by Julie Bozza
“Must be your turn, Albert,” Ash panted at last, sprawled back in beautiful abandonment, overly pale on the peach-colored sheets. “When I’ve regained a little energy,” he qualified, “and equilibrium … then let me at you!”
Albert was sitting cross-legged on the bed. While he wasn’t touching this unexpected partner lying beside him, his gaze ate Ash alive. Even so, he snorted disparagingly at the younger man’s enthusiastic words and everything that belied them. “I would have thought you had more stamina,” he commented. When Ash opened his eyes, Albert’s impassive mask was in place. The younger man didn’t seem to expect anything else; he smiled fondly.
“You’re obviously not taking enough credit for this current state of affairs,” Ash said lazily, expression as content and honest as Albert’s was not. “Quantity of orgasms isn’t the issue here; we’re talking quality.”
“That sounds suspiciously like flattery.”
“Truth. In fact, truth and beauty - this has been amazing. And it only gets better from here on in.”
“And that sounds like misguided and romantic optimism.”
A hand reached to shape itself around Albert’s knee, then to slowly progress up his inner thigh as if intent on learning him by touch. “Let me at you, Albert,” Ash asked again.
“I told you, we do this on my terms.”
“And that precludes me making love to you?”
“It’s not making love,” Albert snapped. He covered Ash’s exploring hand with his own, halting it mere inches away from his genitals. “I can do without the verbal embellishments.”
“Come on,” Fletcher murmured, “it’s obvious you’re interested. There’s some weighty evidence here to prove it.”
“Don’t. Just stop it right now.”
The cold words finally broke through Ash’s preoccupation. He took his hand away from Albert’s thigh, though the gesture lacked the umbrage and embarrassment that Albert would have anticipated from anyone else. “Then tell me your terms,” Fletcher said softly, “because I’ll meet them, whatever they are.” And, at last, there was the faintest hint of rebuke: “You should know that.”
Albert stared at the younger man, totally disarmed all over again and wholly unwilling to show it. “Is everyone in Idaho as contrary as you?”
“No one. Not even close.”
After a moment, he realized Ash was obediently waiting, though patently hungry for more, so Albert leaned over him to work on playing a new symphony on this most perfect of instruments.
It was only when Albert kissed the sensitive and willing mouth that he remembered exactly how many months it had been since he’d last had an orgasm. The eleven years since he’d had sex abruptly added an urgent impulse to that knowledge. The need and the music combined to inundate him, to sweep through him and the man he was touching. Tsunami. The power of it overwhelmed all thought, all responsibility, so that when his body urged possession the only voice Albert listened to was Fletcher’s: “Do it, Albert. You said you were safe. Just do it, damn you!”
Even the clumsy hectic painful confusion of two novices didn’t cause Albert doubt. The confusion resolved to a hard hot haven - and Fletcher’s moans somehow conveying both his own difficulty in accepting Albert as well as his insistence that Albert continue - and Albert’s own sense of victorious joy in having this beautiful man.
The tumultuous wave reached its apex, there was a taut still moment, then it came crashing down upon him, dragging Albert below to pressured completion, buffeted by the darkest of blues.
Eventually he surfaced, groggy and terribly unsure. The din of the storm had settled to a monotonous, insistent drumming. Their joining had become an uncomfortable tangle of heavy limbs. “Fletcher?” Albert asked, afraid to move or to look at the man.
“Oh damn,” Fletcher murmured, dazed but heartfelt.
Albert grimaced. He’d rarely known this man to swear before today. “Are you all right?”
There was a sound somewhere between laughter and a groan, which coalesced into a chuckle. “I hate it when people ask things like that.” And he quoted in a mock passionate tone, “Was it good for you, too, darling?” Fletcher laughed again. “Well, you were there - if you were paying any kind of attention, you should know!”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t worry. I’m a little too overwhelmed right now to make any kind of sense. Let alone be polite.”
Albert considered this for a moment, then at last opened his eyes and turned to his companion. For some reason, Fletcher seemed happy. His smile, while shaky, was genuine. “I meant,” Albert clarified, “I’m sorry for …” How embarrassing, to find your vocabulary so limited, in such a ghastly situation - all the words that sprang to mind were too clinical or too cruel. He couldn’t quite say the word rape, though it was true. And he wouldn’t resort to -
“… fucking me?” Fletcher supplied.
“If you must. Yes.”
“Don’t be. Sorry, that is.”
Albert frowned. “It wasn’t my intention to do that. I lost control. It was wrong.”
“Are you serious?” Fletcher’s expression became overcast when he ascertained that was indeed the case. He continued, “It would not qualify as a felony and you should damned well know that. I wanted it, too, Albert. You were there, you heard me, you felt me. Was I struggling? Did I once tell you no?”
Shrugging, Albert tried to turn away from the bright gaze, but Fletcher grabbed him, forced him to face the issue.
