Page 25 of Mornings By the Linden Tree
“I wasn’t aware you attended college. Where did you go?” I asked, hoping to steer the conversation from my long dry spells, all self-imposed dry spells but dry spells all the same. I was more than aware that not rutting with strange people in clubs every weekend was looked at as some kind of flaw in a man.
“University of Massachusetts Lowell.”
“A fine school,” I commented as he stared down into his coffee.
“Yeah, it was. I mean, I have lots of student loans that I’ll be paying off when I’m a hundred, but I loved it. Learned a lot. NowI just need my big break.” He cupped his mug with both of his skilled hands, his sight back on me. “Your drought?”
Damn it. “I once went a year between sexual encounters, if you must know.”
His mouth fell open. “Damn, Wes. And your balls didn’t wither up on the vine and blow away?”
I snorted at the mental image. “No, they did not. They’re both robust, even if they are a tad wrinkled.” He chuckled. “But I would like to explain I generally do not believe in being promiscuous. I choose my lovers carefully based on a number of things I find to be important when two men are to be intimate.”
He leaned back with a twitch at the corner of his mouth. It was a sinful little twist that made me wonder just what was brewing in that head of his.
“Okay, good to know. And how am I scoring on these important things when two men are going to be intimate list? If I’m below the top five, then lie. Honestly, I don’t need my ego to get knocked around any more than it generally is by hot older particular men I’m trying to lure into bed.”
The truth of the matter was that, at this moment, Lennon would not have had to lure me far or particularly hard. Whatever a hard lure even was. I would have slithered to my knees under the table to take his length down my throat with just a simple nod of his golden head. I wet my lips as my cock swelled.
“You are in the top five,” I admitted and got a beaming smile. I crossed one leg over the other to ensure my erection didn’t garner any attention. Not that Lennon could see through tables ala Clark Kent but being so aroused with so little provocation was a new—and slightly unsettling—experience for me.
“Now I can sleep well tonight,” he kidded, then frowned. “Well, no, I won’t because while I’m thrilled to be in the top five, now I’m wondering if I’m at the top of the heap or trying to scrabble my way to number one.”
“You’re fishing for compliments,” I fired back with a timid smile that I hid behind my coffee mug. “I’m not going to say which position you hold, for if I were to say you were number one, you’d stop trying to lure me into bed.”
“Damn it. You’re far too shrewd for me, counselor.” He got up smoothly and made his way to the coffeemaker. “Need another?” He glanced over his shoulder at me. I shook my head. The machine came to life. I enjoyed the moment or two I had to drink in his backside. Lovely little ass it was. Probably covered with delicate gold peach fuzz that I could rub my nose against before I buried my face between those pert orbs to tongue his pretty pink hole. My cock twitched painfully. Those kinds of thoughts were not helping to get the blood out of my dick. The sound of Simon and Garfunkel began floating through the quiet kitchen. I tore my sight from his lovely ass to catch him removing his fingers from the Alexa sitting on the counter.
“So, folk music?” he asked, turning to face me, steaming cup of coffee in his hand. “I thought you were a hard-core philharmonic sort.”
“Ah well, now see what happens when you judge a book by its cover,” I parried and got an amused head nod from the man who so intrigued me. “I will confess to loving classical music, but my tastes are rather wide and varied, including soft folk to rugged hip hop. This particular duo seems to have a calming effect on Valeria when she’s having a bad night, so it’s always ready to play.”
“The counselor isn’t helping?” he asked as he leaned against the counter to sip his fresh cup of dark roast.
“Not as quickly as I would like, but therapy isn’t a race. It’s a plodding slog through the worst moments of your life until, if you’re lucky twenty years after you’ve started, you may see some glimmer of resolution to one of your problems.”
“Wow, that was a lot to unpack,” he softly replied.
I sighed deeply. “Sorry, yes, I…well, I’m not always sure that slicing one’s wrists open to bleed out on the altar of modern psychiatric medicine is what’s required to solve what plagues us.” He studied me intently. I shifted on the bench, relieved to note all this talk of therapy had had an effect on my hard cock. It was shrinking rapidly. “Not to say that some people don’t find succor or lasting help at the hands of a professional mental health provider, but on the whole, I tend to think hard work that leads to personal success and a good running program will be all most adults need. Unless they have been brutally traumatized, then that is, of course, a totally different situation which would require a guiding hand through the tragedy until one is healed enough to walk on their own two feet again.”
“Did a psychiatrist run over your dog when you were a kid or something?” he asked, not in a snide manner, but in a way that seemed genuine.
“No, nothing like that.” I nearly let myself relay some facts of my childhood that had no bearing on my life today. Seeing that I had come so close, I veered from that quagmire and steered us to safer ground. “This song, ‘Bleeker Street,’ is one of Valeria’s favorites. She thinks they are saying Beacon Street and sings that instead of the actual lyrics, no matter how often I correct her.”
He took a moment to reply, his gaze locked onto me as if I were some sort of cryptid that had just strolled out of the wilds of Washington State wearing a free bucket hat. Not that I had worn the promotional hat.
“Right. Well, now that I have whiplash fromthatsudden U-turn, want to dance?” he asked as cool as a summer cuke. I blinked stupidly. Talk about whiplash. “I mean, this is kind of nice and slow, if you can dance, that is?”
“Of course I can dance. I’m just not sure we should do so with Valeria asleep one floor above us.” Also, and this was vitallyimportant, if I got too close to the man, my penis was bound to spring to life.
“So you can’t dance. That’s fine.”
“I can dance, and quite well. I took some ballroom dancing classes a few years ago, and the instructor told me I was a very accomplished waltzing partner.” There. Put that in your pipe and smoke it as my father used to say.
“Prove it.”
It took all of a millisecond for me to rise from the booth and make my way to him. He looked up at me in a most smug manner. “Knew you’d never sit through a challenge.”
We stood mere inches apart as the sweet tang of lime and warm Lennon crept into my subconscious, stirring up something that could be dangerous to what remained of the intricate scaffolding that remained around me.
