The Ghost of October

This story is fictional and intended for adults only.

Copyright, Boy Mercury X, 2024.

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I hope you enjoy the story, and I'd love to hear from you.

THE GHOST OF OCTOBER

(For JM, who enjoys ghost stories.)

It was October when Eric left Jason, so it's not surprising that he has troubling dreams at that time of year. That's what his counselor, Steve, says.

But it's not just dreams. He feels Eric's presence. He catches sight of him just at the periphery of his vision, turning corners in the home they shared. But when Jason gets to where he spotted him, there's no one there. There are his possessions though, the things he left behind. They turn up in odd places, moved from where Jason last saw them.

There isn't a prescription for that, is there?

Jason sticks to just the dreams in his counseling sessions. He doesn't need Steve to think he's crazy, even if he's not so sure of his own sanity lately.

In his sightings of Eric, he's as gorgeous as ever. At 5'8" he's compact, naturally athletic, with a strong chest and shoulders, a flat belly and a sexy rounded rear. His short hair is glossy black, his features are even. He's smooth cheeked, boyish looking. His dark eyes are clear, and he grins.

"He's glad to see you - in the dreams? That's something," Steve says.

The thing is Eric always looked happy. Uncomplicated. The least neurotic person Jason has ever known. But these delusions frustrate Jason. In them, Eric is so handsome and luminous. It's like being haunted by a cocktease, Jason jokes. What business does an apparition have leaving him so yearning to touch him?

"Couldn't it at least be a sex dream?" he asks his counselor.

"How is your sex life?" Steve asks.

Jason just looks at him with a raised eyebrow. "Nonexistent. IÉ can't. I don't even jerk off."

"Why are you denying yourself even that?"

Jason shrugs.

He doesn't want to say because he knows how it would sound, but he's saving himself for Eric. If he jerks off it'll desensitize him and he's afraid he'll dream less of Eric, sleeping or waking. And since Eric left, that's all he has of him.

Steve says he's concerned about Jason self-isolating. He lives alone, works from home.

"How are your relationships?" he asks.

Jason says they're great. He has friends. Family.

But the truth is he stopped responding to all of them long ago. He can't remember when he last got together with someone. He means to, always. He'll follow up on the email or phone call, when he can work up the energy.

He's so tired, so listless, all the time. He forgets things. He walks into empty rooms to find the lights on, things moved. But he doesn't tell Steve any of this. It's nothing counseling can help with.

After his session Jason passes through the waiting room Steve shares with two other counselors. He sees a ginger bearded man there, waiting to see his own counselor. They've seen each other there a few times before, often enough to recognize each other.

Once, both sitting near each other waiting for their respective appointments, the ginger bearded man asked, "What are you in for?" As if it were a prison.

"Broken heart," Jason replied. "Life sentence. You?"

"I have this thing where I ask strangers inappropriate questions," he answered, blushing.

He doesn't know the bearded man's name, but he looks about Jason's age, with thinning hair and kind eyes.

They nod to each other and Jason exits.

They met in their early 20s, Jason and Eric, right after college, at a mutual friend's party.

They didn't see each other as boyfriend material, but started hanging out Ñ going to movies, killing time together.

When Eric invited Jason to go foraging for matsutake mushrooms, he said yes out of boredom more than anything else.

He arrived to pick up Jason early, grinning. "Time to go."

They drove out to a mist shrouded mountain about an hour out of the city, and Eric led the way up its steep side. Jason's suede so-called hiking boots seemed wholly inadequate to the task. His feet slid in the damp black soil, and the fallen tree limbs he stepped on collapsed under his weight, appearing solid but desiccated throughout.

Jason liked to know where he stood.

Maybe out of pity Eric suggested a snack break. He handed Jason one of the onigiri he packed for the hike, stuffed triangles of rice in nori wrappers. The ones filled with curry were his mother's special ones.

"Matsutake like to grow in pine needles," Eric said, scanning the hillside. "They smell like pineÉ and likeÉ cinnamon."

His grandfather used to forage for them, he told Jason, bringing a bounty to Eric's mother. But a few years ago he passed, and she'd had none since. He hoped to find some for her. When she'd get them, she'd hold them up to her face to inhale the fragrance. "She's so Japanese," he said.