“If I had, you would have found another way.”
“Would I?” Albert asked bleakly.
“Yes. I have complete faith in you. And it is not unfounded nor is it misplaced.” Ash let him go, but settled them both into what was presumably supposed to be a comfortable embrace. “You want proof I enjoyed that?” Ash murmured after a while. “Proof that is refusing to go away?”
Albert remained silent, but Fletcher took one hand in his, and guided it to Fletcher’s engorged genitals. The poignant regret of it all was close to bringing Albert to tears, but he had cried himself out for good or ill when he was five. For a while, he simply let himself caress the younger man.
“Gently, this time, Albert.” Fletcher chuckled again, breathless. “You are so damned good at this.”
“I have to know something first.” Albert leaned up on an elbow.
“What, love?”
He flinched at the endearment, but continued, “You wanted me to provide you with a counter-balance to the darkness. And I do that to you.”
“It’s all right,” Ash said in a whisper.
“But I …” There was no way to say it without descending into Fletcher’s melodrama. Anger roiled through him again. Damn this man and what he brought Albert to. “I rejoiced in possessing you!”
“How terrible,” Fletcher agreed, but ironically. “No, Albert, it’s fine. I was rejoicing in being possessed. If only you’d paid as much attention -” Fletcher ran a hand down Albert’s arm. “I didn’t think you were listening to all my nonsense about juggling the darkness.” Before Albert could reply, he added, “Come on. I think you should rectify this rather more immediate problem you’ve left me with.”
No one else had ever known quite how to disarm him. For that matter, there had never been anyone else Albert would suffer to try. Reflecting on this alarming thought, Albert leaned in to kiss the man and deftly brought him to a bright, soaring orgasm.
“This is the truth!” Fletcher Ash said. Then he called it out loud: “The truth!”
Albert had never been so frightened by the truth before. He said, “Go to sleep now. I have to work tomorrow.”
“Sweet dreams, love,” was the happy murmur.
“That would be a first.” But he settled in beside Fletcher, and to his later surprise promptly fell deeply asleep.
Albert sat in the passenger seat of the Saab, waiting for Fletcher to turn the ignition, to drive them back to civilization. They were in their FBI suits again, after four days of casual
clothes - which for Ash meant torn jeans and tatty cotton sweaters, and for Albert meant shirts and knitted woolen sweaters and slacks. Ash had taken extra leave to coincide with the weekend and Albert’s rostered time off - though, as Albert usually chose to work through the majority of these imposed breaks, the younger man had to insist on them spending the days together. “You’re prepared to take a day off to look after the garden - do the same, but look after me instead.”
Reluctantly acceding to Ash’s wishes, Albert had followed him on a whirlwind sightseeing spree through New England, providing a sardonic counterpoint to Fletcher’s enthusiasm and admiration for all things natural. They had returned to a hotel room at intervals, in a different town each day, where Albert further indulged them both. It had been, he admitted to himself, a richly pleasurable experience - but also a comparatively insignificant one. There were other things in life. It would have been wiser to keep working, and spend their free nights together at his house.
Ash had been staring blindly through the windshield for a while now, apparently lost in some internal dialogue. Suspecting that Fletcher might be entertaining similarly regretful thoughts, Albert didn’t break the silence. But eventually Ash turned to him and said in his blunt and honest way, “I don’t love you the way you deserve to be loved, Albert. The way you want me to.”
Albert scowled, and snapped, “I don’t want you to.”
“If you give me a little time, if we’re together, surely …” But the younger man wasn’t comfortable holding out hope that he couldn’t guarantee. It was a measure of how much he cared for Albert that he’d even consider a promise of possible future love, let alone voice it.
“I don’t want to be another of your romance novel adventures, Ash.”
Focusing now on his companion’s annoyed denials, Fletcher’s expression was at first disappointed, then patient. “You told me you did want me to love you that way,” he said in quiet but firm reminder, “nine days ago, the first night we spent together. Don’t start lying to me, Albert. That would be the cruelest part of this.”
“I’m not lying,” Albert retorted impatiently. “I said that, yes, without fully considering the implications. But it would never work, so I don’t want it.”
Ash frowned at him. After several beats, he asked, “So, what do you want that I can give? Would you like to have sex with me sometimes? Do you want to be friends?” And again he offered, “Just tell me your terms.”
“All of that,” Albert said, ungracious at this understanding and generosity. “While you’re willing. If you’re prepared to take second priority.”
“I was prepared for fourth or fifth.” Ash chuckled for a moment. Then the seriousness returned, and he murmured, “You dislike yourself about as much as I hate myself, don’t you, Albert?” But the silence stretched easily enough between them now. Ash smiled sadly, reached a hand to hold fast to Albert’s, even lifted it to his lips for a moment.
