by Willa Okati
“Tight,” Rory grunted. “How long’s it been?”
“Too long. Don’t… don’t worry about hurting me. Okay? Just give me more.” He yelped. “What the… why did you just tickle me? Quit it!”
Rory thrust his free hand under Harper’s armpit and tickled unmercifully. “It got way too serious in here for me. Not my style.”
“That’s how you want to play, huh?” Harper’s head went fuzzy with relief. “Give me your best shot, cowboy.”
“Save a horse?”
“Ideally, yes.”
“If you can still come up with words like ‘ideally’ on your own, I’m doing this wrong.” Rory pressed two fingers two knuckles deep. “Bet I can strike gold on the first --”
Harper’s toes curled. He shoved his fist in his mouth to keep from screaming soprano.
“Jackpot,” Rory bragged. He spread his fingers, the dark, fiery burn melting into something not pleasant, but better, and pegged Harper a second time. He flicked over the hot spot, timing his strokes with Harper’s heartbeat. “Damn. The noises you make…”
Harper grasped his cock and squeezed the base, cursing at the pain but considering the effort worthwhile. “Now. Fuck me now.”
“You’re not --”
“I’m ready enough.” His hand shook, vibrations traveling the length of his shaft. “Can’t hold out much longer. Don’t want to come before you’re in me.”
Rory swore softly and creatively. “You say something like that again, and I’m not responsible for… oh, fuck it. Okay.” He splayed one hand, fingers spread wide, on Harper’s left hip. Harper bit his lip, welcoming the slight pain that reeled him back from the edge he hurtled toward at the first broad, blunt press of Rory’s rigid cock at his hole. “Over the sphincter and through the bum, look out libido, here he comes.”
“You did not just say… oh, fuck, fuck. Rory!” Harper scrabbled for purchase. His muse, ladies and gentlemen, never one to take a nibble when he could stuff himself silly.
“Shh. I’ve got you.” Rory’s arm came around Harper’s waist, holding him up. “Okay?”
Harper breathed in through his nose and out through his mouth. He’d seen the size of Rory’s cock before. Appreciated it up close and personal on many a memorable occasion so far. He always forgot how vastly different the size of a man’s dick seemed when splitting him open.
Nothing better in the world, though. He gritted his teeth and shivered. “I’m good. Go.”
“So good.” Rory dragged out, a slow sweet burn, and thrust in, on the verge of tearing Harper in half. He peppered Harper’s shoulders with sharp, prickling kisses. “Never been anyone like you. Not ever. You’re gonna burn me alive.”
Though Harper had a hard time thinking, he bore down, squeezing Rory’s cock when he’d buried it to the hilt. “Gets better,” he rasped.
“Son of a bitch.” Rory latched on, sucking a ruthless bruise on Harper’s back. He rocked deep, drew out save for the head, and slammed his hips to Harper’s ass. The squelchy slap, slap, slap of his balls and the slippery, obscene sound of fucking echoed off the shower walls. The hot water had long since run out, barely warm, still strong enough a flow to drench them.
“Mine,” Rory chanted, knocking Harper’s hand out of the way. His grip was clumsy as he wrapped his palm around Harper’s cock and jerked him off. “Mine, all mine, fuck, so hot, not letting you go --”
Harper’s heart skipped a beat. Not letting you go either. No way. The pulse leapt from his chest to his groin. “Rory, gonna --”
Rory buried himself balls-deep and bit down hard, breaking the skin in a rushing flare of pain. Harper bucked and bowed sharply at the rush of startling, white-hot pleasure. He covered Rory’s hand with his and sped up the pace while his cum splashed the tiles, ropes of creamy white vivid against their saturated blue. “Rory!”
Rory hitched his cock deeper, as if he could melt into Harper and become one flesh, and let go. Heat flooded Harper’s insides while Rory pressed bruises into his hip, a five-finger memory to match to his own hand span later.
Too soon, Rory shuddered to a stop, his cock still half-hard. A liquid sensation told Harper that Rory’s cum was already dripping from his ass, trailing down his legs. Rory’s low moan and eager jerk of his cock within told Harper that Rory had noticed. They’d forgotten a condom.
