Best Gay Erotica 2010, page 16
He knew his shit.
“That’s kind of like wine isn’t it?” I laughed a little.
He stared blankly.
“You know. Wine. It ages and can change…” My voice drifted away. I wiped my face. “I was going twenty when the suspension collapsed. The tow truck driver said if I was on the freeway, I would have flipped.”
He patted my shoulder. “Well, praise the Lord you’re all right.”
The mention of “the Lord” annoyed me as much as his hand dirtying my polo shirt.
“I’m all done with my truck right here,” he said. “I can take the bed over to your place.”
“No. That’s nice of you, but I don’t want to put you through the trouble.”
“You’re paying me,” he said. “You seem like a nice guy, a normal guy. I was all iffy about the Internet, but you’re all right.” He nodded with his chin up, smiling thinly like he was pleased with himself.
I said nothing and glanced at the clutter around me.
“So you just moved into a new house?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I said. “Yesterday.”
“You a Tech student?”
“Yeah, I’m going to be a junior.”
“I went to Tech,” he said, looking past me. “Didn’t last long. What are you studying?”
“Creative writing.”
His eyebrows went up. “Neat. That’s different. Really neat—writing.”
Mmm, wake up and smell the bullshit.
“My wife graduated in journalism,” he said.
His wife. I noticed the wedding band on his ring finger.
“Cool. Do you want to just follow my car?” I asked. “To my house?”
“Yeah, yeah. So we got a deal.” He slapped his palms together. Soot puffed away. “Here, help me get this in my truck.” He tugged on the mattress.
I helped. Not really. I’m a weakling, but I helped tie it down, pulling ropes taut against the mattress like it was a Shibari victim.
“This is my baby,” he said, patting the gate of the truck bed: the ass of the car. “Hey, did you need any other furniture since you just moved in?” He dashed into his garage. “Cabinet? TV stand?” He pointed at each item in his flea market.
“I really just have money for the bed.”
“No, I mean just have it. I want to get rid of my brother’s shit pronto. I want my garage back, you know what I mean?”
“For free?”
“Need a wine rack?” He picked one up. “You said you like wine, right?”
I smiled tightly, forcing it into a frown. “I’ll take the TV stand maybe.”
“It’s yours.” He pulled out the short pinewood stand with a shelf for a DVD player and cubbies on each side for whatever else. His bony arms held it up over his head. “I’ll just throw it in the back of the truck.”
He tossed in the wine rack anyway along with a laundry hamper and a small bookshelf. “Because I’m sure you got tons of books to go with that wine,” he said.
“Thanks.” I looked away, fighting my tendency to blush. I did have books, so many I used to use a microwave for storage.
With everything set I got in my car and headed home; his big black Ford pickup followed.
Joe was a stranger, I realized, and I was taking him to my house. I checked my rearview mirror every five seconds. He talked on a phone the whole way. We drove by campus and into my neighborhood. I lived in the heart of town a few blocks from the university.
In the driveway we unloaded the TV stand, hamper, bookshelf, and wine rack.
The large living room window facing the front lawn had OBAMA neatly painted on the glass in big blue letters with MCCAIN underneath.
“What the hell?” Joe asked in a sharp drawl, hell twisting into hill.
“The people who lived here before,” I explained quickly. “Two girls. One liked Obama. One liked McCain, so they had both. We’re thinking of keeping it since I’m voting Obama, but my roommate Derrick is in the can for McCain.”
Joe scratched his armpit. “You think he’s got a chance?”
“Who Obama? Absolutely.”
“I don’t know.” He paused, delicately finding his words. “I just think him—a black guy—if he gets it, I give it two months before some redneck…” He lifted his arms and squinted one eye, miming a sniper rifle, shaking his arms in a faux recoil.
I grew angry. “If Bush hasn’t been assassinated, I think Obama will be fine.”
Joe laughed. “Maybe.”
I didn’t sense he was racist; his tone was pity, which could be patronizingly racist anyway.
I noticed Kolby’s car was gone as we carried the TV stand into the house. He was probably off buying bud.
