by J. R Fox
Aiden stepped forward, his head hanging in shame. “I’m sorry if I was rude, David.” He paused. “I just wasn’t sure that you were up to the job physically.”
Arms crossed and jaw clenched tightly to prevent the outburst he so badly wanted to release, David stared at Aiden in silence.
“But Cecil assures me you’re up to the job, and it’s his decision anyway,” Aiden continued. “So all I can say is welcome to the team.”
David looked at Cecil, who nodded in confirmation. “In that case,” David said. “I accept. When do I start?”
“No time like the present,” said Cecil. “Let’s go take care of the paperwork and share the news with the others.”
I tried. The persistent voice followed David out the door.
It took only a month of working with the circus for David to decide he had made the best decision of his life. He enjoyed the physical labor and the sense of accomplishment he experienced every time the circus grounds were set. He loved working outside, even in the extraordinary summer heat. Although it was against the rules, the crew took turns supplying beer while they worked. On occasion, Cecil would catch them in the act and give them a mild scolding before popping the cap off a bottle himself. Some days, David had to pinch himself to make sure he wasn’t dreaming this perfect, new life.
David had grown especially close to Sina after she had bluntly asked him if he was “into dudes.” When he replied in the affirmative, she seemed a bit bummed, but not surprised with his response. From that point forward, the two of them discovered they shared similar values, and both had been badly burned by men who supposedly loved them. Their friendship grew into an easy camaraderie where they felt comfortable discussing anything and everything.
One day, as David and Sina were cleaning up the tent after a show, the reek of burnt meat from Draco’s fire trick prompted David to ask a question that had puzzled him for some time.
“Aiden really has Draco well trained, doesn’t he?”
“Yeah, he does,” Sina replied. “It’s incredible.”
“So, why does Cecil lead the act, then?”
Sina looked around the tent to make sure they were alone before she lowered her voice and said, “Cecil’s got a big ego, so of course he wants to be the one in the spotlight with a trained dragon. Aiden does the work. Cecil gets the glory. It’s a little unfair, if you ask me, but Aiden doesn’t seem to mind. He’s a strange guy.”
“Strange in what way?”
“Keeps to himself most of the time. Avoids the limelight. I’ve been traveling with this company for two years now, and the only conversation I’ve ever had with him was on the day I got hired.”
“Same here. Though he really didn’t like me much from the beginning.”
“Don’t take it personally,” Sina said. “I don’t think he likes anyone except Draco and Cecil.”
David sat down on one of the benches to take a breather and mopped sweat from his brow with the back of his hand. “Is there something going on between those two?”
“Who? Aiden and Draco?” Sina laughed. “Well, people do have all kinds of fetishes.” She sprayed the benches with disinfectant and mopped It up quickly and efficiently as she moved through the rows of seats without missing a beat in the conversation. “As for Aiden and Cecil, I honestly don’t know. They do seem to have a close relationship, but I don’t know that it’s romantic. Cecil was married once, years ago. But he never talks about the wife, and I have no idea why they divorced. Who knows what team he’s playing for these days?” Sina bumped David with her hip to make him move over and sat down beside him on the bench. “Why so interested?”
“It’s not interest. Just curiosity,” David insisted.
“Aiden’s a great looking guy,” Sina said, elbowing David in the ribs. “If I was a gay guy, I’d be interested.”
David ran his fingers through his damp hair. Was it getting hotter in the tent, or was it him? “I haven’t really noticed,” he lied.
“No, of course you haven’t,” Sina said, eyeing him sympathetically. “Look, if you choose to go down that road, I’ll root for you all the way, but I’m warning you now, it won’t be easy.”
“Consider me warned,” David said. He was enjoying his life as it was, and the idea of starting over with someone new after his experience with Jason was frightening. The undeniable attraction he felt around Aiden was unique in his experience, but the guy hadn’t shown any sign of reciprocating that attraction. In fact, Aiden hadn’t seemed to like him at all. Maybe it was best to sit this one out, to protect himself and his heart.
