Pent Up

by Damon Suede

  Pushing Ruben’s legs apart, Andy knelt between them, panting and frantic. He poked at Ruben’s hole, hard enough that the fingertip went in for a second.

  Whoa, there. Ruben’s ass felt exposed, and stupid nerves got hold of him. “Easy, wonderbread.” He sat forward. He hadn’t expected it, and though it hadn’t hurt, it had felt weird as hell. “I’m full up on firsts tonight.”

  “Sorry.” Andy paused and retracted his hand. The gold fluff on his forearms caught the dim light. He shook his head. “Not that. I wanna—” A quick kiss. A hand brushed across Ruben’s chest hair. “I didn’t mean to freak you out, Oso.”

  “You didn’t. I mean it.” Ruben nodded. “You surprised me. I’m not freaked. Maybe later. Okay?” The words felt like a lie. He knew he was a shitbag for stalling like that; he couldn’t imagine ever letting anyone inside him like that, but then again a month ago he couldn’t have imagined lying next to his boss smeared with their precum. Sleeping dogs lie. “I don’t think I can. Do too much. Right now, I mean. Sorry.”

  “No.” Still breathing hard, Andy hesitated a moment before smiling. “Let’s see how it goes, huh?” If he was disappointed he hid it well.

  Ruben could still feel the odd hollow spike of sensation of the tip inside him, which had to be imaginary. He put his own hand down there. He’d never felt his butt before. Never thought of that part of his body as something sensitive or shareable. Covering the hole with his cupped fingers seemed childish, somehow especially with everything they’d done already. “It didn’t feel bad.”

  “But it didn’t feel good, either.” Andy blinked, contrite. “There aren’t rules, man.”

  “I’m not—Andy, you surprised me is all. It’s my butt, y’know.” Did he? Ruben took a shaking breath. Fooling around, fooling around. Only his cock didn’t know the difference.

  “Hard to know where the boundaries are.” Andy crossed his arms tightly. “You seem to like mine. And lord knows I liked the stuff you did.” He cough-snorted.

  “Just need a breather. This is—” Too weird. Ruben gripped Andy’s hard flesh apologetically and the crown bulged in his palm.

  Andy nodded. “I don’t have all that much experience with butt stuff. I got the feeling you dug it.”

  Ruben glanced down at the jut of muscle, and the light down between those high cheeks. “Mmh.” He nodded.

  “You can touch me, man. If you want. ’Cause I do.” Andy swallowed. “Want to. Want you to.” He bent one knee and slid it higher as if offering his muscular ass.

  “I can’t help myself. That fuckin’ skin. I just—”

  Andy shook his head and frowned to himself.

  Ruben wavered between lust and panic. “I’m an asshole.”

  Andy rested his brow against the side of Ruben’s skull a moment. “No, Oso. What you are is a good man with bad manners.” He rolled their heads together. “Thank Christ.”

  “Next time.”

  “Don’t care. Not a little, even. I’m so glad you’re finally in my bed.” Another kiss, sucking at Ruben’s lower lip and then the ear again.

  Jesus.

  Ruben groaned and squirmed but exposed himself to the delirious assault. “Bauer, I haven’t made out since I was about thirteen.”

  Andy rocked back and shook his head slowly. “Fuckin’ shame, that.” His hair was in his eyes.

  Ruben pushed it back, smoothing it. “We’re not kids anymore.”

  “No kidding.” Andy squeezed their dicks together in his hand. “You’re practically middle-aged.”

  “Fuck you. Forty-one is not middle-aged. I’m not that much older than you. What, two years?”

  “And a half. Those are two very important years, I’ll have you know.”

  “I’m not your daddy.” Ruben felt freaky saying it. And that freakiness made being in bed like this feel even freakier.

  “Stop. Hey.” Andy punched him in the side. “I’m not in this bed because of Sigmund Freud.”

  “Good. Ow.” Ruben rubbed the ribs. “That was uncalled for.”

  They were both nervous then. Good.

  Andy shifted to his side. “I didn’t mean to jump you. You got me worked up.”

  Ruben tilted his head to look at the eyes glittering at him. “Couldn’t sleep.”

  “Not true. You slept hard.” Andy coughed and shifted. “I saw you.”

  “Yeah?” Ruben propped his head on a hand and squinted skeptically. “You watched me?”

