Page 67 of The Invisible Roommate

Intellectually, he knew that. That this was their apartment and their time together. Nobody was coming to interrupt. Still, his brain had this tricky way of flinging him back to days in overcrowded foster homes where, once he learned about his body and ascertained his interest in masturbation, he had to be clever when it came to location, timing, and speed. A lingering sexual anxiety crept back into his consciousness.

With all that he wanted to try with Gerard, he rushed to run down his own checklist. Gerard’s words were a reassuring reminder that no parental knock telling him he’d been in the shower too long was coming, and that if he was lucky, this wouldn’t be his only opportunity to explore with Gerard Wells.

Adopting a more tempered pace, Emory slid down onto his stomach between Gerard’s spread-apart legs and gave each of his senses a turn to steer. Pressing his nose to the inside of Gerard’s thigh, he inhaled the clean, masculine aroma. His adventurous tongue flicked out to discover the mint of his soap and the natural saltiness of his skin. The hairs around the base of Gerard’s cock were curly yet soft, and when Emory swept his fingers over them, they bent and then sprang back up, much like the erection they alluringly framed.

By then, he was wet-lipped and ready, and his mouth welcomed Gerard with ease.

Worries that he was doing it wrong were eclipsed by his frenzied hormones, which spurred him to press his pelvis into the mattress, creating cacophonous squeaks each time he rolled his hips down. That’s when it hit him. “Starbursts!”

“Huh?” Gerard asked.

“The condom tastes like a strawberry Starburst.” Emory was far too pleased with himself for figuring this out.

“Of course,” Gerard said through a half-broken blissful haze. “As a kid, I loved Starbursts, except the orange ones.”

“Nobody likes the orange ones,” Emory said with a laugh. “I didn’t even particularly like the strawberry ones.” Every year, the day after Halloween, as a treat for surviving another triggering holiday without any major mental breakdown, Emory raided the candy aisles at his local grocery store for the half-off variety bags of candy. There were inevitably plentiful packets of Starbursts in them. Every tear of the wrapper, he found himself hoping for cherry or lemon, knowing the probability was not in his favor.

“You don’t have to blow me anymore if you don’t want.” Gerard ran the back of his hand over his dewy forehead, revealing a patch of neat, dark armpit hair.

“I don’t want to stop. I was hoping I could take the condom off and keep going.” He couldn’t bring himself to confess that he didn’t so much mind the strong, chemically engineered strawberry flavor as much as he wanted to know what Gerard’s cock tasted like. He needed the full experience.

Gerard’s already-swollen cock further stiffened. “I’m tested—negative on all counts and taking PrEP. You’re welcome to take it off me.”

As he carefully rolled the condom up, he glanced past to see Gerard smiling preciously down at him. For the first time since getting accepted into his first-choice college on scholarship, Emory felt truly lucky.

32Emory

The following night, at the foot of the bed, a helmet with a pair of binoculars affixed to them rested in wait. The idea had come to Emory in a dream, and at morning’s break, he dug through his trash bag of belongings. Thankfully, they’d not broken in transit. He’d purchased the helmet with several years’ worth of savings and stipends that were meant to go toward books and food. With his invisibility project ever swirling in the back of his brain, he chose instead to lead a meager life and invest in this—a helmet that he would’ve used to monitor Marvel Jr. had Anderson not cruelly mousenapped him.

That evening, he formed entirely new plans for the sunken investment.

“Emory?” Gerard called when he entered the apartment, looking around.

Emory tapped his invisible toe against the helmet. “Over here.”

Gerard unloaded the dulcimer, his satchel, a bulging shopping bag, and then took off his coat all while wearing a suggestive smile. “Naked and waiting, huh?”

Once Emory had gotten the walkie-talkie message that choir rehearsal was running a bit late, he cleaned up his work, showered, and tried his best to replicate Gerard’s impeccable setup for sex. God, he needed more sex after the previous night’s foray. But he downplayed his yearning to not come across as too greedy. “Something like that.” Emory tried out a purr.

“Sorry we went long. We didn’t even get through everything.” Gerard untied his boots at a normal speed that Emory assessed as achingly slow. His desire kept mounting, making him impatient. “Regina was drilling our harmonies. She wants to make sure they are tight for the big performance, but as soon as she saw how tired we all were, she decided not to hold us any longer and that we could return to the songs fresh in the morning. Then everyone got to talking about the storm that’s expected to land sometime tomorrow evening.”

“How bad is it supposed to be?” Emory asked, mind elsewhere.

Gerard shrugged. “We said enough prayers that everyone seems to think it will skip the island entirely, if that tells you anything.” He made a goofy face. “It’s a tropical storm. Nothing the island hasn’t seen before. They’re just worried about the wind speeds, given everyone will be out and about.”

Gerard strode over to the end of the bed and touched the helmet. “What’s this?”

Emory gathered himself. “Remember last night when you mentioned how warm I was?”

“How could I forget?” Gerard said, grin growing but only on the right side, giving his symmetrical face an imbalance that Emory found fetching.

“These are thermal binoculars. I bought them with the intention of using them in my experiment when I assumed I wouldn’t be the test subject.” In many ways, experiencing his work in his own body gave him a unique perspective. While he still saw an immense value in his discovery, the discomfort and uncertainty he’d endured up until that point was a stab into his hard-shelled doggedness as it became subtly clearer that perhaps in his rush to see results and beat Anderson to publication, he’d lost his ability to be objective, which was a touchstone of science.

Gerard fingered the chin strap on the helmet. “What will this do for me?”

“It will show you a thermogram … of me…” Nervousness invaded his voice. The bandages and the makeup obscured his features in clownish ways. Naked beneath the powerful lenses of the binoculars, Emory’s slender body would be on full display in moving patches of red and yellow. “They detect and display infrared radiation. Essentially, I’ll be a moving heat map for your eyes only.”

“Wait—you’re saying that I could see you?” Gerard asked.