by Blake, Leta
“Yes,” Zach mumbled.
“From the beginning?”
“Every time, pretty much. You always make things ridiculously intense.” He kissed Leith’s flushed chest. “Not that I’m complaining.”
Leith was quiet, a pit of anger growing in his stomach in the blink of an eye. He sat up, dislodging Zach from his chest. He huddled with his back to Zach, but he could feel him there, over his shoulder, sitting in the midst of the wrecked sheets, scared, hurt, and confused.
“Do you need to…be alone?” Zach asked, his voice high and tight.
Leith shook his head, wanting to turn around and take Zach into his arms, but wrestling with a sudden rage he had a hard time expressing.
How could he say he was jealous of himself? How could he explain that he hated that someone else—that another version of him, one he didn’t remember—had heard Zach’s noises. Had felt him come around his cock, and had kissed him for long minutes afterwards. It made no sense, but he wanted to crush the other Leith. To make it so he’d never existed.
“Okay, so last time…the first time we had anal sex, you did freak out a little bit,” Zach said, anxiously.
Leith snapped, “I’m not freaking out. And I don’t want to hear about him.”
“Who?”
“Me.” Leith shut his eyes, trying to get his emotions under control.
Zach made an even stranger noise, and Leith heard the sheets rustling, and then felt Zach’s arms around him. His chin nestled against Leith’s shoulder.
Leith looked down at him, and he couldn’t help but smile a little at Zach’s big, worried eyes. “I’m not crazy, okay?” Leith said, and then scoffed. “Okay, well, maybe a little crazy. Jealous of myself.” He laughed. “That’s not normal, is it?”
“Last time I checked, this was not a normal situation,” Zach said. “And I’d tell you there was nothing to be jealous of, but it was you, and you’re amazing, both now and before, and…” Zach stopped, and shook his head, closing his eyes. “I don’t want to think about before either. Let’s be here now. We need to move forward. Before doesn’t matter. We don’t need to talk about it.”
Leith didn’t know if he agreed, but seeing the hurt flashing over Zach’s face, and hearing the weird tightness in his voice, he didn’t want to argue. Not now when he was still trying to face the fact that he’d nearly had to find a way to beat himself up to satisfy his jealousy. He didn’t think a fist in the mirror was a good way to start their time alone together.
Leith dreamed he was having sex with Zach in an old, junked car while his first girlfriend and his mother watched from behind the bars of a prison cell. He tried to tell Zach that they should stop having sex, that they were being watched, but he kept forgetting and he’d find himself still going at it despite his humiliation and anxiety.
It’d been a horrible dream, and he woke up alone in the cabin’s bedroom, the late afternoon sun spilling through the window. As he studied the dust motes circling in the air, he wondered what Dr. Thakur would make of the dream, though Leith knew he would have never told the doctor about it.
He stretched and shook away his nerves, listening for Zach but hearing nothing. He pulled on his jeans and a T-shirt, and padded barefoot out to the kitchen and living room, but Zach wasn’t in the cabin at all. Leith could see him out by the lake, standing with his hands in his pockets and his shoulders hunched, staring out at the water or the mountains.
Leith stood at the window, wanting to go out and join him, but there seemed to be something incredibly private about the moment. He didn’t want to interrupt.
Eventually Zach turned to the cabin and slowly trudged up toward the door, pausing by the fire pit to kick at the bricks laid out around the edges. Rubbing a hand over his face, he seemed to shake something off. Then he faced the door with an expression of determination that made Leith’s heart clench and ache. He didn’t want it to look like he’d been spying on Zach, so he turned his back to the window and leaned against the counter, trying for nonchalance but feeling knotted up inside.
“Hey, you’re awake,” Zach said, his voice cheerful and light. “Are you hungry? You didn’t have a warm meal at the hospital. Are you up for one now?”
Leith forced a smile and turned. “Sure. I’ll start cooking.”
“You do remember how to cook don’t you?” Zach asked, approaching with a smile and grabbing Leith’s shirt playfully. “And I do mean cook—not that thing you do where you heat something up from a can and call it food.”
