Reclamation

Winter finally decides to arrive in full swing on a random Saturday evening in January. A snowstorm descends on the city, and the gentleman I’ve been eye-fucking from across the bookstore for the past fifteen minutes has yet to make a move.

I think to approach and strike up a conversation about the weather, how the roads might be rough on the ride home — but I remember I’m forty-seven, not sixty, and think better of it. The man across the store can’t be much younger than me. Still, by the looks of his slim, black-rimmed glasses and the ACDC shirt he’s wearing over his bulky red sweater, I suspect saying something about the snow isn’t exactly the pick-up line he’s looking for.

His worn, tattered tennis shoes make no sound as he pads over the smooth wood floor. Thin, delicate fingers trace the spines of books and idly tap the shelves, his head tilting this way and that in thought. He has two books already tucked beneath his arm. Like someone holding a purse or a parent cradling a toddler to their hip, he clutches the books tightly, shielding them beneath the loose, extra fabric of his billowing sleeves. And every so often, he glances over his shoulder at me, his lips curling into a stealthy sort of grin.

He’s testing me, I know. Waiting to see where I look to find the answer.

Thumbing through a book I didn’t bother to note the title of, I stand from the cushioned rocking chair that guards the window by the door and make my way up an aisle to my right. Unlike Glasses, I’m too broad and too big to be silent, a dull thud echoing through the quiet room each time my boots hit the floor. Nothing delicate about it. Strolling forward, I hover in the middle of the aisle, my gaze barely registering the words before me. He can’t see me from where I am, and I can’t see him, but still, I pretend to look busy. I pretend to be lost in the shelves, just like he is. Maybe a little game of cat and mouse is what he’s after. Or maybe I’m blowing my only chance to find someone with whom I can weather this storm.

I don’t know how long I wait for him to show. I think I better leave, better cut myself off before I make a mess of an already desperate display — but then he’s there, right beside me, peering curiously over my shoulder through his impeccably clean lenses at the book in my hands.

“Bold, cracking that one open in the store,” he says. His gaze drifts from the page to my face. He watches me through feathery orange and blonde lashes. “I wouldn’t have pegged you for a romance type.”

I feel my brow furrow without my permission. I snap the book shut, peeling my sweat-slick fingers from the spine to examine the cover, where a scantily clad — decidedly heterosexual — couple stares back at me from beneath the bright red title: Sinful Serendipity.

I exhale through my nose and slide the book into an empty spot on the shelf.

“I’m not. If I was, I would’ve just walked up to you instead of tip-toeing around the fuckin’ store for twenty minutes.” I silently hope he’ll pick up on my obvious — and shitty — attempt at flirting.

“Tip-toeing?” Glasses replies instead, leaning a bony elbow on the shelf. If it were me, the whole thing would go toppling over, but it doesn’t move an inch under his weight. “Is that your idea of being quiet — all the stomping around you’ve been doing?”

My expression starts to droop, but I recover quickly. “It’s all in the boots,” I say. I prop up my foot so it’s resting on the heel and gesture to the thick leather of the steel toe. In the seconds between my awkward reply and his next move, I push away the possibility that he wasn’t actually eyeing me but watching me eye him.

Relaxing his other arm, Glasses pulls his bundle of books out from beneath his sweater, now neatly tied up in a to-go bag that he lets dangle from his fingers. With a knuckle, he pushes his glasses up his long, crooked nose. Then, his gaze flickers from my boot to my face, quickly at first, then slow, up and down the length of my body. His stare lingers briefly on my belt buckle. After a moment, he bites down on his bottom lip with a shy smile.

