I’m pretty sure Toby was messing with me. Not in the sense of playing a joke, but just unable to leave me alone to enjoy myself. He had this phobia of me getting into horrible trouble if he wasn’t on guard 24/7, but rather than rehash all his concerns about Cave, he made it seem like there was a lot of important work to be done, more music to listen to, questions from the label about possible cover art (“I’m not doing a shitty 1950s throwback album, what the fuck is this old car doing on the cover?”), anything he could do to keep me in the room and keep my mind on business, even though he knew I needed a break from it all.

I’d promised myself that I’d go easy on him, though, and so I didn’t blow up or anything, but when I came down to the dining room in the lodge, I was pretty pissed off and determined to put work out of my mind entirely.

The dining room was angled so that sunset was brilliant; the mountainsides lit in glowing autumn orange, even as the lake was already dropping into darkness. The lights in the room were off, and Cave, standing at the window, was a beautiful silhouette. I watched him for a while, not announcing my entrance, just taking him in.

I still couldn’t believe he’d pushed me into the water. The Old Cave wouldn’t have done that. He would’ve been shy about it, willing to fall in but unwilling to do the pushing. He’d grown since then, had a sense of initiative now. He knew the value in grabbing what you want. Of all the ways for a person to change over time, I thought that was a good one. He was more confident now, stood up straighter. It made him an imposing figure, there at the window. Yet I knew that he still had a little shyness lurking inside. That touch of vulnerability that somehow made his strength that much more evident. I almost didn’t want to approach him. Part of me wanted to stand here, watching him like this forever.

“There you are,” I said, as though I’d been looking for him. “Jojo okay?”

“Having the time of his life. I’m a little jealous. When I left him, Brutus was reading him a story, and he was just rapt with delight. Isabel, of course, is just happy to be in whatever room Jojo is in. How was your talk with Toby?”

I shook my head and sat at the table closest to the window. “The less said about it, the better. We’re on vacation, right?”

“He must absolutely hate me,” Cave said.

His tone said he took the idea seriously, and while I was ready to brush off their objections, I had to look at it through his eyes: To him, Toby and Giselle were like family to me. Friends who I spent a great deal of time with, whose opinions mattered greatly. It was as though I’d paraded him in front of my parents, thumbing my nose at them as we went past.

Oh, god, the idea of telling my dad about this...wow. I thought I’d rather leave town another fifteen years.

“I don’t think Toby hates you, for what it’s worth,” I said. The waiter had arrived with the wine. I waited while he poured it out for us both, then leaned towards Cave. “It’s more that you represent a real unknown for him.”

“A threat.”

“An unknown.”

He shook his head. “The entire flight here, he kept looking over at me. I know that look, Ransom. He wasn’t confused about me. It was like a white blood cell that suddenly spotted a trespassing virus.”

My hand stopped on its way to bring the wine to my lips. “He’s not going to engulf you and...whatever it is the immune system does. Honestly, I was more worried about Giselle. Hell hath no fury like a bored model. Getting Rhody to babysit her was a real coup.”

“That’s kind of my point. Rhody was happy to meet you. All my friends would be. They’d want to talk, want to get to know this big mystery figure who has suddenly come into my life. I mean, aside from the fame, even if you were like a tax attorney or a garbage man, they’d want to meet you. They wouldn’t glare the way Toby does.”

I thought about that. “You mean they’d be happy once they’d decided I was right for you. They’re friends. Friends are all about judging your relationships for you. To use your own metaphor, they’re the immune system that keeps you safe from creepy guys.”

“I don’t think they’d hate you in advance the way Toby does me,” he said. “Well. Maybe Nat would. Not hate you--he’s too nice for that. But he’s certainly fretting about you.”

I didn’t know whether to be flattered or startled that he was talking to his friends about me. I mean, it was natural, it was the sort of thing normal people did...but I couldn’t help that it set off all my alarms. It was all I could do not to quiz Cave on Nat’s trustworthiness: Would he talk to the press? Would he blab about it all around town? It was one thing to have Rhody here; she’d already been spoken to by the legal team. Cave had convinced me Oceanside was a hotbed of gossip...wasn’t it really unsafe to tell his other friends about me?

