Cuddling

by Allan, S. H.

  Well, here goes ten grand and our combined futures, I thought, but who was I to mince words?

  In any case, all at once my head filled with a sole vivid image. We were at a mall. It was our first shared experience together, I quickly realized. He was sitting across the food court eating from Panda Express, while I was devouring a low-fat, lactose-free, sugar-free—and, suffice it to say, flavorless—gelato. Despite the unenjoyable snack, I was smiling, both then and now.

  Look how young we look, I thought. No gray in our hair, no extra layers of bulk, and why did I ever get rid of that goatee?

  “What’s with the facial hair?” Mack asked with a chuckle. “You look like an ax murderer.” He backtracked, if only by a smidge. “Um, a sexy ax murderer, I mean.” Which explains why I got rid of said goatee.

  And then the me from yesteryear noticed the him of yesteryear, and I could actually see the twinkle in my eyes, my heart suddenly racing as I sat in the memory chair. God, he was stunning. Oddly, he still is. Older now, true, but no less handsome. “Did you notice me staring?” I asked him.

  “Nope, not yet,” he replied. “Jump ahead twenty minutes.”

  Why then? What happens in twenty minutes? Odd that I haven’t a clue. In any case, I jumped, or at least my mind did. We were now in The Gap. Or, that is to say, he was in The Gap, and I was standing outside looking in, obviously searching for him. The old me smiled, anxiously, nervously, as the old him shopped. “That’s not where we met, though,” I said. “Did you see me standing out there?”

  He laughed. “Hard to miss an ax murderer cruising you, hon.” I grimaced. I clearly wasn’t his type. Why didn’t I realize that? “Jump ahead thirty more minutes. That should just about do it.”

  Again my mind raced, the vision going blurry, fading to white and then color again. I was now sitting on a bench just outside the mall, looking none too happy. Mack came out, shopping bags in hand, and walked past me while I stared on, sure I’d missed my last opportunity. He tripped, landing on his palms, bags flying out in front of him. This part I remembered. This was when we met. This was when my hand touched his, as I ran to help him up, as flesh met glorious flesh.

  “Wait,” I said, noticing now what I’d missed back then. “Did you trip on purpose?”

  Again he laughed. “You followed me to three different stores, Mack.”

  “Why didn’t you ever tell me?”

  “I didn’t want to embarrass you,” he replied. “Then time passed, and it never seemed that important to bring up. I mean, we were together by then, right?”

  But I’d always thought our meeting was by chance, by fate: he tripped, and I came to his rescue. Then again, he’d tripped on purpose to meet me, so I let it go. Besides, I saw the way he looked at me when I helped him up, saw the way I looked at him. It was like, from this vantage point, I could see the spark. Like witnessing the Big Bang.

  “And my goatee?”

  He sighed. “Your eyes canceled it out. So much blue, I thought. Like looking into the sky.” He paused, watching the scene unfold. “Notice how I’m not blinking.”

  “Funny,” I said. “At the time, I thought you were just mortified that you fell like that. I wish you’d said something.”

  “Like what? Like ‘How does anyone have eyes like that?’ Like ‘I fell on purpose because you’d obviously been following me for close to an hour’? Like ‘I was impressed by your stick-to-itiveness, curious as to why’?”

  Weird how I could watch all this now and still misinterpret what he was thinking, feeling. Even then, I thought he was a bit distant. That I remember. And it explains why I didn’t let go of his arm at the time, why I walked him to his car, why I handed him my business card, clearly afraid to let him slip through my fingers.

  “I wanted to kiss you, right there in the parking lot,” I managed.

  “I know.” I watched as he pulled away, remembering how my heart was racing, wondering if he’d ever call. “And I would’ve let you too.” Again he chuckled. “I held on to your card all the way home. It smelled like your cologne.”

  “I don’t wear cologne.”

  “Just like you don’t have a goatee anymore.”

  Ah. “Where to next?”

  He paused as the helmet went white again. “Next day, lunchtime.”

  And then I paused, trying to remember why he chose that specific day and time. It didn’t make sense. “Our first date was three days later.”

  “Just jump to tomorrow before noon.”

  I nodded, my mind rushing ahead, the vision inside the helmet a blur before the image took on form and shape and color. I was at my old job, heading outside the building on my way to pick up lunch. “How can I be seeing this?” I asked. “It’s not a collective memory.”

