Just look over your shoulder

Chapter 6 It’s on an early morning in February when it happens to myself, totally unexpected and without warning. I’ve thought a lot about the incident at the end of December, when we ate the Poisoned Mango as we like to call it now, that made us act like we were different people and Gerard shoved me against the tree. He never told me what it was exactly that happened that night, but I figured it was just something that had happened for a certain reason and wrote it off as a onetime thing. He also never came that close to me again after that but in moments of weakness, I found myself stroking my fingertips over the spot on my neck where he kissed me. There were rare moments during the last month and a half, when I was alone in the house or took a walk into the back of the island, when I would sit there and look down at my crotch, wondering if the same could happen to me, how it would feel, if it would hurt or not and most importantly, what actually happened when it did happen. I even dared to touch myself down there a few times out of sheer curiosity, but when nothing exciting or out of the ordinary happened, I’d be even more embarrassed than before. Just thinking about this made me feel guilty and unchaste. I wished there was someone here to explain it to me and answer all of my questions that I can’t cross out of my head anymore since that night. I’m not completely stupid, I know about the gist of the bees and birds; I know that it takes a man and a woman to make a baby and I know that this particular act is called sex and I know which body parts are needed. Well, okay. I know the word, but the actual act of doing it is foreign to me except for a rough idea of it in my head. Most 14 something boys probably now all about it, but then again, they don’t live separated on an island in the South Pacific with no one there to communicate or teach them. Back home, it wasn’t really ordinary to talk about such private things when you were among your friends or colleagues. Sex was something that people did after they got married and if you didn’t stick to that, you counted as dirt by social standards, or so I heard. I personally never heard any of the older kids talk about this topic, probably because their parents told them not to or they just weren’t interested, considering the age of my friends and myself. However, as I sat alone in those moments and thought about these things, I wondered if Gerard knew anything about sex. I even wondered if he’s interested in it and thinks about it sometimes, if he would like to try it or if he’s indifferent to it. Since my little private studies never revealed into anything, I eventually gave up and tried not to think about this topic anymore and it almost worked for a while. With a huge intake of breath, I woke up from a very weird dream a few minutes ago with the white dress sticking to my sweaty body. The first strange thing about this is that it was relatively cool last night, even so, that I decided not to sleep in just my underpants and now I’m soaked with sweat even though it isn’t really all that hot in here. The second thing I noticed was my irregular breathing and that bizarre tingly feeling in my crotch area. When I sat up, I embarrassedly discovered the odd-looking bulge that formed a tent in my lap and caused me flush a deep shade of red. Thankfully, Gerard had already left to go out fishing. I definitely do not need him to see this. I’ve been sitting here for mere minutes now, not knowing what to do. Should I touch it? Is that the same thing that happened to Gerard a while ago? Where did it even come from? Looking closely, I notice that there seems to be a wet spot against the white cotton like something is leaking from the tip. This whole situation is making me nervous. For all I know, I could be sick! Maybe I broke something while I was sleeping, but surely I would have remembered if I hit it against something, right? Though I have to admit that it hurts a little bit. It’s nothing bad, but it does feel uneasy the longer I’m sitting here. I haven’t yet dared to pull the cotton away and take a look because I’m afraid Gerard could come in and see it. And then, as if on cue, I hear his footsteps down in the basement, probably storing the fish he caught. Quickly, so he won’t notice, I pull my knees up to my chest and surprise myself with the invidious sound that escapes my throat at the change of position. The small amount of pain I might have felt a minute ago is completely gone, now that there is some sort of friction. And now that I know how it can feel, apparently, I crave for more but then there’s Gerard standing in the doorway with a puzzled look on his face. “Are you okay?” he asks and comes closer. I start to sweat even more and my face burns up in embarrassment but he can’t possibly know the reason why if I don’t tell him. I can’t really help but draw my eyebrows together in vain because the pressure in my crotch builds up by the second and I’m afraid that if I move, something terrible could happen. “Mikey?” he asks concerned when I don’t respond. He kneels down by my side and puts his palm on my forehead. “You’re not getting sick, are you?” The touch of his hand makes me flinch away a bit, not knowing how to handle all these new sensations and