The Surprise Weekend Visitor

I squeeze his hands, "You're okay. It'll pass soon. I'm not going anywhere. What can I do?"

His teary eyes look down at our hands. All he can do is nod. I take that to mean just stay right here with him. I tell him again, "I'm not going anywhere." He squeezes my hands back as his breathing slowly normalizes. When he finally lets go, I hop up and grab a cold bottle of water out of the fridge. I also bring him a washcloth, cool and damp. The whole incident lasted about five minutes.

He mops his sweaty forehead and takes a long pull on his water. "I'm so sorry."

I wave off the apology, "How often do you have panic attacks?"

He winces, "Periodically over the last three years."

I guess he was in with David as deeply as I was with Carter. Maybe even deeper. "What brought it on?" I ask.

He palms his face, "I was asleep when I felt your hand on my foot. That's something that David used to do. Whenever we'd watch TV, he'd pick up my foot and give me a massage. When it happened in my sleep, I forgot where I was and who I was with. Or, should I say, who I wasn't with."

"Ramon, it was my fault. I fell asleep too and my hand wandered. I'm sorry." I feel terrible. My own panic attacks are finally under control and now I've taken to triggering them in others. This is why I need to stay in my apartment and out of people's lives.

He can see how upset I am. "Hey, Felix. It's okay. My foot wandered first. You did nothing wrong."

I stand. "It's late." I can't look at him anymore. I point out the spare bedroom and the bathroom. I show him where the towels are and tell him to use whatever he needs. Still avoiding his eyes, I turn to move past him but he catches me by the elbow.

"Felix. I'm okay." He turns me around and his touch is electric. He leans closer and I can feel his body heat. I can smell his scent. He smells like soap and cedar and man. "You're okay. We're both okay." Our noses are only two inches apart and an almost forgotten energy roils beneath my skin.

I meet his eye again. I nod. He releases my elbow and I imagine him pushing me against the wall, entangling his fingers in my hair and shoving his tongue down my throat. I start to stiffen in my jeans again. Over the last two years, I had begun to think that my dick was broken. It had gone dormant. This evening has woken it up. But all I do is say, "Goodnight, Ramon." I go into my bedroom, close my door and keep it closed for the next eight hours.

~~

I feel movement at the foot of my bed. A hand wraps around my foot and I tense. A wet, slippery tongue drags up the arch of my other foot and I attempt to yank it away, but I'm frozen in place. I also become aware that I am completely naked under my blanket. My feet are abandoned as two hands and one tongue make their way up my legs, up my thighs, they bypass my raging hardon and lavish attention on my neck. Tingles roll over my whole body. My armpits get licked, my nipples get nipped and all I can do is lie still and enjoy it. When those hands and tongue find my lower abdomen, I scream but no sound comes out. I silently and breathlessly laugh as my tummy gets taken advantage of. And then everything stills for a moment. My cock, twitching and dripping in precum, waits in anticipation. My visitor neither neglects nor disappoints.

I get grabbed, yanked, licked, sucked, squeezed, stroked, tugged and swallowed. I've never felt so defenseless, so vulnerable or so turned on in my thirty two year life. The attack is relentless. I want to hold out. I try to stave it off. He won't quit. He won't even slow down. Since I can't move, scream or even talk, there's nothing I can do. I decide to stop my mental fight. I might as well let it happen and enjoy it. The hands once again give way to the mouth and I close my eyes and let him take all of me in. He is so tight all around me. He slides up to my tip and plunges back down to my base. He repeats this three times and that's all it takes. A rumble rolls up from my scrotum and...

And I'm awake. It's been more than two years since I've had an erotic dream. And even though it wasn't real, I've made a mess in my boxer briefs. Yeah, my dick works just fine.

~~

Ramon walks out of the guest bedroom at the same time that I walk out of mine. I'm fully dressed in workout clothes for a run and he is... Only wearing a pair of boxers! I can't help it; my eyes drink him in, rolling up the length of him and back down again. He has the most beautiful stomach I've ever seen and it's not because of rock-hard abs or v-shaped muscles. No. It's from the same smooth olive skin that covers the rest of him. I crave touching it. The only body hair visible runs from a perfectly round innie belly button and trails southward, disappearing beneath the waistband of his shiny black Nike briefs. The contours of his toned biceps, shoulders and pecs aren't so bad either. He is not at all self-conscious or even shy. I wouldn't be either if I looked like him.

