Daniel > Recent Status Updates

He pulls my hand down to his stomach and I watch his hard penis jolt a little. I rub it in the way I occasionally like to rub myself. I wonder what it would be like to kiss Noah’s arms, chest, stomach, find out what he tastes like. I’ve never thought anything like that before.

Noah groans, “I’ve never done this before, been naked with someone. I have…done other stuff, but not this. This is for you. Only you.”

It’s new and I don’t know if I’m getting it right, but I feel safe with him, safe enough to get it wrong maybe. Maybe that’s what love is, knowing you’re safe even when you get it wrong with someone. Or maybe there is no wrong when you love someone and that’s why you’re safe. Maybe love is the complete safety to be yourself. Maybe this is what Noah meant when he told me I make him feel safe too.

Noah's cheek presses against mine. I can feel his breath over my ear. It’s making me more excited. He turns his head and his lips brush my cheek, then my mouth. It happens so fast my brain can’t catch up to even think about how I should respond. His arms come around me tightly again and I hug him back just as hard. It’s so close. He’s so close. And even though it’s almost too much, all I want is to get closer.

I get lost in feeling his heart beating against my chest, trying to work out which beat belongs to him and which is mine. He feels so nice to be close to. Hugs with the right person are the best thing in the world. Noah might be my right person. I want to be his right person. I want it so badly it hurts. I’m so scared I’m not his right person. But all my good feelings are so much bigger than all my bad ones.

Alexei and Bruno are watching us from inside the house. I know they are. I can sort of feel them. I don’t care if these feelings aren’t going to be a secret any longer. I don’t care if everyone sees I’m an N for Noah, not if there’s a chance that Noah might be a G for Gregor as well as a P for pansexual, just for now. I can’t hope for more than that. It feels too big and scary to hope for more than that.

Classic NR Walker dialogue/banter which is always delightful ... otherwise, I couldn't care less about this one.

“I just don’t want to see if he’s…”
“If he’s posted pictures of himself with someone else?”
Andrew nodded. “I hadn’t thought about that until you asked me if he was seeing someone else.” Then he shook his head and narrowed his eyes. “And here I am trying to bait him into coming back to me. Kinda sad, huh?”

Yes, Andrew ... yes, it is! 🙄 Pretty pathetic, actually!

“So much is lost with modern music,” I said. He looked at me then, so I explained. “I mean, I like contemporary music, but this—” I paused as Bill Withers sang. “—this is classic.”

“So you curl up in the sun with a book while you listen to vinyl records?”

“Some days,” I said. “Some days I use my iPod and belt out the Top 20. Depends what I’m in the mood for.”

Exactly! Books + Spotify = my happy place!

He pulled out the record. “Can I play this?”

It was a compilation of blues and jazz: Otis Redding, Bill Withers, Percy Sledge, Miles Davis, and Aretha Franklin. He slid the record out like it was the most precious thing in the world, then carefully put the needle on the vinyl. The room filled with the crackle that vinyl gave and “Ain’t No Sunshine” started to play.

Well, at least he has great taste in music!

God knows I'm 🤮 of seeing "Fool's Spring" in my feed! Is there a way to block individual books?!? 😣 Yeah, I know ... didn't think so. 🙄

I'm in the mood to do some cleanup. Time to drop some names from my "Friends" list that I never see in my notifications. Apparently they are nothing more than names, so just ... why? 🤷‍♂️ Whittled off a few more from my ever-shrinking list. 😏 When it comes to "friends", I want quality not quantity.

“I told Elvis,” said Vernon, “that I’d work for him and buy him everything I could afford. If he had problems, he could come to me and I’d try to understand. I also said, ‘But, son, if you see anything wrong going on, promise me you’ll have no part of it. Just don’t let anything happen so that I’d have to talk to you between bars. That’s the only thing that would break my heart.’ ”

Another classmate said, “All the socializing I did was at school, but we were very close friends there. At Christmastime in the seventh grade he gave me a little truck, and he gave Billy something of a similar sort—it was one of his own toys. I remember that impressed me, that he wanted to do something so badly that he would give us one of his toys when he couldn’t afford anything else.”

A classmate described him as “a sad, shy, not especially attractive boy” whose guitar playing was not likely to win any prizes. Many of the other children made fun of him as a “trashy” kind of boy playing trashy “hillbilly” music, but Elvis stuck to his guns. Without ever confronting his denigrators or his critics, he continued to do the one thing that was important to him: he continued to make music.

Elvis’ commitment to music was clear-cut, not just from singing in church but from trips he made to town on Saturday to attend the WELO Jamboree, broadcast from the courthouse. “A whole crowd went down, grown-ups and kids. You got in line to perform, just something to do on Saturday. He would go to the radio station to play and sing. There was nothing to highlight him, really, he was just one of the kids.”

It appears likely that he got a guitar for his eleventh birthday. He wanted a bicycle, and the only reason he ended up with the guitar was because his mother was worried that he might get run over, not to mention the fact that the guitar was considerably less expensive. “Son, wouldn’t you rather have the guitar?” Gladys concluded. “It would help you with your singing, and everyone does enjoy hearing you sing.”

He was drawn to music in a way he couldn’t fully express, found a kind of peace in the music. It must have come as a surprise even to Gladys when Elvis, her shy, dreamy, oddly playful child, got up and sang in front of several hundred people at the age of ten at the Mississippi-Alabama Fair and Dairy Show in downtown Tupelo. He climbed up on a chair so he could reach the microphone and sang ‘Old Shep.’

This is my story of Elvis Presley: it cannot be the story of Elvis Presley.

If I have succeeded in my aim, I have given the reader the tools to create his or her own portrait of a young Elvis Presley, the opportunity to reinvent and reinterpret, within the broad context of a particular time and place, the early life of a remarkable American original.

“Favourite food?”

“You’re eating it.”

“Least favourite?”

“Shellfish. I’m allergic.”

His fork stopped halfway to his mouth. “Seriously?”

I pulled an EpiPen from my pocket and held it up for him to see. “Very. I usually carry one of these with me if I’m eating out somewhere new, and as a general rule I don’t eat anything that comes out of the water.”

Then I added, “Unless he showers first.”

“Okay, quick fire questions,” I said. “Food you can’t stand?”

“Avocado. It’s slimy and wrong.”

“Coffee?”

“Yes.”

“How do you like it?”

“Latte with two percent. No sugar or syrups.”

“What day do you do your laundry?”

“Saturdays.”

Oh. “Am I interrupting your laundry?”

He smirked. “No. I live dangerously like that.”

“What are you doing here?”

“Our date!” He raised his eyebrows.

“Is that vodka?”

“Ah hah!” I clapped my hands together, suddenly remembering why I had the alcohol. “Doc, I seem to be intoxicated. And therefore you should also be intoxicated. Otherwise this would be a very strange date.”

“Yeah, we wouldn’t want that…”

I looked at the clock.

11pm.

Oh no! We missed our date. I hurried out of the room, ducking like a secret agent in case there were any nurses. I started humming the Mission Impossible song. I held my hands like a gun in front of me. “DUN DUN… DUN DUN—”

I tripped over a hospital cart and fell to the ground.

The last thing I remembered was giggling to myself as I faded out of consciousness.

OMG, Noah! LMAO!

I don’t think he knows how to hug harder. I think he’s afraid of breaking people. People don’t break from hugs, though. I think they might break without them sometimes. So I can deal with his light hugs. Toby is the only light hugger who I’ll probably let hug me whenever he asks. I think he needs to give hugs more than I need not to have them. And sometimes you have to do the things the people you love need.