by Josh Lanyon
Something flickered in his eyes. “Okay. Of course. I didn’t—”
“We need to take turns. We need to switch off. So you had Monday night. Tonight is my night.”
His breath was warm against my face. He didn’t say anything. His erection was subsiding—along with mine. Too much talk. I knew it, but I persisted stubbornly.
“That’s fair, right?”
I watched him consider and discard a number of replies. But what was there to say? This was fair. And he was fair-minded, so I knew he couldn’t and wouldn’t object.
J.X. said finally, “But what if tonight you’d prefer it the other way? Because you do prefer it, Kit.”
I shook my head. “No. We’ve got to take turns. And I don’t prefer it. It’s too passive.”
He repeated very slowly, “It’s too…passive. And you think, what? That’s not masculine?”
“Of course not. Although, to be honest, it’s not society’s concept of masculinity.”
“Or yours.”
“Maybe,” I admitted.
He said, “I think maybe you need to be passive in this. You can’t control everything all the time. It isn’t healthy to try. I think maybe it’s a relief for you to let go sometimes.”
I shook my head.
J.X. said, “Why is it so hard to admit you enjoy sex a lot more when you’re being f—”
I shot him a fierce look and he stopped. I said, “You know, there are other ways to have sex. Nobody has to penetrate anybody.”
“That’s true.”
“We could just…do other things.”
He was silent.
“Right?”
“Right.”
“But what?”
He sounded troubled as he said, “I don’t understand why we’re setting up rules and regulations about how we’re going to have sex.”
“I’m not trying to set up rules and regulations.”
“Well, yeah. You are. You’re trying to control, to manage how we make love. To make sure nobody colors outside the lines. And that’s the last thing you need, Kit.”
I opened my mouth and he said, “And it’s the last thing I need.”
That pulled me up short. “You don’t enjoy it the other way around?”
“Kit, I enjoy everything we do together. But there is nothing that feels as good as when I’m buried to my balls in that sweet, hot ass of yours. Those little cries you make, the way you push back on my cock like you just can’t get enough. It’s beautiful, and it’s the only time you really let go.”
My face felt like it was on fire.
“And I know you’re embarrassed when I talk like this, but it’s the truth. It’s all good, Kit, but…” he put his lips to my ear and his breath was hot against my skin as he whispered, “we both like it best when I’m fucking you so slow…and so hard…and so deep.”
I groaned. Just like that I was up again and rarin’ to go. I yearned for him. An old-fashioned word, but an accurate one.
“Don’t fight me, Kit,” he whispered. It sounded like a plea. And that really was ridiculous because of course I wasn’t going to fight him. That was the trouble. It was myself I had to fight.
I shook my head, not trusting my voice. Not refusal. I’m not fighting, that was the message. Surrender.
To seduction. Because even as he was taking me, his cock pushing into my wet, slick hole, shoving in as far as he could go, he was wooing me with soft words and sweet kisses and touches that aroused and reassured all at the same time.
“You like this, Kit? You like how it feels with me inside you?”
I swallowed, nodded. Beyond words.
“I like it. I love it. It’s better with you than anyone else, Kit. That’s the truth.”
He thrust against me. A few tentative strokes. I let out a helpless sound because it just felt so good. And my body had already learned—been trained—to accommodate his thickness, his length. My muscles submitted even while my mind was still worrying at the problem of this dynamic. I was instinctively straining back, wanting more, needing more.
He observed my silent struggle, that naked need. “Yeah, honey,” J.X. encouraged softly, almost sympathetically. “I know. I know.”
But he was holding still, waiting, withholding until I was writhing, until the words tore out of me, “Jesus, J.X. Please. Please…”
He said something—maybe in Spanish—it wasn’t the words, it was that dark, emotional tone that reached me. He began to move, hips rocking up hard against my ass, transfixing me with each thrust. I shoved back to meet him, going after what I wanted, what I needed, with a single-minded ruthlessness.
