The First Time
Release Date: December 24
Publisher: MLRPress
BLURB
They know they can handle a crisis, but what about
everyday life?
After surviving through a massive earthquake,
Anders and Ujaruk know they can handle a crisis, but what about everyday life?
Ujaruk moved in to help Anders while his leg healed, now that the cast is off,
what happens next? Families, holidays and the first time.
EXCERPT
Chapter One
The ground
had opened up, and he was screaming.
He was
outside the cave, and the trees were falling down everywhere. His broken leg
was throbbing and Ujaruk was nowhere to be seen. And then, with a heaving like
a bear rolling over a boulder, the thin crack in the ground widened into a huge
fissure less than five feet from where he lay on the slanted hillside. Anders
screamed again as he began to slide helplessly down the slope toward the
yawning, gaping mouth of the hungry earth.
As he
grabbed at the turf sliding away beneath him, he saw Ujaruk running toward him
from the other side of the widening part in the earth. “Anders? Anders!”
But Anders
was sliding down the slope into the chasm, helpless, screaming all the way as
Ujaruk shouted his name…
He jerked
awake.
His hands
were grasping bedsheets, not turf. He was here in his bed, in his house,
nowhere near that cave. Safe. He was safe.
It had
just been a dream. He hadn’t been swallowed up by the earth. He hadn’t been in
danger at all — Ujaruk had got him out of the cave and to the hospital.
Why did
I want to be a geologist, again? He wondered muzzily.
Then he
realized that part of the dream had been real. Ujaruk was calling his name.
“Anders? You awake yet, hon?” There was a knock at the door, which creaked open
as Ujaruk shouldered it aside. “Good morning!”
“You’re
still here,” Anders said, turning over in the rumpled bed and trying on a
smile. “Good morning.”
“Where
else would I be?” Ujaruk grinned, holding out a cup of coffee with one hand and
a breakfast tray with the other. Four strips of bacon and a scramble of eggs
sat on a plate in the middle of it, overshadowed slightly by a bobbing yellow
daisy that threatened to fall out of the too-short bud vase it was standing in.
“I had a
dream,” Anders said. “I dreamed that—that you’d taken a job in Arizona.” He
turned his face away so that the lie didn’t show. His heart was still racing.
“Crazy
dream,” Ujaruk commented. “Can you see me in Arizona? I’d roast in nothing
flat.”
Anders
smiled. “I’m glad it was only a dream, then.”
I
wonder how much longer I can stay in this cast, he thought as Ujaruk put
the tray over him in the bed, smiling weakly at his—boyfriend? Roommate?
Coworker…
He turned
his mind to the food in front of him as Ujaruk sat down in the single chair
next to the bed.
It’s been
two months. How many more do we have?
§ § §
After the
big earthquake, when Ujaruk’s apartment had collapsed and he had no place to
live, Anders had agreed to let him sleep on the couch. That had been nearly two
months ago, and the couch had been a thing of the past for nearly six weeks.
It had
been almost too easy. They matched well, and before a week had passed, they had
fallen into a number of habits—like breakfast in bed with an awkward flower on
the tray. With Anders stuck in bed in a cast from above his knee down to his
toes, Ujaruk shopped, cleaned, did laundry, cooked, and waited on Anders hand
and foot while still going to work every day. The cast was awkward, but Ujaruk
never complained, lifting Anders to and from the bathroom, giving sponge baths
like a trained nurse, and keeping him from going crazy with inactivity. The
cast had been on so long that they’d both devised ways to scratch the itch.
The itch
got worse the longer it went on. The first few times, Anders just put up with
it. But then came the afternoon when it felt like a thousand ants crawling down
his shin, biting madly as they brought a lunch to their queen. Ujaruk had been
at work, and Anders had clawed uselessly at the fiberglass surface of the cast,
even ripping a nail as he drilled a finger between leg and cast, trying to
reach the ants so he could squash them.
In his
thrashing, he’d turned half over on his belly. A dull silver glint caught his
eye, peeking out from under the bed. He’d strained to reach the wire coat
hanger with his good leg hanging off the too-tall bed, and just managed to hook
it on his big toe.
Once he
had it in his hands, Anders twisted the hanger into a long, bent loop and drove
it down into the cast to his shin. The relief of scratching that itch was just
as orgasmic as any climax he’d had thinking about Ujaruk.
Only
thinking, of course. What they’d done together was better.
§ § §
“I have a
surprise for you,” Ujaruk said as Anders finished his coffee and pushed away
the tray.
“You do?”
Anders asked. “Could you hand me that coat hanger? I need to get at an itch
again.”
“Nope,”
Ujaruk said. “I’ll be right back.” He grabbed up the tray and the empty cup and
disappeared.
“Can’t you
give me the—” Anders started, and then gave up. The ants were biting the top of
his foot this time, and he’d need Ujaruk’s help to get at those.
It didn’t
take long. With a squeak of hinges, Ujaruk jumped back through the door. “Aha!
I’ve made a scratcher for you that puts that old thing to shame. Mine is the
deluxe cast scratcher.” He handed Anders a long, thin, flexible wire
contraption with a leather-bound handle on one end. “Please to notice the
detailed leatherwork along the handle,” Ujaruk directed as Anders examined it.
The solid handle was indeed wrapped with black leather strips woven around it
in a spiral design.
“I’ll be
sure to use yours when we are out on the town. Can you get at the top of my
foot with it?” Anders smiled as Ujaruk took it back and put it through the
bottom of the cast. “Ahhh… that feels amazing.”
“It
better. I worked on this for two weeks,” Ujaruk said, setting it where Anders
could reach it easily. “I just couldn’t see letting you use that old thing any
longer.” He went around the foot of the bed and lay down next to Anders on the
less-rumpled side. They smiled at each other across the pillows.
I’m
used to you now, Anders thought. It’s right, having you here. But you’ll leave
me soon, and then what will I do?
He and
Ujaruk worked together. That was the fatal flaw. Anders had a strict rule:
coworkers could not be his lovers. But during his recovery from the broken leg,
that rule had somehow been suspended, without him realizing he’d suspended it.
After all, while he was off on disability, they weren’t really coworkers.
Were they?
It was an
issue he hadn’t resolved yet, and he’d left it on the back burner of his mind,
hoping that at some point, a solution would present itself.
About
Caraway
Hi,
my name is Caraway Carter, and I am creating characters and worlds that I hope
you love as much as I do.
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