“What I don’t get is why he’s pissed now. I thought he was desperate to fuck you—all he talked about mid-flagrante was how he couldn’t wait to get you into bed. Seemed like he was angling for a threesome but I think it’s more like leftover sexual tension between—”
“He’s not desperate to get me into bed!” I say. And I shove the words out too—much louder than I’d intended.
But Kitty just looks at me, startled, as though she really isn’t in the slightest bit bothered whether Wade wants to fuck me or fuck her or have a threesome or God only knows what. So then I’m just left stranded, with this stupid guilt-ridden sentence I blurted out for no reason at all.
She’s not bothered. I don’t know why I thought she would be.
“I mean…he never was desperate to get me into bed. I don’t know why…I don’t know why things have changed…” I say after a moment, while she eyes me curiously.
“It’s all right if he does, you know,” she says, and then I feel like a complete idiot. She’s just not like that, Kitty. I wish to God I was just not like that. “You’ve waited bloody long enough.”
I flush red then and try to look away from her. But it’s hard, when her blue eyes are so guileless. So open and honest and full of a love I somehow let myself forget.
“Did you always know?” I ask, and that steady gaze doesn’t let me down. She keeps to it even in the middle of words that could so easily be a lie.
“No,” she says, and I know it’s true. Not because of how she looks or sounds, but because she’s Kitty. She would never fuck a guy she knew I loved, and I can see she knows now that I love him.
Or at least, that I did love him.
“But I do wish you’d told me.” This time she looks down when she speaks, and I watch her focus on the wineglass in her hand, suddenly. I watch her turn the stem between her two little hands—both of them decorated with pink and yellow polka-dotted nail polish—and it occurs to me then, with a jolt. She doesn’t care about Wade. She doesn’t care about Cameron. She cares about me. About what I think. “I thought you told me everything.”
“I do—I did—we’re still—” I stammer out, but I don’t get any further. Mainly because it’s a lie. I didn’t tell her everything. I don’t tell her everything. We’re not still best friends.
“It’s OK,” she says, and shrugs. But it’s not OK. It makes a great big rush of feeling go through me, and I have the strongest urge to put a hand on her arm. To whisper to her the way I used to back in our dorm room, all those years ago.
I think back on it and it’s as though I’m still right there, wrapped in a duvet as the cold knocks on our flimsy window, the hopefulness of love and desire still blooming in me. Still making me lean forward and murmur through the darkness about all the boys I long to have.
It’s the word she used to use: have. As though boys were things that could be taken, the way girls could be. As though all of this—all of life—was just one big, grand game, and wouldn’t you like to join in, Allie?
Yes. Yes, I would, Kitty.
“Something else happened,” I say, and then I put my hand on her arm. I lean forward, as though I’m wrapped in a duvet and the cold’s knocking on the window.
She leans right back at me, like nothing’s changed at all.
“What?” she asks, and of course I think of words like betrayal and trust and Cameron wouldn’t want anyone to know.
But then again, he hasn’t wanted anyone to know for about a thousand years. I think his time for secrets—much like my own—is up.
“Cameron had a picture of me,” I tell her, though it’s clear that isn’t enough once I’ve got it out. And I can hear them coming back, so I have to go for it. I have to—it’s my one beautiful shining little gift, in all these years of utter nothingness. It’s rich and glorious and Kitty deserves to have it shared with her, for all the things she shared with me. “And on the back he’d written Tenar. As though…as though he was Ged and I was…you know. And then I found something else of his too—a book filled with writing. He was lying—he does write all the time. Only it’s dirty, filthy dirty, and he caught me reading it so I had to—”
But then I have to stop mid-sentence, because they’re back. Wade tosses himself into the armchair next to Kitty and Cameron lets himself slide rigidly into place and there they are. Our two bookends.
I glance at Kitty, and her eyes are as big as moons. Her mouth is a moon too. She looks like she wants to laugh or cry or maybe die of incredulity, which should really mean something to me. At last, I had something worth telling! At last, I had a story that means something.
