There are other people in the store, but it feels like it’s just us.
“Thank you, Elias,” he rasps in a low voice that makes my eyelashes flutter. Does he notice? Does he know what I’m half imagining right now?
His hand reaches down. I take it, reveling in his strong, warm grip as he pulls me up. We’re standing close now. I’m pretty average height, but he’s tall, so I’m still looking up.
“I’ll see you later.” It’s a normal phrase, but the way he says it, softly, like it’s just for me, makes it feel like it means more than goodbye.
Of course, that’s just another fantasy.
***
At nine, when Emmy has long since gone home and I’m running the register, Saul closes the deli. He comes to the register with a six-pack of cheap beer, interrupting my creative reimagining of the shoe incident.
“How old are you?” Saul asks as I ring him up.
“Uh, 23.”
He hands me his card to run. “Huh. I thought you were younger.”
“Oh. Nope.”
I’ve heard that before, and I know what it really means: you seem shy and inexperienced. Is that why Saul has never really talked to me? Why is he talking to me now? I’ve worked here for almost a year.
“You’re good help,” Saul tells me as he snags his six-pack from the counter. “Last kid was shit.”
“Oh. Thanks.”
“Maybe tomorrow you’ll smoke with me.”
“Oh. Hm. Maybe.”
Saul’s eyes flick to mine like he’s checking for something, but I have no idea what.
“See ya tomorrow,” he says and heads for the door.
“Yeah. See ya.”
My mind quickly returns to my fantasy, where the hand that reaches down for me grips not my hand but my jaw. He pulls me forward to where his cock juts, stiff and huge, from the open front of his suit pants.
He rumbles in satisfaction when I take him in my mouth.
Good boy, he tells me as he grips the back of my head and starts fucking my mouth.What a good, good boy.
I know that when I’m home in bed, alone in the dark, this fantasy will twist up with others and with what happened last night. I know that he’ll fuck me in my mind, that it’ll be rough and a little cruel. I know I’ll come. I also know that it will be a mere shadow of what I felt last night.
I know I’ll end up lonely and cold and empty. But that doesn’t mean I can stop the fantasy. Or that I even want to.
ELEVEN
Andre
Saul keeps looking over his shoulder. He doesn’t see me, but my hard-soled shoes strike the pavement loudly enough that he knows someone is following him. When I stalk Elias, I dress for it, but I like that Saul can hear me. He’s worried about it, and he should be.
Elias is mine.
Saul doesn’t get to suddenly notice him now that I’ve cracked him open.
I don’t think Saul is even gay. He’s just middle aged and lonely and has suddenly realized that someone beautiful and vulnerable and very sexual is in his orbit.
