To Be Where You Are, page 8
Adin lifted some things off the counter, where he’d set them, then knelt in front of his lover. “What would you like to earn?” he asked, lightly stroking his erect dick.
Lips parted, Jackson watched the movement. “That droplet. I’d like to taste it.”
Adin glanced at his cockhead. He swept up the bead of precum with one fingertip and, with his other hand, lifted a pair of scissors. As he slid his fingertip between Jackson’s lips, he felt the curl of Jackson’s tongue around it and a lapping suck, slow and savoring. Jackson’s eyelids drifted closed. Adin fit the blades of the scissors around the collar of Jackson’s t-shirt and eased the blades together. With an abrupt snick, they cut through the band of fabric.
“And now what do you want to earn?” Adin asked, his excitement spinning.
“I’d like my cock freed.”
“Why?”
Jackson swallowed, making his Adam’s apple bob. “It’s full. Hard. It’s too constricted.”
Trying to control his quaking hands, Adin grabbed the parted sections of Jackson’s collar and slowly pulled them down and to the sides. The worn cotton began to tear. Adin made a reflexive, guttural sound as the backs of his fingers grazed Jackson’s pumping chest—the damp threads of hair, the unyielding sweep of muscle beneath heated skin. He pulled more frenziedly, ripping the shirt down to Jackson’s belly, baring his chest and abdomen. Jackson’s breathing was quick and shallow now, his nipples, rose-tinged peaks.
Dipping forward, Adin dragged his tongue over each one. Jackson made a fluttery moan. Adin gave each a single hard pull with his mouth. Jackson rose up from his haunches, spine bowing. He wanted more.
“Please take it out,” he whispered.
“I will. When I’m ready.”
Adin slid a hand into Jackson’s boxer briefs. They weren’t around his hips, as his jeans were, but low enough to show a black froth of bush over the elastic. The length of his cock, dense and stiff, was visibly restricted by the clothing. As Adin’s finger curled around the shaft, he nicked the edge of the plump crown with his thumbnail and simultaneously tightened his hold.
Jackson exhaled, “Fuck,” as if Adin had squeezed the expletive out of him.
Adin pulled that gorgeous cock free.
He fished around on the floor beside him for the clamps he’d also retrieved from the nightstand. “Chest out,” he said.
At this stage, it was always difficult to attach and adjust the clamps, which were linked by a short chain. Adin had wanted to use the weighted ones—the addition of each small, magnetic disc tweaked Jackson’s arousal as well as his own—but that required a patience he didn’t now have. Instead, he closed a standard alligator clamp over each nipple and, as meticulously as possible, tightened it. He felt the increased pressure in his own balls.
Jackson thrust out his chest a bit farther, welcoming the pinch. His face gathered, breath thinning into short hisses, as he watched Adin’s fingers move. And then … a strained sound of pleasure, too high for a groan but too deep for a whimper. That was when Adin knew he’d hit the brilliant spike of sensation that was Jackson’s summit—a sweet, precarious balance point.
“Make me come,” Jackson murmured, staring into Adin’s eyes. “Please make me come.” A light glaze of sweat gleamed dully on his strong features and within his facial hair.
“No.” Adin rose and sat in the chair, sliding it in front of Jackson. “I’ll let you make me come. But you’ll have to shoot without the benefit of any touch. You’ll have to let the cum well out of you.”
He loved watching that. The faint, rhythmic tensing of Jackson’s abs while he ejaculated uncontrollably, no hand in the way to obscure the sight. The spill of white jizz down his shaft, stray drops falling to his parted thighs, sometimes creeping over his balls. It was the fucking hottest thing Adin had ever seen.
He angled his cock toward Jackson’s mouth.
Closing his eyes, Jackson drew it in. Adin gasped. Already, he was almost there. He reached down and very gently tugged the clamp chain, distending Jackson’s nipples even further, and felt as well as heard Jackson’s high-throated groan. Still, the sucking went on unbroken, Jackson’s lips and tongue working together, their humid heat locked around Adin’s dick and pulling, pulling…
“Oh Christ,” Adin whispered, fingering his nuts with one hand, his thumb curled over the base of his erection, and caressing Jackson’s face with the other.
