title: that long distance thing
author: jessica
mail: thegirlinglasses@illuminatedtext.com
date: september 01, 2003
notes: for the iconography challenge.
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Ephram felt kind of slutty, dating a college boy. Not slutty in the dirty way, the way they sometimes felt when Mr. Hart or his dad caught them making out on the bed. They way they felt when Mrs. Gibbons came out back for a cigarette and caught them against the wall behind the gym. It was dirty, kissing Colin on the sidewalk in front of his dorm building, but it did give Ephram a nice tingle. A new one, under his skin and threatening to stay there when they went to go meet Colin's friends.
"Are you sure we're allowed to be doing this?"
Colin picked the backpack up off the ground and slung it over his shoulder. He grabbed Ephram's hand and lead him inside. The sluttiness was turning into nerves. There was a football player taking up most of the staircase, giving Ephram a look he couldn't define. There was a box on the landing - "Don't touch that, man," a voice said when Colin reached out. Ephram was nervous, but nobody was looking at them.
"I mean," he continued, "aren't you worried what the boys of Gamma Beta Whatever will say?"
"They know I'm gay, Eph. But they also know how well I can play basketball. I'm not your average fag."
Colin was on the third floor, a room he had to himself. He let go of Ephram's hand just long enough to unlock the door, then dragged him inside. He dropped the backpack on the floor, pushed Ephram on the bed, and landed himself with a heavy grunt.
"Wanna make out?"
There was a reason Ephram was teaching piano lessons to the neighbour kids, saving his money, and telling his dad about the Spring Break trip only after he had bought his bus ticket. That was the reason, Colin kissing his chin, then neck, and fixing his lips on a hard jut of bone that Ephram had forgotten felt that good.
It was an awkward dance up the bed, Ephram scooching over the blankets, and Colin trying to follow. Nothing they hadn't done before. This was what they knew how to do. What they had spent nearly all of Colin's last year at Peak County High doing, making sure neither forgot why they agreed to try the long distance thing.
Then Colin graduated. Ephram waved like a dork from his seat at the back, laughing when Colin stuck his tongue out just as the flashes went off. Ephram had spent much of the grad party that night on a ratty basement couch sucking on that tongue.
Now Colin was doing the sucking, licking his lips in between and convincing Ephram to give up NYU for CU instead. It would certainly take care of the long distance problem. Colin never wrote as much as Ephram, but his few letters were enough. Colin made them count. And they had seen each other only a month ago, when Colin drove home for a surprise weekend. But that weekend was for the Harts, and Ephram had only an afternoon. They'd have to make this summer last, this last one together in Colorado, closer by a few miles at least.
There will be days like this, Ephram thought. Days spent doing nothing but kissing on his bed, or on Colin's, or on the lumpy one in the dorm room that had certainly seen better sex in its day.
Ephram knew he wasn't ready. Everwood to Denver was bad enough. He could handle missing the kisses in New York, but anything more might kill him. Ephram lifted his body into Colin's taking a few more touches, a few more kisses. Saving something for the future, when he knew he'd need it most.