Authors: Edmond Manning
Oh, that works. Maybe they’re all here for Perry.
The ducks assemble. Well, two ducks and a half dozen ducklings. The ducklings are fuzzy, preteens of the duck world. The constant cooing from everyone around us only underscores Perry’s subtle grumpiness. He’s not impressed. Not at first.
But it’s hard not to appreciate the hilarity as they waddle up the custom ramp that allows them to cluster on the fountain edge, bumping into and barking at each other, though we cannot hear them over the grand march. It’s easy to invent their conversation watching their bills snap open and closed. When they are confident in their number, they all
fwump
to the ground, several young ones tipping over, then righting themselves with recovered dignity and scurrying down the red carpet after their siblings. I catch Perry chuckling once in spite of himself.
I point out different ones to Perry as we follow their wobbly trajectory. In an unscripted moment, one duckling waddles so far from his family it appears he might take the stairs instead of their private elevator, but he turns and runs crazily to rejoin them, prompting a small glow of appreciative laughter. Perry and I share a grin, which is good for our tenuous bond. The ducks march, cameras flash, and soon it’s over in a thundering musical climax. The chaperoned ducks disappear into the elevator, the doors ping closed, and everyone claps, immensely satisfied.
The echo of the exhausting march rings in my ears, and the visual buzz from so many blinking cameras diminishes except over by the Duck Elevator, where people wait to pose, pretending to push the Up button.
“This is why we didn’t have time to get a cake?” Perry says, looking away. “Can we go back and do it now?”
“I’m sorry, but we have to get ready for the next part.”
He turns away, and we watch the audience dissolve. Tourists flow toward the gloved, grinning bellhops who hold open the enormous doors, and I remember yesterday’s slow shuffle toward the Alcatraz ferry. People thank the bellhops profusely, as if they were personally responsible for the duck show, and the bellhops accept this praise with grace and wide smiles as if they were, in fact, personally responsible.
I wait until Perry finally faces me, and then I glance up, over to the second-level balcony on the left side. Then I glance over to the right. I make sure that my face looks puzzled, and hopefully he sees worry, which right at this moment, I don’t have to fake. Perry follows my eyes without really recognizing it.
I announce, “Let’s go.”
He follows my long strides as I head to the bay of gold-trimmed elevators, accented by lush palms reflected in floor-to-ceiling mirrors. I love the tangerine birds-of-paradise perched everywhere around us. They have such unapologetic profiles, daring to boast angular spikes in a world which honors flowers for their softness, their ability to play well with others. “Fuck you,” they seem to say, “we’re beautiful.”
“Vin,” he says, catching up.
He doesn’t say anything more when I step inside and press the button for the 26th floor, but his reflection in the closing elevator door can’t hide his surprise.
We ascend in silence.
I take his hand.
He squeezes back, more of a formal acknowledgement that he realizes I’m here than an affectionate gesture.
On the 26th floor, we step into a pomegranate hallway. The textured ruby wallpaper implies a richness you can nearly taste. A person-sized vase, gleaming gold, sprouts pure white lilies and more of my pals, a snow-white bird-of-paradise with a yellow-tipped crown. The marble-topped table shines our blurry outline, and I see no luggage dings on the two most likely corners. Everything here seems virgin.
We move slowly down the hallway, holding hands. Good, good. He’s coming back.
Though he keeps pace with me, I still feel Perry hesitate, as if we have no right to be here. He ran himself ragged across Alcatraz last night breaking federal law, but today he squirms slightly while wandering, quite legally, through a fancy hotel.
Interesting.
This matches my previous observations and wonderings that Perry didn’t grow up with a lot of money. Maybe he’s fond of it now, but I bet it wasn’t always readily available. I’d like that confirmed verbally. This afternoon, perhaps.
All week I have wondered why Perry wants to sell his father’s paintings. The money, of course. But why now? I bet he inherited his father’s paintings after his mom’s death, which means he owned the paintings since twenty-four. Why hasn’t he tried to sell them? They’re not on display; I never saw any of his father’s paintings hanging in his apartment.
When I produce a plastic keycard from my back pocket, I feel Perry jerk in surprise.
