This? Girl talk was this?!
Sage did not want to be a part of it. No, no, no, no, no. Hell no! Should he faint? Was there something nearby that he could pretend that he was allergic to? A warm heat began to crawl up his face. He wanted to use it as an excuse that he was suddenly sick, but a woman saw through him—mostly, saw through him.
"Ah, Sage, no need to be embarrassed. We're all women here with you, so we know."
"I'm embarrassed, but not why you think I am! Why do you want to know?! I have no idea! Ask his ex-wife!" His hypothesis of Rowan being sick went out the window. Instead, his mind was overtaken at the thought of Rowan bedding him. Thoughts filled his mind. He knew what Rowan looked like—without shirts and pants. Before Sage knew it, he thought about that figure leaning over him. The caramel brown hair falling down, the toned, muscled back hanging over him in an arch, the sharp face leaned right next to his own.
Sage took a deep breath to try and calm himself. He clamped his eyes shut tightly, trying to force a blackness to take over his mind and not the inappropriate imagery he created in his head. The women around him suspected it was him taking a second to relax and muster past the embarrassment.
Despite the imagery, Sage had no physical experience with the other to talk about. Feel wise, he had to make everything up.
Sage took the moment they gave him to think. Very quickly. He put everything in the lens of a medical professional, and in doing so, his face began to cool down some.
Rowan was a thirty-four-year-old man in his prime. Healthy, tall, and active. He was quite thoughtful and mindful about other people. To say that he would be bad in bed would be most likely incorrect, insulting to Rowan, and make the women around Sage pity him.
"He," Sage began, wondering how to even word such an answer. Women really talked about this with one another? "He's good. V—very active." The stuttering came naturally upon the topic. He truly was embarrassed talking about Rowan in such a way, especially without permission or his knowledge. The fact that he thought about it made him want to fall into a heap of trash and live there for the rest of his life in shame and embarrassment. But he figured when he got through the conversation, it would be over with. He took note of Rowan's thoughtfulness and said, "He thinks of me more often than himself."
"Oh, really! Oh, wow. He is a gentleman!" one of the women fawned.
"How is it?! Tell me when to stop." Sage was confused. He watched as she raised both hands and began to slowly pull them apart. It was seemingly too big when Sage realized what she was trying to measure. Right as he realized, his face burst red after having just settled down, and the quickly moving temperatures of his own body made him dizzy. The outline of the tight briefs surfaced his mind. He hunched over where he sat to put his head down. Anything to stop looking at them.
He was going to kill Rowan. Seventy percent for leaving him in a horrible situation. Thirty percent for embarrassment he never wanted Rowan to ever learn about.
"Oh, wow!" and all the women giggled.
These women were truly twisting his way of thinking! He would have never thought of these things before. Sage couldn't lift his head for the longest time. It wasn't as if Sage was a virgin or had never seen a porn before or had absolutely no desires at all, but thinking that way about the man he was "married" to and sleeping in the same hotel room with forced it into a more intimate lens. He put his hands in his face and began praying to the Heavens that somebody would save him. Rowan or not—just anybody?!
They continued to talk and ask him questions, but seeing Sage's behavior, they backed off a bit. One of the ladies poured him some of the honey scented tea, and he sunk into the sofa and sipped on it quietly. He listened to their conversation but stayed out of it even though he desperately needed to ask for something cold to cool him down, not something hot.
"Mr. Mayle is such a firm man. You should've seen him."
"Young and active. Oh, and Sage here said he was a gentleman. Can you imagine?"
Is that why Mrs. Claudia had a young husband? Is that why Sage was invited, so that he could talk about how Rowan performed in bed?! Sage drank the hot tea at a quicker pace hoping it would burn him, and the pain could distract him. He put his focus on the warmth traveling through his body down to his gut. The tea. The warm honey tea. The burn. The tingle on his tongue. Focus. Don't imagine anything else.
"Sage?"
Sage's back straightened out. He turned his head quickly. Never had he been so relieved to see Rowan before. He quickly set down the cup on the table and rushed over to him. Never again. Never, never again. He wrapped his arms around his waist, attaching himself to Rowan's front. To get him separated from him, someone needed a pry bar. Sage never wanted to be in that situation again. He had to stick himself like a mouse stuck on a glue trap to Rowan to avoid it. To others it looked incredibly intimate. The woman behind him 'awed' and 'oohed' but it was only so Sage could whisper in his ear.
"Are you finished?" he asked in a mutter, only loud enough for Rowan to hear him. But he could hardly hear him. Rowan lowered his head to speak to him as privately as he could. To the two of them it was to simply talk, but to anyone else the motion was quite adorable.
