CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
JAMES HADN’T SLEPT IN ELLIOTT’S dormitory in the months they were apart.
Elliott climbed into bed beside him, and since James was no longer an AEscwulf student, all of the textbooks and papers belonged to Elliott.
James was grateful to be done with the College.
He enrolled in Tiberian College in Mount Arcturus, Montana.
In the autumn, he would study political science instead of philosophy.
James ruminated in silence. He had to appease a woman that devised his near destruction. He had to contrive his own humiliation ritual.
Concurrently, Céline Montclair scavenged the campus for Elliott’s blood. She demanded entry into Winterthur Hall. She blasted him across every media platform in every language she knew and in every country she had citizenship in. Therefore, Elliott missed his first week of summer courses.
He didn’t leave his dorm. He couldn’t bring that magnitude of attention to Kitty.
He was sequestered inside of Winterthur Hall for the moment.
Elliott laid beside him, still rambling about how he couldn’t wait to see Kitty. “When it’s safe, I want to sail her away for a while. There are sailboats for rent on the sound. She can read my letters I couldn’t send–”
“Elliott, I’m going to propose something strange to you.”
James hated himself for how rapidly his heart was beating in his chest as Elliott turned to him.
His gaze almost made James change his mind.
The window was parted to let in the sultry air of twilight.
The dying sun fell in Elliott’s lighter eye.
Which made his darker eye seem even darker in concern.
“Is everything alright?”
James only had a week before he flew to convention centers and rally arenas to shake hands with dozens of strangers who suddenly knew his name. Who knew more of him than he’d ever know of them.
He had bow to a vile creature in September afterward.
“There’s something that’s transpired and it’s been on my mind…”
“What’s wrong?” Elliott nipped the end of his tie in his mouth.
“I have an apology to give in a particular way and it might work.” James explained his plan for solatium. He would shear his head in contrition before the college congregation. He would offer a quarter of a hecatomb to be sacrificed. He would then tear his robes and plead forgiveness as a protégé.
He memorized an entire play for her.
He only needed someone else to cut open his palm for a blood oath to never offend again. Only Elliott would satisfy her.
Then, afterward, she would lose her vengeful interest with Elliott. Elliott would be spared. James would be free of her. It was simple.
“That’s not strange.” Elliott listened to all of it. He’d witnessed worse at the hibernal ceremonies of the past. At least no one else was dead. That’s all that mattered. “I’ll help you with it.”
“Thank you, Elliott.”
“I owe you everything, that’s nothing.” Even in the sweltering summer, Elliott’s sartorial attire was still expected to be formal wear. He spoke around the end of his black tie in between his teeth. “I’ve thought about what you said.”
“What was it I said?”
“That you would protect my soul.”
“I meant every word.” Anima tua anima est mea.
“I want to protect your soul. That is the least I can do for one of my favorite people in the world. Semper una.” Elliott felt lighter in his heart than he had in months.
“I don’t care anymore if people think my fervor for you is unnatural or strange to them.
It only matters that it isn’t unnatural or strange to you to love another man wholeheartedly. ”
“Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto[13]. To love is natural, Elliott,” James responded beside him. “‘I’m human; I think nothing human alien to me.’ I think nothing unnatural to me with you.”
Elliott almost mentioned that he was interested in what might happen at the banquets, but he thought better than to tell James that. Instead, he accidentally fumbled his Walkman, and when he leaned over James to retrieve it, their lips brushed.
Elliott had accidentally kissed him. He stammered an apology, expecting James to laugh. Except, he realized his words before the accidental kiss had sounded romantic. Before he knew it, James pressed his mouth against his.
Then James froze, realizing Elliott hadn’t moved.
“Was that a mistake?”
Elliott gazed at the ceiling, where he had pinpricks of stars. He flushed. “Yeah, it was a mistake. I tried to speak of philia–love between friends. It’s something I learned in lecture. I only–I never meant–I tried to pick up the Walkman–sorry about that.”
James understood what he meant. “We can forget it ever happened.”
“Is that what you want?”
James nodded.
“Alright then.” Elliott smiled at him. “If you ever want to kiss me and forget about it afterward, you always can.”
“I want to take my mind off of everything.”
