Third Rail

by Santino Hassell

  Oh fuck. My dick twitched.

  “But I’ve never fucked with a dude before. Just an FYI.” I cleared my throat and adjusted the straps of my backpack. “In case you’re expecting me to be good at this.”

  “So, you’re not worried about this being your first time with a guy. Two guys. And one fucking you?”

  I shrugged. “I mean, the last girl I slept with was really into pegging so it’s not like I’m a butt virgin.”

  Aiden cracked up again. “You’re great, kid.”

  “Kid?” I wrinkled my nose. “What are you, an old man?”

  “I got almost a decade on you, sweetheart.” Aiden reached out to run the tips of his fingers along my brow and then the side of my face. His fingers were callused, which was somehow reassuring. “Smooth baby soft skin.”

  “I will die with my face looking this moisturized and youthful.”

  He snickered again and stopped caressing me. It was kind of sad because his touch had caused my heart to beat a little faster. A good sign.

  “So I’m clear, all you’re worried about . . . is not performing well?”

  “No need to make it sound like my dick is gonna malfunction or something, but yeah.”

  Aiden didn’t seem convinced. “Are you bi?”

  “I dunno. I’m whatever, I guess.”

  He stared at me.

  “I’ve never really thought about it.” He held eye contact in a way that made me feel like he was analyzing every inch of my brain. And could see how panicky and nervous I was. “Let’s just say, I’m open to the experience and if that means I’m not straight . . . so be it. I’m not hung up on that, bro. I never have been.”

  “Huh.” Aiden slowly nodded. “Heteroflexible?”

  “This is the second time I’m hearing this word today.”

  “Sexually fluid . . .”

  “Dude, if you don’t stop trying to fit me into tags for your app, I’m getting back on the train.”

  Aiden laughed again. He was the laughingest motherfucker I’d ever met. Good thing he had an actual good personality or it would have gotten old really fast.

  “All right. I feel you. No labels just yet, and you just want to experiment. Or, rather, you don’t mind that we want you to experiment with us.”

  “Right.”

  “Well, let me put it to you like this, Christopher.” Aiden grabbed my wrist and tugged me along as he started walking. I expected him to let go once I followed, but he didn’t. “From what I’ve heard, you have a two liter dick and you’re really good at using it in threesomes. You’ve got nothing to worry about.”

  Christ Almighty.

  I was gonna kill Stephanie.

  Aiden Fairbairn

  * * *

  Finding a third wasn’t always as easy as some people thought it was. Especially when your lover is a highly neurotic and extremely demanding lover with an appetite that could take you three rounds in half a night. People wanted easy, and Jace wasn’t always easy. He was just Jace.

  But Chris? He got along with Jace just fine.

  We walked in, me oddly anxious and him a ball of nervous tension at my side, and found Jace balled up on the bed, asleep and wearing sweatpants and a baggy T-shirt. His Kindle was beside his pillow and a bottle of wine sat open on the bedside table. Not a good sign.

  He’d been nervous all day. Nervous in a way I’d never seen about a one-off threeway, and he’d riled himself up into a wreck about how no one would ever understand or truly like him but me. I’d thought about warning Chris that he may be in A Mood but predisposing Chris about Jace’s thought processes didn’t seem like a good plan.

  And Jace would cut off my nuts.

  “Aww,” Chris said, dimpling at Jace. “He’s so fucking pretty. Jesus.”

  “Tell me about it, kiddo. I have to beat dudes away with a stick.”

  “I thought you were open.”

  “Yeah, but on our terms. And we have specific terms.” I grabbed the open wine bottle and sniffed it. “Someone can’t just come up and start trying to pick up my husband in front of me. There’s terms and conversations, unless we’re at the club. Everyone there understands.”

  I didn’t know if Chris knew about Liberty X, but he didn’t ask questions. Instead he nodded with a distinctly charming lack of skepticism or judgement, and walked over to stretch out next to Jace. I tensed, waiting for his presence at Jace’s back to trigger an elbow to the face or gut, but it didn’t happen. Chris walked his fingers up Jace’s spine without getting too close.

  “Wake up, Pantene.”

  “Mmm.”

