Page 19

Elliot Crane

Coffee order?

Seth Mays

Get me an extra large one.

Iced.

With an extra shot.

Still lavender?

Please.

Elliot had left earlier that morning to run a few errands—a few things from a CVS because we hadn’t packed enough toiletries and a trip to Walmart for a few more socks, underwear, and t-shirts for both of us. He’d left me to try to get a little more sleep, but I’d finally given up.

I put the phone down, then shoved my glasses on my face and slowly limped my way into the hotel bathroom.

I swapped out the glasses for my contacts, although my eyes were tired and gritty enough that I had to rub them several times before the lenses felt normal.

That done, I picked up my toothbrush and put paste on it, then hit the button to start it.

While I hadn’t had nightmares, exactly, I’d slept like shit, waking up every hour or so, then stared at the ceiling for longer than I wanted before slipping into that half-wakeful stupor that felt like not sleeping, but lost enough time that I must have fallen asleep for some of the minutes, at least. It was my memories, not my dreams, that had made the prospect of unconsciousness all but impossible.

I’d told Elliot about my encounter with Iris Tabbard over our greasy—delicious—dinner. He’d asked a lot of questions about the Community. What they believed, how they practiced their religion, why it was that being out after dark would be dangerous.

I could answer the first two, but I didn’t have an answer for the third.

It had made me think about the rules in my childhood—whether or not we’d been allowed out after dark.

I remembered going out to the barn, checking on the goats or chickens if there was an alarming noise or a particularly bad storm.

But I also remembered Momma telling us not to go into the woods after dark—not even to take the trail to or from the main Community settlement that wound through the woods going down the mountainside.

But what Iris Tabbard had said to me as a six-three adult felt very different than my mother telling two kids not to wander around the woods in the dark.

Neither one of us had been able to figure it out. It was a warning, clearly, but why she thought I’d be out there at night, anyway, I had no idea.

Unless it had something to do with my mother’s death.

Maybe she’d been killed at night. Maybe Momma’s death had caused fear of monsters lurking in the dark. It felt wrong, but at the same time, I couldn’t work out what else it was.

I spat out my mouthful of toothpaste, then rinsed the brush head and sink. I left my shorts on the floor and stepped into the glass-walled shower. The hot water made my muscles ache less, which was at least one positive thing in my morning.

I heard the door open and shut, then heard Elliot moving around the room.

“You okay, baby?” he asked gently, and I turned my head, seeing his blurred form standing in the doorway, obscured by water and steam on the shower door.

“Tired. I didn’t sleep very well.”

“Sore?” he asked.

“Not bad.”

A pause, then, “Not bad for you, or not bad for normal people?”

I couldn’t help the little huff I made. “Me,” I answered him.

“Can I help?”

I looked back over my shoulder. “You could rub my back…” I suggested, going for something that at least leaned in the direction of sultry, although I wasn’t exactly the type to pull it off.

“Don’t we have to go meet Helen?” he asked, although I saw that he’d already stripped off his shirt and was working on his shorts. I smiled.

“I can be quick,” I replied, ducking my head back under the spray. “Can you?”

It was a challenge he’d always been more than willing to take on. Today was no exception.

I heard the door open behind me, then almost immediately felt his calloused hands on my hips, followed by his cheek and nose nuzzling up against my upper spine.

“God, I love you,” he murmured into my skin, and his hands slid around my hips until one closed around my hardening cock. “I love your skin. I love your cock. I love your ass.” He emphasized that by pressing his erection against the body part in question.

I bent farther forward, pressing back into him.

He let out a soft sound, then reached down, toying with my balls from behind me, his other hand still working my cock. Then he reached around me to the wall-mounted body wash dispenser, taking a handful.

Then he slid his hard length between my thighs, tight up against me so that the head pressed against my sac.

His hand pressed the outside of my thigh, encouraging me to press together around him.

He was slick from the body wash, and the feeling of him pressing and sliding against my balls and along the sensitive skin beneath made me shudder.

His hand sped up, stroking me quickly, almost roughly, and I pressed my hands against the plastic liner of the shower wall, pushing back against him, encouraging him.

“That’s it, baby. Let me make you come.”

His hand on me felt good, but it was the rough, breathy command that sent a jolt of electricity through me.

