by Aiden Bates
“No!” I said, shocked from the very bottom of my soul. I put my mug down and angled myself to face Charlie. “No, no! That’s good! That’s why it’s so good. It’s real. It’s raw. Like…” I struggled, searching around for an example of what I meant.
Bingo. I snapped my fingers once I thought of the perfect example.
“Okay, the part where Rig stands on the edge of the house, right? That part where he’s thinking about jumping off and wondering if he would fly away or if he would fall? Like, number one, the background with the sunset and the sky and stuff looks beautiful. The sky kind of melts into all this pink and white, and purple and blue, and it looks like watercolor swirls, and just a little bit like feathers, and just a little bit like clouds. It makes you think of flying because he wants to jump, and of bird wings, and of heaven because that’s where Rig hopes Sean is, and it almost looks like a dream!”
Was I making sense? Was I really explaining Charlie’s own comic to him? I didn’t care. I felt like I had just watched an amazing movie, and I wanted to geek out about it, and I was talking to the only other fan, and also its producer, and also its main character, all at the same time. My mind was blown. I didn’t care if I was making sense.
“And it feels really…light? Because of the feathers and the really soft colors? It feels like he really might take off,” I said, kind of bouncing in my seat to demonstrate the lightness of Rig in that panel.
“But it hurts, too? Because you know he’s been walking around with this really heavy weight, and then you’re wondering, if he jumps, is the weight going to drag him down and smash him against the ground, or is he going to be able to let go of the weight and rise up and up? But it’s also a metaphor because he’s going to do the opposite, right? Because if he does decide to let go of the weight of Sean’s death, then he’ll feel like he could jump and fly, but, in reality, it’ll mean he won’t jump. That he’s ready to face life. He’s only killing that part of himself that is still tied to the past and can’t move on! It’s…it’s…it’s…” I brought my fingers up to my temples, and then spread them out to simulate my mind being literally blown.
“It was so much, Charlie. It was so much, and that’s only one part, man. It’s powerful stuff.”
Once I was done nerding out—yeah, yeah, I’d read my fair share of comics as a kid and been into them way past when Marcos was over them—I looked over at Charlie.
He was sitting with his arms crossed together, held very tightly against his chest, his face sort of ducked down between his shoulders, and his cheeks flushed a bright pink.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “Was that too much? Did that come on too strong. I just really liked comics. I haven’t read any in a while. Obviously, right? It’s just… I can understand. I think I can see what you were trying to do.”
“No, no. You’re okay. It’s not too much,” Charlie said, laughing through the beginnings of tears. “No, it’s not that. You’re really sweet. And you’re really, really smart. You’re just also really, really biased.”
“Is this because I slept with the artist?” I asked. Charlie exploded into a laugh, which also made me laugh.
“Seriously, though!” I said, over top of Charlie’s laugh. “Fine, I could be biased. But I can’t be the only one who’s into it, right? What does everyone else have to say about it?”
“Who is everyone else?” Charlie asked, like he couldn’t believe his ears. “Nobody else has seen it.”
“What?”
Charlie shook his head.
“Your parents?”
Charlie shook his head.
“Teddy? Silas? Bennet? Mitch?”
Charlie shook his head again.
“Random strangers on the Internet? Like, online and stuff?”
“Nope. Not anyone in real life, not anyone on Artspace. The comic was completely and totally just for me. I couldn’t show it to anyone, it’s so personal. It’d be like taking out my beating heart and putting it on display,” he said, miming taking something in his fist and putting it down on the coffee table.
“People would comment on it, mostly likely hate it, and end up throwing salt on it and calling it names,” he explained. “It’s too raw. I don’t think I trust the world with it. I haven’t shown it to anyone. Just…”
“Just me,” I said. Understanding him. Understanding what he had just done, what he had just shown me in hopes of it helping me.
This time, Charlie nodded and agreed.
“Yeah. Just you.”