  Jace stirred. Chris inched closer and leaned up just enough to whisper in Jace’s ear. I couldn’t hear what he said, but I was all about that devilishly dimpled smile, and grinned when Jace’s eyes slid open. There were no signs of the cloud that had settled over him earlier in the day. He looked up at me, blinked, and then rolled over with the sunniest expression I’d seen in a week.

  “Chris!”

  “Pantene!”

  Jace pulled Chris into a hug so tight I worried he’d break the guy’s back, but Chris just wound his arms around Jace and returned the embrace. So, a hugger then. That was good. Jace ran hot and cold erratically, but his hot ranged from Extreme Cuddler to Filthy Vixen. Right now he was in cuddle mode.

  “I thought you’d think I was a fucking weirdo and back out,” Jace blurted.

  Chris glanced at me, clearly startled. I shrugged.

  “Uh no,” Chris said slowly. “Pretty sure I thought you’d want me to back out because I’m boring.”

  “Shut up. You’re not boring. You’re handsome and funny and good at video games if I go by your Xbox prowess.”

  Chris leaned back and looked at Jace sideways. “And how do you know that, Short, Pale, and Horny?”

  “Um.” I could practically see Jace doing his sexy lip bite—the one he did when he wanted to avoid getting in trouble. “I asked Steph for your username a month or so ago, and sort of added you and played Call of Duty with you without telling you it was me? I’m sorry if that’s weird. I thought you wouldn’t play if you knew it was me.”

  Way to be a creeper, Jace.

  Chris bopped him on the nose with his finger. “That’s dumb. Also, in retrospect, I should have identified the big mouth named Queens Queer as someone from my growing circle of queer friends.”

  “True. It’s all your fault.”

  Chuckling, I backed out the door. “I’m gonna get a drink. Anyone want anything?”

  “Dirty Martini?” Jace asked hopefully.

  “Damn, you fancy bastard.” Chris tapped Jace’s nose again. “I’ll take a beer.”

  “Bet.”

  I left them to their Xbox conversation and pulled out my phone once in the kitchen. After thinking for a moment, I texted Oli and Caleb—friend, brother, and QFindr partners.

  Aiden: Pretty sure I have a monstrous crush on our third.

  Oli: Details, sir. Details.

  Caleb: Your third, huh?

  Aiden: bro, he’s not our employee.

  Caleb: He was our model. His face is on our ads.

  Aiden: Yeah, it is. Which is why I want his face touching my face, and maybe eventually getting real close to my dick. The kid is adorable. Serious dick sucking lips too. And that ass? My god. He must do a fuckton of squats.

  Oli: I need to look at him again. I’m remembering him wrong.

  Aiden: How are you remembering him?

  Oli: Short and skinny?

  Aiden: Yeah, you’re remembering him wrong. He’s not as tall as us big bastards, but he’s thick. Fills out his T-shirt nice. Mmm. But that ass. I want my face in that ass.

  Oli: He’s bi?

  Caleb: How’s Jace?

  Aiden: I think he’s just fluid. Doesn’t seem dead set on any label just yet, but is severely unconcerned about me fucking his brains out. I made it clear it was my plan for the night, and he just shrugged. The Rodriguez brothers have the best friends.

  Caleb: Ho
w many have you fucked now?

  Aiden: Oh shut up. ANYWAY, Jace is fine. Jace likes him a lot. So much he worked himself into a goddamn fit worrying Chris doesn’t really like HIM.

  Oli: Uhhhhhhhh

  Aiden: I know

  Oli: Are you okay with that?

  Aiden: Yeah. I like him too. So we’ll see what happens. Maybe we’ll just be friends, or maybe this will be fun and we’ll do it again. Too early to say.

  Oli: Good luck. I expect details later.

  Caleb: Give them my love.

  I made Jace’s drink and grabbed two beers. By the time I returned to our bedroom, they’d turned on Jace’s new TV—because he hated watching it in the living room while I worked—and were trying to find the Fight Pass app on his Xbox. Chris was wielding the control while Jace was plastered to his side, one hand casually draped on Chris’s stomach. He didn’t seem to mind.

