American Love Story (Dreamers)

by Adriana Herrera

  I laughed as I pumped some lube into my hand. “So greedy, baby. I haven’t even started yet.”

  “It’s your fault, I—”

  His words go cut off when I pushed a lubed finger in, stretching him, now starting to feel desperate to have him too.

  “Yesss, more,” he begged, as I pushed in another one, he started those little moans and grunts that made my blood hot; all rational thought flew out of my head.

  “I’m going to fuck you with this dildo first. So I can slide in, hit you right in that spot that makes you scream for me.”

  “Do it now.” I propped a pillow under his ass, and without too much ceremony I pushed the lubed toy in, just a half inch, he sucked in a breath and on the exhale I pushed in further, then pulled back. I kept fucking him with shallow thrusts, watching his face, his mouth slack and his eyes rolling back.

  After a few more thrusts I licked my hand before taking his balls in my hands. From the first touch his already impossibly hard dick jumped up, the head leaking as I pushed in further. I leaned so I could lap at the bead of liquid. Making him scream.

  “You’re leaking for me. Fuck, you make me crazy when you get like this.”

  The sight of him thrashing on the bed as I fucked him with the dildo was making my own dick so hard, I wasn’t sure how much I’d last.

  “Patrice. Fuck me, fuck me, fuck me now.”

  I usually had a cooler head than this, but the way he said my name, like I was the only one who could give him what he needed, had me fumbling. After fucking him a couple more times with the dildo, I pulled it out and quickly got a condom on, my hands shaking as I got some lube on.

  I pressed my dick right at his entrance and slid right in, he felt so fucking good. Every time with Easton felt like the first time.

  “Fuuuuuuck, nothing has ever felt this good.” As always, Easton just said what I was desperately trying to keep inside my mouth.

  I watched myself pushing into him, the tight grip he had around me, and felt lightheaded from all the ways I was losing myself right now.

  “Fuck me hard, Patrice. Come on, baby.” He pressed both hands against the headboard and in one go had me in to the hilt. “Oh, I’m so full,” he said as he moved that ass, impaling himself on my cock.

  “Easton,” I said, breathless. I started moving in earnest and pretty soon we were really fucking. Bodies rocking together in unison, and I felt my orgasm coming fast as Easton grabbed his dick and started working himself hard.

  “Oh shit, I’m gonna come so hard,” he said, his hand flying over his cock.

  Just a few more pumps of his hand and I felt him spasm around me, making my climax barrel into me. I gasped as every nerve in my body seemed to short out at once. I let myself drop on him for a second as I carefully pulled out.

  When I turned my head to look at him, I saw in his eyes the same thing I was feeling: totally fucking wrecked.

  Easton

  Being in Patrice’s arms sometimes could feel like the most dangerous and safest place I’d ever been in. Lying here with him now, wrung out and warm, enveloped in his smell, in the sweaty mess we’d made, I felt happy.

  I’d been certain that my parents had ruined things with Patrice tonight. When I saw his face after what my father said, I was convinced he would never want to see me again. I watched him walk out of the restaurant and I felt desperate. For the first time ever I’d actually called my parents on their behavior. I felt like I could walk out on them for good and I told them so. When I told my father he’d acted like an asshole he jerked his head back like I’d backhanded him. My mother literally pearl-clutching at my “my language,” like she hadn’t heard the shit my dad had said.

  I walked away without even responding to her, not sure I could keep from ruining Nesto’s event if I did. The thought that my parents could’ve pushed Patrice away confirmed what he’d been worried about from the first moment. That our worlds were too different to ever work. That’s why I’d rushed after him, terrified that if I waited I wouldn’t be able to undo the damage my parents had done. That we’d go back to shaky ground if I didn’t make it clear that my parents never ever spoke for me.

  “Why did you accept my apology?” I asked into the darkness.

  He stayed quiet for a long time, his breaths slow, but I knew he was awake. It took him a moment, eventually he answered. “I accepted it, because it wasn’t right to punish you for what your father said. You didn’t tell him to say any of that to me.”

  The answer didn’t surprise me, Patrice had never been unfair. But there was something there. Tonight had been the second time he’d ever mentioned his father. Once again he’d made it very clear that there was no love lost there. And there was so much hurt in those fierce eyes whenever he looked at me and told me his secrets. The need to show me he wasn’t ashamed of who he was. I remained quiet, hoping he’d feel safe enough in this small haven we’d made, to tell me more. To finally let me see some of his scars, like I’d let him see mine.

  “I know what it’s like to feel responsible for the actions of your father, and yet know you’re helpless to make him change.”

  I moved so I could lay on top of him, my head on his chest and his legs spread wide, holding me between them. I turned so I could kiss him, my lips brushing the spot where his Haitian-American heart tattoo was.

  I nodded and tried to respond as honestly as I could. “I wish I could just walk away, but there’s my sister, my grandfather, family obligations. I feel like turning my back on them after they gave me so much, would be ungrateful.” He brought his hands down then and ran them across my back, and if you took away the fucked-up conversation topic, it was pretty perfect.

