by A. J. Marcus
Ed chuckled too. Adrian again found himself enjoying the sound. They might be from different worlds, but there was a lot to like about the elephant handler. “So, did you guys come over to see Ciro or just tell me your diabolical plans to expose the seedy, sexy underbelly of the faire?”
“We came to meet the elephants,” Adrian said, grateful to change the subject from the girls’ gossip.
“Do you girls think you can slip through the fence, or do you want to go around to the gate?” Ed asked, gesturing down the side fence toward the gate.
“I think I can get the girls through,” Jade said, fluffing her ample bosom.
“Oh, please,” Mel giggled. “I’ve seen you stuff those things in much tighter places, at least until the strings broke.”
Adrian tried to ignore the two and slid easily between the rails to stand next to Ed. The belly dancers followed.
“If you want, you’re in time to help us give everyone their evening feeding,” Ed said. Two of his employees carried the conveyance they’d just removed from the elephant behind the wall that separated the front area from his behind-the-scenes.
“Sure, I’m game,” Adrian said. He’d never been closer to elephants than he could get at the zoo. A cold, nervous sweat trickled down his back.
He was okay with animals. They just didn’t occupy major spots in his life like they did for Ed.
“We’ll try anything once,” replied Jade as she realigned herself after crawling through the fence.
“Okay,” was all Mel said.
The guys who’d carried the thing back, now came out with a couple of large plastic washtubs filled with various fruits and vegetables. From the way the men strained, each tub weighed a fair amount.
“Thanks, Sonny, Clive, we’ll handle the elephants if you guys could get the camels,” Ed said as the two men placed their tubs on the ground.
“Anything else after that?” asked one of the guys, the taller and lankier of the two.
Ed shook his head. “Nah, Bryan and I will hose off the girls after they eat. Just remember to run early enough tomorrow so we can get everyone ready in time. We didn’t have time to clean feet today, so that has to be done tomorrow.”
“Thanks, Ed,” the man replied. “We’ll be here. You guys have a good night.”
“You too, Sonny,” Mel replied with a wink. “Stop by tomorrow, and I’ll dance a dance, just for you.”
“Thanks, Mel. I’ll do that.” Sonny flashed the dancer a big grin and followed the other man, who must’ve been Clive, back behind the wall.
“So what do we do?” Jade asked as the two elephants began reaching their long gray trunks tentatively toward the tubs.
“We’re lucky the girls are well trained.” Ed reached for a huge slice of watermelon. “They know not to get too pushy for their food, and normally won’t unless they are really hungry. You take a piece, and, depending on the size, you can either hand it to them”—he presented the watermelon to one of the elephants. Using her trunk, she gently took the fruit from his hand, leaving only a little liquid dripping behind her as she pressed it into her mouth—”or, as you get to know them better, you can place it in their mouths.” He picked up a huge, misshapen carrot from the other tub and carried it over to the other elephant. She leaned back her trunk and opened her mouth for him to drop the vegetable in. As he moved his hand away, she lowered her trunk and began crunching.
“Cool!” Jade snatched up an apple and presented it to the second elephant. The delicate trunk picked up the apple and dropped it in the waiting mouth.
“Her name is Gwen,” Ed said. “You’re a good girl, aren’t you, Gwen.” The elephant gave a deep rumble and pointed her trunk toward the tub, letting them know she was ready for her next piece, which Mel promptly provided.
He turned back to Adrian. “So, I guess you and I get to feed Cara. Cara, this is Adrian. Adrian, this is Cara. If you want to say hello to Ciro, you have to be nice to Cara.”
“Hello, Cara.” Adrian picked up a huge turnip and held it out to the pachyderm. The soft tip of her trunk brushing against his palm surprised him. It felt almost like lips kissing him as she plucked the vegetable gracefully from his hand. She dropped the root into her mouth and began crunching. Her large, soulful brown eyes reminded Adrian of Ed for a moment as she stared at him. The crunching stopped, and she blinked at him, her long, curved lashes breaking his stare first.