  “Of course I did. I like watching you. No new information.”

  True enough.

  Andy murmured to himself, a thinking sound.

  Lying on his back, Ruben felt exposed and relaxed both. He rubbed his stomach, painfully aware of his wee-hour wood and the sexual frustration that had made the past month so excruciating. “Did I do anything interesting I should know about?”

  “Plenty.” Andy bent one knee and scratched his tousled hair, unleashing the cowlick that always made Ruben grin.

  Ruben could just make out the stiff lump under the sheet. His own erection kept that from being embarrassing. His mouth had gone dry and, for a few heartbeats, he tried to swallow. When he managed to speak, his voice came out as a rasp. “And you?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Did you do anything interesting?” Ruben asked. “That I should know about?”

  Andy shook his tangled head. “Just looked my fill while I had the chance.”

  Ruben knew they were both waiting for permission, but from who, he couldn’t say. “Awful polite.”

  Andy cleared his throat. “It’s only—I love watching you do anything. Handsome.”

  “Shut up.”

  “But sleeping, your defenses come down and I can see all of you.”

  “Yeah. Uhh. That’s creepy.” But he grinned at the notion of Andy liking his blunt mug.

  “I don’t mean like that. It’s…. You aren’t hiding. No posing. Just you without a wall.”

  “Or a skin.” Ruben rolled his eyes.

  Andy laughed. “Okay. Yeah. I guess.” He nudged Ruben’s chest. “But you’re always gonna be stronger than me. When you’re sleeping is the only time I feel like I have a chance to watch over you, protect you.”

  Ruben didn’t reply. Couldn’t have if he wanted. His eyes pricked and he felt about five years old. Not once had he ever enjoyed someone watching him like that or thought they would. Never in his life had he wanted to be protected. With Marisa, he’d known what he was supposed to do because he’d spent his whole life practicing: job, wife, kids.

  Now, he’d wandered off the path without any kind of map or advice. After all, they were both men. Two guys with two lives. And no matter what anyone pretended, none of this was simply experimenting, or getting off or even blowing off kinky steam.

  Everything felt different.

  Ruben had always figured queers were wired wrong, that being a homosexual was like being a lefty or color-blind. Just… wrong. Only, he hadn’t rewired anything, and the rightness had overwhelmed him. He was still a drunk and a screw-up who missed his family and wanted a beer. These feelings seemed like the opposite of color-blindness. Whatever color shone in Andy had been invisible to him until he finally saw, and no amount of explaining would ever make anyone else understand what felt so obvious now.

  Andy sat back. “Sorry.”

  “For what?” Ruben looked up and realized Andy had taken his silence for distaste. This time he reached for the lamp, clicking it on. The sudden brightness made them both squint. “Why would you be sorry?” Without stopping to question, he twisted and pressed their lips together.

  Andy inhaled sharply, and then his mouth softened.

  “Don’t you ever apologize for being sexy. Or smart. Or kind. Not to me, at least. Deal?”

  “Yes sir.” And that was that.

  No lynch mobs. No catastrophes. No personality transplants. Apparently, they were still just two people who dug each other. He could hang out with Andy without needing to wax his chest or binge-watch Bey
oncé concerts.

  His anxiety had next to nothing to do with what they were doing, and everything to do with other times and other places: What would the guys back home think? How did gays get treated when they wandered into the wrong parts of Hialeah? When would his brother stop giving him shit?

  Someone would find out. Ruben knew that lying and hiding turned everything to poison. Being a drunk had taught him that. As two guys together, they’d catch hell, but New York had to be easier than North Dakota, right? Maybe on the six o’clock news they’d raise some eyebrows. But in the twenty-first century, who cared? People had way bigger alligators to wrestle.

  Andy patted his chest playfully.

  Ruben squinted, asking a silent question.

  “Not a race. Yeah?” Andy shook his head and put a hand in Ruben’s hair, not scratching but a lazy stroke. His eyes closed and he exhaled.

  Ruben swallowed, unaccountably nervous. Don’t ask questions. “Okay, then.” His hand still covered Andy’s erection protectively.

  “I haven’t felt this rested in… fuck. I dunno.” Andy stretched against him and his cock brushed Ruben’s grip to punch the sheet. “You gave me a huge boner.”

  “You musta been dreaming.”

