Page 16 of Taurus

“No, I was just—”

“Then there’s the drama, people could use that I’m anonymous to blackmail me.”

“I was kinda hinting that I’d be down to record something with you,” I finished my thought. “As long as I was also anonymous.”

He shook his head. “I don’t want you to think that’s why I brought you back here.”

“Why did you?”

“I wanted to fuck you, and you were vouched for by our mutual friends.”

I scooped up another handful of mixed nuts and shoved them in my mouth. I couldn’t figure him out earlier, and I was having even more trouble trying to figure him out now.

“I don’t mind playing with you in costume, but recording stuff is a grey area,” he said. “It involves model release forms, and then you said yourself you’re more of a voyeur than an exhibitionist.”

“Are you trying to talk me out of it?” Because it wasn’t working.

“And then there’s the hole thing about you not getting too attached to me, I don’t want you to catch feelings for my dick,” he said, once more drawing attention to the print in his sweatpants.

“Trust me, I don’t get attached. And your dick isn’t that special.” It was great, but so were dicks in general. I loved all of them.

Zander laughed. “You’re funny,” he said. “So, just a quick warning about my room, it’s for sleeping in. Ok. No funny business.”

“Back at ya,” I said. “What kinda funny business? I only ask because you said I was funny, and I might try some of my stand-up routine on you.”

He cocked his head and looked at me. “You do stand-up comedy?”

“No, but that was a joke.”

“Oh.” He patted a hand on a box and turned his head. I saw the corners of his mouth lift in a smile.

It was strange, we were connecting on levels I hadn’t found myself on before. Usually, after a little combative brattiness, guys were drained after orgasm and decided to send me on my way. Zander wanted me to stick around. I suppose we were both curious about each other.

My helping of mixed nuts wasn’t that great, but I followed it by pounding back a large glass of water, and before I knew it, I was yawning up a storm and ready for bed.

Zander hadn’t cleaned, he’d just reorganized the mess into different piles of mess. He’d tried talking through some of the things, but it went over my tired head. Only taking note of a loud clap and him declaring that we should hit the hay.

The bedroom walls were decorated in floral print paper, there were paintings of animals and the duvet set was deep green with light gold flecks of thread outlining shapes. I finally felt like I understood a part of him, or he just had really good design cohesion because the theme in the bedroom was jungle, or specifically, jungle cat.

“What’s your favorite animal?” I asked, sitting on the side of the bed, running my fingers across the thread of the top sheet.

“Like, of all time, or like in a part of the world?”

“Of all time.”

“Tiger,” he said. “It’s pretty obvious, right?”

I wondered now if that tattoo on his ribs was tiger stripes instead of some faux tribal tattoo. “Oh.”

He turned the light off. “Ok, get in bed, you tired me out tonight.”

I didn’t want to verbally credit him for my exhaustion. But he was the reason I almost passed out before climbing into bed.