All Wheel Drive

by Z. A. Maxfield

  Healey gave a shake of his head. “Labels were Ford’s department.”

  “Drop ’em?”

  Healey let them fall. Once he ditched his socks, he waited for Diego to say something.

  And waited.

  And waited some more.

  A smile won its way onto Diego’s face. Healey saw it for the victory it was and grinned back shyly.

  “Sit on the side of the bed?”

  Healey laughed as he sat.

  “The bed’s an excellent height, don’t you think?” Rolling forward, Diego caught one of Healey’s calves, lifting his leg until Healey had to lie down or suffer a hamstring pull.

  “That’s it. Relax, papi.” Diego rested Healey’s leg on his well-muscled shoulder while he reached down to pick up the other one. “Let me take care of you?”

  “Okay.” Healey pulled one of Diego’s pillows beneath his head.

  Diego’s cool finger slid down Healey’s treasure trail. “We cool if I do this?”

  “Sure.”

  “Touch you?” He used one hand to cup Healey’s balls, the other wrapped around his cock. “Jack you?”

  “Yeah.” Healey breathed the word. Face flushed, Diego grinned from between Healey’s legs and took him to the back of his throat. Christ. “Diego.”

  Diego knew his way around a dick, for goddamn sure.

  He laved and mouthed and teased, tugged and drew away, leaving Healey boneless, speechless. Leaving him open and vulnerable and mindless with desire.

  “You like that, Mr. Wizard? I’m going to open you and plunge inside you and fuck you so hard. You want that?”

  Diego’s sex talk?

  Healey’s bulletproof kink.

  Healey laughed nervously, manically, and pulled a second pillow over to cover his face. Just so Diego couldn’t see him. Not so he couldn’t hear.

  “Shy? Yeah. But you like feeding me your cock. You like it so much. So I can suck you? Want me to pinch your nipples? Spank your ass? Like it a little rough?”

  “God, yes,” Healey gasped.

  “You like when a guy licks you open? Want me to put my finger in you? Fuck you? You want to get finger-fucked? Or fucked for real?”

  “Yeah.” Healey’s hips shot up, hungry for that exact thing. “Do it. Do whatever. Just don’t—”

  “I’ve got you, papi. Don’t you worry your AmStaff-puppy ass about that.” Diego’s hands left his skin. Healey heard the ubiquitous crinkle of plastic and snap of a lube tube cap.

  “Are we—” Healey lifted his head, dazed “—really? You want to fuck me?”

  Diego hesitated. “Or I injected my penis with a needle full of drugs for nothing.”

  “Wait. Is that how you get people to put out?” Healey squinted at him. “The old I-just-gave-myself-a-penile-injection-and-you-didn’t-even-take-out-the-garbage guilt trip?”

  “I’ve been meaning to ask what you’ve done for me lately?”

  “Good point, I guess. I hope to be screaming your name. Will that help?”

  Diego let Healey’s legs down. Then he rolled around to the other side of the bed, reached between the mattress and box spring, and dug out two canvas straps with loops on the end.

  “Wow. I’d ask if you were a Boy Scout—”

  “Nope.”

  “Or . . . you know. A serial killer.”

  “Not that either.” Diego rolled back around. “Yet.”

  Healey chuckled. “God, I hope your dick is as much fun as your mouth.”

  “You like my mouth?”

  “I like everything about you so far, but that’s probably my cock talking.”

  “Shush, Healey.” One finger, then two; lube and patience.

  Prep out of the way, Healey got the show of a lifetime when Diego grabbed the rings to pull himself almost to standing. Fierce concentration twisted his mouth with the effort of letting himself sort of come in for a hesitant, hopefully one-point landing.

  It was a trust fall. Diego sank onto Healey’s body and Healey caught him. The struggle seemed like the best foreplay ever—to simply slide and grunt and rut and tumble together like that until they were balanced on the edge of actual fucking.

  Healey cradled him in his arms. They took advantage of momentum and upper body strength—Diego, to kiss Healey and pull himself far enough across the bed to catch the straps with his hands; Healey, to help him by hanging on.

  “Where are those tethered?” Healey asked breathlessly.