at the same time, I don’t want his hand to ever let go again. “Please go away,” I whisper, in hope he just gets it and leaves me alone until I figured out what to do. “Why, Mikey, are you-“, and then he gets it. His eyes dart down to where I wound my arms around my shins and withdraws his hand quickly and stares at me with wide eyes, a blush forming on his own cheeks. I feel so humiliated that I feel tears forming in my eyes. I pull my arms tighter around my knees and can do nothing to suppress the tiny whine that leaves my mouth. He seems to finally get my agony because he wraps his arms around himself, leans away and turns his head in the opposite direction, giving me a little privacy. “If you wanna..if you want to talk about it..we can,” he stutters out but never looks at me. I consider this for a moment, but I’m not too keen on the idea of us talking about my private parts, not right now anyway. There is one thing that I need to know though, “Is it bad?” I ask hesitantly and feel even more humiliated when he gives a laugh. “Leave me alone!” I say distressed and crunch my face up in pain and shame. It’s so unfair that he makes fun of me in such a vulnerable situation. “Sorry, sorry I didn’t mean to laugh, but..but no, Mikes, it’s nothing bad, okay? Promise,” he says, a little more gently now and that relaxes me a bit. I dare to look at him and see that he’s looking at me as well, the smile on his face looking odd and uptight. He awkwardly scratches the back of his head and says, “Uhm..so, I’ll like, give you a few minutes..just come down if you want to, you know..talk. Okay?” I nod dumbly and watch him nod in return. Then he runs his hands over his face and sighs before getting up and exiting the room. When he’s gone, I breathe out heavily and consider my next step. It did soothe me a bit that he said it’s nothing bad but that doesn’t help me know what to do to make it go away. When I’m sure he’s out of the house, I carefully get up and lift the white dress over my head. Now I’m only wearing my underpants that have a similar wet spot on them like the dress. Taking a deep breath, I hook my thumbs into the waistband and start to pull them down mid-thigh. Removing the cotton is not as easy as it normally is, given to the extra amount that is now in there. So, I’m no stranger as to how my own genitals look, but they certainly never looked like that. The tip is flushed red, almost purple even, and there are some veins popped out along the shaft. And it was never, ever this big and well, hard. I haven’t even touched it yet, being too sheepish, but I mean I do have eyes. When I dare to finally touch it, my belly tightens and my breath hitches in my lungs. I can’t even begin to describe the feeling that seems to overwhelm my entire body. I quickly remove my hand pull my underwear back on ashamed. Maybe distraction helps to reduce it. It does, actually. While I got dressed in just my white dress again because there was no clean underwear, brushed my hair and knotted it back the way I always do and ate my peppermint, the bulge subsided and the weird feeling stopped almost entirely. It’s still kind of there, now that I got a vague idea of how it can feel. I feel betrayed by my own body because it did something it never did before and makes me feel like a little, uninformed child. After another 10 minutes, I decide to go meet Gerard and finally get answers to the many, many questions that built up over months now. I’m super nervous and kind of embarrassed, but he said we could talk about it, and I trust him enough not to make fun of me anymore. - “I know this must sound super fake, coming from someone who is feeling like that all the time, but you really shouldn’t be embarrassed about it, okay?” We’re sitting down by the stairs again where the sand is fairly cool beneath us. When I don’t say anything but bury my face deeper against my knees, he sighs and says, “I’ve been waiting for this to happen, you know..” “You..what?!” He sighs again and takes a deep breath. “I wanted to tell you all about it for a while now, I mean-I knew this would happen to you eventually because..okay look.” He shifts around in the sand and sits opposite of me. “Please look at me? I don’t bite,” he says in a small voice and I can’t resist him so eventually, before squinting my eyes one last time against my knees, I pull my head up and rest my chin on them instead. I don’t dare to let go of my legs though, it could happen again at any time for all I know. When he sees that I obeyed him, he smiles sweetly and nods to himself. “Okay, so, remember when Brian would sometimes take me on a walk without you?” I nod at that. Apparently, Brian told Gerard about all those things that formed questions in my head over the last few months when things started to change between us and also for just myself. Brian would put his hand on one of Gerard’s shoulders, saying, “Listen, Lad, there are some things you should know for the future..”, and then he would tell my brother all the mysterious things that happened when you became a ‘man’, as he called it. As Gerard started to explain, his face turned into a slightly scrunched up expression and sometimes he would stop for mere long moments, seeming deep in thoughts until he continued. He told him that once you hit puberty, your