Rend

by Roan Parrish

  I flushed, even though I’d been thinking the same thing about him. “Shhh,” I said.

  “I can’t tell my own husband I like his face?” A shiver ran up my spine at husband, and at the possessiveness in his voice, just as Rhys no doubt knew it would. “I can, can’t I, Matty?”

  “No, yeah, you can,” I said softly, looking down.

  “Course I can.” His eyes were hot as he regarded me, sparks of blue flame. He lay back on the bed, on arm bent underneath his head so the muscle bulged. “Because you’re mine, right, love?”

  I squeezed my eyes shut. “Right,” I breathed, heart hammering. Fuck, I missed him so much. Even with him right in front of me on the screen, I missed him. I missed him in a deep, animal way that was about smell and taste and the weight of flesh on flesh.

  When I opened my eyes again, they were heavy-lidded, lashes fluttering. I minimized the small window where I could see myself so that Rhys took up my whole screen.

  “Figured since you weren’t here to do me for your birthday…” Rhys’s look turned predatory. “I could give you a present.” I swallowed hard. “Um, want a striptease?”

  “Fuck yes, I do,” he growled. “Then what?”

  “Um, then I thought I’d jerk off for you and pretend you were here. Or, you know, whatever you want.”

  Rhys slid the hand not holding his phone out from under his head and slid it down his torso, off camera. “I want you to fuck yourself with the red dildo and pretend it’s me fucking you.”

  A bolt of lust shot through me. “Okay.” I grabbed the dildo and held it in front of the computer. “It’s not as big as you, but I guess I can use my imagination.” Rhys groaned and nodded. I set up the computer so the camera was in the right place and pulled my shirt off.

  “You’re so fucking sexy,” he said. “You never try to be, you just are.”

  I yanked at my pants and smiled at him. “Yeah, I know I said striptease but I guess I actually meant just getting undressed. I’d probably fall over if I tried to actually tease.” I pulled my socks off.

  “This whole thing is a tease because I can’t fucking touch you, and it’s all I want to do.”

  “Next weekend you can touch me anywhere you want,” I said.

  “Is that a promise?”

  “Fuck yeah.”

  I slid my underwear off and settled on the bed. I was already hard, and I gazed at Rhys on my screen. His jaw was tight, his eyes glued to his phone.

  “Are you jerking off?” I asked. He nodded. “Show me.”

  The phone tilted down to show me Rhys’s thick fingers fisting his erection. He dragged his hand up and down his length slowly, shirt rucked up to display taut stomach muscles beneath a line of dark blond hair.

  “You wanna tell me what to do?” I asked him.

  “You have no idea,” Rhys growled, and my heart hammered.

  “Really? Tell me.”

  “Fuck, baby, I’ll tell you everything I want to do to you. When I see you. For now, spread your legs and show me your hole.”

  I did it, pulling my knees apart so he could see me. We’d never done this on video chat before, but I loved when Rhys watched me, told me what to do. I loved feeling like he couldn’t take his eyes off me. Like I had a purpose.

  “Touch yourself.”

  I lifted a hand and touched my cheekbone, looking coyly at the camera. Rhys smiled, then said. “I love touching you. Anywhere. Everywhere. Now, you know what I meant.”

  I slid my hand down my neck, over my heart, down my stomach, and shut my eyes as my hand closed around my erection. I imagined it was Rhys’s hand, bigger than mine and callused from playing guitar, that stroked my swollen flesh.

  “Rhys,” I moaned. “What else?”

  “Greedy, baby.” I nodded. “I want you to keep jerking off until you’re about to come, and then stop.”

  I did it, the simple pleasure of my hand magnified by the sense of Rhys’s eyes roaming my body. Waves of sensation flowed through me, and my balls started to tingle. “Gonna come,” I said.

  “Stop,” Rhys ordered sharply. I groaned and yanked my hand away. Onscreen, Rhys’s chest was flushed, his lips parted. “Now slick up the dildo and show it to me.” I held it up. “Now, that’s my cock. That means I’m in charge of it. Say it.”