And then Ash drove them back to Washington.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
WASHINGTON DC
OCTOBER 1984
The phone rang and Albert sighed before answering. “Sterne.”
“You can drop the formal tone - it’s me.”
“Ash,” he acknowledged, having guessed as much. The only other calls he received at home were from headquarters - although there had been three from Peter Ash over the last eighteen months, as he rang around the country trying to find his son for their Sunday conversations. Albert added dryly, “What a surprise.”
“I don’t know how I’m supposed to take you seriously when you drip that much sarcasm.” Then, with no pause, “What are you doing?”
Albert had suffered this interrogation most evenings over the past seven weeks. “Eating dinner, reading an article, listening to Mozart.” Anticipating the next question, Albert continued, “Dinner is a vegetable roulade, made from corn, leeks and ricotta cheese.”
Fletcher groaned. “That’s so unfair. I just fried up some eggs and toast. The former was tough and the latter was burnt.”
“Even you should be able to learn how to cook properly. Eggs and toast is hardly a nutritious meal.”
“But how can I ever aspire to the standards you and Harley set?”
“I should apologize for being a good example?”
“And what’s the article?” Fletcher asked. He rarely seemed to have qualms about diverting the course of a conversation, or ignoring Albert’s barbs.
“Some student’s suggestion that hypostasis can be used to give an accurate time of death, a theory that no one has taken seriously for decades. There are too many variables, though someone with a great deal of experience can draw a fairly accurate conclusion if the surrounding temperature is known, and the corpse’s -”
“You’re not kidding, are you?” Fletcher interrupted. “How can you read that stuff over dinner? I’m in danger of losing my appetite just thinking about it.”
“Perhaps I should discuss the Mozart instead,” Albert said, laying the urbanity on thickly. “Serenade for Winds, K 361. A beautiful piece.”
“Yes, I can hear it. Sort of slow, isn’t it?”
“It is exquisite and you are a philistine.”
“Why, thank you. Remember that vegetable gumbo you made me? Next time we eat Creole, we’re going to listen to something more appropriate. I just bought an album of zydeco music.”
“I’m sure it would be safer for all concerned if you left it in Colorado.”
“You don’t scare me.”
“What a pity.”
A full-bodied pause, then the younger man said, “I miss your … cooking.”
“I’m sure you can survive on eggs and toast,” Albert replied, annoyed at both the innuendo and his body’s warm reaction to it. “If you’re visiting on the weekend, I’ll make a roulade for you then.”
“Great - and what else is on the menu?”
How best to quash this conversation without overtly acknowledging what Fletcher was implying? “Don’t you have better things to do than badger me?” Albert eventually asked. “I have a report to write. I told Jefferson it would be ready first thing in the morning.”
“Since when did you care about Jefferson?” But, even as he protested, Fletcher had caught on. “You’re still paranoid about our phones being tapped, aren’t you? Why would they do that?”
“Because they can.”
“That sort of thing went out with Hoover.”
“I think not.”
“You’re implying our conversations are open to misinterpretation.”
Albert took a moment to swallow his anger at this man, even though Fletcher was more or less playing along with the word game. “Don’t push it, Ash,” Albert advised in what he hoped was a reasonable tone of voice. “You know they will hear exactly what they want to hear.”
“Maybe they’re not imaginative enough to make the assumption.”
“It’s so unlikely an assumption to make, is it?” Albert bitterly retorted. But, yes, who could possibly leap to the conclusion that anyone loved Albert Sterne? That anyone would be prepared to have sex with him, without generous recompense? Fletcher Ash was, for example, using him as a distraction, a way of keeping his sanity from unraveling. Albert had resigned from hope years ago - he was surprised to find these disappointments still rankled.
“Yeah,” Fletcher was saying. “No one with an ounce of intelligence or common sense puts up with me for any length of time, just look at the trail of failed relationships I leave behind me. Yet we’ve been friends for years. Whatever else they think of you, no one denies you’re smart. The question therefore becomes: what do you see in me?”
Silence. Then, “I have to write that report,” Albert said. “I assume you haven’t any news about your pet serial killer.”
“No, nothing happening today, as far as I know. But it’s only a matter of time.”
“Call me when you hear something.” And Albert hung up the phone, alarmed to find his hands shaking, annoyed
that thoughts of Fletcher refused to beat a dignified retreat. Albert should have known better than to surrender himself to this curious, demanding, ebullient man. The costs of transitory sexual satisfaction were high; Albert trusted that Fletcher’s interest in him would prove just as transitory.
The previous weekend amply demonstrated some of those costs. Despite Albert having made it perfectly clear in the early years of their friendship that he was the last person to acknowledge his own or anyone else’s birthday, and despite the fact Fletcher had until now tactfully pretended ignorance of the date, Ash apparently felt that a sexual partner was expected to help celebrate such mundane occasions, even though a friend wasn’t.