body changed completely. Your skin, especially in the face, would look blemished, your hair became greasy pretty much after washing it, you became taller seemingly overnight, your voice got deeper, you started to sweat more and you had pretty extreme mood changes. “Do you think that’s why I felt so sad a few months ago?” I ask him when he looks at me sympathetically. “Yeah, that’s what I was thinking at the time,” he says and smiles sadly. “And what do you think now?” He sighs and says, “I think that whole puberty thing was a factor, yes, but I think I made it worse with the whole, you know, quit being so close thing,” gesturing with his pointer finger between me and him hastily. I hate to admit it, but he’s got a point. “It’s okay now though,” I say gently and try to cheer him up by smiling for the first time since yesterday evening. He relaxes a bit, but I can tell he’s still thinking about it. I don’t have time to do anything about it though, because he continues speaking after exhaling audible. Brian told him about the weird hair that suddenly would start to grow in places you never had hair before and that at some point, you’d grow a beard if you didn’t shave. As he’s saying that, I press my upper arms in closer to my sides, thinking about the armpit hair that I’ve had at least for a year now. “Down..” I stop, clearing my throat awkwardly before continuing in a small voice and hoping he gets what I mean, “Down there too?” I’m surprised when he doesn’t laugh at me but instead pulls the right corner of his mouth into a tiny smile. “Yeah, that too. Apparently also on the chest and belly, but Brian either lied about that, or I’m not as much a man as I thought I would be.” Now he does laugh, but he’s blushing and looks a little uneasy. My feet curl inwards and there might be a tiny smirk on my face when I say, very quietly and sheepish, “I- have those... I mean, down my belly..” He rolls his eyes and says, “I know, duh..I’ve seen you-you know.” Now we both blush and grin abashed at each other. This whole conversation is so awkward. “I guess since you’re manlier than me, you’ll also grow a beard first.” Now, that’s a weird thought. “I don’t like beards, though,” I say and giggle when Gerard kicks me with his toes. “Beards are awesome!” he says and runs his fingertips over his chin where there are still no stubbles that could give a hint of facial hair. “Some of the things don’t make sense though, like, my skin is clear and your voice isn’t that much different, my hair doesn’t get greasy so fast and you never had those extreme mood swings.” He looks lost in thoughts as I say it but quickly reacts to answer. “I don’t think it’s the exact same for anyone like the basics are similar to every boy but everyone experiences it differently? I don’t know, I’m not smart..” “Yes, you are! Gee, I’ve wanted to know these things for months now and in less than an hour, you told me almost everything I wanted to know. That’s pretty smart to me.” He smiles down into his lap but shakes his head lightly. “That’s just because Brian told me.” “But you remembered all of it over the years.” We smile at each other and then he keeps talking. He still hasn’t said anything about what happened this morning or back in December and I’m desperate to know, so when he finishes his speech about growth spurts and muscles that would apparently grow overnight, whatever, I ask, almost so quiet that I don’t hear my own voice, “And what about the other thing..” He freezes for a moment, but then he lays back down on his back, bends his knees and crosses his arms behind his head before saying in an almost dreamy voice with a smile on his face, “That thing..it’s just awesome Mikes. I mean, as long as you know how to handle it. Probably a gift from the Heavens if you ask me.” Okay, that was certainly not the answer or reaction I was expecting, but Gerard is full of surprises. I expect him to say something else but when he doesn’t and only stares up at the sky, still with that dreamy smile plastered to his face, I want to know,“And where does it come from I mean, does it have something to do with..is it..sex?” Finally speaking the word out loud for the first time in my life is awkward, but I just have to know. All the thoughts I had lately about kissing and being touched in forbidden places and body parts that you shouldn’t be thinking about so intensely, finally made me ask this embarrassing question. I know I’m blushing again, but I don’t dare to look away from him now. I need to be taken seriously for once because this is important to me and I just need to know. Gerard turns his head slightly in my direction and looks up at me from under his bangs, grins his baby-teeth-smile and emerges a pretty blush of his own. “One morning, you will wake up only to find a wet spot in your underwear and memories of a weird dream still floating your mind. You’ll wonder what happened, but since it’s something that never happened, you won’t understand it. That’s why I’m telling you now.”, Gerard quotes Brian in a ridiculous voice, now with eyes closed and face directed to the sky again. It’s called ‘to have an erection’, or ‘to be aroused’ and usually it ends in ‘masturbation’. The words sound foreign to me, but Gerard is quick to explain them, almost as if he was reading my mind which