I swing the door open to reveal silvery-white curtains bloated with breeze, framing San Francisco’s glorious downtown and a sparkling slice of the east bay. I love that the windows open in this hotel; what a treat in a skyscraper. A puffy comforter is the cream cheese frosting on the four-poster bed, which is thick with chubby, colored pillows. A complimentary bottle of champagne attempts seduction in the center. In our adjoining study, an intricately carved writing desk, a polished armoire, and a muted lemon-colored divan finish out the large pieces of furniture. Perry leaves me to wander through the room, exploring surfaces with his fingertips. He stops at the glass-topped bar and lifts a crystal decanter.
“We slept in the dirt last night and you had rented this room?”
“Kinda.”
“Kind of?” His voice is empty, not angry, not amused, almost as if he is clarifying my response.
He crosses to the window to peer beyond the sailboat sail.
Uh oh. Time to move this along. “Hey buddy, strip down. It’s shower time. You want anything from the bar? Something to drink?”
“No.”
We shuck our clothes efficiently, not like lovers but more like guys at the gym, which is still kind of sexy. I study his body with new appreciation, loving the curves of his ass in daylight now that I can see him fully. He sees me watching him and mugs at me, apparently reading my mind, and he’s right; I’m thinking about sex. And hopefully, now he is. We had some pretty great sex last night, and I want him to remember that.
After I’m naked and my cock semihard, I head to the minibar and open some grapefruit juice. I walk it over to him.
“Thanks,” he says, and his face opens.
Perry likes grapefruit juice. He just didn’t know that I knew that.
Standing before him, I squeeze his shoulder muscles with slow grips, massaging him while he twists off the lid and takes a big gulp. I run the back of my fingers down the front of his chest, grazing his nipples, and he shudders involuntarily.
“Hey,” he says.
“I have to take care of something,” I say. “Why don’t you start us a hot shower, and I’ll join you in a minute.”
He agrees with an expression that’s both guarded and tentatively friendly and then strolls naked through the bathroom door.
Oh man, I love his ass. I like the way each petulant globe droops, the sloping curves shifting with each step.
From the armoire, I gather and lay out the clothes I have purchased for him. Expensive jeans and a few warm shirts. I hope he wears the hunter green one. I carefully display the sexy underwear I chose for him. These royal-blue briefs are gonna look great clutching that sexy butt.
I love that I got to shop for underwear in the Castro. I grooved to club music in a gayboy shop, making myself dizzy with lust thinking about making love to an incredible man. I’m no different from anyone else: I want to fit in within the Homo Homeland. For a while this week, I wasn’t the Human Ghost, but someone falling in love and shopping for his new boyfriend. Sometime on Sunday, I have to tell Perry about that moment, explain how wonderful I felt anticipating spending time with him.
After making two brief phone calls, I grab a condom from the bag I have packed for him, rip it open, and then hurry off to the bathroom.
I hear Perry under the shower spray, cleaning off the morning, last night, the stains he’s accumulated thus far. When I enter the bathroom, hot mist engulfs me. The mirrors offer no reflection, only trapped clouds. At last, San Francisco’s fabled fog. A half dozen fluffy towels suggest the management doesn’t mind if you shower all day. The marble-top counter is trimmed with gold along its edges, and with that thin golden line tracing the bathroom’s interior, I feel we’re trapped in a cloud cage, a paradox of form and no form.
I slide open the shower door and ease in behind him.
“Hi.”
“Hey,” he says, more easily. “You gotta get wet.”
I say, “Okay. I want you to wash me down.”
At first, his hands on me are polite, distant. But a slippery, soapy experience must inevitably diffuse boundaries, and soon my chest foams with his lather and his arms slip behind me. As soon as our chests touch, we kiss directly under the spray. I clamp his neck like I did last night, and he groans, his senses filling in the blanks for what he doesn’t actively remember.
I massage his upper shoulders and pull him into my chest, making small rumbling sounds so that my chest vibrates against him. He leans in against me, and I let my strong hands knead down either side of his spine, finding and addressing his tension, helping him relax further. Our movements resemble our dance in the cell last night, and I hope this shower reminds him of that intimacy. I drag my bristly cheek along his bristly face, morning stubble jousting, until our lips are aligned and we kiss sloppily, tasting each other in this new environment, clean and fresh, sparking our unique chemistry to the surface again.
