A week and a half later, the day before Valentine's Day, southern Maine got a nor'easter. Though Bentham was a coastal town and winter weather was usually a little milder there, the storm was bad enough that Bentham got hit too.
Anthony woke up to no electricity and frozen pipes - he lived in the historic part of town, though his cottage was from the 1950s and not as old as the homes in the 1800s. It was too cold to attempt thawing the pipes, and looked like a job for a plumber when the weather went above freezing.
No electricity meant no heat - he had a fireplace but it only did so much, his house was drafty.
Anthony knew staying here in sub-zero weather was potentially dangerous. He didn't feel like calling hotels in the area to see what would allow him bringing two cats and a dog, and he had a feeling he'd drop the money just for the power to go out there, too.
The veterinary hospital where Anthony worked had generators, and would still be open today. Anthony cursed the food he was going to lose from the refrigerator and freezer, and packed an overnight bag with toiletries, underwear and socks, scrubs, nightclothes, his laptop, a couple paperbacks and cat toys, tied together a bedroll of blankets and pillows, put a dog sweater and leash on Maimonides, got the cats in carriers, loaded up the car, and drove to the vet hospital. Once he was there, he put the dog and cats in one of the treatment rooms, set up food and water and a place for them to go to the bathroom, and posted a note on the door explaining his situation so the other staff knew not to use that room. As guilty as he felt for the cats and dog being left alone in a room all day - though they were free to move around in that room - he knew he'd feel worse leaving them in a freezing house, even though the animals had fur and there were blankets they could huddle in, Anthony still didn't think it was a good idea.
It was a mercifully slow day, with only a few emergencies, only one of those involved surgery, and all of today's cases were expected to make a full recovery. It was slow enough that Anthony decided he could afford to be potentially ten to fifteen minutes late coming back from his break and drove to a supermarket to pick up some drinks and food for the next 24 hours - and getting mildly annoyed with how most microwavable meals combined meat and dairy, which left him with pouches of rice, Asian-style bowls, macaroni-and-cheese, and cheese enchiladas or expensive vegan bean-and-"cheese" burritos as his options for "kosher enough". He decided to go with the rice and meatless meals in case he got hungry enough for two of them, looking at the small portions. Back at the hospital, he put his drinks in the staff fridge and meals in the staff freezer - the freezer was already almost full with stuff a couple of the secretaries had put in there weeks and months ago and still hadn't touched yet, and yet he knew if he tossed it to clear more room he'd get an earful and that aggravated him even more. He managed to fit his meals in the freezer just barely, but if he was going to have to stay here longer than a day he would have to go grocery shopping more than once since he couldn't buy a large amount of meals and store them.
The hospital was open twenty-four hours, seven days a week, but Anthony's shift came to an end at five. He went to the staff break room to heat up cheese enchiladas with a side of rice, then cringed as he microwaved a mug of hot water for tea, muttering "they have a coffee machine but bloody Yanks don't have a way to make proper tea in this place," and took his food and tea to the treatment room where Maimonides, Shmuel and Solly were staying. He fed them again before he sat down to his meal so they wouldn't bother him, and of course they pestered him anyway.
After he was finished eating, he took Maimonides for a quick walk around the parking lot for the dog to do his business, trying to be mindful of icy patches, then after bringing Maimonides back to the treatment room, he washed up in the staff single-occupancy bathroom - doing the best he could since there was only a sink, not a shower - and changed into pajamas and discreetly tiptoed back down the hall, first to the break room to get a bottle of mineral water and a can of San Pellegrino, then down to his makeshift shelter. He unrolled his bedroll and set up the blankets and pillows, then tried to distract himself with surfing the Internet. But he was still on the floor and he wasn't young anymore, making his arthritic joints protest. He also felt intensely lonely and, for the first time in years, he also felt vulnerable. And he felt sheepish about it, knowing there were homeless people and he at least had somewhere to go, even if it wasn't the most comfortable, luxurious place in the world; he felt like a whiny, overprivileged brat, being mad at life as he chugged on a mineral water.