Cave laughed. “Don’t say it, I can see the worry on your face. Nat’s not going to tell anyone.”

“Oh, no, it’s not--”

“Don’t fib, I know exactly what you were thinking. And it’s just the opposite. Nat’s not going to tell the world about you and me. He’d much rather see you go back to your big famous life so that I can get back to my small, somewhat less famous one.”

“Why, what’s wrong with me? Why am I not good boyfriend material? I’m known around the world, I sell out arenas, a million people hum my tunes as they go about their day. Objectively speaking, I’m quite a catch.”

“And humble!”

“That’s my secret weapon,” I said, looking abashed and innocent, “a thoroughgoing humility.”

He laughed and threw a napkin at me. “Of course you’re a catch, that’s not the issue. You’re too much of one. You’re the swordfish that was so big you capsized the boat.”

“Your metaphors are really on fire tonight. Are you saying I’m too much man for you? I mean, I’ll take the compliment--”

“Too something, certainly. I think Nat has a point, and I’m trying to push it out of my head, because we’re supposed to be enjoying ourselves, and I don’t want to think about it.”

“Do I need to invite him up here, so he can sit with Rhody and Giselle, and they can all grump about us?”

I wasn’t being coy. I knew exactly what Cave was talking about. We had two very different lives. Not just different. Incompatible. What, like I hadn’t thought about it a hundred times? Would his little family fit on the tour bus as we circled the country? Would an audience of thousands come sit in his living room while I sang? How on earth could two lives that were so different, but so well-established, possibly mesh?

Another swallow of wine didn’t answer the question, but at least warmed my throat.

The waiter came back; he seemed to find it strange to have only two patrons tonight and didn’t know whether to pay us endless attention or leave us alone. We sent him on his way, but service was swift, and soon he was back, covering the table with dishes, bowls of fresh fruit, tureens of soup, baskets of bread. A steak for Cave. I wasn’t sure my throat was up to really solid food, so I kept to the soup.

Once we were alone again I said, “Don’t worry about Nat right now, okay? I’m sure he has some very good points that aren’t in my favor. But this trip is about getting away from everybody’s opinions, just for a brief while. Right?”

Cave seemed almost grateful for permission to stop worrying. He nodded. “Right.”

He took his fork and began to attack his salad with gusto, loading up the tines. It reminded me of how we used to eat in the lunchroom at school, a little hunched over, flying through the meal to get finished before the bell rang.

I was still waiting for my soup to cool by the time he had finished the salad.

“Starving?” I asked. “You should have mentioned it before, we could’ve gotten you a snack or lunch or something.”

He looked up. “What? No, I’m fine. It’s pretty tasty.”

“Oh, good. It’s just, you were in such a rush.” I gestured towards his empty bowl.

A half-guilty smile crossed his face. “Habit, I guess. Wolf everything down. Fit the meal in before the next big emergency happens.”

“I don’t think we’ve scheduled for any emergencies, so if you wanted to take your time...”

With exaggerated slowness, he reached over for a roll from the basket and brought it slowly over to his plate. Making a joke, but I could still see the worry around his eyes.

“What can I do for you, to help you relax?” I asked.

“Is it that obvious?”

“I want you to be able to enjoy yourself,” I said. “If the food isn’t to your liking, we could--”

“God, it’s not that. This is a great spread. It’s just...I keep thinking, this has to end at some point. Isn’t that awful? Why am I thinking that? I can’t seem to stop, though. Every time I relax enough to enjoy myself, I suddenly remember there’s a ticking clock somewhere out there, counting down the seconds until I go back to normal. I’m trying to savor every moment, but...remember how you said you’d lost your sense of play? I feel like I’ve lost my ability to savor things.”

“Maybe I should’ve made this less of a voluntary vacation and more of a kidnapping?” I said.

