Free Eye Contact by Michael Craft

exhales. The erotic moment is held at bay as Manning’s mind snaps back to reality. He plants one knee in the dust and brings his other foot forward to examine the offending laces. He unties the shoe, tugs the lace tighter through the series of eyelets, then ties a new bow—just so. It’s perfect.
    He sits, brings the other shoe forward, and touches up its bow as well. With knees bent, he leans to place both hands at the sides of his feet. He pets the white leather, feeling the laces with his thumbs and the rough-treaded soles with his index finger. He draws his hands up his legs, past his hips, to rest again over his nipples. Then he places his hands behind him and leans backward to lie fully on the ground. The dot of sun halts at the apogee of its path, directly overhead. Its pencil beam cuts through the drifting clouds like a pink laser with Manning felled at the bull’s-eye of a glowing circle projected on the desert floor.
    Manning writhes in the dim noon-light, closing his eyes so that his mind may freely explore the uncharted fantasies that now flicker about him. The dull pink glow from his eyelids blackens for an instant. Something has cast its shadow over him. He looks into the sky and spots the craggy yellow ball of Eros in its lunar path, which has just eclipsed the sun. Manning laughs, grinds his hair in the dirt, and grabs his penis. Again his eyelids close as his mind drifts out of his body so that all his senses may focus on his groin. And again a shadow blurs over him. Eros, he thinks, has intruded once more on the sunbeam that bathes his nakedness. He glances into the sky, but the wad of yellow nylon is not there. His breathing stops. His pulse quickens. Something has darkened his noon. Something has invaded his private world.
    Neil laughs. Manning rolls onto his left side to find his loftmate crouching there, inches away, wearing only the track shoes he wore on the morning when they first made love. Manning breathes. He smiles with relief. “Hello there, kiddo. Care to help me with this?” Neil shares the smile and bends forward to kiss Manning, sliding his tongue over Manning’s lips and across his cheek, planting it in his ear. Manning groans, closing his eyes.
    Once again, the hazy light goes momentarily dark. His eyelids spring open to confirm that Neil is still at his side—the shadow was not his. Nor was it the shadow of Eros—his shorts are nowhere in the midday sky. He flops his head, looking to the right, and there he sees another man standing near him in the dust, younger, more muscular, wearing nothing, not even shoes. Manning’s gaze climbs the sculpted body and is riveted at last by the dual image of himself reflected in the lenses of owlish glasses worn by a boyish Clark Kent. Manning quickly turns to see if Neil has spotted the intruder, but he has not—his face is now buried under Manning’s arm.
    The one with glasses smiles, then kneels at Manning’s side. Leaning close, he touches Manning’s lips, generating a tiny white-hot spark that crackles in the explosive atmosphere. The one with glasses laughs, then drives his tongue into Manning’s right ear. Manning groans.
    Hearing the groans, Neil again puts his tongue into Manning’s left ear. The tongues wag within Manning’s head—he’s sure they must be touching. They slide and thrust like pistons, creating a deafening racket of suction noises. Lost in this din, Manning extends his hands to explore the bodies of his partners, who hunker at both sides of him. His hands find their groins, cupping their balls. He flicks his middle fingers across the two anuses; the tongues push deeper into his ears.
    Someone’s hand now holds Manning’s penis and begins to stroke it. “My God,” he breathes. The stimulation is so intense, he fears that he may simply black out and fade away before reaching an orgasm, retaining nothing of the sensual memories that would pack his brain if he could think straight. But his wits have