Bad Idea

by Damon Suede

  Silas cocked his brow and did his best Tick impression, moronic manly superhero. “Mandingo, how I grok your mouth music.”

  “What does that mean?” Cliff goggled at him. “Why are you talking like that?” he sputtered. “I gotta— There’s a deal. I mean, we have an offer on the table.”

  “Congrats!” Kurt raised a fake toast. “To tables!”

  Todd clinked his glass and slapped the wet surface.

  Thank you, Kurt. His best friend’s prickishness did come in handy in such moments.

  Silas thumped Cliff’s shoulder, ladling on some more Tick-wisdom. “Mister, I’m about to write you a reality check. Or would you prefer the cold, hard cash of truth?”

  A chubby guy walking by chortled in fanboy solidarity, and Silas returned it; it felt like the whole Marriott wanted to help him dismantle this prefab dick-lick.

  Cliff wadded the napkin shreds and cast the grayish lump at the floor. “Dude, we’re talking a fortune.” He seemed to be begging, but he was begging the wrong people. “Seriously. Trip could blow the whole gig. Hollywood.”

  “Holly would if she could.” Kurt grinned, getting with the program.

  For the first time, Silas was glad Cliff had joined them. To watch this sumbitch squirm and wheedle felt like ugly justice, like the Joker leering at his victims: Why so serious? “Luckily, you got him under contract. Oh… wait.”

  “He can’t.” Cliff bent forward on one elbow. “He’s my bud.”

  “Ah, but bud-ness is bidness.” Silas grunted across the table. “What is best in life?”

  In the middle of a comic convention, he expected the whole room to holler along. “What is best in life?” And they did.

  A couple of dorky men in the vicinity pounded their tables. Who didn’t love Ah-nold when he was still a cartoon?

  Kurt leaned over. “We need a bonus round.” Todd pushed up from his seat and waved a bulging arm at a waitress. A tipsy girl in a Sailor Moon costume waved back at him. Tee hee hee.

  “What? I’m not joking here.” Cliff sputtered. “The best offer he’ll ever get.”

  Silas grinned with all his teeth and at least one dimple in full force. “C’mon, chum. Don’t be an Adolf Quitler!”

  “I’m serious. Millions of fucking dollars!” An unattractive squiggle of vein throbbed across Cliff’s temple.

  “Conan!” Silas bellowed and puffed out his chest, although this time, the line was half Conan and half Tick, a demented man-tastic rumble. “What is best in life?”

  Kurt and Todd and about fifteen other comic dorks affected thick Germanic accents and roared. “To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of their women.”

  Silas shrugged and turned back to his prey.

  Cliff squirmed like he wanted to get up and then did exactly that.

  The sozzled comic conners applauded and hooted. One skinny kid in a Locke & Key T-shirt poured a beer over his own head. A barful of faux-barbarians grinned at each other like piranha.

  Cliff’s tan face was plum-dark. “You’re all fucking nuts.” He turned so fast he almost floored the perky waitress who’d come back with a tray of refills.

  For the first time in months, Silas wanted to get well and truly hammered. Trip had left him to party, and so that’s what he would do. Kurt seemed to be in a rowdy mood, and two young things from Sarah Michele Gellar’s table looked about ready to float in their direction. Fuck it. He’d have some drinks, gloat a while, and then head back to his room in time to bump into Trip.

  Silas had done right by himself and the man he loved. Things had worked out as they ought; he’d faced down Staplegun as Trip scored points with the old-timers.

  Todd muttered something about dogs and drained his glass.

  “Well, good gravy. We are a well-oiled machine!” Silas whispered to his glass, a little buzzed and a little better. “Destiny is a funny thing.”

  “So….” Kurt leaned over to murmur conspiratorially. “What the hell is this sex comic?”

  SOMETIME in the middle of the night, Trip woke with his nose buried in the vanilla silk of Silas’s neck. His thickening joint had nestled in against that round ass, and he wondered if he’d ground against Silas in his sleep. Trip’s dick had woken before he had.

  Not home. Chicago.

  He had brought sheets and changed the bedding so he could sleep during the con. Between the satiny cotton and Silas purring against him, they might have been at home. His anxieties about Scratch had driven C2E2 and Silas out of his head for a few moments. He felt guilty that he’d ditched his boyfriend to hang out with the Eisner judges, but work came first. Silas understood.