Leith swallowed and nodded. “Yeah, sure. My mother taught me…” and he trailed off, remembering that his mother had killed herself. That she’d taken pills and removed herself willingly from his life. He cleared his throat, looking away.
“Hey,” Zach said, gently. “You’re tense. Did you sleep okay? It seemed like you needed a nap.”
“It was just a bad dream, I guess.” He shrugged off the melancholy image of Zach by the lake and pushed back his thoughts of his mother. “I’m fine. I should get started.”
But Zach didn’t back away, and he took Leith’s face in his hands, gazing into his eyes before kissing him. “It’s good that we came here. You’re already overwhelmed and it’s just us. There would be too many people back at the apartment.”
Leith nodded and leaned into Zach’s touches, closing his eyes and letting the soft caress into his hair relax him. He remembered Zach’s expressions as he’d fucked him, and the noises he’d made when he came, and he opened his eyes, feeling hot and hungry.
Zach smiled and kissed his lips, murmuring, “Let’s eat. We have all night, and tomorrow, and the next day.”
Leith angled Zach back against the counter and kissed him again, keeping his eyes open, watching Zach’s face, looking for some assurance that it was really him that Zach was kissing. Zach pulled away, though, laughing and slapping his ass. “Come on, I need to eat.”
Leith let him go.
Zach looked over his shoulder as he bent to get stuff out of the fridge, his face lined with concern. “Leith?”
“Yeah, sorry.” Leith opened drawers, looking for knives to chop the vegetables that Zach was laying out on the counter. He found one that seemed halfway suitable and grabbed the large squash first, carving into the side of it the way he’d carved pumpkins as a kid, his hands clumsy and rough.
Zach watched for a few moments. “Do you want me to finish it?”
“I can do it,” Leith said, nearly slicing his thumb. “It’s going to take time.” He rolled his eyes. “And practice. Or that’s what they tell me.” He didn’t mention to Zach how strange it was to see his handwriting come out in strange, crumpled block letters like a kindergartener.
Zach watched in silence for a few more minutes, and then burst into action, opening a bottle of sparkling water, setting the table, starting the water boiling on the small stove.
Once the meal was cooking, Leith took his glass of sparkling water outside and stood in the dusky light as evening fell. Zach sat on the stoop of the cabin, resting his head against the doorframe, sipping his drink and looking relaxed.
After a moment of contemplation, Leith walked down to the side of the lake, pulled off his boots and socks, and rolled up his jeans. The water was cold, and he kicked at it with his toes. He raised his arms and let them fall, feeling the immensity of the space all around him—the eternity of the sky above, the vast distance to the mountains, and the wet expanse of water.
A deep breath in, and he let it out. Another, and he threw his head back, yelling, feeling and hearing it echoing all around.
A blur in his peripheral vision was his only warning before Zach leaped onto his back and toppled them both into the water, splashing and laughing—and cursing at the cold. Leith grabbed Zach and tickled him, and then pushed him into the water before Zach lunged, shoving him back.
The dreck at the lake bottom slipped beneath Leith’s hands and feet, and he nearly went under. But he gained his footing and tripped Zach, who was trying to es
cape the lake. When Zach came up again sputtering, Leith kissed him, the water tasting earthy and tangy on his lips.
Dinner had to wait for another shower, and the blow job Zach offered, and when they sat down with their plates of overcooked food, the stars had come out. They ate on the floor in front of the fireplace, wearing nothing but their boxers. Zach lit a few citronella candles to keep the bugs away, and they flickered and guttered in the breeze from the screen door.
Pushing his empty plate aside, Leith crawled over to Zach, settling down with his head in Zach’s lap. He closed his eyes and rested, listening to Zach eat a few more bites of dinner.
When Zach put his plate on the floor, Leith turned his head to nuzzle at the opening in Zach’s boxers, smelling the musky scent of his pubic hair.