But guilt didn't keep his mood from being as stormy as the nor'easter raging outside - he was going to have a cleanup job with all the spoiled food at his house, and he hoped the pipes wouldn't burst on top of that, and he was going to need to have some work done on the house to make the draft less dangerous in weather like this - and eventually he gave up trying to read various history and science articles online and called it an early night, though it took him awhile to fall asleep, feeling restless.
Maimonides curled up next to him, and Solly lay by his head - stretching out with her front paws on his left shoulder - and Shmuel made a loaf on top of him. Maimonides gave his face a few licks as if to say good night, I know you tried, which made Anthony smile and pet the dog, then reached out to give each cat some skritches. The purring cats kneaded him to sleep.
"HEWWO? OWO? AFLAC! AFLAC! HEWWO? WOW! WOWOW! HEWWO? AFLAC! OWO! WOW!"
Anthony groaned as he rolled and tried to muffle his ears. At least a few times per week, Shmuel would "hunt" in the middle of the night and announce it. It was one thing for Shmuel to do it another room at the house, where Anthony could usually fall asleep pretty quickly if he got woken up by the noises. But here in the small room at the hospital...
Anthony struggled getting back to sleep, not just from Shmuel yelling, but the hard floor underneath him. His lower back had a deep, thudding pain like someone had been beating him with a stick all night. Solly reached out for him, nuzzled him and began kneading and purring again, but that didn't work its usual magic.
Finally there was quiet, and Anthony figured Shmuel was done playing and would rest for awhile, or maybe eat and drink and use the litterbox before taking a nap. Anthony caught a whiff that told him the papers he put down for Maimonides were ready to be changed, and suddenly Shmuel was aggressively headbutting him and chirping.
Anthony groaned again, sat up, fed the cats - he usually waited until morning but he knew they were antsy and stress-eating in an unfamiliar place - and then Maimonides looked up at him and whined. Anthony bundled up again, put Maimonides on the leash, and took him out to do his business again, tossing the soiled papers on the way out. It was cold enough that Anthony's teeth chattered outside, and he felt a mild surge of panic as he looked at the amount of new snow on the ground. At this rate, he could expect his power to be out for at least another one to two days.
Anthony tried not to dwell on it, just wanting to get back to bed when he went inside. Once he was under the covers, Maimonides climbed in next to him and Solly resumed her kneading and purring, and just as Anthony was dozing off and almost fully under, Shmuel bounded over him, chirping as he zoomed around the treatment room. Jumping onto the exam table and back off, onto Anthony. Running laps, with more excited chirping.
"Oy vey." Anthony pinched the bridge of his nose.
Anthony's shift started at seven-thirty, and he had a phone alarm set for five-thirty. He was up before his alarm, his body aching, but still lay there until his alarm went off. Because the dog and cats had been snuggling him, Anthony had gotten warm enough to sweat in his sleep, and after he put out fresh water, when he went to wash up in the bathroom sink again he didn't feel clean enough.
So Anthony gave in. Mark and Sören were his friends, but he hadn't asked them for help thus far because he didn't want to be intrusive and annoying. Now he swallowed his pride, and despite it being not even six AM yet, he hit Mark's number on speed dial. After two rings Anthony wondered if Mark shut his phone off for the night and didn't turn it on until later in the morning, and then after the third ring Mark answered. "Hello," Mark croaked.
"Hi, Mark. It's Anthony. Sorry to disturb you this early in the morning -" Anthony immediately felt a twinge of guilt for calling this early, knowing he'd probably woken them up...
"Fuck, are you OK? Are your animals OK?"
"Mostly?" Anthony gave a nervous laugh. "Look, I hate to be a pain in the arse, but can I come over really quick to take a shower? My pipes froze."
There was a short pause - long enough for Anthony to worry again, but then Mark said, "Shit, that sucks, yeah go ahead."
"You sure? I hate to bother you -"
"Nah, I get it, this is an emergency, you can't go to work all smelly. Come on over."
Anthony felt more guilt at leaving Maimonides, Shmuel and Solly in the room as he took his overnight bag and headed out - still in his pajamas, with outerwear over it - but he told himself it was better than leaving them in a cold, dark house. He got on the road just in time to see the plows, which slowed down his travel but he was grateful for them doing their job on a morning like this, knowing the roads would be too dangerous otherwise.
