Pheromone Clouds
His Tinder ad said:
**“Grad student with ink on my fingers and too many books on my desk.
Looking for one good day with someone who enjoys quiet conversation, long walks, and noticing the small things other people hurry past.
Lately I’ve been experimenting with scent — not in a weird way, more like trying to understand how it changes memory and mood. If you’re up for exploring that with me, even just as an excuse to spend a day in good company, say hello.
I don’t bite. But some perfumes do.”**
… I spotted him right away. He stood under the overhang by the gate of the park, tall and almost ghostly against the grey sky. His long white hair moved a little in the wind, soft strands brushing the shoulders of his snow-white shirt. Everything about him looked clean and precise — the pressed trousers, the way he held his hands folded behind him. He had that calm stillness about him, that of someone used to controlling how much space he occupied. I walked toward him, and the cloud of his warm spring-rain smell reached me before I’d even spoken a word. It wasn’t a perfume; it was like the air around him changed, softened, carried a quiet warmth despite the chill of the day.
He heard my steps on the gravel and turned, smiling as if I had just surprised him in a pleasant way.
“H-hi,” he said, and the stutter was so gentle it blended into the sound of the wind. “You’re Augie, right?”
“I am,” I said, “Erik, isn’t it? Nice to meet you in person!”
In response he nodded, a little too quickly, like he was worried he’d mis-time the gesture. When he reached out to shake my hand, his fingers were long and pale and cool, and the contrast against my skin was so stark I had a flash of an old photograph — two hands touching in reversed negatives.
He laughed nervously when he saw me register the whiteness.
“Florida seems to be not the very best place for you,” I said.
“I c-can go out longer today,” he said. “The clouds h-help.”
“Feels like it might rain, too, but I’ve got an umbrella,” I answered.
“I don’t m-mind that,” he said. “Rain’s the only time I don’t have to think about standing in the wrong spot.”
We entered the quiet park on the river with wide paths and deep tree cover. There was a deep warm-rain scent that followed him like a small invisible trailing cloak. Every shift of his shoulders, every time he brushed his hair aside, that scent rose and drifted, and I kept catching myself inhaling just a fraction deeper.
He asked what exactly I researched, and I gave him the short, unromantic version — communication models, anthropological fieldwork, a life made of interviews and notes. He listened with a half-tilted head, his white hair falling forward a little.
“So y-you study how people t-talk?”
“How they talk, how they miscommunicate, how they assume things,” I said. “Mostly how people interpret signals they aren’t aware they’re sending.”
He smiled at that. “Plants do th-that too.”
It was fantastic to talk to Erik although we both knew what we were there for eventually—my eyes kept drifting to a rather large bulge in his stylish trousers. Meanwhile, maintaining the decorum, he was explaining to me how certain plants released chemical signals when stressed, warning neighbors about insects or drought. I knew fragments of this from scattered reading, but the way he described it — soft-spoken, hands showing small shapes in the air — made it feel almost personal to him.
“It’s all scent,” he said. “Chemical p-patterns. Some act f-fast, some slow. Rain changes the whole thing.”
“Does it change you too?” I asked.
He looked at me, surprised I’d asked it so directly, then gave a small nod.
“My body s-smells stronger when it’s damp,” he said. “Not strong strong. Just… more there.”
“I noticed,” I admitted, which earned me a brief pink flush across his cheekbones.
“It’s n-not embarrassing, right?”
“Not at all. If anything, it’s calming.”
He seemed relieved by that, and we kept walking. The gravel path curved toward the river, where the water moved in lazy folds under the clouded sky. The wind picked up, carrying the scent of wet stone, but somehow that warm-rain smell from him stayed present, like a pocket of a different season traveling with us.
He told me then about his department — long hours in a lab that always smelled faintly of fertilizer and yeast, one professor who scribbled feedback in handwriting even he couldn’t read, the experiments that wouldn’t germinate for weeks and then all sprouted on the same day when the humidity shifted.
“Botany sounds like detective work,” I said.
“Feels like it. And you must take into c-consideration that sometimes the p-plants are lying.”
“Lying?”
He nodded. “Some release false signals to confuse p-predators. Or competitors. They’re not p-passive. People think they’re quiet, but they t-talk all the time. Just not in a w-way most people bother listening to.”
