The Flame: A Desire Exchange Novella (1001 Dark Nights)

by Christopher Rice

  But Shane is sure of one thing -- Andrew Burke isn’t gay.

  He’s known his fair share of closet cases. Cassidy’s husband isn’t one of them. No man can fake the adoration and desire Shane sees in Andrew’s dark eyes every time he looks at his wife. There’s nothing hesitant or forced about the way Andrew grabs Cassidy right in front of him, tickles her on the hips until she collapses in hysterics onto the sofa and smothers her with kisses until she blushes fiercely and asks him to stop because Shane is still in the room.

  Did Andrew shoot him a look in those moments Shane didn’t read properly? An invitation Shane read as a dismissal?

  Hell, maybe that was Andrew’s real motive the other night. He wanted Cassidy right then in the middle of the party, and he couldn’t be bothered to get rid of Shane first.

  But that’s absurd! Andrew had been focused on something else entirely during those feverish moments; Cassidy and Shane together, in front of him, under his direction. Andrew had wanted those things badly enough to risk the closeness and connection the three of them had built together over the years.

  And where had Shane’s focus been? On Cassidy, on the feel of her opening, on her racing heart as she offered him the one thing she’s never given him, and on Andrew’s firm, forbidden grip on the back of his neck.

  And maybe that’s where he should be looking for signs. Not with Andrew, with Cassidy. Forget Mardi Gras and The Roquelaure House. Try that afternoon last year, when he and Cassidy had been snuggling together on her bed, marathoning reruns of The Golden Girls, and suddenly the supple curve of her bare foot had seemed so inviting he dragged one finger across it.

  When she squealed and drove her body back against his, something about her vulnerability and frenzied pleasure had started an engine inside of him, an engine that drove him to take her in his arms and flip her onto her back. But once he got her there, once he had her squealing and panting and trying to bat his hands away, a voice in his head had said, Stop. The same voice he’d heard that day freshman year of high school, when the sight of Brent Parker running sprints on the football field, his tan skin glistening with sweat, had made Shane feel hungry and tingly and sad all at the same time, a voice that had said, It’s wrong. You don’t like any of the names for that feeling. So quit it!

  Years later, he didn’t release Cassidy as quickly as he’d looked away from Brent Parker that day. But Shane had been just as startled, just as frightened. It felt like he’d stumbled across a deeper current of desire. But that wasn’t right either; it had swept him up without warning. There were unexpected consequences to touching Cassidy in certain ways. How could that be? There was more there, it seemed. And he thought he’d reached a point in his life where if it seemed like there was more there with someone, you leaned into it, you didn’t pull away. But this was Cassidy. This was different.

  “Order a drink,” Samantha says and slams her own down onto the table to get his attention back.

  “I don’t drink during the week.”

  “Start. It’ll clear your head.”

  “Is this your way of apologizing?”

  “For what?”

  “For accusing me of trying to break up my best friend’s marriage.”

  Samantha rolls her eyes, lifts a bite of shrimp to her mouth and chews delicately while she considers her response.

  Shane’s appetite has yet to return.

  “You remember Jonathan Claiborne? Used to be a waiter here?”

  “Of course I do.”

  “You hooked up with him, didn’t you?”

  “I did.”

  In the past, Shane would have enjoyed remembering his no-strings-attached assignation with one of the hottest guys in New Orleans. Jonathan’s smooth, rock-hard body bearing down on his, the man’s skillful tongue swirling down the length of Shane’s cock, suckling his balls before tickling the edge of his taint while he looked up to gauge the depth of Shane’s blissful response with a broad, bright-eyed smile. But now these lustful remembrances do nothing to lighten Shane’s current mood.

  Or maybe it’s something else, he wonders.

  When compared to the raw passion he unleashed with Cassidy and Andrew, his hookup with a notorious local hottie seems sort of sweet, but not all that appetizing. Like taking a bite of hard candy and realizing you’re chewing more plastic wrap than sugar.

  “He’s missing,” Samantha announces.

  “Jonathan?”

  “Yep. No one’s heard from him for weeks.”

  “I thought he quit.”

  “He did and rumor has it he got another job. As a call boy.”

  “Are you joking?”

  “Nope. Quits his job here, starts selling what he’s got, suddenly no one knows where he is.”

  “And you think something bad happened to him?”

  “I think he needed to be special. I think it wasn’t enough for him to just be gorgeous and get up every morning and go to work. He had to wring every last dollar out of what God gave him because being Jonathan Claiborne wasn’t enough. He had to go turn himself into the spice in someone’s cocktail. And now who knows what happened to him ‘cause of it?”

  “You’re losing me here, Sam.”

  “Fine. Let me put it this way. I didn’t transition so that I could be some magical drag queen people hire for parties. I wanted a foundation of truth under me, Shane. And you deserve the same. What is it those two call you again? The twist of lemon in their Diet Coke?”

  Those two, he wants to say. These are my best friends we’re talking about. But instead he says, “Don’t be their little experiment. Is that what you’re saying?” he asks.

  “Exactly. ‘Cause when they’re done with you, they’ll have each other. And you’ll have no one.”

  As usual, Samantha’s given eloquent voice to an internal monologue that’s tortured him for days. But her logic crashes up against the fevered memories of those few minutes of shocking intimacy like waves hitting a seawall.

  Of course everything Samantha has said makes sense.

  But for Christ’s sake, he’s not some random gay dude Cassidy and Andrew met in a bar on vacation and tried fooling around with just to, you know, see.

  He’s their… He is their… Has there ever been a name for what the three of them share?