When he pulled up in front of Mark and Sören's duplex he saw the lights on in their windows, and briefly glimpsed Sören in the front window looking out at him. Sören opened the door as soon as he got to it. His shoulder-length mane of curls was tousled and he was in a heather grey T-shirt with dark green-and-blue plaid flannel pajama pants, and his eyes were sleepy. He still managed a smile as Anthony walked in. Even now, Sören looked adorable and Anthony felt that flutter in his stomach.
"Hey," Mark said, looking up from a book on the couch. "You want some coffee or anything?"
"Coffee would be lovely, thanks." Anthony felt self-conscious strutting around in his pajamas in front of them but it wasn't like he was alone in that.
Anthony followed Mark to the kitchen and Mark fixed him a cup of coffee the way he took it, cream with two and a half sugars. "So your pipes froze?" Mark asked. "Is everything else OK at the house?"
"No." Anthony exhaled. "My power went out yesterday, which means I have no heat, no Internet, and no way to cook."
Mark let out a low whistle. Then Anthony noticed Sören leaning against the doorjamb, who cocked his head to one side. "Your old, drafty house must be cold as shit, já?"
"Yeah. The hospital has generators and heat, so I took Maimonides, Solly and Shmuel there and spent the night there, using one of the treatment rooms as a makeshift suite."
"That doesn't sound very comfortable at all." Mark held out another cup of coffee and Sören came in to take it. They exchanged glances, almost as if they were having a silent conversation, then Mark turned back to Anthony and said, "Why don't you bring the pets over here and you can spend the night here? Or the next couple nights, depending on when your power goes back on."
"You could have called us yesterday," Sören said. "You didn't have to spend the night at the hospital."
"I didn't want to bother you." Anthony wanted to cry with relief - another night on that floor in that small room sounded utterly miserable. Then Anthony realized what day it was. "Oh shit, it's Valentine's Day. I know you must have plans tonight. I don't want to intrude -"
Mark waved a hand dismissively. "We weren't going out in this weather. Yeah, we were gonna have a romantic dinner at home, but you know what? Your health and safety, and that of your critters, is more important than some commercialized holiday."
"I agree," Sören said. "You look like you didn't get a good night's sleep at all. You can't go through this too many more nights without it affecting job performance."
"You're absolutely sure? I mean, you could just watch the furkids for me while I try to find a hotel room." Anthony shifted his weight from one foot to the other, face on fire, grateful for their thoughtful gesture but still worried it would cause problems somehow.
Mark frowned. "Only if you think a hotel room might be more comfortable than here but I guarantee you a lot of other people around here are sheltering in a hotel room while their power's out or if they're stuck in transit, so you might have a bunch of calls to make to find anything and that sounds like more aggravation on top of your aggravation. Plus we don't know if their power is on, or will stay on. Our power hasn't gone out yet but I have a generator if that happens."
"Yeah, there's really no need to go to that kind of trouble," Sören said. "You can stay with us."
"Thank you." Anthony blinked back tears.
Mark noticed Anthony getting choked up. "I'd offer you a hug, but I'm guessing you want to freshen up first."
Anthony laughed. "Yeah, I do."
When Anthony was finished with his coffee, he took his shower. The hot water felt luxurious after the last twenty-four hours, raining down on his sore muscles, but relaxing in the steam made him ache to get in a nap before his shift started and of course that wasn't going to happen. After he stepped out of the shower he smelled something delicious which perked him up a little; once he was in his scrubs he came out to find Mark in the kitchen, cooking scrambled eggs with cheese, onions and mushrooms.
"There's enough for you to have some," Mark said. "I imagine you could use a home-cooked meal after yesterday."
"Oh fuck, thank you."
They sat at the kitchen table - the eggs were served with Texas toast and glasses of orange juice. Huan ate dog food from a place at the table, which amused Anthony greatly. "If you want, we can follow you to the vet, pick up your pets, and take them back home with us," Mark said. "Then you can just drive here when you get off work today, or one of us can come get you if you're too tired to drive."
