I stepped out of his closet into paradise. 

Color and light. Huge windows. Space. Bookshelves to the ceiling. Purple walls. Heath's bed looked like something out of Middle Earth-- a four poster made out of tree trunks. Its roots appeared to sprout from out of the floor, and vines carved and wound around the trucks from base to canopy and across. No mistaking the craftsmanship; the same hands that made the grand staircase skillfully carved this same bed.

Until this moment, I felt no compunction searching the rooms in this home-- now I felt like a blasphemer to do so. I reverently ran my fingertips across his dresser, carved by the same hands. His mirror. His comb. I touched his curls caught within its teeth. 

I felt like a love-sick fool.

I was acting like he was some deity, not the flesh-and-blood man who just an hour ago had me pinned to the dishwasher, making me cream my shorts like a schoolboy.

I turned to the bed, imagining what it'd be like-- him on top of me, in me, making me call out his name.

I could have it. I could be here, with him.

I crept up the bed, feeling like an outsider wanting to be in. I traced my fingers over the dark bed posts, so hedonistic-- the mattress lush and deep covered with a rich velvet bedspread. Ran my fingers over fabric; I never knew a color could be felt, but the purple tingled on my fingertips like sparks of light. 

In an instant the room turned, changed. An odd, unexplainable aura filled it. Not Mary Poppins Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious magic. No, this was erotic. Desire, lust, want, swirled around me like a manic merry-go-round. Even if I hadn't known this was Heath's room, I would have been hard-- but imagining Heath spread out on the same bed I was touching, well, it made me want to take my dick out and mark my territory by spotting the crushed velvet with come. I eased myself down on the lush mattress, threw my legs and arms out. My cock was rock-hard for the third time today. I looked up--

Holy fuck. 

Inside the canopy were carvings. Pornography, all sorts of acts carefully carved. The carvings were detailed, too. Men with men, men and women, women with women. Made me wonder what this bed was used for, and how Heath could possibly sleep here. Heath had to masturbate to these pictures. At least I hoped he did. Hard not to. Just thinking on one image in particular almost sent me over the edge. I wondered what kind of house this was. A brothel? And this bed? All a customer need do is point at a position and say, "I think I'll have number seven tonight!" 

I knew if I stayed in this bed much longer, he'd find me here passed out after a good wank. Part of me wanted that-- but I'd rather not explain how I got in his bed.

As I got up, the flashlight I'd held tight in my hand dropped with a thud to the floor and rolled under the bed. I bent over to pick it up and suddenly felt dizzy, grasping the post of the bed for support. My mind was milk-toast and honey, and I was ready to faint with desire. Great, who was I now? One of those damsels with my heart pounding with longing that Heath writes about? That would be just prefect-- Heath finds me, sprawled on his floor, helpless and vulnerable. I could see it now--

Heathcliffe sweeps me into his arms; my heart beating, fragile and fleeting. He carries me to his bed (his bed!). His breath puffs, delicate as he whispers in my ear, "My heart aches for your lips. My thighs long to push my manhood into your secret passage.  Let's spend no more time verbalizing our desire-- come! come! Let us act now on what our hearts long for! I will make love to you, and you will forget that any other man ever existed!"

I point to position number three and-- 

Somewhere between me pointing to position three and him ripping my shirt off, my fantasy was interrupted: my eye caught something in the corner of the room. A small stand, and on that stand sat a carved wooden box. I forgot all about becoming Charlotte Rey's newest modern romance heroine. Instead, I felt compelled to walk up to the box, drawn by some new attraction. I stepped haltingly across the room and stood in front of the stand, staring at the box. 

It was a simple box-- and although it didn't have the same carvings that the other pieces in the room had, something inside me knew it was made by the same hands. I took a deep breath, then crouched in front of the table, the box at eye level. I tentatively touched the latch on its front with my fingertips.

I caught my bottom lip between my teeth. I slowly lifted the lid. A music box, that sounded like no music box I'd ever heard. Tiny bells, delicate, swirling, with an enchanting beat, like a tiny drum inside it kept tempo. Although I didn't recognize the melody, I felt as if I knew the tune. The inside of the box was as plain as the outside; it contained but one item, wrapped in an old lace handkerchief. 

