(no subject)
Title: A Long Way Up
Author: alphabet_magic
Rating: G / PG
Disclaimer: All characters and situations other than my own belong to CowLip, not me.
Max was wearing his blue and yellow dinosaur swim trunks when he, Daddy, and Bine left the big hotel and climbed in the back of the taxi.
Max was wearing his blue and yellow dinosaur swim trunks when he, Daddy, and Bine left the big hotel and climbed in the back of the taxi. He got to wear them with his white T-shirt and blue water shoes, and the lady taxi driver tapped his nose with her tanned finger and said, “¡Tú es hermoso, amiguito!” Max didn’t know what that meant, but he knew she was speaking Spanish. Spanish like Dora and Diego. ¡Vámonos!
“Uno, dos, twace,” Max counted as Daddy pulled the seatbelt across his lap.
They were in another place where it was hot, even in the fall. It was October, and all around there were coconut trees and men without shirts. Ladies in bikinis. They were by the ocean, and their hotel was on a cliff, overlooking the beach and the ocean; overlooking cresting waves and burning sunsets.
It was scalding in the taxi, and Max whined to Bine, who rolled down his window. It didn’t help. Max wasn’t wearing underwear and his shorts were sticking to his skin. He shifted in the seat.
The ride to the restaurant was the longest Max had ever endured. He couldn’t understand the language on the radio and neither Daddy nor Bine was talking. Bine was taking pictures out the window with the expensive camera Max wasn’t allowed to touch; Daddy was reading a colorful piece of folded paper covered in pictures.
When they finally arrived, Max’s hair was stuck to his forehead and he was very, very thirsty. They went inside the restaurant, which had red Christmas lights strung from wall to wall, and Daddy ordered Max some milk that he drank in hard slurps from a straw. Fast. So fast his tummy felt achy.
They were seated by a window, which Bine requested, and Max got to look out over the ocean as he drank his milk and ate the funny food Daddy and Bine put on an empty plate. It made his mouth hot, so he drank more milk.
Beyond the beach was a jungle. A real, live jungle. The trees were green and birds flew in and out, going high, going low, and swooping into the boughs. Max wondered if there were dinosaurs. There were thirty dinosaurs in his jungle land play set at home. His favorite was the T-Rex, because it ate all the little dinosaurs in one bite.
“Is they dinos?” Max asked, pressing his finger to the window glass.
Bine shrugged. He flattened out the issue of USA Today he’d picked up in the lobby of the hotel and said, “I don’t know. Maybe.” He looked at Max, the corners of his mouth upturned. “Probably a giant T-Rex that’ll eat you up right off the beach.”
“Noooo!” Max laughed.
Daddy lowered his eyebrows at Bine. He always told him he was “scaring” Max, and that it’d be his fault if Max had nightmares. Max wasn’t scared, though. He knew Bine was just lying.
After brunch, Max rode on Daddy’s back down the hill to the beach, while Bine carried the bag of toys, books, and snacks. Grown-up sodas. Bottled water. Sunscreen for Daddy’s back. He had the expensive camera strapped across his chest and sunglasses on his face. Max wanted to look like him.
When they reached the beach, Daddy lowered Max onto the sand and helped Bine spread out the towels and set up the beach chairs and umbrella Bine had paid for at a little shack. Max pulled his red pail and yellow shovel from the toy bag and dropped down in the sand. It was warm. Itchy. It went up the legs of his shorts when he moved.
He took off his shirt because he was very, very hot, and threw it on the ground beside him. Daddy came over and spread goopy sunscreen all over his shoulders and nose, and Max wiped his face off on his discarded shirt the moment he walked away. Sunscreen smelled stinky.
It was a very hot day. Hotter than any day Max could remember. The sky was blue, clouds sparse, cottony, white like fluff, and there was a light breeze…a warm breeze, dry like the burst of air in Max’s face from a floor vent when he’d look down through the metal slats.
Daddy helped Max build sandcastles in the hot, damp sand while Bine sat in the chair and finished the paper. Max had a set of castle molds Nana had bought him, and Daddy showed him how to wet the sand, how to pack it into the molds, and how to turn the mold over really fast so no sand fell out. They made four castles in a circle.
Next, with his fingers, Max scraped out a road for his mini Tonka trucks, and Daddy built a moat.
Bine put down his paper and came over. He had shiny oil on his chest and stomach. Swim shorts were black and clingy, hitting at mid-thigh. He put his hands on his hips.
“How cute,” he said, watching Daddy’s hands as he dug out a moat around the castles.
