Date: Mon, 12 Sep 2016 05:12:45 -0500
From: Kody Boye <boyekody@gmail.com>
Subject: His Touch of Ice - 8

DISCLAIMER:

This is a work of fiction, and contains scenes of graphic violence and
explicit male/male sex. If you are not of the legal age to read this, or
are uncomfortable with this sort of content, please turn back now.

HIS TOUCH OF ICE (The Ice Men, Book 1) is copyright © Kody Boye. All
Rights are reserved.

______________________________________________________________________________

Guy drove up from downtown and picked me up on the corner of what I deemed
was a far more feasible street before we made our way north. The whole way
there, I struggled to say something—anything—to help break the ice on
this embarrassing and all-too-humiliating situation, but not once did Guy
press me. Instead, he pulled into the parking lot, opened the passenger
seat door for me, then took my hand before walking in and taking our seats.

The minute the waitress arrived with our drinks, Guy slid the margarita
over to my side of the table and jutted his chin in my direction. "Take
it."aid.

"I can't drink that," I laughed.

"Sip it then. You look like you need it."

I sipped the margarita while Guy scanned the menu and sampled the offerings
of chips and salsa set between us. The knots in my stomach increasing by
the moment, the temptation to hyperventilate becoming more tempting by the
second, I took a long, hard sip of the margarita and slid it to Guy's side
of the table before taking care of my soda.

"Better?" Guy asked.

"No," I managed, reaching up to stop a tear before it could fall.

"Are you all right, Jason?"

"I—"

The waitress returned soon after.

"The steak," Guy said. "And queso, for an appetizer."

"The burger and fries for me," I added. I didn't think I could eat too
much.

I was able to maintain control of myself until the waitress left. After
that, however, a few more tears slipped down my face.

"You are crying," Guy finally said, reaching out to brush a tear from a
cheek.

"Sorry. Not the best way to start a date."

"What's wrong?"

"Just... everything, it seems."

The man's eyes faltered to the margarita at his side. He lifted, sipped,
then replaced it before snaring his fingers within mine.

"Not you," I said shortly thereafter, reaching up to wipe more tears
away. "There's nothing wrong with you."

"I wasn't sure."

"No, no. You didn't do anything to me, Guy. It's..." I sighed, then paused
to take another breath.

"It's... what?"

In any other situation, Guy's unfaltering gaze probably would've reduced me
to nothing. The strength in its matter was something that no one could've
faced in the midst of a moment like mine, because looking at him was like
looking at a creature whose depths were far greater than anything
imaginable. But here, though... now... they brought comfort—a sole
warmth in the gust of wind that threatened to whisk me away.

I swallowed a lump in my throat. "My college," I said.

His unsure gaze was what prompted my story.

I told him everything—of my ambitions to be an English Literature
teacher someday, of my quirks and fascinations for the oddest or more
obscure of the well-known writers and poets' work. I even laughed when I
mentioned that I'd stolen my username from one of Poe's stories, which
instantly prompted a smile and easy bearings come time the waitress arrived
with the food.

"But what happened?" Guy asked. "Why are you so upset?"

The question was the perfect segue for the only person I felt was my one
true enemy: Michael Kriemer.

I explained the ambitions that the two of us had—that, until sometime
last year, I'd known nothing about him or what he wanted: just that he was
a snobby little rich kid whose daddy had bought his way into school. Then I
detailed what I felt was the cutting moment.

"I corrected him on one of Shakesphere's sonnets," I explained,
chicken-pecking at my fries as Guy cut into his steak. "Something about how
cultural and social standpoint would've prevented him from writing about
his historically-scandalous love interests."

"The male lover," Guy agreed.

I nodded. "Right," I said. "But Michael said that I had to be wrong,
because works such as the Dark Lady sonnets were obvious proof of his
sexuality due to their amount. I then countered by asking that if he'd been
a gay writer in that time, would he'd be so willing to broadcast those
feelings in such a climate? Not to mention how many of his poems or works
might have been lost."

