Sunday
Sunday
D espite the fresh air, Lewis quickly fell into a rote of a cozy lull as he returned to his room. The bed no longer harbored the ghost of his body heat, but no matter, he would rekindle it soon. Huk reappeared through the window, slowly gliding over the sill onto the threadbare carpet. Lewis removed his clothes, leaving only his briefs, before climbing into bed again.
It was merely eight a.m. and he intended to capitalize upon his short vacation from responsibility by exerting as little of himself as he could and returning to the embrace of linen. Huk crept beside him, nestling its jaw over his shoulder. A comfortable silence cushioned them.
Lying in dry sheets of white, a dark wet creature beside him, Lewis blinked at the ceiling. The rain continued outside, casting a gray light over the room that the man declined to usher away with a switch of a lamp. In this twilight he felt safe, hidden away from the responsibilities drawing nearer with each passing minute. He exhaled.
“I remember when I’d play games with my brother and cousins. They would screen-cheat, come up from behind and shoot me in the head or knife me.”
Huk lifted its head in alarm.
“Oh, um, it’s a video game. A simulation. Fantasy.”
“Ah.” The creature rested again.
“When they kept persisting, I just threw the controller down and quit. I got up and left. I left to do other things, like help my uncles barbecue or shuck chestnuts with my aunts.” Lewis flexed his hands, gripping and releasing the sheets. “But I’m stuck here. There’s nowhere for me to go.”
Huk cocked its head.
“People say life’s unfair … well, sometimes I don’t want to play this game anymore. I want to quit … and just stop …”
Lewis chewed his lip. He didn’t know why he was baring himself to the creature like this, but after what transpired on the river, he wanted to offer something in return.
“I languished in these waters for so long, my existence in a limbo.” Huk’s snout skimmed the pillow, its lips cresting Lewis’ skin. “I wonder if I was withholding my own happiness by refusing to escape the furrow I carved.”
Lewis’ gaze flicked over the unknowable contours of the creature’s head. Shaped by centuries of mystery, its power, its grief, culminated to this point. The man could not fathom what Huk had endured all this time or what awaited ahead for it. Lewis extended his hand, shifting against the starched bedding, to alight on Huk’s skin. The smoothness of river-tumbled stones and the soft yet rough fuzz of driftwood exuded a quiet heat. Lewis pressed tighter as though grasping for a memory.
“I’ve amounted to nothing. I’ve never amounted to anything. Went to community college, transferred to a state school, and then I can’t even get a dead-end job! I’m separated from my wife and—I’m a failure of a son.”
“And I failed as a protector—as a guardian,” said Huk. It trailed its claws along Lewis’ cheek. “But—I suppose—even at our lowest, we’ve mattered.”
Lewis locked eyes with gold.
“If even for a brief few minutes, we’ve made fond impressions upon people we may not even be aware of.”
Lewis thought of all the passing kindnesses bestowed upon him by strangers in the past. The young man with cornrows who helped gather his spilled groceries when he swore himself to one trip lugging the bags from his car to his second-story apartment. The silver-haired hostess who chatted with him when he was stood up by a date at a restaurant. These people and others did not intentionally act to recall their deeds fondly in hindsight. They simply acted in the moment because they were moved to do so.
He had made silly faces at a fussing baby in a checkout line to calm them in the arms of their stressed mother. He had held the door open for a train of elders exiting a casino. He had stopped a man from leaving his phone on a table at a cafe. But Lewis was sure these things and more would have sorted themselves out without him. The care of his father, too. His parents could easily afford a nurse without stressing their retirement funds. They weren’t desperate for him. Lewis’ aid wasn’t needed. He wasn’t ever needed, he thought.
“How do you know?” Lewis asked.
“You’ve made your impression on me,” Huk answered. “You matter.”
Lewis’ eyes pinched.
“Without you, I may have lingered in the river for another century.”
“Huk …” The man inclined his head, his brow grazing the creature’s snout.
“It’s true.”
Silence nestled over them, the draw of their breaths tethering them together with a weak heat.
Lewis’ throat flexed. “Sometimes I look back and think if I had made different choices, my life would have turned out better. I could be successful … be happy …”
“I wonder the same … all the time.” The creature exhaled. “But there is tomorrow.”
Tomorrow. Lewis would have to check out of the hotel tomorrow. He would return home, take care of his dad, and type more articles at the demand of a narcissist while patrolling the internet for new opportunities. He sighed.
“If I could stretch out today forever, I’d rather not see tomorrow.”
Huk rattled a low hum and nuzzled its snout into Lewis’ chest.
In the warm silence, Lewis’ breathing eased. The subtle heat of Huk’s body inched closer beneath the covers. It soon draped over his chest and multiplied over his waist and legs. Weighed down by the essence of pebbles and driftwood, Lewis briefly imagined himself the guinea pig of some New Age massage. Then Huk’s heat seeped into him and slumber snatched them.
The clouds had parted, bowing to the noon sun when the two roused again. They awoke entwined, Lewis at the center of Huk’s coiling body. With every breath, Huk gently squeezed against the man. They soon synchronized in a slow beat. Tender flesh against stone scale and wooden plate, they struck a rhythm that built until they inhaled with need.