  “You’re in charge,” I gasped.

  “Mmm, good boy. Can you slide my cock inside you real slow like that, or do you need to prep yourself?” His voice was dark and silky.

  Heat flushed my throat and chest, and I shook my head. “Like this.”

  “Good,” Rhys purred. “Do it. Slide me inside you just like that. You’re so tight, and I’m gonna open you up so wide.”

  I whimpered. When Rhys took me like this, just his hard dick slippery with lube and my body struggling to readjust to him inside me, it was intense. I let my thighs fall open and pulled my knees up. Looking at the screen, I slid the tip against my hole, slowly working it inside. My mouth fell open on a groan as it slid inside, slick and hard and undeniable.

  “So fucking hot,” Rhys said. He was holding the phone close enough to see me, and angled down so I could see him stroking himself. I imagined it was his thick cock inside me, his hand on my dick, his hand grabbing my balls so I didn’t come just from the feeling of him pushing me open.

  “Now I’m fucking you, slow and deep,” Rhys said, and I moved the toy as he instructed, angling it so it grazed my prostate on each stroke.

  “Do I feel good?” I asked desperately.

  “Baby, being inside you is the best thing I’ve ever felt. You’re so tight and hot and I can feel everything I do to you in the way you clench around me, like you want to keep me inside you forever.”

  I clenched around the toy and shoved it in harder.

  “When you think I’m in you as deep as I can go, your eyes flutter shut and you get this look on your face like you’re totally at peace. It’s so beautiful. Then I shove that last little bit deeper inside you and watch as you fall apart. Yeah, just like that. Your mouth falls open and your whole body tightens around me like there’s nothing else for you in the whole world except my cock inside you, fucking you open until you’re all mine.”

  I cried out, shivers of pleasure running through me at his words. I could feel it all, everything he said. Feel his arms like steel holding me tight, feel his mouth attacking my throat, feel his thick cock splitting me open, bigger than the dildo, hotter, perfect.

  Rhys’s voice went mad low, and I could hear how close he was, see how hard he was as he pushed into his own hand at the sight of me laid out before him, doing whatever he said. I moaned his name over and over, begging for him to finish us off.

  “I’m almost there, babe,” he growled. “I’m gonna shove into that hole and come inside you so hard you feel me tomorrow. Can you feel me?”

  “Yes! Fuck, yes, I can, fuck.” I fucked myself harder, thighs, belly, ass all tensing with pleasure.

  “Finish it, Matty. Let me see you come all over yourself with my dick inside you.”

  Fuck! I jerked and thrust and tensed until the spark caught and I went off like a firecracker, shooting all over myself and collapsing on the bed. Through the haze of my orgasm, I heard Rhys’s low groan and watched him explode in his hand. A drop of come landed on his chin and I shuddered with an aftershock of lust.

  “Fuuuck, babe,” he moaned.

  “Mmm, happy birthday.”

  I lay there for a few minutes, fucked-out and drifting, but I didn’t want to fall asleep and abandon Rhys.

  “How’s you?” I murmured, a mush of How are you? and How’s tour? He smiled that warm smile I adored. The one that usually came with his arms around me and his lips at my neck so I could feel his breath as we snuggled together.

  “I’m good. Tour’s good. Last night a guy I played with years ago
, when I was just starting out, came backstage after the show. He said he was glad I finally went solo. That he’d always thought I should. It was nice to hear.”

  I reached out to stroke Rhys’s cheek, but my hand just hit the computer screen.

  “That’s good,” I said. “That’s great.”

  “Sleep, baby. You look exhausted.”

  I shook my head. “I’m fine. I wanna keep talking to you.”

  “I’ll talk you to sleep,” he said, voice gone low and soothing.

  “Happy birthday,” I said again, nodding, and let my head loll to the pillow, let his words fall over me like sunlight.

  * * *

  —

  I woke up on Saturday to a text from Theo inviting me to come to his and Caleb’s place in Stormville for the day. Then a second text that said, And before you beg off just know that if you don’t come over here I’m coming to your house anyway ;)

  A third came through as I was reading the second: Then Caleb will know it’s really *him* you hate and a devil emoji.

