by Roan Parrish
“Yes. Please.”
Under Alex’s command, Corbin touched himself. Fingertips running over his throat and trailing down his stomach and hips and thighs were sand blowing around him. Featherlight touches behind his knees and in the crooks of his elbows were the ocean lapping at him. A hand tangled in his hair, tugging gently, was seaweed wrapping around him to hold him in place.
Corbin panted, every inch of his skin sensitized by sand and sea and sun.
“Do you know how hard you are already? You’re leaking for me, Corbin. Run a finger over the tip of your dick and feel how wet you are.”
“Ohh,” Corbin moaned, and shuddered with the contact. He rubbed small circles over the tip of his leaking erection, shuddering with pleasure.
“Stroke yourself. Very slowly.”
Corbin’s hand on himself was the ocean, collecting itself into the instrument of his pleasure. Drag of the tides and pull of the waves controlled his strokes, his body sinking into the wet sand like it could cover him, envelop him.
Corbin’s moans were the calls of sea birds and the groan of creaking ships. The water that stroked him was blood-hot and full up with salt, and when Alex told him to stop, he could feel the sun burning his face, the bright-red flush spreading down his chest and to his stomach and thighs like sunburn.
“Here, take this.” Something was pressed into his hand, hard and slick. The vibrator. His favorite. Somehow Alex had known.
“I want you to turn that on and tease your hole with it,” the sun whispered low in his ear. Sun speaking to sand and water. Corbin turned it on and it was the vibrations of sand when the ground shook with thunder. It woke up every nerve, teased his muscles until he felt the gentle waves of it echoing inside.
“Do you want it inside?” the sun asked.
“Oh god, please, please, please,” Corbin chanted. Every pulse of vibration was a wave hitting the shore.
“Spread your legs for me.” As Corbin did, he felt more lube swiped onto the vibrator. “Now, slowly. Press it inside.”
As the length of it breached him, the vibrations intensified. This was a storm at sea, the crash and shatter of water made solid enough to bruise. He pressed it inside, deeper, deeper, until he felt the vibrations everywhere.
“Move it so it feels good,” Alex said. “I want to watch you fall apart.”
Corbin squirmed in the sand, the soles of his feet pressing down, his hips pressing up, then back, thighs tensing and releasing. He pulsed the vibrations over his prostate and a gulf opened up inside of him. This was how the ocean got in. Here, where he shook himself apart. A wave curled to a wicked point and blasted up through him, stroking every inch.
Distantly, Corbin heard desperate sounds, broken sounds, and realized they weren’t the screeching of a low flying gull, but his own needy moans as the pleasure overwhelmed him.
He formed them into sense and what they formed was “Alex, Alex, Alex.”
“You’re safe. Tell me where you are. Tell me what you feel.”
“I’m— Oh god— The ocean is inside me. You’re the sun. No, now the moon because the moon controls the tides, and so you make the waves. And the waves make me feel everything.” Corbin gasped as the sea moved deeper inside him, pressing further against the shore.
“What else, baby?”
“It—it’s so deep. I can feel the way it shakes apart and rolls back together and—oh god, oh god, I— Every time it comes back together it’s farther inside me.”
“Where is it now?” Alex purred.
“It . . . I don’t—it’s all the way inside my—my ass and pressing up into my stomach. The ocean can go anywhere, it never stops. It—it—fuck mmmm— I can’t, I don’t know what it will do.”
“Turn it up,” Alex whispered.
And then the sea took him apart. It slammed through him and shook him to pieces like a shell.
“It’s in my chest,” Corbin gasped. “It wants to run through me.” Corbin felt his cock burn, swollen and hot, a brand against his stomach on the very edge of erupting. “Oh god, Alex, please, can I—”
He felt Alex’s breath on his neck. “Not yet. Not yet. Just a little while longer.”
Corbin whined as the waves twisted inside him and his hips rocked as he was fucked straight through. His entire body was shaking with the need for release, cradled in the sand, flooded by the ocean, scraped to prickles by the wind.