momentarily reminds me of the conversation about soulmates and I feel my lips curl into a tiny smile while listening to him. Apparently, once a boy hits puberty, your testicles and penis start to grow and change looks slightly, which, yes, happened to me as well. Hormones would start to produce sperm liquid, which happens to be the wet feeling in the underwear and is needed for reproduction. A boy can get an erection or feel aroused for any number of reasons; While you’re asleep, when you feel sexually attracted to someone, when you’re thinking about something sexually, when you see something sexually happening, when someone (or you yourself) touches you either right on down there or in places that are sensitive to you, or, when you are simply about to commit to the actual act of sex. During the first few years of puberty though, sometimes an erection would happen for no real reason, often more than once a day and mortify you to no end. At this point, I need to disrupt Gerard. “But wait,” I say, completely and utterly confused, hitting my right hand over my eyes distressed and super humiliated because now it comes all crashing down at once and staggers me right off my feet. Memories of the cave flash up in my mind, when I tried to pull the blanket away from Gerard’s lap and he screamed at me, all the mornings he wouldn’t be there when I woke up, me, waking up this morning, confused and startled, Gerard, pressed up against me..- “Does that mean you were- when you -”, there’s no way possible that I can finish this sentence without fainting right in front of his eyes. This is all too much, I’ve never felt so vulnerable in my life. To summarise everything he just said, you get aroused when something sexually happens. Me, okay. I somehow get it now. I’ve always felt drawn to Gerard, and in a totally new way for a while now, though I never thought it was this, but he, in other words, just admitted that he feels like that towards me as well and probably has for a very long time. Suddenly, I get very angry. “Why would you know all of this and never tell me anything about it?! Do you have any idea what I went through the past year?! Why did you hide it? How long has this even been happening to you? Why did you never tell me, Gerard!” I withdraw my hand in anger from my eyes and pound both my fists into the sand on either side of my body, making Gerard jump and sitting up with a startled look on his face. Then his expression changes and he looks sad and full of sorrow and guilt. He lets his head fall forward miserably and I hate myself. See? Another mood swing. I really don’t like them. Sighing and in a swift motion, I plaster myself at his side and touch his knee lightly. “I’m sorry...I didn’t mean to scream at you, but you gotta understand, I mean-“ “It’s okay. You have every right to be mad, but Mikes I was just trying to protect you, you know..” He sounds so small and young right then that my heart aches. “You don’t have to protect me,” I say gently and lean the side of my head against his. He huffs and says, “I’m your big brother-“ “Yes, and I’m your little brother and I can take care of myself. You protected me all through my life but I’m an adult now. Maybe you should let me protect you for a change.” At that, he titters lightly and turns his head a little so that his face is close to my own, making my belly tingle. “I like looking out for you. I’m not very good at it, but it’s my duty and that will never change so you better get used to it.” A short break, and then, “And you’re not an adult.” “Yes I am, I get erections now!” Gerard seems to be just as stunned by my words as I am because he pulls away from my embrace to properly look at me. It swipes the sadness off of him though, and that’s enough to make me happy and not caring about what I just said (okay, maybe a little, but whatever). “So, you’re basically saying that I’m an adult then, too,” he states, looking smug from head to toe. I roll my eyes after punching him on the shoulder and say, “Urgh, fine. But just to be clear, I’m giving you extra credit here because you’re turning 18 soon.” “Jesus, you can’t let me be in glory for one second, can you?” he says and pretends to be annoyed, but I know he’s absolutely not. “Okay, but let’s still go back for a second”, I say because there are some things that are yet unsolved but I need answers to. After asking with another blush high on my cheeks, Gerard explains that there isn’t really a way for an erection, as I know it’s called now, to subside, if you don’t do anything against it. But if you do, you have at least a few hours of freedom before it would happen again; that is if you’re lucky and you have your thoughts together. “And how do you do that?” I ask curiously, clutching my arms tighter around my legs, feeling both anxious and excited about the answer. I can’t believe it, but now I want to try it out with him. I mean, if he knows how to do it, he can help me, right? To my surprise though, Gerard just looks at me startled. Was that the wrong thing to ask? “What?!” “Uhm.,” Gerard mutters, scratching irrelevantly behind his ear, flickering his gaze to my where my crotch is hidden behind my shins and turns scarlet. “How did you, if you didn’t- I mean I thought..how did you get rid of it this morning, then?” Something tells