Best Gay Romance 2013, page 10
“Sure,” Randy said, and Dom nodded politely, while Becky eyed them like they were lab rats.
“Do you like Dom?” Becky asked her brother one night after dinner. Randy was washing dishes while Becky sat at the kitchen table. Dom had already gone home.
“Of course,” Randy said. “Dom’s a good guy.”
“I think he’s about the best-looking guy I’ve ever seen,” Becky said. “Don’t you think he’s good looking?”
“Yeah, he is,” Randy said. “He’s got a handsome face.”
“Are you happy for me?”
“Of course I am. I’m happy for all of us, ’cause if you hadn’t gotten laid soon you would’ve drove us all nuts.”
“Hush up,” Becky said. “I hate it when you talk like that.” She dipped her finger into a candle, coating the tip with hot wax. “I never thought a guy like Dom would look at me, let alone marry me.”
“Don’t say that,” Randy said.
Becky shrugged. “I know I’m not the cutest button in the box. But there was Dom, sitting across from me in my Shakespeare class, and he just…I don’t know…listened to me. Made me feel like I was worth his time. I asked him to go out, and he did. I’d never asked a guy out before. Can you believe that?” Randy toweled off a plate and stacked it with a clink.
“I can,” he said, turning toward his sister. “You don’t give yourself enough credit, Becky. You’ve always been shy, but you’re great. People just don’t get to see it.” Becky smiled and cast her eyes downward. Randy went to bed that night with a heavy heart.
On Labor Day Becky arranged a picnic at their parents’ house. Dom wore a pair of thin khaki shorts that made his ass look like wrapped cantaloupes. In the chaos of aunts and uncles and cousins Randy lost track of his brother-in-law. He had to piss, so he entered the quiet house and went up the stairs to the bathroom. The door was closed and the shower was running. He figured it was his dad, so he walked in and shut the door behind him.
“I gotta pee,” he said after he’d already unzipped. He heard the shower turn off. “Just gimme one second.” The curtain pulled back and Randy turned his head. There was Dom, naked, wet, and already half-hard.
“Shit,” Randy said. “Sorry.” Dom, who’d needed to clean up after knocking whiffleballs around with the kids in the ninety-degree heat, locked eyes with Randy. He didn’t move a muscle except for his cock, which lurched like a thing from the dead until it was standing straight up.
Randy could’ve left the room. It was probably the right thing to do. But instead he stepped forward and wrapped his hand around Dom’s fat cock. He raised his face to meet Dom’s mouth. As they made out their hands moved like wildfire, Dom ripping off Randy’s clothes, Randy feeling every inch of Dom’s body. Randy knelt down, his shorts around his thighs and his hard cock jutting out. He took Dom’s cock in his mouth.
Dom’s lungs deflated. A few passes of Randy’s mouth and throat around his cock and Dom was almost juicing. Randy licked his way up his brother-in-law’s body, munched on his pecs and nipples, then trailed his tongue down Dom’s thigh. He flipped him around. Dom braced himself against the shower wall. Dom’s ass was a gift, big and perfect, and Randy dove in. His pink, deep asshole seemed to invite Randy to dig deeper with his tongue. Dom whimpered and pushed back harder.
Randy stood and dropped his shorts so that his buckle clanged against the floor. He grabbed a bottle of shampoo and lubed himself up. He pressed his cock to Dom’s asshole and in moments he slid inside. Dom stifled a cry but didn’t protest as Randy porked him balls-deep. A minute or so of thrusting and Randy was blasting inside Dom’s virgin butt and Dom was spraying the shower wall.
They didn’t talk as Randy slid out, pulled on his pants, and left. He went to his bedroom and locked the door, caught his breath. When he came back out Dom was with the rest of the family on the patio, freshly showered and freshly fucked. He had a noticeable glow, and even nodded to acknowledge Randy’s entrance.
“It was like you tripped a switch in me,” Dom would say years later about that afternoon. “I instantly knew how sex was supposed to feel. I felt so relieved.” Randy had apparently fucked the fear right out of Dom, and Dom got bold. Two days later he came knocking on Randy’s bedroom door. Randy tossed his liquid-crinkled issue of Mandate on the floor, zipped up, and answered the door.