"I have no sense of smell," Jason told him.

It seemed incredible to everyone he told, so he usually didn't bother. It was easier to pretend. But like blindness or deafness, anosmia was a real thing. He'd never smelled anything in his life.

He prepared for Eric to ask the usual questions: but how do you taste? What if it's something really strong smelling? Can you smell a gas leak?

Instead, Eric just said, "Wild," as if it were just one of the ordinary things you learn when you're just getting to know someone, like their favorite movie or where they went to college.

Jason pointed out a few mushrooms underfoot, yellow sickly-looking things. Eric poked at them with the tip of his knife and said they weren't matsutake. They weren't even edible. Not if you wanted to live.

"I'll keep that in mind," Jason replied.

Matsutake come up out of the earth veiled and moon-white, Eric explained. They're the most precious mushroom among the Japanese. You must always cut them, rather than pulling them out of the soil, so you don't damage the underlying growth.

"The Ghost of October," he said. "That's what my grandfather called them."

He looked around, and seeing nothing worthwhile, folded up his little mushroom knife.

"You want to always keep the blade closed when you're walking," he said. "In case you fall."

"Noted," Jason replied. Good advice, but he wouldn't be foraging again. He looked forward to getting back to the city, to cafes and movies and music and bookstores

Eric turned and headed up the hill.

Jason trudged behind him.

After seeing Steve, Jason tends to his work in the afternoon. He's supposed to be drafting a policy paper. The words once flowed through his fingertips, but now he's adding them one at a time, positioning them and repositioning them, like bricks in a wall he's building as a labor.

They bought the house together, a small craftsman, over a hundred years old. Eric was excited that it was plumbed so he could have a gas range, and a small yard where he could grow tomatoes. Jason liked that it was in the city, close to all the things he liked.

They joked at the time that the second bedroom might one day be a kid's room. But when the responsibility of a dog turned out to be too much it went without saying a kid would be unthinkable. The second bedroom became their dressing room, and after Eric left, Jason's office.

Even still, he refers to the closet in that room as Eric's.

His eyes glaze over and the words on his laptop screen go hazy. In the last few weeks his sleeping hours are spent half awake, and his waking hours half asleep.

He can see Eric standing at the door. "You work too much. You have to get out of here."

He's grinning, in his snug t-shirt and boxers, one leg curled under him, the sole of his foot turned up.

He vanishes and Jason sighs.

It must be time to feed the dog.

Their dog once, his dog now, Sirius is a leggy black standard poodle. Big enough and boyish enough with his curls shorn, chosen due to Jason's allergies.

He wasn't the one who wanted a dog. Oh, he thought he did, for a couple of weeks. They'd come out of a particularly bad patch, which to this day Jason thinks of as the very very bad time. They patched things up and had a nesting phase, which included getting a puppy.

By the time Jason realized the responsibility of a dog wasn't for him, Eric was already in love.

It weighed on him, how to be a good dog owner, how to give Sirius the best canine life.

"He's just a dog," Eric said, at the time. "If you just love him, he's happy."

Eric had a way of making things sound so simple.

Later, when Eric left them, Jason sat on the ground and said to the dog, "It's just us now."

Sirius licked his face, distressed at Jason's tearfulness.

See, Jason, wanted to say to Eric, just loving someone isn't enough to make them happy.

Of course, Eric wasn't there to tell.

But still, if Jason had his way and not kept the dog, he'd be even more alone.

Looking back, it was that day foraging for matsutake that he first began to fall for Eric.

Maybe it was boredom with the actual activity, but he started to notice how fit Eric was. It was unseasonably warm, and the longer they hiked the more layers of clothes came off Ñ first Eric's rain jacket, then his crewneck sweatshirt. By the time he was down to just his t-shirt it was damp in his armpits and back, snug on his chest and biceps,

Jason liked how the muscles in Eric's arms worked under his smooth skin, how his chest swelled, and how when he bent over it exposed the faint cafe au lait birthmark just over the cleft of his ass. He became more intrigued with every step they climbed, and wondered how he hadn't noticed before how attractive his friend was.

It took a year from that day to their first fuck. Timing was never their strong suit.