me that waiting for it to go away wasn’t the common way of doing it and I feel yet again like a stupid, unknowing child. “Forget I said anything,” I murmur embarrassed, feeling exposed by the look he’s giving me. “No it’s okay, hey-look at me,” he says and when I uptightly do so, he admits, “I didn’t know.” Then he gulps audible and whispers, after coming to the conclusion that I am indeed just an inexperienced 14-year-old boy who wouldn’t know anything about this, “So you seriously don’t know.” After that, we stare each other boldly for a long moment while my heart starts to beat faster and my palms get sweaty so that grains of sand stick to them. After meekingly clearing his throat and letting his eyes dart briskly to my lips and back to my eyes, he asks, in a husky tone that I’ve never heard him use before, “Do you want me to tell you?” When he says it, I feel a rush of heat flush through my body and starting to pool in my groin again. I can feel my face reddening, but so is Gerard’s. My mouth drops open a bit and my brain is shouting at me to quit this right here, but I can already feel my body betraying me, so instead of getting up and running away like I maybe should, I nod. Then it’s like a switch is pulled inside Gerard, because without hesitation and shame, he says, “It’s fun to start teasing yourself before getting to the real business.” A tiny whispered, “How..?” is all I can manage. “Depends. What are your sensitive spots?” I take my time to think about it, but in the end, all I can do is shrug my shoulders and look down at my knees which are still pulled up my chest. “I wouldn’t know.” I hear Gerard click his tongue and then he says, “Yes, you do. Think about December for a second when-” But he doesn’t even have to finish the sentence, because then I get it and my fingertips automatically find the spot on my neck where he kissed me, back when I had no idea why my body was reacting so strongly and I didn’t have a name yet for it all. When I look up from under my bangs, he watches me intently with slightly parted lips and equally big eyes as my own. It astonishes me that Gerard knew about my weak spot even before I did and that alone makes my guts twist in the best way possible. Feeling brave for the first time today, I reach out to take his hand in mine only to press his fingertips against the same spot where I had mine just now. It’s a pleasant feeling but it isn’t as strong as when I felt his lips against that spot. I’m about to reveal this to him when suddenly his hand sneaks up higher my neck and curls into my hair. At first, I think he wants to stroke it, but then his fingers tug on some of my strands lightly and my breath hitches. “Do you remember that too?” he huffs out and stares at me in wonder when my eyes flutter shut and my hand grasps around his wrist when he repeats the action. The feeling is so strong that I feel my belly tightening as a result, and all the worries my brain shouted at me only moments earlier seem to be washed away. “What is this feeling?” I ask, sounding breathless and bewildered, with my eyes still closed. “Hmm.. arousal, want, desire.. a lot of things,” he says easily, reminding me of how inexperienced I am and making me feel shy again. He seems to notice because instead of tugging on my hair, he gently strokes over it which leads me to open my eyes and smile up at him and my heart does another swoop when I find that he’s looking at me lovingly. There’s another moment where we just look at each other, his fingers still caressing my scalp, and I’m so gone for him, I just know it. His fingers stop then for a moment and he scrunches his eyebrows together, blinking at me which looks like he’s in memory of something. I was right. “I wasn’t even 13 yet when it happened to me for the first time.” “Oh..am I late to this?” A short snort escapes him and he shakes his head, restarting the stroking. “No, I think I was just early. Maybe. I don’t know if there’s a set time for it. What I’m trying to say is, that even though Brian elucidated me into everything, it still scared me to no end and it took me a while to figure out how to live with this around you.” “I never noticed,” I say honestly, because yeah, thinking back, there were a few situations where I got suspicious, but never in my life would I have thought about this. “I did a good job then!” he says and grins sheepishly. Suddenly, there’s another burning question forming in my head. “Was it because of me?” Because I don’t recall getting the erection this morning because of him. He looks confused for a moment, but I can see the second he gets it because his eyes widen. “No!” he says quickly and I can’t hide the slight disappointment that must be showing on my face because he adds, “I mean, not at first. Jesus Mikey, you were only a kid. That..that only came when you probably grew up a little.” He basically just confirmed my thoughts from before and my brain makes me want to do things to him that I never even dreamed of before. It’s like piece by piece, this whole confusing concept is coming together and the final product is what my subconscious was screaming about all this time. “What comes next?” I surprise myself by asking, eyes never leaving his. He seems to know exactly what I’m talking about, because in a slow and considered move, he