  “Really?” he asked. “Look across the street.”

  I spotted him in the corner of my vision, the old me oblivious. “Why? You didn’t work anywhere near me at the time.”

  “I didn’t even remember this until a minute ago,” he replied. “I had a lunch meeting downtown that day. It was near your office. I didn’t think I’d see you, but then there you were. See, I’m still holding your business card in my left hand.”

  My heart raced again, that old familiar gurgling in my belly returning. “Why… why didn’t you say hello?”

  “I didn’t want you to think I was stalking you,” he told me. “Besides, we’d already made a date for a couple of days later.” I stared at the old him now as he was staring at me then. He was smiling, so bright as to make the sun jealous. “I should’ve said hello.”

  Yes, he should’ve. Then again, those three days apart only made me want him more, so maybe not. Who knows? Maybe if he had, we wouldn’t still be together today. Weird how a split second of difference can change everything. Weirder still how watching him stand there like that made me miss him, even though, in reality, he was sitting across from me at that very moment.

  Again my belly gurgled, heart racing through a furlong, knowing what the next scene would be.

  “I miss that restaurant,” I told him, watching us as we sat down to dinner a couple of nights later.

  “Are you forgetting what happened next?”

  My mind raced ahead of the video. I laughed as I did indeed remember, as the scene blurred and unfolded a few hours later, with us back at his apartment, so much of our now joined furniture mixed with the stuff we’d discarded over the years. I half grinned, half groaned as I recalled the fights that ensued with each table and chair that went out with the garbage.

  I laughed again as I watched him patting my back, my head in the toilet, body retching. “Oh, I guess I don’t miss that restaurant all that much.”

  “See.”

  I nodded, amazed at the look of concern on his face, at the tenderness he showed me: a virtual stranger and potential ax murderer. The computer had to have been filling that in based on what I was feeling and hearing, but it seemed so real, was, I knew, real. That was Mack, the man I’d fallen in love with.

  And then I remembered what was to come next, or, that is, who, and I shifted in my seat, crotch suddenly throbbing. “Are we really going to watch this part?” I asked, a trickle of sweat working its way past the metal helmet.

  “Not curious?” he replied, voice thick as molasses.

  I nodded. I was, as he said, curious. Was what was about to happen as beautiful as I remembered it? And what if it wasn’t? What if it was just awkward and my memory would forever be shifted? In any case, I let the scene play out, cock now ramrod stiff inside my jeans—both now and then, if memory served correct.

  When I’d finished emptying my dinner into the toilet, Mack had given me a new toothbrush and some mouthwash and tenderly wiped the sweat and muck off my face with a damp towel.

  “You okay?” he’d asked.

  The old me looked down at my rumpled clothes, my hands clammy, a chill running through me. I suddenly remembered all that clear as day. “Okay,” I’d replied. “Though as first dates go,
I think we might be leaning toward the worst one on record.”

  At the time, he chuckled and continued patting my back. “Well then, things can only get better.” Then he’d noticed I was shivering. “You, um, cold? Need to warm up a bit?”

  A grin worked its way up my sweat-soaked face. “Post-barf chills. I’m sure it’ll go away.” Though I distinctly recall I wasn’t so sure. Dinner, after all, had really done a number on me.

  “Maybe a hot shower will help,” he’d suggested. “Lucky for us, I have one right here.”

  “Us?” I’d managed. Though us is exactly what I was thinking as well, as he stood there, hand on my back, face next to mine, the bathroom barely large enough for the two of us. He nodded, sheepishly, hotly. “Let me just, um, brush my teeth and gargle a bit.”

  The current me watched as the past me gargled and brushed, noticing that Mack never took his eyes off of me, that my hand was shaking as I brushed my teeth, that I stared at him through the mirror as he turned on the shower. Both old and new me watched intently as he shucked off his shoes and began to undress, a new land opening up before me, so much promise in each inch of newly exposed skin, of swatches of hair previously unseen, at the crooked grin and the blush of red working its way up his neck.

  Then he was in his white cotton briefs, the tenting obvious, a flash of curly bush poking out from above the band, stomach and chest etched in dense muscle, all covered in soft down. It was a body I now barely recognized, so much younger and leaner, like what I’d find if I peeled away the layers of age and time.