Not long after the hike, Jason told Eric he had a thing for him. He understated how much of a thing he had, to his own relief, because Eric didn't share his feelings.

Not even a little, Jason wondered. They were gay men, for fuck's sake. How much spark did you need to get off together? And they got along - laughed at the same things, enjoyed time together. Even just being in the same room, doing different things. Sometimes Eric would drop by Jason's place and they'd both just read.

And Jason himself wasn't bad looking. Not a jock the way Eric was, but as an endurance runner he was lean and in good shape. He'd had boyfriends as well as admirers before, even though he never loved any of them. He didn't get why Eric wasn't at least a little into him.

Eric simply said he didn't want to risk their friendship. He didn't want to complicate things.

Over the next 12 months, they each had their own flings and hookups. But the following October, Eric asked Jason out for a drink.

Sitting there together he said he'd been thinking, maybe they should give it a go.

"What's that about?" Jason asked.

Eric shrugged. "I just realized what a good guy you are. Maybe I made a mistake last year."

Jason had finally moved on, more or less, letting go of his thing for Eric. But he'd wanted him so much once that he couldn't decline the chance now. And if nothing else, Eric would see what he'd missed all that time.

They walked to Jason's place and their usual friendly hug and kiss at the door lasted a little longer. Their lips lingered and parted enough to take in each other's breath and then tongues.

Jason studied Eric's face to see if he could trust this. He always seemed so sincere.

"Come in," he said.

Without words they peeled each other's clothes off, from sweaters and jeans down to nothing. Though their body types were different, their erections were a good match, similarly sized and stiff for each other, Eric's a little straighter, Jason's more arced. They kissed and groped and swallowed each other's cocks hungrily, and then Jason brought Eric to his bedroom.

He never even had to say aloud that he wanted Eric to fuck him. He pulled his friend on top of him in bed, and after their dicks snaked together, slicked by precum, pulled his legs back, and with his own spit on his palm lubed Jason's cock and brought it to his hole.

Jason was so eager to have Eric's girth in him that it took only a little patience before he was in balls deep and could draw his cock back and slide in again. When he thrust harder there was no discomfort, only Jason's moans.

Like everything he did, Eric threw his body into it, using all the muscle of his jock body to pound his friend, and Jason loved every thrust.

Then they flipped, Eric riding Jason's cock. To both their surprise he came hands free from just Jason's erection deep in him, pushing at his core and stretching his hole.

After they both got off, Eric said, panting, "Fuck, I never did that before."

"New to me too," Jason replied, laughing, pushing his sweaty hair back.

"No one ever made me feel like you did."

"Maybe we should just keep at it," Jason replied, kissing him.

Eric replied with more kisses.

As the month goes on the disturbances increase.

Jason hears sounds at the front door and thinks it's not even Halloween yet. But when he opens it there's no one there.

He hears whispers and creaking on the floors. Sirius refuses to enter his office. He sits at the door and whines.

The plants he's hung in his office window wither and die, one by one, though they have adequate light, and he waters them appropriately.

One night as he turns on the burner to heat some leftover curry for dinner, he hears a voice. "Let's go."

It's Eric, turning the corner out of the kitchen. The clicking ignition erupts into a flash of blue flame, and then shifts to orange, and Eric's gone again.

It's as if they have parallel lives in the same home, only catching glimpses as they pass each other.

"I feel like I'm a ghost," Jason says to Sirius. "This isn't a Sixth Sense thing, is it?"

He's talking to a dog. Another sign that he's not well.

When he pours a glass of wine it empties the bottle. He's sure there should be more than that. But missing wine isn't even the strangest thing to happen in the house lately.

Sometimes things are better when Jason leaves home Ñ to see Steve or to go grocery shopping. When he returns, he would swear he can see a white haze around the house. But he has nowhere else to go.

Even Sirius spends more of his time outdoors, exiting through his doggie door into the back yard.

One night - like most nights - he falls asleep on the sofa, too tired to get up and go to bed. When he wakes up it's to the sound of Sirius whining.

The dog is staring into his office, and Jeff can see the closet door is open. It shouldn't be.