That circled us neatly into memory and scent, and now it was my turn to surprise him. I told him how in some cultures certain smells were linked to childhood blessings, in others to mourning rituals; how the same plant could evoke comfort in one region and fear in another.
“So smell is c-culture too,” he said.
“It shapes memory before language does,” I told him. “People remember scent first because it ties straight into emotion.”
He walked silently for a moment, absorbing that.
“Maybe that’s why r-rain makes me settle,” he said. “Feels like… being understood without explaining.”
We reached an arbor overgrown with climbing vines, the leaves thick enough to turn the light into a muted green. A drizzle had started, barely visible except for the faint tapping on the leaves above. He stepped under the vines and exhaled, as if this was the first truly safe place he’d been all day.
“Overcast is good,” he said. “But this is better. No reflections. No glare.”
“Must be hard on bright days,” I said.
He gave a small shrug that wasn’t dismissive, just practiced.
“It’s just… m-management. I learned to live after six, before nine, always checking the UV index. People th-think I’m avoiding them. Sometimes I am. But mostly I’m avoiding the sun.”
There was a moment of quiet, the kind that didn’t feel awkward or forced. Rain clicked softly on leaves. The river made a low rolling sound. He brushed his hair behind his ear again, and the warm-rain scent rose and drifted toward me.
When we stepped back out onto the path, he suggested we take the long loop by the water.
“More trees,” he said. “Less sky.”
We walked side by side while he told me about the first plant he ever studied — a half-dead pothos in his childhood kitchen that revived whenever it rained. I admitted I’d never kept a plant alive longer than a month.
“It’s not hard,” he said. “You just listen. Plants t-tell you what they need.”
“People do that too,” I answered. “But they usually lie about it, either because they are afraid or because they really don’t think so.”
He laughed — a soft, unguarded sound — and looked at me as though considering how true that might be.
A little further down the path we stopped near a wooden railing overlooking the river. The water was darker now, stirred by the drizzle. He rested his arms on the rail, his pale hands vivid against the wet wood.
“Do you ever wish you could switch senses with someone?” he asked suddenly.
“Only when I’m grading papers,” I said.
He smiled.
“I mean it,” he said. “I wonder what the w-world feels like to other people. I wonder if mine is easier or harder.”
I told him it wasn’t a matter of easy or hard. It was just different, and different could be interesting. He seemed to sit with that for a minute, looking at the water, fingers lightly tapping the railing with the rhythm of raindrops.
“What about you?” I asked. “Anything you’d change if you could?”
He hesitated. “I’d like to w-walk out on a summer day without thinking about shade. Just once.”
The rain picked up slightly, and we walked again, letting the weather decide the pace. I told him about fieldwork on the coast of Peru where fishermen could identify storms just by the way the air smelled before dawn. He told me in response how plants adjusted their internal clocks to humidity. It became a kind of gentle volley: my world, his world, finding the overlaps.
For a late lunch we stopped at a small lakeside café — nothing fancy, just a wooden deck with a canvas awning and two tables spaced far apart. The owner served us two enormous club sandwiches in flour-dusted ciabattas and black tea in large paper cups and left us alone. Erik held the cup with both of his hands, and as steam rose, that warm-rain scent mingled with the tea in a way that made the air feel heavier, almost intimate.
He asked how students communicated differently now than a decade ago. I told him they now lived in half-symbols, half-silence, navigating social meaning through subtext more than sentences.
“Plants d-do that too,” he said. “Signals you can’t see unless you’re willing to s-sit still long enough.”
The drizzle eased, leaving the pavement dark but drying in patches. When we left the café, he stepped a little closer to me, unconsciously maybe, as though the narrowing path nudged him in my direction. His hand brushed mine once — barely, like a curious plant brushing a neighboring leaf — and he didn’t pull away immediately.
By the time we circled back to the park entrance, the sky was lightening in that uncertain way where clouds thin but never quite break. He spotted it first and winced.
“I n-need to get inside soon,” he said quietly. “It’s getting b-brighter.”
The sky kept getting brighter in that thin way that made him glance up every few minutes, checking the light with an instinct that seemed half-learned, half-baked into his bones. I asked if he wanted to head back, and he hesitated, shifting his weight like he had something else in mind but wasn’t sure if he should voice it.