  Their first trip together. Holy horny downtime, Batman!

  When had Silas come to bed? Had to have been after one when he crawled in for a hushed quickie, then conked out. Dark outside now, and the navy blue sheets from home whispered under his limbs. He needed to ask Silas what had happened in the bar, but it could wait till morning.

  As his horniness bloomed, Trip bit down on the salty muscle that swept from Silas’s throat to the swell of his shoulder.

  Stirring slowly, Silas arched his back, pushing Trip’s pelvis against his ass. His answer was a barely audible growl: “Yessir.”

  Trip gripped harder, and the nipples under his fingers tightened.

  “I love that.” Thaaat. Silas’s guttural pleasure made him shiver. “When you take ahold of me and make me do things.”

  Outside the hotel windows, the night was an indigo curtain hung on crooked rods.

  Silas didn’t turn or meet his eyes, but after a moment, he managed to nod. His right hand squeezed a loop of sheets in a relentless grip. “C’mon, man.”

  Trip whispered. “What do you want?”

  “You know what I want.” Silas reached for the nightstand. Plastic crackled, and then he tossed the condom.

  Trip stretched the latex down his joint and tapped the warm hole with his thumb. “I don’t think you even need—” He slid his thumb inside and Silas groaned in permission. “You can take it. You’re so open already.” Trip slid his thumb free and kneed Silas’s legs apart, notching his knob against the greasy iris.

  “What time…?” Silas laughed low and dirty as he dropped his chin to his chest. “These damn sheets. I thought we were home in New York.”

  “Huh-uh.” Trip kissed his shoulder blade. “’S’just me.”

  Silas pushed back his hips and devoured him to the hilt. “Make me. Make me.” A horny jock needing his itch scratched hard.

  Trip looped one arm around his broad trunk and hammered at him. His boner stung from too much sex, but he lost control. He ran his hand down to where Silas’s stout erection jabbed the air.

  “I don’t wanna come too quick. Just fuck me.” Silas grunted, guttural. “Fuck me good.”

  Trip tried to do exactly that. Some part of him wanted to wring another wad out of Silas, to prove his complete command of the rugged body pressed against him. Possession.

  “Tssss. You’re so—” Trip squeezed his ribcage and hunched slowly against the meaty swell of those perfect, plump glutes and enjoyed the wet scratch of his treasure trail against Silas’s spine. Every time he touched bottom, Silas quaked and groaned.

  “Jesus. Fuh-hucking. Chri-hist.” Silas’s muscles shook with the thrusts.

  For two guilty seconds, Trip thought of those bound action figures from childhood. Not that Silas was an action figure, but his manly captivity and his hunger to have Trip hold him down and ravage him made Trip feel like he could do anything, that Silas needed him to take total control, for both their sakes.

  “Hungh. Hunhh-ungh.” Grunts, delayed and rhythmic and seemingly involuntary. Cradled against the tangled sheets, Silas’s face had gone slack, loose with panting. “Huh-ungh.”

  “Good?”

  “Go slow. Go slow,” Silas begged in a choked rumble, his wet lips smashed against a dark spot on the sheets where he’d drooled. His powerful body sprawled boneless an
d begging, eyes low-lidded.

  The Judge and the scary coach Silas had feared and his high school locker room. All that lust and pain had burned away his imperfections so they fit together like this.

  Cosmic rays. A secret serum. A radioactive spider bite.

  Trip squeezed Silas hard from behind, forced the air out of his lungs. He turned the handsome face roughly toward his and brought their panting mouths together.

  Silas flinched and hung on. “You’re making—”

  “Yeah?” Trip pressed his hips close to the round glutes and ground for a moment.

  A bead of sweat ran down Silas’s temple into his hairline and he smiled.

  “Beautiful. Beautiful.” Trip’s hips drilled in short hooking thrusts that ticked the spot just under his ridge. “My Silas.”

  Out of control. Out of control.

  “Give it to me.” Silas crooked his head hard and his eyes rolled to white.

