Page:Jay Little - Maybe—Tomorrow.pdf/235

 In the darkness he saw the burning eyes, felt the dripping lips on his again.

"Let's take these off," Paul whispered and without waiting for an answer, he unbuckled the belt and pulled the zipper. He jerked at the trousers as if the eagerness of his love could not wait.

"Wait …" breathed Gaylord, sinking deep into the fur … "Let's don't."

"Please …"

Gaylord's eyes filled with fright as he looked up at Paul, but the expression on the darkened face he saw, so eloquently sincere and miserable, killed the other protest on his lips.

He said humbly, "Well …" His mind could not sustain. He was afraid this was all wrong … but his whole life had been wrong … All the evenings of his life had been dyed in a cloak of morbid grey. The lost years ebbed with a waning voice in the cloak's creases, cuts where tears soaked its flimsy fabric. Yes, he had cried himself to sleep many times. But he had been fated to live after all, chosen for a task that called for more than ordinary strength. He and only he had stood on the rim of mysterious deeds and had had that deep vision, that passionate, wildlike dream.

Gaylord knew what he wanted. He knew he would remember this night all his life. He held the hands on his trousers and a nerve in his thigh began to jerk and his body seemed out of his control. His hands trembled so that he knew Paul would know he was afraid. He didn't want that. Somehow this moment was longer than all the rest of his life together, or rather the forms had been subtly changed and hidden by a veil.

"Why are you trembling, Gay?" Paul whispered. There seemed so much warmth and tenderness in his question. "If you don't want to …"

"I'm all right …" uttered Gaylord removing his hands which were holding those on his trousers …

"You want to?"

"I don't know …"

In the soft light he saw Paul's face. He gave in to his emotions and pulled down at the base of Paul's neck, like one wishing to uproot a little tree without hurting it, pressed the lips down on his. Reminding 225