“Nice house,” Joe said inside. “Nice hardwood floors.” The living room was still a mess with all the Wal-Mart bags, but under the clutter it was spacious. The walls were painted deep red. Joe tried to look into the den that had a fireplace. He set the TV on the stand and brought in the hamper and wine rack, adding them to the disorder. He took the bookshelf to my room.
“You do need furniture,” he said. “Where do you want the bed?”
I stood in the far corner of my room. “Long-ways here.”
He brought in the frame and started latching pieces together.
“Really, you don’t have to do this,” I said. “I can set it up. Or my roommates can help.”
“My treat,” he said, not looking at me.
His dirty hands and greasy wifebeater stuck out in my clean bare room. I could smell his worked body, the gripping salty musk of his underarms. The frame was set and I helped him carry the box spring and mattress in. I thought I pulled something in my arm but ignored the pain as we slid the box spring in place on the frame. Panting together, we toppled the mattress onto the box spring. Wood clattered on metal and the springs hissed.
Everything was adjusted until perfect: my bed, nuzzled in the dark corner of the room. We stared at the pristine white mattress covered in a plastic protector. “You got any sheets yet?” he asked, huffing, but he hadn’t cracked a sweat.
I wiped my sweaty forehead with my forearm. I couldn’t remember the last time I had broken a sweat. “Not yet,” I said. “I’ve never had a queen. Do you want a beer? We keep our house pretty stocked.”
“Yeah, I’ll take a beer.” He sighed, sitting on my new bed, plastic crinkling. “What you got?”
“Tecate, Dos Equis, Shiner Bock, Coors Light…”
“Give me a Coors.”
Of course he would pick Coors.
I went to the kitchen, opened the fridge and grabbed myself a Tecate with his Coors. I stared into the cold humming air and silently screamed What the fuck am I doing?
I returned to my room, which was now slightly more furnished and inviting.
Joe sat on the bed, rubbing his shoulder, scratching it with dirty fingernails. I handed him the beer and sat close on his right, plastic crinkling. He gulped from the can.
“So you fix cars for a living?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he exhaled. “I work in a shop out on Highway Eighty-four. My wife works at the paper, so she helps pay the bills too, but who knows how long that’ll last.”
“No one reads anymore.” I sipped my beer.
“What do you do?” he asked. “Just a student?”
“Yeah. I like to think I am sort of a writer.”
“Why sort of? You either are or aren’t.”
“I haven’t published much, just some poems.”
“You’re a poet,” he said.
“Actually no,” I said. “I want to do fiction, novel writing. The poetry happened because of a class I took.”
“Got a poem you can read?” he asked like it was a rabbit I could pull out of a hat.
My shoulders seized up.
“C’mon, read a poem,” he said.
I looked at him. He grinned mischievously, flashing crooked teeth. He didn’t give a shit about poetry. He was patronizing me. Then again, I didn’t give a shit about poetry either. His ghostly green eyes had a spark of curiosity. He probably hadn’t heard a poem read out loud to him before.
I gave in and slid off the bed down to the floor where my laptop slept. On my knees, I pulled it open. My desktop background flickered on.
Shit.
A shirtless built redhead stared out of the screen, standing on a beach, framed in icons. I almost slammed the laptop shut, but figured it was too late.
“Nice picture,” Joe said flatly, his voice looming from the bed behind me.
“Yeah, my laptop is sort of private.”
“It’s cool, man. I kinda got a sense you were fruity.”
I stared at the wall ahead and should have felt insulted, but in his beer-soothed voice, it came out odd and neutral. Blood rushed to my cheeks like I just ate a habanero. I didn’t turn to look at him. He swallowed two more gulps of beer.
I stared down at my shirt. “Do you still want to hear a poem?”
“Yeah,” he said in that slow drawl, yearning.
I took a moment to choose one, then opened it and jumped in:
“Highway Flirt—by Travis McCreedy.
“You’re the turn and wink, the freeway eye-contact, two lanes over, cars like zoetropes. You recline, still, in the rapid blinking eye of traffic and tollbooth jingling, wrist flicks of light caught into your fingers threading into sun swallowed tunnels. Look at me from over the brim of your titanium blue steed. Wind rushes hotly away like sine wave ghosts. Every trip comes to an end. We can pull over. Resist the event horizon where not even lust can escape—”
Hands grabbed my shoulder blades, clenching fistfuls of my polo shirt, pulling it tight. The poem fizzled away as I pushed against his knuckles and clawed at the denim knees coming around both sides of me.