I pinched the bridge of my nose. What was inside? Should I open the handkerchief?

My hand hesitated, then reached inside. I jerked my hand out. Cold, so cold. My fingers icy. 

Then I heard his voice. Shit. They were home!

I had to get out of here. Go back. Christ. I couldn't let him find me here. 

The flashlight!

I scrambled on my hands and knees, searching under the bed. Dust bunnies, rolled up Blueboy magazines, and wadded-up Kleenexes.

He is human after all. 

Maybe. 

That music box. There was something unusual and otherworldly about it.

I high-tailed it back through the closet and shut the door behind me when I realized I had never turned off the flashlight. I hurried down the passage as quick and as quiet as I could. I was rounding the corner when the flashlight dimmed then went out. I frantically beat the side of it with my hand, and it flickered on. I took a few steps and noticed it dimming, dimming, dimming, then nothing again. I stopped. Shook it, beat it. It flickered on and off but not for long-- then nothing. I got down my hands and knees and started to feel my way. No good. The damn floor was splintered in spots. Fuck that hurt. One big sliver in my finger, one in my knee and at least four other smaller ones in the palms of my hands. It became painful to crawl; I scraped my knuckles raw. After a few yards, my fingers could no longer decipher degrees of dirt and dust.

Fuck. I was lost. I could bang on the walls and yell. I was hopeless-- I was no Sherlock Holmes, not even Harriet the Spy. I was about to give up and start yelling out, "Save me, save me!" when I found the stairs. 

I stood up and carefully stepped down. Now, all I had to do was remember which way to turn. Then I felt something on my face. Cobwebs. Shit. These weren't the same stairs! No plumbing was banging and clanging; I was going the wrong way!

I got to the bottom of the steps. I swatted the webs away from my face, felt imaginary-- or maybe not so imaginary spiders crawling down my shirt. My only hope was to find another doorway out. I spread my arms, feeling the wall as I stepped through the corridor, and just when I was about to give up, I felt the familiar ridges in the wall. Another doorway. At the top I found the same lip and I pulled. It opened. I pushed through the closet, found the door handle and opened it cautiously-- the room resembled my room, its furnishings similar. It had to be one of the guest bedrooms. 

I wiped my brow and cautiously walked across the room and up to the door. Opened. Peeked out. I was right; this room was on the main stairway. This was the first bedroom on the landing. My room was up the next flight. I hurried up the stairs, opened my bedroom door and slipped inside. I was home free. No Heath in sight.

I couldn't believe my luck until I took one look down at myself and panicked. I raced to the dresser mirror. Cobwebs all over me, my clothes rumpled and dirty, face smudged with dust and blood from wiping my hands across my face. I stripped for the second time that day. Threw my clothes in the corner of the closet, then limped into the bathroom and scrubbed myself clean and rinsed the evidence down the sink. I snatched the tweezers out of the medicine cabinet and began plucking slivers out of me. What I couldn't get with the tweezers, I removed with my teeth. As I finished with my minor surgery, I did the one foot, two foot hop changing into my clothes. No telling when or where Heath would show up.

I sat on my bed. I'd done it. I was dressed.

I waited. I could go to him, but--

I started thinking of everything I'd just seen. His room, his bed, the music box. Who was he? And that box? I'd never felt anything like that before. I was beginning to believe in magic and the supernatural and ready to start chanting like the Cowardly Lion, "I do believe in spooks; I do believe in spooks. I do, I do, I do, I do, I do!" 

Curiosity got the better of me. I had to look in the closet. There had to be a secret door there too. I went up to it and held my breath as I stepped inside. My hands fumbled along the back wall. Nothing. Then I noticed the hollow sound under my feet. I lifted the braided rug and underneath-- a trapdoor. Shit.

This might explain the mysterious comings and goings. Some of it. But not all.

"Jake? You in here?" 

I jumped. Holy fuck! Heath was in my room! 