“Yeah, do that,” he said. “Lock me away from all my emergencies and duties and appointments. A nice dark cell somewhere, where I could finally relax. I mean, I know you’re pretty busy, but do you know what it’s like to just constantly go?”

I didn’t put any thought into it: I just rose from the table. He gave me a hesitant look at first--was I walking out? But no. I picked up the napkin he had thrown at me, and walked to his side of the table, folding the napkin as I approached him.

When I was behind him, I put the napkin over his eyes, like a blindfold. To his credit, he didn’t say a word, didn’t fight it; he let me tie it around his head.

“There,” I said. “Now you’re my captive. There’s nowhere you can go to escape me.”

I pulled my chair close to him and sat, my knees touching his thigh. I picked up a small cube of cantaloupe from the fruit plate. Its scent was heavy and sweet, its color one of those sunset shades of orange, like out the window there, where the evening sun had picked out the trees with the color of flame.

“For you,” I said, touching the fruit to his mouth. His head tilted fractionally toward me, an unasked question on his lips. I watched him open just slightly, the tip of his tongue finding first my finger rather than the melon, but then taking the fruit from my hand. “Tell me what you taste,” I said.

“Cantaloupe,” he answered.

“I didn’t ask what it was. I asked what you tasted.” A tiny drop of juice on his lower lip reflected the lamplight of the room.

“It’s...sweet?”

“We’re savoring,” I said. “You’re kidnapped, you’re locked away. The only thing you have tasted in days is this melon; it might be the only food you get for weeks. You want to hold onto it, to understand it, to memorize it. Take your time.”

His face was still except for the movements of his jaw. “Wet,” he said. “It tastes wet. Like you can’t figure out how it got that much water into it. And...sweet, but not just sweet. Sweet like flowers. Do cantaloupes have flowers? They must, they’re melons, they grow on a vine. I don’t think until this moment I’ve ever thought about them growing on vines. I think I pictured them hanging heavily off trees. But the heaviness is part of it, too. It’s so full. Soft. It’s not a crisp flavor, there’s no challenge to it.”

I watched his throat as he swallowed. The urge to kiss his throat was almost overwhelming. Something about seeing him vulnerable like this, blindfolded, it had started as almost a joke, but my body doesn’t respond this way to jokes, not with this sense of urgency, of wanting my hands on him now.

From behind his blindfold, he said, “Did I do okay?”

“Beautifully,” I said. A few blackberries were next. I presented them to his lips. This time his nostrils flared as he tried to catch the scent before tasting. A brief shake of his head, as he could not place it. Again, the tip of his tongue, and I wished I could see his eyes because I could tell he had not expected the shape of the berries; his tongue explored them.

“Raspberries?” he asked. When I was silent, he took one into his mouth, then shook his head. “Blackberry. Not as tart as a raspberry. The sweetness is different from the melon...muskier, but restrained somehow. Like it’s a day from being fully ripe, like the sugar hasn’t developed. But the feeling of it is so different. I want to roll it over my tongue, over the roof of my mouth.”

He swallowed a hint of purple stain against his lips. I lifted my hand again, but this time it was empty. I touched his lower lip with my thumb, and he obediently tried to taste. A smile crossed his face, but he said nothing. I slipped my thumb between his lips, and he sucked it gently. I could feel it in my toes. With my other fingers, I caressed his cheek, his jaw. His teeth softly bit me, keeping me from taking my thumb back, and the moment contained the thrill of a ghost of a fear, a milli-fear that he might not let go.

I brushed my lips against his cheek. He’d shaved this morning, but already soft stubble darkened his jaw, its slightest roughness warming my kiss.

If I could have lifted him onto the table, I would have. Pushed everything aside, and taken him right there. Wasn’t that my prerogative? Wasn’t I a star, and allowed to do anything I wished?

I knew he would not like that. I knew his worry over it would steal him from me, and I couldn’t have that, not right now, not now that he was mine. I pulled him up from his chair, roughly, the way our imaginary kidnapper might have done. His hand rose to lift up his blindfold, but I pushed it away. I wasn’t ready for him to see yet. Not ready for him to be back in his busy-world, his busy-mind.