  “Side rails.” The fierce strain on Diego’s face while he pulled himself into position was sexy as fuck.

  Diego Luz was sexy as fuck.

  Healey shifted subtly, rocking Diego with him until he had his legs wrapped around Diego’s hips and Diego’s dick was poised, hard, waiting for a signal from Healey to go.

  “Shit, Heals.” Okay. Now that was funny. “Fuck, you know what I mean. You gotta get me in, Heals.”

  “Go . . . Go.” Healey positioned Diego’s cock while he let the unconscious use of the nickname slide. “Oh, yeah. Go.” He adjusted to the invasion that was both an ache and a need.

  A distraction and a necessity.

  Between Diego’s grip on the straps, and Healey’s grip on Diego, they found a way to start. Found a rhythm that worked between them.

  Inevitably awkward during sex, Healey couldn’t stop laughing, which pushed Diego’s dick out until they got down to serious business. He tried to deploy the tricks he’d learned about Diego’s body earlier.

  “Oh, Christ.” Diego shivered from a simple touch to his throat or his ribs. Rubbing the muscles on his back made him arch and groan and shiver.

  Fiercely masculine, beautiful, tender, caring. All those adjectives could be applied to Diego the lover.

  Healey writhed beneath him as pleasure built and built and built. Until sweat slicked his skin, and his incoherent cries filled the air.

  “This it, Mr. Wizard?” Diego’s words got sharper, his breath heavy and hot on Healey’s skin. “This? Is this how you need to be fucked?”

  “Harder, please,” Healey begged. “Harder.”

  “You got it.” Diego was right there to oblige him, biceps bulging, forearms straining as he hammered Healey’s sweet spot, even as his weight drove Healey into the mattress and gravity pinned Healey’s dick between his hairy belly and Diego’s nearly smooth one.

  Friction. Heat. Energy. Combustion. Bang! Physics. He ran his hand down Diego’s arm—muscle like iron rippling with strength, with vitality—massive, like his chest was massive.

  Enthralled, Healey sought out more of the erogenous zones he’d discovered earlier . . .

  “Ah, Christ.” Diego let his head drop until it pressed against Healey’s cheek. “That makes me shiver all over. Keep doing it. It’s . . . indescribable . . . It feels so fucking good.”

  “Ah, Diego, fuck.” Healey went off like a rocket, spurting come between their bellies. All the breath left him. He lay boneless and gasping hard, shivering in the aftermath of a whole-body orgasm that took him like a tornado and dropped him back on the bed, still spasming. He wrapped his arm around Diego, kissing the surprise off his face before grinning. “Oh my God.”

  “You don’t believe in God.” Diego’s face was a breath away and his eyes . . . they were so warm and brown.

  He sighed. “But now I totally believe in you.”

  Diego reached between them and carefully pulled out before pushing off to lie on his back, breathing heavily. Okay, so. Not a cuddler. Healey reached for his hand instead. His toes were weak. Jesus. He couldn’t feel his thigh muscles. When was the last time he’d come like that?

  Startled when Diego’s warm fingers gripped his just as tightly, he bit his lip. They lay looking through the supports of a modern, industrial canopy monstrosity. Already sleep was reeling him in, but he fought it off, with the idea of making Diego more comfortable.

  He sat up. “I’ll bring you a towel.”

  “I can go. I know where everything is.” Diego wrenched himself over, pushe
d himself to sitting, and pulled off the condom. He dropped it into a waste basket by the side of the bed, and then positioned his chair.

  Healey watched Diego slip his boxers over a cock that was still as erect as it had been before they started, enjoying the play of muscle beneath Diego’s warm dark skin. He sensed these few minutes after sex might be dangerous ground between them.

  “I’m okay with helping clean up after sex,” he offered. “With taking turns?”

  “I don’t like it when guys do that for me.” Diego gripped his rings and used them to transfer without incident. “It reminds me too much of the hospital. You want a beer or anything?”

  “Yeah, some water?”

  “Anything stronger?”

  “Just water. Hey.” He caught Diego’s hand before he could roll away. “You’re a machine and I dug it.”

  Diego shot him one of those patented You think I care? looks.