His hands shifted to clench around my chest. I grinded back into his bony body. His warm breath exhaled unevenly against my neck. He swallowed and kissed my neck, dragging wet lips to my left earlobe. One hand grabbed my thigh and scooped up my cargo shorts to my crotch, getting a fistful of my boxer-loose balls and dick. He stunk like man and his breath quivered into my ear. He squeezed my dick through my shorts. He shoved against my ass and his arm trembled around my chest.
He kneaded my pecs, slow and repetitive, unsure where to go. I put my palms on his knuckles to still them. One hand snuck under the brim of my shorts, snatching at my dick. Stunned, I pushed him back against the bed. He pulled an arm around my chest and yanked me back onto the mattress in one long clumsy drag.
I fell on his chest while his hand groped under my boxers, tugging and grasping my dick. My shoulder dug into his neck. He strained for air. I fumbled at his waist, trying to slip my hands under, but his jeans were tight against pale skin. He pulled my hands off him, then yanked my cargo shorts down to my knees, along with my boxers. My six-inch cock was exposed to the air. He stroked it slowly, methodically, almost mechanically.
“Faster,” I moaned.
He didn’t change speed, as if he couldn’t hear me through the fog of gay lust. His other hand tugged at my balls—a little too rough. I writhed against him and moaned again. My shoulder choked his neck and he slid out from under me and turned me on my side. He spooned me and jacked me off and pressed his forehead to the back of my neck. He bucked the crotch of his jeans into my exposed ass in a slow grind, like a pumpjack.
It drove me nuts. “Take them off,” I said quickly.
He sat up and pulled his shirt off, clumsy and shaking. He stripped on his knees until he was naked. The hot breathing stench of his body made my cock stiffen and drip precum on the plastic mattress protector. His seven-inch cut dick stood perfectly straight, pale with a bright pink head.
I lay back and he crawled over me and stared down at me with a look of fear and uncertainty. My fingers grazed his throbbing cock, tickling the head and the underside.
He looked down at my uncut dick and stroked it again, playing with the foreskin as it rolled over the cockhead, smearing precum, lubing his palm.
“I want…” he started, rasping for air. “I want to fuck you.” He found his beer and downed the rest with his elbow in the air, head tilted back, Adam’s apple on his scraggly neck sliding up and down with each gulp.
I told him where to find a condom and lube.
He knew how to handle the condom, but I smeared lube all over his sheathed dick. Instinct kicked in and he crawled over me. I lay back and lifted my legs in the air and rested them on his shoulders, presenting my hairless pink hole to his dick. He kept looking up at my eyes as he pushed his dick against my hole, harder and harder, hesitating as if he wasn’t sure he was doing it right. My hole gave way, his cockhead slipping in. I arched off the bed and he slid his cock in past a pulsing tight barrier.
“Boy, shit.” He stretched his jaw out, head arching back, looking at the ceiling. “So fucking tight,” he rasped.
His cock was buried almost to the base, head so far in I felt like I’d piss. I grabbed his bony forearms and my fingers dragged up to his wiry biceps. I dropped my legs around his sides to his waist.
A hand grabbed my hip and the other clutched my shoulder, his wedding ring cool and painful. He curved back, dick sliding out just to the edge of its head. I moaned with the hot slide. He pressed his lips together, face furrowing, and shoved in deeper, drunk on the discovery of tight warm muscles around his dick. I stroked myself, hard and aching. He fucked slowly, savoring each lube-greased inch, each undulation seconds long, labored and transfixed. I flexed my insides around his invading maleness, making my own my cock bounce. “God damn,” he muttered.
“Fuck me like you would fuck some bitch,” I said.
He picked up the pace and swished his hips, his happy trail slapping my balls. He grabbed my hips. With my legs still wrapped around him, his forearms clenched around my thighs, pressing them tight against his ribs.
He looked at me, panting with his mouth open in a ghostly zombie stare. I thought he would drool on me as he fucked.