  Blam. Trip surrendered to the lightning and pushed his hips forward so hard he almost crushed Silas facedown into the pillows as his seed raced out of him. His heart swung in his chest, lazy surging thumps that shook his vision. He squeezed Silas hard enough to mark him.

  No straight lines, no solid ground. Terrified and hopeful, Trip imagined a shared life without rails or walls. He’d come this far. Whatever the odds, he wanted it. His heart knocked hard. It wanted in or out.

  Silas trembled against him. His erection still prodded the twisted sheets, untouched.

  Trip reached down, but Silas slid free of his cock and stretched.

  “Nuh-uh. I’m just about perfect. Nnngh.” He sighed. “My whole body is—”

  “I wanna….”

  “No sir. Fucking doesn’t always have to be my load.” Silas shuddered.

  Trip sucked on the fingers of one hand and then the other to get them slippery before reaching across to where they could do the most damage.

  Silas flexed his chest and tried to hold still. “Too sensitive. Oh gah.”

  Trip pinched the tight nubbins and let them slip through his fingertips over and over, tugging gently but firmly.

  Silas juddered and squirmed, as if chilled, and his pole jerked stiffly: once, twice, three times. The crown glossy and dark. Crystal ribbons of precum leaking from him. For a moment, Trip thought he could force Silas to squirt just like that. As he bucked and struggled, his club pressed hard into Trip’s flank and his eyes danced.

  “Wait! Wait.” A shiver chased down Silas and he ground his teeth together. “Just one second. Oh my—Jesus fuck. Hold on.” His hands held Trip’s forearms squarely. He gasped and trembled again, his nipples stiff as erasers. His eyes floated closed and he sighed, shakily. “Pffew.”

  “Okay. Shhh. C’mere.” Trip stroked the blocky pecs one last time and then spread his arms. “C’mon.”

  Silas shuddered again and folded against his side, breathing raggedly.

  “You sure you don’t need to come?” Trip squinted wickedly.

  “You ever seen me shy?” He laugh-coughed. “I’d tell you if I did. My pecker’s fixing to fall off.”

  Trip snickered.

  Silas twisted to face him. He still had a boner and pillow lines on the side of his face, which made him look even more adorable.

  “That monster gets so far up inside me.” For a few moments, Silas admired the thick greasy erection and milked its weight. “Ungh. Gooder than grits.” He flipped Trip fully onto his back and skinned the condom off.

  “You don’t have—”

  “Hush.” Silas tied the latex off and dropped it beside the bed. “You smell so fucking good. Your jazz.” Without warning, he swiveled and sucked the sore, softening length into his mouth. The tickling pressure of his tongue was so delicate, it almost hurt.

  Trip bucked and hissed in surprise.

  With gentle thoroughness, Silas slurped the last of the spunk off. Finally, he let the shaft slide free and kissed Trip’s belly. He took a deep breath before he fell back into the pillows and let Trip gather him close.

  “I think that is what is known as a midnight snack.”

  Silas rested his weight carefully on Trip and smeared all his worries about Scratch and Cliff and Artist Alley between them.

  “I swear.” Trip kissed the thick shoulder and his eyes stung. “You are not like… anyone.” He scooted up against the headboard.

  Silas followed him, resting his cheek on Trip’s chest. “That was just about…. That was perfect, Mr. Spector. Sometimes I want it sweet, but sometimes I want you to just pin me down rough and take whatever the hell you want.”

  “No comment.” Trip loved to smell the semen on Silas’s sweet skin, to feel that primal ownership as he squeezed Silas closer.

  Silas chuckled and snuffled. The pillows had smashed his gleaming hair flat on one side. “Mr. Spector, you can wake me up like that any time. I mean it.”

  “Mr. Goolsby, I think that can be arranged.” For several long seconds, he imagined what it would be like to go farther, to fuck Silas bare, to pump a load into him and eat it out of his stretched hole… then he blinked the thought away for fear he’d jinx it.

  Silas had unlocked something in him he’d never let loose before. Maybe they released it in each other. No Judge, just them.

  The clock said three something, but Trip didn’t want to fall asleep. Wired, not wiped.

  “I love your sheets.” Silas slid his arm under his neck and smiled.

  “You do?”

  “Duh.” Silas petted the bed and smiled at him.