"That would be appreciated. I have them in one of the rooms and I know they must hate it," Anthony said, grimacing.
That was what they did - when Anthony was ready, Mark followed him while Sören stayed behind at the house, and Anthony led him in back to where Maimonides, Solly and Shmuel were staying. As Mark led Maimonides on the leash and brought the cats in their carriers, Anthony realized what a deep act of trust it was to let them watch his precious babies... but already, Mark and Sören felt like family.
Unfortunately, painfully hot family. Even in a trenchcoat over pajamas with a faux-fur hat with earflaps, his long hair mussed, Mark still looked stunning and Anthony couldn't help staring, cheeks burning. Feeling like a moth drawn to a flame.
Though Anthony was exhausted from the rough night last night, he was still alert enough to drive. And even though he was trying to take Mark and Sören's offer to stay at face value, he decided to stop at home first and check to see if the power was back on just to avoid cramping their Valentine's Day if he could. Not only was the power still gone, but there was a very bad smell coming from the kitchen at the spoiling food in the refrigerator and freezer. Anthony knew it would get even worse if he was gone the next one to two days and didn't take care of it now, so he spent a half-hour in the dark and cold with a flashlight, cleaning out the food that had gone bad, grateful that he had a career that paid well enough where this was more of an aggravation than a hardship, and making a mental note to give tzedakah to a food bank or soup kitchen when life went back to normal.
Once the trash was out, he took his flashlight down to his bedroom and put together another couple days' worth of clothes and also packed his straight razor and some shaving cream, since he was starting to get a five o'clock shadow and as much as he liked the fact that he could grow facial hair on T, he preferred to be clean-shaven. The straight razor had belonged to his father's gay brother Nigel, who was the first person he'd told he'd rather be a boy, back in the late 1980s, and they had been close up until Nigel's death of cancer a few years ago. Anthony had stayed with his uncle for awhile after leaving his abusive ex-husband, and after he'd moved to the States, Nigel had flown out for moral support for the top surgery. Anthony thought of his uncle now, as he tucked away the straight razor into his bag, and wondered what Nigel would think of Mark and Sören... and his feelings for them.
Anthony remembered the wake for Nigel's partner Steve - who Anthony jokingly called "Non-Evil Steve" to differentiate from his ex-husband - and Nigel telling him, If you love someone, make sure you tell them, because you never know when it might be your last chance, you never know when it might be too late.
As Anthony drove to Mark and Sören's duplex, once again going slow on the slick roads - his anxiety climbing every time he encountered a driver who wasn't as cautious as him - Anthony thought about those words in the context of his feelings. He realized his hesitation at staying with them wasn't only because he was afraid of annoying them and ruining their Valentine's Day. Yes, Mark had said he and Sören weren't doing much for the occasion with the weather being what it was, and Mark scoffed the commercialism of the day, but the holiday was still in everyone's face and always felt like a mockery to embittered, lonely long-term singles. Even if Mark and Sören kept the evening low-key, Anthony was still going to feel like a third wheel and it would be a painful reminder of how alone he'd been for years, all the more painful for wanting what he probably couldn't have. He ached to tell them how he felt anyway, both for the very small hope they might consider a throuple arrangement, and in case things got weird after he was rejected at least he wouldn't have invested years... but tonight felt like absolutely the wrong time for that.
"Sorry I'm a little late," Anthony said when he got in. He immediately went to the bathroom to relieve himself, wash up and change out of his scrubs, Maimonides excitedly following after him. A moment later Solly and Shmuel joined him in the bathroom, while Huan and Fabio lingered nearby. When Anthony was done, Snúður led the way and the rest of the animals followed him to the living room. "Have they behaved themselves?"
"Yes," Sören said; Mark nodded.
Anthony sat down and gave Maimonides pats, then skritches for Solly and Shmuel. Solly immediately climbed up on his lap and Shmuel sat on his shoulders. Fabio rubbed against his legs. "I'm honestly surprised they didn't hide under the bed all day, being in an unfamiliar place and with strange cats."