But instead, all I can think is this: What was it, exactly, that I had to do? And when I look at Cameron now, why is it that I want to do it so very, very badly? I don’t even know what it is, but I want it. He just looks so still, sitting there, so contained—it’s almost impossible to imagine all of this is going on inside him.
And judging by Kitty’s expression when I glance back at her, it’s doubly so for everyone who isn’t me. Her eyes are even bigger now than when I last looked, and she’s using them to goggle right at him. Any second, and he’s going to notice.
“So, Kit!” I start, with such bright falseness she immediately jerks a look at me. Her upper lip is still curled in what can only be described as explosive incredulity. “You were going to provide tonight’s entertainment, right?”
I hope to God she doesn’t think I mean stripping. Actually, I just hope to God she gets what I’m trying to do here—steer things away from the topic of Cameron, and how he’s a secret sexual maniac.
“Huh?” Kitty says. So that’s a no, then.
“You were going to read a story,” I nudge her, but she just stares at me blankly. Was the news about Cameron really that much of a shock to the gut? She looks like I electrocuted her, five minutes ago. Wade even comments on it.
“OK. What did you do to Kitty while we were gone?” He grins that all-tooth grin, and I try not to have flashbacks to the other morning. To the feel of him, all hot and slick all over my face. “If you went down on her, we’re gonna have to hear about it.”
God he’s disgusting. Was he this disgusting before? And did I like it this much?
“Hey, just ’cause you got to have both of us doesn’t mean we’re, like, your little sex nymphets,” Kitty says, and for the barest of moments I almost laugh with her. I really do. I guess I just don’t process what she’s said properly and besides, it’s almost a tension breaker. It’s good, in a way, to get everything out in the open. Wade slaps his thigh and roars about it, and Kitty hurls a cushion at him, and everything’s cool.
Until my blood freezes and my insides turn to ash and I glance at Cameron in slow motion. Seriously—it’s like the world winds down. And then all I can see are Cameron’s eyes widening—just a barely-there flicker of expression, nothing more—before settling back to normal again, and maybe his shoulders go back a little too. Like he needs to pull himself up in his chair.
No big deal.
Only it is a big deal. Of course it is. I know it is because I’ve felt exactly what this is like—to love someone and then watch them go fuck a bunch of other people instead of you. How many times did I watch Wade do that exact thing to me? A thousand? A million? And now here I am doing exactly the same thing, only I didn’t, I haven’t, I’m not the same. I swear to God, I’m not.
I care about Cameron. I more than care. He’s wonderful, and he should know it every day. He should know how kind he is, how good. How fantastic his story was, and how I can’t wait to read more. And how I can’t stop looking at him right now, because his face is so perfectly lovely that my eyes just have to make up for lost time.
Kitty and Wade are still having the dumbest argument somewhere behind me, but I can’t hear them. All I can hear is my heart pounding in my ears, and I keep staring and staring at Cameron as though I c
ould just will him to look at me with my mind. I can make him, if I just keep staring.
And then after a while, sure enough—he can feel me. I know it. He’s gazing straight ahead as though at nothing, but I can almost slide myself right into his shoes and feel my eyes on him. I can feel that little prickling sensation running down my right side, and how it is to never want someone to know how much you care. How much you’re hurting.
Look at me, I think at him. It’s OK to. It’s OK.
But it takes him a long, long time. Far past the point at which I’m comfortable. I’ve never stuck with something this long and when he finally and slowly turns his head I feel wrung out. The effort of hanging myself out on a limb is almost too much, but by God I’m glad I did it.
Because when he turns and fixes those glacial eyes on me they’re not glacial at all. It’s like he’s on fire inside instead, and understands that if he just keeps on staring he’ll set me alight too. I know it. I know because I recognize the look immediately, as though I’ve seen someone stare at me in just that same manner.