I ask, "Wanna join me in a run?"

He smiles, "On the streets of downtown?"

"I'm a member at the gym across the street. I can bring a guest. If you're not a runner, they have all kinds of stuff." His body tells me that he knows his way around a gym.

"The gym is not Elena's scene. I didn't bring a set of workout clothes."

I hold up a finger and duck back into my room, reemerging shortly with a second set of clothes, socks and my spare pair of Nikes. I say, "I've worn these a few times, but they're close to new. Is that gross? The thought of wearing another man's shoes?"

He laughs, "Gross is the last word that comes to mind when I think of sharing with you."

I don't know why, but I blush. "Despite having molested your foot last night—"

He cuts me off with a snort, "Felix! We settled this already. It was mutual unconscious wandering. I'm good."

"-I don't know what size you are," I finish.

"I'm a size 10," he says.

"Will a 10.5 work? I don't want you to get blisters."

He takes the whole stack from me. "They'll be perfect." He pauses and frowns, "Unless any of this was left behind by Carter. I don't want to wear an asshole's shit."

I already like Ramon, but that comment makes me like him even more. "I can assure you everything that was solely Carter's was dealt with and discarded two years ago by Elena."

He nods, "That sounds like her."

~~

My slightly too big shoes do not give Ramon blisters because he doesn't run. I have a perfect view of him from my treadmill as he works out on all of the weightlifting machines. I am mesmerized by his form as he reaches, stretches, bends, twists and lifts right in front of me. When he jumps up and grabs the crossbar, I get treated to flash of that perfect stomach with each pull-up he does. That strip of bronze lower abdomen causes another stirring in my shorts. By the sixth pull-up, the belly button begins peeking out, like it's teasing me on purpose.

I complete a six mile run in 50 minutes and Ramon is impressed. I'm drenched in sweat as he looks me over with the same appraising eye I've been giving him since last night. "Nice run, Felix."

I mop my sopping brow with a towel. "Showers and some brunch?"

"Sounds great, but how about some strength training first?"

I only come here for the treadmills and the ellipticals. I come here to maintain my health, not to impress some nonexistent person when I take my shirt off. "I don't think—"

"I'll spot you." He says it like it's already been decided.

So he does. At times his hands are on my back and my shoulders. He grips my ankles when he makes me do sit-ups. He grips my sides above my hips as I fail miserably at set of ten pull-ups that I only complete because he literally carries me.

We walk out of the gym, sweaty and laughing. "I am going to be so sore tomorrow."

I only have one bathroom, so I let my guest shower first. Once we're both clean and changed, we head out again, but this time for brunch. After too many bad carbs and empty calories, we head back to my place.

Sitting on my couch again, Ramon says, "I don't think I've properly thanked you for helping me through my panic attack last night."

I think about making a joke about being the one who caused it, but we've sufficiently covered that ground already. Instead, I say, "All I did was not leave."

He scoffs, "First of all, not leaving is heroic. Second of all, you did a lot more than that. How did you know what it was and what to do?"

I turn and look out my window at the city before us. "I've had a few myself."

He puts a hand on my arm, "Since Carter left." It's not a question.

I shake my head, "Since Carter got engaged to someone who isn't me."

"Felix, sometimes people suck. They just do and that's just who they are. Carter and David are two of those people. We shouldn't be killing ourselves trying to figure out why they left us. Why they stopped loving us. We should be trying to figure out why we didn't stop loving them. Why we didn't see it before. Why we didn't leave them."

"In other words, why they suck."

He touches his nose and points at me.

So we spend the next hour telling each other about what we didn't love about Carter and David. About our arguments, about our differences. About stubbornness and pettiness and faults that are only slightly exaggerated.

I laugh, but then I turn sad again. Ramon says, "Obviously there were reasons why we fell in live with them too but we've spent too many years dwelling on that. Packing his suitcases before talking to you was a shit thing to do. A shit thing done by a shit person. Neither of them are worth another panic attack. We don't just owe it to ourselves to move on from them, we owe it to the world. We are too awesome to keep ourselves hidden away."

"So, what do we do?"