  Another, just after: Uh, you know that was a joke, right? Too soon?

  Then dots indicating that Theo was typing, but no more messages were forthcoming. Which meant he was agonizing over whether he’d offended me or not. Which meant I had to answer.

  Never too soon for Caleb to know I hate him, I joked in kind. Then had my own crisis of confidence and added, Also a joke.

  Theo wrote, Caleb is [crying face emoji]. Come over and dry his tears! Then several vegetable emojis that seemed uncomfortably sexual until I realized he probably meant them in reference to their vegetable garden, which they were both obsessed with.

  K, I wrote and dragged myself into the shower.

  Rhys had left his truck for me, since I didn’t have a car and he would be driven around on tour. I’d only gotten a license when I moved out here so driving was still a novelty. Sure enough, Caleb and Theo were both in the garden when I pulled up, Caleb in ragged cutoff shorts and a concert T-shirt so faded I couldn’t read the band name. Theo wore what he always wore: skinny black jeans so molded to his body they were like a second skin. His once-white tank top was now yellowed with dirt and sweat.

  I had a few minutes to watch them before they noticed me. They each worked silently, focused on their own corner of the land, but both glanced up every minute or so, as if they were unconsciously checking in to make sure the other was where they thought they were. It was an intimacy without word or touch, and it made me miss Rhys with an emptiness as gutting as hunger.

  Theo grinned as I walked up and gave me an apologetically sweaty hug. They set me to pick ripe peppers and we worked in companionable silence as the sun beat down, drying all the moisture the night imbued, and heating my skin. I was as glad for the silence as I was for the company, and would’ve been happy to work in the dirt long after Caleb called it quits.

  Inside, we had iced coffee and a hash of potatoes and vegetables with fried eggs on top, which was, Theo intimated with fond irritation, the only thing that Caleb could cook. They talked about what they were going to plant next, and Theo threatened to sign them up for a booth at the farmer’s market they went to on Saturday mornings.

  “Sorry to keep you from it,” I said.

  “Oh no, we went before I even texted you,” Theo said.

  “One of the upsides of being an insomniac recovering addict and a bouncy ex–rock star in a town with lots of old people,” Caleb said dryly. “The farmer’s market starts hella early.”

  Theo snorted and elbowed him.

  “I’m not bouncy,” he groused. Caleb smiled and put a hand on his knee, which was bouncing steadily. “Oh.”

  After we cleaned up lunch, we took a pitcher of iced tea out on their screened-in porch.

  “Hey,” Caleb said suddenly, “what’d you get Rhys for his birthday? He said you gave him the best present but he didn’t say what it was.”

  My face probably turned as red as the dildo I’d fucked myself with, gasping and splayed before Rhys’s watchful gaze. “Uh…um…”

  Theo rolled his eyes at Caleb. “Duh, Cay.”

  “What?” Caleb looked at my face and then his boyfriend’s disbelieving head shake. “Oh. Oh, sorry.” He cleared his throat and the porch plunged into an awkward silence.

  “Actually,” I said, mostly to break the tension, “I was kind of thinking I’d get food for dinner the night he gets home. Like a belated birthday dinner thing.” I took a deep breath and forced myself to look at Caleb. “Do you know Rhys’s all-time favorite meal? I feel like I should know that but…”

  “But he kind of eats anything and everything? Yeah. Hmm, yeah, he says everything he eats is his favorite if he eats it when he’s hungry.” I smiled at the truth in that. “You could call Mona.”

  Mona was Rhys’s mom, and I’d only ever spoken to her right after we got married, when Rhys video chatted his parents and pulled me in front of the camera to say, “See, he’s real.” That and when he’d called for her birthday or on the holidays. She was very nice and very talkative and the idea of calling her filled me with dread.

  “Right, sure, okay, thanks.”

  Theo changed the subject, thankfully, and I listened as he and Caleb talked about a song Theo was writing. I liked to hear the way they talked to each other. Passionately opinionated but with an undercurrent of respect, like first and foremost they were allies.