“Enough of this woe is me stuff,” Sina said, “Let’s get drunk.”
Getting drunk sounded like a good idea, until the buzz wore off. Then it became a very bad idea. After several beers and half a dozen tequila shots, he and Sina decided to walk from their hotel back to the circus grounds to visit Draco in his sleeping truck.
It was after two in the morning when the inebriated couple giggled and stumbled their way across the parking lot to the semi-trailer where the dragon was housed. Without a key, the only way to get a glimpse of the beast was to climb atop the truck and peer at him through the small access hatch on the trailer roof. For that, they would need to borrow a tall extension ladder from the supply tent. As they were maneuvering the ladder through the tent flaps, they managed to become entangled in the canvas and knocked over a row of metal chairs. The crash was deafening in the quiet night. Inside Aiden’s small trailer, all the lights suddenly came on.
“Shit!” Sina squealed, dropping her end of the ladder and scrambling away in the direction of the hotel. “Come on!” she shouted back at David as she ran.
Drunk and disoriented, David wasn’t having such good luck. He tripped and bashed face first into the metal ladder, opening a cut in his forehead that bled profusely. Stunned and blinded by his own blood, David knew he had no hope of escape as the door of Aiden’s trailer slammed open and the sound of running footsteps came closer. Of course, it was the last person David wanted to see him like this.
Aiden shined his flashlight directly into David’s face and gasped when he saw the blood pouring from the head wound.
“David? What the hell?” Aiden crouched beside him and gripped his chin in one hand, turning his face to the light to study the gash more closely. “Come with me,” he said.
Aiden grasped David’s forearms and pulled him to his feet. With one of David’s arms draped across his shoulders, he helped the wounded man out of the tent and back toward the trailer. With every step, David could feel sobriety returning, and with sobriety, the overwhelming wash of humiliation.
Inside the trailer, Aiden sat David on a chair and went to fetch the first aid kit from the bathroom.
“I’m fine,” David protested. He struggled to his feet, only to have dizziness claim him. Fortunately, Aiden caught him before his body hit the floor.
“Shut up and sit still,” Aiden said, pushing him back into the chair and swabbing his bloody face with alcohol pads. Clearly, Aiden was fresh out of sympathy. He was making no effort to be gentle with his ministrations.
“Shit!” David hissed. It hurt like a son of a bitch, but he was determined not to give Aiden the satisfaction of making him admit it. He gritted his teeth and clamped his lips tightly together to keep from crying out.
“So, what were you doing in the supply tent?” Aiden asked as he dressed David’s cut.
“Ladder,” David muttered through his clenched teeth.
“What did you need a ladder for?”
“To see the dragon.”
“All by yourself?”
David nodded.
“Are you drunk?”
David nodded again. No point denying the obvious.
“You do realize you could have gotten seriously hurt tonight, don’t you? Maybe even killed. If you had managed to climb to the top of that ladder, the beast inside that truck probably would have become violent as soon as he saw you. That window on top is open; there wo
uldn’t have been anything to protect you from Draco’s fireball. You’d have been just another charbroiled steak in less than a minute.” Aiden slapped four butterfly bandages onto David’s wound to hold the cut edges together. “You’re lucky you don’t need stitches,” he said as he turned to the sink to wash his hands.
David took full advantage of the opportunity to study Aiden unobserved. Unlike Jason, who was the ultimate gym rat, Aiden’s shoulders were broad and well-defined, but without being bulky and pumped up. Under the white t-shirt, the back muscles were sleek and supple, inviting the smooth slide of a lover’s hand. The faded jeans he wore hugged his taut ass cheeks so appealingly that David imagined biting into the rounded globes like ripe peaches. A wave of heat that was partly lust and partly shame washed over David. He forced himself to look away from Aiden’s enticing body before he did something stupid—like blurt out the fact that he wanted this man in a way he had never wanted anyone before. It wasn’t just about the sex. Yes, he wanted the physical intimacy. But he wanted so much more. He wanted to be with Aiden, with a man he’d shared barely a dozen words with. It made no sense, but that’s what he felt, and if he didn’t do something about it, he was afraid he would go insane from the wanting.