I swallowed and nodded back. But it felt significant. By now I’d seen and held and touched and even tasted about every inch of Charlie, but somehow, this was more. This was intimate. This was his beating heart on the table like he said, and he’d exposed it because he thought it would help heal mine.
God, he wasn’t fragile. Who in the fuck could ever think he was fragile?
I stretched out a hand for his. Charlie seemed to not know where I was going with this. He seemed unsure, but it looked like he was, once again, deciding to trust me because he put his hand in mine. I paused for only a second to lock eyes with him, just to make sure it was okay, that it was right.
And it was. It was right. It always had been. He let me tug him gently forward until he was balanced on a knee between my legs. And then I drew him down until my lips touched his.
“Thank you,” I said, meaning everything and not just tonight. “Thank you.”
Kissing Charlie was like sinking into a steaming hot bath. I immersed myself in him, and surprisingly—it was always, always a surprise—Charlie allowed me to. He’d been through so much, and would have had every reason in the world to build walls and seal everyone out forever. Instead, he was so incredibly selfless, giving himself to others. Where the world could have made him hard, it hadn’t. Charlie had taken his pain and created incredible art, deciding he needed to meet the world again and not shut himself off from pleasure, from…love.
I wanted to give something back to him. I wanted to give him everything. I didn’t want what we were doing to be just sex between friends, some lust induced physical contact. Charlie deserved some real softness, attention, devotion. Charlie deserved to be loved.
He was on my lap, but I didn’t want to do this here in the living room. Not this time.
“Come to bed with me,” I whispered into his ear.
“Yes,” he said simply. I wished I could have carried him to my bed, but there was no way my leg was going to let that happen. But Charlie seemed perfectly happy to let me lead him.
When we got to my room I kissed him again. His lips were so full and warm, pliable under mine. I guided his hands to my clothes, and I busied myself with his. Within moments we’d undone belts and buttons, and bared skin in the silvery moonlight pouring through the window.
The light washed Charlie’s brown hair to pewter and gilded his already pale skin. He was so incredibly beautiful, perfect under my hands, and I focused on every revealed inch. I lapped at his nipples after easing him down on his back, relishing the feel of his skin pulling tight under my tongue.
His stomach and wrists, elbows and ankles; no part was too insignificant for me to spend time on. Charlie kept making these amazing little noises. Moans that caught in the back of his throat, desperate little coos that dripped from his mouth.
I licked the underside of his cock before drifting up to tongue at his slit and suck on the flushed head. He groaned and arched his neck on the pillow, putting his throat on full display. It was a sight that tore a groan from my own throat. His submission in that moment spoke to the alpha in me, and I couldn’t help but want to exploit it. Charlie was mine for the taking, but only after I’d pleasured him first.
I took him deeper into my mouth, sucking on him softly before moving down to my ultimate goal. In a show of control, I swept my tongue from his perineum down to his entrance and then back up again, over and over in a maddening circle, and then I lapped his hole, tasting his sweet essence before finally stiffening my tongue to
tease at the ring of muscle itself.
Charlie slung and arm over his eyes, and he was babbling absolute nonsense. I could catch random words like “yes” and “more” and “please.” I don’t know how long I spent between his thighs. I wanted to stay there forever, devouring him, utterly absorbed in the way his body responded to every flick of my tongue, every light press of my lips, every nip of my teeth as I showed him how much I wanted him. Eventually, he tugged at my hair and I pulled back to see his desperate face.
“You have to, Pedro. Please, please. Anything. I need you,” he pleaded, his pupils blown wide.
“Shhh, mi amor. Shhh, I have you, angel. I promise.”
I groped for a condom and within a few seconds I was watching the head of my cock disappear inside his tight heat. I gave him a second to adjust before easing into him completely and leaning forward. I wanted to be as close to him as possible, and Charlie obviously felt the same. He wrapped his legs around my back to lock me in place. His cock was rubbing up against my stomach, and my mouth was at his throat and ear as I rocked into him gently. From this angle, there was no way I could pound into him, but neither of us cared. This, him, was what I wanted; this caring, loving, gorgeous man.