Daddy looked at him. “Come on. Help.”
Bine sat down beside Max and watched for about five minutes. Handed Max his trucks when he wanted them. Gave him sips of his bottled water. He started playing along eventually, though, when Max lost all interest in the sandcastles the moment Daddy was finished with the moat.
Together, upon Bine’s suggestion, Max and Bine covered Daddy’s legs with sand. Bine molded a big snake and put it below Daddy’s stomach, and Max laughed.
“Snakes bites!” He yelled, pointing it out for Daddy. Daddy raised up, looked at the snake, and dropped back on the sand. He chuckled while looking at Bine, who leaned over him.
Max watched as Bine licked Daddy’s lips, then his neck. His jaw. Bit his ear. Max wondered if he was going to get to see them wrestle. But then Daddy pushed Bine away and told them to hurry up and finish because had to pee.
~*~
They had a late lunch on the beach and then went into the ocean. Max had to put on his itchy Diego life jacket.
“I not welw it,” Max said defiantly. He tried to pull down the zipper in front.
Daddy shook his head. “All kids have to wear life jackets. For safety.”
“I not!”
Bine grabbed him before he could take it off. Swung him up into his arms. Kissed his cheek. “This jacket,” he said, zipping it back up. “It’s a special T-Rex proof jacket.”
Max whined. “They’s no T-Wex!”
“That’s what you think. See, he’s hiding. Right now. In the jungle.” Bine bounced Max on his hip. “He’s waiting for little boys to go in the ocean without their special jacket. And then…” Bine growled into Max’s neck, biting him gently.
Max howled with laughter. Wrapped his arms around Bine’s shoulders. “Noooo!”
“He’ll eat you right up.”
“He not!”
Bine put Max back down in the sand. Shrugged. “Okay. We’ll see.”
Max turned to Daddy. “He not.”
“You have to wear your jacket,” Daddy said, taking Max’s hand.
Max looked down at his jacket, at the little pictures of Diego and Baby Jaguar. He exhaled loudly. He didn’t want to get eaten.
As Bine and Daddy walked him, each holding one of his hands, to the edge of the ocean, Daddy shook his head and said, “He’s going to have psychological problems. I’m not paying for therapy.”
Bine laughed.
Max liked the ocean. It was cold and there were waves, lots and lots of people, but Daddy and Bine kept him safe. His special jacket, too. He didn’t see any T-Rexes.
Daddy held him as he and Bine swam out into the deeper water, where the waves were just bumps. Camel humps in the clear, blue ocean. Bine went under water and tickled Max’s legs; Max shrieked and held onto Daddy’s neck so tightly that Daddy coughed.
“Brian, stop.” Daddy laughed, grabbing Bine by the back of the neck. Dragging him closer in the water. They kissed, Max only an inch away. Bine got Daddy’s face all wet with salty ocean water.
~*~
They left the beach before dinnertime. Max’s nose was pink and his hair was lighter. Golden streaks had appeared in his light brown locks. Bine brushed out tangles with his fingers in the taxi on the way back to the hotel.
The hotel looked like a palace. Like one of Max and Daddy’s sandcastles. The name was in Spanish, and Max pretended he was Diego in the jungle as he, Bine, and Daddy crossed through the plant-filled lobby. He rode on Bine’s back and sang the Diego song. “Go, Diego, go!”
They had a big room with a whole wall full of windows. Two beds, even though Max usually slept with Daddy and Bine. A couch. Television with a DVD player. A kitchen. But the best part was the bathroom. There was a tub so big Max could swim in it with his dinosaurs, and a giant shower with soap and shampoo that came out of the wall.
Much to his delight, Max got to take a shower with Daddy when they arrived. Daddy let him push the buttons for soap and shampoo, and when he washed his hair, he twisted it until Max looked like a Who from the Grinch movie. Daddy opened the shower door and let him see himself in the mirror.
After the shower, Daddy dressed him in his favorite lizard shirt and stripy shorts. He got Max a juice box from the fridge and put in a Backyardigans DVD, checked the locks on the doors, the windows, and said he was going to go help Bine shave. Said for Max to knock on the bathroom door if he needed anything.
Max was too busy watching his movie to pay attention.
Bine and Daddy were in the bathroom for a long time. When they finally came out, heated and smiling, the DVD was over and Max was jumping on the bed.
“Well!” Bine said, grabbing Max mid-air. “Both of you certainly like bouncing on things.”
Daddy stuck his finger in his mouth and pulled it out slowly.
