#contemporary.

T-SHIRT

BY ADER

Hi folks,

I’m happy to share the book release of Physiology of Love with all of you. Hope you’ll check it out and enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed penning this novella. It’s the story of Dr. Aashita and Dr. Hardik, professors working in a medical institute who struggle to find their HEA. In the pandemic times, it didn’t look like it would see the published status, but thankfully it got…

   HIS HEART IS THRILLED INTO HIS THROAT AND, WITH A CHILDISH DIFFICULTY, HE SWALLOWS IT.  What a chiding he deserves  ;  foolish as some diverted youth! A heavy shaft of sun-orange light falls across James’ face, dividing it  :  dividing it into two vast plains and valleys, a landscape that is so familiar and yet so new to Thomas, so precipitous  —  pressed into the narrow corridor, clogged with shadow and motes of dust like a cast of stars, they are close enough that their shoulders touch. James smells of the street and the sea, clean linen, stiff wind. Crisped cold and sun-warm, somehow at once. Autumn, or the end of summer.

   Briefly, Thomas closes his eyes  ;  his lids linger, heavily, for a moment, a gesture of pause and self-gathering that is typical of him, easily recognized by those who know him. He seems to make it more often in James’ presence now, longer and longer when he feels the scouring of James’ gaze on his face when his eyes are shut, real as a physical touch. As real and as distracting, maddening.  Like an archaeologist, an excavator, a human engineer  —  almost like a lover.  Thomas inhales a brief, chest-heavy breath before his pale lashes open steadily, deliberately.

   The translucent, almost white-blue beneath, gentle as his eyes are, is unmistakably stubborn.

   ‘  I have no intention of making you a lamb in my endeavours, James. Particularly not out of carelessness. There is great risk to be taken, I know, and I am resolute that it should be mine. Someone must have it, and birth has equipped me with the position to endure it,  ’  the sternness smooths out of him a little, softening. He does not imagine that Jame’s hand still gripping his arm, having pulled him aside many long moments ago, tightens its hold on him instead of releasing him. No, he does not imagine it, nor does he imagine the staggering depth that flashes open in James’ eyes whenever he speaks his name aloud in this familiar way. For that, for the glossy, rich dark behind the careful curtain, and because he loves the feel of it in his mouth, Thomas must say it again,   ‘  I know that it is not in your nature to be shielded, James  —  but you must learn to allow it. Please. You must.  ’