His heart races a little as he steps up to close it. He looks inside at all the things Eric left behind - some clothes, and a collection of assorted gear.

Jason used to joke that his husband should open a shop called Eric's Closet, from which he could sell all the supplies and equipment he bought for each passing new interest: soccer pads and cleats, bonsai shears and pots, an archery set, a little hammer for digging up fossils. It seemed like sometimes the thrill of getting the gear was enough for him to move on to the next interest.

Jason spots Eric's foraging knife, the one with the little brush on it, He picks it up and opens it. The blade is curved like a scythe. He folds it shut, opens it again, and folds it shut once more before putting it away.

At the bottom of the closet are rubber bins which contain another of Eric's interests, the sex toys he'd started acquiring in the latter part of their marriage.

Years after their first fuck, Jason would wonder if he assumed too much from Eric's silences.

Maybe they should have just been friends with benefits. Maybe things wouldn't have gotten so complicated.

They'd seemed so alike in the beginning, but every year their differences showed.

Eric had his hobbies, his interest in history and his books. His time at the gym.

He mentioned dead lifting once and Jason said he didn't know Eric was doing that at all.

"Everyone deadlifts," Eric said in response.

"I don't," Jason reminded him.

Their sex life waned to nothing.

Jason jerked off alone, and Eric got into sex toys, progressively bigger ones that he kept in bins in a closet. Much bigger than any real man's dick, Jason's included.

At least he wasn't fucking around with other guys, Jason consoled himself.

For his part, Jason focused on his work. His only pastime was running. He started earlier and earlier in the morning, well before sunrise, in solitude. He said it was his time for himself while most of the world slept, before the pressures of work could intrude. Often by the time of his return, Eric would be gone to the gym.

Sometimes it seemed they were both living in the same home only coincidentally, but not living together

Then they had the very very bad time. Jason still thinks of it that way. The very very bad time.

That was when they first went to see a counselor. To see if there was anything to be salvaged, to see if they were still a couple.

"There are ebbs and flows in relationships," the counselor said.

They surprised themselves and each other at how eagerly they approached their counselor's assigned exercises, even though they seemed silly and embarrassing. Asked to tell each other five things they found attractive about each other, Eric began, "Your shoulders. Your lips. Your smile. Your long legs. Your confidence. The way you make me laugh." When Jason told him that was six, Eric grinned. "Oh well."

Jason replied, "Your eyes. Your smile. Your chest. Your laugh. How you can doÉ anything. Your healthy disregard for instructions." They both laughed.

It had been a while since Jason had felt confident.

After putting in much more work, they warily tried to be intimate again, incorporating Eric's toys into their own play.

He'd never have guessed it could be so satisfying to jerk off together while his husband was fucked by something else. But Eric's athletic ability to take the biggest toys was a turn on. And the pleasure on his face, in his body, was so intoxicating, with everything about him erect - his tits, his cock - but his mouth open and yielding to Jason's tongue.

When the knotted head was deepest in him and he came, he made animal grunts so intense they made Jason shoot his own load too. Even after he left, Jason could still see him there, riding the horse cock, his chest heaving like twin moons, his lips softly gasping.

They sat there panting and gasping, both surprised to have found each other again.

"I love you," they both said at the same time, and laughed.

It's an unseasonably warm fall day, so Jason and Eric have a picnic outside the city.

They're both doing different things - reading, digging around. Eric is still an avid forager, but that's not something you'd do on a picnic, is it? They must be looking for matsutake for Eric's mother, because at some point Jason finds something white as a bone in the ground. He's curious and thinks he should dig it up.

While he brushes away the dirt, Eric is playing around with a bow and arrow, which is funny. Why did he bring that foraging? He pulls the bowstring back and shoots an arrow Ñ not with real intent, just playing around Ñ and Jason watches his husband, bemused. Eric and his hobbies. But where did the arrow go?

He feels an ache and looks down, to see the arrow, the head buried in his chest.

"Oh," he says.

That's all. Oh, as he has a growing sense that he's been pierced by the arrow.

Eric is horrified. It's an accident. He didn't mean it. But Jason can tell that the arrow has by chance passed between his breast bones, the tip scratching at his beating heart.

