Chapter 36

Joel gavethe dogs their breakfast, followed by a pair of frozen Kongs to occupy them for at least an hour, after which they would probably fall asleep. Then he went upstairs and stopped outside the bathroom, where the shower was already running.

He put his hands to his cheeks. The skin there felt stretched and dried from his crying jag.

This was it. This was really happening. And he was ready. Seeing the new cicadas emerge had brought him to a place of full alive-ness, connected at last to his own body in a way that couldn't be imitated by drugs.

One last deep breath, then off with his clothes. He knocked twice with a shaky hand.

"Who's there?" Daniel called out in a singsong voice.

Joel opened the door. "Maintenance. I'm here to check the plumbing."

"Oh, good." Daniel was a steamy apparition behind the translucent shower glass. "I've got a pipe that needs a thorough inspection."

"Hmmm. Is it leaking?"

"Not yet. Any minute now, though. Lotta pressure building up."

They would never grow up, not around each other.

He laid his glasses on the sink, then slid open the shower door and stepped into the tub. "Hi."

"Hi."

He scanned Daniel's well-toned body—as much as he could see, given his lack of contact lenses and the fact he'd forgotten to replace the burned-out ceiling light near the shower—then snaked an arm around Daniel's waist and pulled him close.

Daniel kissed him, and as they tilted their heads, hot water streamed over Joel's face, erasing the last remnants of tears.

He molded his body against Daniel's, and the shock of skin on skin along his entire frame made him tremble. How could this be true? What had he done to deserve this? And why were bathtubs built in the 1950s so fucking tiny?

With some effort, Daniel maneuvered them so that Joel was under the shower stream. "I've already washed, so it's your turn." He picked up the green shower poofie thing from the shelf beneath the frosted privacy window. "May I?"

"Please. I'll shampoo while you're doing that, for some red-hot sexy efficiency."

As Joel massaged the shampoo over his own scalp, Daniel asked, "What does that feel like with no hair?"

"Amazing. If I'd known showering while bald would be this heavenly, I'd have shaved it decades ago."

"Huh." Daniel scrubbed Joel's chest, putting one hand on his back to steady him. The soothing scent of cucumber shower gel filled the steamy air.

"You wanna try it? I'll shave your head while you're here."

"No way." Daniel cleared his throat. "I mean, it looks great on you, though."

"I know it does." Joel rinsed off the shampoo, tittering a little as Daniel washed his ticklish armpits. "Let me know if you change your mind."

"I hardly ever change my mind." Daniel crouched down to wash Joel's feet. "I've been told it's because I'm a Taurus."

Joel opened his eyes, blinking water off his lashes and reaching for the leave-on conditioner. "You know astrology is bullshit, right?"

"It better be. Lift your foot." He scrubbed Joel's arch and ankle, firmly enough that it didn't tickle. "If it ain't bullshit, we're gonna have compatibility issues, being two consecutive sun signs. So they say."

Joel wasn't about to ask who they were, since the pronoun might be a stand-in for someone—an ex or even a parent—who would've been an awkward addition to this naked conversation.

"I think we're plenty compatible." He shifted his weight so Daniel could clean the other foot. "Don't you?"

"Absolutely." Daniel's touch turned gentle again between Joel's toes. His wet hair looked nearly black in the dim light, sliding over his nape in oscillating sine waves. "I think we provide each other with ideal levels of security and stimulation."

Joel laughed. His grand theory of relationships sounded ridiculous coming out of someone else's mouth. "You've been dying to use that on me, haven't you?"

"Yep." Daniel grinned up at him as he reached for more shower gel.

They fell silent as he started on Joel's legs, moving up and up, bringing every inch of skin to life. The higher his hands went, the harder Joel got, and by the time Daniel arrived at his ass, he was fully erect and desperate for contact.

Daniel massaged his glutes with lather-slick hands. "Is this okay?" he asked, eyes fixed on Joel's face.

"It's not okay, it's great. It's—" His words dissolved into a moan as Daniel encompassed his cock with one soapy hand. He clutched the top of the shower door to keep his knees from giving way. "Fuck."

Daniel gave him a couple of leisurely strokes, then carefully caressed his balls. "I've waited forever to touch you." His other hand slipped between Joel's cheeks. "Everywhere."

Joel released a giddy smile at the ceiling as Daniel cleansed him far past the point of hygiene, and long after the soap had been rinsed away. Finally he signaled for Daniel to stand, supporting him as he rose, wavering, from his cramped position. Then he let his own greedy hands have their fill, gliding over the curves and angles of Daniel's body without the use or excuse of soap.