Though Huk’s shoulder locked Lewis’ head to its gaze, the man found the slit from the night before. He slipped in two fingers, rubbing the slick heat. A low groan issued from Huk’s throat, vibrating through Lewis’ neck. He exhaled and added another finger.
Further down, his hips slowly circled the resistance there. Lewis was unsure if it was Huk’s thigh or tail, but Huk returned his motions in kind. Hissing breaths fluttered past the man’s hair. He was now four fingers in. Inside the hidden sanctuary, they played with the nub that he had grazed over. It rose and fell with Huk’s shallow breaths, surging as the creature bucked against him. Even the starched duvet could not contain the squelching.
Aching now, Lewis stretched his free arm down to tug away his boxer briefs. Huk allowed him space to maneuver, just enough, loath to separate from the man. In their white linen cocoon, the pair transformed from two into one. Bound by the boxers around his knees and the heavy weight of Huk, Lewis flexed his hips into the slit. As though swimming in singular fluid movements, he dove deep into Huk.
Huk received him with greedy swells, pushing to meet his surges. Its nub kissed the tip of Lewis’ cock inside the wet chamber as their skin fought to join each other outside. Lewis’ hands caressed Huk’s jaws while his lips found a blunt plane to kiss. Huk slid out its black tongue, the slippery length lapping over the man’s chin and fingers. Lewis met it with his own.
The thin tapered muscle flicked into Lewis’ mouth, rounding past his teeth and gums. The man’s short tongue struggled to reach and effect any comparable feeling for Huk. His trial was cut short when Huk drew back.
“Not enough,” the creature breathed. “Never enough.”
Huk’s body tightened around Lewis’ frame. A moment of panic interrupted the man’s rhythm as he found himself lifted from the bed. Huk thrust itself upward, whipping the covers away. Freed from their cocoon, they were now a writhing union of dark coils and ungainly limbs.
Huk latched onto Lewis’ waist, its paws clenching the man’s rear, claws pinching the skin. Its arms locked him into place as the creature began to thrash. Lewis wrapped his entire body around Huk to weather the greedy bucking. Huk did his work for him and the man repaid it with a tight grip, refusing any space between them despite the violent upheaval.
Lewis crunched forward and groaned. Buried as deep as his body would allow, his cock chased the hot slick of the short length inside. The walls inside the slit tightened around his shaft, bringing forth the contact he sought. The nub swirled around his head as they drooled into each other.
“Fuck.” The man ground his hips, smothering himself against the pressure.
In one long inhale, Huk drew itself up the bed, straightening like a rod. Its taught body an exclamation. The creature swallowed the man, and he released. Lewis pumped into the sleeve, Huk’s nub echoing each pulse. Erratic pops of pleasure drew out their bliss as their flesh slid and rubbed together, churning their wet.
Lewis buried his face against Huk’s firm presence. The creature folded its snout over his shoulder as it lowered them back to the sheets. Its breath flowed across the man’s back, warming it from the chill of the open air. With the euphoria ebbing away, Lewis closed his eyes. Huk milked the final pulses, body roiling in soft waves. Lulled, the man’s breathing eased and he thought of the river.
He whispered, “Wh-what are you?”
“I … was a dragon.”
Lewis was amused that he was not more surprised. In a way, it made sense. A creature that could cross oceans for his ancestral countryman, summon floods, and live for so long, it had to be nothing short of a dragon.
Still connected, Huk coiled around Lewis. It picked up the rumpled duvet and spread it over them. It nuzzled into the crook of Lewis’ neck, inhaling their combined scent spread over the pillows. The man gently stroked down the sides of Huk’s body, skimming over the fur-like feathers pinned with reeds, feeling the pleasant round smoothness of the scales, rubbing the grit of the wooden plates. Huk’s eyes glowed steadily, undisturbed candle flames.
“I never want to leave this bed.”
Huk sighed. “Yet you must.” Its gaze drifted away. “We both must.”
Lewis felt his stomach. “I’ll get up to pee and go grab some food really quick. But I’m coming back.” He nosed Huk’s snout. “You better be here when I return.”
Huk’s eyes glimmered, but it said nothing save for a low hum.
And so, promises were kept. Lewis cleaned himself and left the hotel for a late lunch. He returned with takeout from the Chinese restaurant. Huk was there on the bed, coiled politely with its arm, legs, and tail tucked to give space to their meal. They shared beef chow fun and stir-fried fish served with sugar snap peas.
The hours slipped past them on their little box spring island. They maintained their clutch on the white sheets, reluctant to cede any part of the day to tomorrow.
“Thank you,” said Huk. Its gaze drifted to the deepening cobalt gloom beyond the window. “For these past days.”
Lewis folded his hands over his knees. “They were nice. And I thank you . I probably don’t hold a candle to Fei …”
“You are your own. The peace I’ve felt since meeting you has been immeasurable.” Huk arched its neck to nudge the man’s cheek with the blunt of its snout. “Lewis …”
The man hummed with a small smile. He reached for Huk’s claws. Its pads pressed into the back of his hand.
Little was said as the two reclined for the night. They fought to remain awake, gazing at each other before slumber stole the time they had together.