“What are you doing here?” Randy said, ushering a wild-eyed Dom inside.
“I told Becky I was borrowing a record,” he whispered. Dom impulsively leaned forward and kissed him, knocking their mouths together so hard it hurt. “Here,” he said, and handed Randy a key. The plastic, diamond-shaped key ring had the number 428 imprinted on both sides. “I got this room for tonight.”
“For us?” Randy said.
“You don’t want to come,” Dom said, his face falling.
“No, no, of course I do, it’s just…Jesus. Okay. When?”
“After two. I’m supposed to be doing paperwork in the back office but the night clerk won’t notice.” Randy took the key. Dom made it halfway down the hall before Randy thought to call him back. He grabbed the first record off his stack and shoved it in Dom’s hands. Dom looked at it: Abba, Arrival.
“I already have this one,” he said.
Sex at the hotel that night was less furtive than before but even more frenzied. Randy dropped three loads into his brother-in-law in less than two hours—one down his gullet and two in his increasingly insatiable butt.
“I love your dick in me,” Dom admitted as they lay beside each other watching the blank TV, the Zen-like hum of the motel room thrumming through them. Then, “Becky wants a baby.”
“I’m supposed to be saving money to move to the city,” Randy said.
“You’re moving?”
“That was the plan. I don’t know what the fuck I’m going to do now.”
“Me neither,” Dom said. They fucked again.
For two more weeks they met at the motel, until Randy couldn’t take it anymore and put all he’d saved on a security deposit for an apartment in Pittsburgh. He moved in the middle of the night, telling no one until he called his parents the next day.
That October, Randy heard from his mom that Dom was leaving his sister. No particulars were offered. Randy sensed his mom knew—or at least suspected—more than she was letting on, but he didn’t press the issue.
He lay low all winter. He hadn’t spoken to Dom since he’d left, though on several occasions he’d driven all the way back to Groom just to see if Dom’s car was still parked outside the motel, which it always was.
That spring Randy came home to visit. The divorce had gone through. Becky was even dating a guy named Hugo that she worked with at the state mental hospital in Torrance.
“He likes bird-watching,” Randy’s mother reported. Randy was weeding her garden. “That’s what they do together in their free time, watch birds.”
“He sounds nice,” Randy said. He’d tried to call his sister the week previous and she’d hung up on him.
“Your Aunt Mary called. She wants the whole family up for the Fourth of July. A reunion, she says. It’s a ridiculous idea but you know how she gets.”
“Hmm,” Randy said, yanking plants.
“Did I ever tell you that your father used to date your Aunt Mary when they were in high school?”
“Huh? No,” Randy said.
“They were in love—so she said. I suppose she must have felt they were—”
“Her and Dad? How long did they date?”
“Oh, a few years, I think. Even after high school. In fact they talked about getting married at one point.”
“You’re kidding,” Randy said, sitting up to look at his mother, who was gazing into the distance.
“Even today I catch her looking at him. Maybe I just think I do. Who knows?” She shrugged. “Love is love and it doesn’t care about anything but itself.”
With that she walked away, leaving Randy with a head full of questions and his knees in the dirt.
THE PRISONER
C. C. Williams
I surveyed the items arrayed on the stark, utilitarian bedspread of the guest room: khaki T-shirt; camouflage fatigues; a sandy, dun-colored officer’s cap. Tucked neatly beneath the bed stood black combat boots so highly polished it was as if they were carved from obsidian. I guess we’re doing some paramilitary scene.
Charley waited for me in his bedroom; he’d approached me earlier that night.
I had stopped by Tony’s Bar & Grill after a late night at work and sat nursing a Tanqueray while a bored go-go boy gyrated to Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way.” At first I hadn’t recognized Charley; he’d changed so much from our days at the academy. Gone was the vulnerable boy’s face, shadowed with inexperience and bright with expectation. His face had filled out; ten years of life lay like a mask across his features. But the voice, soft and insistent, had remained the same. I had a hard time listening to him. While he spoke of joining the Marines and doing several tours of Iraq and Afghanistan, I shut my eyes. And there I saw his young eighteen-year-old face as it had been when we had lain together in the dark—intelligent and beautiful but innocent of the evil that men do.