“My place,” he finally said. “If you w-want to. It’s close. I’ll show you some of my new scents.”
He said it so carefully it sounded like he was offering me a fragile object. I told him I’d go wherever he felt comfortable, and he gave this small relieved exhale through his nose, like he’d been holding the breath since the café.
His place wasn’t far — a ten-minute walk through quiet side streets, the kind with old brick buildings and vines creeping along the gutters. The entrance was tucked beside a hardware shop: a plain door painted a shade of blue that had faded into something softer. He unlocked it and gestured for me to step in first.
“Just ignore the m-mess,” he said, though the place was anything but messy.
It was one large room divided loosely by tables. Shelves lined the walls from floor to ceiling, each packed with small amber bottles labeled in tiny handwriting. Wooden trays held narrow strips of thick paper, some curled from use. A low window looked out on a courtyard, the light muted by a tree whose branches brushed the glass. Underneath the window stood a rather narrow but high and soft bed with a navy blue cover in artistic tangles on top. The whole room smelled faintly of oils, dried petals, and something like warmed honey.
But under all that was him — that warm spring-rain scent, woven through the space as if the room had been breathing it out for years.
He walked in slowly, letting the door fall shut behind us.
“I’ve been working on s-some blends,” he said. “It’s not official research or anything. Just… experiments.”
He moved toward one table, his fingers hovering over bottles before choosing one with a clear stopper.
“This is the f-first one I ever made,” he said. “I tried to recreate the smell of the forest near my grandparents’ house. The mossy part.”
He opened the bottle and dipped a scent strip, then handed it to me. His fingers brushed mine, light as the paper itself. The scent rose immediately — damp earth, crushed fern, something resinous just underneath.
“That’s impressive,” I said, and he shook his head quickly, embarrassed.
“It’s clumsy. Too heavy. Real moss is lighter, more… shy.”
He showed me another, this one labeled in neater handwriting. Something citrusy, thin but bright. Then another: dark, warm, almost smoky. He watched my reaction closely every time, not searching for praise exactly, just gauging whether the scent landed in the space between us the way he intended.
“This is the one I’m m-most proud of,” he said after a while. “It’s still unfinished.”
He reached for a small bottle tucked behind a tray, one he handled more gently than the others. When he opened it, he inhaled first, his eyes half-closing like he needed to recalibrate something in himself before sharing it.
He dipped a strip and held it out.
“It’s supposed to be a r-rain memory,” he said. “Not the rain itself. The feeling right before it.”
I brought the strip closer. The scent unfolded in stages — soft air, a hint of mineral, a warmth that wasn’t heat but expectation, the stillness that comes when clouds gather but haven’t broken yet. Something about it made the back of my throat tighten, though I couldn’t say why.
He watched me, suddenly nervous.
“I-it’s not right yet,” he said quickly. “I can’t get the last part. The… calm. The reason people take a slow breath before the rain starts.”
“It’s close,” I said. “Closer than you think.”
His shoulders dropped just a fraction, as if I’d released a knot he hadn’t realized he was holding.
He moved to a shelf and took down a narrow metal box.
“These are b-base notes,” he said, opening it. “I test them on myself sometimes. My skin changes things. Makes them warmer.”
I didn’t comment on that. I didn’t have to.
He dipped a blank strip into one bottle, then into another. The scent he created was soft and slightly sweet, with that warm-rain lift underneath.
“This one’s… me,” he said quietly. “Not on purpose. It just… happens when I blend without thinking.”
He stepped closer and lifted the strip to my hand, not my face.
“Some scents only w-work from a distance.”
His fingers grazed my wrist. The scent rose between us — familiar but fuller, more vivid than the natural one radiating from him. Like he’d given shape to something that had been ephemeral all day.
I didn’t say anything. I didn’t need to. He seemed to read everything he needed from the way I held the strip, the way I breathed…
***
… We stood naked across from each other, clumsily stepping from one foot to the other. The air suddenly hit me like a warm, invisible wave and my knees almost buckled. It felt as if every vein had been switched to a lower, thicker frequency—blood within my veins now moved slow and honeyed, pooling behind my hips, behind my eyes, behind every place that ever begged to be touched. A soft ache started under my ribs, like a fist unclenching again and again, and I realized I’d been holding my breath.