Did it really matter when Rory wasn’t technically human and was largely composed of Harper’s inspiration given physical form? Harper rolled that one over briefly before deciding he was far too invested in a decent afterglow to break his brain at the moment.
“Never been anyone like you,” Rory informed him, slumping over Harper.
Harper allowed himself a moment’s smugness. Never before, and never would be again, if he had his way.
Chapter Seven
Two o’clock in Janie’s office and all was possibly well.
Janie coughed, not precisely politely. As a general rule, wise men and wiser women found a way to drop whatever activities might have otherwise engaged them and paid attention when Janie indicated a desire for their ears.
Mostly because the odds were good her audience would get to keep their ears, and everything else attached from the neck up.
Harper fixated on the upper-right-hand corner of the crisp paper’s edges as they flipped over one by one.
Rory elbowed him. Ungently.
Harper oofed.
Janie raised one plucked eyebrow. “Boys, do I have to separate you two?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Apple polisher.” Harper resisted the urge to tread on Rory’s toes.
“You’ve got to be kidding me. Is this a nursery or a place of business?” Janie let drop the sheaf of paper, its pristine white with crisp black text unreflective of the blood, sweat, tears, and semen that’d gone into the creation of every page.
Not that the sacrifice of semen had been a terrible burden to bear. Or that he’d ever say a single word about bodily fluids of any sort to Janie.
“Sorry. We’ll behave.”
“Damn right you will.” Janie shuffled the loose script pages together. “And not here. Out.”
“Janie --” Harper started, arrested by Rory’s sharp jerk on his sleeve.
Janie rubbed her forehead. The lines at the corners of her eyes had deepened, the dark shadows underneath not helping. “Boys, you’ve put in a lot of work here. I respect that. I’d even go so far as to say it’s good stuff. I cannot say I trust either of you for a second in the company of Rialto executives. Out.”
“But we --”
“Out.”
* * *
“In Outré,” Janie began, “has come a long way since its inception. I think you’ll find the changes and development intriguing, and it is my hope that you’ll take an interest in seeing more. The story begins In Outré, a branch of SoHo, in a spice shop with a family lineage traceable back to the Salem witch trials… Excuse me.”
FZZT.
“Damn it. She’s wise to us.” Rory passed over Harper’s new BlackBerry, alarmingly and illegally fine-tuned to pick up the most amazing things via other innocent phones. “I tried. My hacking skills aren’t up-to-date, I guess. Hey, she said ‘intriguing.’ Good words, right?”
“I guess.” Harper pocketed his phone. He tilted his face to the sun, imagining the easy balminess of the clear morning light washing him with peaceful white light, the same shade that Rory’s silvery-dark hair gleamed when he walked past a window. “Midas.”
“Don’t count your paychecks.”
Harper’s lips twitched up. “That’s not what I meant. You want something to eat while we’re waiting? Meetings like these either run long, in which case we can load up on hot dogs and chips, ice cream for you, or they run short, in which case we’ll be making a stop by the liquor store on the way home. If we make it home before I throw myself under a bus.”
“Drama queen.” Rory flicked Harper’s ear. “They’ll fall over panting. Maybe not panting. There could be
a bead or two of sweat. I’d call sweat a win.”
“You would.” Harper slung an arm across Rory’s shoulders. Payback for his still-protesting ear could wait. “Hot dogs it is, then.”
“I’ll compromise and let you have a beer.”
“It’s eleven o’clock in the morning. I think.” Harper peered at his watch. “Doesn’t seem like the date can be right. How’s it been weeks already?”
“Time flies when you’re having fun. Fruit flies like a banana. I like my hot dogs all the way, extra relish. Should be a cart around the corner as the pedestrian flees. Shall we?”
Harper gave in to the urge and planted a wet, smacking kiss on the top of Rory’s head. “Hey.”
Rory nuzzled him. “Hey, yourself.”
“You know I wouldn’t be here without you. You did it. Thank you.”
“Wait until you hit the big time. Swimming pools. Movie stars. Take your shoes off and settle in, ’cause it’ll be nothing but up.”
“You have way too much confidence in me to keep the size of my ego manageable.”