“I need— Please, please, please,” Corbin begged, not sure if he was begging for release or annihilation, or if they were one and the same.
The sand shifted beside him and he felt Alex close.
“Alex— Oh Alex, it’s in my throat,” he whispered, then his voice was smothered by salty spray.
“Let the sea take you where it wants,” Alex whispered. Then Corbin felt a hand on his throat, outside, where the sea pulsed beneath. Alex squeezed gently and Corbin shuddered and gasped. Pressure outside and pressure inside, until he was caught between the waves like driftwood. Broken sounds choked out of him and he writhed on the sand.
“Come for me now.”
A finger of seaweed tapped at the tip of his aching cock, slid inside, then wrapped itself around the head, squeezing, and Corbin was gone.
The wave slammed through him, opening him up to a force of pleasure as ancient and inexorable as the tides. He seized with it, pulse after pulse erupting from him, wave after wave inside him, squeeze after squeeze around him. He was left on the beach, wrung dry, his limbs shaking and jerking with lingering jolts. He saw only blackness, and he heard only the crash of the waves, and in his mouth was blood salt heat.
Then the sun eclipsed him, smothered him, and took his mouth in a burning kiss. A hand pressed the ocean back inside of him for a final spray of vibration, and he was turned inside out, heaving with another great rip of pleasure that tore through him as the sun made itself known.
Slowly, the sea receded. The beach was peaceful, the sun a warm glow. Every limb was relaxed, his muscles melted. Soft kisses, like butterflies, landed over his cheeks, and he blinked his eyes open.
He was in his bed, skin flushed, head spinning, Alex looking at him like he was watching something incredible.
They blinked at one another for a few seconds.
“You touched me,” Corbin said, but it came out in a rasp.
“I cheated,” Alex said, his own voice rough too. “I actually couldn’t stop myself. I tried.”
Corbin smiled weakly. “The sun touched me.”
“What?”
“Was it— Did you like— Was that okay,” Corbin asked.
Alex’s eyes burned. “That was the sexiest fucking thing I’ve ever experienced.” He gestured at his crotch, and Corbin’s eyes widened to see the soaked front of his underwear. It made him burn with a different kind of heat.
He reached out a tentative hand, and Alex slid flush against him.
“You were so gorgeous,” he murmured. “And your mind. It’s beautiful.” Alex brushed his hair back. “You remake the world a hundred times a day.”
Corbin ran a finger up Alex’s arm, which was flung over his legs. They were sitting on the living room rug, leaning against the couch, in front of the fire. They’d been there nearly all day, and Corbin didn’t think he’d ever talked so much at one time in his life. His voice was growing hoarse from overuse, but the words were coming more and more easily.
They’d talked about Alex’s father, and what Corbin remembered of his mother. About what other kinds of signs Corbin saw and what other stories his aunts had told him. About how Alex had met Gareth, and the places he’d traveled. About Corbin’s dreams and his notebooks.
Corbin felt like a rusted lock that had finally found its key.
“When you left school and didn’t come back, was it only because your aunts died? Or because of that guidance counselor?”
“After my aunts died, I lost time. But there was also no reason to go back. It was them who would get in trouble for not sending me to school.”
“Didn’t the school try and contact you?”
“I told them I moved to live with family.” Corbin shrugged. “Wasn’t very hard. It was a big school.”
“I remember when you left because people told wild stories about it.”
Corbin leaned back against Alex’s shoulder. He could imagine the kinds of tales people would have spun.
The snow hadn’t melted and more had fallen throughout the day. Now, as the sun began to set, the white ground began to glow an eerie blue. There was a whine from outside and Corbin pulled himself up.
“Wolf,” he whispered into the cold. Wolf, Stick, and Dreidel were bounding toward him, running around each other with the joy of companionship and snow.
“Finally cold enough to come inside,” he asked Wolf, but Wolf just pawed at the snow and barked once. Stick and Dreidel trooped inside, leaving wet paw prints on the wood. “You sure.”
Wolf barked once more, and settled in next to the door, posture expectant, blue eyes watching Corbin.