The shower was followed by the hastiest of towel-offs, then a dash for the bedroom, where Joel shut the door behind them, pressing to make sure it was fully latched against canine curiosity.

Daniel reclined in the center of their unmade bed, lounging with the confidence of a Roman emperor. The risen sun shone through the side window, as it did only in the summer, and illuminated Daniel with a clarity the bathroom light had lacked.

He was still breathtaking, all six-foot-yum of him, with that lean, muscular frame that probably required a hell of a lot more effort to maintain these days than the last time he'd lain naked before Joel. The hair on his chest was silver like that on his head, but it darkened to a deep red-brown—the color of the world's strongest cup of tea—as it swooped down in a narrowing path to Daniel's navel and beyond. As for the freckles, Joel planned to map and catalog each one in the coming days and weeks and….

"I missed something in the shower." He crawled up the bed to sit beside Daniel. "Turn over so I can find this tattoo."

Daniel pulled his lips between his front teeth for a moment. Had he gone suddenly shy?

Then, without a word, he rolled onto his stomach, clutching the pillow to his chest. On his back were two small tattoos, one on the ridge of each shoulder blade, maybe mirror images. Joel leaned over to see clearly.

Wings. Translucent amber forewings with an intricate and achingly familiar pattern of veins.

"Oh…" There was no breath for further words. With a single finger, Joel reached out and traced the left one.

"Before you freak out," Daniel said, "it wasn't just because of you. It was what it symbolized. Like that lady at CicadaCon said about the fable: living for the moment and offering beauty to the world. That's what I hoped this tattoo would remind me to do. Or it would, if I could actually see it without a pair of mirrors."

"Daniel…" Joel flitted his fingertips over the other anatomically correct cicada wing—from Magicicada septendecim, based on the size. "Shit, dude, you're gonna make me cry again."

"Not as much as I did when I got it. Turns out my pain threshold is lower than I thought."

Joel laughed then, instead of crying. He bent over to kiss each wing, mouthing a silent thank you for flying this man back to him.

His lips continued down the valley of Daniel's spine, and further, provoking sighs of longing that culminated in gratified groans as Joel's tongue explored its destination.

Finally Daniel rolled onto his back and said, "This time I remembered to buy everything."

"Me, too." Joel moved to the side of the bed and opened the top drawer of his nightstand. Then he paused. "Uh, we never discussed exactly what—I mean, exactly how…"

"It's your birthday. You decide. I'm up for either."

Would it ruin the moment to admit he felt too fragile to bottom? Why couldn't he just be honest? "But you're my guest."

Daniel held his gaze, perhaps searching for the answer. "Give me the condom."

Joel swallowed hard. His hands shook as he pulled out the strip and tore one off. "Here."

"Thanks. Now come here so I can put it on you."

Whew. Breathe now. "Are you reading my mind?"

"Just your body. It's my favorite book."

Joel retrieved the lube and shifted closer. "How do you think it'll hold up on reread?"

"I think…" Daniel rolled the condom on him with a series of sure, smooth strokes that made Joel stiffen even further "…it'll show a new layer each time." He lay back and put his head on the pillow. "If it's read carefully, of course."

Joel twisted the cap of the lube container, breaking the seal with a snap. "New bottle, just for you."

"I'm honored." Daniel's nose twitched, like he was trying not to laugh.

"What's so funny?" Joel asked as he knelt between Daniel's legs.

"Nothing, I'm just happy."

"Not as happy as you're about to be."

He explored Daniel with his fingers, learning the shape of him. It was hard not to savor these final before moments, impossible not to take mental snapshots of that beautiful, blissed-out face responding to every slide and curl of his touch.

"Ready when you are," Daniel said at last, spreading his feet and angling up his hips. Offering himself with eyes full of heat and trust.

Enough savoring, then. Joel applied the lube over the condom, restoring whatever rigidity had been lost in the last few minutes.

He got himself into position, then met Daniel's clear blue eyes. "Yeah?"

A radiant smile. "Yeah."

Daniel gave way at the first slight pressure, but Joel held back, going no farther than a single inch. It had been a long time for both of them.

With one deep breath, Daniel relaxed, opening up a bit more, enveloping Joel with slick heat. They gasped in unison, then laughed at their accidental echo, hard enough to undo their progress.

"Oops." Joel reached down to reinsert himself. "No more laughing until I'm fully ensconced, okay?"

"I'll try to be serious—oh…" Daniel's lashes fluttered, his focus shifting through the ceiling and beyond. "Ohhh."

Joel eased forward a little farther this time. "Okay?"

"Yes. Yes-yes-yes." Daniel wrapped his arms around Joel's back. "More, please."