I stepped out of my closet.

"What were you doing in there?" he asked, stepping up to me looking me up and down.

Think quick, think quick, think quick...

"Um-- changing?"

"Where were you?" he asked. "I came in here earlier, and you weren't here."

"Ah-- in the kitchen?"

His eyes narrowed. He didn't believe me.

"What happened to your hair?" he asked, plucking a cobweb from off the top of my head. He held the evidence in front of my nose.

"Um-- I forgot to brush it?"

He grabbed my hands and turned them over in his own. His fingers brushed against my scraped knuckles. I flinched as he poked at a sliver still lodged in my palm.

"And what happened to your hands?"

I frowned. I was so caught. I closed my eyes.

"You aren't going to tell me you did this brushing your hair?" He let go of my hands. I let them dangle helpless at my sides.

"Ah-- I was crawling on the floor?"

"Where?"

"Um--"

He stared into me, through me. His right hand swept up, then he touched my face. Long fingers brushed across my lips.

"Don't speak." He shook his head at me. "Just don't say another word."

My stomach turned to mush. He nudged me back, wrapped his arms around me. I stumbled, fell flat onto the bed. My eyes wide, watching him as he stared at my lips. And then he was kissing me. That mouth opening onto mine, parting, tongue exploring. He was on top of me, grinding me into the mattress, making out with me like we were in the back seat of his daddy's car. I moaned. 

How the fuck did he do that? Make me so hard from kissing? That tongue of his should be entered into some sort of Hall of Fame. It occurred to me that maybe the reason I never enjoyed kissing before was because no one ever kissed me properly. I did wonder if romance novelists had some sort of secret set of instructions on how to kiss that made them superior to us regular people.

He had me all pliant with need; he could have done anything to me-- spank my ass with those long tapered fingers, tie my hands and feet to the bedposts, whip my privates with a cat-o-nine-tails (well, not too hard)-- I was powerless against the tongue. 

Then the tongue left my mouth. I groaned. He ran that wet and wild thing over my eyelids, then stuck it in my ear. I jerked, but his hands hushed me. Until that point I never understood how people got off on the tongue-in-the-ear thing; I never knew the bright magic of a wicked tongue flicking inside my ear. My breath came in ragged bursts through my teeth. His cock rocked against mine. 

"Oh, god, oh, god, oh, god--" I sang out. I was about to come again, and this time I wanted something more-- that cock of his buried inside me. I grabbed his shoulders, and I flipped him. My turn. My hands reached between us, cupped his cock then squeezed, and I felt his delicious spasms. My fingers tugged on his zipper. 

His hand clamped tight around my wrist, stopping me. "Not yet," he said. "Tell me what you were doing earlier."

What was this? Some new form of sexual blackmail?

I blinked, then stared down at him--

He rocked us over on our sides. We were nose to nose.

He moved my hand over his jeans, and let my thumb run down the ridge of his cock. His groan sounded like music. 

"I was snooping," I admitted. 

"I know," he gasped. "But where?"

"The passageways between the rooms."

His arm caught the back of my neck. We were forehead to forehead-- his mouth ghosted over mine. "And?" he asked, lips pressed to mine.

"And?" I repeated.

"My room? Did you find my room?" 

Mouth to mouth, breath to breath, tongue to tongue-- I hesitated. Lie or tell the truth...lie or tell the truth...lie or--

Our tongues parted but lips still joined.

He'd know anyway-- I'd left the music box open, and most certainly I'd left dusty footprints all over his floor.

I lied anyway-- at first. "No..." I mumbled, then his tongue touched mine like some type of slippery truth serum. "Yes..." Oh, sweet confession, my reward sweeter.

"And the music box? Did it play for you?"

I nodded. 

His tongue did the tango in my mouth. This time when I unzipped his jeans, he didn't stop me. My hand raked over his cock, then I grasped it firm and pumped him. His did the same for me-- made fast work of my button-fly jeans, pushed them down. He slid back on top of me, and we rocked against each other while the music box melody danced through my head.

TBC