My hand on the small of his back pushed him forward, the hand on his shoulder steering him. Not a word between us, and no one around to see as we left the room. He stumbled up the steps and gave the smallest cry of alarm, but I steadied him instantly. Stay with me, I thought. Don’t run away. Don’t think.

Pushing him, shoving him forward through the hall until we reached my door. One hand at his back, pressing him to the wall, more roughly than necessary, as I got the door open and pulled him inside.

He was so willing. His trust drove me forward. I couldn’t make it to the bed with him. There was no time. The hard-on that I had been growing while feeding him, was so tight and painful, it demanded release. I shoved him to the floor.

I don’t know why I was being so rough. Maybe it was all the anger I was hiding from, all the stress people had been putting on me, forbidding me from this. Maybe it was an older anger still, my fury and incomprehension that Cave would not come with me when we were kids. That would explain the violence with which I kissed him, pulling him close. But he met me with the same energy, desperate for it like a man who had been starved. The blindfold could have come off. I could have looked deeply into his eyes, seeking the connection there, seeking the certainty that he felt this too. He didn’t make a move to lift it. Maybe it was helping him. Maybe he needed to hide from his life as much as I needed to hide from mine.

He read me with his hands, studying my shoulders, my arms, my chest. None of the gentle unbuttoning of before, though; he was finding the weaknesses, the places he could fit his fingers through, to rip open, to rend and tear until his hands found my bare flesh. It was true: He had his own anger, and he was some wild and unpredictable animal, unleashed and dangerous. His lips found my throat, my collarbones, my nipples, still using his hands to shove against me, to push me.

If anyone had been watching, they might have thought we were battling, a slow-motion fistfight where clothes were shredded and shed, bodies pushed to the floor, fighting back, sitting up, trying to knock the opponent over. To what end? Control. To be the man on top. To have the full expression of this mingled anger and desire. He was between my legs now, my pants having been kicked aside, only our briefs protecting me from his cock straining against mine, the heat of his shaft palpable even through the fabric.

I reached up to remove his blindfold, and he slapped my hand away. He thrust against me, pulling back, pushing harder, my balls separated by his cock, a heat that carried up into my belly. Here I was, prepared to take him right away, to fuck him until he cried, and yet I was somehow at his mercy, overcome by his strength and certainty.

I loved it. I was ready for it. But I wasn’t...ready for it. “Wait,” I whispered, and tried to crawl towards the bag sitting next to the bed. He grabbed my ankle and pulled; my knees went out from beneath me and I hit the floor with a huff. I was on my belly. He crawled up me like I was a ladder, his knees against me, keeping my legs still, until I felt his cock press against my ass cheeks, and his tight firm belly warmed the small of my back.

My hands barely reached the strap of the bag. I pulled it over with one hand, unzipped it, dumped it out. We were in too much of a hurry for delicacy. Into his hands, I pressed the bottle of lube.

Sometimes you want a slow and leisurely time, one of those romantic weekend getaway times, where there is murmuring and whispering, questions asked shyly and answered softly. But sometimes you realize you are animals, and you just want to get fucked. That was me, gasping as he ripped my briefs down, amazed by how roughly he kneaded my now-unclothed ass. I tensed, letting him feel the thick muscles that were half the reason for my fame.

At first, I wasn’t sure what he was doing when his hands left me, but suddenly the room was plunged into blackness, as he put his blindfold on me.

The briefest moment of panic, of surprise.

It made everything else so sharp. I could hear the soft click of the top of the bottle of lube. Could hear the air hiss out of it, as he squeezed it. The cool of it against my skin, as his strong and probing fingers searched me.

I surrendered myself to it. It wasn’t easy. I think of myself as a top. Maybe it comes with the job. When everybody tells you how great they are, when everybody worships you, then you get to do all the fucking. It’s all about your needs. You look down at whoever it is you’re thrusting away at, and you feel that sense of power, that sense of domination--not a huge sense, it’s not like a bondage thing or something, but still something primal. Everything in its place, and your place is in control.

