AllFreeNovel
Share Us
A brief spasm wracked Garin’s frame. “You don’t like sex?”
Sazahk shrugged, used to the shock that confession inevitably elicited. “I have occasionally enjoyed it, but I rarely crave it.” He didn’t mention that most of the craving he’d ever done, he’d done in only the past four days. “I don’t have an aversion to it, merely a general lack of interest.”
“Oh.” Garin’s thumb resumed its absent-minded stroking.
“Do you like sex?” Sazahk’s hands had finally warmed, but he didn’t pull them away from Garin’s bare skin.
“Uh, yeah.” Garin cleared his throat and Sazahk glanced up to see that his cheeks were indeed red, as he had guessed. “I do. Regularly enjoy it and regularly crave it.”
“Do you have a preference in partners?” Sazahk tangled one finger in the coarse hair above Garin’s waistband, intrigued by the juxtaposition of textures between his skin and body hair.
“Men. It’s always been men for as long as I can remember, but—” Garin’s breath caught and his hand squeezed Sazahk’s shoulder, but he continued. “—but I’m pretty flexible within that category. There are a lot of different men out there and I think most of them are attractive in their own way.”
“Considering your own physical appearance, I imagine your partners tend to possess above average physical traits.” Sazahk ran his fingers over the grooves of Garin’s abdominal muscles, and they tensed and fluttered under his touch. Did Garin prefer a firm technique or a gentle one with these partners? “With few exceptions, individuals tend to self-sort into bands of attractiveness and couple off exclusively with other individuals within that band.”
“I didn’t exactly keep score. I never rated my partners on a scale of one to ten. Could you not do that, please?” Garin caught Sazahk’s wandering hands with his free one and tugged them out from under his shirt.
“I’m sorry.” Sazahk quickly pulled back from Garin’s side and wrapped his hands in the blanket.
“No, you’re fine, it’s just a little…” Garin huffed a laugh and shook his head, but kept his arm draped over Sazahk’s shoulders. “Stimulating. As we just established, I like sex, so when you touch me like that, my body gets the wrong idea.”
Or the right idea. Sazahk’s general lack of interest in sex had stopped applying to Garin sometime around when he’d shielded Sazahk from scalding water with his own body, then been too shy to undress in front of him for no clear reason. His feelings had morphed into an uncomfortably powerful, active desire when Garin, overwhelmed and frightened, had entrusted himself into Sazahk’s hands and found comfort in them.
“I’m sorry,” Garin grimaced and Sazahk shook his head.
“No, you have every right to enforce boundaries around your own body. I should have been more mindful of the effects my actions might have on you.” Because Sazahk’s actions affected him. Sazahk shoved that too hopeful thought away. Of course they did. They precipitated a very normal sexual response from a person who felt regular and general sexual urges, rather than the very specific and contextualized sort Sazahk did. “Could we watch more of your movies?”
Garin’s eyebrows rose. “My home movies? Like, with my brothers and sister?”
“Yes.” Sazahk couldn’t indulge his curiosity about what Garin’s skin tasted like in the hollow of his throat or whether he preferred teeth or a tongue applied to his inner thighs, but he could at least find out more about this family Garin cherished enough to carry around with him in a way other than emotional baggage.
A smile spread over Garin’s lips. “Okay.” He popped his earpiece back into his own ear, then held the other up to Sazahk’s. “May I?”
Sazahk nodded and Garin slipped it in, his fingertip caressing down the shell of Sazahk’s ear and making him shiver.
“This is from a few years ago.” Garin pulled Sazahk in close to his side again and set the tablet on their laps, rewinding the video to the beginning. “Their eighteenth birthday.”
“Eighteen is a significant milestone age in modern Human culture.” Sazahk leaned into Garin’s side and watched the two boys, each with Garin’s eyes, make faces at the camera. They chattered amongst themselves, and their accents matched Garin’s, too.
“It is, yeah.” Garin smiled down at the screen and the proud, but wistful look in his green eyes distracted Sazahk from the scene of the boys striding across the large living room to a door.
“Is that why you chose this video to save to your tablet?”
“Oh, I have a lot more than just this video.” Garin’s eyes flashed to his with a chuckle before looking down at the screen again where the boys opened the door and revealed a gaggle of girls their same age. “I was just rewatching this one because it’s their birthday today.”
“Today?” Sazahk straightened up.
“Yeah.” Garin grinned. “They’re twenty-two today.”
Sazahk didn’t relate to Garin’s clear attachment to his family, but his heart dropped. “I’m sorry.”
Garin looked away from the screen to frown at him. “Why?”
“Because you’re missing it.” Sazahk watched the boys toss drinks from the fridge to each of their friends.
“Oh.” Garin shrugged. “Don’t worry about that. I missed this one, too.”
“You’re not recording it?”
