Best Gay Romance 2013 (23 page)

It was almost noon, and the sun was directly overhead. Mark was well tanned, but he applied lotion to my shoulders, back and chest. I closed my eyes and sunk into his caresses, and we both sighed when he capped the bottle. A warm breeze embraced our half-naked bodies while we watched cumulus clouds drift among distant mountaintops, occasionally jostling for position around the peaks. Mark put his arm around my waist and pulled me close.

“There's a lot to be said for a breathtaking view when you earn it.”

I murmured a husky
yes
while encircling his waist with my arm. His hand slid into my rear pocket just as we heard voices. Mark shook his head, moved away from me, and pulled a large red beach towel from his backpack. We sat cross-legged, smiling at each other while reveling in the view. He handed me a piece of cheese, I don't remember what kind, and then two wineglasses and a small bottle of wine appeared.

“Liebfraumilch,” he intoned as he opened the bottle and poured. “Virgin's milk,” he added through a sly smirk. “White and fruity.”

A party of four had arrived, noticed us, and settled onto a far boulder. They acted like a pair of newlyweds with their kissing and fondling. I was jealous of their freedom. We finished our meal, relaxed for a few moments, cleaned up, and headed back down the trail.

The descending trek was more rapid than the ascending hike; we were about half an hour from the car when the trail forked. Mark counted a number of measured paces and stopped. He pushed his way a few feet into the dense foliage and signaled me to follow with a flick of his head. We were still shirtless. I was sure his arms and chest were getting scratched, but I was close
behind him and didn't get nicked, his knapsack notwithstanding, when the bushes snapped back into place. We came to a grassy clearing, about ten feet in diameter, and Mark halted. I pictured a doe and her faun nesting for the night in this secluded spot, surrounded by an almost impenetrable thicket. Mark lowered the knapsack and again spread the large beach towel, this time with the knapsack under one end to serve as a pillow. He rested his hands on my shoulders.

“You know I'm attracted to you.”

“Yes. I can sense it. I …I feel the same way about you.”

“I'm going to give you your first real kiss.”

I studied my shoes, hoping Mark wouldn't notice my tears.

“Don't cry,” he said. “Not now. Sometime, but not now.”

I nodded.

He lifted my chin with his forefinger, took me in his arms, and we kissed. Our lips formed a grotto in which two tongues lingered, searched, and caressed.

We took a breather, literally, and I began to kneel, unsure how to proceed, but willing to explore the possibilities. Mark put his strong hands on my shoulders.

“Lie down,” he said, his voice a gentle command. I complied. He stood at my feet and stepped out of his shorts. I gasped.

“You've been waiting for this, haven't you?” he asked.

I couldn't speak. There he stood, clad in jock and boots, the quintessential centerfold from
Physique Pictorial
, except that the bulge in his jock was pulsing.

“It's okay, it's okay, relax,” he said. He knelt and slid my shorts and jock over my sneakers. My cock
thwapped
as it bounced off my abdomen. Mark stripped off his jock and his dick, mimicking mine, sprung out and up. He lowered himself onto me and ran his fingers through my hair. I shuddered. He wiped a final tear from the corner of my eye.

“This has never happened to me,” I managed to say.

“You've dreamt about it, haven't you?”

I nodded, and giggled.

“What's wrong?”

“Nothing. I'm just happy. Even though I've been taught that this is wrong. Very wrong.”

“Maybe it is.”

“I've tried to be with girls, but…but…”

Mark put his finger across my lips. He took me into his arms and held me. Tight. I shivered. Then he ran his index finger the length of my torso, tracing the fine line of sprouting hair from the center of my chest to my navel. “You're beautiful,” he murmured.

“I'm so skinny,” I countered.

“You're okay just the way you are. Besides, you're filling out. Sign up for weight lifting in gym class if you must. But I'm drawn to your innocence, your inner beauty, your purity of soul, your sincerity.”

I gulped.

“You may lose your innocence, but hold on to the rest.”

He pressed his lips to mine, and I melted. I again yielded my mouth to his tongue, a symbol, hopefully of a beginning, of me offering my body, my essence, my spirit.

He gently moved my arms from my sides and placed them in a crosslike position. Then he locked his hands onto my wrists. His sinuous thighs forced my legs apart and snared them in a spread-eagle position. I couldn't move. Mark ran his tongue over each of my nipples. I moaned. Then he nibbled and bit. I yelped as my dick twitched. Pleasure and pain. A new sensation. Oh, yeah, I had played with my nipples now and then. But this was different, very different. A sweaty man, a gorgeous hunk, had captured me. He was on top of me, our
dicks pressed together by our firm abs.

I looked past Mark's face. It was no longer high noon, and the sun's rays filtered obliquely through pine needles, down to variegated leaves, in the first blush of fall.

 

I couldn't give my heart to Mark—he had already taken it, and knew it. He lowered his head to my cock, and licked the tip. My imagination had never conjured such sensations. He swallowed my dick, all of it. I arched my back and pumped into his face. My body trembled. Mark raised his head, releasing me. His eyes followed the arcs of our cum, combining in a pool of ejaculate on my stomach, glistening like dewdrops in the sun.

Mark held me as our breathing slackened, then crawled next to me and put one arm under my shoulder, holding me with one hand. He ran the index finger of his other hand through the silky slickness of my belly and licked his finger clean, his tongue pausing on his lips to savor the taste. He scooped up more of our cum and offered me his finger, a silent communion.

We cleaned off, using our jocks. He stood and pulled me to my feet, offering me his jock as he stepped into mine. His wet pouch clung to my soft dick and I cupped my fist around it.

“Our own secret,” he whispered through a smile.