There was no control for me right now. I lay in the dark, gasping at the first entry of his middle finger. I’d seen his hands. They were strong and tan and broad, and he was fucking me with one--no, now two--fingers. I wasn’t used to it. I pressed against him, squeezed with my muscles, my cock hard as though it were rebelling against this invasion, pressed against the rough rug beneath me.

He didn’t say anything. I could hear his breathing, its speed and heaviness. His excitement as he plunged his fingers into me. A third. It was almost unbearable. No apology from him, no kindly questions as to my comfort level. It reminded me so much of our past, when we were figuring each other’s bodies out. We never thought to ask each other questions then, either, just blindly stumbled into whatever felt good.

And this felt good. It wasn’t what I was used to, at all. Not this roughness, not the sense of being stretched, but it had me wanting more. Wanting him more. I wanted to ask him to fuck me, I wanted to beg him, but I wasn’t about to break the silence between us.

I didn’t have to. He could read my mind. His fingers left me slick and ready, and my heightened senses told me he was picking up one of the many, many packs of condoms that had fallen out of my back. I listened to the foil rip, a brief ssst, and then there were a couple of seconds of peace.

I had seen his cock. I’d had it in my mouth very recently. I don’t know that I was ready for it, though, not as ready as I thought I was. As he pushed into me, I cried out, the hoarse sound absorbed rather than echoing from the log-cabin walls. My fingers scrabbled for purchase against the rug.

His hands were on my hips, lifting me so he could get deeper. I don’t know what I thought at that moment. No, that’s not quite right: What I was feeling was a blissful absence of thought, nothing but sensation, the darkness around me making room for his closed-lip grunt as he shoved himself all the way into me, my own high-pitched note escaping my throat, the strength and warmth of his hands, even the slap of his balls against me, all of it combined in that blackness.

On my knees, now. They were far apart, giving him all the room he needed, but it gave me room, too; I leaned on one elbow, and my other hand reached back, gripping my cock, squeezing, stroking down its length; it pulsed with each of Cave’s thrusts. I was reminded of the tide pounding against the beach.

I didn’t know how long I could last, not with that fat cock filling me up. I reached back, found some of that lube that was so generously spread all over me, and with my slick hand, returned to my shaft.

He felt it too, this sense that we were on the verge, on the very precipice; one arm wrapped around me, and he was pulling me close. The pounding had been replaced with short, quick thrusts, all in the hips, and I urged him on by pushing back, meeting each movement with my own. He whimpered, and his arm around me tightened.

The world exploded. Blindfolded or not, I experienced it as a great flash of white light, pulsing somehow through my retinas. He let out a cry that was almost anguished in its urgency and need, pushing into me so hard I had to steel myself not to be shoved over. His cock thickened, and I could feel him coming, even as his seed was caught by the rubber. For a half-second, I wished he would yank the rubber off, splash me with his cum, cover me in it. But only for half a second, because the pressure inside me was too great, and my balls tensed, my slicked-up hand moving so fast, that I came too, groaning and thrusting against my palm. I was unprotected, of course, and poured out onto the rug, releasing wave after wave.

We collapsed into each other, both overwhelmed by the strength of what had just happened between us. My blindfold had loosened, slipping up my forehead as I rolled to be even closer to him, his arms around me so strong. When had he become the protector, able to hold me this tightly? Wasn’t I supposed to be the strong one, the one in charge? Wasn’t I worshiped in the streets? But I needed him, and I lay my head against his powerful chest.

He nuzzled my hair, and I felt his warm breath against me. I reached down and held his wet cock, not to turn him on, but just to hold it, to have it, to mark it as mine.

“Did it work?” he whispered to me. “Did I savor my vacation the right way?”

I laughed quietly but did not answer, other than to lift my face and kiss him again.

Vacation. That’s all this was. This was our getaway. Our chance to have a normal time together, like normal people had, away from cameras and crowds. Not a relationship, of course not. Just a leveling of the playing field. Just enjoying each other for this short time.

So why did it feel like so much more than that? Why did it feel so real between us?

What was happening to me?