He chuckled. “Sorry, just getting a good look.” He accepted the chunk of watermelon Ed handed him, and she promptly took it from him. It took them nearly fifteen minutes to hand feed all the assorted roughage to the animals. By the time it was over, Adrian had begun to notice the differences between the two elephants. Cara’s forehead was more or less a solid gray, while Gwen had a few large darker spots that mottled the uniform gray. Cara also stood slightly larger than Gwen.
Partway through the feeding, little Ciro had peeked around his mother’s leg at Adrian. Ed had tried to coax the baby elephant out to say hello, but he didn’t come out at first. When the tub was empty and Adrian’s hands were sticky from the various things he’d handled, Cara reached out with her trunk and blew more of the accumulated juices into his hair. It took all his willpower not to react. He didn’t want to leave Ed thinking the elephant grossed him out. She didn’t, but if he reacted, Ed might think so. He glanced over at the gals. Gwen hadn’t graced them with similar treatment.
Ed laughed. Adrian hoped it was with him, so he smiled up at the elephant. “I think she likes you,” the elephant handler said. “She’s trying to make sure you remember her.”
“And what would she have done if she didn’t like me?” Adrian was almost afraid to ask.
“If she were indifferent,” Ed explained, “she’d have just turned and wandered off. If she didn’t like you, she wouldn’t have taken food from you. If she really didn’t like you? Let’s just say you wouldn’t still be in the corral.”
“I guess we’re good, then,” Adrian said, running a hand through his hair in an attempt to get it to lie down again.
“Hey, Daddy, did I miss anything?” Eddy came squirming through the fence. The girl who watched over the kids nodded at Ed and then escorted a couple more kids off toward their parents.
“We’re already done feeding,” Ed said as he scooped his son up in his arms. The warm look on Ed’s face as he lifted his son reinforced Adrian’s opinion that he was a very good man. “But you can help me spray everyone off in a few minutes.” He set Eddy down on the ground.
“Why don’t you get Ciro to come out and say hello to everyone. Mel and
Jade haven’t even gotten a good look at the little guy yet.”
“Okay.” Eddy walked over to Cara first. “Hey, Cara, can Ciro come out and play?” He rubbed the mother elephant’s trunk as he spoke to her. Cara carefully took his hand in her grasp and pointed him toward her offspring. With one hand still on the elephant’s trunk, the boy extended his other toward the baby watching from behind her leg. “Come on, Ciro. It’s okay. The nice ladies and”—he glanced over his shoulder at Adrian— ”Adrian just want to see you and pet you. You like getting petted, don’t you?” The little elephant reached out with his trunk and touched the boy’s outstretched fingers before he stepped out from under his mother and walked forward.
Eddy turned and beamed as the little elephant came out, then walked alongside him toward the adults.
“You’re really good with him,” Adrian said. “Just like your father.”
Eddy’s smile was the same as his dad’s. “Thanks. I want to be just like Daddy when I grow up.”
“Kiddo, you’re going great,” Mel replied. She and Jade stepped away from Gwen, who hadn’t blessed them with a juicy, blowing thankyou for her food. The other elephant just wandered off while they slowly advanced on little Ciro.
The little elephant was awash in short red fuzz. It gave him a slightly different look from the adults. His ears flapped at all of them, and he had to sniff each person separate
ly, at times, almost invasively. All the while, his mother stood watch. Her eyes never left her baby, and her ears twitched with each word spoken.
“He is just adorable,” Jade said. She reached out and rubbed his head, once Eddy stepped back to the little guy’s shoulder.
“He’s already nearly twice the size he was when he was born,” Ed informed them.
“How long before he’s as big as his mother?” Mel asked as Ciro sniffed up the front of her shirt.
“It’s going to take a few years for that,” Ed said. “Asian elephants grow at about the same rate as humans… proportionately speaking. He’ll be in his teens before he stops growing.” “Wow,” said Jade.
“He and I are going to get to grow up together.” Eddy reached up and put his hand on Ciro’s back.
“I guess you are,” Adrian said, amazed at how relaxed the boy was around the giant animals. He rubbed the baby elephant’s head once Jade and Mel withdrew their hands for a moment. The skin was so soft. Somehow he’d envisioned it being tougher, more like hide than almost human skin. At that moment he realized he might end up learning a lot about things he had no previous knowledge of.