  “Look at me,” Mack said from across the room. “Was I really ever that thin?”

  I nodded. “Apparently.” And then the old me was undressing, bashfully, shyly, haltingly, until I too was in my tenting briefs. “Guess we both were. Maybe it’s time for a diet and a new gym membership, huh?”

  He chuckled. “I like the men we are now, Glenn. Those, after all, are barely boys back there.” The chuckle grew. “Horny boys, by the look of things, but still.”

  Which didn’t even begin to cover it, as I recalled. Judging by how I was looking at him, almost salivating, horny was about as gross an understatement as ever there was. In fact, I jumped him about two seconds later, my mouth devouring his, our bodies and boners pressed up so tight together that it was impossible to tell where he ended and I began.

  “Shower time?” he eventually asked, my chill almost all gone by then, replaced by an intense inner heat.

  I’d nodded my hearty yes as the briefs got shimmied out of, both of us standing there with raging hard-ons, eyes glued to the prizes, both of us grinning again, thrilled to at last be naked together. That feeling would last years into our relationship. Now seeing him naked barely got a sideways glance, despite his still being so damned handsome.

  He coughed from across the room, his helmet lifted up so he could stare my way. “I… I still feel that way for you, you know.”

  I lifted my own helmet. “No, I didn’t know.”

  He nodded. “It’s just grown into something else. A natural progression. Comfort and ease replacing… well, that, back there.” He pointed to his helmet. “One isn’t necessarily better than the other.”

  I slipped my helmet back down and watched in rapt wonder as I watched myself on my knees, his steely prick buried deep inside my throat, my hand working my cock like a well-tuned machine. “No?” I asked. “What we have now is better than that?”

  He also slipped his helmet back down, a groan ricocheting around the room. “Fine, so ‘better’ might not be the word for it. Still, it was hot because we both found what we were looking for. Now that we have it….” He trailed off.

  “What?” I asked, still watching as he face-fucked me, his head tilted back against the tiled wall, mouth in a pant. “Now that we have it, there’s no need for hot?”

  He cleared his throat. “You’re oversimplifying, Glenn. Life is not that black and white, and hot naturally grows to warm.”

  I frowned. “Unless you stoke the fire from time to time.”

  His sigh now filled the room. “Jump to our wedding, Glenn.”

  “Before you come?” I replied, barely in a hoarse whisper.

  “I came. It was wonderful. Just jump, please.”

  I nodded and did as he asked. We were married five years later in a field in the countryside, both families there, about fifty friends happily watching on. There wasn’t a dry eye to be found, the two of us included. What I saw standing there was a man deeply in love, two men deeply in love, both professing just that.

  “I will love you for all time, Glenn,” he’d said, after we exchanged vows and slipped the rings on. I remembered the butterflies in my stomach, the salty tears dripping into my mouth. “I will love you for all time, Mack,” I’d replied, his hands in mine, our faces mere inches apart.

  Again I slipped the helmet off. “Did you mean that?”

  He slipped his helmet off too. “I did. I meant it then and I mean it now.” He stared across the room at me. “I’m just sorry if you don’t believe it like you did in that shower, in that field, like you did the countless times in between.”

  Those same butterflies of mine at last returned, swarming as they flitted about. “It’s not that I didn’t believe it, Mack; it’s just been so long since I’ve heard you say it that I wasn’t so sure you still believed it.”

  His frown turned to a grin. “I believe it, Glenn. Guess it just took a little looking back to be able to look ahead, is all.” His smile grew and grew. “Maybe we should come here every year on our anniversary, though, as a booster shot.”

  I coughed, loudly. “Um, I have all I need right here.” I pointed to my head and then my heart.

  He did the same, grabbing his tenting crotch for good measure. Then he hopped off the chair and closed the gap between us, his lips on mine in a heartbeat, the familiar warm glow burning its way through me. “Still….”

  “Still?” I replied, gazing up at him.

  “Still, might be nice if you grew that goatee back,” he told me with a horny-boy smirk. “For old time’s sake.”

  I chuckled. “You have a thing for ax murderers all of a sudden?”

  “No, hon,” he replied, the kiss repeated again and again. “I have a thing for you.”

