by Seth King
“What do you mean?”
“No offense, but the autumn decorations in late August were interesting enough. Then came the orange sprinkle cookies in September and the pumpkin displays by October First…is there, like, something deeper there?”
“Whatever. So I enjoy my holidays.”
“I just mean that…one scarecrow would’ve been marvelous, don’t get me wrong. But six?”
I sigh. “Fine. I guess there’s a reason. But you don’t want to know.”
“I asked.”
I keep my eyes on the passing sidewalk.
“What?” he asks. “Is it like, some kind of sexual thing? You like sleeping with people in costume, or…?”
“God, no!” I say, then let out a breath and decide to just dive right in. “I’ve been asked this question before, and I think it all stems from one thing. Well, besides the fact that, you know, I am gay. You know gay Halloween is a bit of a thing, right?”
For the first time, he laughs. “Yes, I did start to get a notion of that back at the bar, yes.”
I take a breath. “So, for the other thing. When my big brother Martin was in middle school, he got leukemia.”
“Oh, God,” he says.
“Yeah. It was…yeah.”
“So all those pictures I saw in in your room…”
“Yes. Him. Us. Together.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“Thank you, it’s – hey, wait. When were you ever in my room?”
For the first time, he sputters. “Oh, no, I mean – well, I may have – never mind. Keep going, please. I’m all ears.”
I give him a suspicious look. “So yeah, anyway. This is what I remember, since I was only about eleven. He’s diagnosed with advanced leukemia early in the spring, he gets horribly sick all summer from the chemo, he can’t eat a Dorito without vomiting. So then in October they send him home. Now, I was in fifth grade, and I was too young to understand they send people home when they’re about to die, right? What they wanted to do was send him to his death in a comfortable environment that he already knows. But to me, I got my brother back. You know?”
“I can imagine,” he says, his grip softening on me.
“So. Yeah. Martin had what they call a ‘second wind,’ where your body makes one last rally to give you a few good weeks before you leave, and until about Halloween he was almost like his old self. All October long we played, we laughed, we decorated, we carved pumpkins, we even went to a haunted house. I already loved Halloween before, because I could dress up in my mom’s dresses and jewelry and it would be treated like a funny game, when the rest of the year my dad would act like I was committing treason when I did any of that. So yeah, anyway, after October ended, he got sick again. Very sick, very quickly.” I swallow. “He was dead the week after Thanksgiving.”
For a long time he just drives. His face looks like he is in physical pain. “I…don’t know what to say.”
“You don’t have to talk. I should stop. This is an impossible thing to understand unless you’ve lived it, so I don’t talk about it. But yeah, to me, I guess Halloween is…it’s the last piece I have of him with me. My childhood ended the day I saw him in that casket, but Halloween…it’s the only time I can ever feel like a kid again. Like I am young.”
I’ll never be sure, but I think I see him wipe a tear from his eye. But just as quickly as I noticed it, he’s back to the opaque façade.
“I’m sorry I brought it up,” he says soon. “I had no idea it was that…deep. It’s just that I noticed you went a little…overboard, with the decorations…”
“Home Goods had a sale this year, okay? Sue me. I’m still mourning the fact that I can no longer trick-or-treat without having people stare at me like I’m a psycho when they open the door, so let me have this, okay?”
“No judging here,” he shrugs.
“Are your parents any better now?” he asks soon. “You know, with the gay thing?”
“Oh, my mom totally came around, and doesn’t really care. She’ll say an awkward comment here or there, but she’s just trying to show me she cares. My dad is not really okay with it, on the other hand, but I don’t care anymore. I’m at a place where we’re just…cordial, but there is no relationship. They’re divorced, anyway, so my relationship with my mom is totally independent of that.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. The attitude in England was so different – people were mostly left alone to live their own lives. It was much less of a big deal there – in most families, at least. But I’ve never understood why Americans are so scandalized by everything.”
“Ha. Tell me about it. And don’t be sorry.”
“My great-grandmum died a few days ago,” he says suddenly. “In Singapore.”
I just turn and gawk at him. “Um. What? You’re serious? And you didn’t say anything?”
“I only met her once, I barely knew her, I’ll be fine. She was ninety-six, it was her time.”
“Are you going to the funeral?”
“In Singapore? Friend, that’s a multi-day trip. I’ll pay my respects another way. But anyway, speaking of mortality, as soon as I hung up the phone with my aunt, I just knew – I couldn’t go on like this anymore.”
I don’t know how to process this – should I apologize? Offer condolences? Or ask about what the hell he’s really saying?
“I’m sorry,” I offer soon. “Even old people dying is still really sad to me. Like, they’re so…old.”
“Thank you,” he says, and for some reason it looks like he’s trying not to laugh. Great, I probably stuck my foot in my mouth. Again. Oh, well.
“But anyway, also…you said you ‘couldn’t go on’ like…how? In what sense?”
“Like…living my life for other people,” he says quickly, like he’s letting out a breath he’s been holding in for too long. “Being the last priority on my own to-do list. Those sorts of things. So I suited up, I showed up…and then I saw you.”
“But you didn’t know it was me…”
“Not at first, no. I promise. But Joshua?”