Above him, a deep, peaceful rumble, almost like a giant cat’s purr, came from Cara. It fluctuated and changed quietly. He stopped petting the little elephant and listened to her.
“Is something wrong?” Ed asked. He stepped closer to Adrian, but the flutist held up a hand and continued to listen to the deep rhythm coming from the mother pachyderm.
“She’s singing to him,” he said after a minute. “It’s barely audible, it’s so deep, but Cara is singing to Ciro.”
At his side, Ed nodded. “Most elephant communication is so low, humans can’t hear it. I’ve heard some new sounds out of her since she had him. He’s the first birth I’ve had, so I don’t know if it’s normal or not.”
“I had no idea that elephants are musical,” Adrian said. He almost hated to interrupt the elephant’s song with his own voice. “I’d love to hang out and hear more. I wonder if we could get her to increase her volume.”
Ed looked thoughtful for a moment. “I don’t know. Let me think about it and see if I can figure out a way to train her to be louder. It will give us something to talk about on our date.”
“Date?” Eddy asked. “Are you and Adrian going out on a date like Uncle Bryan does?”
“Yes, Eddy.” Ed nodded. “I was going to tell you about it once we figured out the details.”
Eddy slowly walked around Ciro and faced Adrian. “You better be nice to my Daddy, or I’ll tell Cara to squash you.”
With the determination set in the five-year-old’s face, Adrian fought back a chuckle. “I’ll be nice. I promise.”
“Eddy, we don’t tell Cara to squash people.” Ed frowned at his son.
The boy looked up at his father. “I know that.” The he looked fiercely back at Adrian. “But he doesn’t.”
Chapter 12
For a moment, Ed didn’t know what to say to his son. He’d never heard anything like that come out of Eddy’s mouth before. Was this the kind of thing he was going to have to deal with for not dating during his son’s early life? At first Eddy seemed to like the idea of his dad going out, but this… this was different. As Ed stood there, dumbstruck, he remembered how broken up his brother, Bryan, could get when some gal he’d gone out with had dumped him, and the last couple of times Eddy had asked about it and not been happy that someone had made his uncle cry. Maybe he was remembering that and didn’t want his father to suffer the same fate.
Bryan eased himself through the fence about that time. “Hey, sorry, I got tied up in the last-minute rush at the chocolate shop.”
“We got the girls their fruits and veggies,” Ed said. “Now, all they need is their hay and their showers.”
Jade smiled at Bryan. “Hey, Bryan, bring anything back for me?”
Bryan blushed. He may have acted like a ladies’ man, but a little flirting always set him off his guard. “Sorry, Jade, I didn’t realize you were going to be here.” He looked at Ed. “So what do you want me to do?”
“Why don’t you and Eddy throw the hay out. I’ll take these guys to the back and get their hands washed off.” He glanced at Adrian and the belly dancers. “Unless you want to stay and help us shower the girls?”
Jade and Mel both shook their heads. “We need to get gone so we can be back in the morning,” Mel replied.
Adrian shrugged. His muscular shoulders rippled under his tight polo shirt. “I didn’t plan on too much, and Sebastian’s going to be looking for me in a few minutes. If I’d known, it sounds like fun.”
“Let’s get you guys rinsed off, then,” Ed gestured to the back wall.
Behind the wall, he turned on the hose and let the women wash their hands first.
“Thanks, Ed,” they said in strange synchronicity. “We’ll see you both tomorrow,” Mel finished.
“I can walk you out if you like,” Adrian said with the hose in his hands.
Mel shook her head, smiled, and then pointed at Adrian’s juice-filled locks. “You need a bit more cleanup than we did. Take your time. We’ll tell Sebastian to be patient.” The two belly dancers turned and disappeared around the wall.
“We should try and get that out,” Ed agreed. “If it dries, it will be even sticker and harder to clean once you get home.”
Adrian smiled at him as he started to pull his shirt off. “Are you sure you didn’t suggest to Cara that she do this so you could get my shirt off?”
