Constant Craving
Bernie
R
Ilya Kovalchuk/Markus Naslund
Fiction means I am lying
(title lifted from a k.d lang song, but it has no
bearing on the fic.)
* ** ***
* ** ***
On a water splattered oval
shaped piece of paper over the front door - the front door being the door that
looks out over the beach - in Markus' neat print it says THE ARK.
"If this constant rain
keeps up, we will have to attach pontoons to the porch and we can sail
away" and here it becomes almost singing "forever and a day in a beautiful
peagreen boat."
This plan seems dubious, if
for no other reason than the cottage isn't peagreen, Ilya thinks, it is more of
a pale yellow.
"Two in the front and
two in the back." Markus says. "Should do the trick against this
constant rain."
Ilya thinks that the
constant rain has not ruined his summer vacation. Because when it rains they
come into the cottage together, and those moments slow down until seconds last
as long as July. In fact just this morning, or maybe yesterday morning for a
few mornings in a row, it was clear enough to swim before and after breakfast
and bake on the beach inbetween.
They take off racing each
other from the front door, naked because there is no one around and it fucking
constantly rains on all the laundry anyway so better to have less, and Ilya
isn't used to running in sand and takes two steps for every one of Markus'.
And last Monday, or
Tuesday, that was the week June became July and they lost a day accidentally
when they turned the page over on the calendar late, they had spent the whole
day roasting in a tiny boat for a grand total of no fish.
It's like walking along the
side of a cliff. Pacing from left to right, knowing that the water closing over
you will be cold and crisp with salt when you dive in, but not quite able to
push yourself over the edge. Hanging back for just a second, for something
else, some new sensation.
So it can't have been
raining the whole time they were here. It just feels like it sometimes.
It wasn't raining on a
Sunday when Markus worshiped at the 'church of Ilya' stroking hands just this
side of rough with salt and sand over Ilya's cock and watching his come spill
onto the beach.
"I love you."
Ilya whispered onto Markus' head when the other man was kissing down his chest,
and Markus shrugged the words out of his golden hair onto the beach between the
shells. Still there though and they both know they will have to be careful not
to cut their feet on them when next they run naked into the surf.
"What are you scared
of?"
"The beach crumbling
away and the house falling into the ocean."
"Cottage." Markus
corrects. "Summer cottage."
"Besides, you can swim
right? I have seen you." Markus lips curve into a slow smile and leaning
forward he bites Ilya's chin, laughing and sliding his tongue into the young
man's surprised open mouth.
"Just what are you
scared of anyway huh?"
'Lazy smile'. Ilya thinks.
Showing all his teeth when he smiles like a shark.
Markus flatly refuses to
swim in the constant rain, and they can't fish 'all the fish are further out to
sea' Markus tells him, and he won't sit on the wet sand in the constant rain.
He will sit on the porch at night and stare at the oceans flat surface pitted
with raindrops, but during the day they circle each other in the cottage. Any game
they start, any conversation they begin always ends the same way.
Some Wednesdays they fuck
on the orange rug on the kitchen floor, with the door open, so the constant
rain splatters on Markus' back as he is sliding in and out of Ilya. Sometimes,
Thursdays, they leave all the windows open in the living room and Ilya drapes
himself over the arm of the couch with Markus' legs on either side of his
knees, and when he stretches his fingers out they trail in the puddle of water
under the window.
The whole of the world is
waterlogged. But right now, for a moment, it has stopped raining. It is silent
outside, the birds, one or two of them that haven't been stunned silent by the
second coming's flood or haven't been swept away by the wind, are calling to
each other, but the sound is absorbed into the damp earth and spiny beach flax
and doesn't bounce out as any noticeable summer song.
The sheets are spongy under
Ilya, and Fridays are a day for making love in bed. Inside the bedroom, even
with the windows and doors open 'good thing there are no neighbours for miles'
it is sultry and water streams down the walls.
"Some summer
vacation." Markus bites down into the skin of Ilya's neck, brown from
being sprawled on the porch watching the waves.
"Fucking
raining."
"Just
fucking" Ilya says earning a laugh. And earning a fuck
Markus did fuck him. He
fucked him hard, but slow, in time with the tides on the beach. And deep, as
deep as the blue sea and hard, as hard as the waves crashing into the cliffs
around the beach, while Ilya's tanned hands scrabbled to hold onto the peagreen
sheets under him.
He looked down at his sweat
dripping on the bed, and where it hit it turned the fabric darker, an older
fertile green. Like a forest, like a colour that Ilya couldn't even remember,
it had been so long since he had seen anything that wasn't through a squint of
beach and sun and sea and Markus' blue eyes and blonde hair. It was almost
possible to believe that there were no other colours at all that weren't sea
and beach and orange rug on the kitchen floor and purple couch in the living
room.
Nothing was moving, the
calm before the storm, even the gulls, always counted on to give their opinion,
were silent. All the animals were catching their breath and unfolding their
wings and arms in the sun before the next flood. And there was no wind, and the
air didn't taste of constant rain like it had for two months nearly, and the
only moving thing at all was the bed jerking forward and tapping at the wall,
softly, and slowly, scratching at the paint.
When Ilya comes, digging
his fingers in, with a gasp, sending Markus over as well he realizes it is
raining again. And the rain has been pouring for days again and there is still
no fucking breeze.
"Who heard of an ocean
with no fucking ocean breeze?" Ilya asks nudging with his shoulder the
shoulder lying next to him on the bed. Inside the cottage is humid and far too
hot, the constant rain falling in sheets, it is about to get a lot hotter
before the plunge into the ocean.
"Just fucking and
ocean. Best two of three."
Markus says and laughs. He rolls on his side and folds himself over Ilya's
body. "I want to sweat, I want to cook around you." Markus says
licking up the sweat dripping down Ilya's neck. "Don't fucking move."
"So. Why so quiet
chatterbox?" Markus licks behind Ilya's ear. "What's scared you
silent?"
Ilya watches the ants
marching in formation, side by side taking something from the kitchen floor to
their next in the wall. Two by two that army is marching on.
"You."
"Wise to be."
Markus grins and pulls the younger man into his embrace. It's raining again,
cats and dogs at least, maybe lions and wolves by now. It is raining griffons
and dragons and unicorns two by two tumbling out of the sky.
"It's fucking
pouring." Ilya shrugs. "And it is washing everything on the beach
away, out into the sea."
END
