Hair Dryers

The hair dryer was too close to the edge.1

He decided as he felt fingers, thin and sticky like spider webs crawl up his skin, nail-first and then soft, apologetic pads. They were like ghosts mumbling against the fine hairs of his body, only barely there, but still too much to be sane, right, safe. He heard the sharpness of rasping, seething whispers flood the canal of his ear, dripping like poison into the gelatin of his flustered brain. They were like the ring of subtle radiation from a neglected television set, a small buzz and prick to your mind, but still enough to keep you searching through the empty rooms of your house. He saw red, though only slightly through the haze of his vision. It was like a woman?fs powder, discreet and compact, only visible when a man was close enough to be slapped.2

In the back of his mind, he caught a vague image of cherry blossoms fluttering over the suffocating daffodils of March.3

He whimpered as he was crushed, spine-first, between the unforgiving edges of the bathtub and the toilet. He all but screamed when hipbones clawed against the tender depression between the golden blur of pubic hair and the lightly clothed edge of his own slender hips. Low, rumbling groans wrenched themselves out of gasping mouths, agape to show rows of sparkling white teeth made for digging erotically into the flesh between collarbones and kneecaps. Rough palms caressed, with only barely-restrained passion, sinisterly wet and secret places that would tremble and twitch with ever touch and kiss.4

The hair dryer was too close to the edge.5

He decided as he gasped and suddenly the entire room was swirling and sparking and exploding around him as if he were riding upon the back of a brilliant comet, zooming through the empty space between his touches and his heart. He cried out as soft and sticky and bitterly-sweet pleasure leaked from him, and all the world narrowed down into a blur of painfully sharp arches, delightfully hard thrusts, and sorrowfully automatic responses. And for a bare second, it was heartbeat hovering tender-sweet over erratic heartbeat and rib clawing gentle-forceful over curved rib and palm pressing desperate-bitter over sweaty palm.6

And for a bare second, there was nothing more to the world.7

Nothing more that his distorted crying, whimpering, begging face, contorted into the image of painful longing. Nothing more than his serene intent, loving, protecting face, staring remorsefully into the sobbing willingness of the other.8

For a second, nails, sharp and lustful, had scraped off the hurtful-cold facade and revealed the adoring-hot underside of his passion.9

The hair dryer was too close to the edge.10

He decided as he perched himself, backbone bruised and sore, on the edge of the tub, toes hanging out and curving sloppily around the ledge.11

The hair dryer was too close to the edge.12

He decided as he watched him lean, neck chewed and purpled, against the shelf of scented shampoos and bubbly soaps, a cruel reminder of the pair of excluded eyes that stared at them through the slits of closets and bookshelves.13

The hair dryer was too close to the edge.14

He decided as he opened his mouth to say: I think.15

With his scarred cheeks puffing and stretching.16

I love you.17

And somewhere in his heart he heard.18

The hair dryer fall.19