A smile crept across Ed’s lips. “I might have.” He chuckled. “But I didn’t. You’ve got a nice body, but I knew that from your satyr costume.”
After hanging the shirt on a hook that Ed usually had brooms or other tools on, Adrian turned back toward Ed. The elephant trainer sighed. Even the open vest of the satyr garb hadn’t told the whole story of the flutist’s gorgeous torso. The man obviously spent time in the gym. Large, lickable nipples stood out amidst the blond hair that covered well-defined pecs. The hair didn’t stop on the pecs, but traveled down his six-pack toward his narrow waist.
Beyond the wall, Eddy laughed at something. With his son only a few feet away, Ed forced himself to focus on getting the sticky out of Adrian’s hair. He wasn’t ready for his son to catch him drooling over a man just yet.
“I think the worst of it is on the right side,” Ed said. “Lean your head back and let me run the water through it.” Adrian was a couple inches taller than he was, but it put him just about right for Ed to get the hose up and the water into his hair.
“Man, that’s cold!” Adrian jumped as the water hit his shoulder and ran down his back.
“Sorry, best I’ve got without taking you into the trailer.” And he knew taking Adrian into the trailer wouldn’t be a good idea right now, particularly with the growing urgency he felt in his own body at the closeness of the shirtless man.
Adrian shivered for a second. “It’s okay. I just wasn’t expecting it to be that cold.”
“Well water,” Ed said, bringing the hose back up to the long blond hair. He ran his fingers through it, trying to get the juice out. It was fresh enough, it rinsed out easily. The wet hair felt good running through his fingers. A slight hint of shampoo rose from the wet locks. It only took a couple of minutes before all Cara’s spray was washed away.
Ed wished it could’ve taken longer, but they both had things to do, and Eddy and Bryan could walk around the wall at any moment. “I think that’s got it.”
“Thanks.” Adrian reached up, and his long, delicate fingers squeezed more water out of his hair onto the hard ground. He turned toward Ed and smiled. “You know, after the initial shock of the cold water, that felt pretty good.”
Returning the smile, Ed bent over and turned off the water. “Thanks, you have great hair,” was all he could think to say, then immediately wished he hadn’t sounded so lame.
Adrian touched Ed’s hair. “Your hair’s nice too.”
Gulping, Ed felt
awkward. He wished they were more alone, and that he’d had more experience with guys coming on to him. For a moment, he didn’t know what to say or do next. Then Adrian leaned in and kissed him. The flutist’s warm lips pressed to his, and his breath caught. As quickly as it started, Adrian pulled away.
“I’m sorry,” he muttered. “I shouldn’t have been so forward.”
He started to turn away, but Ed caught his hand. “Don’t worry about it. It was a really nice kiss.” A wide grin split Adrian’s face, encouraging Ed. “I can’t wait until we have time for longer kisses.” He leaned into the man and gave him another lip-lock. This time he slipped his arm around the muscular shoulder and pulled Adrian into him. The kiss lingered until Cara bugled out front. They parted with Adrian’s gray eyes wide.
“What was that?”
Ed chuckled. “Cara’s way of saying she’s shoveled all the hay into her mouth that she wants right now and she’s ready for her shower. Elephants can be just as demanding as kids.”
“So we’re about to lose our little bit of privacy back here?” Adrian moved away to get his shirt.
“Yeah, that about sums it up.” Ed sighed as the purple shirt slid over the hard body, slipping all the details out of sight.
“So did you talk to Trish yet about a date for our date?” Adrian stepped in close again.
Ed shook his head. “Not yet, I’ll go over and see her in a little bit.”
Adrian reached out and ran his long fingers along Ed’s jaw and up into his hair. “Let me know tomorrow. It’ll be nice to have a little alone time with you, get to know you a better.” Their lips met again. Ed’s heart pounded.
“Lunch tomorrow?” Ed asked as their lips parted. “We’ll work out dinner then.”
Adrian smiled. “Sounds good. I’ll wait until you come by to take my break.”
“Good.” Ed nodded. The ground under his feet vibrated a bit, letting him know that at least one elephant was heading his way. “Here come the girls,” he said, nodding toward the wall, where a gray trunk heralded Cara’s arrival.