"Well, it's probably more home-like than the office," Sören said. "Not trying to guilt you or anything -"
"I know."
"Besides..." Sören glanced at Mark. "He's kind of an animal whisperer."
"Yeah." Mark gave a nervous little laugh. "Cats and dogs tend to like me, even the ones who are skittish of strangers."
Anthony smiled. "You have good vibes." His mind went there with a mental image of Mark using a vibrator on himself - or Sören using it on him - and a shiver went down his spine, his cunt twinging in response. Not now, he scolded himself, annoyed. As he tried to think of something else, the mental image was replaced with Sören's tongue instead. Anthony found himself taking out his phone, needing a distraction. "I know the electric company's main number is closed right now but they have an emergency number and I'm going to see if I can get a status on when they think the power at my place will be on again."
Mark nodded. He got up from the couch. "When we saw the weather report, Sören and I decided for Valentine's Day we would just have ready-to-bake pizza and watch movies and cuddle. I have a veggie pizza if you want it, though our pizza has treif on it -"
Anthony was once again surprised to hear a Gentile familiar with Jewish things, and he fought the urge to ask Mark about his time in Israel. "A veggie pizza is fine, and I'm not going to sweat it that it's cooked in the same oven or on the same tray."
"OK. I'll cut your pizza first so we don't get our stuff on yours."
Once again, the phrase our stuff on yours sent Anthony's mind in the gutter, a fantasy of grinding against Mark, then against Sören, hard bottom growth sliding together like two small cocks, wet and messy. Anthony almost came in his pants, and held back a facepalm as he went into the hallway to call the power company, not wanting to disturb what Sören was watching on TV.
"Due to inclement weather, we are receiving a higher call volume and you will experience longer wait times. Calls will be answered in the order in which they were received. An agent will speak with you in approximately: 25. Minutes." Canned music began playing - an instrumental version of "My Heart Will Go On" by Celine Dion, one of Anthony's least favorite songs.
"Oh, fuck me." Anthony pinched the bridge of his nose. Yet again, the unfortunate choice of words brought on more delicious, forbidden thoughts of fucking each of them, rutting in animalistic heat. His face flushed as he made his way to the kitchen table, since he would be on the phone for awhile. That meant he got to watch Mark puttering around the kitchen.
That meant he got to look at Mark's ass in those jeans.
When the hold time got to thirty-two minutes, seven minutes past the expected wait time, Mark made him a cup of proper Earl Grey tea as he continued to wait, without being asked. For the second time that day, Anthony held back tears at the kindness. Before he could get too emotional, the hold music changed to an instrumental of "Get Busy" by Sean Paul, which was hilariously out of place, especially following Celine Dion. Mark heard it through Anthony's phone and snickered loudly... and started dancing around the kitchen. A moment later Sören came in and joined in, and their attempt at doing a cha-cha made Anthony laugh so hard he was taken aback when he suddenly got a representative.
Mark and Sören cleared out of the kitchen to give Anthony space for collecting his thoughts, but Maimonides came over and eventually barked into the phone. The call was relatively brief for the amount of time Anthony had been on hold but he had answers - the power company would be by on Friday the sixteenth to restore his electricity. That wasn't as fast as Anthony would have liked, but he also knew they were working on many homes in the area.
"What's the verdict?" Mark asked when Anthony walked into the living room.
"Friday," Anthony said.
Mark nodded. "Well, if you still want to stay over on Friday night in case they're late getting to it, or if you'd rather hang here till your pipes thaw..."
"We'll see. Friday night is Shabbos."
"We could help if you tell us what you need," Mark said. "I'd be happy to cook something special for Shabbat if..."
Anthony waved his hand, feeling a touch of guilt. "That's a nice gesture but I don't want to ask you to do more for me than you've already done. Besides, if my power and hot water return on Friday, I should have you over for Shabbos dinner to say thank you."
"OK. Well, the offer still stands. After all, it's the day of rest. You could let your friends take care of you."
Anthony tried not to get choked up again. He was soon distracted by the pizza being served; they ate in the living room this time instead of the kitchen. While they ate pizza they watched a nature documentary about the mating patterns of different birds and animals, and once they were done, Mark said, "Sören and I have a tradition of watching really bad B movies for Valentine's Day every year. That OK with you?"
