“No, I don’t mind.” Devon said. “How do we do a spell?”
“First, like I ss-said, you f-focus on what you w-want.”
So Carl was still nervous now, or vulnerable, or both. Devon closed his eyes. “I’m focusing on us, in the car, laughing, singing, fucking in motels, seeing the Grand Canyon, driving Highway1, getting an apartment in LA, living there—”
“Cruise ship,” Carl inserted.
“Getting a job on a cruise ship.”
“All right,” Carl said breathlessly. “Now we pull out some of our hair, and we burn it in the center candle.”
“Burn our hair?”
“Mm-hmm.” Carl was already pulling out multiple strands, so Devon did the same.
They both lit the ends of the strands and dropped them onto the rock, watching them go up quickly. Devon wrinkled his nose. The smell of burnt hair was kind of gross.
“Now we toast it with gummy bears,” Carl said, getting out two bears, handing a green one to Devon and taking an orange for himself. “To all of that,” he said, and they touched the bears together. “Now swallow it without chewing,” he said, tossing the gummy bear into his mouth and gulping it down.
Devon did as commanded, and they sat for a long, quiet moment, listening to the wind in the trees.
“Good,” Carl said, leaning over and blowing out the candles. “That should do it.”
Devon laughed a little, but Carl shot him a serious look and he sucked it back, pulling a serious face.
After clearing away the supplies, except for the gummy bears, which he left out, Carl hopped down from their perch and stashed it all back inside the log. Then he got on the rock again, shifting so that he could lie with his head in Devon’s lap.
“Hi,” he said, gazing up at Devon.
Devon fingered his hair, noting the softness and the way it slipped through his fingers as he tugged. “Hi,” he whispered.
They sat in silence for a long time, and it was comfortable, precious. Devon didn’t feel the need to talk, and neither, it seemed, did Carl. Instead they compared hand sizes, touched fingers and forearms, and, eventually, sat facing each other while holding hands and staring into each other’s eyes.
No words seemed to touch the intimacy of that experience. Only sex topped it, in Devon’s opinion, and even then, who knew? This prolonged eye contact and slow breathing was like a drug. He’d almost believe those gummy bears were edibles, if he hadn’t seen the Haribo packaging. He was flying high, dreamy and loose, and Carl was there with him.
The rain was the only reason they moved.
It started like a plucking melody on the leaves above, but soon it was a wild rush, and Devon wasn’t about to walk out of the shelter of the forest and into it. Not yet, anyway.
Instead, he pulled Carl close, and the two of them ventured farther into the woods, a little off the trail, where Carl said he knew of a small overhang that they could wait out the weather.
“You really are an elf,” Devon said as Carl tucked them back into a crevice of a rock wall at the side of the mountain. It was dry back there, almost like a cave, but still open at the top, aside from the overhang. “You know a lot about this mountain.”
“Escaped from elf land to play music and seduce human men,” Carl said teasingly. “That’s me.”
Devon tilted Carl’s head up and thumbed his chin. “Can you be an elf in L.A.?”
Carl shrugged. “Since I’m not really an elf, it doesn’t matter, does it?”
“Mm,” Devon said, and he rubbed his nose against Carl’s perfect one. “I could blow you here.”
Carl’s lips twitched up, and he leaned back against the rock wall and unbuckled his pants. “I could let you.”
Devon dropped to his knees and spent the rest of the rainstorm with Carl’s cock in his mouth. By the time the rain passed, his lips were bruised and aching, but he had the sweet taste of Carl’s load on his tongue and the sound of Carl’s ecstatic cry echoing in his ears.
He hoped whatever magic Carl had cast never came undone.
It was crazy, and it was wild, but Devon liked being under Carl Pink’s spell.