  Andy nodded. “No kidding.” He stroked the back of Ruben’s head and gripped his neck.

  Ruben rolled further onto his side, notching his stiffness into the meaty curve of that perfect ass.

  “Two boners, more like.” A grin.

  “I watched you. I always watch you.”

  Andy tipped his head to look. “Yeah? I love that.” He closed his eyes and smiled at the ceiling. “Sexy fucker. I love you keeping an eye on me.”

  “Yeah?”

  “You have no idea. Getting caught.” A slow blush washed from his collarbone up to his scalp. “Someone watching me. It….” He took hold of his own erection and squeezed it purple. The lazy vein looked thick as a pencil along its length. “Always has. I can’t explain.”

  Ruben nodded, turned on by the feverish sparkle in Andy’s eyes. “Keeping an eye on you is no kinda problem for me, Mr. Bauer. You’re under fucking surveillance now. I don’t know how to stop. Jesus. I don’t wanna know.”

  For a moment, Andy shone.

  Ruben blinked but the sight remained, as if Andy had begun to glow and the room around him had dimmed.

  “You changed everything, y’know.” Andy swallowed. Every part of him fell still except for the pulse in his throat and his erection. His gaze searched the ceiling for something.

  “I never been with a guy before.”

  “I have. In boarding school a couple times. Once with my college roommate. Not like this.”

  A sudden swell of stupid, irrational jealousy swept through Ruben like hot bleach, and he kept his mouth shut. “Ah.”

  “Not like us, I said. Not feelings. Not trust.” A sigh. “Not you.”

  “Good.” Embarrassing that Andy had read his mind so easily. “You scare me sometimes, but in a good way I think.”

  Andy turned his head and pressed a kiss on the seam where Ruben’s arm and chest met. “Gracias, Señor Oso.”

  Ruben loved hearing the language on Andy’s lips. “You white boys.” He rolled his eyes.

  Andy frowned. “What’s that mean?”

  “It means….” What did it mean? He closed his fist around Andy’s morning wood and pressed his own close. “I’m fucking glad to be in your bed, boss. Now I can keep an eye on you properly.”

  Andy laughed till Ruben joined in.

  Andy sighed. “You wanna go on a date? With me? Out, I mean.”

  “We go out all the fucking time.”

  “I don’t mean work. I mean—”

  Ruben grinned. Because he wasn’t just hired muscle, some jailhouse, boot camp fuck for the kinky rich boy. “You mean courting.”

  “Yeah.” Andy ducked his head shyly. “Yeah. Like that.”

  “Of course I do. How do you say sexy?” Ruben stroked Andy’s rib. “Guapo.”

  Andy’s eyes focused. “Stop it. You’re guapo. Dark. Thick. Built.”

  “Classy, then. Charming.” Ruben kneaded the relaxed muscles gently, milking really great sighs out of Andy. “Dashing.”

  “Oh, yeah. Great. Thanks. Fetch a fucking Disney princess.”

  “In Spanish. C’mon.” He stroked the flank. “I dunno. Well-bred.” He ran a rough hand over Andy’s flank. “Put together. Stylish. Whatsa Spanish for that?”

  Andy thought a moment. “Pintón.” He stroked Ruben’s leg. “It’s a little old school. But… yeah. Pintón.”

  “Pent-un?”

  “Ón. On the second syllable. Like “own” but shorter. Pintón.”

  “Pinton.” He couldn’t make it sound right.

  Andy licked his lower lip. “Hit the second syllable. Pinto is slang for convict. Marked. Or dick, if you’re in Brazil.”

  “Oh, sorry. You’re not a dick. Or a convict.”

  “That’s what they all say.” Andy laughed. “At first.”

  Ruben bent to kiss the faint veins in his wrist. “Eres muy pintón, Señor Bauer.”

  Andy’s face lit up. “Thanks.” Chest poke. “Quick study.”

  “Great teacher.”

  Somehow they were stretched out together, half-naked, without Ruben feeling terrified. The banked lust simmering between them felt like a promise or a prayer. He wanted Andy like crazy, but he had nothing to prove and nowhere to run.

  Without second-guessing, Ruben reached out to stroke Andy’s face and scalp. “I’d know this color anywhere.”

  Andy snorted. “You’re crazy.”

  “Ash-brown. What would you call it?”

  “I dunno, mousy beige? My mother always says my hair is nothing-colored. Not blond, not brown.”