“Well, the time for tip-toeing is over.” When I don’t reply immediately, he adds, “You didn’t wait twenty minutes just to ask me about the weather or something, did you?”

~~~

He takes off his glasses before we fuck and sets them on my nightstand while I slowly pull my shirt over my head. I glance around the room, as if remembering for the first time since we stepped into my house that we’re in my house, and I catch myself turning back to see if the man I came with is actually there. In my house. Preparing to sleep with me. A persistent part of my brain insists on sounding the alarm, but as my guest begins to strip down, the part responsible for physical sensations knows: no time for that.

Despite the many layers and buttons and the double-knotted shoelace he uses for a belt, Glasses is efficient in the art of undressing. It isn’t long before he’s fully nude and gripping the button of my jeans, his fingers grazing the skin of my stomach. He curls his index in the dark hair below my navel and places a soft kiss there, his gaze trained on mine while he does it. I feel his teeth scrape my hip, my chest, and the palm of my hand as he carefully turns it over, open and relaxed, waiting for something to hold.

All smooth skin and sharp joints, he is a soft, slender creature in my lap, eagerly waiting to dive between my legs, but he moves as if in slow motion. Each touch is gentle and precise. Everywhere he places his hands or mouth, he hovers, like he’s reading the same passage over and over to commit it to memory. Amber-colored curls fall over his eyes as he pushes me onto my bed and leans down to strip off my pants. I feel his breath on my thigh and his fingernails digging into my lower back. The thought of fewer barriers between us sends all the blood south, and when Glasses thumbs the waistband of my boxers and parts his lips, I want nothing more than to let him take me in.

Instead, he lifts his head and swings a leg over mine, straddling me. His cock rests against my bare skin, and I find myself utterly incapable of focusing on anything else, but his hand sneaks its way up the side of my face, pulling my focus. For a moment, I think he’s going to kiss me, and I feel panic blossom in my chest — but he curls his fingers into my hair and tugs. Hard enough to hurt and hard enough to ensure he has my full attention.

“I want your name.”

I freeze, stuttering like an idiot. “Uh — Wh — What?”

“Your name,” Glasses repeats. “I want to know what it is.”

Entranced by the spell of his steady gaze, I tell him. “Shawn. My name is Shawn.”

“Shawn what?”

“Deverix.”

Glasses rests his palms on my chest, releasing my hair from his vice grip. With the slightest roll of his hips, he slides my still-clothed shaft into the curve of his ass. I blink as the blood rushes to my dick, and when I open my eyes again, he’s right there, less than an inch from my face.

“Shawn,” he purrs.

My brain is mush: malleable in his hands. “Mmm?”

“You’re a big man.” He pauses, his lips hovering over my ear so that I can feel the heat of his breath. “Stop being shy and tell me what you want.”

The nerves in my stomach fizzle away, quickly replaced by something like excitement. Something like hunger.

Hot and hard, my useless anxiety forgotten, I wrap my hands around his waist and swing him onto his back. For half a second, his lithe body is suspended in the air, not yet succumbing to the force of gravity, and I use that time to roll onto my knees and pull his thighs apart. When his head hits the bed, his cock slides into the sheath of my hand. The world becomes a blur of orange and blonde fuzz as I trace my tongue up his inner thigh in a straight line, my lips parting to guide him to the back of my throat.

Glasses breathes a moan, arching his back off the bed as my right hand wanders between his legs. Using my index and ring fingers to spread him open, I slip my middle digit into his ass, pushing to the knuckle, a shiver of pride rolling down my back as Glasses stretches like a cat and kneads his fingers into my scalp. He whispers a whine that hits me like a hammer, my body alight with a damn-near desperate desire for more.

I wait until I have three fingers inside him to talk. “Your turn to tell me what you want, handsome,” I say, my lips still hovering above the head of his cock. “Your word is my command.”

Lifting his head up from the pillows, Glasses blinks when he looks at me, like he’s trying to get his eyes to focus in the dark. By some Dionysian coincidence, his chest rises and falls in time with my heartbeat, and I am enraptured. The rhythm of our bodies produces a steady pulse in my groin, the feeling of him around my fingers and the sheen of his spit-slick skin wearing down on my self-control. But I wait. I hold him as he rolls his hips against my hand. I bite back a satisfied smile as he struggles to speak between breaths.

“I want to be on top of you,” he says at last.

Given explicit permission and instruction, I reach into my bedside drawer for a bottle of lube; it hasn’t been opened yet. I can feel Glasses’ legs begin to tremble with the effort of waiting patiently, so a stroke him with one hand and grip the bottle in the other, ripping open the safety seal with my teeth, which causes Glasses to rut against my palm, his cheeks tinted pink when I return my attention to him. He’s quiet as I continue to stretch him with my fingers and tongue, but I’m not worried; by the time he’s ready, Glasses scrambles to get on top of me, grip my dick, and slot it into his ass.

“So eager,” I say. I relax my hands on his hips, happy to let him put me right where he wants me. “If I’d known you were so easy to please, maybe I wou —”

My voice abandons me as Glasses finds the perfect position to sink directly down. He takes all of me without so much as a twitch, his hips immediately resuming that heavenly rhythm, his thighs clenching around my body as his chest puffs out with a hint of pride.

With a grin, he says, “Wiped that smirk right off your face, hmm?”

In any other circumstance, I might’ve laughed, but all I can think about is how tight and warm and wet he is. How his face is tinted crimson, flush with sweat and a hint of shyness, yet determined, as if it makes him hard to know he has a big man at his mercy — and I am at his mercy. In this moment, I am sin incarnate, and he is an image of god: striking and beautiful. A reminder that I am but a mortal beneath the shadow of divinity.

Every sound that claws its way from his throat is enough to drag me toward the edge. Feeling the warmth pool in my belly, I sit up and hold him to my chest, our breath on each other’s cheeks as he rides toward the light of la petite mort. Glasses grips my shoulders and throws his head back, panting like a dog. I sink my teeth into the crook of his neck. When I slip my hands around his waist and lift him off and back onto my cock, his body twitches without permission, and he’s frantic, chasing that high with reckless abandon. I jerk him off as he races to the finish line, and I’m not far behind. When he starts to spill onto my stomach, I drop him onto his back and pull out. I cum on his happy trail of golden orange hair and try to commit the image before me — him sweaty and smiling and satisfied — to memory.

So much for no strings.

When the last of my orgasm quivers through my legs, I sit back against the headboard with a sigh. Glasses lays on his back, his fingers tracing down his sternum, over his ribs, around the sticky mess I left for him. It takes a moment of catching my breath for me to realize he’s laughing, quietly at first, but eventually, what started as a soft chuckle grows into a hearty belly laugh.

“What’s funny?” I ask, torn between the desire to join him and the twinge of worry itching in my chest.

“Oh, Shawn.” Glasses hums a little when he says my name. Like he’s said it a million times before. Propping himself up on his elbows, he cocks his head to the side and gives me a smile that halts my breathing. “I can’t believe it. At the bookstore, I was thinking you might be one of those slap-sex types — the kind of guy that needs to choke me a little to get off.”

I consider asking why, but I’m sure I already know the answer. Standing, I retrieve a towel from the bathroom for each of us. When I return, I ask, “Are you glad to be wrong?”

Glasses carefully wipes his stomach clean. For a few minutes, he’s quiet, and I start to wonder if he heard me. Eventually, though, he scoots to the edge of the bed and cranes his neck to meet my eye, his lips curling into a dimpled smile.

“I was wrong about the kind of lover you are, but I was right about everything else.”

I take a step forward to stand between his knees. “How do you figure?”

“I didn’t know what kind of situation I’d be walking into,” Glasses says, “but I knew, no matter what happened, I’d be glad I came.”