Joel gave him more. He would've given Daniel anything in the world to see his face light up like this, to feel his hands clutch tighter with each thrust, and to hear his breath catch and release in such soft moans.

Fully ensconced at last, Joel whispered, "That's all I've got."

"That's all I need." Daniel arched his back into the mattress, locking his ankles behind Joel's knees. "Now kiss me while you fuck me."

Joel did as he asked. In Daniel's four-limbed embrace, he couldn't manage much of a rhythm, but that didn't matter when it was all so new, when every movement delivered another gift. So for now, he would stay enmeshed in their eager, fumbling, rapturous huddle of two.

All wasright with all of Daniel:

His mouth, merged with Joel's, defying their need for breath.

His arms and legs, locked around Joel's body, clutching him almost as tightly on the outside as he did on the inside.

And last but not least, his heart, filled with the steel-sturdy certainty that they'd never be parted again—not for long, and not for real.

With a groan, Joel broke their kiss. "Is it, like, ninety degrees in here, or is it just me?" he asked, panting against Daniel's cheek.

They were pretty sweaty considering they'd just showered. "I don't mind if you don't."

"I don't mind anything right now." Joel pulled his hands from under Daniel's shoulders and planted them on the bed, then lifted his upper body enough to let air flow between them. "Especially your face."

"What about it?"

"That thing it probably does when I do this." He slid out a few inches, then drove himself inside, harder than before.

Daniel moaned, dropping his hands to scrabble at the sheet beneath him.

"Nope, don't mind that at all." Joel's tone was half-teasing, half-awestruck. "And what about when I do this?" He spiraled his hips.

"Fuuu-uuuuu-uuuck." The word grew and grew, one syllable for each deep, unraveling grind.

He unlocked his ankles and let his thighs spread wide, giving Joel all the space he needed. As Joel rose up on his knees, his angle shifted.

Oh God. Daniel sucked in a hard breath, his eyes popping wide at this new pressure on the most glorious spot.

Joel froze. "Is that okay?"

"Yes!" Daniel grasped the sides of his pillow. "It's-good-it's-good-it's-so-good."

"All right, then." Joel looped his arms behind Daniel's knees. "Let's explore that."

He began again, settling into a regular pace, not fast but not slow. Daniel's feet flailed as Joel went at him, sliding over the glowing, pulsing place within.

How was this better than he'd imagined? Not even thirty-four years of yearning could've prepared Daniel for such brain-bursting pleasure.

"Uh-oh. Hang on." Joel slowly withdrew, his eyes squeezed shut. He lowered Daniel's legs to the bed as he shifted to the side. "Need a break for a minute."

Swallowing a whimper, Daniel blinked away the blur of delirium. "You all right?"

"So much more than all right." Joel pursed his lips as he inhaled, his neck and face flushed. Then with a sharp sigh, he flopped onto his back beside Daniel. "I never thought stamina, of all things, would be the issue." He looked over with gleaming eyes. "But I feel like I could come just looking at you."

Daniel released a smile that felt lopsided, his lips as quivery as the rest of his body.

"Not to mention listening to you. And feeling you." Joel rolled onto his side and skated his fingertips over Daniel's shoulder. "You're really here?"

"Really for truly."

"Sorry I had to stop." Joel traced a lazy shape over Daniel's breastbone, making his skin tingle. "My days of pounding someone like a porn star are clearly in the past. At least until I have more practice."

"I'm happy to help with that."

"Sweet, thanks!" Joel gave his trademark gleeful grin, the one that stripped decades off his age in an instant. He leaned in to kiss Daniel, then paused. "Hey, I haven't tasted all of you yet this year."

Daniel shivered at the sight of his tongue. "Better fix that."

Joel did fix it, taking him deep in one long, slow motion.

Every muscle went rigid. "Holy—" Daniel's voice cut off at the slide of Joel's hot, slippery throat, back and forth.

Joel drew back, but only a couple inches, just enough to give his tongue room to roam. He hadn't been kidding on Valentine's Day when he said he still gave excellent head.

As Joel began to move faster, adding his hand, Daniel reached down to stop him. "Wait. I want to come with you inside me. This time, at least."

"I second that emotion." Joel sat up and reached for the box of condoms.

Daniel watched him switch to a fresh one. "Speaking of orgasm, you don't have to hold back on my account."

"You first, I insist. Don't worry, I'll be right behind you."

"Literally?"

Joel tilted his head as he smoothed on a fresh condom. "Actually, that's not a bad idea. Turn on your side."