“You’re beautiful, Charlie. So beautiful. Like this, just like this, just for me,” I said, reaching to squeeze a hand between us and wrap it around Charlie’s cock. I entwined the fingers of my other hand through his, holding onto him, never wanting to let him go.
“Yeah, oh god. Pedro. God, yes, just for you. Yours.”
Yes. Mine. Beautiful, sweet, funny Charlie, was mine. No one else’s. I quickened my pace. I wanted Charlie to come with me. I needed it, but it was becoming increasingly difficulty to hold myself back. I was losing myself in him, but that was okay. I belonged to him, and with him I would never really be lost.
“So good, Charlie. So perfect,” I murmured in his ear.
“Pedro, I’m close… I’m— Oh god, I’m coming. Sweetheart, I’m coming!”
The last thing I heard was him moaning softly as he came between us. His body tightened and his inner muscles pulsed around my cock, and then I was coming too, groaning deeply as I instinctively continued to thrust into him as aftershocks shuddered through me.
So as not to crush him I gently pulled out, and he immediately drew me back into his arms. I rearranged us so Charlie was nestled onto my chest. He kissed my jaw lightly before burrowing his head into my shoulder. I watched his blue eyes close and his dark brown eyelashes brush his flushed cheeks. Then his breathing slowed and evened out, and I watched him sleep.
Charlie was so good. So sweet. I’d never imagined myself with someone as kind, as gentle as Charlie. He was so many things I wasn’t, so many things the world thought made him weak or fragile or frail. He wasn’t any of those things. He knew how to stand on his own two feet and face the world alone, but now? After all of this? I wanted to make sure he never had to again.
19
Charlie
I woke up to the smell of bacon. I rolled over, groaned at the bright sunlight shining directly on my face, and then turned back onto my stomach to bury my face into Pedro’s pillow. His scent was everywhere, that honeyed whisky fragrance I’d learned was distinctly his, and which I’d come to associate with calm and peace. That’s how he made me feel, and ever since the night of our first date two weeks ago we’d been inseparable. Now, sleeping in his bed, which was way bigger than mine, I wanted to just stay here and luxuriate in it, but the promise of breakfast was too strong.
I got up slowly, looking around for my shirt, any of my clothes, really. I spotted one of Pedro’s old army shirts and threw it on, instead.
“Shit,” I heard Pedro murmur from the kitchen. Smiling, I headed in his direction, and then lingered at the entrance just watching him.
“Come on, you motherfuckers,” Pedro said.
Pedro was at the stove, shirtless, his back to the door, and I watched as his arms flexed while he tried to flip pancakes. I admired how his broad shoulders tapered to a slim waist, the way his muscles bunched as he worked, the line of his spine as it dipped into the boxers he wore. I especially admired the occasional flash of divots at the top of his ass. God, he was gorgeous. I wanted him. I always wanted him now.
He must have sensed me because he turned and shot me a wide smile.
“Hi, sleepyhead,” Pedro said. “Hope you’re hungry.”
“You could say that,” I said, glancing down to the way his tight ass filled out his boxer-briefs.
Pedro hummed, as if he hadn’t really heard me. Usually, that much innuendo was all it took to have Pedro dragging me into bed.
“Have you peed yet?”
“What?” That certainly wasn’t what I’d expected him to ask me first thing in the morning.
“Have you peed yet?”
“Um… That’s not exactly a sexy question, Pedro.”
Pedro guided what looked to be the last of the food to the counter before coming to me and tugging me close.
“Didn’t realize we were doing sexy question time this morning,” Pedro said, obviously teasing.
“One, yes you did. You knew exactly what I was implying I was hungry for.”
Pedro smirked. “I’m guessing it wasn’t pancakes and bacon?”
“Could be, but really more in the variety of sausage, if I’m honest.”