“I think I might have broken the curse,” Corbin whispered into Wolf’s tufted ear. “I might get to keep Alex. Maybe.”
Wolf leaned his head against Corbin, nuzzling at him. Corbin could feel the animal’s warm, quiet satisfaction on his behalf.
For the next few days, Corbin couldn’t concentrate at work. Every time Alex came near him, the sugar turned to salt, the flour to cornstarch. When Alex pressed a furtive kiss to his hair, the egg whites curdled. When Alex slung an arm around his shoulders and pulled him close, the chocolate seized. All he could think about was Alex in his bed the morning after the Chanukah dinner, and what it would be like when he got Alex in his bed again.
Gareth came into the kitchen at lunchtime to drop off Alex’s car keys, and stood in the doorway staring at them.
“Whoa. The vibe in here is so intense I feel like I might get pregnant if I stay. Um, Alex, is it cool if maybe I have the house to myself tonight?”
Alex raised an eyebrow.
“Corbin, that means he’d have to stay with you,” Gareth said when Alex remained silent.
“You can stay with me,” Corbin said. His heart started pounding at thoughts of what might happen and the butter he was creaming melted.
Once Gareth left, Alex put a hand on his shoulder. “I don’t have to stay if you don’t want. That was an ill-advised attempt on Gareth’s part to play wingman.”
Corbin didn’t know what that meant, but he was already flushing at how badly he wished Alex would close the space between them and kiss him.
“Do you know how you’re looking at me right now?” Alex growled. “It’s making me pretty sure you’re okay with me staying over.”
“I want you to kiss me,” Corbin said, and watched Alex’s eyes darken.
“You can kiss me, you know.”
“I know. But I want you to kiss me.”
“Your wish is my command,” Alex murmured.
The kiss started sweetly, Alex leaning close and cupping Corbin’s cheek. But when Corbin touched his tongue to Alex’s, they found themselves crushed together, mouths moving desperately.
Corbin pulled away first. He could smell the bread in the oven starting to burn with the added heat.
“Are we almost done,” Corbin asked. They needed to burn off some of the tension between them or they’d ruin everything in the kitchen.
“I’ll never be done with you,” Alex said, looking almost shocked at his own words.
“With work, I mean. We’re messing things up. Everything’s going all weird.”
“What does that mean?”
“We’re melting the butter and burning the bread.”
Alex grinned at him and ran a thumb over his lips. “I hear you. Let me get the last batch of cookies and bread out and we’ll go.”
In the car, Corbin was quiet. Since they’d spent the night together, he’d watched Alex intently to make sure that he didn’t see any evidence of the curse wreaking havoc. But Alex had seemed as confident and calm as ever. He’d kissed Corbin hello and goodbye, and smiled at him. He’d grabbed him by the elbow when he’d tripped, and told him his maple scones were perfect.
But he hadn’t come back to Corbin’s house. And Corbin didn’t know why. Moreover, Corbin didn’t know if Alex’s behavior was how such things normally went or not.
“Alex,” he said as he let them inside. “What happens next.” He’d been looking for signs but none had appeared. Without their guidance, he felt lost, like one of his senses was missing.
“Are you hungry? I could make dinner. Or we could order something.”
“No. Next. How do we know what happens.”
“What happens next in our relationship?”
Alex combed his fingers through Corbin’s hair and it shot a shiver down his spine. Corbin nodded and Alex pulled him down onto the couch.
“Anything we want.”
Corbin cocked his head. “Something still feels unsettled. It’s felt strange all day. The last few days. Since . . . You know.”
“Since we spent the night together, declared our love for each other, confessed our secrets, had the greatest sex ever, and hung out all day talking?”
Corbin choked on a laugh. “Yeah.”
“Yeah, baby. The earth shifted that day. It’s going to take a little while to be on an even keel again.”
“What do you mean.”
“I mean, it was really intense, really intimate. I’ve been feeling a little raw myself.”
“You have.” Alex nodded and Corbin felt better. “That’s how I feel sometimes. Like my skin has been stripped off and I’m just nerves being scraped by everything.”
