A Faire Distance Apart Read online

  A Faire Distance Apart

  By Feral Sephrian

  Published by JMS Books LLC

  Visit jms-books.com for more information.

  Copyright 2020 Feral Sephrian

  ISBN 9781646566273

  Cover Design: Written Ink Designs | written-ink.com

  Image(s) used under a Standard Royalty-Free License.

  All rights reserved.

  WARNING: This book is not transferable. It is for your own personal use. If it is sold, shared, or given away, it is an infringement of the copyright of this work and violators will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

  No portion of this book may be transmitted or reproduced in any form, or by any means, without permission in writing from the publisher, with the exception of brief excerpts used for the purposes of review.

  This book is for ADULT AUDIENCES ONLY. It may contain sexually explicit scenes and graphic language which might be considered offensive by some readers. Please store your files where they cannot be accessed by minors.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are solely the product of the author’s imagination and/or are used fictitiously, though reference may be made to actual historical events or existing locations. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Published in the United States of America.

  * * * *

  A Faire Distance Apart

  By Feral Sephrian

  Even though it was just an image on a screen, and even though Wes had seen that image at least once a week for the past five months, he still smiled and his heart fluttered at the sight of Carlo waving to him through their Discord video call. It helped that Carlo was dressed up smartly in his best casual Renaissance garb, just as Wes was, but of course Carlo looked better in it.

  “Hey there, gorgeous,” Wes said, grinning ear-to-ear.

  “Hey yourself,” Carlo replied. He smiled, though there was a tinge of sadness to it. “Happy anniversary, dearheart.”

  Wes blew a kiss to the screen. “Happy anniversary.” He sighed and rested his cheek on his palm. “Wish I could be there.”

  “I know, same.” Carlo ran his fingers through his dark brown hair. It was getting long again after he had cut it short back at the beginning of quarantine. Wes liked it longer. There was more to twirl around his fingers when they lay in bed together, both too exhausted or comfy to move unless they really had to pee. Wes’s fingers itched to follow Carlo’s around to the back of his head, pull him in for a kiss, but he hadn’t been able to kiss Carlo for months now. He hated it.

  “How’ve you been?” Wes asked. He doubted much had happened in the three days since their last call, but he wanted to hear Carlo’s voice regardless.

  “I’m alright,” Carlo replied. He leaned his head on his hands. “I miss you.”

  “Mood,” Wes groaned. He lifted his glass of wine. “And here’s to the Faire we’re both missing too.”

  Carlo raised his own glass. “Cheers. Hopefully their opening day was a good one and everyone stays safe for the season.”

  Wes nodded. “From your lips to God’s ears,” he said, taking a sip. It was cheap red wine from a local shop, nowhere near as good at the stuff he could be getting at the Mount Hope Winery tonight. However, he and Wes had both decided to abstain from participating in Penn Renn this year, even though the Faire had taken many precautions so it could open to the public. Several of their friends and colleagues had done the same. Robert, who had played the older good knight of the joust for many years and planned on retiring in 2021 when he turned sixty-five, had opted to retire this year instead. It simply wasn’t safe for people his age to be out among crowds these days. And even though Carlo lived a short drive away from the Fairegrounds, he wasn’t even going to stop in and say hello to anyone. The families out in the more secluded farms had been keeping to themselves well enough and supporting each other with food and homecrafted goods. A single infected cough could put them all at risk.

  They got their small talk out of the way. Carlo updated Wes on the homemade mint jelly he and his younger sister tried to make, though it came out too thin and was more like honey than jelly. Wes told Carlo about one of his housemates’ recent decision to shave the back of her head, both to get in on the trend of “stupid quarantine haircuts” and to keep her neck cooler in this heat. In Wes’s opinion she should have done it sooner, since the awful August heat was winding down. It was still hot enough that spending all day in the sun would have him drenched in sweat by nightfall, though, and Wes was thankful that he could spend his days in his room wearing nothing but his boxers.