“I find your consistent ego-bubble-popping charming, yet I want to slap you upside the head at the same time. Hella dichotomy there. The muse speaks: You’re gonna be a star, kid. Shut up and deal.”
Harper laughed. He couldn’t help it. His muse was so alive, so vital, so damn hot with his changeable eyes glittering that Harper’s gait faltered a step.
Rory drew a question mark in place of the cross, nimble in his pace as ever.
“I still wonder if I’m crazy sometimes,” Harper admitted. “If all this is real. Seems too good to be true.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” Rory batted him away, albeit with a poorly hidden grin, childlike in its gleefulness. “Thank me with lunch.”
“Note to self: The way to a muse’s heart is through his stomach.”
“No, that’s the way to his dick. You’re getting a celebratory lay in any position of your choice when the executives come back with a green light” -- Rory swung about and walked backward, hands in his pockets, no longer hiding his grin -- “which they will. Scout’s honor. Now feed me, Seymour.”
“I am not the Audrey in this relationship.”
“Tall, skinny, neurotic…”
“I’ll withhold your portion of relish.”
“No, not the relish! Uncle, apologies, gesundheit.” Rory sketched the sign of the cross, or Harper thought it might be, with two random swooshes through the air. “Race you!” He kneed the back of Harper’s leg and, cackling maniacally, zoomed ahead.
“You’re paying for that on your knees!” Harper yelled, righting his balance before he gave chase.
“Promises, promises,” Rory taunted when Harper reached the hot dog cart. “My associate here would like a bottle of water. I will have three all the way, extra-extra relish.”
Caught between twin urges to throttle Rory and to kiss him stupid -- in other words, business as usual -- Harper snagged Rory by the lapels and wound him in for a curtain-calling smooch.
“Get a room,” the vendor grunted, his large mustache concealing an undoubtedly dark scowl. “Outta relish. Slaw?”
“Fuck. Okay, dog me. As long as there’s extra.” Rory propped his elbow on the cart’s handle, crossed his legs at the ankle and treated Harper to a double-plus-special leer with an extra layer of visible contemplation of the potential joy in fellating a hot dog under the pretense of eating his lunch.
The vendor aimed a squirt bottle of mustard at Rory. “Pry him off before the shirt gets it.”
“Sorry.” Harper offered Rory a hand up. Rory’s fingers were warm and dry in his, lacing between and curling tight. “You’re so hot when you’re behaving badly,” he whispered, knowing his lips tickled Rory’s ear. “I’d let you run naked, in circles, but trust me, you don’t want to get caught in the mustard crossfire. You look too sexy in your new suit and I want to see you wear it more than once without looking like we had a run-in with a Porta-Potty and lost.”
“Note to self: Beware mobile food sellers.”
“They can be vicious,” Harper agreed, smoothing down the rumples he’d made in Rory’s shirt. “No offense.”
The vendor grunted and applied a hefty squirt of ketchup to a dog-in-progress. “You should keep a tighter leash on him, pal.”
“He’s not a dog.”
“Yeah, but he knows his place.” The vendor cut a glance at Rory, and at Harper, far too knowing. “Don’t you, muse?”
“Shit.” Harper took two hasty steps backward, dragging Rory with him. The Clerk. “You?”
“You were expecting maybe the Pope? Try again.”
Harper’s throat scraped, too dry to properly swallow. “I think we’ll get our lunch somewhere else.” He pulled at Rory’s hand. The end result was somewhat akin to trying to pucker up and blow over a statue. “Rory?”
Rory’s complexion had faded to milky pale. Harper had heard the expression “deer in the headlights” many times before, but not even when exposed to Bambi had he ever felt so strongly for the buck. “You’re early.”
“Don’t piss yourself. You’ve got a few left. Meeting’s still running.”
Rory’s grip on Harper’s hand tightened until a small bone went creak. “I didn’t do anything wrong and there’s a hell of a lot of work left for us. You’ve got no right to be here.”
“Correction. You’re on probation, and I have every right.” The vendor -- the Clerk -- wrapped Rory’s hot dogs in wax paper and passed them to Harper, who took them mutely. “You know the rules. Stick to ’em.” A squirt of mustard arced through the air. “Bye-bye.”