Alex stroked the back of his neck softly. “Does anything help?”
“I go away with Carbon and Lex and Jasmine and Finnian. Or I go in the woods with Wolf. In the summer, sometimes I’ll work in the garden. My aunts always grew all our vegetables, but a lot of them died.”
“Maybe this summer Gareth could help you get it back up and running. His family had a huge garden growing up and he really missed it in New York. I bet he’d love to help.”
Corbin nodded, his mind wandering to Gareth and what he knew about him. “Is he all right. He seemed so . . . bruised when he first got here.”
“I’m not sure. He left New York to get away from his husband, Paul. And I keep asking him if Paul’s called him, but he won’t tell me. It’s good he’s here now, but I worry he might feel drawn back there.”
Corbin hesitated before he spoke. “Are you going to be here now. To stay.”
The air around them jangled, alive with tension.
“I don’t think I meant to at first. When my mom gave me the coffee shop, I imagined I’d stay for a year or two, relax, get my head together, sell it at a profit and give my mom the money, and then go. But after I met you, I didn’t feel that way anymore.” He grasped Corbin’s hands.
Corbin didn’t think he’d ever held hands with anyone before. Their fingers were braided together like the challahs they had made, Alex’s palm a warm rasp against his own.
“Now, I can’t think of anywhere I’d rather be than here, with you. I don’t know what your plans are, but—”
Corbin launched himself at Alex and kissed him with everything he had.
As they kissed, the air around them settled, the storm allayed. Until now, Corbin hadn’t realized what would be the thing to set his quaking nerves to rights, to make the jangled, wrong feeling he’d been mired in the last few days recede. Hadn’t known the jittery uncertainty was the idea that maybe they had broken the curse . . . and Alex might leave anyway.
Corbin kissed down Alex’s jaw to his neck, and climbed into his lap, holding on to him.
Alex mmmed, then leaned back. “Is that yes, you want me to stay?”
“Yes.”
Alex twined his fingers into Corbin’s hair and studied his face. “What are your plans? What do you want to do going forward?”
Corbin chewed on his lip. He’d never
made any plans. Never thought of his jobs as anything more than money to buy groceries or pay the water bill. He’d never dared to dream of anything because he hadn’t known how. Now, suddenly, he felt as if the future yawned open before him like a grassy field. It was all there, wide swathes of it, all at once rather than revealing itself pace by pace as he walked forward.
No one had ever asked him what he wanted. He’d never asked himself.
“I want . . . to have something that’s mine.”
The words left his mouth and shimmered in front of his lips like soap bubbles, as shining with promise and as delicate.
“I’ve never had that. This house was my aunts’, and everything in it. My friends in my notebooks . . . they’re a part of me— Parts of me. The dogs belong to themselves. I don’t know what, but something.”
“You’ll figure it out,” Alex said, and Corbin believed him.
“Alex.” Corbin bit at his nails. “I still want to spend time with them. With Carbon and . . . everyone.”
“Of course,” Alex said. “They’re your friends.”
Alex didn’t mention Finnian and what they’d done together. Corbin flushed and smiled as thoughts of Finnian turned into thoughts of Alex, and everything they hadn’t yet done.
“Alex.”
“God, I love the way you say my name.”
Corbin looked into Alex’s face, all clean lines and generous mouth and those eyes that saw him as no one ever had. “I want you to fuck me.”
Heat flooded Alex’s eyes and his fingers tightened almost painfully around Corbin’s.
Then Corbin found himself crushed to Alex’s chest, his mouth taken in a bruising kiss. Alex’s tongue stroked against his lips and he opened his mouth to let him in. They kissed and kissed until they were both panting and grinding together.
Finally, Alex broke the kiss and stared, mouth swollen and red as a cherry.
“Let’s go upstairs.”
Corbin nodded and stumbled to his feet, heart racing. As soon as they got to his room, Alex was on him, hands running up his back, mouth on his neck. They tumbled to the bed and Corbin pulled Alex on top of him, wanting to feel his solid weight everywhere.