He glanced down at Jackson’s chest, pulled lightly on the clamps, saw another pearl of precum appear at the tip of Jackson’s cockhead. Too much. Adin jerked, freeing himself from Jackson’s mouth and nearly tumbling backward in the chair. Jackson looked drugged. Face slack, his eyelids fluttered … and his hips made small, erratic jerks as cum began to spurt out of his cock in heavy, down-looping threads.
Adin whimpered. He shot hard, trying to position himself so that his cream fell on Jackson’s cock and mingled with his lover’s. When it did, his orgasm sharpened almost painfully.
Spent, he slid off the chair and knelt in front of Jackson as they both caught their breath.
“Did you like that?” Jackson asked, his eyelids still heavy. “Was that worth the delay?”
Adin cupped his thickened cock and looked down at it. Looked at Jackson’s, too. “Yeah, I’d say so.” With a limp chuckle, he rested a hand on Jackson’s shoulder. “Oh yes.” His groin continued to tingle. “Nobody can fuck air like you can. And it doesn’t even make me jealous.”
Jackson sputtered into tired laughter.
Adin undid the clamps, tenderly kissed each nipple, then got up to unlock the cuffs. They were wide, black leather bands with silver studs. Jackson didn’t like all-metal handcuffs. He’d said they brought back unpleasant memories but had never explained. Adin didn’t mind. The leather pair was more provocative, anyway, and just seeing Jackson bound by something tough—leather or rope or chain—was enough to make his dick go from flaccid to flagpole in no time flat.
Jackson got up and tucked his cock into his underwear. He pulled up his jeans but left the zipper down. The sight of them and of the torn, wet shirt that still hung from Jackson’s broad shoulders would’ve been enough to get Adin going again in another twenty minutes. But, however reluctantly, he had to leave.
“Don’t forget anything,” Jackson mumbled as Adin got dressed.
“What’s the difference?” Adin grabbed a glass from one of the cupboards, poured some water from the kitchen tap and took a few long swallows. He offered the glass to Jackson, who also drank.
Jackson’s mouth slid into a rueful smile as he cupped the side of Adin’s face. “You saying you plan on coming back?”
Adin tried smiling but couldn’t. He’d come to hate these goodbye scenes. Hate them. “Why do you think I’m always leaving something behind?” He took his frustration out on his shirt, shoving it into his pants as if he were trying to keep it from escaping. “That way I’ll always have a reason to come back.”
“Oh, I’m not reason enough?”
“You know what I mean.” Adin ran his fingers through his hair.
“No, I don’t. You don’t need any excuses to walk through my door.”
“Yeah, well, I might if I stay with Celia long enough.”
It was Adin’s greatest fear. That Jackson would someday say to himself, To hell with this bullshit, and find somebody else. And that he’d get close enough to that person not to want to bother with Adin ever again.
Adin started walking out of the kitchenette, but Jackson grabbed him by the arm. They stared into each other’s eyes … until Adin felt so miserable he lowered his gaze.
“It took me my whole fucking life to fall in love,” Jackson said quietly, “so it sure as hell won’t be easy for me to fall out of it. Or find somebody else who’ll put me on my knees.”
Closing the space between them, they fell into an embrace, each burying his face in the slope of the other’s neck. No words necessary.
“I have to get my stuff from the bedroom,” Adin said as they eased apart.
“What are you leaving behind this time?” Jackson asked.
“The same thing I always do.”
Jackson’s smile was full of affection and regret. He understood, and his understanding spared Adin the embarrassment of saying something unforgivably corny.
Chapter Nine
Perez jerked awake, the dream disintegrating like a meteor falling to earth. He didn’t open his eyes at first. It was a habit he’d developed in childhood.
He was … where? On a porch glider that squealed when he moved. At the house of a woman named Bechima. In Mississippi. But why? He didn’t want to be there.
As he stared into the green-heavy distance, the air dimmed and became a dull lilac-yellow, like an Easter egg that hadn’t soaked long enough in its coloring bath. Soon, an explosion sounded … then the slow collapse of a massive brick wall.
Storm coming.