He squeezed, then ran his thumb over the head of my cock, water and precum wetting the tip.

I could feel him rutting against me, his heavy cock between my thighs, rubbing a tingling line below my balls as he thrust his hips forward.

I let out a soft moan, wanting to give myself over to his hand and the friction of his cock, but also wanting him to get as much pleasure out of this as I was. “El?—”

“Come for me, baby,” he breathed.

“I—I want you—” His hand was making it hard for me to formulate words.

Elliot growled softly into the skin of my back, his hips thrusting harder. “Then come for me, baby.”

I let myself do nothing but feel, his hand, his cock, the faint tickle of the warm water as it rushed over my skin.

I felt my stomach tighten, my balls drawing up as Elliot let out a grunting moan, his hips and hand both moving faster, harder, until I let out a gasping breath, cum pumping out of me and coating Elliot’s fingers.

A few more thrusts and I felt heat against my inner thigh as Elliot’s orgasm pulsed out of him.

He rested his cheek against my back. “Okay?” he asked, softly.

“Better than okay,” I answered, my legs trembling a little and the air slightly thin in my lungs. I sucked in deep breaths, although it was hard to get a full lungful with the steam from the shower.

Elliot reached around me and filled his hand with more body wash, then began washing my back.

“I can shower, El,” I told him.

“So can I,” he replied. “Let me?”

I let him.

Somehow, we managed to not be horrifically late for breakfast with Helen Hill, probably because Elliot drove too fast. He’d also bought flowers for Helen to go with a half-dozen bags of coffee beans.

I sat in the passenger seat, my body more relaxed than my mind, thanks to Elliot’s shower ministrations. I was still a churning mess of anxiety inside, but at least I wasn’t holding that tension in my back and shoulders. As much.

I also had my gigantic iced coffee, which I’d gotten about halfway through. The caffeine was helping me to feel somewhat functional, even though I was pretty sure I was going to be a gelatinous mess by the time we finished up today.

I knew I needed to go through the house again, and I was hoping Helen would be able to provide some more information about what was going on—if Momma had said anything to her, but also about the mystery of why Iris Tabbard had been so insistent that we needed to not be out in the woods after dark.

After all, Helen had urged us to leave before dark, too, although that might just have been worry about driving on the narrow roads at night, which wasn’t the most fun thing to do.

By the time Elliot pulled up to the farmhouse—painted light yellow, in contrast to the dark red of the barn—I was on the dregs of the coffee.

The whole little farmstead had clearly been well-taken-care-of, and Helen had been doing laundry, a few quilts and sheets out on the lines, shifting in the slight summer breeze.

It was picturesque, with the mountain rising behind the barn, the herd of alpacas grazing in the field, the sky blue and dotted with clouds.

I reminded myself that Helen wasn’t a member of the Community, even if she did live more or less among them. The Hills’ farm had been here before the Community had moved in, and if anyone had ever tried to make them leave, it hadn’t worked.

Elliot slid out of the driver’s seat, and I followed, my knee not quite as bad as it was some days. I should have been happier about all of it—the good weather, the adorable farm, the fact that I had less pain than usual.

But I also knew that up the curve of the dirt-and-gravel road was my parents’ house and all of the memories I’d tried for sixteen years to forget.

“Hello, boys!” Helen’s voice pulled me back to the here and now. She was standing on the porch, holding open the screen door.

“Morning!” Elliot called back. He’d pulled the box of coffee beans out of the back, a vase of flowers stuck inside it.

We walked up to the porch, and I saw the moment Helen registered the flowers. “You shouldn’t have,” she said.

“Yes, we should have,” Elliot replied, smiling. “We should have done this and then some.”

It was funny, watching his easy friendliness with Helen Hill. Usually, I was the friendly, gregarious one. Maybe it was because he didn’t know the people down here, and I did. Or maybe it was just because I wasn’t the one doing it, so he felt like he had to.

“Well, come in, come in,” she said, smiling. “I’ve got eggs and potatoes going, some sweet potato biscuits, sausage gravy, bacon, and some smoked salmon.”

As we moved into the house—past a parlor and into a massive kitchen—the smells hit me, and I found myself desperately hoping she used margarine instead of butter, because it smelled amazing.

“How do you make your biscuits?” Elliot asked. “I’m not a bad baker, but these smell incredible.”