  “My mother always tells me to be grateful. To think that my father could’ve been like a lot of other wealthy men who father children they have no intention of taking responsibility for. That at least he helped us get out of Haiti. Helped me with school.” His voice was hard and his hands, which had been so gentle on me a moment before, stopped moving. “As if every cent that my father gave us, my mother didn’t pay for tenfold. As if she didn’t have to humiliate herself many times over.”

  I tightened my arms around him as much as I could, wanting to let him talk, but also needing to comfort him. Because I knew this was not something he shared very often.

  He let out a long exhale before he spoke, and when he did his voice was almost detached. “The last time I saw my father I was a junior in high school. He came to New York with his family for Christmas, and somehow sent my mother word of where he was staying.”

  I tried to use the most soothing voice I could manage when I spoke. “Was that the first time you saw him since you’d left Haiti?”

  He let out a long breath, as if just the memory of it exhausted him. “Yeah, it was 2002, so things still felt a little fragile with 9/11 being so recent. Back then my mom was working two jobs so she could pay for her school and our bills. We were struggling big time. I mean we had food and could pay rent, but that was about it.”

  I didn’t know what to say to that, because my family always had a lot of money. I had no idea what it was like to struggle like that. Patrice paused again and bent over to bring me closer to him, his strong arms lifting me effortlessly. When he’d kissed me and I was settled with my back against his chest, he started talking again. “The day we went to see him, my mom and I had gone to Milo and his mom’s house so we could borrow money from Dinorah to pay the heating bill.” He scoffed then and I felt his body tense. I also noticed that whenever he did that, he’d touch me or kiss me, as if it helped him calm down. It didn’t escape me how free he was becoming with his touches and kisses. So far from the man I’d first encountered, who I’d have to coax into even a few words after the sex was over.

  “All the way there she kept reassuring me that it would be fine, but I could tell she was nervous. Once we got to the hotel, I realized why.
My father was staying at the Waldorf-Astoria. I felt sick when we got there and I realized that while my mom had to borrow money from a friend to keep our heat on, my dad was staying in one of the fanciest hotels in town.”

  “That’s...pretty infuriating,” I said, shaking my head.

  He kissed my neck in response and my body once again was struggling to filter all the things happening to it. “Are you angry on my behalf, counselor?”

  I turned around then so I could see him. “Of course I am. That’s so fucked up, Patrice.”

  He didn’t answer and did that silent and intense thing he always did, and sucked my lip into his mouth.

  When he let go and I was panting again, I let out a frustrated breath. “It’s so fucking hard to be righteously outraged about your father’s fucked-up shit when you keep licking and sucking on me.” I sounded aggravated and more than a little flustered, because I really was. “I should not be this turned on when you are clearly telling me something that is important to you.”

  He started shaking and I wondered if he was okay, and when I turned around the asshole was laughing at me.

  I knelt in front of him, trying as hard as I could to contain my own smile. “This is serious. You’re finally opening up to me, and it is not a laughing matter, Patrice Denis.”

  “Okay, bébé,” he said, and I almost regretted pushing us to get back to the conversation, because he looked so content just then. And I wanted to keep him like that for a little longer.

  I turned around again, knowing it’d be easier for him to say the rest if we were like this. “So we got there, and it was so awkward. I didn’t know him very much, so the conversation went to what every conversation does with Afro-Latinx males. He commented on my muscles, asked if I had a girl and then ignored me. My um...” His voice changed then and his arms tightened around me, any humor completely gone now.

  “He asked my mother to go up with him somewhere.”

  I wanted to sob for him, because I heard the shame clearly then.

  “Baby,” I said as I tried to turn, but he kept his arms on me and rested his forehead on the back of my head.

  “Let’s just stay like this,” he pleaded. “She told me before we went there she wanted to ask him for some help with money for college, and knowing her, she would do whatever it took. When she left with him, I sat there feeling like my skin was crawling.” His voice was clogged, and the need to turn around and hold him was so intense I shook in his arms. “When she came down, my father made a point of looking straight at me, as if to let me know this was how the world worked. Right as we were about to leave, I saw a woman and two teenage girls coming into the lobby, with a ton of shopping bags. He walked right over to them like we didn’t exist. My mom and I just stood there until they went up to their room.”

  He sighed then, sounding exhausted. “My mom and I didn’t say a word on the train, but a few days later she left a bank statement on my bed. He’d wired fifty grand to her, which in the end was not even a third of what we needed.” He exhaled, voice strangled again. “As far as I’m concerned, he never gave me anything. My mother paid for every cent we ever got from that man.”

  “Can I turn around now?” I asked, needing to look at his face. He let go and I turned around so fast I almost elbowed him in the face.

  I kissed him and wrapped my arms around his neck. “You’re amazing and so is your mother. I can’t even imagine. I’m so sorry my father disrespected you and your mother today like that.”

  “Bébé, don’t look so sad. It happened a long time ago. It’s done. I just wanted to tell you.” He laughed then, and it was surprisingly carefree, lighter than I’d ever heard him before. “I hadn’t told that story to anyone, not even Camilo, and that little fucker knows all my secrets.”

  “Thanks for trusting me with it.”