Daniel rolled over to face the window, where the sunlight had brightened from amber to yellow. It filtered into the bedroom through a mass of maple leaves, which lay as still as a photograph in the total lack of breeze. Summer had arrived, as if brought by the cicadas instead of the other way around.

Fully prepped, Joel settled behind him, just as he'd done last night in the dark. He began again, with Daniel's brief assistance, and slowly filled him, inch by inch. "This okay?"

"Yesssss." An appalling understatement.

With his palm spread across Daniel's right shoulder blade, Joel drew his thumb over the place where the tattoo lay. "I love this so much. And I love how it moves with you, like it's your wing."

"Mmm." All his words were gone, melted by the radiant expanse inside him.

Joel pressed his lips to the tattoo. "When you got this, did you think you'd ever see me again?"

Daniel opened his eyes. It completely tracked that Joel would be chatty during sex. "Dunno. Can you…"

"What? Shut up and fuck you?"

"No. Talk all you want, just?—"

"Don't ask questions?"

"Mm-xactly." He reached down to caress Joel's thigh. "And don't expect me to remember anything you say right now." Except I love you, but that probably wasn't in the cards yet.

"Okay, I'll recite the Gettysburg Address. It'll help me last longer." He cleared his throat. "‘Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth?—'"

"Joel."

"Yeah?"

"Shut up and fuck me."

He got what he wanted, and more, until his entire body seemed to vibrate to the steady beat of Joel's thrusts. The only sounds were their gasps and cries, rising and falling.

It was several minutes before Joel broke his vow of silence. "Hope it's okay to mention how amazing you feel."

"You too," Daniel murmured, then burst out laughing.

"Whoa!" Joel grabbed Daniel's hip as if he were on a capsizing boat. "Now what's funny?"

"I said, ‘You too,' like you told me to have a nice day."

"Oh my God." Joel let his head fall to the pillow. "Now for the rest of my life, when someone says, ‘Have a nice day,' I'm going to think of this moment."

The image made Daniel laugh louder. "There you'll be, getting a tiny bit hard at random stores and restaurants. You're welcome, by the way."

"So evil. Hang on a sec." Joel twisted to reach behind himself. The pop of the lube-bottle cap came again. "You need to be taught a lesson."

"Ooh, is it a hard lesson, Professor?"

"Let me check. Close your eyes."

Daniel did, still smiling.

A warm, slick hand enveloped his shaft. His breath shuddered as his blood rushed to meet this careful, masterful touch.

"A pretty hard lesson," Joel said, "but could be harder." He offered a slow, firm stroke upward. As his hand slid down, he moved deeper inside. Daniel stiffened and jerked in his grip. "There we go."

Jeeeeeesus. Daniel let go of the pillow and grasped the top of the mattress, a firmer anchor for this rippling ride.

Joel continued, hand and hips moving in synch, bringing Daniel to the edge and back, over and over. That familiar, delicious ache built inside him, but he held off begging.

Finally, he couldn't take it anymore. "Please." He reached back and grasped Joel's ass, signaling his demand with a squeeze. "Enough torture."

"Make you come now?" Joel whispered.

"Yeah." The word escaped him again and again, with each quickening plunge and stroke, rising until it neared a scream. Behind him, Joel pressed his mouth to Daniel's shoulder blade, slurring blurred words of wonder.

The final yeah caught in Daniel's throat as he came, long and hard, with the pent-up power born of so much goddamn waiting.

Joel gasped, his body buckling. "Fuck, I can feel you." His embrace tightened as he thrust once more, this time holding himself still and deep. "Daniel…"

Joel throbbed inside him, both an echo and a coda to his own orgasm. Daniel whispered his name in return, vision shimmering with an ambush of tears.

With a long sigh, Joel went slack, his limbs heavy. Speechless at last.

One breath, two breaths, three breaths, each slower than the one before, each seeming to pass between their skins as much as into the air around them.

On the seventh breath, Daniel found Joel's hand and clasped it. Joel responded with a caress of thumb against thumb. Still no words.

Slowly Daniel stretched his legs and turned onto his back. Joel regarded him with dark, glistening eyes, then shifted up to kiss him softly, almost shyly.

Daniel spoke first. "I guess astrology really is bullshit."

Joel gave a dreamy laugh. "Told you." He rested his head on Daniel's chest and slung an arm over his waist. "We're totally compatible. Screw anyone who says otherwise."

The drowsy serenity lulled Daniel into a half sleep, where his thoughts looped back on themselves in ever looser swirls, making sense without logic.

Then came a noise, one that was familiar in a distant way, like a deep cut from an album he hadn't heard for decades.

He jerked awake. "Is that the cicadas?"