"I could use a few laughs after the last twenty-four hours," Anthony said.
Maimonides, Solly, Shmuel, Huan, Snúður and Fabio gathered to be close to their humans. The first movie was Steven Seagal's A Good Man, which had plotholes, bad acting, a terrible sex scene... and Seagal saying, "I'll snatch every motherfucker birthday." Mark had to rewind to that part to make sure that was what Seagal actually said, with Sören and Anthony in hysterics. After A Good Man there was another Seagal movie - End Of A Gun, which was even more poorly executed, but made up for it with Seagal saying "I love the fuck out of cookies" and "It might could be an illusion."
Anthony would have said these were easily the worst movies he'd ever watched in his entire life, but Mark saved the worst for last - Pass Thru by Neil Breen.
"Who's Neil Breen?" Anthony asked.
"Not so much a who as a what," Mark said. "Neil Breen is... an experience."
In Pass Thru, Neil Breen - an average-looking middle-aged man with a mullet - played a drug addict living in an abandoned bus in the desert, who upon overdose was possessed by an artificial intelligence from the future. A group of migrants crossed the border, all of whom spoke perfect unaccented English; two of them stuck together, informed by an overwrought scene where one screamed "You mother's my sister! She was murdered! You're my niece!" Eventually they crossed paths with the AI, who threw a bunch of cans out of his shelter and announced, "It's clean! It's all clean!" There were a lot of random moments of bad CGI with a tiger and rock paintings, and out-of-context quotes from various philosophers and mystics, Neil Breen's AI spinning around in circles, and demonstrating telekinesis. The AI showed a large pile of corpses that were his handiwork, with more bad CGI. At one point, the AI visited different gatherings of rich, influential people in vague positions of power - with even worse CGI of a mansion - and as they bragged about their various misdeeds he asked them "Isn't that corrupt? Isn't that immoral?" and made the buildings explode with yet more bad CGI. At the end, he took over a television news broadcast and informed the public of what he was and that he'd killed three hundred million "bad people" for the sake of humanity.
As an added bonus, while the credits rolled, Anthony got a good laugh noticing how many jobs were done by Breen himself - including catering.
"I bet he just gave people those cans of tuna and said 'here'," Sören snarked.
"That was amazingly awful," Anthony said. "Like, that was so bad I have to wonder if he did that on purpose. Especially with the AI announcing himself like that. If I was some sort of non-human entity with powers, I'd want to conceal myself among humans because short of godhood, that exposure risk is dangerous - potentially facing down an army, and then G-d knows what."
Huan barked as if to agree.
Mark almost choked on his drink. He quickly pulled himself together and said, "If you think that plot is terrible, he has other movies, and they're all just as bad. He has a bit of a cult following."
"Oh no." Anthony laughed harder.
"We should call it a night now, since it's getting late, but we can watch more Neil Breen sometime. And other horrible movies."
The couch folded out into a bed, and Mark and Sören fixed it up with clean sheets - "It's clean! It's all clean!" Sören quipped - and blankets, quilts and fluffy pillows. "The mattress on this is very thin," Mark said, "so I apologize in advance."
"It's better than the floor," Anthony said; he was still sore from last night.
Once Anthony was tucked in, Mark said, "Hey, I know it can be hard to sleep in an unfamiliar place, especially when you've had a rough time. Would you like me to sing to you?"
Mark's speaking voice was pleasant, and Anthony was sure his singing voice couldn't be worse than the acting in Pass Thru - if nothing else, he'd get a good laugh out of it - so he nodded and said, "Sure."
"OK. Wait right here."
Mark came back a few minutes later carrying a large Celtic-style harp with an ornate wooden frame, and Sören carried a stool. Anthony's eyebrows shot up. "You play that?" He immediately felt like an idiot for asking, remembering that Mark had mentioned he played a few instruments.
"It was the first instrument I learned, yeah," Mark said.
Anthony boggled. "You must have been a child prodigy."