  “That’s another reason I’m kinda relieved we won’t be at Faire this year,” he told Carlo. “It doesn’t look like this gross weather is going away any time soon.”

  Carlo nodded. “The costumes do get insufferably stuffy when it’s humid.” He took another sip of wine. “Mm, and the masks will make it worse.”

  Wes chuckled. “I’ll have to ask Ellie how many people showed up in full plague doctor gear.”

  “If some of the vendors aren’t selling replica plague masks, I’ll be surprised,” Carlo said with a grin. “Not even the full ones, just like, functional masks that happen to be pointy, but, y’know, shorter.”

  “What, like parrots instead of ravens?” Wes asked. He gestured over his mouth to indicate a short curved beak. “Or like sparrows?”

  “A whole assortment of plague bird masks,” Carlo said. “Everything from hummingbirds to toucans.”

  Wes laughed so hard he had to set down his wine. “Fuck, I can just picture someone going to Pride dressed as a toucan-based plague doctor.” He giggled a little more, then sighed. “It won’t be the same just looking at the pictures of everyone in costume. Like, you get to be there and wave to them and tell them how awesome they look. And you know some of them have been working on their costumes for the entire quarantine hoping that things would get better in time for Faire.”

  Carlo’s smile faded. “Well, they’re better than they were, but…” He shrugged and sipped his wine. “Not good enough. Not even with all the safety measures.”

  “Which is why we’re here,” Wes said, raising his wine in another toast. “The gay community learned its lessons about viral pandemics before and our ancestors of the eighties would be so disappointed if we didn’t put them into practice.” He counted off on his fingers. “Avoid physical contact until all parties involved have been tested. Keep track of who you are physical with on a regular basis for the sake of contact tracing. You never know how important intimate touch is until you have to go without it for months at a time. Fuck the government, it’s not going to help you. And…” He wiggled his pinky finger. “Oh! And no matter how desperate you get, do not try the home ‘remedies’ people swear work.”

  “What, you’re saying a bleach enema won’t cure me of all diseases?” Carlo asked sarcastically. He rolled his eyes. “Yeah, we’ve got so much more access to information and yet we’ve also got so much wrong information mucking up the works.”

  Wes pouted. He slapped his hand on his desk resolutely. “We’re not going to talk about it. Yes, everything sucks, but it’s our anniversary. And I’ve got food on sticks that needs to be eaten.”

  “As do I!” Carlo said. He leaned off screen for a moment and returned with a small tray of food. “I’ve got a turkey leg on a stick, I’ve got pickles on sticks, I’ve got chocolate-covered cheesecake on a stick—covered it in chocolate myself, too!” He held it up to show the imperfections on the chocolate shell, unlike the smooth professional treats they sold at Faire. Then he presented the main course. “And I’ve got my bread bowl. Got the French loaf from next door and t
he soup is some cheddar broccoli soup we put in the freezer a couple weeks ago that really needs to get eaten.”

  “Oh, that looks amazing.” Wes’s stomach growled, not only from the sight of Carlo’s meal, but from the smell of his own. He presented his own array of Faire-themed anniversary food one dish at a time. “I’ve got my bread bowl here as well,” he said. “Except mine’s just a boule from the store with some canned minestrone in it.”

  “That’s still good!” Carlo said. “We didn’t expect to get Faire-quality food anyway.”

  Wes smiled. “That’s true. But I did make my own cinnamon almonds!” He held up the bowl for Carlo to see. “Smells like walking through Queen’s Market Square,” he said proudly. “And then I’ve got a deep-fried Snickers bar on a stick—which took me several tries, I don’t know how they do it—and I’ve got my own pickles on a stick.”

  Carlo held a pickle up close to his camera. “Cheers!”

  “Cheers,” Wes replied, waving a pickle at the camera without getting any juice on it. He took a bite and chewed for a moment. “It really isn’t the same, is it?”