Joel lifted his head to listen with a slight frown. "That's my fridge." He laid his cheek down again and snuggled closer. "Of course it only makes that sound at night and on weekends, when I can't call the repair people."

"I can look at it if you want. It might be something simple like the icemaker trigger. Sometimes mine gets stuck."

"Cool, thanks."

Daniel closed his eyes. Weird, that noise hadn't sounded like any fridge he'd ever used. Did Joel even have an ice maker?

The sound rose once more, clearly from outside the closed window. "You're fucking with me again, aren't you?"

Joel laughed. "I absolutely am." He sat up and squeezed Daniel's thigh. "Let's go join them."

It took less than two minutes to clean up and get dressed, while laughing at their unnecessary urgency. After all, it wasn't like the cicadas were going anywhere any time soon.

Together they stepped out onto the deck.

Weeeeeee-oh. Weeeeeeeeeeeeee-oh.

Though only a handful of insects were singing, it was unmistakably the same sound he'd heard in their meadow off the bike trail, and at that rest stop on his way home from Columbia—two places where his longing had far outpaced his reach.

Instinctively he took Joel's hand. Yes, he was still here. He was still his.

"Septendecim. The OG periodical." Joel pointed to the back of the yard. "I've seen septendecula, too, on those hickory trees." He closed his eyes behind his glasses. "Not hearing them yet, but they might've emerged later than the decim. I should've noted which kind came out on which day last week, but I was crazy busy."

Huh. Odd that an entomologist specializing in cicadas wouldn't be on top of every detail of the biggest event in seventeen years.

One aspect of the sound wasn't quite as Daniel remembered it. "Why do they sound so…all over the place? Reminds me of Hailey's middle-school band concerts."

"It takes a few days for them to start chorusing. By this time next week, they'll be more or less in sync." He squeezed Daniel's hand. "Glad it didn't take us that long."

They went to the top of the deck stairs, Daniel stepping down onto the first one so they'd be nearly the same height.

Joel wrapped his arms around him from behind and kissed his earlobe. "Maybe it's just the orgasm-induced oxytocin flooding my brain, but I can't remember ever feeling happier."

A warmth spread through Daniel's chest. He might have floated away if Joel weren't holding onto him. "Me neither. I doubt it's only the OxyContin?—"

"Oxytocin."

"—but I'm sure that helps."

"You're right. Hormones aren't everything, but they're not nothing either." Joel whipped his head to the side. "Wait." A few moments passed, then his eyes lit up. "Septendecula!"

"Which one is that?"

"It's the least common one. Its call starts off all stuttering, like pck-zeh, pcky-pckzeh, pck-pck-pckyzeh, like it's trying to start a balky chainsaw, but once it gets going it's like pzzeh-pzzeh-pzzeh-pzzeh really loud, and there's also this sort of backbeat chiff-chiff-chiff-chiff, and that part keeps going after the rest of the call fades."

Jesus Christ, that was cute. Daniel could listen to Joel imitating cicada noises all day long.

That said, the drone of the flying-saucer cicadas made it impossible to hear this second call. "Not sure I can make it out yet."

"You'll hear it soon. It's my favorite call, for three reasons. One, because it sounds like they're singing and playing an instrument at the same time. Two, at the beginning of the call they sound totally unsure of themselves, but then they find their voice, which is inspiring."

"And the third reason?"

"They're the cicadas that were at my house when I was seventeen." Joel swallowed audibly. "You know how some people remember what song was playing when they first saw the love of their life?"

Daniel's heart flipped over in his chest. "Yeah?"

"For me, the septendecula call is that song."

Daniel turned in Joel's arms and kissed him. Though altered by time and trials, this body already fit so well with his again, like a long-lost favorite glove, the one whose match you keep around in case it turns up.

Love of their life.Was that just the oxytocin talking? Did Joel even define love the same way he did?

Then he heard it, almost exactly how Joel had described it. Beneath the weee-oooh of the—what were they called, septendecimal?—came a single hesitant rasp that built into a shout announcing itself to the world.

He pulled away, just an inch. "There it is! The septen, uh, septen-tacular?"

Joel laughed. "Septendecula, but I like your version better. Septen-tacular is what we are." He kissed the tip of Daniel's nose. "Except I hope we can be spectacular more often than every seventeen years."

"We're off to a darn good start. Happy Birthday, by the way."

"Thank you. This birthday already fucking rules."

Daniel let go and stepped up beside him, putting himself between Joel and the back door. "You know what would make it really rule?"

"Uh, if you're asking for another round of mattress rugby, I might need some time?—"

"Leftover pizza for breakfast." Daniel ran for the door. "Last one to the fridge makes coffee!"