sits closer to me and brings his mouth close to my ear, removing his hand from my hair which upsets me at first, but his next words really make up for it. “You wrap your hand around it and start rubbing it until the pleasure starts building up.” It’s too much and I can’t hold his gaze anymore. I have to shut my eyes and my knees involuntarily squeeze together in a very pleasing way, so much even, that a tiny, strange sound leaves my mouth without my intention. The thought of doing what he just said makes me raise my hand, the one that was wrapped around Gerard’s wrist until a moment ago, and slide to a spot on the back of my upper thigh where my legs are still bent, not caring about the grains of sand that are sticking to it. When Gerard sees this, he freezes but doesn’t back away. “I feel anxious,” I admit in a tiny breathless whisper, but don’t let go. Immediately, Gerard’s face softens and he tilts his head to the side a bit. Then he smiles sweetly and says, “Aw Twee. I’ll go now, you know what to do now.” What? That’s not what I meant at all! In a quick move, I catch his wrists again when he gets ready to stand up and looks at me startled. “No,” I say, but nothing more. I can’t do this alone. Well, I suppose I could, but I don’t want to. I want to do this with him. So much, that it scares the Holy Ghost out of me. He’s already half turned away from me but stops in his tracks when I stop him. On an intake of breath, I squeeze my eyes shut, and on the exhale, I remove my arm from around my legs. Then, I finally part my knees for the first time since we sat down here together almost two hours ago. The only sound I hear is Gerard’s huge gasp and when I open my eyes again, his eyes are fixed on the spot between my legs where, for the second time for today, a tent is forming under my white dress. I honestly didn’t feel it swelling that much, but I guess all the talking about this topic and the light hair pulling eventually lead to that result. It’s quite fascinating, actually. I had no idea what my body was capable of. I know I’m blushing again, but right now I could care less because Gerard’s eyes darken like they never have before as he sits back down next to me without really seeming to realize it. “No,” I say again dumbly, sounding desperate and in another moment of bravery, I take his hand and direct it to my crotch.I can almost feel his hand on me, but then he seems to realize what is happening and uncurls his hand from mine and puts it over his face. “Mikey we- we can’t do this..”, he mumbles into his hand and my heart sinks. “Why not?” I ask, suddenly feeling nervous and self-conscious. “We shouldn’t be doing this,” is all he says, offering nothing more. I’m about to accept that because if he doesn’t want to, that’s okay. It’s his decision. But as I let my gaze wander, I notice the bulge between his own legs and I know that he wants to. I know why he’s acting like that, I know that his response would be that he needs to protect me and that he doesn’t want to hurt me, but that’s almost a funny thought by now. It shows me that he cares though, and that makes my heart flutter. Looking at his erection does the weirdest things to me and if he’s not going to touch me, then I’ll do it on my own. I’m starting to feel frustrated now, I need to find a release in all of this eventually or else I’ll go crazy. “You don’t have to look or touch, just don’t go,” is what I manage to choke out before I finally, finally put my flat hand over my cloth-covered erection with firm pressure, nothing compared to the light touch from this morning. The sensation I feel when I press down is so strong and sudden and feels so incredibly good, that it pulls me off my feet and my other hand that isn’t touching myself curls into a fist in the sand. The sound that escapes my throat at the touch can only be described as a moan. I’ve never heard myself make such a sound and I’m yet again surprised as to what my body is capable of. When I press down for the second time, I open my eyes and see that Gerard looks at me with lust in his eyes that makes my belly curl in on itself. “You...Mikey-“, he gasps out and before I can react, his lips are back on my neck and his right hand curls around my ankle. My name never sounded so beautiful coming from his mouth and I forget the hand on my crotch for a moment because I’m greatly distracted by the feeling of his lips on my neck. When he parts his lips and traces his wet tongue over the skin there, only to stop and close again over my pulse point and suck, I lose all ability to speak and cry out in delight instead. My free hand shoots up and closes around a bunch of his hair on the back of his head to hold him in place and I feel him groan against my skin. Without really thinking about it, I tilt my head back, exposing more skin for him to kiss, or well, suck on. At this point, he can do whatever he wants and I’d take it greatly without a second thought. I’m so aware of everything that’s happening right now, like the moist breath on my neck when he exhales hotly through his nose or how his hair smells or how his hand on my ankle now wanders up to my knee and then slides down to where the hem of my dress pools around my thighs. I’m maybe a little, okay, very, nervous about him touching me, because I can feel myself