Stripping off my jeans and polo, I began to don the military gear. Pulling the fatigues up over my thighs, I was surprised to find that we now wore the same size pants. In college I had always out-massed Charley, but our bodies had fit just right; his wiry sprinter’s form merged with my wrestler’s build, like muscle and sinew entwined on bone. The shirt stretched tight across my more muscular chest and biceps; a tear on the right shoulder opened wider as I pulled on the shirt. Lacing up the combat boots, I noticed a few milky stains around the toes. The spots marred the glossy blackness, and I thought of wiping them off. But I considered they might actually be part of the scene that awaited me. I put on the starched, sweet-smelling officer’s cap and tucked some stray hairs behind my ears. I recalled the last time we had been together—a beautiful night, an awful night…
I had returned to our dorm room, worn out after wrestling practice, wanting just a shower and some mindless TV. I switched on the lights, tossing my gym bag on the floor.
“Leave ’em off.” Charley’s voice was thick and emotional, clogged with something raw. “Please.”
Clicking off the fluorescent fixture, I looked to his bed where he lay on his belly, naked. The parted curtains let a splash of moonlight fall across him. He looked like an artsy postcard—except for the welts and livid bruises on his lower back, arms and legs.
“Oh, my god!” I rushed forward and knelt at his bedside. “Are you all right? What happened?”
“Nothing. I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Can I get you something? Water? Aspirin?” I blurted out, panicked, concerned. “We should go to the infirmary—”
“Shut up, just…” Charley sighed and broke down.
I fought a creeping sense of distance, a feeling of abandonment that pressed on my heart. “Should I leave you alone?”
He reached out, grabbing my hand. “No! Please don’t.” He squeezed my hand hard.
“What do you want me to do?” I climbed up and sat on the edge of his bed.
After a painful silence, he whispered, “Show me you care.”
Just like so many times over the last eight months, I laid my hands on him, marveling at his satiny skin, pressing my fingers into the lithe muscles of his shoulders. I rubbed his back, and he moaned softly. My long fingers crept up his neck to tangle in his dirty-blond hair—it was longer than regulation and needed a trim. I massaged his scalp. Lowering my lips to the small of his back, I kissed around the red, inflamed skin, a crawling sense of dread nibbling at my mind. Dark thoughts invaded me, gray worries of the unknown scudded across my mind like clouds before the moon. Usually, I was breathless with wonder as I reveled in the sensations of his body, awash in a mixture of fear and joy, that stomach-fluttering feeling when you stand on the diving board, before surrendering to the cool breeze and the water that swallows you up.
My hands came to join my lips at his waist. Before I massaged his gorgeous butt, he winced. “Not there—not…tonight.”
Sitting upright, I wiped his forehead. “Tell me what happened.” I kissed his cheek, nuzzling at him, loving the softness of his day’s growth of beard.
“Not yet,” he breathed. “Love me everywhere, but not there tonight. Just love me, Jake.”
Still dreading the silent unknown, yet moved by the aching need in his voice, I took him in my arms and picked him up from the bed. Cradled like a baby, he clung to my neck and shoulders, embracing me as tightly as he could. We kissed, our mouths open, panting into each other. We drank from the saliva we exchanged; our tongues dueled for supremacy.
Breaking from the kiss, I licked at him, running my tongue over his lips, his chin, tasting the salt on his tear-stained cheeks. With pursed lips I pecked his cheekbones and eyebrows, blew cool air on his closed eyelids. I covered his nose with kisses, lapping at the bridge, his nostrils, again tasting the saltiness of his pain.
My passion increased as I worshipped him, fired by the feel of soft skin covering solid muscle. Entranced, I bit his neck, licked his shoulders and swallowed up each of his nipples. Straining my back and biceps, I covered his chest and belly with wet, hungry kisses; then lowered my mouth to his erect cock.
“Oh, yeah!” Charley gripped my hair. “Eat me up, man, eat me alive.”
I sucked at his swollen cock head, swirling the tip of my tongue around the slit and nipping at the curve, clean cut around the edges. He bucked his eight-inch cock against my face, begging with his body to fuck my mouth. I’d become a pretty good cocksucker in the last eight months. Having had only fantasies, I had been inexperienced, but my slightly more experienced roommate had proven to be an excellent teacher.