"I, are you okay?" Rowan asked. He placed a hand on Sage's head and the other on his lower back to support him. The action Rowan performed so smoothly for show made Sage's head swirl after the invasive sexual conversation that he had just had. Everything they had done in that second was able to be ignored until Rowan placed a hand on his back. Then Sage began to feel his ears catch fire. He remembered the position in his head that came to mind before and immediately pulled away.
"Let's go," Sage whispered again. "Let's go back right now. We're done here. I'm done."
"I, pardon us," Rowan excused, nervous by Sage's reaction. Done? With what? The day or everything? "We'll catch up more tomorrow, Devon." and the two left quickly, much to Rowan's confusion and Sage's embarrassment.
The rest of the night was The Silent Treatment. Sage took a shower first. Even though it was Rowan's turn for the bed, the other sat on the sofa watching the television at a low volume as he waited for his turn to use the bathroom. He figured Sage, whatever happened, had the worse night between the two of them, so he deserved the more comfortable sleep.
Sage wanted to get the topic of the conversation off his chest and leave it behind him, so he waited for Rowan to finish his shower to finally speak up and vent his frustrations. Only part of them. There was no way he would tell him what he thought. Sage would go to the grave with it. But he planned on addressing what they questioned him about. He sat on the bed with his back against the headboard and watched as the other walked to the sofa wearing one of the soft white hotel robes.
"Rowan."
"Mm?" the other hummed, reaching down to pick up a blanket.
"Do," he paused, speaking quietly. "Do you know what Girl Talk is?"
"Huh?" Rowan scratched his head. He sat down on the couch and began thinking. All that he could come up with was the talk of menstruation, so he said, "Oh. Well, you're a doctor, Sage. You should know all about women's bodies."
Yes, Sage was a doctor, so he immediately picked up on the confusion. He shook his head. "No. They didn't want to talk about that." Then he added in a mutter, "At least two of those women were too old to even get theirs anymore."
"Then what?"
"They made me," Sage hugged his knees and stared straight ahead, not turning his head to look at his fake husband. "They made me talk about you."
"Do you really dislike me so much that you can't gossip about me?"
"It's not that."
"Then what is it?"
Sage really didn't want to say the specifics. "They made me talk about us."
"???"
Curse Rowan for his thick skin.
"They made me talk about us in bed."
"Oh." Rowan fell silent. Which was kind of terrible. Sage suddenly hated the silence. "What did you say?" he finally asked. Of course, he wanted to know. Rowan was a man, after all. He naturally wanted to know what sexual rumors were spread about him.
"I said what I thought based on a logical standpoint," Sage half-admitted. It was true. Sage only left out some unimportant details. When Rowan didn't show any nervousness, Sage began to speak more easily. "You're a young man, tall, fit and active. Not only that, but you're kind and soft-hearted."
"So, you said I was good?"
Sage glanced over at him. The smile on the other's face made a heat creep up in his neck. Even worse—his dimples in his cheeks. As bad enough as his condescending smile was, the dimples gave him a cuter appearance. Sage sighed and said, "Yes." He sat up straight and held up both hands like the woman had done. "They did this and told me to tell them to stop. I was so confused at first, and when I realized what they were measuring," he stopped with his hands around when he had mistakenly told the women a size, "it was too late."
"You stopped there?" Rowan asked. The gap was around fourteen to fifteen centimeters. Sage nodded and lowered his hands. "Huh," Rowan hummed.
"What?"
"Nothing. Accurate guess."
Sage picked up a pillow and threw it. The heat crawled up his neck and now sat on his cheeks. For the first time, Rowan saw the embarrassment shown clearly on Sage's face. It had died down by the time he found Sage with the elder women, so he had not seen how bad it had been previously. As amused as he was being able to catch the sight, he didn't say anything about it and accepted when the pillow hit his shoulder.
"I don't want to know!" Sage shouted and sighed heavily. He dropped down and fell onto his back, staring at the ceiling. "I told you because it felt like I was spilling a patient's secrets that I swore to keep."
"You don't actually know how I am in bed though."
"Doesn't matter."
"Okay, okay. Thank you for telling me. And thank you, I guess, for the good rumors."
"It wasn't for you," Sage stubbornly muttered as he turned his back to him. "If those women thought you sucked at giving, then I would be known for getting a terrible receive."
Rowan laughed. "Naturally, I wouldn't let you down," he said. "I told you I'd take care of you these three months. That includes hypothetical sexual activities."
"Fuck sake, stop talking."
"Sorry," Rowan said, a slight chuckle to his apology, and fell quiet. After a moment or two, Sage heard a quiet, "Goodnight."