-- Living in Zach's childhood home, he tells me an exciting story from his past and brings it to life for the both of us --
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There are moments in life that feel already written, like taken from a story written before your time, but you get the fortune of living them. I can't help but feel like right now is one of those moments. Nothing special is happening--it's the opposite actually--it's the most mundane Saturday morning it could possibly be. I'm standing in our kitchen having just mixed some waffle batter and I look out of the windows into the back yard. Zach has neatly raked up several piles of leaves. He's going around one by one and putting them in the trash. If it was a little warmer he'd have his shirt off and this would feel even more staged. I smile at my own joke.
This morning we woke up early to move some furniture and hang some things on the wall; this became a normal part of our weekends, though we've accomplished most of our to-do list for the morning already. It's been almost a month since we moved into the house. It was his childhood home, only for a few years. His dad moved abroad for work and they rented it out for about 15 years. Zack started college in the US before his family moved abroad, but he returned back to the US after college and moved around a bit before returning to Chicago where we met at a wedding of all places. It was one of those mid-20s weddings neither of us wanted to be at but attended out of pure obligation. We commiserated for a short while until we both realized how much fun we were having together. We walked around the city and talked, something I normally wouldn't do in the middle of the night, but it felt okay with him. We said our goodbyes at sunrise and then were back together again by dinner.
His parents didn't give us the house, but it mostly paid for itself over the years and the plan was to sell it to us for far under the value. It's kind of perfect for us too. It's just close enough to the city to take a quick train in whenever we want, but far enough away to have a nice yard and some peace. Peace is something I didn't value for a lot of years but now I'm standing here, my whisk resting in a bowl of batter and I'm watching Zach with the last pile of leaves.
At the wedding I made a joke about wedding hookups and he told me it wasn't his thing. I wasn't implying we'd spend the night together but he talked to me about how dumb weddings were and went into companionship and trust and knowing people rather that marrying them. His philosophies were floating around in some ether and I didn't hate it. He wasn't against marriages because he wanted to go against something...he was against them because he believed in a connection that wasn't held together by anything else. He caught my attention in a way people don't usually do. He went on a rant about physical connection being the forefront of so many relationships and how worn out he was from the whole game of dating. I remember the look of embarrassment when he realized how he'd been going on-and-on about marriage and sex and dating while I just sat listening. He apologized and attempted to change the subject, but I was intrigued by his whole...thing. He was just honest.
I slip the batter into the fridge to rest and he enters the house. The smell of cool autumn mornings precedes his entrance into the kitchen. He hangs his jacket up in the hallway and holds his left arm out. I notice a cut along his forearm. It's not bad, but is goes across several of his tattoos and is bright red.
"The rake attacked; we have to put it down."
It's corny and I hate him for it. He smiles and rinses it off in the sink next to me. He dries his hands off and pulls me in and we hug. He smells like fall, like leaves, and he smells like Zach.
I came to understand his ideas of love and sex more as we spent more and more time together. He wanted things to be slow, but intimate. Hushed, but strong. There were several weeks where I questioned whether we would ever have sex, which wouldn't normally have bothered me shortly after meeting someone except for the fact that I found him extremely attractive. His glasses were a thin, round frame, his hair short and simple. He wore all of these oversized sweaters and I've still never got used to seeing him take them off. He just had a body worth looking at. He was fit, enough to show he worked out, but would never say know to splitting a delicious dessert.
He pulls me closer and his cold hands slip up my shirt onto the small of my back. I inhale a sharp breath and give into his embrace fully. His hands slide up my back and he's kissing my face gently. I slowly let the breath out and his hands keep moving around slowly. I feel chills, unsure if it's from the cold tips of his fingers or just the way he was touching me. He kisses my forehead and my cheek and my neck. He pulls my shirt up and I raise my hands before he pulls it all of the way off. His hands find my hips, his lips my collar bone.
The more time we spent together the more intimate we became. It was an emotional bond like no other relationship I had before, and it was good. It wasn't obsessive or needy; he just cared about me and I him. When we did have sex it was intentional. It was like everything else stopped and I guess just knowing how important it was to both of us in that moment made it so much more.
He kisses the center of my chest, my left hip, my stomach... I'm in a daze. This wasn't really expected moments after yard work, before breakfast... He stands up and kisses my lips again smiling this time.
"God damn, today is a great day,"
he whispers as our faces still touch.
"I'm going to take a very quick shower.
He turns to go upstairs and I haven't said a single thing. I take a seconds to catch my breath. I'm half hard, very aroused and this man I love dearly didn't even invite me into the shower. I laugh a little and clean up the mess I started knowing it will just continue to grow once we actually cook breakfast.
I head upstairs and he's already rinsed off, a towel around his waist and he's grabbing some clothes. I stand in the doorway to our bedroom and he's slipping on a tank top. I wonder to myself if he's that warm from doing the yard work or if he's doing it because he knows I find it very attractive to see his arms exposed in a sleeveless shirt.
He slips on a pair of cotton boxer briefs and tosses the towel over his shoulder. He comes over and grabs my hand and pulls me behind him. We enter our spare room. It's not much of a room yet. It's our last priority in the house and there's not much other than a bed and a freestanding wood wardrobe I had in my small loft. He sits on the bed and pats the comforter next to him. I sit down, still shirtless just in some soft grey boxer shorts.
He talks in a hushed tone:
"So this was my room until I was about through my first year of college--until I transferred to go with my parents to Berlin. But memories keep popping into my head about the time my family lived here. Earlier I was reminded about an experience I had about 8 months before we moved. It happened right here in my old room."
He stands up and reaches his hand out. I take it and he lifts me up. He walks around the bed and slides it on the hardwood floors slowly. He rotates the bed and pushes it against a wall.
"It was around this time of year--fall break my first semester of college. This is where my bed was back then."
We sit on the edge again together.
"I have a very distinct memory. I had settled in to my old room after a long week of mid-terms and writing papers. I was watching watching some porn on my phone that afternoon and it peaked my interest on something I'd considered for a while. My parents were both gone overnight for wedding in the city and I had the house to myself."
I smile at him realizing where this story might be going...
"I wanted to know what it felt like to be...filled up..."
He pulled the damp towel from his shoulder and laid it flat on the bed.
"I laid a towel out just like this."
He guides me to it and lays me down. He crawls above me gently kisses my stomach, grabs the band of my underwear and gently pulls it down. I'm still a bit hard from out kitchen interaction and there's a small amount of precum resting on my tip. He smiles down at me as I lay their naked. I've been more active and taking good care of myself lately and I feel sexy underneath him, my stomach toned, my chest a little defined...
He opens the nightstand drawer and closes it. He's holding a jar of coconut oil.
"This is what I grabbed from the kitchen that morning."