Somewhere in the distance I could hear my own cries and shouts. And it was okay because the wilder and noisier I got, the more J.X. liked it. And that was exciting too. Exciting and freeing.
We found our rhythm. Sped up.
His hands tightened on my hips, he was pounding into me now, and every stroke was sending flares of exquisite feeling through the nexus of nerves and muscles. Pleasure was too small, too frail a word for such enormous, fierce gratification.
“Jesus God,” I choked. There it was. The be-all and end-all. I was coming in jets of hot white.
J.X. grunted, thrust harder, strained, groaned, and I felt that spill of liquid heat.
“Kit.” He said my name again and again. Just…Kit.
We held each other tight, rocking, trying to milk the last drops of sensation. Wring the last flashes of lightening. Riders on the storm.
Thursday was so normal it was weird.
We started the day picking up J.X.’s car at San Francisco International Airport. We had breakfast out and then went shopping for groceries—real groceries—afterwards.
Back at the house, we put the food away and then we got down to the serious business of hanging pictures and artwork.
“I don’t think family photos go in the living room,” I stated.
“No, I agree.” J.X. surprised me. I’d been bracing for a montage of framed photos of Gage and Nina plastered all over the front parlor. “For one thing, you don’t want every stranger walking into your house to get a look at the people who matter to you.”
Oh. Right. Security measures.
“There are no pictures of you as a little kid?” he asked a while later as we were sorting through framed photos.
“Why would I want a picture of myself as a little kid?” I didn’t even like pictures of myself as a grown-up kid.
J.X. seemed disappointed. “I was looking forward to seeing you in your little smoking jacket.”
“Ha.”
Our taste in art was dissimilar but not incompatible. J.X. liked Jackson Pollock, Lee Krasner and Rothko. I liked Turner’s and Sargent’s landscapes. And I was forced to confess to an unnatural love of old china plates arranged symmetrically on walls. J.X. took the news bravely. We positioned the traditional paintings with contemporary furnishings and then experimented with a Rothko print in the dining room and Jackson Pollock over the Victorian fireplace. I had to admit it all kind of worked.
There was no sign of Beck Ladas and no word from Jerry Knight. It was all quiet on the western front. And the eastern, northern, southern, water and home fronts.
With groceries in the pantry and pictures on the walls, our house did indeed feel like a home.
J.X. disappeared into his office and a short time later, I heard the faint sound of music. The Black Keys. “Tighten Up.” It was actually sort of, well, companionable. Strange too, living with someone who didn’t leave the house in order to go to work. I had expected this to be one of the most difficult aspects of living together. Both of us working at home? If David had worked at home, our relationship would have been over within a year.
Nina called. Laura called. J.X.’s agent called. Gage called. I went for a swim. Rachel called while I was outside.
It was a beautiful day. Warm and sunny. Blue skies for as far as the eye could see, and the eye could see quite a ways. All the way to Coit Tower.
“You know, you’re going to have to talk to Rachel sooner or later,” J.X. told me when he came out to sit at the foot of a lounge chair and watch me swim.
“I know.”
“Just tell her…”
“Yep, that’s the problem.” I folded my arms on the side of the pool, lazily treading water while we talked.
“She works for you.”
“I know.”
“There’s nothing wrong with taking time to decide what you really want.”
“I agree.”
“You’re answering me, but you’re not really talking to me,” J.X. observed.
“That’s because I don’t have anything to say,” I replied. I didn’t want to be irritated with him. It was a lovely day and I was feeling sort of content—for me—but J.X.’s need to fix everything, to fix me, did sort of get on my nerves.
“You’ve worked your ass off for enough years that if you want to take some time…”
I sighed and pushed away from the side of the pool, slipping into a backstroke. “I’m listening,” I called, but of course I wasn’t. I couldn’t hear a thing he said over the splash of water.