  The possessive way he pulled me to him made it so hard to tamp down the urge to tell him everything I was feeling, instead I smiled and nodded and kissed him again. I told him how much it meant to me that he shared that with me.

  As we wound down and he fell asleep with his strong chest plastered to my back, my skin seared by the heat from his, I thought about the one thing I didn’t say.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Patrice

  “Why does the fucking world insist on cock-blocking my life?”

  I bit back a smile as I made my way back up Easton’s torso, which I’d been licking and biting on my way down to his dick. “It could be important,” I said, trying not to laugh at the annoyed expression on his face.

  “But it’s not even six and I’m not on call, and you were doing so well.” He grabbed his cock and stroked it as he looked at me. “I mean your tongue was really building up expectations. So...”

  I didn’t even answer and leaned down to kiss him again. I covered him with my body, arms on either side of his head, my hips circling in that way that drove him nuts as I licked into his mouth.

  “You want me to swallow your cock, is that it, counselor?” He ran his foot over my calf and thigh, as he kissed me.

  He pulled back and those green eyes were twinkling with mischief. “Well, I wouldn’t turn that down, but you’ve been so accommodating this morning already.”

  Saturday I’d woken up expecting to feel stupid or regretful about telling Easton about the stuff with my father, or for him to treat me differently. I should’ve known he wouldn’t. He’d woken up in my arms and gone straight to kissing and touching and telling me how much he loved having me in his bed every morning.

  Two days later everything still felt solid.

  Just as I was about to tell him so, his work phone went off and I knew whatever it was, it was important. I sat up to let him get the phone from the table, he groaned as he looked at the screen, and his face paled as soon as he said hello. I wondered if it had something to do with the trial. I knew the jury would not start deliberating again until this morning, so it couldn’t be the verdict.

  “When?” he asked, his voice icy. “Fuck.”

  He turned so that he could get up from the bed. When he looked at me, the way he could barely make eye contact, made me grab my own phone from the side of the table. I heard him hurry downstairs, his voice so hushed I couldn’t hear it. I didn’t need to, as soon as I opened the Twitter app on my phone I knew what the call was about.

  My mentions were out of control with people tweeting at me about another traffic stop. Apparently last night police had stopped three young men on their way back from a party, for a broken taillight. During the stop something happened that resulted in one of them being hospitalized. It was hard to get the exact details of what happened, but people were outraged. There were calls for the sheriff to resign and for charges to be brought against the deputy involved. My pulse raced as I tapped on tweets and headlines to get more information.

  I got up from the bed, the bliss from the previous half hour long forgotten, and started putting on my clothes as I scrolled through my notifications. There was a DM from one of the local community groups asking me to join them in organizing a peaceful protest tomorrow I stood in Easton’s bedroom looking out his picture window, it was too dark to see much but in the distance I could almost make out the outline of the clock tower. I held my phone loosely in my hand, and I hesitated. I knew that whatever Easton was talking about downstairs had to do with the reason for the protest I was being asked to help organize. A protest that would demand that the people in Easton’s position take some action about what was happening. I almost tapped out a yes, but I hesitated. Instead I shoved my phone in my pocket and made my way downstairs.

  I didn’t need to know exactly how bad shit was, even though it was written all over Easton’s face. He was standing in the middle of his living room with his eyes closed and his hands grasped tightly behind his head, looking spooked. When I got to him, he glanced up at me as I walked over to put my shoes on, his
silence more telling than anything he could say.

  I took a moment to finish getting dressed and pocket my wallet before I walked over to where he was. He looked like he was about to puke. I knew what he was feeling because I felt it too, the knot in my stomach that told me reality had come knocking.

  But I was not one to delay the inevitable, so I said what had to be said.

  “They put a kid in the hospital this time. It sounds like whatever your friend the sheriff said to his deputies didn’t exactly take.” There wasn’t even an edge to my voice, I was just tired. I could see the muscles in Easton’s jaw moving and I was wondering if he was trying to decide how much of whatever he heard on that call he was going to tell me.

  “Patrice—”

  I don’t know if it was my face or what, but something about the situation made him stop talking and when he spoke again the intimate tone was gone. Still friendly, still warm, but I was no longer talking to my lover.

  “I don’t know how much you got already,” he said, fidgeting with his phone. “But it was a broken taillight. The deputy flagged them down about five miles out of town. It was pretty routine, until for some fucking inexplicable reason the deputy made them get out of the car.”

  The frustration made his voice tight, and I could tell that it wasn’t just about one more incident and optics. Easton was struggling with whatever was happening. I wanted to go to him, I did but I stayed where I was, I could not let this turn into something about me and him.

  He glanced skyward then, and I wasn’t sure if he was regrouping or if he just didn’t want to look at me for the next part. “One of the kids started convulsing and ended up passing out. Apparently he has pretty severe asthma, but didn’t want to reach into his coat pocket to get his inhaler.”

  Because he was afraid he’d get shot.

  “He blacked out.” Easton’s tired exhale said it all. And to think only ten minutes earlier we were ready to start the day playing in bed. “He’s at Ithaca General, stable. The other two are fine.”