Page 11 of Marked By Shadows
They weren’t true cabins in the form of traditional thinking. They ran more along the line of tiny houses, complete with solar panels. Instead of expanding the house and changing the charming old country layout, Freya had chosen to add the grouping of tiny houses behind the space, offering more privacy as well as more rooms. It had been my first inkling that a smaller place would work for me, and had helped fuel the ideas that went into designing my own space.
“You guys are on the end. The middle one is still a photography studio. I have the key if you want to do a shoot in there,” Freya said as she walked us to our door, unlocked it, and handed me the key. “Breakfast is at eight, dinner at seven.”
Having used this cabin before, the layout was familiar, though with Alex in the space it would be a little tight. The group left our stuff on the tiny porch outside the house, giving Alex and I a chance to set up our stuff.
“Dinner is in twenty minutes,” Freya told us, and left us to get settled.
Alex stepped inside, looking around. “Okay, I thought your place was small.”
The cabin was around 200 square feet with a loft overhead. The main part of the cabin was one room, starting with the living area, which had a small couch that could be converted into a bed, and tables that folded up or down off the walls. The kitchen in galley style ran the rest of the length until the small bathroom. A narrow set of stairs arched up the side to the loft, which had a queen-sized bed, and windows surrounding it, but not enough room to stand up.
“My place is around 400 square feet, not counting the loft,” I said. “More than double the size of this.”
“This brings new meaning to tiny home,” Alex said as he set his bag down in one of the cubes that made up the stairs. He walked from the front to the tiny bathroom, then back and carefully up the stairs. “At least your stairs have a railing. Where should we put all our stuff?”
My stuff, since all he had was his little bag. I turned and opened a few of the doors beside the kitchen. There wasn’t much storage, but what there was worked fine for most crafters on temporary holiday. I put the small fold-out kitchen table up, and set both of my machines on it, then hung the garment bags in the closet near the bathroom and left my rolling suitcase tucked neatly off to the side. The cooler was more complicated. It took a few minutes of unloading to get everything in the tiny fridge or the two tight cupboards. We had to take the empty cooler back to the car as there just wasn’t enough room to fit it in the house.
“Still good?” I asked Alex as we headed toward the house, hand in hand.
“Yep,” he agreed. “Not thrilled about the windows beside the bed,” he said after a few minutes when we got to the porch of the main house. The big loft area had enough space to sit up, but the mattress stretched edge to edge of the space with windows on two sides to help the space feel a little less claustrophobic.
“We’ll shut the curtains,” I promised. We were both used to being more enclosed, mostly, I think, to get away from the sounds that scared us. “The breeze is nice this time of year. The house has air conditioning,” and a ceiling fan that helped circulate the air in the small place. “But the temperature is nice enough that we shouldn’t need it. Overnight and early morning should be in the fifties.” I’d packed Alex’s quilt for exactly that reason.
“I searched for ghost pictures online of this place and came up with nothing,” Alex said, sounding relieved. “No stories online either. Nothing on the website or official that I could find.”
“Some people use the stories as a way to attract customers,” I reminded him. Though since Freya didn’t advertise her place that way, I figured whatever happened on site was either mild, or didn’t bother her. “Our cabin is new. Less than five years old. Nothing in there but us.”
Alex grunted, obviously not convinced. I squeezed his hand and opened the main door to let us inside. The interior of the house, like the outside, had a lot of the same old-world type charm. The entry opened to a giant stairway, which had a railed landing above. There were curved doorways on two sides and a double door on the end, which was open to the giant kitchen. The door on the right led to what used to be a sitting room and den, but had been opened up and combined into a huge crafting area. The space on the left was a large formal dining room. The upstairs was all bedrooms, and the corner behind the craft room, beside the kitchen was Freya’s private space.
“It smells amazing in here,” Alex said. “Any idea what’s for dinner?” He frowned as he glanced at me. “Does she know you can’t do dairy?”
“Tonight is a taco bar,” Chad said as he came through the doorway from the kitchen. “Chicken, beef, and pork, even some vegan options of beans if you all want.” He grinned. “I love taco night. We don’t get this sort of stuff in Michigan. Spices are not quite the same.”