  But Healey was beginning to recognize when Diego fronted.

  Diego wanted him, but he needed to establish he was the fucker and not the fuckee, which was perfectly fine with Healey.

  Better than fine.

  Getting fucked was Healey’s wonder drug.

  Harder. Faster. Longer. Better.

  Words to live by.

  Stop the world for me.

  Stop the mind-racing, problem-solving, and test-taking.

  Stop the guilt.

  “Back in a sec.”

  Diego left him there, contemplating round two.

  Diego cleaned himself in the bath. A quick wipe-down. A cool cloth and an inspection of his skin for damage. He found nothing, but sometimes there was bruising or an occasional abrasion. You had to be careful with skin you couldn’t feel.

  He left Healey with a damp towel.

  Now he was sitting in front of the open refrigerator, mind blown, unable to remember what he was there for, but . . .

  Oh yeah. Hydration. Jesus, it was fucking cold in the fridge.

  He grabbed what he needed, closed the door, and sat alone in the glow of the ice maker’s “welcome” lights.

  He thought about Healey and sex. Smoking.

  Of course, there was a chasm, a fathomless divide between his life before and his life after the accident. Everything came down to before and after. Sleep and digestion and moods and yeah . . . even fucking.

  He didn’t compare before and after. No one who wanted to move forward sat around thinking about things like that.

  Like an accountant, he’d drawn a great big double line beneath the date of his accident on his mental calendar, balanced the debits and credits, and paid his debts. Now there was nothing before. No pages, no notes, nothing worth looking back at. Nothing worth thinking about.

  He’d never had a lover that attentive, that determined, that supple and giving . . .

  He’d never had a lover that attuned to his every breath—

  That was after. Wasn’t it?

  Because his memories were exactly like his legs. They were there, but the connection had been lost. All the telegraph men, ossified and cobwebby at their lonely posts.

  That was still true.

  But because Healey had a gift for transporting him back, for erasing the crack in his timeline, for negating the damage to his pride, if not his spine, he’d forgotten for a minute or two.

  Diego let the idea sink in.

  He’d forgotten about his SCI, his workarounds, and his need to settle for less. All his preconceived notions got obliterated by the extraordinary, massive new concept named Healey Holly.

  Diego’s courage failed him. The truth of his situation . . . Well, everything but his medically enhanced penis wilted—the pathetic, insensate javelin producing a nice tent in his boxers, but doing nothing for him, feeling nothing.

  He felt affection for his penis. Like Poe, a dog he’d owned once who’d chewed up his pot plants, vomited on his leather couch, and had cost him a bundle at the animal hospital before finally—years of shenanigans later—passing quite contentedly in his sleep, Diego loved his dick.

  He’d acclimated to living with disappointment with both, his dog and his dick.

  Then, along came Healey Holly. Healey got what he needed, if Diego’s come-spattered belly was anything to go by. Closing his eyes, Diego tried out this latest memory . . .

  He’d had better sex.

  But he’d never had a better lover.

  If what he and Healey had going now could get better with a little planning and communication and trial and error?

  “I’m down.” The words, a declaration to no one.

  Everyone.

  The universe.

  “I. Am. Down.”

  He gathered a box of cookies and some chips and a jar of salsa, dropping things in his lap as he rolled along the galley-kitchen setup, then back to the hall, and to Healey, and the next conversation they needed to have.

  That one would not be easy either.

  Healey had shifted onto his side and drifted to sleep in a pose Diego called “freshly fucked West Side frat boy.” His eyes opened. His smile was welcoming and warm.

  Diego unloaded food onto the nightstand, saw his phone, and asked, “Okay if I take your picture?”

  “Sure, go ahead.”

  Diego hesitated. “Not with my phone. A camera.”

  Healey’s knee jiggled a little. Excitement? Anxiety?

  “Video?”

  “Still photos.”

  “Okay, Diego.” Healey’s cock had started taking interest in the proceedings. He threw the sheet off and posed. Clown. “I want you to take my picture like one of your French girls. Wearing this.”

  “Okay.” Diego shot Healey a wink as he rolled to the closet, where he dug out his camera bag.