  “No,” Carlo said, shoulders slumping slightly. “I think there’s something in the air at Faire that makes everything seem better.”

  Wes nodded. “Can’t beat that sweet Faire air.”

  Carlo laughed. “It’s a fair bit more fair than the air just anywhere.”

  Wes beamed and chuckled. “You’re such a dork.”

  “Which I think is why you fell for me in the first place?” Carlo said cheekily as he took a bite of his pickle.

  “Mmm…that, and you look really good in armor.” Wes grinned. “But when you told me you could beat Super Mario World in under twenty minutes, I knew I had found The One.”

  In truth, Wes hadn’t known for certain that he wanted anything long-term with Carlo until they had been dating several months, after Faire season had ended and they didn’t see each other every weekend. Part of him had thought that this fling was just that, a fling, and while it was much better than his previous relationship, he assumed it would end amicably at some point and they’d go back to just being friends. But he found himself daydreaming about Carlo while he was at work, or thinking of something he could tell Carlo to make him laugh then getting disappointed when he knew he wouldn’t hear that laugh in person, and Carlo’s little spontaneous texts to say “Thinking about you, hope you’re having a good day” or “Glad we got to talk last night, looking forward to our next call!” always cheered Wes up even on his weariest days. And for their first Christmas as a couple, Carlo had gifted him the Society for Creative Anachronism’s guide to sewing, saying that he remembered Wes mentioning that he wished he could bring back older fashions, if only he knew how to sew. Wes had since joined the SCA and sewed himself and his friends several accessories based on the patterns in the book, including a new sporran for his kilt that he was very fond of. He liked to joke that Carlo had “domesticated” him and thus the bond between them could never be broken. Carlo would add to the joke by saying he went to college to learn animal husbandry, so boyfriend husbandry was a simple task. If anyone asked when they intended to practice some husband husbandry, Wes and Carlo would exchange a knowing glance and shrug and say, “When the time is right.”

  So here they were, five years into their relationship and five months into a pandemic lockdown that had prevented them from seeing each other in person, but they were no less in love for it. They ate their anniversary dinner, eighty miles apart from each other, and Wes’s heart ached. Part of him was still in denial that anything was wrong. No one in his household had gotten sick, his parents and other family members were fine, and most importantly Carlo was okay. Why not just go visit him? Everyone out there has been isolating as best they can, and so have I. It’s fine. It was dangerous thinking. Wes had seen the reports on asymptomatic cases. He had been checking Philadelphia’s COVID testing data site every day hoping the average infection rate would fall below six percent, then five percent, then four, then three, all because it meant someday it would be down to zero. In the meantime, if there was even the slightest chance he could bring the virus out to Carlo’s family, he had to stay away.

  Carlo propped his cheek on his hand and stared at his screen somewhat absentmindedly as he ate. It was odd that his eyes weren’t directly on Wes, but Wes knew that from Carlo’s perspective he was probably making eye contact. He took a bite of his chocolate-covered cheesecake on a stick, which had both shed its chocolate coating and fallen off the stick so he was just eating it with a fork, and sighed.

  “Penny for your thoughts, m’lord?” Wes asked, biting off a chunk of his now empty bread bowl.

  Carlo sighed again. “They’re stupid thoughts,” he said. “Not worth the penny.”

  Wes wiped some crumbs off his desk. “Well, if you’re looking to get rid of them, I happen to be somewhat of a collector of junk thoughts.”

  That made Carlo smile. The smile faded quickly though. “I just…I wish we could both rent hazmat suits or something so we can at least hug each other without worrying.”

  “That’s not a stupid thought,” Wes said. “Better than my idea, which was to drive over to your place, drape a sheet over myself, then hug you and burn the sheet in a field halfway home for safety.”

  Carlo laughed. “Like some kind of weird trick-or-treater? You show up in a shitty ghost costume, get a quick treat, then go set something on fire?”

  Wes grinned. “Okay, yeah, I think I’ve got my Halloween plans figured out now. Thanks!” He winked. “Told you I’m a collector of bad ideas.”