“…Yes?”
“I wasn’t displeased.”
The air outside is cool, but suddenly the car feels ten thousand degrees inside.
I swallow. “Have you ever felt…that…before? Like, for guys?”
He makes another face. “I felt…the hint of things. A longing that was so deep I didn’t really know if it was real or not. But yes, tonight, I know for sure…it’s real.”
He pulls up to our building and abruptly and cuts the lights. But wait – this isn’t our building. It’s building 29, and we are building 30.
“Um, hello? Everyone’s out for the night, I’m sure there are some spots in front of our place…”
“Look ahead,” he says. I look in front of the car, at the nearest little porch. I see a small bucket of candy with a piece of paper next to it, the message written in the shaky scrawl of what I surmise to be an elderly person’s: Boo! Please take one! (And only one!) Happy Halloween, kiddos!
Harry gets out of the car. I get out, too. He takes my hand, strides up to the bucket with me, takes a Tootsie Roll from the nearly-empty bucket, and hands it to me.
“Here,” he says. “We just trick-or-treated. We’re kids again. Just like you said you wanted. And look – nobody is around to call us too old.”
I take it, unwrap it, and put it in my mouth. I don’t know what to say.
“And by the way,” he tells me. “If you ever want to wear a dress on Halloween again, like you used to, I promise it will be perfectly fine with me.”
He takes me to the next door, which has a similar bucket out front. Then we find another three doors down. And under the autumn moon, Harry does something I never thought would happen in my life again: he takes me trick-or-treating.
“Take me home,” I tell him suddenly. He tosses aside his Blow Pop, turns, and starts across the parking lot, never letting go of my hand for a second.
Up the stairs, turn, stop.
We’re at our front door.
I shiver a little and turn to him.
A very small part of me still thinks this is a crazy mistake, but then I think of the rage that hit me when that Lizzie girl tried to hit on him. That possessiveness proved to me that in that moment, I wanted him, and I didn’t want anybody else to have him, either. And let’s be real – Harry could snap his fingers and be with anyone he chose. I’m no Hunchback of Notre Dame, either, but tonight he chose me – and that means something.
“So…what now?”
He turns to me, his expression plain, his bone structure luminous in the light from the streetlamps. “I would like to fuck your hole until I cum. Is that okay?”
Despite myself, I giggle.
“What could possibly be funny?”
“It’s just, hearing a word as dirty as ‘cum,’ in your proper little accent…it’s just jarring. Sorry,” I say.
He shrugs again. “Fine, then. I would like to ram-rod your pleasure-hole until I deposit my male proteins into you. How’s that sound?”
“Disgusting.”
His eyes narrow. “Trust me, you have no idea how disgusting I can actually get.”
I look over at our door. So this is happening. My roommate whom I barely know, and whom I always assumed was straighter than the Empire State, wants to fuck me.
“One night,” I tell him.
“One night?”
“Yeah, you and me, one night. I know where this is going, and you want to try it out with a guy and see if your curiosity is real.”
He shakes his head. “Joshua, I don’t want to try it out ‘with a guy.’ I want to try it out with you.”
I feel a rush from my toes to my eyelashes. “Okay. But…you have to promise me something.”
“Yes?”
“This has been great, trust me. But tomorrow we have to forget this, and pretend like it never happened, and go back into roommate mode. We can’t ruin our whole situation and descend into awkwardness. We just can’t. It would be awful. So…whatever happens tonight, can we agree to forget it forever?”
I wait for a reaction. I admire the light on his elegant cheekbones as his eyes slide from my face, down my body, to my semi-hard dick underneath the tiny scrap of fabric…
Instead of responding, he opens the door and leads me inside, then closes it and locks it.
Oh, Lord.
It’s happening.
He puts a hand on my chest, and I stop breathing. It slithers down, down, down, and then he slips his hand into my thong…and the feel of his hand on my shaft is a heaven I have never known.
“Joshua?”
“…Yes?” I ask as a five-alarm fire rages within me.
“Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Yes. I agree. To your one-night rule.” He laughs darkly. “But if you really wanted me to forget about you after tonight, you probably should’ve worn a different outfit.”
Harry Young
I don’t know what’s happening, but I know I like it. He falls into me and meets my lips, and I pick him up and wrap his legs around me. I rest his back against the door as we kiss deeper and deeper…
I can’t decide what I like most: his plump lips, the sounds he makes, his soft hair in my hand…
“Harry?”
“Yes?”
“If we’re ever going to hook up, we’re going to have to stop kissing for a second.”
“Oh. Yeah…”
I stumble over to the couch and set him down, and he gets to work and rips off my jacket and shirt and tie, piece by piece.
“Fuck,” he says, looking down at my chest.
“What?”
“You don’t have body hair. It’s hot.”
“Never got any. Don’t know why. Keep going, please. With whatever that was.”
He kisses me from my neck, down my chest, to my abs, getting closer and closer to…
“Whoa,” I say, holding his shoulders in place. “You were really ready to go, weren’t you?”
“Sorry, um…like I said. It’s been a fantasy.”