If James could shut his mind down for even a minute, he would. AEscwulf College was quiet and quaint in the summer, he focused on the gentle flora–summersweets, silverberries, water willows, and buttonbushes–anything but the chaos increasing in his mind.
From Aphrodite, erotic madness. Amatory obsession, pursuits of pleasure, sensual rapture. James thought of the tranquil, serene, sensual liberties that AEscwulf College permitted in the summer. Where one was free to pursue all the revelry they desired.
Elliott’s words arose in the drowsy, soft sunlight.
“It doesn’t need to mean anything.” Elliott still thought of him as a friend. Elliott never thought of kissing as strictly romantic. Therefore, he never minded it with anyone.
James guided their mouths back together. He missed the taste of him already. He hadn’t even thought of Elliott in a romantic way before.
Elliott returned his kiss with passion, his fingers slightly quivering.
James smirked against his mouth, teasing him a bit. “I didn’t give you a reason to be shaking. It was one kiss.”
Three.
“I’ve never kissed a man before.” It occurred to Elliott that he might be terrible with men. He nervously trembled with unpracticed hands.
His words didn’t make any sense, yet James understood him.
James had never kissed a man either. He hadn’t even thought about kissing Elliott on the mouth before, it was something he did in the moment.
On that afternoon in early June, James had wanted to clear his mind from everything ahead of him. That’s all that mattered.
He wanted to end his ceaseless thoughts on the pressures expected of him.
The mattress groaned beneath their weight.
James moved on top of him. James needed another kiss, then another, asking between the exhales.
He didn’t even want to remember his own name.
James’s brain chemicals made him clumsy, shutting the window with one hand and removing the sheets in his way with his other.
James clasped Elliott’s belt.
“Do you want me to stop?” James needed to be sure Elliott wanted him. They had only mentioned a kiss before. He didn’t want to take advantage of what Elliott might not want with him.
In response, Elliott unknotted James’s tie. James unbuttoned himself, careful not to make the mattress creak, they couldn’t be loud. There were students bashing piano keys, singing loudly along to Billy Joel at the top of their lungs, right across the hallway in the Common Room.
None of them knew James was unzipping Elliott. None of them could hear him panting in Elliott’s ear as Elliott unzipped him in return, their hands roaming in tandem. Searching. Wanting.
His intense breathing hitched as Elliott found him first.
Elliott kissed affectionately down the hollow of James’s throat as James’s mind tried to process the sensation for the first time from a man.
Did he like it? Was it similar to how it felt from a woman?
James would’ve left him bruised and satisfied, trailing love bite marks where he went, if Elliott had been a woman.
What should he do with another man? What did men like?
James realized then how roughly he wanted to take him, but Elliott kissed him like he adored him.
It was how Elliott kissed everyone.
James realized his mistake. James had never made love before.
He liked women that were commanding, scratching, clawing, as dominant as him.
Women that he broke the bed with. He liked heavy-set women who weren’t shy of themselves, frisky, and vixenish on top of him.
He liked lithe women with siren eyes and erotic flexibility. Hard sex was his preference.
James would’ve felt barbaric and brutal, if he ravaged him the way his body urged him to take Elliott.
On the other hand, Elliott clearly only ever made love. He preferred love that was gentle, reassuring, and emotionally bonded. He didn’t know how else to love someone.
James was thankful that this was their first and last time together. He didn’t want to alter Elliott as a person, if that’s what he liked.
James wasn’t the kind of man to murmur his feelings in bed. He didn’t want to tell Elliott he loved him or that any of this mattered.
He needed to hear that Elliott was fine if he was rougher with him.
As soon as he heard it, James guided Elliott’s head towards his pulsing, throbbing need. If only to keep him from murmuring sweet words to him.
When Elliott’s warm tongue ran over the slit of his tip, his erection twinged, and James almost came inside of his mouth. He clutched Elliott’s shirt and hair, restraining himself. Then he loosened his grip, cautious not to hurt him.
It perplexed him. It was the first time James Wilde was out of his element. He didn’t know how to handle Elliott.
Elliott was soft-hearted. He was more compassionate. How could they work out a way that satisfied both of them?