  “I can see that.” Carlo scraped up another bite of cheesecake. “I um…I had another idea, it’s not so much bad as it is just kinda…I dunno, thirsty?”

  “Oh?” Wes asked, arching one eyebrow. He leaned in closer to his laptop’s screen. “Tell me more.”

  Carlo set his dishes aside. “It’s…a game. Sort of.” He waggled one hand in a so-so gesture. “We’d…Oh God, this already sounds dumb and I haven’t even said it.” He put his head in his hands. “Forget it.”

  Wes wished he could put his arms around Carlo and comfort him, even over something this small. It was torture seeing Carlo struggle when he couldn’t do anything to help him. “No, honey, it’s okay. I want to hear it.”

  “Okay.” Carlo shifted so his hands were only covering part of his face. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “So…So basically it’s like this one improv game we used to do as a warm-up in my theater classes. You stand in a circle and one person goes in the middle and names an object, then you have to go around and each person names someone who would use that object. Like…flashlight, and then the answers would be ‘a night guard’ and ‘a cave diver’ and ‘a detective’, but you can’t say one that someone has said before and you’ve only got three seconds.”

  Wes nodded. “I think I’ve played a drinking game like that. Whoever can’t think of anything or accidentally says something someone else already said has to drink and then they pick the next object?”

  Carlo smiled. “Exactly! It’s not the same with two people obviously, but…” He dipped his head and bit his lips. It was hard to see through the less-than-great quality of his camera, but Wes knew when Carlo was blushing even if he could only hear his voice. “I wanted to…do a version of that where we say what we want to…do to each other.”

  A bit of warmth spread across Wes’s cheeks as well. “Oh really?”

  “I told you it was thirsty,” Carlo said.

  “I like it.” Wes tucked both fists under his chin to lean on them. “I’ve been wanting to tell you all the ways I wish I could touch you, too. Any other rules I should know about before we start?”

  Carlo was definitely blushing now, and not just from bashfulness. “Okay, so, um, yeah. You can do the same action twice, but you can’t do something to a part either of us has already said. For example, you can say you’d kiss my cheek and you’d kiss my hand, but if you said you’d kiss my hand
then I can’t say I would hold your hand. Does that make sense?”

  Wes was already compiling a list in his head of things he could suggest about Carlo’s more obscure body parts. “I think I’ve got it, but if I make a mistake feel free to call me out on it.”

  The first round went fairly well, albeit long. They eventually declared that mentioning a part of something that had already been mentioned counted, and therefore Wes saying, “I want to nibble your pinky finger,” got him out because Carlo had stated his desire to hold Wes’s hand about halfway through. Wes didn’t have a shot glass handy, so he measured out a mouthful of wine in his glass and knocked it back.

  The next round also took a while, but that was because they took longer pauses while they tried to come up with something original.

  “I want to nuzzle your nose.”

  “I want to use your thighs as a pillow.”

  “I want to tickle your earlobes with a feather.”

  “Ooh, good one. Um…I want…to…blow a raspberry on your butt.”

  “Ha ha, alright. Then I want to leave a love bite on your hip.”

  “Well I’ll leave a love bite on your chest.”

  “Okay, well, for the sake of not just listing places we want to give each other hickeys…I want to braid your hair.”

  “It’s not quite long enough to do that again yet, but by the time you see me again it might be. I want to…um…Oh! I want to rub your feet.”

  “Dang it, that was my next one. I want to…touch your elbow. Through a cloth.”

  “Oho, kinky bastard. I want to caress your collarbones.”

  “I want to boop you on the forehead.”

  “I want to tickle your knee.”

  “I want to sit on your cock.”

  “Oof. I want to lick your balls.”

  “I want to suck on your fingers one by one.”

  “I want to kiss your neck.”

  “I want to…Wait, no I already said ears. Um…I want to gaze lovingly into your eyes.”