leaking against the cotton again and what if finds that gross? But then I’m reminded that the exact same thing is happening to himself right now, has for years now, and he spoke of it as a gift from the Heavens so he must be enjoying it and then nothing of that matters anymore, because he slides his hand under the hem of the dress and curls his experienced fingers around my erection. A shocked “Hhhaaa,” escapes my mouth at the feeling of it. My entire body relents and now that there’s no hand for me to steady myself on and keep me in a sitting position, I fall back down on the sand, while my knees fall apart more and another loud moan leaves my mouth, causing Gerard to curse against my neck where I pulled him down with me. I haven’t heard him curse a lot in my life, always thought of it as something wrong, but right now it really does it for me. When his hand gives a squeeze and starts to pump up and down slowly, my back arches off the ground involuntarily and my toes curl inwards in the sand. I feel him shift in position so he leans over me a little. Then he releases my neck and instead presses his forehead against mine with his eyes shut tight and his lips are slick with spit and parted and then he swipes his thumb over my tip and my eyes roll back in my head, feeling my belly tightening in the most amazing way. “Gee, what’s happening to my- nggghhh..to my body, I feel- hhhhhaa, I don’t know what’s happening-“ He curses again and then there’s his other hand, cupping the spot right behind my ear, and breathes out a whiny, “Mikey, you-,“ before he pulls my head up and presses his mouth on mine so hard that our teeth crush together. All the times we kissed, it was never on that level of intensity and I don’t know what to do at first when he moves his lips messily over mine, but I quickly figure out what to do and follow his lead. The sounds he’s making in the back of his throat in return are nothing I ever heard before, so needy and out of control, and I’m pretty sure that I’ll fall asleep to that sound in my head tonight. The kiss and his hand pumping faster now are taking me to a point where the air stays in my lungs and my entire body tightens. I even have to break the kiss, much to his dislike, but I can’t help myself anymore. What I’m feeling right now can’t be compared to anything I’ve ever experienced in my entire life and it’s damn amazing, but it doesn’t seem to lead to something. “Gerard what-“ “You gotta let go, Mikes,” he says out of breath, almost slurring the words and starts to stroke me impossibly fast. My free hand gropes around in the sand and lands somewhere next to my head when I feel my eyebrows knit together tightly and involuntarily and my mouth falling open in the same moment that my head tips back and the aching between my legs turns into something even more, like electric shocks and heat and the greatest delight. Then there’s Gerard, looking down at me and that’s it; A loud “Uhhhhhhhhhhhh,” leaves my throat and my hips buck into his first as the final straw snaps and a hot liquid lands on my belly where the dress drew up somewhere in the process. It seems to go on forever, but just as I think it wouldn’t stop, it does and my body goes slack against the sand. I lie there for what feels like an eternity with my eyes closed, waiting for my breathing to become normal again when I feel Gerard withdrawing his hand from my crotch only to rest it on my hip, sticky with what I suppose must be sperm. The thought alone is strangely arousing on its own and sends another wave of sparks through my twitching body. His forehead is still pressed up against mine, his own quick breath mingling with mine, still so close that it wouldn’t take much to kiss him again, so that’s what I’m doing. This time, it’s much gentler and when I tilt my head slightly to the side and he presses in closer, it feels like we were made for this. He nips at my bottom lip and then kisses over the same spot and everything is perfect. That is until Gerard suddenly pulls away from my embrace and looks down at me with shock on his face as if only now realizing what just happened. As he sits on his heels, I see his eyes widen in fear and he quickly turns his head to look over his shoulder, as if checking if someone saw us, which is totally ridiculous. Then I notice the dark wet spot against his now flatter loincloth, understanding how he must feel right now because I feel just the same. We’ve just crossed a line that neither of us probably even thought about and yes, that is a scary thing. Not to mention that now that it’s over, the embarrassment comes back in full force. Not that I let him do this, but more like the whole concept itself. But I don’t want to feel rejected and he doesn’t need that either, so when he hasn’t moved from where he sits, I reach out and take his hand, making him turn his head back in my direction. He hesitates and looks stricken for a moment, but when I smile at him slightly with a blush still on my cheeks, he goes and lays down beside me in the sand. I can feel that he’s in a vulnerable state right now, just like me. But when he, much to my surprise, shifts and rests his head on my chest and buries his face into the cotton of the white dress, all the embarrassment and fear seems to dissolve into the warm air of the