"We take a chance. We put ourselves out there. But first we have to break the spell."

"How?"

He slips out of his shoes and plops his feet in my lap, "I sure could use a foot rub." He wiggles his toes.

I smile and cautiously wrap a hand around one of his feet. I can tell he's nervous, but I'm gentle. I certainly won't hurt him. I won't even tickle him. I slide off his sock and his eyes widen.

"You're putting yourself out there, remember?"

He eases back and relaxes into the sofa. His feet are the same olive tone as the rest of him. His feet have soft soles, pink toe tips, no hair and well-manicured nails. He said he's a size 10 and I agree. His feet are perfect 10's. By the time I finish massaging his second foot, I find myself wishing I could give him a foot rub every day. I put his socks back on for him. Did that do it? Is the spell broken?

He nods and says, "You know what you have to do, right?"

I don't.

He looks at the piano. "You have to do a song that you have avoided doing since he left. Only you know what that song should be."

He's right. I do know. I play two songs. First I play Wasted Time, then I reach for the guitar and play an acoustic version of The Heart of the Matter. I know that playing those songs didn't actually change anything, but I can't help feeling a sense of closure. A formal and final goodbye. Spell broken.

Ramon sat right next to me on the piano bench while I played. "You're kind of amazing," he says to me.

"Nah. I'm just messing around. My real talents are in telling other people what to do with their money."

"No judgement here. Are you good at it?"

"They say never to trust a skinny chef or a poor financial advisor."

He laughs. "Can I do a song with you?"

This is another step. I haven't done a song with someone since that someone was Carter. "Umm. Sure. Do you play the piano?"

"A little. Really badly. I know enough to know how good you are." He looks at the guitar still strapped around my shoulder, "May I?"

I hand it to him and he strums a few chords. I immediately recognize the song. It's Details in the Fabric. It couldn't be more perfect. It is literally a song about facing your broken heart, going your own way and overcoming your fears and panic. I join in on piano and we sing together. Ramon cannot harmonize the way Carter could, but that's okay. Something about singing in unison with him is freaking perfect.

When the song is over, we both need to dry our eyes. I put away my guitar and turn around to find Ramon right up against me. I whisper breathlessly, "Maybe we should order in."

"I think I know what I want."

He kisses me. I've been secretly wanting to entangle my fingers in his wavy brown hair since I first saw him last night. Now, I do just that. His hands find their way under my shirt and I tremble from his touch. His lips find my ear and he pants my name. My whole body is instantly covered in goosebumps. He kisses my neck and I tingle down to my toes. He kisses my mouth and our tongues wrestle. Carter has only been gone for two years, but it's been way longer since I've felt passion like I do right now. I might have never felt anything like I do right now.

Still kissing me, he drops his hands to the backs of my thighs. He pulls me up and I wrap my arms and legs around him. He walks us blindly to my bedroom and deposits us in a laughing heap on my bed. We fight to get each other's clothes off quickly without tearing anything. He stares down at my now shirtless body and says, "You are a damn fine looking man."

I blush. And then I roll him on his back. His beautiful stomach has made another appearance and I have a front row seat. First I look with my eyes, then I look with my hands. I do to him for real what he did to me in my dream last night. He enjoys the attention as much as I like giving it. When I wrangle him out his jeans, his burgeoning erection is straining the seams of his boxer briefs. I peel them off and his seven inch steel rod points skyward. More beautiful bronze skin. My hands grasp his iron pole and his whole body shakes in response. I begin a gentle massage of his organ and precum flows out of him like a leaky faucet. I intensify the massage and now he's slapping the mattress and crying my name. I ease up just long enough for him to catch his breath.

But only for a minute. Next, I go at him with my mouth, licking and sucking him like a melting popsicle on a hot summer day. He squeals. I suck him up and down and then I slide my tongue below his mushroom cap. This makes him spasm, so I keep doing it. I do it and do it and do it until his back arches and his hands grab my head. I swallow every drop of his manhood as he unloads. I suck him dry to within an inch of his tolerance before leaving his spent cock to recuperate.

After a brief rest, he rolls me over and literally makes my dream come true.

~~

Real life was way better than the dream. Between the sex, the workout, the carbs at breakfast and the emotional afternoon, we fell asleep on my bed. When I wake up, it's to the sound of noises coming from my kitchen. And smells. Someone is cooking. I sit up and Ramon is not next to me.