“I think we should get some hummingbird feeders,” I said when I finally swam back to the side.
J.X. stopped talking. “Okay,” he said at last.
“And some kind of cushions for those patio chairs. They’re very uncomfortable.”
“If you want.”
“I do.”
“Then we’ll get some cushions.” He rose and went back into the house.
Not happy with me. But if we were going to live together we were going to have to get used to each other. Get used to the ways we were not compatible. And figure out our coping strategies.
Rachel and I had been working together a long time. She knew my little idiosyncrasies and I knew hers. And while I appreciated J.X.’s concern, I’d been a bestselling author longer than he’d been writing. I didn’t give him career advice. And I didn’t want any from him.
He came back outside while I was sunning myself in the lounge chair, and—shading my eyes—I saw that he was dressed in author-about-town uniform: black jeans, black shirt, black boots. My boyfriend the MIB. Maybe I’d buy him a blue shirt for his birthday.
“Where are you off to?” I inquired.
“Monthly writers’ luncheon. You’re more than welcome to join us, by the way.”
“Who’s going to be there?” If I’d truly been welcome to join them, he’d probably have mentioned it before he was walking out the door. But that was okay. J.X. was assuming I wouldn’t want to go, and he was quite right. I listened politely as he rattled off the names of a couple of bestselling thriller writers, and smiled. “Maybe next time.”
“If you get nervous, SFPD has a patrol car in the area.”
I tilted my head, the better to read his expression. “Should I be nervous?”
“No. I wouldn’t be going out to lunch if I thought so.” He was serious. “Izzie says there’s been no sign of Ladas since we spotted him at the Dew Drop Inn. And it’s not like they aren’t looking for him.”
“Right. True. Maybe whoever knocked off Elijah knocked off Beck.”
I don’t know where the idea came from, but I could see it startled J.X. I waved him off. “Have fun. Oh—are you going to be home for dinner?”
“Of course.”
“It’s noon now, so—”
“I’ll be home for dinner. I thought we’d have roast chicken.”
“Okay.” He seemed a little sensitive on the topic of dinner and I wasn’t sure why.
He leaned down to kiss me and that seemed a little forceful too. Maybe he felt like I was shutting him out? I locked my hand about the back of his neck when he started to rise. He nearly tipped over into the chair as I kissed him more thoroughly. When he finally straightened, his mouth was pink and he was smiling.
“I’ll see you later,” I told him.
When I’d had enough sun and water, I wandered back into the house and considered the contents of the freezer. I had a very nice selection of frozen pizza to choose from, but I kind of felt like it was time to return to normal eating. I closed the freezer, opened the fridge and considered the glass shelves crowded with all the healthy options J.X. and I had purchased that morning.
Salad? I really hated salad. I wasn’t much of a lunch eater. When I was working I didn’t want to stop for food. I liked breakfast and I liked dinner. But I liked early dinner and J.X., who did like lunch, preferred late dinners. So I probably needed to figure out something I could eat for lunch. Which brought me back to hating salad.
The phone rang. I let the machine pick it up. There was a rush of noise—like someone was standing by a freeway—and Jerry’s irate voice said, “Christopher, I don’t appreciate your boyfriend butting in between us. I thought we were friends. If you don’t want to talk to me, you should have the courtesy to tell me yourself.”
I felt the hair on my head stand up.
“You can’t treat people like this. Use me when you need something and then dump me the minute your big famous friends show up.”
I started to reach for the phone, but my survival instinct belatedly kicked in.
“It’s bullshit. It’s fucking bullshit. And you’re going to be sorry.”
A long, loud dial tone followed before the phone went dead.
“What the…”
I picked up the phone. My impulse was to call J.X. But I stopped myself. For one thing, I couldn’t disturb him at lunch with something this ridiculous. Knowing J.X., he was liable to think he needed to return home immediately. While I found Jerry alarming, I wasn’t afraid of him. I didn’t need J.X. rushing back to hold my hand. In fact, if he had spoken to Jerry without discussing it with me, I was not happy.