As if he's not in his own body anymore, he rises up and can see himself lying on the ground, the arrow shaft protruding from his chest. He can tell he's mortally wounded. Not in the way that will end his life right away. He'll go on, but this is a damage he'll never recover from, not fully. The scratch on his heart will plague him, and sometimes it will ache as if he's dying, but his body will persist.

"Get up. You have to get up," Eric says.

"I will," Jason replies. "After I rest. I'm so tired."

There are mosses and lichens creeping up from the ground onto Jason's limbs and up his sides.

"I'm sorry," Eric pleads. "I'm so sorry."

"It's okay," Jason says. It's not, but what else can he say? "It's just a dream?"

Eric is confused. "Why do you think this is a dream?"

"Because I've dreamed it before," Jason answers. And his sleeping eyes open.

He's in his bed, with Sirius snoring at his side.

He can make out Eric in the dark, sitting on the edge of the bed, luminous.

"It's time to go," he says, and then he's gone. He doesn't say where. He doesn't say why.

The dreams and visions have intensified over the last few days. He can't close his eyes without dreaming, he can't open them without seeing or hearing Eric.

"I'm not a Freudian," his counselor, Steve, tells him. "I don't want to get into a dream analysis. But it would be hard to ignore the intensity and frequency of this dream. Does it seem that to you it could be about processing your grief about losing Eric?"

That's not it, Jason is sure. He's not processing anything. It never resolves.

"It's the very very bad time," Jason says. He's referenced it before, but never explained it. Even though they'd made it through and come out the other side, it feels like the floor will fall out under him when he thinks of it.

"We'd been together for about 7 years then. I had my first high pressure professional job. I was making good money, but it was hard on me. I managed it by overeating and overdrinking. I was in all kinds of bad shape.

"Eric was doing fine, he got into his gym routine and looked better than ever.

"But I could feel hisÉ disdain for me in small ways. Terse responses. Lack of interest. You know when someone's over you. Just to be sure it wasn't as bad as I feared, I asked Eric if he was even attracted to me anymore.

"And he said no. He wasn't."

Steve sighs in sympathy.

"I just said `Oh.' It wasn't the answer I expected."

"It wasÉ very hard. It was the hardest thing in my life. But it shook me awake. We went to counseling. I made changes. We both did. And I never could have believed we'd be okay again, but somehow bit by bit we were. We were better than before, mostly."

"Mostly?" asks the counselor.

"We were very happy. We were at our best. But the very very bad time. What Eric said. It stayed with me.

"I recalled how when I first had a thing for him, Eric said no. Maybe he was just with me because he thought I worked on paperÉ but not because it was really me he wanted. I thought about all his hobbies and how they'd come and go, but how I was an endurance runner. Maybe all his interests were fleeting, but mine were persevering.

"Later he said he was so sorry, that it was the lowest point of his life.

"But I didn't know how I could trust it wouldn't happen again."

"Were you able to forgive him?" Steve asks.

"I had nothing to forgive him for," Jason explains. "It was me I couldn't forgive. For not being what he wanted."

They sit in silence for a moment.

"And then Eric left me."

"Died," Steve says, correcting him, as he does from time to time. "He didn't leave you. He died."

"I think I'm being haunted," Jason admits.

"We can be haunted by words. By experiences," Steve offers.

But that's not what Jason means.

"Why do you think this is a dream?" Eric asks.

"Because I've dreamed it before," Jason answers. And his sleeping eyes open.

It's the same dream, or a variation on the theme. Eric telling Jason again to get up. He has to get up. It's time to go.

But this time Jason thinks he knows what Eric wants.

It's 3 am when he gets out of bed and gets dressed.

He makes his way to Eric's closet Ñ no, his closet now Ñ to get the foraging knife. The dog watches, head cocked, as he opens and closes the scythe-like blade.

Jason wonders if he can leave Sirius at home but decides against it. He's been left once already. "Come on, boy."

An hour later they arrive at the mountain, veiled in mist that shimmers under the full moon. The dog is thrilled to run around off leash, sniffing at the messages in nature that elude Jason.

As they hike up the steep side, he has a growing sense of how poorly he's dressed. It's colder and wetter than he expected.

Eric would have known better.