  Even in the shade of the deck, the heat of the afternoon didn’t let me do anything but sit still and listen distractedly. After a while my thoughts drifted, as they nearly always did, to Rhys.

  * * *

  —

  I got home from Theo and Caleb’s around dinnertime and my phone chimed as I rummaged through the kitchen looking for anything edible.

  It was Grin: When was the last time you heard from Sid?

  The summer Grin and I were fifteen we got jobs making subs and minding the short-lived buffet at a bodega in the Village. Sid was a year older than us and worked at the flower shop across the street.

  Every day, she came in for lunch and piled a plate full of the most grotesque combination of foods from the buffet I had ever seen—macaroni salad, General Tso’s chicken, Jell-O parfait, iceberg lettuce with ranch, and mini cheese-filled hotdogs all piled together.

  We stared at her for weeks before Grin finally went up to her and, laying his hand to his heart, said, “My friend and I gotta know: Are you one of the robot advance guard and you weren’t programmed to eat like a human?”

  She looked at him and said flatly, “I was programmed to annihilate any threat to my security by immolating myself and anything within a twenty-yard range.”

  Sid was smart and incapable of lying to herself, which meant that she was mostly miserable and also hilarious to be around. It was Sid I’d first told that I was gay (Grin had guessed), and Sid who’d dragged Grin to the hospital after he got the shit kicked out of him the next year and wouldn’t admit how badly he was hurt.

  We’d lost track of her for a little while after we left St. Jerome’s, but Grin had made contact again a year later, after he’d moved to Miami. He was much better than I was about checking in. Sid and I were similarly capable of going long periods of time without being in touch by phone. Last year, I’d started to hear from her less and less.

  Now, with Grin’s text, I realized I hadn’t talked to her in a long time. I thumbed to her contact and saw the last text I’d sent her, about eight months ago, had remained unanswered.

  I texted Grin, last text I have is the group one from new years eve. You?

  I called her a couple times and nothing. Maybe she’s got a new phone…

  You worried?

  Naaaah, he wrote, but then: Well. I asked a couple people and nobodys heard from her in a while is all.

  Yeah, he was definitely worried.

  Wan
t me to go to the shop?

  Sid was working at a stationery shop last I knew. It would be easy to go see if she was there on my lunch break.

  Yeah maybe. OK yeah.

  Will do.

  That night, I dreamed of us—me, Grin, and Sid. We were kids again, fifteen, sixteen, and we were running through Washington Square Park, scattering pigeons and tourists in our wake. We ran and ran, chasing each other around the fountain like we were playing tag. But then, as the sun set, I couldn’t tell who was running away and who was chasing. The park expanded, turned into Central Park. Then we were all running.

  I couldn’t see what we were running from, but as we crested a grassy hill, Sid in the lead, she turned around and held an arm out to stop us from coming any closer. And in her face was terror.

  * * *

  —

  Sid wasn’t there. According to the woman I spoke to at the stationery shop, she had quit in March, and she didn’t know anything more. I texted Sid at the number I had for her, but heard nothing back.

  I had the dream again three times over the next week. Each time, Sid was afraid of something, and each time the hill grew steeper, our ascent more laborious, the distance between Sid and Grin and me vaster.

  Chapter 6

  The week after I saw Rhys play live for the first time—the week after he introduced me as his guy—he told me he wanted to take me out on a proper date. When I squinted at him, he flinched and ran a nervous hand over his gold-stubbled jaw. His eyes darted around. I felt cynical and unkind and said of course I’d go on a date with him. His eyes lit up and I let the warmth of that wash through me, clearing away a skepticism that had mostly been based in disbelief, not distaste.

  “I want to pick you up at your house and take you to dinner. Someplace that needs a reservation.”

  I gaped at him for a minute, but his words settled comfortably into my stomach. A reservation meant planning for the future, meant a space in the world with our names on it. The more time I spent with Rhys, the more time I wanted to spend with him, so I nodded and gave him my address, instructing him to text me when he got there because the doorbell didn’t work.