  “Watching the fight in here?”

  Chris grabbed his beer. “Is that cool? Jace seems determined to become one with this mattress.”

  “I’m Mattress Folk now,” Jace said, grabbing his martini. “You too can become Mattress Folk if you swap adult clothes for pajamas and stay in bed all day.”

  “I’d probably lose my shit,” I said, flopping into the chair by the vanity. I spun it to face them and the TV, slumped down, thighs spread open as I clutched my beer in one hand. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Chris give me a subtle once over. After taking a slow swig of my beer, I licked my lips and said, “I’m not used to being inactive.”

  Chris looked at the television again. Jace grinned wickedly.

  They found Fight Pass and the fight we’d planned to watch, but I watched them more than the screen. I wasn’t normally this obvious when we played with someone new—usually Jace was the one vamping it up while I diluted his potency with chatter and regular host shit. But this time the tables had turned. Jace was cuddled up to Chris like they’d been friends for years, now stroking bare skin where Chris’s T-shirt had ridden up, and I was impatiently horny.

  It wasn’t just the way Chris sucked on the swell of his lower lip as he watched the fight, or that tantalizing happy trail I kept getting glimpses of, or even his half-grin that he likely didn’t realize was sexy as hell. It was also the casual way he kept an arm around Jace as if sensing my baby needed that anchor. The way he ruffled Jace’s hair or dropped a kiss on his forehead. How he pointed something out or took time to explain instead of zeroing in on the screen the way I was often guilty of.

  That was the biggest source of tension between Jace and me. The times when he was most wound up and in need of reassurance were the times when my anxiety hit record highs, and I found something else to hyper focus on. Like work or sports. He often thought I was ignoring him, but I felt like I was trying to keep myself steady enough to handle both of our neuroses. If I was real about it, both of us had some pretty serious PTSD from our adolescence and neither of us dealt with it in the best ways. He spiraled, and I shut myself away from the world once I began to worry.

  I was worried now. About work, and money, and my father having a change of heart and working to shut down QFindr. I was also worried about this night—which we’d both wanted for weeks—going wrong, and sending Jace into a self-loathing tail spin. But so far, there were no signs of disaster.

  Chris effortlessly fit with us. It was a fucking turn on like nothing else.

  I slumped lower, my hands draped over my crotch, and felt the first twinge of raw lust when Jace brushed his lips to the side of Chris’ neck. It was amazing he’d kept his hands off for this long. The kid was practically a hands-all-over zone. A lot of the people we hooked up with these days—well, all of them—were of a certain feather. They drenched themselves in designers and stayed poised at all times as if waiting for a camera to show up and catch them being themselves.

  Chris was different. Those full lips, big dark eyes, cute button nose, and stocky body were just part of it. Everything in his posture, his accent, the way he cursed and joked on everything, and even that scar through his eyebrow, screamed not Liberty X. He was South Jamaica. He was Queens. Real talk—he was us. Jace blended with the Upper East Side crowd a little better than me just on account of being rarely beautiful, but I really didn’t try. I didn’t want to be one of them.

  Chris was our type. One hundred percent.

  Jace rolled onto his side with a sigh, his hand wandering lower as he turned brushes of his mouth into trailing kisses. They went over Chris’s neck and centered on his throat where he sucked on the prominent bulge there.

  For the first time, Chris reacted. His eyes were still on the television, but there was no hiding the way his mouth fell open or the growing bulge in his jeans. And if that was his bulge half-hard, Stephanie had been right about his dick.

  I adjusted my own and kept watching, still nursing my beer. Spectating as Jace worked someone over always got me going, but this was top notch. He was pulling out all the stops to seduce Chris, to ease him into it, and it was somehow sexier than the times he just ripped off his clothes and bent over.

  Music flooded the room indicating a new fight was starting, but by the time Jace kissed Chris, the TV was forgotten. With his hand making short work of Chris’s belt and zipper, Jace had that big dick in hand as their tongues finally slid together.