At all.
I knew he hadn’t been kidding about confronting Jerry, but I hadn’t expected this. I hadn’t agreed to this. What exactly had he said to Jerry? Because if anything, it seemed to me that J.X. had aggravated the situation.
I looked at the window on the answering machine. Two messages. I played the first message. Rachel wanted to know how my Nordic noir proposal was coming.
I made myself a peanut butter sandwich and considered the problem of Jerry—and the problem of J.X.
Contacting Jerry might be the courteous thing to do, but I was pretty sure it would be a mistake. And as for J.X…we were going to have to have a conversation about boundaries.
I got my laptop out and took a look at an article in The Economist which Rachel had recommended in one of her many, many emails.
Three factors underpin the success of Nordic crime fiction: language, heroes and setting. Niclas Salomonsson, a literary agent who represents almost all the up and coming Scandinavian crime writers, reckons it is the style of the books, “realistic, simple and precise…and stripped of unnecessary words”, that has a lot to do with it. The plain, direct writing, devoid of metaphor, suits the genre well.
Stripped of unnecessary words? Say what? Rachel had gone mad. I was all about the unnecessary words. And probably about the metaphor too.
The Nordic detective is often careworn and rumpled.
Okay. Fair enough. Morose and unheroic sounded familiar. I could probably write convincingly about some life-sized guy with emotional hang-ups and a boring job.
Most important is the setting. The countries that the Nordic writers call home are prosperous and organised, […] the best Scandinavian fiction mines the seam that connects the insiders—the rich and powerful—and the outsiders, represented by the poor, the exploited and the vulnerable. […] The cold, dark climate, where doors are bolted and curtains drawn, provides a perfect setting for crime writing.
I gazed out the wall of windows at the sunlit garden. Yeeeah. Not so much.
I sighed.
I couldn’t deny that I was enjoying reading Scandinavian crime fiction. I appreciated other people’s existential malaise as much as the next middle-class white guy. I thought
Nesbø was brilliant. And so did pretty much everyone else. In fact, one of the most interesting aspects of my research was the reiteration from all sources that somehow Nordic noir held more credibility and prestige worldwide than any other crime fiction from any other country.
I was glowering over that assertion when the doorbell rang.
My heart, attempting to flee the scene, instantly wedged its cholesterol-laden self in my throat. I listened anxiously to the chimes ringing musically through the house. Then I remembered that we were still getting shipments and packages and this could very easily be UPS. It was unlikely that Ladas would ring the doorbell. And I could handle Jerry.
Even if I didn’t want to.
I went to the foyer, tiptoed to the front door and peered out through the peephole as the doorbell rang for the third time.
A miniature Ingrid Edwards was chewing nervously on her lip as she considered ringing the doorbell yet again. I turned the deadbolt, unlocked the door and opened it.
She jumped as though the last thing she had expected was an answer.
“Hi,” I said.
“Mr. Holmes!”
“Who were you expecting?”
“Well…you.”
“That makes one of us. Because this is definitely a surprise.”
She laughed nervously. “Yes. I guess so. Could I talk to you for a minute? It’s important or I wouldn’t bother you.”
There were so many things I could have said to that, but I had a feeling it would be easier to get it over with. I stepped back and Ingrid came inside. She watched me with uncomfortable intensity as I relocked the door.
“Would you like to sit down?” I asked.
“Oh. Yes. Thank you.”
I beckoned to the parlor and she walked into the room and sat down on the nearest chair with her square white handbag perched genteelly on her lap. “Mr. Holmes, why did you refuse to help my grandfather last night?”
Something in the way she phrased it made me feel like the kind of fellow who pushes old ladies in wheelchairs down staircases.
I said defensively, “I’m not a detective. I don’t even play a detective on TV. I’m just a writer.”