“You feel so good,” he moaned in his twang, and slammed his hips into me until he was a jackrabbit fucking me. My moans shook with each slam. The V of his torso spanked my thighs.
He stared now at the wall, lips pinched with an underbite like he was furious. “Fuck I’m close,” he strained. I clutched his bony ass with one hand, pinching his tight hairy cheek, pulling it into me as I jacked myself. His dick sailed past my prostate, each piston pump shooting pleasure from my insides to my balls. His sweaty palms grabbed the sides of my face, fingers pushing into my hair as he pounded and groaned. I tightened my legs around him and tightened my ass for him and pumped my dick. He growled to the ceiling and lunged into me and twisted his dick deep inside. It pulsed and throbbed against the walls of my rectum, against my prostate, each pulse feeding into mine. I cried out as my cum spurted onto my stomach and hand. My rectum choked his dick. He pumped into my ass, slapping skin, groaning loudly and painfully, as if he were being shot.
The door of the room burst open. Derrick was running in, head forward like a battering ram. He screeched to a stop halfway to the bed and seized up at the sight of my feet in the air, hairy asscheeks pounding into me.
Joe was still cumming. He looked back at Derrick and groaned, “Shit! Shit!”
“Derrick! Get out!” I screamed.
“Holy shit,” Derrick said, stepping back. “Fuck. Shit. Sorry.” He realized he was staring. He grabbed his face and stumbled out of the room, nearly tripping over a garbage bag. He slammed the door shut.
Joe yanked his dick from my ass so fast it popped out. My body flinched. He stood by the bed and peeled the condom from his dick.
“Wait, wait, it’s okay,” I tried to soothe. “It was just my roommate.”
“Where do I put this, man?” he asked, holding up the condom half-filled with cum. “Where do I put this?”
I paused for a second, momentarily impressed by the volume of his solid white spunk. But I didn’t have a trash can. Just a bed.
“Put it on the floor,” I said, exhausted by his sudden fear and total discomfort with being here with me.
He dropped it on the floor and wiped his hand on the plastic bed, then scooped up his jeans and wifebeater. He slid the jeans on without underwear and yanked the wifebeater on, muttering, “I gotta go.” He rushed to the door, kicking a beer can by accident. He wasn’t drunk. Just hungover on gay.
I slipped my boxers on and ran after him. Derrick stood in the hallway and Joe dashed past him. Derrick looked at me like a vulture in the headlights, me, his skinny half-naked gay roommate running after a guy. This was a new visual for him. My gayness had been discussed, not witnessed.
“Joe,” was all I could say as the grease monkey ran barefoot across dead yellow grass to the driveway. He leapt into his truck and put on a trucker cap and roared out of the driveway, skidding down the street.
“Dude,” Derrick said behind me, startling me. “I am so sorry.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose. The engine of Joe’s truck roared into the distance over the summer-hail battered roofs of our neighborhood. “It’s fine,” I said.
“I ruined it didn’t I?” Derrick asked in the most gentle voice I’d ever heard from his tall beefy body.
I looked up at him and sighed. “Actually no, you were too late.”
“Hey…dude?” His falcon nose was aimed at my crotch, velvet blue eyes smirking.
“What?” I asked, stepping back.
“We’re roommates and all now, and really close friends—but you have cum on you.”
I looked down. A splatter of cum was dripping down my happy trail to my boxers. I covered it with my fumbling hand, which was also drenched in cum.
Derrick started laughing, “Dude, I…I can’t stand here and look at this.”
I was so embarrassed. I ran to my room and hopped in the shower, washing myself for a good twenty minutes while pondering the hot dicking I had just gotten. Out of the shower, I wrapped a blue towel around myself and stared at the new bed. The plastic mattress protector was crinkled up in wild patterns from the movement of our bodies. I realized I never paid Joe the money for the bed.
I thought to call him right away, but had a feeling he wouldn’t answer. I sent him an email: Joe, I still owe you ninety bucks. I spent ten minutes typing variations of Sorry if that was a weird experience, but decided I was going to play it cool and not mention our afternoon encounter. Several hours passed with no response. I figured I should forget about it and just enjoy the free bed that came with a limited time offer of sex.