“So, am I fired?” David glanced up at Aiden’s face only to find the other man watching him intently. He felt his face burning with embarrassment. Hopefully, Aiden hadn’t caught him staring.
“I certainly hope so. That’s what I’m going to tell Cecil anyway.” Aiden leaned back against the sink, arms crossed, and eyed David unflinchingly.
Unable to hold Aiden’s gaze, David looked away. “What did I do to you?” he asked. “Why do you hate me?”
Aiden’s face lost some of its harshness as he sighed and slid into the chair opposite David. Eyes closed, he plowed both hands in his tawny mane and pushed the hair away from his face. “I don’t hate you, David.” He stared at David, eye to eye, steady and unswerving.
“You didn’t want Cecil to hire me.”
“No, I didn’t. And I don’t want you here now. But, believe me, it has nothing to do with hating you.”
So many emotions flickered in the depths of Aiden’s emerald eyes – pain, sadness, loneliness, wanting – and Aiden was allowing him to see them all making himself vulnerable to David. Yet David was afraid to believe that what he was seeing was real. What if he was deluding himself and seeing only what he wanted to see? Could his heart withstand being broken again? He couldn’t afford to assume anything. He needed for Aiden to say the words.
“Then why?” David asked.
“I have my reasons.”
It was clear Aiden didn’t intend to say anything more. “What--.” David began.
Aiden held up his hand to cut off any further questions. “Let that be enough,” he said.
They sat in silence for a long time, not touching, not looking at one another. Each lost in his own thoughts, until it was clear there was nothing more to say. With a sigh, David pushed himself to his feet and prepared to leave. “Guess I’d better get back to the hotel and get some sleep. We’ve got a busy day tomorrow.”
“Guess so,” Aiden said.
Don’t go.
The voice inside his head had been silent for several weeks, but now it had returned with a new message. This time, the tone was gentle, almost pleading, instead of cold and harsh. And this time, Aiden was looking right at him. When David moved towards the door, Aiden stood up and followed in silence.
David turned at the top of the steps and touched his fingers to the bandage on his forehead. “Thanks for fixing my boo-boo.” He flashed Aiden a cheeky grin.
Aiden smiled back. “Anytime,” he said.
David turned to walk away, but before he could take another step, Aiden grabbed his arm and pulled him into a tight embrace. His sensuous mouth swiftly covered David’s, his tongue plunging between David’s lips to seek out the sweet, hidden recesses. Suddenly, David was on fire. The inferno of Aiden’s kiss was nothing like the heat David had felt when they first shook hands weeks ago. That was barely a spark compared to this conflagration. This was a fever so intense it left David’s heart pounding and his senses reeling.
Aiden’s kiss was sensual and demanding, yet filled with the promise of ecstasy. David couldn’t get enough of him. He leaned closer into Aiden’s embrace as Aiden cradled his head with a gentle pressure that locked their mouths together until the need to breathe forced them apart. Reluctantly, Aiden pulled away and gave David one last hungry look before he retreated to his trailer and closed the door firmly behind him.
The all-consuming desire that David had seen in Aiden’s eyes filled him a with lust so strong that he was tempted to follow Aiden back into the trailer and beg to be taken, roughly and without mercy. Instead, he stumbled down the last few steps and headed back to the hotel, still intoxicated, but not on alcohol. This time, he was drunk on emotion.
Two weeks passed, and David still had his job. Cecil had chewed on him a little about staying out of trouble and needing for him to be in tip-top shape, but that was it. On one hand, David was relieved that that he had gotten off so lightly. But, on the other hand, it had become embarrassingly obvious to everyone that Cecil was playing favorites, and David was the fair-haired boy.
Even Sina ragged him about it. “If I had gotten caught, my ass would have been gone for sure,” she said. “You fall in a pile of camel crap and come up smelling like the whole damn rose garden.”