Elliott took him further in his mouth, and James resisted the impulse to thrust himself in deeper. His heavy exhalations picked up a breathy pace as Elliott sank in more of him. Elliott choked on the length of him. He coughed, and they laughed together. The tension eased.
It was both of their first time being with men. James was lengthier than he expected, with more girth, and neither of them were skilled as they fumbled around. That made it easier to experience each other.
Their fumbling, stumbling, and clumsy exploration was more rapturous than anything they’d felt in recent memory.
Before James could savor the euphoric ecstasy, he felt himself release between Elliott’s lips. He hadn’t meant to, but Elliott swallowed all the same. Elliott smiled afterward.
James’s mind was hazy, lost with him. He laid Elliott down on the mattress.
He wanted to taste Elliott’s ambrosia as Elliott had tasted him. “Are you alright?”
Elliott nodded, his eyelid hovering slightly as James touched the hem of his briefs.
“Are you sure you want this with me?” James panted, feeling the aftershocks of pleasure still coursing through his blood.
He forced himself to concentrate. There were times Elliott did what someone else wanted him to do, if only it meant they would stay with him.
James had crossed a thousand lines between them. He refused to take advantage of him.
“I want to.” Elliott was bathed in the late, sunlit air. He’d been in a windowless garage for months in rural Arkansas. “I really want to, James.”
James placed a knee between Elliott’s sprawled legs, parting them wider.
He had never been attentive to his partner before, but he knew how to imitate.
It was his finest skill. James ran his hand down the downy hairs of Elliott’s abdomen, the knuckles of his hand lightly crossing over his crotch, the way Elliott had done for him. Elliott’s lips slowly parted.
James’s hand disappeared beneath his briefs, and Elliott’s cock twitched towards him, eager to be touched. Stroked.
James took hold of Elliott’s half-erection, assessing his expression, feeling the tender blush spread against his skin. Elliott wasn’t lengthy, but even his cock was beautiful.
He felt beautiful. James felt as though he was stroking silk, the petal-soft of Elliott’s member hardening from shaft to tip, standing at attention for more, yet still impossibly delicate. James removed his briefs to free the length of him.
Elliott gathered the sheets into knots as James pleasured him. Soon, James began to stroke him furiously, urgently, matching his need, and already, his breath was quickening.
“I haven’t had sex in six months.” Elliott’s ears reddened. “I might come fast…”
“Come for me.” James whispered, “I want to taste you.”
Elliott’s features contorted in need. An irrational, wild jealousy flashed within James that anyone else had seen him vulnerable in bliss. An expression James had never witnessed from him before. Ecstasy looked breathtaking on Elliott. James savored it.
He didn’t realize how short the moment would be.
When he realized how close Elliott was, Elliott buried his face in James’s shoulder, and James held him still as Elliott arched for him, the most intimate embrace he’d ever given someone.
James settled his weight over him, trying to suppress the creaks of the mattress.
Anyone could overhear Elliott’s breathless moans.
Tiny gasps came out of Elliott. “Please.”
“Please?” James teased, pretending to not know what he meant. What he wanted. Minutes before, Elliott had lathered him with murmurs of care and comfort, and James attempted mimicry, but his playful nature bled into him. “Use your words Elliott.”
“Could–you please–I’m going to come–”
“I can’t understand you when you’re gasping for air and moaning.” James bit his ear in a gentle nip. James was dangerously aroused. His heated breath against his eardrum made Elliott convulse in shudders. “I can’t tell if you’re speaking to me directly. I don’t hear my name.”
All at once, all Elliott knew anymore was his name. Elliott breathed, “James….James….James…”
“At your service.” James smiled. Elliott had only managed to say more of his name, but James knew what he wanted. James ran his tongue over the length of Elliott’s shaft. He quirked his mouth wider.
James wanted to please him more before he drank his nectar. Except, as soon as he took Elliott’s tip in his mouth, he felt something hot, enchanting, hit the back of his throat.
It was then that he realized he made a mistake. The adrenalized need wore down.
He gazed in Elliott’s eyes and knew Elliott could return to their friendship. Elliott would be the same. He was good natured that way.
After James tasted his pure nectar, a neuron shot in his brain.
James didn’t want to go back to how they were before.