He looked at me intently, smiled slowly, and started walking closer; every step pushed another cloud of that dizzying scent straight into my lungs. Each inhale felt like swallowing summer thunder—heavy, electric, gathering low in my stomach until my thighs pressed together on their own. My heartbeat scattered, a flock of birds startled by how badly I suddenly needed to be under that smile, inside that warmth, anywhere the air tasted of him and nothing else.
He pulled me into his arms, gently but purposefully, his skin readily radiating heat and fragrance; I buried my face in his neck—so white it looked dusted with flour—and felt my pulse race out of control. His scent was louder up close, too—it set my desire on fire and let the aroma curl straight into my mouth. Every breath rubbed me raw inside, it was pleasure so sharp it bordered on panic; I could feel my heartbeat banging against his collarbone.
He came in to kiss me—hard, salty—with even his breath tasting of the perfume; the pheromones flooded my head and I melted against him, feeling absolutely helpless. My thoughts folded in on themselves like wet paper—there were suddenly no edges, no names, only the soft crush of his mouth steering every inch of me toward a plea for more, more, more!!! I felt my spine give, knees liquefying until the only solid thing left in the room was the slow grind of his body keeping me upright.
It was then that I first felt his thin but long cock slid along my navel; the shock of it snapped me aware of my own cock—so stiff it felt iced-over, numb at the core. I sank back into his mouth, let the taste of perfume and salt flood me, then drifted down again: our two dicks fencing for space, nudging, slipping, sparking little lightning bolts that climbed my ribs and burst behind my eyes.
I let a long moan out, and in response he dragged his lips down my throat, exhaling slowly, so slowly… and every move he made covered me with a warm cloud of that perfume. It hit my bloodstream like vodka, made my fingers curl hard into his shoulders while I gasped for air that suddenly tasted only of him.
Then our mouths crashed into each other again—there was no rhythm to it now, just raw hunger. He bit my lower lip, paused, then soothed the sting with a slow swipe of his tongue before he dove back in. I opened for him instantly; his tongue found every hidden corner of my mouth like it was charting new territory. Each breath I took seemed to come straight from him—hot, spiced with perfume—and the groan that rolled up my chest got trapped between our teeth, vibrating there while our cocks kept up their slick, angry duel.
Then he was down on his knees, the rod of his hard cock rubbing against my thigh now. He took me halfway on the first go, lips sealing just under the crown, tongue pressing flat up my shaft. First came a single slow suck, then he pulled off, licked the slit, and dove again—this time farther, nose brushing my bush while his throat flexed around the head. I felt the tight ring squeeze, release, squeeze again, like he was preparing to squeeze the first drop of precum out of me.
He set a rhythm: down, hold, up with a hard pull that made my skin drag along his teeth just enough to sting. Spit pooled, slid down my balls; he chased it with his fingers, rubbing the wet into my sack while he kept working my cock. Every third stroke or so he swallowed me to the root and stayed there, humming low until my thighs jerked and I gasped loud enough to produce a faint echo.
When he felt me start to buck, he clamped an arm across my hips, pinned me to the wall, and went faster—short sucks right on the head, tongue flicking the underside ridge, hand twisting the rest. My cock turned slick, dark red, veins pulsing against his lips; he sucked like he wanted the load out now, no tease, just raw pull, and the pressure stacked hot and heavy at the base of my spine, ready to snap.
“Erik, Erik,” I gasped. “Slow, please slow…”
He then rose, his cock swaying majestically in front of him and tugged me by the wrist, backing me toward the bed until my legs hit the edge and I collapsed backwards. Before I could scoot up, he swung a leg over, straddled my hips, and leaned in—chest stopping just short of touching mine. The heat coming off his skin carried that thick perfume; I sucked it in greedy gulps until my head spun and every nerve felt like it was standing on end, waiting for the next move.
