| Vodka |
|
| 10:51pm 03/06/2009 |
| |
(This is going to be in my award-winning gay buttsex novel, Russians Have Funny Names Part Three. Enjoy responsibly.)
“I do have a girlfriend.” Andrei’s face was already flushed with drink, his cheeks rosy and eyes glassy. “She loves me and we’re going to get married someday.”
“Is that so?” I kept my tone neutral, refilling my own glass. Just the tone of his voice was enough to make my heart ache. I’d been like him, in another lifetime. “Is she pretty?”
“Oh, she’s beautiful. Much more beautiful than any of the other girls in the village, and she has the longest hair, too. And,” he adds, leaning over the table and lowering his voice, “she let me touch her breast once.”
I raised an eyebrow, and it must have looked to Andrei like skepticism, because he continued, “It’s true! And it felt… well, soft. I thought it would be firm, like—oh, I don’t know, patting a dog’s head. But it was really very—are you all right?”
“Fine,” I choked out, wiping my eyes and wincing against the burn of alcohol in my nose. “Just took it a little too fast, that’s all.”
“You’d best be careful,” Andrei said sagely, “too much of it can really go to your head.”
I shook my head, setting my cup down. I stretched my leg out with a sigh, leaning over to rub my aching knee. I felt the cold weather in every bone, but especially in my right knee, which would twinge and swell and make a nuisance of itself every time a storm approached. Andrei watched me. “Your leg’s still hurting you?”
“Yeh,” I grunt, sitting back in my chair. “Hurt it in the war. Forgot all about it until fifteen years ago when it started acting up again. Damn thing,” I grumbled, and reached for the alcohol again.
Andrei lifted his gaze to mine. “You were a soldier?”
His eyes were too much, especially with the liquor and the sound of the storm outside tugging at my memories, and I had to look away. “Not so much a soldier as an idiot with a bayonet.”
“I didn’t know.” The boy’s voice had gone soft.
“I didn’t tell you,” I pointed out. “It’s been too long to matter.”
“Is that where the scar on your cheek came from?”
“No, that was later. I was your age when I went to war, boy, a lot has happened since then. I told you, it was a long time ago.” My hand shook as I filled my cup, and alcohol sloshed onto the table.
“Did you kill anyone?”
I set the bottle down very carefully. “You’re awfully full of questions tonight,” I growled.
Andrei tucked his chin, eyes darting away from mine like a submissive dog’s.
I reached over the table to snatch his half-full cup from him. “You oughtn’t to drink so much. It’ll rot your insides, and you so young.”
“You drink a lot,” he countered.
I snorted. “I’m not a fuzz-chinned little boy.” I stood up, trying hard not to wobble on my bad knee. “Now the storm should be blown out by morning. I made you a pallet over there by the hearth. Go on and bed down.”
“I’m sorry I asked you,” Andrei said in a small voice.
I paused, back to him, then sighed. “I know you are. Just you watch what you ask of grouchy old men when they’ve had too much to drink.” I turned back towards him, thinking to give him a pat on the shoulder, only to discover that he’d come very close. He stared up at me, his eyes darting from the scar on my cheek to the one that disappeared under my collar. Underneath the smell of alcohol and the smoke from the fire was his scent, clean and sweet. I swallowed hard, unable to move.
“Good night, Vladimir,” he said finally, putting a hand on my shoulder and standing on his toes to kiss my cheek as a child might kiss his father. I suddenly felt very, very old, and I watched him go to his bed with a weight on my shoulders. |
|
| |
|
Read 2 - Post |
| |
|
|