The mustard splattered on empty pavement, no hot-dog cart in sight, missing Harper’s shoes by a fraction of a splotch.
He said nothing. Rory said nothing.
Overhead, the sunlight dimmed, passing behind clouds and casting shadows over Rory’s face. Harper appreciated Mother Nature’s contribution to the mood, though she’d have to wait for her thanks.
Rory made a face. “If I asked you not to pay any attention to the man behind the curtain, would you listen?”
“No.” Harper couldn’t sort through all the words clamoring in his head, each one struggling for first place, especially -- no. Harper bit his lip. Don’t say it, don’t say it, don’t say it.
He said it. Asked it, rather. “What did he mean, we’ve got until after the meeting?” Not yet. Please, not this soon.
Harper wondered if they sold nitro tabs at other, preferably grounded in the real world hot, dog carts. If they didn’t, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to start, given the contents of your average bratwurst.
“Harper…”
“You’re leaving. Like you said once before.”
Rory’s smile faded. He looked away. Harper’s heart sank. Fuck.
“Rory?”
“Mary Poppins.” Rory grimaced. “I can only stay until the wind changes. I told you before that it wouldn’t be forever. I thought you were okay with it.” Rory spread his hands helplessly. “You never said otherwise.”
“Rory, you…” You idiot. And me too, because I didn’t say a word. Too wrapped up in my own head and it was a damn fool mistake. Adrenaline rose strong and sour in the back of Harper’s throat.
“It’s okay, Harper. I came, I came, I did my job, and that’s all. It is what it is.” Rory stuffed his hands in his pockets, looking impossibly young and wide-open, vulnerable. “After this meeting, you’re heading for L.A., or Hollywoodland, or what-have-you. Possibly to Wilmington, North Carolina, depending on how the unions swing. You’ll have pretty boys hanging off your every word. You won’t need me.”
Harper lowered his voice, but pitched it to carry to Rory. “After showering together this morning and doing what we did, you can still say that?”
“Not fair,” Rory reproached. “And not cool. What about you, huh? Doesn’t sound like this is a spur-of-the-moment epiphany. You had your suspicions before I fucked you. Did you talk to the Clerk before? Damn it, you did. Why w
ait until now to say something?” Rory drew up short. “Wait. Letting me fuck you in the shower. What was that, pity?”
“No! God, no.” Harper took off his glasses and stuffed them in the breast pocket of his suit. “I’d have, um, anyway.”
“Um, what? Let me shove my cock up your ass?”
“Rory, shh!”
“Now you want to be quiet? Embarrassed that someone topped you?”
“Stop being a dick. You know what I meant.” Harper refused to budge. “Tell me why ‘it is what it is,’ would you? Yes, I talked to the Clerk, and he wouldn’t fill me in. Why do you have to go? You’re my muse.”
“Yours, sure, and before you… after you I’ll… goddamn it, I hate these rules!” Rory flipped his bangs out of his face and shrugged helplessly. “I’m not… I can’t say much. It’s not allowed. I don’t have a choice here, Harper. I got tapped, got a body, got corporeal, and when we’re done here, I move on. End of story.”
“There has to be a way.”
“Never found one yet.” Rory swung hard away. “Never wanted to before you.”
Harper’s BlackBerry trilled in his pocket. He jumped and slapped a hand over the phone. Too late.
“That’ll be Janie.” Rory didn’t look back. “Go ahead, answer it. Let’s get this done.”
Harper’s hands curled into fists. “Run if you want, but I don’t give a damn, Rory. I’m coming after you.”
A tugging at the laces of his Converses surprised Harper into looking down, into the upturned, toothless face of a gender-slightly indeterminate person offering him a paper bag shaped to the bottle inside. “Go on, boy. Soun’ like you need this more’n I do.”
“Probably so, but you keep it. Here.” A foray of his pocket produced two crumpled dollar bills. He pressed them into the probably-a-man’s hand. “Thanks.”
His shoelace came loose in the fellow’s hand. He grunted, satisfied, and wound the length around his wrist. “You want ’im, don’t pussy around here, boy. Go get ’im.”
Acceptable trade for decent advice. “I plan on it.” Harper put his head down and, one Converse flapping, ran.