Another hour later he pokes at several mushrooms with Eric's blade, but none of them are the elusive white mushroom, only the yellow ones you eat if you don't want to live.

He tries to climb higher but stumbles and slides down a steep swath of muddy soil, grasping at twigs that wouldn't hold the weight of a bird. When he comes to a stop, he's on his back, covered with dirt and pine needles.

He aches already, but his hand hurts most of all. When he looks down, he can see why. He's cut his palm with the open blade.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. It doesn't want to stop bleeding. And when he tries to wipe it off he gets dirt and pine needles in it.

"You have to get up," Eric says in the dream. But it's so tempting to lie there.

"It's too much," he says, looking up at the outline of the black sky he can see between the treetops. "I can't do it. I'm too tired."

Sirius arrives at his side to lap at his face, and as he turns to the side, he sees it.

On the side of the slope near the edge of the creek, forcing itself out of the black earth, hooded and white as a sheet, a precious matsutake. The Ghost of October.

He breathes hard to pull himself together and sits up. He strips out of his jacket and then his t-shirt. He wraps the shirt around his bloody palm and ties it as best he can. He pulls the jacket over his bare chest and shoulders and rises.

The slope above the creek is steep. Almost vertical. There's no way to climb it, especially not with the loosely packed so wet from the rains.

As Jason tries different approaches Sirius stays back. At a distance he sits on his rear and whines.

If even a dog thinks it's too dangerous, he probably ought not to do it, Jason thinks. But he needs to.

He tests an exposed tree root jutting out of the side of the slope to see if it will hold his weight. With his t-shirt wrapped hand he holds onto it, and rests his feet against the slope, stretching out with his free hand to reach the mushroom. It's still far but holding the root he can swing closer. He swings close, but not enough to grab it.

Sirius whines again. And farts.

"Don't make me laugh," Jason sniffles and chuckles. "This is hard enough."

He swings again and stretches as far as he can. His fingers graze the surface of the mushroom. He swings once more, pushing off with his feet.

He hears a weary creak, and the tree root gives way, sending Jason tumbling down onto the soil near the creek.

Sirius is on him, licking his face, and Jason sits up.

"I'm sorry," he tells the dog, "I'm okay. I'm okay."

And he is.

He looks down into his lap, where his shivering hand is holding the matsutake, perfectly formed, white and big as his fist.

Eric would say you should always cut them, not break them from the root. But it's done.

He trudges back to his car, cradling the matsutake, Sirius trotting around him in figure eights.

He brings the dog in with him to urgent care. The person checking him in eyes Sirius, and Jason says, "He's for emotional support."

The receptionist is appropriately skeptical, but Jason, still covered in dirt and pine needles, looks too serious and steadfast to pick an argument with.

A medical assistant brings him to an exam room and takes his vitals. He waits there until the door opens, and a nurse in teal scrubs enters.

"Oh hey," he says. It's the guy from Steve's office. The ginger with the beard. He introduces himself as Sean. "What are you doing here on Halloween?"

"Oh, just trick or treating," Jason jokes. He holds up his hand wrapped in a bloody t-shirt. "I might need stitches."

"And who's this?" he asks, scratching the dog's head.

"Sirius," Jason says.

"He doesn't look so serious to me," the ginger grins.

"It's Sirius like the dog star. His breeder was an amateur astronomer."

Jason stops himself from saying more. He's out of practice and doesn't know what's too much to say, or what's too little.

"Well," the ginger says, turning to his patient. "Let's take a look at that hand."

His voice is resonant, deep and soothing. It must be useful in his line of work.

He gently wipes Jason's palm clean for a doctor to examine. She says no stitches needed, but Sean can seal it up with surgical adhesive and bandage it.

While he's at it he pulls some splinters and pine needles from Jason's hands. Sean says next year don't go so hard on the porcupine costume.

"I shouldn't do this, but since we know each other a little bit outside of here," he gestures around at the urgent care room, "would you maybe like to have dinner tonight?"

"Yeah," Jason answers, surprising himself.

With his hand treated, he drives to another neighborhood. One he hasn't been to in almost a year. He's still dirty and covered in pine needles, but it can't wait.