day. He puts his forearm on my belly so that his hand rests upon my ribs next to his head and holds me there. Then he presses in closer with his torso and throws his leg across one of mine, sprinkling sand across me in the process, so we’re tangled from head to toe. Automatically, my left hand finds its way to his head where I begin to card gently through his hair. Then a tiny grin flashes across my face while dreamily looking up in the sky, much like he did earlier. “So that’s what it can be like.” I feel Gerard huff a small snort against my chest and his hand squeezes my side. “Yeah, that’s what it can be like.” “I feel so fine right now, like nothing really matters and my body feels very light,” I state happily and nicely exhausted, stretching my legs against the sand and trying to work the muscles in my shoulders but that’s kind of difficult with his weight on top of me, which I’m not complaining about though, because I really like the feel of that as well. “’M tired, too,” I admit and once again feel him laugh against my chest before burrowing his face deeper against the white cotton and winding his arm tighter around me. “So sleep,” he mumbles and exhales through his nose, creating a hot spot on my ribs which gives me Goosebumps. He must be equally exhausted after this. All I can manage to do before passing out into a light and pleasant sleep is a nod and one last movement of my fingers in his hair and a tiny, “Thank you,” on my lips. - Waking up a few hours later is almost like torture! We fell asleep outside when the sun did not yet stand high in the sky but now it’s afternoon and we’re basically cooking. I don’t think my eyes ever hurt this bad. We also didn’t clean ourselves up after what happened and the sticky feeling on my belly and crotch is everything else but pleasant like before. Gerard is still fast asleep somewhere dragged over my upper body and my skin is sweaty everywhere our skin touches and he might be even drooling a little on my collarbone. It doesn’t bother me though. Nothing he ever did bothered me, or at least most of it didn’t. I’m hot and I feel itchy and my eyes hurt, but that still isn’t enough reason for me to wake him up and do anything about it. Instead, I start carding my fingers through his hair again, keeping my eyes closed as some sort of weak protection from the devil that is the sun right now. After a while, I start stroking his neck and shoulder and as far down his back as I can reach from this angle. His skin is hot and I feel grains of sand sticking to his spine and hip. I continue stroking his skin there until I let my hand wander up higher again, along his neck and then jaw, over the bridge of his nose, the spot under his eyes and then over his forehead and into his hair again. It’s really lulling and relaxing to do that and I could go on forever, but after some time, I feel him stir and mumble out an incoherent sentence against my collarbone. “Hmm?” I hum out, not really feeling like talking just yet. “’Said where are we,” he says, clearer this time, but still husky with sleep. “Beach.” “Bad idea.” “Yup.” Then, he slowly sits up ungracefully and stretches his arms. “Mmm...I do feel rested though,” he says and yawns with his fists rubbing his eyes. “Yeah, and sun-cooked.” Now I opened my eyes but immediately regret it. “I hope all of this was worth getting me blind!” I hear him giggle and then there’s his hand stroking over my hairline, brushing some of my bangs back where they unbound from the clips. For a moment, he looks down at me with something that I would like to call love in his eyes, but then he breaks eye contact and looks down somewhere next to my head that is still resting in the sand. Then he turns his head and looks in the direction of the ocean and his face falls completely. He sighs and closes his eyes, withdraws his hand from my hair and starts to inconsequential finger at a loose threat on his loincloth, his dark hair falling into his face. I sit up, trying to ignore the sticky feeling between my legs and touch his knee lightly before asking, as gently as possible, “What is it?” I see him purse his lips as if in thoughts and then his shoulders fall and he sighs again, quietly. “Please talk to me?” He finally turns his head to me, looking at my face for a few seconds before saying, completely emotionless, “We should maybe get some work done.” My hand, that was resting on his knee, falls down into the sand and my eyebrows knit together confused. I don’t even have time to ask why he’s suddenly acting like that, because with one last look at the ocean, he gets up and disappears into the house, leaving me completely bewildered and concerned. In a quick motion, I pull my legs back up my body and rest my chin and mouth on my knees, the tip of my nose brushing lightly against the rather blond hair on my kneecaps. I decide not to freak out yet, maybe he needs a few hours to digest what had happened. I think I even need some time myself, to re-point all my thoughts and to fully understand all these new things. After all, I did learn a lot today, more than I learned in all the 6 years we’ve been here at once, even. His reaction would be okay and understandable if it wasn’t for that look on his face he’s used quite often today. I guess I just have to wait and find out.

Notes