And I suppose I have, in a way. I’ve seen Wade stare at me like that, in my head. I’ve cast him a thousand times as the One who stands in line for the Queen, waiting for her to choose but not wanting her to, burning but hating himself for doing so.
But I was wrong, I was wrong. It could never be Wade. It’s always been Cameron.
“Hey, dinkus, you still with us?” Wade yells, though even the bellowing sound of his voice is barely enough to break me out of this realization stupor I’ve fallen into. He has to lob a cushion at me just to get me to turn around, but all I can think then is what a stupid fucking thing it is to throw. I mean, when did they become the missile of choice? They’re so dainty. They have tapestried birds on them. There are tassels involved.
We should be hurling bricks, in all honesty.
“I’m still here,” I say, but I lob the cushion-that’s-really-a-brick-in-my-head back at him, as I do. Sue me—he’s just interrupted the most profound moment of my life. I think I had minor embolism, I epiphanied so hard.
It’s Cameron, I think. It’s Cameron. It’s probably always been Cameron.
And then I have to hold onto the arm of the couch for support.
“So do you or not?” he says, but I’m on a ship in the middle of the sea. I’m sinking. I don’t know what he’s talking about.
“Have a story to share?” he asks, real carefully, as though
I’m slow.
Of course I go to shake my head, but Kitty whacks my arm.
“Yeah, you do,” she says. “You know—the ones you were just telling me about.”
At first I don’t know what she means—she doesn’t think I’m going to tell all about this whole Cameron thing in the guise of a story, does she? But then it comes to me—a great wave of Oh my God, no.
She wants me to find and read one of Cameron’s stories. It’s obvious. Even without her winking and nudging her head in his direction, it’s obvious. Despite the fact that it’s also insane and stupid and there’s just no way I’m going to do that.
“Oh yeah, those ones,” I say, and then I give her all the Stop right there expression I can muster. “No, no—those ones are no good. But I’ve got these other ones. I could read those.” It seems like a perfect plan as I’m saying it, but once it’s out I realize what I’ve just offered. Now, somehow, I’ve got to go upstairs, find a story of my own that doesn’t suck, and read it aloud for the entertainment of my peers.
Did I say I loved Kitty, earlier on? I actually hate her. I hate her even more as I root through my still-unpacked bags, looking for something I could feasibly read aloud. I won’t lie: there are a lot of stories about fucking Wade. And even more stories about fucking someone who looks like Wade.
But then…then I get to “Hamin-Ra.”
Half of it’s still crumpled from the force of Cameron’s fist. By the looks of things he got up to page forty-four—after my hero has just been tormented for the first time by the Queen. And, oh God, she tormented him good. No wonder it drove him nuts—I can barely look at the words on the page, and know now why I didn’t reread to see what so excited him.
It’s filthy. Worse than filthy, probably. After page forty-four it only gets worse and worse—some of it in frantic long-hand, some of it typed—and then I flick to the part where…I flick to the bit where…
God, I wonder what he would have thought of this. I can’t even imagine, in truth. All I can see behind my eyes when I picture him reading it is him looking at me like he wants to kill me, the way he had downstairs only worse, ten times worse. As though I really am the Queen and he just wants to punish me with sex until I die.
Even though that’s insane. He doesn’t want to punish me with sex until I die, for God’s sake. He just wants to…maybe he wants to…oh, I don’t know.
But there is a way I can find out.
Kitty trapped me, but that doesn’t mean I have to stay trapped. Maybe it’s not even a trap at all, but a new and different path spread out before me, one where I’m not closed off or afraid or ready to just give up everything I am so easily.
I think about Cameron turning his face to me, those eyes of his like a storm over the ocean suddenly. Not like something sunk to the bottom of it anymore. And all I have to do is just take this story downstairs and read aloud, to see that look again. I know it’s true.
And so I do.
