30. Gerard
Gerard
The stage was almost set.
The final candle was lit. Music was on. A box of condoms specially ordered from Jeanie at her store after he’d struck out at the pharmacy sat open on the bedside table.
Three days later, they’d finished the song.
Emory worked like a dog to get it done. Gerard knew the incentive of sex was strong, but he hadn’t anticipated how strong.
Emory wore blinders to the world, his sole purpose in life distilled into writing the catchiest song about science there ever was.
Granted, he didn’t have much competition, but Gerard had high standards.
Earlier, Gerard had cleared a space, dimmed the lights, and made Emory perform the song for him. “Do I have to?” Emory had whined with Pascal slung around his torso.
“We’re not done until you do,” Gerard said.
Even though Emory’s singing was pitchy and his performance lacked any kind of bravado, the song itself had legs. Long legs that could strut down the runways of your mind and leave a lasting impression, like some of the couture pieces Gerard had seen at New York Fashion Week.
With models on the mind, Gerard tried to conjure an image of the man he was about to have sex with.
From their make outs, he had a sense of Emory’s height (tall), his body type (lean), and the length and feel of his hair (long and silky).
Except for ice-blue eyes and porcelain skin, the details were left up to Gerard’s imagination.
Did Emory have freckles on his nose? A birthmark on his hip? Were his eyelashes long and fair or short and dark?
While it remained true that he didn’t quite care what Emory looked like, especially since he’d spent a long time in such an image-obsessed industry, he couldn’t entirely quiet his curiosity.
When the bathroom door rasped open, Emory’s shape appeared backlit and surrounded by the residual shower steam crowding out the door.
The air was perfumed with the scents of eucalyptus and mint.
Despite not seeing Emory’s naked form, his known nakedness was enough to make Gerard’s dick jump to attention.
“Where do you want me?” Emory asked, which made Gerard laugh.
Glancing around, it almost looked like they were about to film a music video. An X-rated music video. All they needed were red silk sheets and some blaring saxophone. In wanting to make Emory comfortable, he’d perhaps overestimated his powers of set dressing. “I did too much,” Gerard said.
“It looks nice,” Emory said in a breathy voice Gerard had not heard from him before.
In the dim light, Gerard paid special attention to the creaks of the floorboards to track Emory’s barefooted steps on his way to the bed. “I assume we’ll start here?” Emory asked before sitting down.
Gerard bit back another laugh. The last thing he needed was to poke a pin in Emory’s resolve. They both wanted this, and even though he worried he’d somehow ruin Emory’s first time, he wasn’t going to back out now. Importance clung to Emory’s freshly washed skin.
Perched on the edge of the bed, their knees lightly brushing, Gerard said, “If something doesn’t feel good, tell me. If you want to stop, say so. We’ll stop. There won’t be any questions. If we go too far or anything feels too much, you should—”
“Tell you,” Emory interrupted. “I got it. I don’t have any qualms about making my dislikes known.”
“That’s for sure.” Gerard snorted, leaning in to nudge Emory’s shoulder in a companionable gesture that didn’t land. It didn’t matter, though, because Emory twisted toward him and kissed him, taking charge for a change. Their mouths merged in the flame-painted darkness of the apartment.
An unexpected first-time feeling swanned through Gerard as his heart pounded faster.
While it was far from Gerard’s first sexual experience and not even close to their first kiss, it was their first kiss like this, loaded with the weight of more to come.
But it wasn’t a burdensome weight tugging them down.
The pair seemed to levitate, even as they fell back onto the springy mattress.
Hesitation got stripped away, along with Gerard’s clothes.
The radiator on full blast plus the candles and the residual shower steam made the room a hotbox.
Gerard’s skin slicked even after his layers were gone, especially because Emory’s unseen body was a stovetop set to high.
Whether it was exertion, nerves, proximity, or a combination of all three, Gerard resisted the urge to recoil when all he wanted to do was get closer.
Sex had never come this simply or naturally for him.
Banished were thoughts of paperwork and sin and soon-to-be-married ex-boyfriends; instead, he relished the slide of their bodies over one another until the urge to taste Emory overwhelmed him.
Finding Emory’s cock was easy, but guiding it to his lips was an entirely different story.
Emory grunted an apology, clearly sensing Gerard’s frustration. With a gentle glide of his fingers along his thighs, he reassured Emory before pulling a condom packet from the tipped-over box on the nightstand.
“Put this on,” Gerard instructed, voice gravelly with lust.
“For a blow job? I’m STI-free. I’ve never been with anyone, and I’ve been tested.”
“If I’m going to suck it, I want to be able to see it,” he said, attempting to make this sound as un-administrative as possible.
Emory inexpertly rolled on the condom, but once he was situated, the view was not as either of them expected. “Um, my dick looks radioactive…”
Covering his mouth, Gerard cackled into his palm. Emory wasn’t wrong. The lime green of the condom made Emory’s impressive erection look like it had been dipped in a vat of acid in a comic book. “I wasn’t thinking about color choices. Let’s try another.”
“Blue?” Emory balked at the next one plucked from the pack. “I don’t want to look like I have frostbite.”
“All we have left is purple or pink. Pick your poison,” Gerard said.
“Pink. At least that’s natural.”
He wanted to joke that nothing about this was natural.
Nothing about having to put a colored condom on your partner just to see his dick was natural.
But he stopped himself from causing any further interruption.
Using his spit, he slicked Emory back to full mast, and together they tugged the condom into place.
“There,” Gerard said, eyeing the prize he’d been drooling over, the impression of which he’d admired in countless pairs of pants. “That’s much better.”
With his soft palate raised like he was about to hit a high note, Gerard took Emory into his mouth with ease. All those vocal lessons weren’t just about sounding good onstage; they had the unintended benefit of making him a superstar at oral sex, too. Emory moaned for him.
It took Gerard a moment to accustom himself to the rubbery taste of the thin latex, and even longer to put his finger on what else he was tasting as he bobbed.
“Strawberry?” he mused aloud, coming up for air after a few seconds.
“What?” Emory asked, concern cranking through heavy breath. Gerard liked the way the scientist sounded uninhibited. His mouth must be powerful to break through Emory’s bookish, buttoned-up shield.
Gerard ran his tongue up the underside of Emory’s length again. “Yup. The condom is strawberry flavored.”
Emory finally let out his own laugh, though he sounded a bit regretful after he did. “You didn’t read the box?”
“I had to special order these from Jeanie. I was embarrassed enough as it was. I didn’t take the time to scrutinize the packaging after she gave me them in a discreet paper bag,” Gerard said, still puzzling through the flavor in his mouth.
“But it’s not exactly strawberry. It’s almost like the strawberry of a candy I used to have all the time, but I can’t put my finger on it. Damn, this is going to bother me.”
“Well, I can’t suck my own dick to help you figure it out so…” Emory said.
Another pink condom in the shiny pile caught the candlelight on the nightstand. “I could put one on, too. If that’s something you’d like to try.”
The bed squealed as Emory sat up. “I would definitely like to try.”