"I was a precocious little shit." Mark smirked. "I was too smart for my own good and got into a lot of mischief. My father encouraged it, though, especially if I was visiting my cousins and made it his younger brother's problem." He chuckled. "His youngest brother and I were somewhat close in age - he was more like a cool older brother - and he had this harp custom-made for me." Mark ran his fingers over the leaves-and-flowers design in the wood frame, and Anthony noticed the gold inlay like kintsugi pottery.
"That's a gorgeous harp," Anthony said.
Maimonides, Solly and Shmuel hopped onto the couch-bed to attend the little concert, while Huan, Snúður and Fabio formed a semi-circle around Mark. Mark warmed up playing scales, and then he began to play and sing "All I Have To Do Is Dream" by The Everly Brothers. Anthony was not merely surprised, he was stunned by the quality of Mark's voice - a rich, soulful tenor that perfectly accompanied the shimmering, crystalline harp. Mark followed with "A Dream Is A Wish Your Heart Makes" from Disney's 1950 movie Cinderella, and that made Anthony even more wistful, wishing he could find the courage to tell Mark and Sören how he felt.
Next, Mark played a lovely instrumental of Pachelbel's Canon. Then for the final song, Mark played "Durme Durme," a Sephardic Jewish lullaby in Ladino; Anthony was Ashkenazi but he'd interacted with enough Sephardic Jews to be familiar with the song. Not only were the words touching at a time like this - Durme, durme sin ansia ni dolor. [Sleep, sleep with no worries nor pain.] - but he appreciated the nod to Jewish culture, and the sweetness of the harp and tenderness in Mark's voice was achingly beautiful, bringing tears to his eyes and a chill down his spine. It seemed almost a crime that Mark didn't have a recording career, with his talent.
"That was absolutely brilliant," Anthony said when Mark was finished, though he felt that wasn't high enough praise. "I would give you a standing ovation but I don't want to get out of the warm covers."
"Ha, thank you." Mark grinned. "The pleasure was mine. I love having excuses to entertain people."
"You could be an idol," Anthony said sincerely.
"I don't want that kind of fame. Look what it did to Elvis and Michael Jackson." Mark's smile became a frown... and a haunted look in his eyes, as if their tragedies were personal to him. But then Mark smiled again and patted him. "I hope you sleep well tonight."
"Thank you, again."
Mark's music seemed almost magical - once Mark left, Anthony was out like a light.
Despite Anthony falling asleep fairly quickly, the mattress was indeed thin enough that it was only barely an improvement from sleeping on the floor and Anthony stirred a few times to try to adjust himself, hearing himself grumble into the pillows at his sore muscles and joints. Finally, his bladder woke him up. He tried to lay there for a few minutes, reluctant to leave the warmth of the covers, but the discomfort of a full bladder made the mattress feel even harder, so Anthony climbed out.
From the hallway bathroom he heard sounds coming from the bedroom - wet squishing, clapping sounds. And panting. Anthony realized what he was listening to, face on fire: Mark and Sören were fucking. His heart beat faster, feeling that ache of arousal, going slick and hard as he eavesdropped. They were trying to keep it down, behind the closed door, but soon enough the wet smacking, slurping got louder, the panting more ragged... then a whimper that sounded like Sören, and a soft cry from Mark.
When Anthony got back in bed he tried to empty his mind and go back to sleep, but his entire body was electrified, even as he felt ashamed by how horny he was from listening to them fuck. His mind played obscene images of Mark on top of Sören, their cunts dripping cream as they rubbed against each other clit to clit. Anthony found himself with his hand down his pajama bottoms, reaching for his erect bottom growth and tugging on it, stroking it, fantasizing about Mark and Sören fucking... and him joining in, topping Mark, then Sören, then the three of them with their heads between each other's legs, lapping up their sloppy mess. Anthony came quickly, muffling his moan with the pillows as powerful contractions pulsed under his fingertips. His cheeks burned with shame again, feeling like a pervert for what he'd just done...
...and longing. His mind replayed Mark singing "A Dream Is A Wish Your Heart Makes", and Anthony wished and prayed more fervently than he ever had in his life, quietly crying himself back to sleep.
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