  “Then she didn’t look very hard.” Ruben finger-combed the glossy length away from their faces. “It’s not nothing. It’s not like anything.” He stroked the silk, rubbing the strands between his rough fingers.

  Andy arched and flexed and sighed.

  “I finally got to touch you.” Ruben petted his forearm fuzz. “I used to be obsessed with this.”

  “My arm?”

  “This.” Ruben plucked at the springy fluff. “The way it caught the light. And your skin.”

  “Because my skin is whiter?” Andy brushed his hand over Ruben’s knuckles.

  “Nah. It’s softer or something. Crazy smooth. I can’t explain it. Like the smoothness is under the surface. In the muscle.”

  “I think that’s fat you’re talking about, my man. Or sweat.”

  Ruben shook his head. “But in certain places it’s close to the surface. Here.” He traced the cool underside of Andy’s forearm and then pressed his lips to it. “Here.” Andy’s ribs. “And here.” The nape of Andy’s neck.

  “You’re giving me another boner.”

  “Tough.” Ruben dragged his knuckles over the ridge of collarbone, the swell of his upper pec. “I never felt skin like yours. Not ever in my life.”

  “Bull.” But Andy held his breath. His voice was respectful and hushed. “I think you may be biased, Señor‎ Oso.”

  “No kidding.”

  Andy grinned. His erection lifted from his belly. “Thanks all the same.”

  Ruben squeezed it. “See, the softness is just inside, out of sight, but so close I can tell it’s hidden there. Whatever you are.” He inhaled behind Andy’s ear: fresh-baked Bauer. “A secret you have to keep.”

  “Hey.”

  “Besides, isn’t that what sex is? I mean when we aren’t just getting off. Outside and inside get mixed up. All the other stuff gets stuck in there too, not just the meat but ideas, mistakes, feelings. Inside the bottle. Trapped like carbonation.” His calloused fingers tugged arrhythmically at Andy’s hardness. “The fizz.”

  “You keep yanking, I’ll show you carbonation.” Andy shifted onto his side, the blue-gray eyes half-lidded as he slid closer to press his firm lips against Ruben’s. If he wanted to
play, Ruben could play along.

  Ruben snuck his tongue out just enough to taste the inside of Andy’s mouth, then lay back with a satisfied sigh. “No, jerk. It’s between the inside and the outside, but stuck in the middle of both, where they crisscross.” He let go and patted Andy’s stomach, wishing he knew the right words. “So it can’t ever be either. It’s only between. Which is how people hurt each other so much. Never mind. I’m too dumb to explain.”

  “You’re not.” Andy sighed. “I know exactly.” He sounded convincing at least.

  All the same Ruben recognized the feeling, though he couldn’t give a name to it. That tender point of willing surrender where trespassing was required and crime paid plenty. “Only between.”

  Andy shifted and laid his head on Ruben’s chest, sounding horny and drowsy. “If you say so.”

  Ruben idly stroked the glossy hair, letting ash-brown silk slip though his rough fingers over and over. “I do.”

  “Then I do too.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  SEX RELIEVES tension. Love causes it.

  Ruben barely got a wink but didn’t get out of bed, so horny his skin hurt and his penis drilled itself raw under him. He kept expecting Andy to give him permission, but nothing doing. He knew he didn’t have to ask, but he didn’t know how to. Not like that.

  Far from it.

  Saturday morning, they slept in, mainly because Andy wouldn’t get out of bed and made sure Ruben stayed put.

  And so Ruben stayed put, terrified he might miss some sign of permission. He liked the fooling around, but the constant cocktease was turning his balls into molten pulp that hurt every time he moved. Weren’t two guys s’posedta just fuck when they wanted? Wasn’t that part of the gay deal?

  When he got up to hit the john, the ache in his nuts made him actively queasy. The spirit is weak but the flesh is willing. He wrapped a hand around it and gave a careful squeeze. Too hard to piss, he thumped the head of his dick, once-twice, till the sting lowered him to half-mast.

  He flushed and stepped into Andy’s multihead shower, feeling trapped and exposed at the same time. His erection went nowhere in the shower, just bobbed, comical and relentless, while he fought the nausea of not knowing what came next and wishing Andy would magically appear to suck the suffering out of his aching spout… and praying he wouldn’t.