Pedro cackled. “That was fucking awful. Ugh. God, ‘sausage,’ really?”
“Yeah, well, you were asking about peeing, so maybe slow your roll,” I said.
Pedro sighed and released me before grabbing something from the counter and tossing it at me.
A smiling baby greeted me.
Two weeks.
Which meant four weeks.
Which meant…
“For the stick,” Pedro said, bluntly. “The pregnancy test?”
My stomach did somersaults.
“Oh, right, of course. Between the comics and well, us, I kind of lost track.”
“Yeah, I saw the new panels,” Pedro said, holding some bacon out to me.
“Oh? What did you think?”
“They’re great.”
“You really think so?” I asked, taking a bite of the bacon.
“I did. I really couldn’t help but notice that Rig seems very…happy, lately.”
“Well, I guess Javier makes Rig happy,” I said with a shrug.
Pedro laughed. “Is that right? Rig is happy?”
“I don’t write the story, Pedro, the characters do,” I said haughtily, but a small smile still tugged at my lips. I was happy too. In the last few weeks I’d been happier than I had in years.
Pedro smiled, and I lifted the test up. My hand shook slightly, so I put it back down so Pedro couldn’t see.
Pedro, for his part, busied himself with double checking to make sure there were no lingering pans on the stove and that all the burners were off. He wiped his hands and then clapped them together once.
“Alright, well, let’s get this show on the road,” he said.
Right. It was time. I headed to the bathroom, surprised when Pedro started following me.
“Umm, Pedro?”
“Yeah?”
“I think I can handle this part, babe. I’m pretty sure I can pee on a stick. Really great aim and whatnot.”
“Oh, come on. We already pee with the door open. It’s no big deal.”
“Umm, sort of a big deal.”
“Well, okay, it is a big deal, that’s why I want to be here for all of it. If you are, you know, pregnant, then I don’t want to miss this moment.”
Ugh. Fine. I wasn’t going to fight him. Not with him having made me breakfast all while wearing that adorable mixture of concerned and excited.
“Alight, alright,” I said before opening the bathroom door and leaving it open. I took out the test and read the instructions with Pedro hanging over my shoulder.
“Three minutes? That’s all it takes?”
“Shh, very important momen
t, here,” I said.
I hadn’t been trying to stall, per se, but I hadn’t been rushing to do this either. I stood at the toilet, took my cock out and aimed it at the stick I held in my other hand. When nothing happened immediately, I closed my eyes and tried to focus at the task, literally, at hand, but still nothing. I was already so nervous, there was no way I was going to be able to pee. I turned to Pedro.
“Look, I get it, I do. But I can’t pee under these conditions. Can you please give me a second? I promise I’ll bring the test right out so you can watch it, okay?”
I didn’t really wait for him to reply. I just guided him out of the door and shut it firmly behind him.
“If you try to come in here, I won’t have sex with you for a month,” I threatened.
“Bullshit. You couldn’t make it three days,” Pedro said. Still, he didn’t try to come back in.
When the deed was done, I joined Pedro in the kitchen. He was sitting on one of the stools, and watched as I put the test down on the counter then sat beside him to wait. I kept looking down at the test every five seconds.
“God, this is the longest three minutes of my life,” I whined.
“Could make it go by faster,” Pedro said, leaning toward me.
“Is that right? What are you suggesting, hmm?”
“Something fun.” Pedro slid his hand along my thigh. Oh.
“So, now’s the time for sexy questions?” I asked.
Pedro found the notch of my jaw with his lips and began nibbling at the skin there. “No, angel. I’d say the time for questions is well passed.”
I moaned and wrapped both of my hands into his hair while he ran his hands up my thighs and into my shorts. He sucked kissing bruises to my neck as he teased and squeezed my cock until I was aching, throbbing for him.
“Pedro…”
Then the timer on my phone went off, and we froze, Pedro still with his hand up my shorts.