~*~
The hotel had a fancy restaurant on the top floor. It was a dark room, with candles on every table and very dim ceiling lights. All four walls were nothing but glass, looking out onto the relative darkness of the city below. Onto the beach, the ocean, the jungle. Max placed his hands on the window beside him and peered out. It was a long way down; they were a long way up.
The waiter was dressed very nicely, and he brought Max his cheese quesadilla on a blue plate with yellow swirls. His juice came in a tiny glass and Daddy had to help him every time he took a drink.
Daddy and Bine were happy. Very happy. It was a special day, Max thought. They drank grown-up juice and looked at each other a lot.
After dinner, Daddy wanted to go walking on the beach. It was a long way down to the ocean from the cliff upon which their hotel sat, so they rode in a taxi. Max traced the veins in Bine’s hands with his tiny fingers on the way there.
The beach was mostly empty. Men and women walked together, as did men and men, women and women. They were in tiny clusters down the stretch of beach. Hand in hand. Smiling. Max held Daddy and Bine’s hands, lifted up his legs, and laughed when they swung him.
As he walked, he got sand in his sandals that made his feet itchy. Daddy let him take off his shoes and escorted him over to the water so he could kick at the sea foam. It was like grown-ups’ shaving cream.
Max was having a good time. He liked being with Daddy and Bine near the jungle. He liked being where it was warm and sunny and where there was the ocean. He liked being on the beach in the dark, liked feeling the cool breeze on his legs, his arms, his sunburned face.
Daddy and Bine must have liked it, too. Before they left the beach, when Max was jumping on the remains of someone’s sandcastle, feet sinking into the soft-cool-damp sand, he looked up and saw Daddy and Bine kissing.
Bine had his hands up the back of Daddy’s shirt; Daddy’s hands were around Bine’s neck. They kissed on the mouth. On the neck. Cheek. Chin. Bine laughed against Daddy’s skin. Nodded his head.
Daddy smiled. A great smile.
There wasn’t any bright light until they were in the taxi before the doors were closed. Max looked up at his daddy and saw that his eyes were watery.
He wasn’t sad, though. He looked happy. Very, very happy.
Moments before Bine buckled Max’s seatbelt, Max got up on his knees and kissed Daddy on the mouth; He turned and kissed Bine.
He dropped back down in the seat and smiled.
Author: alphabet_magic
Rating: G / PG
Disclaimer: All characters and situations other than my own belong to CowLip, not me.
Max was wearing his blue and yellow dinosaur swim trunks when he, Daddy, and Bine left the big hotel and climbed in the back of the taxi.
Max was wearing his blue and yellow dinosaur swim trunks when he, Daddy, and Bine left the big hotel and climbed in the back of the taxi. He got to wear them with his white T-shirt and blue water shoes, and the lady taxi driver tapped his nose with her tanned finger and said, “¡Tú es hermoso, amiguito!” Max didn’t know what that meant, but he knew she was speaking Spanish. Spanish like Dora and Diego. ¡Vámonos!
“Uno, dos, twace,” Max counted as Daddy pulled the seatbelt across his lap.
They were in another place where it was hot, even in the fall. It was October, and all around there were coconut trees and men without shirts. Ladies in bikinis. They were by the ocean, and their hotel was on a cliff, overlooking the beach and the ocean; overlooking cresting waves and burning sunsets.
It was scalding in the taxi, and Max whined to Bine, who rolled down his window. It didn’t help. Max wasn’t wearing underwear and his shorts were sticking to his skin. He shifted in the seat.
The ride to the restaurant was the longest Max had ever endured. He couldn’t understand the language on the radio and neither Daddy nor Bine was talking. Bine was taking pictures out the window with the expensive camera Max wasn’t allowed to touch; Daddy was reading a colorful piece of folded paper covered in pictures.
When they finally arrived, Max’s hair was stuck to his forehead and he was very, very thirsty. They went inside the restaurant, which had red Christmas lights strung from wall to wall, and Daddy ordered Max some milk that he drank in hard slurps from a straw. Fast. So fast his tummy felt achy.
They were seated by a window, which Bine requested, and Max got to look out over the ocean as he drank his milk and ate the funny food Daddy and Bine put on an empty plate. It made his mouth hot, so he drank more milk.
Beyond the beach was a jungle. A real, live jungle. The trees were green and birds flew in and out, going high, going low, and swooping into the boughs. Max wondered if there were dinosaurs. There were thirty dinosaurs in his jungle land play set at home. His favorite was the T-Rex, because it ate all the little dinosaurs in one bite.