I grinned. “Like a wedding ring.”

The bushes rustled and I jumped.

Mark laughed. “Not to worry. Just a squirrel looking for nuts, not a skunk or a bear.”

“Or a person,” I added.

“We're safe here.” He paused and lifted his finger to his chin like a mischievous kid plotting some evil. “Next time I'll bring my rope. The soft rope.”

My spent dick sprung to life. Mark moved behind me, reached around my shoulders, and rubbed my chest. His hard dick in the damp jock probed my buttcrack. I moaned and clasped his hands. “It's time to start back to campus,” he said.

“It's silly, but I wish we could hide in our secluded nest forever.”

“You're not silly.”

“Forbidden love is usually challenged, often doomed, and sometimes fatal,” I whispered.

Mark spun me around. “Where did you get
that
?” His hard dick bobbed within the tented jock like a reproaching finger. “Sounds like you should be majoring in philosophy or ethics.”

“
Tristan und Isolde
,” I answered.

He looked perplexed.

“An old legend. My favorite opera.” I paused, regrouped, and continued. “A more modern version is
Lady Chatterley's Lover
.”

“Yeah, class differences.”

“Yep. Class differences. Sexual preferences weren't even mentioned then. At least not openly.”

“Still aren't, Kinsey notwithstanding,” Mark concluded. “C'mon, let's go.” He shook grass, dirt, and pine needles from our red towel. He flicked his head for the second time that day.
I latched on to the opposing corners of the makeshift blanket and we reverently folded it into a red cube, resting it in Mark's upturned palms. It was warm from the heat of our bodies. He looked into my eyes with an unblinking stare. I placed my hands on top of our portable nest and we leaned into a final kiss.

He lowered the blanket into his rumpled rucksack, brushed the creased surfaces of the bag with measured motions, and slid it over his sweaty shoulders. Unlike Tristan and Isolde, our lovers' afterglow didn't lead to round two of heightened passion. Not that day. We trudged back to the car, each lost in his own thoughts.

Jamie Freeman

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our story began—as so many love stories do—with a shoe.

“Do you have this in size ten?” he asked the salesclerk. Her name tag identified her as Courtnei. A tiny heart-shaped sticker dotted the terminal letter.

Courtnei took the running shoe, turning it around in her hands, and said, “Do you want to see it in light blue too?”

“Sure.” His smile was picture-perfect.

“Are you gonna buy those?” I asked.

He looked at me for the first time and my stomach lurched. He was beautiful in a way that made me look around to see if he was being filmed. A man this gorgeous could have stepped off a movie set, with his faded jeans and white Oxford shirt, perfectly manicured hands, Rolex, signet ring and expensively messy haircut. He had that fresh, sharply defined quality a man can only achieve through the consistent use of staggeringly overpriced skin-care products. Everything about him whispered:
wealth
. I looked into his pale-blue eyes, acutely aware of my
tattered Levi's, stained T-shirt and army surplus jacket. I pointed to the poster I'd been clutching in front of me.

“Yes,” he said.

I snorted in exasperation. Of course this child of privilege wouldn't get it.

“This woman works in a Honduran sweatshop making the shoes you're considering buying. She is paid less than twenty dollars a week despite the long hours and high productivity demands. She has no protection if she or one of her three children becomes ill. She is the sole support of her—”

“What's her name?”

“What?”

“I asked her name,” he said. “Sometimes personalizing the message, say, something like, ‘This is Maria Cortez. She works in a sweatshop near La Ceiba—'”

“Are you making fun of people in poverty?”

“No. I'm making fun of you.” He smiled again, his lips parting in a frankly sensual manner.

“Okay, so I've got these in dark blue in ten and a half, and the light blue ones in ten.” Courtnei pushed past me with a pair of shoeboxes. “He can't be here,” she said to him, and then turned to me. “You can't be here.”

“He's here with me,” the man said.

“But he can't—”

“Thank you, Courtnei,” the man said. “May I have a few minutes to talk with my friend? Then I'll try these on?”

“I'm not your friend,” I said.

He shrugged. Courtnei looked dubious but drifted away.

“So you're here to keep people from buying these shoes?” he asked.

“Yes. The workers—”

“Wait.” He held up his hand, the palm pink and perfect. The
gesture was strangely erotic. I shifted in place; he smiled again.

“You're still laughing at me.”

“There is a difference between a smile and a laugh…and you need to tell me your name.”

“I need to what?”

“Tell me your name.”

I crossed me arms and considered my options.

“I'm Fletcher Alden,” he said. He held out his hand. I shook it, feeling small and disoriented.

“Ashe,” I said. “Ashe Stern.”

He smiled again, blue eyes probing me. Sweat trickled down my back.

“You know, Ashe, in a country in which nearly forty percent of the population is unemployed or underemployed and seventy percent live in poverty, the fact that this company provides over five hundred jobs, on-site medical care, and wages that are fifty percent more than the federally mandated minimum wage could be seen as a good thing.”

“Who're you supposed to be? Jeffrey Sachs?”

“No. I'm just saying this may be more complicated than it seems.”

“That's a bullshit excuse.”

“Most things are,” he said.

“Are what?”

“More complicated than they seem.”

“No,” I said. I was trying unsuccessfully to work up some emotion about the Honduran workers, but all I could see was dark hair that tufted from the collar of Fletcher's bright white undershirt, the ample denim bulge between his legs and the heavily muscled runner's thighs that stretched the legs of his jeans. “This is about…this is about a definition of social justice that transcends national borders.”

“As you say. You're clearly the expert.”

I flushed.

“Do you believe that?” I asked.

“What? That you're an expert?”