I won’t lie. It wasn’t a quick shower, but whatever. Time becomes lost and its seconds and minutes turn uncountable when you’re listening to a stranger go through your bedroom, and realize that he’s spying on you while you’re cleaning under your pits and between your stern legs. “It was. I see you got some water.”

“I did. Hope you don’t mind.”

“Not at all.”

I don’t know why I ask him, “Want something stronger?” The question seems to slip out of me with ease.

He thinks about it for a second, two seconds, continues to stare at my golden-wet chest of smooth, shaven hair, and nods. “How about a sip of something. Just to take the edge off between us.”

“Sounds good to me,” I reply and head to the kitchen area, two glasses of iced tea, and some afternoon rum to mix inside; a certain alcoholic beverage which was made in the nearby town of Misston by two brothers with the last name of Quill. A most splendorous treat on a summertime afternoon.

* * * *

No. The following events do not transpire on this July afternoon:

My skimpy towel doesn’t fall away from my hips and land on the kitchen’s maple floorboards. The act doesn’t show off my sporty, bulbous, and tight bottom for my short-time visitor to lick and probe with his tongue. Nothing of this sort happens.

Nor does the hiker woo me with his traveling and sexual words, telling me that I’m one of the most handsome men he has ever seen, and wishes to blow me next to the kitchen counter, having every intention of walking me upstairs and fucking me after he almost makes me come near the sink with his mouthy pleasure and needy desires.

And no, Backpack Jack doesn’t seduce me with his smoldering brown eyes and good looks, allotting an afternoon of man-inside-man sex over the three-person table that decorates my kitchen.

None of these intimate actions transpire.

No. They. Do. Not.

Instead, the skimpy towel stays locked against my middle and keeps my precious goods covered. And the two of us sip the rum-spiced iced tea that we both find enjoyable. Until ... I excuse myself from the kitchen and tell him, “I’m going to run upstairs and get some fresh clothes on. Be back down in a second to prepare us lunch.”

“Sounds good. I’m starving.”

For food? Or me? I wonder as I leave him behind with his strong iced-tea drink on the opposite of the room, and the erection in his jeans. I do hope that he won’t run off as I, in the interim, vanish. Just for a few minutes. Nor more than three.

He winks at me.

I wink at him.

Yes. We have chemistry.

It’s undeniable.