He’s getting hard.
“Check it out,” he says. “Ginger peach soap.”
He hands me the bar and I lather my hands, letting my gaze burrow into him with a bit of what-I’m-gonna-do-to-you intention, which, who knows, may or may not be sexy. I hope it’s coming across as sexy and not menacing. He smiles bashfully, which suggests he gets me and he’s not against where we’re heading. As my fingertips work his neck in small circles, he closes his eyes and tilts his head back enough to let the water pound his forehead.
I figured a hot shower might help us find each other again, and our few minutes of mostly quiet naked time accomplished just that.
“I really am sorry about the cake, Perry.”
He opens his eyes, and I see no anger.
“Me too,” he says. “I’m sorry I reacted the way I did. It just struck me as—”
“Don’t apologize,” I say, caressing the sides of his neck with my soapy hands. “Never apologize for compassion.”
His face clenches instantly; his neck muscles seize. Again, he looks surprised, a deep well of feeling over nothing that should remotely matter to him. No actual tears surface, but the wet look in his eyes is unmistakable.
Perry kisses me in surprise, and our rift heals more. I explore his tan chest, tweaking his nipples, but there’s not much reaction, as I discovered last night. I stroke the inside of his left thigh with the bar of soap, and he moans.
“The first breakfast was great,” he says, during a break from the kissing. “I always drink a Diet Coke first thing in the morning.”
“Whaaaa?” I exclaim and pull back. “You don’t like bacon?”
“I love
bacon
,” he says.
I pretend I am insulted. “That substance had many properties in common with bacon.”
“Except taste.”
We make a few turns, ala junior high dance moves, kissing, hands gliding over our bodies. He likes my fuzzy chest, and I give him free access. I do like having my nipples tweaked and sucked, and with my hand on his skull, I guide him there, offering encouragement in a throaty tone. Soon, our passionate kissing grows stronger, and I slow-fuck my tongue into his mouth; he grips me back with renewed eagerness. Our cocks nudge each other, getting thicker, jostling like commuters on the Muni.
I have to tell him about Friday on the Muni. I have to remember to tell him that.
“Dammit,” he says when we come up for air. “You sure know what you’re doing with sex, Mr. Vanbly.”
My hands massage his butt cheeks in soapy circles, and he feeds me his moan. My index finger massages the deep cleft between them, and Perry writhes in my arms. While kissing deeply, I slow-turn him under the heat and spray, our cloud cage, and lean him forward against the shower door.
Hot fog curls around him.
“Uh oh,” he says as I nudge his legs further apart. “This is when you usually start telling the king story.”
“Yes.”
“And I end up sexually manipulated. I see how this works, man.”
“Yes,” I say, sliding my goatee across his shoulder. “I’m trying to figure out where to pick it up exactly, because I had this whole big thing planned out for when King Aabee came back to the kingdom, after the ten years passed. But it went with the cake—a celebration and all.”
Perry tenses. We stand in silence for a few seconds, my cock rubbing up and down his crack. Now that he has forgiven me for dropping the cake, I don’t want him to forget about what happened.
Why do my King Weekends so often involve cake? Cake. I love cake. I want someone to make me one of those big three-tiered wedding cakes with pink frosting roses right in my living room, so over the course of a weekend I could eat a rose off the cake whenever I got up to go to the fridge. No special occasion, just cake.
Cake.
It’s fun to say. Oops, Perry is waiting.
“He was twenty-eight now, King Aabee,” I say, grinding my hard dick against him.
Wait, did my cock just get harder thinking about frosting roses?
“King Aabee returned to the Found Kings, and they threw him a crazy party, but I’ll skip over that part. That went with the cake. Anyway, he came home, still remembering his kingship. Aabee’s hair now sported premature gray, and perhaps he bore a few extra wrinkles on his midnight face, souvenirs from his time with the Lost Ones.”
I reach around Perry and massage his cock with my free hand, pressing harder against him with my lower stomach. I wrap my free arm around his chest and pull us together, holding his back to my chest, my chin on his shoulder, my goatee tracing small circles.
He moans and after its whispery conclusion says, “I dunno if I can handle more, Vin. Last night was pretty intense.”