Remnants of the dream still clung to Perez, leaving him even more puzzled. He couldn’t determine if he’d been recalling something that had happened, anticipating something that would happen, or simply letting his subconscious skip off into absurdity. Dreams, at least his dreams, could go any which way.
Just as he opened his eyes, he was aware of added weight on the glider, another body close by. His senses funneled to his right.
“Have you missed me, sweetness?” Rough, stout fingers hooded the top of Perez’s hand.
His wide eyes slanted to the side. “Joseph!”
The dark man met Perez’s surprise with a none-too-comforting grin. “I knew you’d come to me, honey. Erzulie’s in you now. She brought you here. I asked her to.”
“What are you talking about?” Perez whispered.
Joseph handed him a glass of liquid. Sweet tea. Always sweet tea. Perez took it and drank. Thunder rumbled in the distance like a truck passing over a wooden bridge.
Joseph’s eyes gleamed. It was a look Perez had only seen on actors in movies. Bela Lugosi. White Zombie. He drew back, trying to put some distance between his muddled mind and that crazed, hypnotic stare.
“You be staying with me, lovely one. Now and forever, you be with me.” Joseph had no respect for that foot of space between them. He swayed forward like a bird of prey swooping on a mouse. His lips crushed against Perez’s lips, tongue widening their narrow gap, while his hands secured the capture. One gripped the side of Perez’s face. The other curled over his crotch.
Not right, not right, not right! Perez’s mind kept screaming. At least, one half of his mind. The other half wasn’t so sure. The other half still spun like a jewelry-box ballerina, music at its feet.
You got power.
He did, didn’t he? And Noah, he had Noah. Both foggy thoughts were enough to bring something to life within Perez, something he’d always taken for granted or simply overlooked. Because he’d never wanted to be the kind of hoochie coochie man with mojo; no, he’d always wanted to be the kind who made handsome men jump and shout. The only black cat bone or John the Conqueror root he’d ever cared about was the one between his legs. But now it was time to tap into that other side…
A small cyclone rose up within Perez and blew out of him, pushing Joseph away.
Joseph’s lower lids drew up as his eyes sent out a murderous glare. “What you just do, Erzulie?”
“Nothing. I don’t know. Who’re you talking to?” Perez set down the glass of tea and rose from the glider, but he wasn’t sure where to go or how to get there. Vacantly, he looked at his car. That was the first step. Only he couldn’t make himself take that step. “I’d like to go home.” Still, Perez continued to stand indecisively on the porch. The cloying scent of flowers kept imploring him to stay.
“This is your home.” The voice seemed to wrap around him. “From now on, any place I be is your home. Ain’t no other that exists.”
Heralded by a burst of light, another crack of thunder sounded. Raindrops big as titan tears began pocking the dirt, weighing down the flowers, sliding from the eaves.
Perez felt fingers crawling over his ass. He usually liked that feeling. But he didn’t like it now. Something was latching onto him, like a leech or a wood tick. Something parasitic that wanted to suck him down to a husk.
He cast a confused glance over his shoulder, then turned and walked to the crooked screen door. It was storming. He should go inside. Water stole through the overhanging roof and pattered to the porch’s slanting floor, digging small craters in its dust.
Lightning blazed. Perez closed his eyes against it. Within seconds, Joseph was beside him. Within two more seconds, another boom shook the thin-walled house.
“Come to your room, Erzulie. Come with your man.” Joseph opened the door. It protested with a high-pitched mewl. He put a hand on the small of Perez’s back and exerted loving force to ease him forward.
The house’s dim interior smelled of lard and age. Already, the sitting room had begun to look and feel familiar to Perez. He didn’t think that was good.
Apprehensively, Bechima looked up from what she was doing—sewing a torn pocket, stitch by careful stitch. Then she seemed to gather her courage. “You stop right there, Joseph Beaudry.” She lumbered up from the rocking chair and stood before him and Perez.
“Go back to your chore,” Joseph said calmly. His hand still rested over Perez’s lower spine, although it wasn’t precisely resting. Perez felt the fingers tense.
“No.” Bechima’s jowls quivered. The creases on her fleshy face looked like insect tracks—thready, umber lines sunk within a raw sienna landscape. “I ain’t goin’ back to nothin’ until I find out what you’re up to, why you bound this creature.”
