Page 30 of The Woodcarver's Model
“Hey—you should come by for dinner tonight,” Rob yelled.
“Sounds good. Seven o’clock good for you?”
“Sounds great,” Mitch said with a little less enthusiasm.
“See you guys then,” Eric said as Rob threw his arms around him again and gave him a huge kiss.
“Bye bye!” He giggled. Then in a loud stage whisper he said, “My God, you could lose yourself in that gorrrrrgeous ass. Hey—I think I’ll have another brownie.”
“No. I think you’ve had enough.”
“You’re not mad at me, are you? You can’t be mad at me. I danced for the suuuun!”
“How could I possibly be mad at a five-year-old? Now, into the truck. You can get dressed when we get home.”
Chapter Eleven
They both slept late. Rob was the first to wake. It was after three in the afternoon before he opened his eyes. He lay there on his side and assessed his situation. His mouth felt as though it was filled with cotton and his brain with woollen socks. His breath tasted like…What the hell happened this morning and what exactly was in the tea and brownies? Those tasty, tasty brownies.
He listened. The room was filled with the strangest sound. He could see Mitch still asleep beside him.How,he thought,can someone so attractive look so…not, when they sleep?He’d not noticed it before. That being said, he’d never been the first up. Mitch’s mouth was opened at a strange angle. Rob tried to shift his own jaw into that position but it wasn’t possible. Drool trickled out of the downstream side of that delicious mouth. And his beautiful black hair—if it were possible, he’d swear every strand was heading in a different direction. His eyelashes were the only things on his head that weren’t in disarray. Rob hadn’t noticed how long they were. Long and arched and black and…perfect. In short, Mitch was even more adorable than before. But what was that smell? Just then his body was shoved forward into Mitch. Rob craned his head around to find himself face to face with Rufus’ open maw, and his breath was…
“Oh God.” The smell was worse than the night he’d come home after rolling in… Rob felt the gorge rise in his throat. He leapt over the dog and made it into the washroom just in time. Now he knew what Mitch had felt like the other night.
After rinsing and brushing his teeth, feeling mildly better, he returned to the bedroom to retrieve his clothes. Rufus was still under the sheets and now occupying most of the bed.
Out in the kitchen, Rob made a pot of coffee. If he were at home, he would have checked the papers online, checked his emails, checked his Twitter account and checked his Instagram by now. Here he felt no need, no desire to find out what anyone else was doing. The coffee was his only concern.
As he worked on his first cup and nibbled on a piece of dry toast, he wrote in his notebook.
It is too easy to come to false conclusions about a place when one only experiences what a general tourist book tells us to see. A true traveller, one who eschews the international hotel for a pensione and prefers street food to some posh café fare, knows that it is only when you immerse yourself in another culture that you can see it for what it truly is, for what the people are—not caricatures painted with wild eccentricities, but rather people who are living life by their own rules. I carry this thought with me wherever I go and if something seems out of place, the fault lies with me.
What might seem to some as a 1960s pseudo-sexual rite dressed up as a bizarre pagan ritual, akin to modern-day “Druid” performances, is, in fact, a beautiful shedding of modern-day restrictions, one that celebrates humanity’s part in the natural world. I had, for the first time in many years, abandoned the constraints placed on me by society, and celebrated that simplest of joys—the fact that I was alive.
“Good morning,” Mitch said as he slid into the seat across from Rob. His hair was perfect, face free from drool. Gorgeous as ever. Somehow, he always managed to have just enough facial hair, all neatly trimmed.
“You look beautiful.”
Mitch blushed.
“And it’s almost evening, if you haven’t noticed,” Rob joked.
Mitch smiled and said, “Whatcha working on?”
“The article on the island.”
“Can I see it?”
“Not yet. It’s still too raw.”
“Ooo. Sexy.” Mitch winked at him.
Rob looked Mitch over and said, “I would love to throw you on the table right now, but I need to put a dent in this today.”
“Well, you dent away and I’ll start prepping supper.”
Rob replied, “The toast here is pretty good.”
Mitch kissed him gently on the forehead. “Still a little tender from this morning? I know just what you need to pick you up. Roast chicken and veg. Don’t forget, Eric is coming over at seven.”
