The rain stops but everything is still gray in Seattle, from the outfits on the people to sidewalks wet and grayer than before the rain began. It isn’t depressing though, everything is fresh in nature and Pike Place Market is booming as it usually is on a Sunday afternoon. Me and Fernando watch a lifeless salmon together being tossed between two men that man the central seafood vender. The crowd that has formed claps and takes pictures of it.
“People come from all around to watch them do that,” I say as we walk away.
“What a weird and interesting ritual,” Fernando says, smiling as he takes a bite out of a meat stuffed roll.
“That it is,” I say, smiling. “I used to come here every summer with the family at least once, it was one of my favorite things to see them do. How are you liking your pirozhki?”
“I’m loving it,” he says around another bite. “I don’t think I’ve had anything like it before.”
“I know right,” I chuckle as I eat some of my own piroshki. “It’s one of my favorite things to get at Pike Place.”
I walk over to a vendor that has an array of fruits and vegetables sitting out. A sign sticking out of a pile of purple prickly dragon fruit reads ‘ask for help.’
“What would you like?” The vendor, a black elderly woman yells over the crowd.
“Can I get one Dragon Fruit and a pound of tomatoes?” I yell back.
“You got it kid!” She pipes out and with quick hands she bags and weighs a pound of tomatoes and a dragon fruit. “That’ll be $21.50.”
I hand her twenty-five and she quickly hands me change and the bag of produce.
“Thank you!” I yell.
We pass vendors selling flowers, paintings, homemade journals, and jewelry as we make our way through with the crowd. My mind wonders as Fernando takes in every little detail around us. I think of this morning and the crescent shaped scar I came across, the way it sent shock waves through my body when I touched it. It looked newly formed, not even a day old and I try to think if I felt it as we made out last night on my couch or if I even glimpsed it.
There are way too many weird things about Fernando and yet every time I look at him it all washes away somehow. Even the thought of him places me at ease. Deep down, even though it had been just yesterday since we met, I was falling in love with him. It felt as though I could spend an eternity with him, that my body was his body and his body was my body.
That we were everything to each other.
Fernando grabs my hand and pulls me through the crowd and out a pair of double doors held open. We emerge on an open terrace where people lounge about, watching over a windy fall view of the Sound.
Even though the sky was grey, the scene before us was anything but stunning from the people walking about below us on the waterfront to the distant tree coated crests of land and islands that blocked the straight away view of open pacific waters.
“What’s that large white thing?” Fernando asks, pulling me to a spot that just opened up at the wooden wailing. “Some kind of ship?”
I follow his pointing finger to a white ferry cutting its way across the soft gray waves.
How could he be twenty-eight and not know that? I thought. But then again maybe it’s just another cultural difference that makes Fernando, Fernando. The man I was falling more in love with with every passing second.
“Yeah…it’s a ferry,” I say as he frowns and concentrates on the ship’s steady progress to one of the distant islands.
“It’s so huge,” he murmurs.
“Has to be,” I say. “It’s holding hundreds of people and cars aboard it.”
“Cars are on it?” he gasps. “That’s crazy! I could never imagine a funny looking ship like that.”
I watch him and he turns to meet my eyes, a smile across his face. There is so much joy and innocence on his angular features and I can’t help myself but to lean in and kiss him.
Our arms wrap around each other and the world seems to wash away during our five second kiss. When our lips part I look into his eyes, taking in the intricate design of his green irises with flicks of hazel. His dimples pop out with the crinkles of his smile as his tongue runs across his upper lip. Overhead a seagull cries out as it glides, riding the currents in the air and flapping its long wings every now and then. His forehead gently touches mine and I close my eyes, taking in his scent of roses and pines, a near constant presence of him that has added itself to a list of things that I love about him, next to his weirdness and the wonder he holds for the world.
“I’m glad we met,” he says. “That second I walked into the Donkey Shoe, I was blown away by just a glimpse of you.”
“It’s hard to imagine it going any other way,” I say. “How many more days are you in Bellingham?”
“A couple more days,” he says. “But it might be longer. I don’t think I have an excuse to want to never come back or even to want to leave. With you it feels like I’ve known you for half a century.”
“That feeling,” I say. “It’s something I’ve felt since we first kissed. Like our bodies and souls just seemed to match like two halves of a puzzle coming together much the stars earth meeting on the tip of the horizon. This just seems so unreal.”
“Much like a dream,” he says, staring into my eyes as people talk about us with words that have no need for our attention. “I never thought I would find someone like you in all my life.”
The air shakes as a crackling breaks through the area and the people about us run. A flash of light plays in the air as I scream in Fernandos arms, my face buried in his neck.
“It’s okay,” Fernando whispers into my ear and I look around.
Standing before us are five people dressed in robes with the same brown complexion as Fernando and I. We are alone on the terrace and it seems the whole of the market, from what I can see through the double doors they block, is empty.
“Fernando,” a figure says, the leader I believe. “You have nowhere to go. Come back home with us.”
“And what will be of him, Rodger?” Fernando asks.
“He’ll have to come along, Fernando,” the man named Roger says.
“I can’t let that happen,” Fernando shakes his head, his body trembling. “You know what they will do to him and to me for bonding.”
“I do know,” Rodger says. “I’m sorry I have to do this, my friend, but they will have my head if I return without you.”
The five cloaked figures raise their palms and I scream as chains of ice shoot them towards us at a rapid speed. One of my own hands shot out and flames burst from its palm, melting the chains of ice as Rodger and his men form shields before them for protection.
“Fuck,” Fernando swears, holding me still as I look at my hand in horror.
“What the fuck was that!” I gasp.
“It’s okay love,” he says as the cloaked figures’ shields vanish and Rodger watches us in disgust. “Just hold on to me and don’t panic.”
The sight of Seattle and a burning Pike Place Market washes away from my vision as Rodger screams in rage and we stand back in my studio apartment. Fernando moves to let me go but my legs are jelly and he catches me before I fall and hit my head on the littered coffee table.
“It’s all okay,” he says as he lays me on the couch. “Let me get you some water.”
“No,” I say and grab his wrist. “You are going to explain everything to me right now, Fernando.”
Source: reddit.com/r/eroticliterature/comments/qd4gx8/forbidden_desirespart_10