David wasn’t the only one whose life had undergone a change since that night. The blistering kiss he and Aiden had exchanged seemed to have signaled a kind of surrender for Aiden, and granted him a kind of freedom he had not had before. He had become less reclusive, and was often seen strolling about the circus grounds after shows, talking with crew members and answering show-goer’s questions about Draco.
“What did you do to him?” Sina asked after she intercepted yet another flirtatious wink Aiden sent David’s way. She peered at David’s crotch curiously. “You must be hiding hell of a tool box in those jeans to pry Aiden out of his shell.”
“It’s not like that,” David protested, even as he smiled back at Aiden.
“If you say so, sport. So why don’t you ask him where he keeps his dragon?”
David raised an eyebrow. “Say what?”
Sina punched his arm, hard. She had a mean left hook. “Get your head out of the gutter, Romeo. I’m, talking about Draco.”
“What are you talking about?” David asked. “Is this a joke or something? They keep the dragon in the dragon truck, of course.”
“Uh-uh.” Sina leaned in and dropped her voice to a whisper. “There’s no dragon in the dragon truck.”
“Well, where else would he be?”
“I don’t know. But I overheard Ben talking about it. Apparently Aiden forgot to padlock the door after the show yesterday, so Ben decided to take a peek inside. The trailer was empty. Yet, Draco didn’t escape. He was in the show today. So where was he in the meantime??”
David knew there had to be a logical explanation for Draco’s absence, although he couldn’t image what it was. There was no way a giant, flying reptile could buzz the neighborhood unnoticed. Across the midway from where David and Sina sat talking, David saw Cecil approach Aiden and the two men exchange a few words. Cecil seemed to be angry about something as he gestured toward Draco’s trailer. Aiden brushed him off, and started to walk away. Cecil grabbed his arm, and dragged him away from the crowd. David and Sina exchanged puzzled looks, but both suspected that Cecil had just found out about the vanishing dragon.
“Catch you later, Sina.” David stood up and started after Cecil and Aiden. He needed to know what was going on, and neither Cecil nor Aiden seemed likely to tell him anything. That left only one way to get to the truth.
Although the door of Draco’s trailer was closed, David could still hear Cecil’s booming voice as he railed at Aiden inside. “If I’d known that boy would turn you into a complete idiot, I wouldn�
��t have hired him.”
“It was an accident, Cecil. Don’t blame David. He had nothing to do with it. And it’s no big deal. If anybody asks, I’ll say I moved Draco. Or that he’s trained so well I let him out to stretch his wings sometimes.”
“You really think no one’s gonna notice a dragon flying around town? If anyone finds out the truth, it’ll ruin me – ruin us! Is that what you want?”
“No, of course not. I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.”
From his hiding place under the trailer, David could hear the break in Aiden’s voice. He was crying, and David wanted so badly to comfort him. But Cecil’s next words froze David’s blood.
“You know I love you, Aiden,” Cecil said. “More than I’ve ever loved anyone. You do know that, don’t you?” The trailer grew quiet, and David was about to slip away to mourn the loss of a relationship that never had a chance to get started when he heard footsteps inside the trailer. The door swung open, and Cecil hopped to the ground. “Make sure to lock up this time.” He pushed the door closed and disappeared into the crowd.
David waited until he was sure Cecil was gone, then he opened the door just enough to allow a streak of sunlight to illuminate the lonely figure inside the trailer. Aiden hardly seemed to notice that he was no longer alone as he silently wept. David climbed inside the trailer and pulled the door closed behind him.
“Are you okay?” David asked.
Aiden dashed the tears off his cheeks and sniffed loudly. “Yeah. I’m fine.”
David continued to stare as the suspicion that he knew Aiden’s secret, had known it all along, grew and morphed into a certainty. Aiden stared back and said nothing. “So what are you?” David finally asked. “A shapeshifter or something?”
“Not a shapeshifter, no.”
“But you are a…”
“Dragon? Yes. And don’t act so surprised. You’ve known from the beginning. I could tell the first time I looked into your eyes that you knew. You were dangerous to me.”