When we came, we came together, and it was staring into each other’s eyes. In that moment, I signed away my soul and handed it to him. He understood and did the same.
As we lay together afterwards, soaked in our sweat and breathing each other’s air, I remember thinking, I’ve never been so happy.
It would be the last time in a very long time I’d ever be that happy again.
14.
Elise
It’d been a few days since that night, and we’d had sex again before I felt too sore. It was hard getting used to Aston’s…size. He was…well-endowed, to put it mildly. It was like pushing a piano through a golf hole those first couple times. Well, that was a shit example, but it was the only thing that came to mind in my koala head (and yeah, I was still ridiculously chill about everything). He didn’t push for it after I told him, and recent nights were spent talking and then exploring different ways to making each other feel good. I healed, and by day five, I was up and at it again, determined to get more of him.
On a particularly beautiful day, we took our bikes out of the garage and rode down the streets, taking trails through the parks and up winding mountain roads. We got beeped at a thousand times by drivers. Montley was infamous for its road rage and intolerance for bicyclists. For a place that was founded on so much religious drivel, there were an awful lot of mean people.
We parked our bikes along the fence of some dude’s massive house. Aston knocked on his door and asked if we could chain our bikes to it while we walked a popular trail that overlooked the town.
“You gotta pay for that privilege,” the old dude said.
Ugh, he couldn’t be serious. He lived in a gargantuan house, had four cars out front, and he was asking for money?
“Money for what, though?” Aston asked, his voice firm and challenging. “We just want to lock them against your chain link fence.”
“And what if a bear mauled them and took down my fence?”
“A bear won’t maul them, sir.”
“You can’t promise me that.”
“Aston,” I called out, “it’s fine. We can find somewhere else to hook them up.”
But Aston wasn’t listening to me. Not surprising. This was what men did, right? They got all personal about something small and easily fixable. Then it was all about who had bigger balls, and ew, I didn’t want to be thinking of the old dude’s balls, but a wrinkly looking sack of meat assaulted my mind and I dry heaved. Gross, Elise, what is wrong with you?
Aston had a full blown argument with the old dude. Then money was brought up and I cringed when Aston began pulling out his wallet from his pocket. Oh, God, he was seriously going to pay the man? It was like auction wars after that. They haggled over two bicycles attached to a fence that, now that I looked at it, wasn’t even all the way upright and stable.
Aston returned minutes later, and the old dude looked triumphant and smug as he slid his ten dollars in his pocket and disappeared inside his massive house.
I decided not to give Aston a hard time about it, but my stink eye couldn’t be tamed. He ignored the look and locked our bikes up. Then he took my hand in his and squeezed. It was a shocking moment for me, being held like this outside for the world to see. Well, not the world really, we were very isolated, but it was better than being isolated inside a dark bedroom.
We walked up the road until we saw the sign.
Mount Fern Trail
Difficulty: Intermediate
Time: 2.5 hours
Distance: 11.3 km
Elevation gain: 380metres
I hesitated. I wasn’t an intermediate climber. I wasn’t intermediate at anything, except kissing. Yeah, I’d grown really good at that as of late.
“You ready?” Aston asked me.
“No,” I answered, my eyes wide with fear. “What if we get mauled by bears? That old guy seemed totally convinced.”
“Then all you have to think about is outrunning me.”
I rolled my eyes. “I’m going to die.”
*
To make a long story short, I didn’t die, but fuck, the trail had an incline of doom. My legs burned everywhere. I was short of breath, thirsty, and tired beyond belief.
“I thought dancers had good cardiovascular systems,” Aston remarked on a smile, handing me a bottle of water from his bag.
“They don’t eat quarter pounders after every session,” I replied, gulping it down.
We approached the lookout and rested our elbows on the crappy wooden fence. It was a gorgeous site of the valley. Montley didn’t look so depressing from this far. In all seriousness, I felt at peace, like being here wasn’t so bad.
“You gonna follow me after you’re finished?” Aston asked me sometime later, his voice quiet and solemn.