His Head

His head was what I touched first, after that sweet first moment when our mouths met in the dark room. The cup of my palm seemed almost made to fit the curve of his skull. I could feel the bristles bending to tickle the hollow there, then spring back once free of my hand. He shivered, bowing so that I could more easily reach. When I ran my hands over the back of his neck, his lips parted. He sighed, like a kitten about to fall asleep.

“Come down here,” I whispered, pulling him down onto the bed. We sank into the mattress and covers; his face got lost among the rumpled pillows as I continued my relentless stroking of his skull. He would squirm, almost unable to take the soft, invisible paisley shapes I traced from his ears to his lips, from the planes atop his head to the dent of his nape, around his eyebrows and down his cheeks. Then, without warning, he would relax again, releasing another rustle of breath.

“Are you okay?” I whispered, tracing the shape of his jawline.

He nodded, then replied. “Yes.” It was little more than a whisper. “Yes,” he repeated.

His arm crooked around my shoulder, holding me. From time to time his hand would attempt to wander and stroke my arm, but every time I returned it to its resting spot. “Let’s take this off,” I suggested, tugging at the T-shirt he wore, which sported the logo from the tattoo parlor closest to my home. The two sleeves of tattoos on his arms would have been enough to speak of his obvious fondness for ink; the colorful fantasy images were like a second, more colorful skin that wrapped him around, from biceps to wrists.

He paused, dazed, and then nodded. Before I knew what had happened, he’d skimmed off the shirt and buried the front of his torso in the blankets and shadows again, leaving his back exposed. Surely, I thought to myself, someone used to being looked at for having ninety percent of his body covered in ink can’t be shy about showing himself to me.

I didn’t think about it much. Now that I was being given permission to touch him—hell, encouragement—other thoughts didn’t linger. Both my hands moved over the baby-smooth skin of his back, traveling up and down his spine, tickling over his neck, dipping under the waist of his pants and reading his buttocks like braille. I felt shivers ripple over his skin, followed by waves of gooseflesh and more sighs of pleasure. Sometimes I would let my face move down next to his skin, lightly rubbing the bristles of my beard over his sensitive spots to vary the touch.

“Help me help you,” I said at last, tugging at his pants. I couldn’t get them off by myself. He was too deeply pressed into the mattress. Groggily he got to his knees and skinned them down. Beneath, he wore a pair of navy briefs with broad yellow horizontal stripes. It made me think, absurdly, of bees.

I discovered that the backs of his knees were particularly sensitive. I stroked there, then licked, then sucked and bit and ran my beard over the slick flesh. With every new torture he’d gasp and cry out, or try to jerk away, but I was relentless. “You’re really into back-of-the-knee pleasure,” I teased him, buzzing the words in his ear. He only groaned in reply. “I’ve got some nasty back-of-the-knee porn you’d really like. Greased-up backs-of-the-knees bent over stiff dicks. . . .”

“You're a sick back-of-the-knee pervert,” he managed to pant out.

“I’m joking,” I admitted. After a moment more, I pulled at his shorts. “Turn over for me.”

Before I could get him to flip, he pulled himself up and closed the distance between us. Our mouths met again. “You’re still completely dressed,” he murmured. When I looked down, my shirt somehow had become unbuttoned. My elbows pinned it in. Every insecurity I possess came surging to the fore. I was actually frightened for him to see my body. To me this moment, this first impression, really mattered.

Before I could resist, though, he’d turned me around. His own mouth traveled over the length of my neck, sending my body into a shivering convulsion and my mind into oblivion. I felt his hands on my chest, my nipples, moving down to my waist, then tugging at my belt. Like a child too sleepy to be of much help as his father undresses him for bed, my hands tapped helplessly at his own while he loosened my buckles and snaps and zippers. Any reservations I’d had about exposing myself to him evaporated from the heat of his palms. He pulled off my shorts, and then his own, and tossed them both in the direction of the pile of laundry.

We were naked, and alone, and we stared at each other in the flickering candlelight. I relaxed, exhaling slightly, and then settled with him down onto the mattress, never unlocking my gaze from his. Then I reached out to touch him again, for the first time since he’d undressed me.

His head was what I touched first. The cup of my palm seemed almost made to fit the curve of his skull. He sighed, and bowed, and then we started all over again.