“Is they dinos?” Max asked, pressing his finger to the window glass.
Bine shrugged. He flattened out the issue of USA Today he’d picked up in the lobby of the hotel and said, “I don’t know. Maybe.” He looked at Max, the corners of his mouth upturned. “Probably a giant T-Rex that’ll eat you up right off the beach.”
“Noooo!” Max laughed.
Daddy lowered his eyebrows at Bine. He always told him he was “scaring” Max, and that it’d be his fault if Max had nightmares. Max wasn’t scared, though. He knew Bine was just lying.
After brunch, Max rode on Daddy’s back down the hill to the beach, while Bine carried the bag of toys, books, and snacks. Grown-up sodas. Bottled water. Sunscreen for Daddy’s back. He had the expensive camera strapped across his chest and sunglasses on his face. Max wanted to look like him.
When they reached the beach, Daddy lowered Max onto the sand and helped Bine spread out the towels and set up the beach chairs and umbrella Bine had paid for at a little shack. Max pulled his red pail and yellow shovel from the toy bag and dropped down in the sand. It was warm. Itchy. It went up the legs of his shorts when he moved.
He took off his shirt because he was very, very hot, and threw it on the ground beside him. Daddy came over and spread goopy sunscreen all over his shoulders and nose, and Max wiped his face off on his discarded shirt the moment he walked away. Sunscreen smelled stinky.
It was a very hot day. Hotter than any day Max could remember. The sky was blue, clouds sparse, cottony, white like fluff, and there was a light breeze…a warm breeze, dry like the burst of air in Max’s face from a floor vent when he’d look down through the metal slats.
Daddy helped Max build sandcastles in the hot, damp sand while Bine sat in the chair and finished the paper. Max had a set of castle molds Nana had bought him, and Daddy showed him how to wet the sand, how to pack it into the molds, and how to turn the mold over really fast so no sand fell out. They made four castles in a circle.
Next, with his fingers, Max scraped out a road for his mini Tonka trucks, and Daddy built a moat.
Bine put down his paper and came over. He had shiny oil on his chest and stomach. Swim shorts were black and clingy, hitting at mid-thigh. He put his hands on his hips.
“How cute,” he said, watching Daddy’s hands as he dug out a moat around the castles.
Daddy looked at him. “Come on. Help.”
Bine sat down beside Max and watched for about five minutes. Handed Max his trucks when he wanted them. Gave him sips of his bottled water. He started playing along eventually, though, when Max lost all interest in the sandcastles the moment Daddy was finished with the moat.
Together, upon Bine’s suggestion, Max and Bine covered Daddy’s legs with sand. Bine molded a big snake and put it below Daddy’s stomach, and Max laughed.
“Snakes bites!” He yelled, pointing it out for Daddy. Daddy raised up, looked at the snake, and dropped back on the sand. He chuckled while looking at Bine, who leaned over him.
Max watched as Bine licked Daddy’s lips, then his neck. His jaw. Bit his ear. Max wondered if he was going to get to see them wrestle. But then Daddy pushed Bine away and told them to hurry up and finish because had to pee.
~*~
They had a late lunch on the beach and then went into the ocean. Max had to put on his itchy Diego life jacket.
“I not welw it,” Max said defiantly. He tried to pull down the zipper in front.
Daddy shook his head. “All kids have to wear life jackets. For safety.”
“I not!”
Bine grabbed him before he could take it off. Swung him up into his arms. Kissed his cheek. “This jacket,” he said, zipping it back up. “It’s a special T-Rex proof jacket.”
Max whined. “They’s no T-Wex!”
“That’s what you think. See, he’s hiding. Right now. In the jungle.” Bine bounced Max on his hip. “He’s waiting for little boys to go in the ocean without their special jacket. And then…” Bine growled into Max’s neck, biting him gently.
Max howled with laughter. Wrapped his arms around Bine’s shoulders. “Noooo!”
“He’ll eat you right up.”
“He not!”
Bine put Max back down in the sand. Shrugged. “Okay. We’ll see.”
Max turned to Daddy. “He not.”
“You have to wear your jacket,” Daddy said, taking Max’s hand.
Max looked down at his jacket, at the little pictures of Diego and Baby Jaguar. He exhaled loudly. He didn’t want to get eaten.
As Bine and Daddy walked him, each holding one of his hands, to the edge of the ocean, Daddy shook his head and said, “He’s going to have psychological problems. I’m not paying for therapy.”
Bine laughed.