He then hovered over me, his flour-dusted skin inches away from my skin, and I felt his spit-covered finger circle my hole—slowly, politely, like knocking before entering. When he pushed, the glide was slick but the burn still shocked me; my toes curled against the rug and I leaned toward him. He slid to the second knuckle, twisting, and the heat spread up my spine like whiskey spilled on silk. One breath, two, and the sting melted into a dull ache that had me pushing back for more, more. The soft spoken man with a stutter was now strong and demanding, pushing me even a bit painfully, heavy and breathing hoarsely…
Next I felt his long thin paper-white cock with a softly pink bare glans enter me; my hole bloomed and opened, the first thrust pushed a fresh cloud of his powerful scent over my face and I cried out, overwhelmed. My fingers clawed at the sheets as he paused, letting the scent settle into my lungs like warm brandy. Every inch of his thin dick, comfortably loose in my asshole, felt as if he wanted me to memorize the exact moment he became part of me. The room spun, cedar and orange notes of his scent spinning into something darker, more primal.
Then he started moving; each thrust was deep and steady; every rock of his hips stirred the air and sent new waves of pheromone crashing over me. My back arched involuntarily, meeting his rhythm. The mattress creaked beneath us in a slow, ancient language. Each thrust carried his scent deeper, until I couldn't tell where he ended and I began - just the heat of him, the weight, the way my name became a whisper against his throat as he drove me past coherent thought.
The pace quickened and he leaned down, burying my face in his neck; I breathed him in desperately as pleasure coiled tighter. His skin was fever-hot against my lips, his pulse hammered under my tongue as I tasted his salt and some hot peppery flavor, so unusual and so indefinably him. Each snap of his hips drove the air from my lungs in small, broken sounds that he swallowed with kisses pressed to my temple, my cheek, anywhere he could reach without breaking that relentless rhythm.
My legs wrapped around his waist, pulling him deeper as the coil inside me wound impossibly tight. His breath came in harsh pants against my ear, mixing with my own ragged gasps, and I could feel him swelling, pulsing, so close to the edge. The scent of us together - cedar and orange and raw need - filled every breath as I clung to him—now so fucking hotly silent stutterer, lover of botany, white and pink albino with long silver hair—drowning in the way he moved like he was made to fit inside me, like we'd been waiting for this exact moment to come together.
He slowed just before the edge, breathing hard against my ear; the concentrated perfume made me whimper and plead. Each deliberate withdrawal left me empty, aching, only to be filled again with that torturous patience that had me moan incoherently against his shoulder. His low chuckle vibrated through my chest as he kept us hovering on that razor-thin line, the scent so thick now it felt like liquid heat pouring down my throat with every breath.
“Please, finish me,” I managed to moan, voice cracking as my nails scored down his back. He answered with a single, deep thrust that had me seeing stars, then stilled again - cruel and perfect and so overwhelmingly him that tears pricked at the corners of my eyes. The wait was exquisite agony, every second stretching until I could feel my own heartbeat in the place where we joined, could taste his restraint in the way his muscles trembled under my hands.
He slammed back in, fast and ruthless; the scent saturated everything and my vision whited out as pleasure crashed over me in brutal waves, each thrust prolonging the fall into the endless long itches of my urethra and seemingly endless pulses and throbs of my dick. In many long years have I not produced so many stripes of cum; each inhale of his pheromones mixed now with the smell of the semen drove me crazy: I shook, I moaned, I growled, and he… he was silent, panting, pushing, looking not at me but at the ceiling, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down.
When his own time came, it started as the soft trembling of his legs, then slowly it rose to his dick that felt enormously large now in my ass; his glans pounded my prostate and I finally heard him moan – low, grumbling noises of someone twice his size—and then he shook, he growled, he whispered “oh-my-fucking-god” and four spurts of that silent botanist’s cum hit my tired, aching gland…
He breathed out gently and gathered me against his chest; the clouds softened into a warm blanket and I floated in that space, feeling weightless. He cuddled me, stroking my back while the scent lingered sweetly, and I nuzzled closer, still high on him. For minutes, we lay there in the fading perfume, our hearts slowing, bodies humming; I smiled against his skin, completely owned and utterly content…
… Every time I am in Florida, I try to make it to Tampa—and on cooler, cloudy days the itinerary includes a walk in the park with Erik, a gentle talk about botany, and then another of those head-spinning white-on-tan fucks that make me float through space and produce endless orgasms on the white snow of his body…
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