Episode
9 - A Rolling Boil
Trace pained himself over the exact song selection,
and finding every song inappropriate, he decided to just hit
play. Released from the speakers, Julia Fordham’s voice
clarified the air but not his nerves. His pulse quickened as
he heard Elan’s car pull into the driveway. Situating
himself before the door, he prepared himself by pushing his
bulge to the left and inhaling deeply as he braced for Elan’s
entrance. His nerves rattled through his veins but were suddenly
and unexpectedly stilled by the appearance of Elan’s face
in the screen door. This sight of Elan breaking the crescendo
of his nerves steadied Trace’s resolve and confirmed what
he knew he had to do.
Seeing Trace, Elan smiled and let himself in:
“Hello, there.”
“Hi, how are you?” asked Trace.
“Good, and you, Trace?”
“Good.” And Trace meant it as the
heady scent of clove rose from Elan’s clothes and filled
his nostrils.
Trace gestured toward the kitchen table, “Have
a seat; would you like some tea?”
“Sure, what kind do you have?”
asked Elan.
“I have a pretty wide selection—mostly
herbal. I have—“
“Just give me something with an edge
to it,” interrupted Elan.
Selecting a box of ginger, cardamom, and clove
tea, Trace thought: Coming right up.
Elan settled into his chair and smiled as he
noticed the music: “You always have the best music on.
Her voice is beautiful. Who is she?”
“It’s Julia Fordham,” replied
Trace as he turned toward the stove, settled the kettle on the
burner, and turned on the gas.
“It’s nice, very nice.” Elan
brought his legs out from under the table and stretched out
in the chair. Lolling to the music, he tilted his head back
and closed his eyes.
Increasing the flame, Trace turned to find
Elan’s body laid out before him. Appreciating the ease
of Elan’s posture, Trace smiled when he noticed a willful
cowlick dangling over Elan’s forehead. The unruly tuft
of hair swayed, undecided if it was going to fall forward or
backward.
The kettle sounded with the beginnings of a
boil as Trace pondered which way the lock of hair would fall,
until becoming distracted by the graceful angle of Elan’s
forehead. It ranged majestically over his well-formed brows
and curved downward, leading to the beds of his resting eyes
and the rising slope of his nose. Following the slope until
it dropped off, Trace’s eyes fell upon Elan’s lips,
which were parted slightly in the act of exhalation. Trace followed
the darkening split between the breath moistening lips but was
too distracted by the alluring contour of the chin, which led
alluringly down the neck, over the bulge of Adam’s apple,
and introduced the cleft of the chest, which was partly buried
beneath a shirt collar that obscured the very topography Trace
sought to explore. He frantically lowered his eyes in the search
for skin. A thick black leather belt bolstered the restriction
of clothing and led to the thick denim that obscured the lines
of the body, except for a bulge emanating from one side of Elan’s
crotch. Desirously seeking skin, Trace poured his eyes over
the length of Elan’s legs until white socks and sneakers
abruptly broke the blue haze of denim. Burrowing his gaze between
the crossed ankles, between the border of hem and sock, he discovered
a sliver of skin. The sudden reappearance of the body beneath
the clothes set the tone for the athleticism of the sneakers,
which Trace decided must be immediately untied.
As the kettle quickened with the roll of a
slow boil, Trace stepped forward and took the cowlick fate into
his own hands, by running his fingers through it and blending
it with the rest of the hair, but as cowlicks are want to do,
it sprung back to its stance of ambivalence.
Trace pressed the cowlick back in place and
urged it to stay in place by running his fingers through the
rest of Elan’s hair. In response to the touch, Elan opened
his eyes and smiled: “That feels good.”
“That’s why I want to keep doing
it.”
“Well, that’s not a problem for
me,” replied Elan.
“It is for me—I want to touch you
more than this.”
Trace continued to run his fingers through
Elan’s hair and waited for something to happen. He had
done it; the seduction was underway. He had established physical
contact and verbalized his feelings. Holding his breath and
stroking Elan’s hair, he waited for a response.
“But that is not the way it is for us,”
replied Elan.
Trace received a response that fell short of
the mad groping of cocks or the immediacy of the passionate
kiss he imagined his seduction would elicit. Having ripped the
lid off the containment of his passion, Trace found his desire
bouncing off Elan’s body and collecting at his ankles,
like two puddles of inelastic socks.
Disheartened Trace withdrew his fingers from
Elan’s hair and stepped backwards: “It’s too
hard for me to keep you as a friend.”
Sitting upright, Elan asked, “You just
need more time to adjust.”
“I am too into you; it hurts too much.
I’m sorry, Elan.”
Elan nodded slowly as he started to stand:
“No, I understand. Believe me, I really do.”
With Elan reaching a standing position, the
two guys stood only inches apart.
Finding himself that close to Elan, Trace’s
cock hardened and so did his resolve: “How about we say
goodbye before saying goodbye?”
Elan’s eyes widened with surprised, as
he absorbed the full import of Trace’s suggestion: “That’s
probably not a good idea.”
Stepping forward, Trace brought his lips within
kissing distance of Elan’s: “It would make a good
memory.”
Julia’s voice filled the space between
them with a deeper degree of desire.
“Your loving in my bed . . .” Elan
echoed the lyrics as his lips spanned the distance between their
lips and agreed, “It would make a good memory.”
Grabbing Trace’s waist, Elan pulled Trace
toward him, and as their bodies touched, so did their lips.
The kiss started slowly with a soft sliding of tongues, but
their mouths quickly swelled with a deep and mutually probing
kiss.
Elan cupped Trace’s ass and ground their
crotches together. Julia’s voice faded beneath the kettle’s
full rolling boil, as Trace’s head spun with a disbelief
that gradually faded as he pondered the limits of the kiss,
and as the boiling water overflowed the kettle and sizzled its
way to sublimation in the flame that created its boil, Trace
became increasingly uncomfortable offering the kiss to Elan’s
cheek and pulled away from Elan: “I cannot do this.”
Trace rushed to the stove, but before he could
reach it, the overflow of the boiling water had extinguished
the flame, and the foul smell of gas permeated the air. Removing
the kettle from the burner Trace turned off the gas and turned
to face Elan, who stood looking at him sullenly.
“This is very disappointing. Are you
sure?” asked Elan.
“I’m sorry,” replied Trace.
A grinning discontent suffused Elan’s
face as he walked to door, pulled his keys from his pocket,
and left without uttering another word.
Waiting until he heard Elan’s car pull
out of the driveway, Trace grabbed his keys and flew out the
door. Starting his truck, he shifted into reverse before the
first pulse of oil could course through the engine.
Pulling onto the road, Trace accelerated to
a higher than recommended speed for his bedroom community and
turned on the radio. An unacceptably romantic song sounded from
the speakers, so he switched to the hard rock station and found
the visceral vocals of the new Joplin blaring out her latest
hit. Turning up the volume and lowering his windows, Trace careened
through the wooded area of an increasingly rural road, and he
wondered where he was going. Taking the next serpentine curve
by swerving into the opposite lane, he floored it, as he realized
his destination.
Continue
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