Max liked the ocean. It was cold and there were waves, lots and lots of people, but Daddy and Bine kept him safe. His special jacket, too. He didn’t see any T-Rexes.
Daddy held him as he and Bine swam out into the deeper water, where the waves were just bumps. Camel humps in the clear, blue ocean. Bine went under water and tickled Max’s legs; Max shrieked and held onto Daddy’s neck so tightly that Daddy coughed.
“Brian, stop.” Daddy laughed, grabbing Bine by the back of the neck. Dragging him closer in the water. They kissed, Max only an inch away. Bine got Daddy’s face all wet with salty ocean water.
~*~
They left the beach before dinnertime. Max’s nose was pink and his hair was lighter. Golden streaks had appeared in his light brown locks. Bine brushed out tangles with his fingers in the taxi on the way back to the hotel.
The hotel looked like a palace. Like one of Max and Daddy’s sandcastles. The name was in Spanish, and Max pretended he was Diego in the jungle as he, Bine, and Daddy crossed through the plant-filled lobby. He rode on Bine’s back and sang the Diego song. “Go, Diego, go!”
They had a big room with a whole wall full of windows. Two beds, even though Max usually slept with Daddy and Bine. A couch. Television with a DVD player. A kitchen. But the best part was the bathroom. There was a tub so big Max could swim in it with his dinosaurs, and a giant shower with soap and shampoo that came out of the wall.
Much to his delight, Max got to take a shower with Daddy when they arrived. Daddy let him push the buttons for soap and shampoo, and when he washed his hair, he twisted it until Max looked like a Who from the Grinch movie. Daddy opened the shower door and let him see himself in the mirror.
After the shower, Daddy dressed him in his favorite lizard shirt and stripy shorts. He got Max a juice box from the fridge and put in a Backyardigans DVD, checked the locks on the doors, the windows, and said he was going to go help Bine shave. Said for Max to knock on the bathroom door if he needed anything.
Max was too busy watching his movie to pay attention.
Bine and Daddy were in the bathroom for a long time. When they finally came out, heated and smiling, the DVD was over and Max was jumping on the bed.
“Well!” Bine said, grabbing Max mid-air. “Both of you certainly like bouncing on things.”
Daddy stuck his finger in his mouth and pulled it out slowly.
~*~
The hotel had a fancy restaurant on the top floor. It was a dark room, with candles on every table and very dim ceiling lights. All four walls were nothing but glass, looking out onto the relative darkness of the city below. Onto the beach, the ocean, the jungle. Max placed his hands on the window beside him and peered out. It was a long way down; they were a long way up.
The waiter was dressed very nicely, and he brought Max his cheese quesadilla on a blue plate with yellow swirls. His juice came in a tiny glass and Daddy had to help him every time he took a drink.
Daddy and Bine were happy. Very happy. It was a special day, Max thought. They drank grown-up juice and looked at each other a lot.
After dinner, Daddy wanted to go walking on the beach. It was a long way down to the ocean from the cliff upon which their hotel sat, so they rode in a taxi. Max traced the veins in Bine’s hands with his tiny fingers on the way there.
The beach was mostly empty. Men and women walked together, as did men and men, women and women. They were in tiny clusters down the stretch of beach. Hand in hand. Smiling. Max held Daddy and Bine’s hands, lifted up his legs, and laughed when they swung him.
As he walked, he got sand in his sandals that made his feet itchy. Daddy let him take off his shoes and escorted him over to the water so he could kick at the sea foam. It was like grown-ups’ shaving cream.
Max was having a good time. He liked being with Daddy and Bine near the jungle. He liked being where it was warm and sunny and where there was the ocean. He liked being on the beach in the dark, liked feeling the cool breeze on his legs, his arms, his sunburned face.
Daddy and Bine must have liked it, too. Before they left the beach, when Max was jumping on the remains of someone’s sandcastle, feet sinking into the soft-cool-damp sand, he looked up and saw Daddy and Bine kissing.
Bine had his hands up the back of Daddy’s shirt; Daddy’s hands were around Bine’s neck. They kissed on the mouth. On the neck. Cheek. Chin. Bine laughed against Daddy’s skin. Nodded his head.
Daddy smiled. A great smile.
There wasn’t any bright light until they were in the taxi before the doors were closed. Max looked up at his daddy and saw that his eyes were watery.
He wasn’t sad, though. He looked happy. Very, very happy.
Moments before Bine buckled Max’s seatbelt, Max got up on his knees and kissed Daddy on the mouth; He turned and kissed Bine.
He dropped back down in the seat and smiled.