Zach’s hands fell into his hair, and Leith felt an instinctive urge to pull Zach’s cock out and suck it. He wondered at the intensity of this desire, and he sat with it a moment, feeling Zach’s fingers playing in his hair, and the insistent press of Zach’s cock against his cheek His heart rate responded, and a curl of nerves and lust unfurled in his stomach.
He’d done it before, he knew that he had, but he had no memory of it. Could he live up to what Zach expected? Would he know what to do like he had in the bedroom? Why was he thinking about it instead of just doing it? His own cock was growing heavy, too, and he wanted to get his mouth on Zach’s because he knew if he could just forget—just give up his worries—he’d love it.
He closed his eyes, and took several slow breaths. Then he kneeled, reached into Zach’s boxers, and pulled out Zach’s hot, smooth cock. He studied it in his hand, pretty and a dusky pink, the head brighter than the rest, and he pulled the foreskin up and down a little, watching Zach’s hips respond. Then he looked into Zach’s eyes, and laughing a little at the hot desire there, asked, “Do you like this?”
Zach nodded, swallowing hard. “I like everything with you.”
Leith’s heart was open and vulnerable, and he knew his face reflected it. “I don’t know how to… Not anymore.”
Zach’s eyes grew tender, and he caressed Leith’s cheek. “I’ll love whatever you do.”
Leith quirked a brow and gently gnashed his teeth, pretending to bite.
Zach chuckled. “Oooh, you’re so funny, aren’t you now?”
Leith laughed, relaxing and kissing Zach’s cheek, the stubble scratching against his lips. He ducked down between Zach’s legs, bringing his lips to the tip of Zach’s cock. He kissed it lightly, noting the soft, delicate feel of the skin. He closed his eyes and opened his mouth, taking Zach’s cock in and sucking.
And just like before, it was easy—it was like he’d done it a million times, and yet it was all new: the way Zach’s hips lifted and sought more, the bitter taste of Zach’s pre-come coating his tongue, and the scratch of pubic hair against his nose and fist as he jerked the base of Zach’s cock along with his rhythmic sucking.
Zach’s noises from above were soft and high-pitched, somewhat different from the deeper noises he’d made when Leith fucked him. More delicate somehow, and needy. His hands in Leith’s hair were gentle, and Leith remembered how he’d grabbed Zach’s head in the shower. He wanted to make Zach lose control like that too.
He increased the suction and twisted his tongue in Zach’s slit on the upstroke, and Zach’s hands gripped his hair hard. Leith hummed happily, and Zach whimpered, his hips stuttering and his stomach clenching and unclenching against Leith’s cheek.
“Leith,” Zach said, his voice breathy. “Just like that.”
Leith twisted his tongue on every stroke, and Zach hunched over him, his hips twitching. Zach made hot sounds that left Leith quivering, and he reached down to stroke his own cock as he sucked Zach’s. Leith knew even before Zach started to shake and say his name over and over that Zach was going to come.
Zach’s cock swelled a little in his mouth, the skin growing tighter, and Leith pulled up to the head when the spurts began. Zach jerked, and his hands in Leith’s hair tugged hard enough that it hurt. Zach’s orgasm was short, but hard, and when Leith pulled off, swallowing the bitter come and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, Zach’s eyes sparkled with what looked like tears.
Leith touched Zach’s face, tracing the line of stubble with his fingers. “Was it okay?”
Zach laughed through trembling breaths. “I came so hard I think I might have broken something, and you don’t know if it was okay?”
Leith wiped a tear from the corner of Zach’s eye. “But…you’re crying.”
Zach shook his head. “Side effect of great sex. I’m not crying. I’m too happy to cry.”
“No tears of joy from you?” Leith asked, his own cock still hard and aching.
Zach seemed to notice, and kissed Leith’s lips. “Only on the day I knew you’d live…and in the rose garden when you kissed me. When I knew you loved me still.”
He bent to take Leith into his mouth, and Leith blinked back his own tears.
The next two days were amazing. Leith couldn’t think of another word to describe them. They made love, and swam in the lake, and Leith hiked into the mountains while Zach straggled thirty yards behind and complained loudly that he preferred other ways to get sweaty.