  We hadn’t tumbled a guy like Chris in a while—since we’d left our past behind to refashion ourselves for the future. I’d expected him to tense up, hesitate, maybe get rough or aggressive (which Jace liked but only on his terms), to show us he was still a man even if he fucked a queer, but there was none of that. Chris gripped the back of Jace’s head and thoroughly tongued him to the tune of decadent moans illustrating just how much Chris was enjoying the tight grip and tugging.

  I took another slow swig from my beer and zeroed in on the glistening tip of Chris’s cock.

  “You’re packing,” Jace said against his lips. “I could tell you were big, but it’s even better when you’re rocked up.”

  Chris tilted his head back against the pillow, breathing hard. “Yeah, God took the inches off my height and added them to my dick.”

  I choked on my beer. I fucking loved this kid.

  Jace straddled Chris, pulling him into another sloppy kiss. Just when I could see the slick of their tongues and the aborted jerks of Chris’s hips, Jace started kissing down. He traced every line and vein, teasing his nipples, and turned Chris into a wreck.

  Chris pressed a hand to Jace’s face, body tense, and free hand clutching the sheet.

  “What do you want him to do, Christopher?”

  He looked at me then, eyes shining in the dim golden light of the room, but he didn’t say anything. Just sucked in breaths and twitched as Jace sucked and nibbled at every inch of his torso. I loved Chris’s body. It was clear he worked out, but it wasn’t all unlikely abs and violently etched skin. Just sleek muscle beneath a thick padding of tawny golden brown skin leading to the thatch of dark hair between his thighs. I wondered if he was always this groomed or if he’d made a special effort for us.

  “Do you want him to suck your dick?”

  Chris dragged his teeth over his lower lip. He looked down at Jace, still mapping his body with his mouth and tongue, and dropped his head back on the pillow again.

  “Yeah,” he said, voice fainter than it had been.

  Jace scooted down, eager and hungry for it, and I smiled.

  “Don’t make him come yet, baby.”

  “I won’t.”

  Jace kissed all over the column jutting between Chris’s thighs, showing it a lot of love. The tip of his tongue ran along every vein, traced the slit, and then went down to his balls.

  Chris bit his fist. He also kept staring at me. Several times, his gaze flicked down to my erection as it slid down the thigh of my pants. I kept my legs spread and let him look. I wasn’t touching it just yet. I wondered what was going on behind those pretty brown eyes, but the mystery faded after Jace took him down h
is throat.

  “Oh, fuck yes,” Chris breathed. He braced both hands on the back of Jace’s head, gently helping him along as he bucked his hips. “Jesus Christ, you can suck.”

  I killed the rest of my beer and set it down. My heart was starting to race from the lust scorching through me.

  “Can anyone usually deepthroat that big dick?”

  “Nah. But I’m not really getting head on the reg—” A deep moan interrupted the sentence. “On the regular,” he breathed.

  “That’s a real shame.”

  My hand found its way over to the fly of my black pants, fingers tracing the outline of my erection. Part of me wanted to save all the savage force that would spark after I touched it for the first time all day, but the other part of me was entranced by this spectacle.

  Chris’s hips lifted restlessly, chasing the hot wet suction of Jace’s mouth. His fingers tangled in long strands of silky dark hair, and his feet planted flat against the bed for leverage. Watching him fuck Jace’s mouth was everything. They looked so good together. It was always men my size who chased Jace—they wanted to force him down and play humiliation games with someone they viewed as a pretty little bitch boy. Sometimes he liked it, but it was getting old.

  I could tell a lot of our usual games were getting old. What had once been an adventure was starting to seem like the same thing on repeat. But this? This was what he needed. Another person to stroke his hair and stare at him like he was the most beautiful person in the room. Or the whole damn city.

  Jace eased off Chris with his big dark eyes totally dilated and expression wasted. No one had touched him yet, and he still looked like he was on the cusp of an orgasm. Get you a man who loves giving head that much. Just try it.

  “You’re close,” he said knowingly, teasing Chris’s balls with his fingers. “I can feel you getting harder.”

  Chris closed his eyes and took deep breaths. There wasn’t an ounce of self-consciousness in him as he reached down to grip the base of his dick.

  “Come on,” he pleaded. “I’ll get hard again in a few.”

  Oh, fuck yes. He was up for this. Literally and figuratively.