"Understandable."

"But... that's where it went downhill. I made an enemy then, though I
wouldn't know until later, and... well... he got a hold of my
dissertation."

"How?"

"I don't know. Maybe it was because he had ins with the English
department. Maybe it was because his dad was rich. I don't think he
could've hacked into my storage cloud, because that would've been
traceable, but a printed piece of paper... which was requested... bound, no
less... that could've easily been `misplaced.'"

"It was lost then."

"Stolen, more likely. Either way, come time I turned my dissertation in
after I was told it'd gone missing, I was called down to the dean's office
and told that I was being put on academic suspension due to allegations of
plagiarism. I started putting two and two together—my dissertation being
misplaced or uncatalogued and Michael's ins with the
department—and... well..."

I couldn't finish. I'd no need to. The outcome was clear. There was no
happy or righteous ending in this story.

"You were expelled," Guy said.

"Yeah," I replied. "And now I have sixty-thousand dollars worth of debt
that I can't pay off."

"Won't they let you in another school?"

"Who knows? Maybe. Maybe they'll take pity on me. Or maybe they'll just
think I'm a plagiarist once they look at my records and see why I was
expelled. Either way, it doesn't matter. I'm about to lose my apartment
anyway."

Guy's face paled instantly. "What?"

"Yeah. I missed rent last month. No tolerance. They'll kick me out within
the next two weeks if I don't pay up."

"Fuck, Jason."

I picked up the hamburger and began to eat in slow and careful bites,
knowing that any further rush would make me sick and send me puking into
the bathroom. Meanwhile, Guy's expression had changed little. His unease
had quickly eclipsed from shock to outright horror in the moments that
passed, most likely because of how resigned I was to my fate.

"Do you have any family?" Guy asked.

"Up north," I replied. "Nowhere I want to be. Or where they'd care for me
to be."

"Friends?"

I shook my head. "A few, but... not the kind I could go to for help."

"But you..."

Guy's loss of thought was so initially disconcerting that I stopped eating
to wait for him to continue, my attention rapt and set directly on
him. When he didn't continue, I fell to the belief that he was merely
thinking and continued eating, unsure what to say.

Minutes passed without Guy speaking—the waitress stopping, refilling
drinks.

Just when I was about finished with my meal, Guy cleared his throat, took a
mighty gulp of his margarita, then set it down, using the point of one
knuckle to wipe salt from his lips.

"I'll help you," he said.

"What?" I asked.

"I'll pay whatever you need to get out of the lease. You can stay with me."

"I don't think that's—"

Guy pressed a finger to my lips.

His eyes said it all. Don't speak. Listen. Wait.

He pulled his finger away set his hand atop the table, watching intently
and waiting for an answer.

Truthfully, I don't think he blamed me for my unsurety. I mean, who could?
I barely even knew this man and yet he was willing to invest everything in
me—his money, his confidence, his life. To some, his offer could've been
seen as a gift of compassion, but to others? The double-edged sword was
sharp. Did he really want to help, like he said he did, or was he just
trying to make me into his own little sex bunny—to use and abuse
whenever he liked? What, exactly, did he want with me?

"You don't have to decide tonight," Guy said after a moment, accepting the
check from the waitress and signing it off. "I don't want to pressure you
into anything."

"I know," I said. "I'll think about it. Thank you."

What he didn't realize was that, while he'd opened one door, all the others
had remained closed.

He was my only opportunity.

How else could I escape a life of homelessness?



____________________________________________________________________________
If you enjoyed this installment of HIS TOUCH OF ICE, consider emailing the
author with your thoughts or donating to him via Paypal at
boyekody@gmail.com. You can also download the novel for free on Smashwords,
Amazon Kindle, or any other major eBook retailer, or buy the Audible
version online via Amazon.com. You can visit the author online at
www.kodyboye.com.