“You’re from Michigan?” Alex asked him, headed his way. I followed, listening to the two of them banter about the quality of Mexican-American food. Freya had a Latina woman who made amazing tamales and real authentic Mexican food. Though when the B&B was full, it was easier to make blander, more universal dishes that might appeal to more picky palates. Which meant this trip would be filled with taco bars, pancakes and eggs, and some sort of meat and potatoes type dinners. As long as I got Alex to eat, the rest didn’t matter.
“Yeah, Detroit. Not looking forward to the winter, man. I hate the cold. Been thinking about moving south. Lots of conventions down here. I wish I could make cosplay a full-time gig.”
“I’m not sure how that works,” Alex admitted as we entered the kitchen and found the taco bar set up off to the side on a wide stretch of counter leading to the dining room. “Is there a market for it? I didn’t know sexy cosplay was a thing until recently. Do people travel around and make cosplay for a living?”
“Some people can,” Chad said. “Freya does. MaryAnn does a lot, so do a few others. Some make costumes as their income. I’m not great at making things for other people. Sex sells anything, and people are into anime a lot of the time because it’s sexy. Everyone wants the illusion of being with some favorite character. Sexy cosplay is huge. A very private community, but there are a lot of diehard fans. People get really well known for certain characters. Sometimes there are crossover shoots between favorites. Those always get buzz.”
Chad picked up a plate and Alex mimicked him, getting ready to dish up food. I kept an eye on him, but said hello to the handful of other group members who were filling their plates too. “Not sure anyone would care to see my giant, hairy ass in sexy cosplay, so that’s not really an option for me. But for them,” Chad waved at me and the girls, “everyone loves that. Small and cute pings everyone’s radar.”
Alex squinted at him. “You do know bears are a thing, right? I mean, as long as you’re okay with gay men fantasizing about you.”
I couldn’t help but grin at the somewhat comically startled look that appeared on Chad’s face. While I knew he was on the Ace spectrum, he was also a white, cis, hetero-romantic male.
“You mean, like gay men would pay to see me sexy cosplay beefy guys?” Chad clarified, as though his brain had trouble processing the thought. His cosplay specialty did really translate to either big guys like Hellboy, or villains like Thanos from the Avengers, which had become his new obsession.
“You would probably have an easier time finding subscribers to that, than I do,” I said. If I had a dollar for every time I’d been told I give gay men a bad name because I could look and act very feminine, I wouldn’t need to run my own business. Yet those same men watched my videos in droves. My audience also ran to a lot of women who loved the idea of gay men, but that one man had to be smaller and submissive. Perpetuated by manga and boy-love anime, there was a lot of that genre that had migrated to America and been reshaped by its giant culture of romance readers.
It was a stereotype. I couldn’t change how I looked, other than to maybe cut my hair. Bulking up wasn’t of interest to me, and I would always be short. And honestly, I wasn’t all that unhappy with my body. Feeling okay in my own skin had been necessary while I’d done porn. I’d lost a little of that confidence when I’d given it up, but could see how brushing off the negative helped. Something else Alex had given me in the short time knowing him, a faith in myself.
When it came to relationship dynamics, Alex and I reversed the typical roles. He was more submissive and shy, mostly due to lack of experience. I preferred being in control and admitted enjoying sex enough to be a bit aggressive about it. Teaching Alex to break free from societal norms of sex shaming was part of making us a couple. Together, just the two of us, he easily cast off the Southern Christian upbringing of sex for reproduction instead of pleasure. In time I hoped I wouldn’t have to prod him for sex and he would take the initiative. The ‘throw me against the wall’ sort of thing. But he wasn’t there yet, too worried about hurting me. However, when it came to seeing other people and their skewed world views, Alex was a pro.
“I don’t know a lot of gay men,” Alex said. “At least not out ones, ‘cause you know, military,” he waved his hand. “But the handful I knew were all over either the older guy kink, beard, graying hair, or bears, big hairy men.” He looked at me, his eyes softening as they always did when turned in my direction. “Saves the pretty ones for me,” Alex said.
“I’ve seen a lot of Thanos and Hellboy fan art that is sexy,” MaryAnn pointed out. “Would be easy to translate it into cosplay.”