Leith found Zach strangely easy to talk to, and he laughed more than could remember laughing in his entire life. Nearly everything about Zach made him feel things—happiness, amusement, and butterflies in his stomach.
Just listening to Zach talk about something simple like his favorite movies—all old Hollywood westerns starring John Wayne—made his heart clench with a silly delirious feeling that left him on the verge of giggling like a kid. And little things like the way Zach danced to pop songs as he cooked, so silly and without shame, made Leith want to kiss him until they fell on the floor and ended up having sex again.
Or the way Zach made him feel safe enough to talk about things he didn’t tell anyone else. Like how he’d lost his virginity to Jennifer Dunaway at a party when he was sixteen after being in love with her from afar for over a year.
He’d thought they were going to be together afterward, and he’d been so in love that night, thinking she finally understood why they were meant to be. But the next morning she wanted nothing to do with him, and ended up going out with a violinist with glasses and a weird haircut.
“Who was your first?” Leith asked. He was sitting on the ground beside Zach, poking at the campfire they’d made, shirtless because it was really too hot for a fire. The sky was clear and full of stars, and he’d pointed some out to Zach earlier.
“I don’t remember his name,” Zach said, staring into the flames. He yawned.
“What?” Leith couldn’t imagine not remembering the name of someone he’d had sex with. The last three years being an entirely valid exception, of course.
Zach shrugged. “I was thirteen. I was at this really cool party with some older kids, and I didn’t really know him.”
Leith took a moment to process this.
Zach waved his hand as though pushing the subject away. “It was completely consensual, and I had a very good time. The main thing is, it set me on the path to a very enjoyable period of extreme sexual promiscuity. This was good, because eventually that path of bold derring-do led me to taking a job on a cruise ship. I traveled the world, fulfilling my every lust for life and strange men.”
“Oh.” Leith didn’t know what to think.
Zach smiled, poking at the fire. “And that was good because when the time came for me to settle down in New York—which isn’t necessarily my absolute favorite city in the world, but it’s the place where I found you—I had no wild oats left to sow, and no regrets about committing to someone I cared about so much. The way I see, not knowing my first’s name seems relatively unimportant in the scheme of it all, because everything about my life led me here to this moment with you.”
Leith nodded slowly, his lower lip out a bit as he tried to appear as though he understood where Zach w
as coming from. But casual sex had always seemed so unappealing to him that he truly didn’t get it. He knew he was an oddity in that regard.
Unless…something had changed with him. Maybe he and Zach were into threesomes, or group sex. What did he know? Leith shuddered, and felt sick at the idea of sharing Zach with anyone else. “Do we…?” Leith asked, his nose wrinkling with disgust.
Zach looked confused. “Do we…what?”
“You know—with other people?”
Zach’s eyebrows almost disappeared into his hairline. “No, Leith. Don’t you know yourself better than that?”
Leith sighed with relief. “Well, I do, but then again I didn’t know I was gay, or bi, or whatever I am until I met you.”
“Yes,” Zach said, teasing. “I remember.”
Leith smirked. “I wonder what other things I don’t know about myself. I mean, that’s a big thing to sneak up on someone.”
“A lot of guys don’t realize until they’re older. Especially guys who like girls too. I think you always thought that the attraction you felt for women was as good as it got. Until you met me.” He lifted his chin proudly. “Then you realized that maybe you’d just been on the wrong train the whole time.”
Leith considered this. “Was I ever with another man? Or just you?”
“Just me. But I really don’t think if something happened between us you’d go back to women. I think you’d date men.”
Leith frowned, searching his heart to see if he agreed, but he didn’t know. He just knew that Zach and everything about him was what he wanted. He wondered if he’d ever agreed with Zach on that point before. Maybe there had been other men he’d been attracted to, but now he just didn’t remember.
“In prison…” Leith trailed off.
“Yeah?” Zach prodded.
“Well, there were guys that I’d watch working out in the gym. I’d notice their muscles and how their bare arms looked when they were slick with sweat. It was never the guys who were really muscular, though. It was usually the smaller guys. The prettier ones.”