“Put me down, Jake. I don’t want you to hurt yourself.” I obeyed, lowering him to the floor. Charley leaned against our dresser, spreading his thighs with a wince. His pale cock stood tall, curving out from his sandy bush. Grabbing his sinewy legs, I dove for his crotch, taking him in with every gulp of air I inhaled. Charley withdrew to some place in his head, arms behind his back, legs spread. Once he stroked my cheek. Once he grabbed his briefs and wiped my nose before snot ran down and mixed with my spit and his precome.
Jerking his rod, I gnawed on his hips and thighs; my nose pressed into his crotch. He smelled like woodsy air, boy sweat, and sex. Testosterone fired my brain, burning away my worries with bright desire. I still wore my wrestling singlet, and my stiff cock strained for release from my jockstrap. Like a dog I rubbed my dick against his calf.
“Yeah! Hump my fucking leg, boy. Hump away while I fuck your hand with my cock. Don’t stop, asshole. Don’t you dare stop.”
Charley was unusually aggressive in his love talk, so I wondered what was playing out in his head. Who are you talking to?
“God, I want so much for you to fuck me right now. To bend me over and spread my white ass. Hock a big gob of snot down on my crack, and poke it in me with your thumb—running that thumb around my hole, opening it up for your big, veiny cock. You thrusting in and fucking me harder and harder. I’ll pretend, yeah, pretend that you’re going to fill me up for the rest of my life.”
Unsure of what I was hearing, I looked up. “Do you want me to?”
His body writhed, and he grimaced in the moonlight. That meant he was getting close. “No! Just keep loving me hard like you’re doing now. Aww, shit—”
Shuddering, he collapsed against me. His dick erupted, shooting a ropy load up onto my neck and shoulders. He continued to orgasm, letting go a second and third time, thickly coating my hand with his white cream. Never had I seen him shoot more than twice. Before I could grab for a towel, Charley was licking me clean. He seemed to have returned to the moment; he sighed. “I’m sorry. I was selfish. Let me suck you off.”
“No,” I replied. Standing, I pulled him up and hugged him. “I just wanted to make you feel good,”
“You sure did that!” He licked my jaw. “You’ll never know how much.”
Pushing away from him, I held him at arms’ length. “Charley, tell me what happened—now!”
“I need a drink first.” A moment later, dressed in his tattered bathrobe, he sipped whiskey from a Dixie cup. Contraband whiskey I kept far back under my bed. His fingers tapped on the cup as he paced the room. I stood by the dresser, confused, feeling embarrassed, still smelling of sex and wrestling practice. He took a deep breath. “You know Trey Hauser.”
“The dumb-ass bully? Of course!” Hauser, a rich, legacy senior, regularly sought out and bullied the scholarship guys. He and his little gang were two years ahead of us.
“He’s been harassing me for a while now—most of the year.”
“Shit.” I sat on my bed and poured myself more whiskey.
“He’s been leaving notes in my books, my gym locker, even under the door. Notes that say things like Cocksucker or Ass Licker. He’s cornered me after lunch, between classes, grabbing at my uniform and messing it up. He’ll say, ‘You’re mine, fag,’ or ‘One of these days, I’ll get you.’
“A couple of weeks ago he and three of his friends came at me. He called me a pussy and grabbed my nipple. They just laughed and watched me squirm. Then Trey said, ‘Come on. Tell me what a pussy you are and I’ll let go.’ He squeezed so hard I had to obey or he’d have torn a hole in my fucking chest!”
That explained the ugly bruise; Charley’s story about stabbing himself with a marking pen had been pretty lame.
“Well, a few days ago, I’d had enough. I told Trey I was going to report him to the Commandant. I don’t know how much good it would do—Trey’s father graduated with him, so they’re like best buddies. But I threatened to tell him everything.
“‘You’ll be dead,’ Trey said.
“‘Fuck you,’ I said. In fact, I was going to tell the Major tonight. But when you went to practice, Trey and his buddies showed up.” Charley held out the paper cup, and I splashed in more liquor.