The house is decorated with pumpkins and fake spider webs. Eric's mother opens the door, holding a bowl of candy. It's Halloween, after all.

She has Eric's mouth and eyes and coloring. She's happy to see Jason, but when he holds out the matsutake for her, her eyes water. She takes it with both hands and holds it up to her nose to take in the fragrance.

For the first time in a long time Jason wishes he could smell.

She brings him in, and he sits at her kitchen table while she fusses over Sirius and says what a good boy he is.

They talk about Eric and missing him. Finally, she asks if he'd like some pancakes.

"Do you... Do you have pancakes?"

It's 2 pm. Who has pancakes ready to go at 2 pm? But she nods yes.

"Okay," he says, and his voice croaks.

They sit and eat together in her kitchen, with the Ghost of October between them.

The date with Sean doesn't go as planned.

"Hello gorgeous," he says at the door, arriving early. "You clean up well."

Jason asks him in for a moment, so he can feed Sirius before leaving.

Sean follows in, but he makes a funny face. "Do you smell that?"

Of course he doesn't. Jason can't smell a thing.

Sean wanders into the house, where he can smell with more certainty. "I think you have a gas leak," he says. He asks about symptoms - fatigue, disorientation or paranoia, hallucinations, depression.

Jason says he'll call to get it checked in the morning.

"Well, you can't stay here tonight," Sean says. He turns to Jason. "You can come to my place. If you'd like."

"I can't leave the dog," Jason replies.

"Bring him," Sean replies, giving the dog a head scratch. "We can get some Thai takeout on the way."

So they do.

Later, in Sean's bedroom they undress between kisses. Jason's fingers run over Sean's furry chest and belly gingerly, excited and anxious by the act, and by how fit Sean is. He has long, lean muscles and subtle abs. A sharp taper runs from his shoulders to his slim hips. His cock is long and pale pink, under a reddish patch of hair.

"Wow," he says.

"You're pretty wow yourself," Sean replies, running a hand down his side to take hold of his erection.

"Sorry," Jason says. I haven't done this for a long time."

He means so many different things. He hasn't been with someone other than Eric. He hasn't cum for so long. He hasn't been in a bedroom that's not his. He hasn't felt this way.

"We can take it slow," Sean replies, again in his deep soothing voice.

Sean starts by working his way down to Jason's cock, licking and swallowing it. When the head pushes into his throat Jason gasps, "Oh fuck," which encourages Sean to keep at it. He has Jason at his whim when he looks up, watery eyed, and rasps, "I want you to fuck me."

In bed he pulls his legs back, and Jason's hands hold them back so he can lick and tongue his hole, making Sean moan. It's ringed with rust colored fur like Sean's chest, and the globes of his ass are creamy white. He looks incredible, and he's eager to be fucked.

As his cock enters Sean, Jason gasps. It's so warm inside him. He forgot how warm it is.

It takes him a few thrusts to get his bearing, and when he does pulls him in closer to kiss. HIs slow grind isn't a power fuck, but a negotiation, getting to understand each other's bodies and cues.

"I'm not going to last," Jason whispers, pumping deep into Sean.

"Don't hold back," the bearded ginger tells him, pulling his own legs back again to take Jason deeper. "Cum in me."

"I haven't cum in a really really long time," Jason says, resisting the sensation building in his cock and balls.

"Lucky me," Sean says in his honeyed voice, grinning.

Jason's hips thrust hard and fast, and he can't fight it any longer. He shudders as his cock erupts inside the other man, unloading again and again. Even after he cums he's still hard and keeps pumping while Sean jerks himself against Jason's belly.

"Oh fuck," Sean groans. His insides tense around Jason's cock, and he shoots volleys of hot white cum onto his red furred belly and ruddy skin.

Jason still has more than enough erection to slow fuck it all out of Sean, grinding into him until Sean's erection wanes and they're both spent and sweaty.

They kiss, intertwined, and afterwards they lie there and talk. Sometimes they laugh, and Jason notes that Sean's laugh is even deeper and more enticing than his voice. He wants to hear it again and again.

At midnight they're still talking, when the bedside alarm clock numbers flip to 12:00.

Sean turns to Jason and smiles. "It's November."

• END -