Page 204 of Two Marlboros

38

The longest hour

(?Aerosmith - I don’t want to miss a thing)

The room was lit only by the glow of the kitchen light, just enough to see Nathan’s head sunk into the pillow and his parted lips moaning softly.

I lowered myself on top of him and left a kiss on his neck, with a trail of kisses that went up to his chin and past it, only to savor his mouth voraciously.

He slipped one hand into my hair and after a messy movement left it on the nape of my neck; the other ran down my bare back but it stopped when his mouth opened to invite me to taste his tongue. I obeyed, and my saliva became his, in that primal attempt to unite us until we became one. I moved my hands up to caress his head, my mouth invaded by the warmth of his panting; and I wondered how I had managed to live for two months without his lips, without my fingers being able to glide over his skin, and without feeling his, as cold as I remembered them, run over my chest and veer downward, to a pleasure I had only imagined until then.

It had been enough to enter the house and exchange a glance at each other to realize that we wanted more from that evening, both of us. Before long, our shy Central Park kisses had become just a memory and had turned into real, deep kisses that barely left us room to breathe. I had found myself slammed against the wall, Nathan’s hands on the buttons of my shirt and my fingers wandering under his shirt, hungry for the skin I had felt only crumbs of. It hadn’t taken long before we had found ourselves naked on the bed, curious to taste each other and satiated afterwe had done so; and from the moment I had placed myself on top of him, between his legs, intent on exploring his body and observing his every pleased response, both of us - I was certain - had felt that primal desire to go all the way down.

My arousal grew at the mere thought, and I felt his do the same; he arched his back, let out a moan and ended the kiss, then took my face and pulled it away to look into my eyes. I stared back at him, because I knew that look meant only one thing; so, I shifted my gaze to the nightstand next to the bed, where lay the lubricant I had opened and used a short time before, after which I returned to look at Nathan, whose gaze did not waver for a second. I put on the condom and poured some of the lubricant on my fingers, massaged his opening and entered as soon as I saw his face contract into an expression of pleasure. I studied his every grimace looking for traces of pain, but there was none; and his muscles were relaxed, too, even as I worked my way in with another finger, because I wanted him to be ready and hurting him was really the last thing I wanted.

He was gorgeous, vulnerable, so relaxed in his pleasure that I felt like the keeper of his body. I kissed him again because I wanted him to feel how many pieces of my heart he had stolen, that I wanted to be his more than I wanted him to be mine. He groaned even with his lips locked on mine, so I pulled away and his pleasure returned to fill the room, those same four walls that had been silent for so long.

I slipped my fingers out slowly and gave him one last kiss before getting upright, his legs on my shoulders. I looked at him carefully again to unearth the slightest sign of uncertainty, and what I got was a smile that broke out on his face between moans.

I moved closer to his opening and applied a little pressure, but he continued to be relaxed; so, my erection slid into his body, which enveloped and squeezed it, making it his, moment by moment, until I was inside all the way. In that moment welooked at each other for a moment, a moment in which we became aware that I was no longer just Alan, and he was no longer just Nathan, but we had become Alan and Nathan, that one thing we had so longed to be.

I gave him a few seconds to get used to that feeling, after which I placed my hands on his thighs and began to thrust, and each thrust cemented what we had become, what we were becoming. For there had been no shame when we had stood naked in front of each other, nor even at the moment of uncovering our intimacies, only a sense of naturalness as if our place had always been there, together. I slid his legs down to the height of my hips and lowered myself onto him again, because I wanted his face close. He took my face in his hands, and I thought he wanted to kiss me, but instead he planted his eyes in mine and began to moan louder every time I pushed. He wanted me to watch him feel pleasure and surrender to that possession, but the next moment he went back to panting as he had been doing up to that moment and gave me a kiss, almost as if to hide his embarrassment at having let go.

But I wanted that night to be the best night of his life, so I indulged him and smiled, to tell him that if he wanted to be watched, I would do it; and his face, contracted as it was, gradually relaxed again, and his eyes were planted on me again, and his moans, mingled with mine, came back to fill the room.

We spent ten minutes loving each other in that visceral way, contouring that physical union with kisses and attention to each other, until I was on the verge of coming - and it took little for him to realize it. He nodded his head in assent, and I thrust harder as he touched himself, until we both came.

We remained alone with our panting and gazing as slowly the room became just silence again, soaked with the smell of sex. I laid my forehead on his and closed my eyes, then opened themagain to find his peering at me, perhaps seeking a comment or an answer to a question he did not want to ask me.

I let go of his body gently and felt empty, as if something had not been in its place; so, I kissed him, and he kissed me, and for a moment my mind was shot through with three words I had not said since what seemed like a lifetime. I looked at Nathan and it scared me - it scared me that in just two months he had reduced me like that, to feeling for him a feeling that I was afraid to call by its name.

He may have noticed that I had become tense, but he said nothing; all he did was watch me walk away toward the bathroom, having declined my silent invitation to follow me. I slipped off the used condom and tossed it into the basket I kept by the sink, then looked up and stared at my reflection in the mirror.

My cheeks were flushed and my face tired, but there was another detail that I could not ignore: my eyes, the ones staring back at me beyond the mirror, had a flicker that I had not seen in at least a decade. I approached my reflected image and scrutinized it, without finding an answer; from the room I heard Nathan tossing back under the blankets, and when I looked back at the mirror it was clear to me that my eyes were none other than those of a man who was about to say I love you to a man he had met two months earlier. I broke into a smile and wondered how I had reduced myself like that, for I already missed even his breath to such an extent that I felt the urge to leave the bathroom and return to him in the room.

I found him huddled under the blankets with a lost look, which regained vitality as soon as he saw me.

“Already done?”

I crouched beside him, who moved his head closer to the edge of the bed. “No. I missed you.”

That answer drew a smile from him, but his eyes were again crossed with that note of vacancy I had seen in him a moment before. With one hand I stroked his head, and he closed his eyes.

“Is everything alright?” I asked.

He reopened his eyes and stared at me for a moment, then nodded. However, I could read something in his face, something that did not make him serene, and the thought that it might be my fault was making me uncomfortable.

“Come on, make room for me, I’ll stay here, beside you.”

He hesitated for a moment, but did as I asked and moved, just enough so that I could lie down beside him, who meanwhile followed my every movement with a questioning look. We came face to face, but he kept his eyes down, and I began to really fear that I had done something wrong.

“Hey, what’s going on?”

I searched for his eyes and found it only when I barely lifted his chin with my finger. He sustained my gaze but had to sigh a couple of times before he found the words.

“Thank you for coming back to see how I was.”

They were little more than whispers. I went back to caressing his face, his shoulder, his arm - whatever could make him feel reassured.

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