. Nothing but a few golden leaves blown by a wind and the smell of autumn rain.
“Who are you?”
I jumped from the chair and my head swayed. The silence grew thicker, then the candles flickered wildly and went off. The darkness of the new moon night flooded the room, and I desperately groped the table for my phone.
I touched a small, cold hand.
* * *
THE HUMAN is handsome. I see him when he comes, his car lifting the dust off the road. He is neither the first, nor the last drawn by the same wild beauty they shunned on purpose long ago, imprisoning themselves in huge boxes of concrete, glass and steel.
I’ve seen them before. Good people, evil people, confused people… All of them got what they deserved.
It’s been said we, the Xindhi can be friendly but that we are mostly cruel. We are not. We are an unbiased, wise force of nature and destiny. Everyone gets what they deserve because we see what fills their hearts.
I can see his heart. It is beautiful like his face, but it is bleeding and broken, yet stubbornly holding on to the idea true love exists. That is what he came for, that is what he will get.
But I get to play a bit first.
I startle him with my voice, my laughter and the creaking door manifesting my arrival.
“Who are you?”
He jumps from his place and is about to turn around to where I stand. My breath extinguishes the candles and leaves only the distant stars, their light not nearly enough for him to see me. His hand touches mine and burns it.
“It does not matter,” I reply calmly. “I can love you or I can kill you. What do you choose?”
His breath on my lips is the only response I need.
OFFICE MOMENT
“What are you doing?”
Did he HAVE to ask me? As if the fifteen browsers, excel files and the SQL assistant on my computer were not enough to tell him I was trying to finish the report. His silly question ruined my concentration and I accidentally deleted what I had written in the past hour.Great, another Friday night in the office until the witching hour! No party for you, mister.
“The report,” I oozed.
I did not even look his way, thinking my tone was enough to shut him up. I was wrong.
“Do you want some coffee?” he asked.
I turned to face him. He'd been sitting next to me since last week, a new transfer from another department. We’d barely shared a word. But a few looks we did. Deep like warm pools of coffee, his brown eyes spilt all over me. I wanted to shout at him but instead I smiled. No, I grinned. A grin no one has seen on my face for ages, the one displaying the sharp brilliance of my teeth. His eyes became darker, just like I loved my coffee. No milk, no sugar, hot, bitter, rough on the lips.The back of his chair hit the wall and he had nowhere to go.
“You know what? Forget the report.” I leaned in to inhale the scent of fear and desire wrapped up in one. “I am going to do you first.”