  “Wearing only this.” Healey’s cock was hard and veiny. Its plum-colored head dripped a string of glistening pre-ejaculate.

  “Very funny.” Diego set the auto-focus for low light and red-eye reduction. Sure he could grab lenses and shit. But like Wolf’s Landing, a lot could happen in post.

  He wanted a lasting memory. To hold on to Healey a little longer, a little tighter than the other guys who’d been here . . .

  Wow. Not good.

  Healey’s smile faded. “What?”

  Diego took a deep breath.

  “Look over my shoulder at the window.” Snick. “You have a great face, you know that, right?” Snick, snick, snick.

  “You think so?” Healey preened.

  “Mm-hmm. Are you Irish?”

  “I don’t know, maybe. Pop thinks so. Holly is Irish or English.”

  “You look Irish. You’ve got freckles.”

  “Yeah. You?”

  “I’m not Irish.”

  Healey’s expression was wry. “Okay, then. Mr. Luz. Your family name could come from practically anywhere.”

  “I’m from LA.”

  “Angeleno.” Healey considered this. Snick. “With no tattoos? Nope. Can’t be.”

  Diego held the camera idle in his lap for a second. “Don’t know why I never got one. Before, it was because my mother wanted me to. And after, I was either too hypersensitive or it seemed creepy to write on all that lifeless—”

  “Not lifeless. Insensate.”

  Who was Healey to correct him?

  “Shut up. What do you know.” Snick. Ding, ding. Fierce Healey was hot. Righteous indignation looked awful good on him.

  “Mami kept telling me what kind she thought I should get. ‘Por mi madre hermosa, piedosa, gloriosa.’” He mimicked her, but gently. Con afecto. “‘Get something with a rainbow, m’hijo. No, get “Si, Se Puede.” No, get “YOLO.”’”

  “Oh no, she did not.”

  “She did.” Diego shuddered. “I don’t speak ill of the dead, but Mami, que Dios la tenga en gloria, was meme trash.”

  “You’re wonderful when you speak Spanish.” Snick.

  Diego studied the shot on the DSLR’s screen. Being behind the camera all those years, observing everything through the fi
lter of his lens and then finding the threads of the story the images had to tell, was his private thing. It was an internal thing. His work went on largely behind the scenes and for him, the end result was always tangential to the search for the next story.

  Nobody looked at him if he did his job right.

  Nobody saw him unless he wanted them to.

  Now, nobody saw him at all, except Healey Holly, and that made him dangerous not just to Diego’s routines, but to his heart.

  He’d forgotten the magic words. Go carefully. Handle with Care.

  You are rebound guy.

  “I’m down for fucking, but I’m not in the market for a boyfriend, Healey.”

  Healey’s expression—an awful cocktail of blind-sided and natural optimism losing ground to disappointment—was the picture Diego didn’t take. Couldn’t, wouldn’t. He shouldn’t have started this in the first place. Healey wasn’t a player. Healey wasn’t a guy you fuck and forget.

  Healey sat up. “I see.”

  In a word, he looked resigned. He looked kind and caring and warm and resigned. Diego set the camera in his lap and rolled forward.

  “It’s not that I don’t think you’re a great guy.”

  “No. I know. You’re a great guy too. I’m not even in town for very long, really.”

  “Right. Of course. How many companies are trying to hire you?” he asked brightly. “Or will you teach? You just need to get back on your feet, is all.”

  “Said the man who knocked me off them.” Healey waited a few seconds before taking the camera from Diego’s nerveless fingers. “Too soon?”

  Diego laughed, and the tables got turned. Snick.

  “Wait—” Healey lowered the camera. “You mind me taking your picture? I should have asked.”

  He shook his head. “It’s my camera. I can erase them if you make my butt look fat.”

  Snick. “Tell me more about your family. Your mom believed in metaphysical healing and she wanted you to get a tattoo? What was that like?”

  “Exhausting,” he said truthfully. “And solid. My mom was a force of nature. When I had my accident, she spent so much time learning about SCIs, caregiving, finding new therapies, new doctors. She pulled me through that. She didn’t give me any choice.”

  “She advocated for you when you couldn’t advocate for yourself.”