I find he is the source of the sounds and smells. Sadly, his shirt is back on. He sees me and smiles, "I'm making us dinner."

I look around. What is going on here? None of these ingredients were in my fridge.

He answers my unasked question, "This morning after I showered and I was waiting for you, I ran out to the market across the street and picked up a few things. I was back before you finished. I'm making us carne asada."

My mouth is watering. No one (that I haven't paid) has cooked for me in a long, long time. I help him bring plates and bowls to the table. The food is delicious. It's like all of my senses have woken up. They've come back to life.

"What are we gonna do this evening?" I ask.

"Our spell-breaking mission needs to come full circle. I am going to badly peck out a song on the piano and you'll receive a foot massage."

How can I say "No" to that?

~~

He slept in my bed last night. We didn't talk about Portland or visits or ending or continuing whatever this was. Not last night, anyway. But now, in the light of the morning... We have to. It's kind of silly to think that based on just 36 hours together, one of us would quit his job, break his lease and move across the country. We decided to exchange phone numbers and email addresses for now and see what happens.

His Lyft is due here in a half an hour but we're still lying in bed wrapped in each other's arms. Responsibility is an asshole. He has his conference to get to, so when he trudges to the shower, I understand. I sit up and notice a strange wallet on the floor. It must have fallen out of his jeans pocket when we were wildly ripping each other's clothes off last night. I pick it up and it flops open, revealing his driver's license through a clear plastic window. My blood runs cold and I find I can't breathe. The date of birth, hair color, eye color, height and weight all seem accurate. The picture is of him. But it's not him. It's not Ramon. His driver's license is not from the state of Oregon, it's from the state of Illinois. His address is right here in Chicago and his name is Miguel Ramirez.

~~

I didn't confront Mr. Ramirez with what I'd learned. By the time he emerged from the bathroom, showered and dresses, his Lyft was downstairs waiting for him. We had pretty much already said our goodbyes, so I let him give me a hug, a peck on the cheek and a "thanks for letting me crash". And then he was gone. Miguel Ramirez: friend and work husband of Elena Suarez. Headed to regular Monday morning work and not some made up conference. I am such an idiot.

So, no, I didn't confront him. I let him go and then I spent the whole day stewing. I went over every minute of our thirty-six hours together trying to figure out what moments were real and what was made up. Was it all made up? Is there no David? Was the panic attack faked? It sure seemed real and I am one to know. Plus, I never told Elena about my own panic attacks, so that would not be something she would have coached him to do.

After a whole day of accomplishing too little work and spending too much time dissecting history - the only difference being who that history was with, Miguel rather than Carter - I called Elena. She was clueless that I'd figured out her scheme. A distant relative - not really a relative at all - never before mentioned, Oliver's dad in an accident... Of course it couldn't be her dad. I know her dad. Oliver's dad is just a name to me. Someone I'd never met. I've known Elena's dad since we were ten years old. I'd be devastated if something had happened to him; unable to give my full attention to Ramon. I mean Miguel.

When she answered, she went right on with the charade. She pretended that she and Oliver were just back in town, that she missed work today but was glad to report that Oliver's dad was on the mend. He would be okay. She said that Ramon wasn't back from his conference yet. She wouldn't see him until late tonight and he had an early flight out tomorrow. She asked me how the weekend went.

Unlike her, I was not in the mood for the land of make believe. I told her straight out what I had discovered. Through my shrieks of how dare you and how could you and I'll never forgive you for this, I wouldn't let her speak. I wouldn't let her defend herself. I finished my rant, ended the call and promptly blocked her number. And her husband's and her pretend cousin's. I called down to the lobby and let the front desk know that I would not be accepting visitors named Elena, Oliver, Miguel or Ramon.

~~

Five days later. Saturday. I walk two miles to Elena and Oliver's apartment. Her building has no doorman. When another tenant coms out the front door, I slip in. I take the stairs rather than the elevator up to the fifth floor. I knock on her door. Oliver answers. He looks upset as the door swings open, but then he sees that it's me. His face breaks out into the biggest smile and he grabs me in a hug stronger and longer than the one I gave him on their wedding day. I can feel the tension drain from his body.