“That’s none of your concern. Now leave me be.” Joseph tried stepping past her, but she’d have none of it.
Two billy goats, thought Perez, but only one of them Gruff, trying to make it across the bridge. He simply stood there, waiting for what would come next, trying not to lose his tenuous hold on visions of home and Noah.
Bechima put a hand on Joseph’s muscle-mounded chest and studied him. “You called it out, yes you did.” Her eyes looked like polished dark gems. “I seen that broke jar. No rock nor animal done that, and it sure didn’t slip from its wire. And then your cat showed up”—Bechima snapped her fingers as lightning flashed and thunder crashed—“just like that. And I know and you know it’s all to do with him.” Her fierce gaze shot in Perez’s direction.
Joseph gave her a wicked smile. “And that’s mine to do with, Auntie, not yours.”
“Let him go.” Bechima’s eyes briefly shifted to Perez’s neck.
The cord that hung there suddenly felt alive, whispering across the skin of his chest like a millipede stirring in its sleep. Perez put a hand over it, and it stilled.
“Don’t put me in this position, nephew,” Bechima said. “You ain’t never gone this far before. I don’t understand why you gone to this len’th, but you know I can’t let it pass.”
“I ain’t put you in no position, Auntie. So you got no position. Best keep that in mind.” Joseph didn’t sound irate, but the way he did sound—confident, with a cool edge of contempt—was far more alarming.
Perez snuck a glance at him. The points of light in Joseph’s pastel eyes could’ve been struck from the head of a needle. A solid column of cold formed beneath Perez’s breastbone.
Bechima’s chin trembled as she continued to stare at Joseph. “What you planning to do?” she whispered.
Lazily, Joseph shrugged. “Whatever I must to keep what’s mine.” His arm circled around Perez’s waist. “And none of your playing will undo it.”
He moved forward. Perez moved forward. Bechima did nothing.
“I don’t understand,” Perez mumbled. “Why am I here? I’m not Erzulie. That’s not my name.”
Joseph glared at him.
“Say what?” Bechima cried. She came after them and gaped at Joseph in disbelief. “That ain’t no Erzulie!” Her arm jerked up, hand flapping at Perez. “That’s just some dress-up man you found in Nawlins!”
“You wasn’t there,” Joseph said, craning his neck to get in Bechima’s face. His voice was a hiss of constricted air, as if he were shoving it through a reed. “You didn’t see what I seen at Adélie’s peristyle. Erzulie Freda mounted and rode him, then slipped inside and never left.”
“You imagining that, Joseph.” Bechima sounded pitying. “You believing what you want to believe, just because he’s pretty. Ceremony or no. Now unbind him.”
“Shut up.” Joseph moved forward again, nudging Perez along.
“She’s right,” Perez said, only because he had a dim sense of Bechima being right. “I don’t belong here. I don’t want to be here.”
Bechima sighed at their backs. “You said the wrong thing, Mr. Lady.” There was a deep vein of sadness in her voice. “Now I’d best get ready for what you just brought down on yourself.”
Joseph didn’t even look at her. “Nothin’ you can get ready for, Auntie.”
With a nudge to get Perez’s feet moving again, he steered his prize into a rear room. There were only two, both small, with a bathroom in between. Joseph pushed open a partially closed door on the left.
Perez noticed the candlelight first—glowing spearheads on a murky battlefield. His eyes as well as his mind were slow to adjust to the scene.
“An altar?” Perez drifted away from Joseph by a couple of feet. He felt like a feather wafting away from a Ponderosa pine … but not far enough away to escape the clutch of its needles.
“You should know one when you see one, Erzulie. And that’s all yours, over there.” Joseph pointed to one quadrant of the tabletop.
Lethargically, Perez nodded. He had indeed seen similar set-ups before, but the similarity was only vague. There was an altar in Bechima’s room, too. Perez had glimpsed it earlier—a careful jumble of offerings—sitting near the head of her bed.
This one was ugly, though. Or most of it was. Only Erzulie’s section was decorated with fresh flowers and looping strings of beads and lace. Only hers had a colorful doll. A bottle of Florida Water with a gaily patterned label stood beside a mirror, and a comb and brush with gold-plated trim laid before it.