“You smell so good,” I say, sniffing his hair. “Let me enjoy this. Kiss me again.”
He climbs up on my lap. As he leans in and kisses me, I run my hands all up and down his body. I never imagined what a man would feel like – I never got this far in my head. But really, his skin is just as smooth as any girl’s.
“God, I can’t wait to fuck you.”
“Let’s not wait, then!” he says, pulling at my belt. I take it off, and he slides me out of my slacks.
Then he looks down at my briefs…
“I know, I’m already hard,” I blush. “This is what you did to me tonight.”
“No complaints here…”
My heart pounds. My forehead sweats. He slips a hand into my briefs and slowly pulls them off.
“What?” I ask as he stares down at my naked body.
“You…are…just…so…hot…”
I sigh as he takes me in. God, it feels good to be desired like this, no matter the gender of the person desiring me…
He licks me from my balls, down to…below my balls. Oh, the skin is so sensitive there…I had no idea…
I stop him again and look down into his eyes.
“Joshua?”
“Yes?”
“We have to talk about this first. When I fuck, I fuck hard, and it can get a little intense. Is that okay, before we start?”
“Yes, yes, yes, please! I mean, um, yeah. Sure.”
“Okay. We need to establish a safe word you can say, if I cross a line, though. How about pumpkin?”
“That’s fine. Whatever. Just give me your cock.”
“Can you lick below there again, first?”
And he does. He flutters his tongue from my balls down to my right near my hole, then back again. In any other situation I’d be embarrassed, but fuck, it just feels so good…
He spits on his hand and starts jacking me, but I know that if he takes me into his mouth, I’ll cum – and I don’t want that yet.
So I grab him lightly by the jaw. “Nuh-uh-uh, beautiful. I’m in charge first.”
“Who decided that?”
“I did. Seriously, let me take this as it comes, Joshua. Can you get on the couch?”
He does as told. I slide off his thong, then move down his body. I want to see what a hole looks like up close – a manhole, I guess you could say. I kiss his inner thighs as I spread his legs.
“Damn,” I say as I admire his hole. It’s small and pink and well…just nice. “No wonder so many guys hit you up on Grindr.”
“What?”
“I’m not stupid, Joshua. I see the notifications piling up on your phone whenever you charge it in the kitchen.”
“Oh, God…”
“Do you like getting this eaten out?”
“Would…would you do that?”
“Oh, babe, eating girls out was my favorite pastime. This is just…guy pussy, I guess. Are you showered?”
“Barely two hours ago,” he nods.
So I push his legs back, close my eyes, spread him open a little, and then…
Fuck. He tastes so good. Kind of like sweat, but in a good way – almost pheromonal. And it feels so soft against my mouth, too.
“Ugh,” he whines, his whole body clenching.
“What?”
“Feels…so…good…keep…going.”
I spread him open a little more and flit my tongue around in circles. I take a hand and jack my cock as I lick deeper and deeper, and soon my whole face is buried in him. He grabs my hair and starts making sounds I’ve never heard anyone make. Every moment of it gets hotter – I’ve never been turned on by someone like this. Not that I can remember, at least.
I insert a finger as I lick. He holds his breath, clenches his legs around my neck, and then throws his head back and cries out. I fuck him with my finger, slowly and then a little faster. I spit on my finger, too, and soon I’m in all the way to my kn
uckle.
“Fuck, you’re so tight,” I tell him, and his response is barely a moan.
“The benefits of singledom,” he croaks out.
“Well, I’m glad this hole is tight for me.” I pull out my finger. “Joshua, remember the way you were moving your hips at the club?”
“Yeah…why?”
“I want you to do that to my dick.”
I get back on the couch. He holds up a finger, his face still ashen.
“I only do safe sex. And I have to get lube.”
“Fine with me. Off you go, handsome.”
“First, though, but first, give me a second with that dick…”
Before I can respond, he leans down and takes my dick in his mouth – all the way to the fucking tonsil.
I let out a desperate sigh and take his hair in my hands. He adds one hand, then two, as he services me. He has no reservations, nothing holding him back. It’s the sloppiest, messiest, best blow job I’ve ever gotten.
And all along, it was waiting for me down the hallway…
“Joshua,” I say as he gags and chokes and whimpers. “Stop.”
He pauses and looks up at me, his lips swollen and wet. “Why?”
“Because I’m about to cum. From a BJ. For the first time in my life.”
“Okay, then…”
He gets up and then returns with a condom and a little bottle of lube. My heart is only pounding harder, so I just grab both from his hand.
“Jeez, you can’t wait ten seconds?” he asks, and I glare at him.
“After what you just did…no, I can’t. I want you, Joshua.”
I wrap on the condom, then take the bottle and squirt on some liquid.
“You’re sure about this?” he asks, wide-eyed.
“I have been since the moment I saw you on that dance floor.”
He climbs into my lap again, and I grab his face and hold his gaze.
“Joshua?” I ask.
“Mhm?”
“I’m really glad this is happening.”
“Me, too…I think…”
“You think?” I ask acidly.
“Never mind. You ready for this?”
“Was ten minutes ago.”
He takes a deep breath and then starts sinking onto me.
Oh…
