Page 18 of Little Boy Toy

Maybe Kendry wouldn’t turn out to be my lover, at least not in the sense people thought of lovers, but I could think of him that way and not be wrong about my own feelings. I could enjoy him just the way he was.

This was different for me, but also refreshing. I couldn’t stop smiling.

Later, I took a long hot shower. I put on my best leather pants and white shirt. My hair looked pretty good, too, although my bangs wouldn’t cooperate. They always wanted to swing forward even when I parted them and trained them to either side of my face. Even when I used hair product, hanks of hair always fell down the side of my temples, sometimes getting in the corners of my eyes.

At three sharp, a soft rapping sounded at my door. I opened it to see Kendry smiling up at me. He wore long pants today, solid blue, which was a shame because they didn’t show his lovely thighs, and a long-sleeved pale blue pullover with a lime green alien face in the center. He had a small stack of thin children’s books in the curve of one arm and the strap to a plastic kid’s purse crossed over his chest. I had never seen him outside of the club or his own place, so I had never seen him carry a purse. The cuteness of that caused an unexpected fluttery reaction in my chest.

“Hi.” I opened my door wide.

“Hi.” Kendry stepped inside.

“Did you have any trouble finding the place?” I asked.

“Nope. It was easy.” He grinned as he looked around.

I had a small house, nothing fancy, but Kendry’s eyes lit up when he saw the living room. “It’s so big.”

Compared to his place, it was. “Glad you like it.”

“I do! Very much!” He moved to the coffee table. “Can I set my books here?”

“Of course.”

He bent, shoulder blades showing through the back of his shirt. He was lean and young, which was normal, but I longed to feed him when I saw that. I would love to dangle candied cherries before his puckered lips and feed him chocolate in bed.

I shook my head to clear it. I was getting way too ahead of myself. He might not want to share that much with me anyway, since he’d been so unhappy with daddy lovers in the past. I was not that, I told myself. I was different. So far, it seemed he liked me very much.

Kendry was busy walking all around my living room, touching the couch and recliner, hands trailing along the hearth. “I love your place.”

“Thank you.”

He came back to the coffee table where his books sat next to the snack trays. “Are these snacks for us?”

“Yep. All of it. And later I’ve prepared spaghetti for dinner. When we’re ready, all I have to do is cook the angel hair.”

“I love spaghetti,” he commented.

“I guessed right, then.”

“I’m glad you invited me.”

I came around the couch to face him. “I need to be honest with you, Kendry. I really enjoy spending time with you.”

His smile showed his teeth this time. “I’m glad, because I like it, too.”

Already, we were clicking together. At the club, we hadn’t done all that much talking. But last night had opened us up to each other. I hoped today would do that even more. I still didn’t feel comfortable asking him if he was ace or celibate or whatever might be going on with him, but things were progressing.

“Come on. Let’s sit and look at what books you brought.”

“Okay.” He sat and sank into my soft leather couch with a sigh. “Wow, this is comfy. I bought my own couch to sink into, too.”

“I’m taking that couch with me to the grave.”

He laughed as he reached for the top book in his stack. I sat beside him as I had last night, feeling the heat of him between us already sinking into my skin, wishing I could touch.

Kendry opened the book, which was a large one, and said, “Look. This one is so cute. It’s about elephants. Aren’t the pictures awesome?”

They were watercolors, one of my favorite mediums. “Beautiful.”

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