  “You know….” Trip squirmed an inch closer. “My sheets are completely strategic.”

  “Howzat?” Silas scrunched up his face.

  “From when I first moved into Manhattan. My family sucked, so I developed this theory: wherever you live, you have to want to come home.” Trip drew his knees up and smiled. “Everyone should live in a place that makes them happy when they open the door. Except… when I first moved to the city, I couldn’t afford a nice place to live. Money was tight. F’real. I went through like nine sublets in a year. Real dumps, but my sheets were at least six hundred threads per inch, always.”

  Trip smiled to himself. He’d bought his first set of “fancy” linens on clearance at Century 21 without telling his parents or anyone. Sixty-one dollars for a mismatched navy-blue set. It had emptied his checking account. He never regretted the purchase. He’d washed those sheets to tatters.

  “A foldable palace.” Silas stretched, rigid for a moment, and relaxed. “That’s genius.”

  “Well… you know how allergic I used to get. Thread count helps there too. Almost all those apartments belonged to friends doing me a favor, so I couldn’t make a fuss. So I bought one really expensive set, and when I’d move in, first thing, I stripped the bed and my sheets were clean and beautiful come the night. Slept like an angel. Since then, I’m always happy to get home at the end of a rotten day.” He couldn’t keep the smile off his face.

  They grinned at each other as if they’d gotten away with something. Happy bandits on the lam.

  “Mmmmmh.” Silas stretched; his legs whispered as he slid them against the lustrous cotton. “Camp out and snuggle with yourself.” His eyes sparkled in the dark. “Except, how do you make yourself get out of bed?”

  “Exactly!” Trip giggled low. “My whole fucking problem. Don’t you wanna just stay here?” The impact of what he’d said hit him, but he didn’t try to unsay it as he normally would’ve. “Like spooning with yourself.” He squirmed against the bedding and scrubbed his face against Silas’s gilded chest. “I feel like I’ve kidnapped the captain of the football team.”

  “Naw.” Silas petted him distractedly. “Center.” A flash of sharp teeth.

  “Sorry about dinner.”

  “’S’fine. I defended your honor in the bar, Mr. Spector. Shoulda been there.”

  “You did, huh?” Trip cupped Silas’s semisoft cock protectively.

  Silas coughed. “Best I could. Kurt even helped out.”
>
  Trip didn’t ask what that might mean, but he should’ve been there, so he had no right to complain. He shifted Silas over and pulled the covers up over them.

  Outside, a faraway siren approached and receded.

  “I swear.” Silas rubbed one thick arm in circles on the dark blue cotton. “You know when you pet a horse and your hand just slides over the grain of the hairs? Slicker than oil. But if you go against the nap, that shit feels like burlap.” His Southern accent had deepened. Burr-laaap. “Your damn sheets feel like a horse you can only rub the right way. Only you pet it with your whole body.” He squirmed and smiled again. “I keep trying to find the wrong way to rub, and I can’t.”

  As he watched in the shadowed dark, Trip started to get hard, even though his dick was spongy and sore from overuse. “Yes, please.” He growled and clambered over, half on top of Silas. “Well, you have an open invitation to rub my sheets anytime you like.”

  “Oh really.” Silas gave a sloe-eyed blink. His erection still hadn’t relented.

  “That’s what the man said.” Trip scootched a little closer. His thickening cock pressed against Silas’s hip. He dug his chin into the beefy shoulder.

  Silas grunted in pleasure and whispered, “You ready for tomorrow?”

  “Mmh. We should get some rest.”

  “Mr. Spector, I’m afraid I may have to come and camp out in your bed pretty regular.”

  A squint. A kiss. A question.

  “Mr. Goolsby, I’m afraid that will be no problem at all.”

  A nuzzle. A smile. A promise.

  19

  THE best thing about comic conventions is also the worst thing about them: they are a thermonuclear fusion of geek enthusiasm.

  Trip had spent enough hours in artist alleys over the past four years that he considered himself a professional fanthropologist. The operation for the Chicago Comic & Entertainment Expo was pretty slick. Not as overwhelming as San Diego but not a rinky-dink Wizard con. Registered as an artist, he picked up his badge and scooted off to find out where they’d located his table.