The first one is rough, real rough. Not enough to hurt exactly, but certainly not enough to give him what he wants. When the guy’s done he feels sore, and used, and his pulled taut body is yanked even tighter than it was before.
He’s still hard, and that’s probably the worst thing of all about this. That he’s always mortifyingly hard no matter what, and they know it. They know how service to the Queen gets him—so riled he can hardly see straight or speak or do anything but go about his duties mindlessly, with his cock sticking out in front of him—and they take advantage of it, shamelessly.
Last time it was being on his knees, with their pricks in his mouth. This time it’s worse, it’s worse and it’s better all at the same time, because at least now he’s getting the contact he needs but even so…
Lord, it’s hard to take. Even with everything he’s experienced here in service to her Majesty, he’s never had anyone be…there. And when the first guy had slid an oiled finger all the way in—all the way to the hilt—it had forced him to buck against it. He’d let out a gasp, even though they’d told him to be quiet.
And then the other two had tightened their grips around his arms.
He wonders, half in a fog and half out of it, if they know he could break their hold with barely a flick of his wrists. That he could buck the big guy behind him off, as though said big guy weighed nothing. They probably do, because he’s pretty huge himself and much more thickly muscled than them, but there’s something blissful in the charade.
Like a warm veil, drawn over his eyes. Which he closes, as the second guy says something crude like, “You’re not supposed to come inside him. The Queen will know if you come inside him.”
He imagines her cool green gaze on him, on something dirty like a trail of jism running down his thighs, and shivers inwardly.
But Lord—it’s a pleasurable shiver. It’s like that time she told him, “Corin, Corin, how I want to use every little part of you up,” and his stomach had clenched and his cock had lurched and he’d thought, blindly: I could come just hearing her talk like that.
And he could, he seriously could. The tip of his cock is wet, just thinking about it and then feeling someone behind him, stroking over his already used and leaking hole.
“Oh yeeeaah he feels so good. So hot and tight,” the guy says, as he slides a finger in.
But Corin understands. These three—they’re just as desperate as he is. Just as teased, just as tormented, and none of t
hem permitted a woman. They’ve had the Queen’s sylph-like assistant sucking them and touching them, just the way he has—and none of them ever allowed to come. It’s just too much, sometimes, and oh Lord it feels like it now.
It feels like it when the blunt head of this one’s cock nudges against him, seeking entrance. He tries to breathe into it, just as he had the first time—but it’s not necessary. His body’s too eager for it and the way is made slick by the other guy’s come and oh, oh.
It’s too much. It’s not enough.
“Ohhhh man, oh so fucking sweet,” the guy says, then does something humiliating like slap his ass. He starts pumping almost immediately too, shoving Corin hard against the table they’ve thrown him over, no thought to the aching and leaking cock that’s still straining between his legs.
But that’s fine, because Corin feels pretty sure he’s going to come soon anyway. The guy’s cock is thick and hard and every thrust is butting it up against that place inside him, that sweet place, and when he turns his head just a little bit he can see the last guy—the one who hasn’t had his turn yet—stroking over his own prodigious erection.
“You wanna suck it a little?” he asks, and there’s something weird about that. Something weird and uncomfortable about being asked, as though force is now the only thing he understands.
But then the guy gets a fistful of his hair and it’s better, it’s better. He’s stroking the tip of his precome-slicked cock over Corin’s lips, and that’s just fine.
“Come on, man, open up,” he says, and underneath the table Corin’s cock kicks. Pleasure jerks through his belly, low and too much.
“Fuck yeah,” the guy pounding away behind him grunts.
“Make him suck it—he goes tight when you make him.”
He thinks the guy with the cock at his lips doesn’t quite gather what the other one is talking about, but that’s OK. He gets it. He understands totally. When he parts his lips and lets a hot, hard cock sink into his mouth, it sends such a dirty gush of sensation through him that his body clenches, and the guy behind gets a better ride.
Telling Tales Page 10
