Will’s fingers brushed over Martin’s nipple, making him shiver.
“So the way you recall, I seduced you by witchcraft?”
“What else could it be? I have been held captive by your charms these seventeen years.”
“Oh, have you indeed?”
Will shifted in Martin’s lap, straddling him.
Martin reached up a hand to cup his cheekbone.
“I was enthralled by your ethereal beauty, like a will-o’-the-wisp, as you wove your charms about me, with your magical instrument.”
“What? This one?”
Will nudged his pelvis against Martin.
“I was thinking of your violin but that will suffice.” Martin waggled his eyebrows.
The air around them seemed to vibrate with the joy and gratitude of the concerto Will had played.
The light and shade of everyday affection and lasting love.
Will pressed his body against Martin, revelling in his immediate response.
Then Martin’s stomach emitted a loud gurgle.
“I told you the food was greasy.”
“Perhaps your stomach might complain less if we went upstairs to lie down.”
Martin nodded. “My stomach is entirely compatible with that suggestion.”
“And what about the rest of you?”
“Eager and willing to comply.”
“Then I will fulfil your every wish.”
Before Will could dismount, Martin stretched out a hand to caress his face and said, “My darling, you always do.”
Sea Dreams by J.T. Marie
At night, when the wind off the sea screams through town like the tourists on the boardwalk rides in summer, Mari dreams in blues and greens.
In these dreams, she runs through blue halls, past greenery that stretches away on all sides to fence her in. Someone chases her through aqua rooms. She feels a cool gaze on her fevered skin, senses hands hovering just behind her. Strands of seaswept hair tickle the nape of her neck and brush against her cheeks like seaweed. She’s breathless, unable to cry out, unable tothink. Her eyes water and sting, her lungs burn as if she’s drowning. When she trips, she feels like she’s falling from a great height, the dark blue beneath her feet rushing up to meet her. There will be a hardsmack!and she’ll break through and float away. She can almost hear the rush of water in her ears as the ocean swallows her whole.Free,she thinks, arms pinwheeling. Her stomach has dropped and the rest of her hurries to catch up.Safe.
Then the dream shatters around her, the chase and the fear broken fragments as she struggles awake. She jolts up in bed, gasping, surprised but alive.
But when she closes her eyes, she senses trembling hands somewhere behind her, still reaching. To catch her?
Or save her?
* * * *
Mari grew up here, amid the hot sand and glassy sea. The boardwalk lining the seaward side of the island stretches into her past and, everywhere she goes, she sees old memories draped over the present like old sheets, faded by washing and hung out to dry. Here are her teenage years, riding the Ferris wheel with her best friend, soon to be girlfriend, and gettingher first kiss when the ride stopped as their gondola swung softly high up in the sky. Here are the summers when she was home from college, working part-time as a barker on the boards, calling out to pretty shoobies and getting lucky every now and then.
And here she is now, alone in a sea of summer lovers. The last woman she dated was years ago, before the COVID quarantine strained their relationship too much for them to continue on together after it lifted. She moved out, on her own for once, and she was doing fine until the dreams began. The memory of that shadowy figure chasing after her haunts her waking hours like the cry of a distant gull.