  ROB ROSEN is a novelist, short story writer, anthologist, and editor. He began writing fifteen years ago the very second he got his first personal home computer, a very clunky and heavy HP, and hasn’t stopped writing since. To Rob, writing is like breathing: it’s something he must do and he does it with ease, with just the occasional hiccup, groan, or sharp exhale. He’s twice been nominated for a Lambda Literary Award and was the winner of the 2010 TLA Gaybie for Best Gay Fiction, the winner of the 2012 BEARy Award, and The Romance Studio’s 2012 CAPA Award finalist.

  Rob Rosen can be visited at http://www.therobrosen.com.

  Quarter Moon Over a Ten-Cent Town

  Stephen Osborne

  EVERY town has at least one Gossip (capitalized, as it is an honored profession), and Flemyng, Illinois, (population 1100) had Mrs. Eleanor Gardner. Mrs. Gardner’s age had been a matter of much discussion among the citizens of Flemyng. The women who worked at the Flemyng Bank on the corner of Main and 3rd insisted she was at least seventy, as she’d been a customer at the bank longer than most of them had been alive. The staff of the Coffee Hut maintained she had to be somewhat less than that, reasoning she was still somewhat spry and wielded a mean pair of scissors—Mrs. Gardner was the owner of Clippers, the hairdressing salon next to the bank—and had yet to gouge someone’s ear and draw blood. One of the librarians in town stated with confidence that Eleanor Gardner was a mere fifty-six and just looked old. Tommy Watkins, the young lad who worked part-time at the gas station after school, was of the opinion that she was hundreds of years old and that a voodoo doll Mrs. Gardner kept in her dresser drawer aged instead of her, but he was alone in this contention.

  Whatever her age, Mrs. Gardner was ideally suited in her ro
le as town Gossip. With her salon right on Main Street between the bank and the veterinary clinic, Mrs. Gardner watched the people who passed her storefront with interest. And those who came in found themselves not only getting their hair done, but pumped for information about nearly every denizen of Flemyng. These intelligence reports were then broadcast to anyone Mrs. Gardner could corner for five minutes.

  And if Mrs. Gardner couldn’t dig up gossip on someone, she would conjecture. And these conjectures would then be spread about as if they were gospel.

  One beautiful spring morning, Mrs. Gardner, finding herself without a customer, sat in a chair placed so she had a clear view of anyone strolling down Main. Her eyebrows rose when she spotted young Dylan Reed out walking a somewhat tubby basset hound. “What’s this?” she said aloud, as was her custom. If there was no one around to hear her ruminations, she entertained herself with them. “The fags have got themselves a dog?”

  It must be pointed out that Eleanor Gardner used the word “fags” with no animosity or ill will—or at least, not much. It was, for her, a term of endearment. After all, how could she not like Dylan and his boyfriend, John Mackelby? They provided her with so many stories that she had quite a soft spot in her heart for them. It was hard not to like Dylan. He was a slight, not very tall man of thirty-two and was the head librarian. His lover, John, was even shorter of stature but had a thick chest and impressive biceps, a legacy from his stint in the Marines. John had been a leatherneck back even before Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, his own policy at the time being It’s None of Their Business. After leaving the Marines, he opened up an auto repair shop with a little monetary help from his parents. Part of the basement of Dylan and John’s modest house was devoted to John’s home gym, which he used daily. He’d also participated in a few MMA fights, much to the surprise of many of the townsfolk, who were shocked that not only would a homo enjoy fighting but be fairly proficient at it.

  Their surprise at learning that John Mackelby enjoyed putting on board shorts and beating the crap out of his opponents was nothing compared to their amazement when John and Dylan bought a little cottage together just south of Main Street on Walnut Avenue. As Mrs. Gardner had said at the time, while she had been teasing Mary Lightner’s hair until it screamed, “I always knew it, mind you. I mean, it’s no surprise to find out that Dylan is One Of Those,” she said, punching up the phrase for emphasis as she nearly ripped out a tuft of Mary’s locks. “He always was a little light in the loafers, as my old dad used to say.” Here Mary Lightner frowned, trying to imagine the ancient Mrs. Gardner having a parent who had been around by the time of the invention of loafers. “And I always knew about John. No one ever believed me, but I always saw how he watched the boys as they walked down the street. Especially Dylan Reed. He had a thing for Dylan even in high school, but he was too afraid of what people would say to do anything about it. Like we would! We’re enlightened around here, even if we are a backwater town. What do we care what two little queer boys want to do behind closed doors?”