Page 12 of Sicken of the Calm
“What…?” I grunt. Ezra turns andwalks toward me, but doesn’t reply. He places the piece of clothing on his ownchair. Without a word, he kneels in front of me, knees inches away from my jean-boundlegs. I’m too surprised and fucked out to protest as he takes hold of the edgeif my shirt and then methodically starts rolling it up my chest.
“Arms up,” he says as he reachesmy pecks. Mutely, I do as I’m told. He keeps working, rolling up until healmost reaches my neck and then using his long arms to pull the shirt off me,the rolled-up material avoiding the cum getting on my face. With that same focus,he takes my right hand and starts using the shirt to wipe my release from it. Ijust watch him do it. Feel the soft hold of his fingers against my bear hand,the slide of the shirt. Somehow, this moment seems more intimate than all theothers combined.
When my hand is as clean as itsgoing to get without something wet, he puts the soiled shirt on the floor andthen turns to get what I realize now is a clean shirt from his chair.
“Arms up again,” he says,slipping the shirt on me, before reaching down and pulling my boxers and jeansup to my knees.
“Hips,” he says. I lift themenough for him to get my boxers up, the muscles of my stomach bunching as hetucks my spent dick inside. He pulls my jeans up next, and with the same carehe zips and buttons them, his own instructions in reverse. Somehow, after whatjust happened, this doesn’t seem as blindingly strange as it really is, but Iam still left feeling as if I’ve missed a step on the way down.
He rests his hands lightly on myknees and looks up at me. I want to reach out and touch his face, his cheek,his hair, but I don’t.
“You ok?” he asks. I frownslightly back.
“Um. Yeah,” I say, having toclear my throat between sounds. Ezra gives me a smile I’ve never seen before,soft and deep and mine.
“Good.” He stands up, and I can’thelp but spot the bulge in his jeans.
“I, um, do you want-”
“No,” he says, although notharshly. “I’m good.”
“But…”
“Trust me, Joaquin. I got exactlywhat I wanted out of that,” he says, a familiar smirk on his face now.
I don’t understand how that canbe true, but I let it go.
**********
The memory of that afternoon islike a dream that won’t let me go.
After he had rejected my offerfor a reach-around, we had gone back to the project with an ease that wouldhave been strange if it hadn’t felt so natural. It was as if we had created analternate dimension just for us, where Ezra made the rules and I just had tofollowed them. I didn’t have to question the whys or what-ifs in that world. Itwas just him and me, and whatever his voice created.
I don’t think about why that is.Why Ezra’s commands were so easy to follow, so sweet. It just is, I tellmyself. It just is.
Now though, the memory of it willresurface at any point, piercing through the thin film of reality and bringingback the heat, the light, the drumroll beat of my heart. At night, it’s evenworse. The vision expands, gains depth, infects the other senses. The sound ofmy breath and of his voice; the look in his eyes like he was seeing the buzzingof every atom that made me; the way his hands had brushed my chest as heremoved my shirt; the feeling of his hands on my knees as he asked me,areyou ok?I’ll feel the heat of it, not just on my skin but deep inside. I’lllie in bed and dream awake, my shoulders pressing against the bed, my hipsmoving, writhing.
The memory of Ezra’s commandswill sweep through me and strip away everything that I am, leaving only Ezrabehind.
**********
The days have turned cloudy andvery suddenly colder as we approach October. The light in my apartment is dim,and even with the lamp we turned on, Ezra looks a little ghostly, an apparitionfrom wet dreams.
He’s sprawled casually on thechair, that same chair he had watched me from, the chair I have barely beenable to look these past few days. He seems completely immersed in the documenton the laptop screen, whilst I’ve barely been able to concentrate all week.Now, with Ezra so near, it’s even worse. I’m hyperaware of every movement hemakes, caught in the restless energy of him. My head is an increasinglyunpleasant place to be, second-guessing everything. With distance from theincident and with Ezra so casual in front of me, I feel like a fool for takingit so seriously, for having let it dig so deep.
But still, I want more.
I’m thinking about Ezra on hisknees, the stillness of the moment as he wiped my hand, when he catches mestaring at him. The smirk he gives me makes my eyebrows pull together.
“What?” he says easily, and thenonchalance infuriates me, emboldens me.
“Nothing,” I say, trying to matchhis tone. “I’m just a little tense.”
Ezra stills. I try not to showthe victory I feel at the fissure in the rock façade of his insouciance. Thesilence stretches. I defiantly stare back at him, ignoring the embarrassmentburning at the back of my throat. He leans back in the chair, but I don’t move.Finally, he says,
“I have a little trick for that.”His eyes flicker away for a moment as he says it, another little crack. Thisone is comforting instead of victorious.
“Oh?”