  Third wheel is an insult, and it does nothing to describe their evident love for him. Friend is too safe and it barely suggests the amount of time they spend together. And best friend to a couple doesn’t exactly trip off the tongue.

  What’s the word for two friends who show up on your doorstep at a moment’s notice when the guy you’ve been dating for a few weeks freaks out on you because he’s been sneaking shots of GHB behind your back and you were too dumb to notice? What’s the word for the couple who doesn’t ask a single question when you call them in a terror, your voice shaking, because you just made the guy leave and on his way out he turned over a lamp, kicked the door frame a few times, and then after you slammed the door behind him, he punched it not once, but twice, and shouted, I’ll be back, you little bitch?

  What do you call the sense of total safety Shane felt as Cassidy sat with him on the sofa, her hand in his, while Andrew checked all the windows and locks in his apartment? How can he describe the feeling in his heart—a lightness, an openness, a kind of lift—when neither one of them rushed out the door that night, when they offered to stay with him until he managed to relax? And when he woke up the next morning entwined in their arms, his nose resting in the nape of Andrew’s neck while Cassidy’s head rested on his chest, the early morning news playing on a television they’d all fallen asleep watching—what should he have called the combination of hunger and satisfaction the dual press of their bodies awakened in him?

  If you’re looking for a sign of what was to come, he thinks, looks like you just found it.

  “Bathroom break,” Shane mutters.

  “Shane!” Samantha calls after him, regret stitching her features.

  He waves at her to i
ndicate he’s okay, but just this small gesture makes his head spin.

  Shane locks himself in the bathroom, grips both sides of the porcelain sink, and tries to get some breath into his lungs.

  He’s desperate to blame someone for his current confusion, someone besides Andrew or Cassidy. Or himself. And the only people he can think of are that damned couple, Mike and Sarah Miller.

  7

  They hadn’t just been clients of his. They’d been his very first clients, and he’d figured their flirtations had just been meant to put him at ease. That’s how nervous he’d been during their first day together, apologizing incessantly whenever his cell phone rang, stumbling over his feet in his rush to open every door.

  Relax, kid, their lingering smiles and gentle squeezes seemed to say. Pretend like we’re just the cool parents of one of your friends, and not hard-to-please multi-millionaires looking for their perfect New Orleans getaway.

  Besides, they’d both seemed super conservative, hardly the type to initiate what came later. Mike Miller was a high-ranking former military man who’d made a bundle off defense contracts; the guy was a man’s man by any generation’s definition, gym built, with a high-and-tight haircut and a handshake so firm it could break a wine glass. So what if he liked to give Shane a little wink whenever his wife wasn’t looking? Some straight guys have goofy ways of ending a sentence—it was better than a thumbs-up, right?

  While her husband charged his way into each room with intense focus, Sarah Miller seemed to float in behind him on a cloud of Chanel. She sported a lustrous mane of golden hair and a perfectly even, store-bought tan. Each time they met, she wore low-cut, sleeveless dresses so shiny and well tailored they probably cost as much as Shane’s Jeep. And then there was that husky voice that gave Shane a fluttery feeling in his chest every time she called him honey.

  Nerves, he’d told himself. Don’t read too much into anything. It’s just nerves.

  Besides, maybe clients were always touchy-feely when they wanted you to find them the perfect condo. He tried to get another agent at the firm to buy into this explanation, but the woman laughed in his face instead. “Are you high?” she barked. “Most clients treat you like you’re a waiter who screwed up their order five times.”

  So he shouldn’t have been all that surprised by what happened when he met the Millers to hand over the keys to their new penthouse.

  As soon as the gorgeous couple took a few steps across the threshold, a long silence fell. Shane took that as his cue to leave. But when he opened his mouth, he saw Sarah Miller’s gaze roaming the length of his body with undisguised lust.

  “What do you say we really close the deal, honey?”

  The line sounded lifted from a porn film. And he didn’t think women as classy and elegant as Sarah Miller watched porn films. But he wasn’t going to say that out loud, not in a million years. Which was a good thing because he couldn’t bring himself to say anything at all.

  The last time Shane could remember being so aroused he was a teenager and he’d finally worked up the nerve to download a video of two men going at it. Only rarely since then had he felt this same cascade of devastating sensations. The sides of his face felt tingly and numb. A radiant heat spread through his chest. His heart raced so fast he could feel his pulse beating in his ears. And all they were doing was looking at him. Looking at him like they wanted to devour him. Like they wanted to own him—together.

  “Oh…” It sounded more like a hiccup than an answer, and the couple before him smiled in unison. Then Michael Miller clamped one hand around the back of Shane’s neck and pushed him knees-first to the plush carpet. In stunned disbelief, Shane looked up. Mike gave him a warm, half-smile, and freed his thickening cock from his trousers. And then it was filling Shane’s mouth and throat. Dizzy from the depravity of it all, he couldn’t remember the last time a man had tasted so good, so forbidden.

  He had a few gay friends who’d tried threeways with men and women. They’d all told the same story; the minute the woman laid a tender hand on them, bye-bye boner. But that’s not what happened when Sarah Miller ran her fingernails up the back of Shane’s neck as he suckled her husband’s cock. Lightning bolts of pleasure shot up his spine. And after she sank down behind him and carefully unbuttoned his pants, the light scrape of her fingernails as she stroked his shaft felt deliciously exotic.

  Then she was on her feet, staring down at him as he slathered her husband’s erection with attention. She looked radiant with desire and power. Was it just lustful gratitude he felt? She had, after all, just given him her husband’s throbbing, perfectly sculpted cock. When he ran his hands gently up her thighs, pushing the hem of her dress upward in the process, he told himself it was just to thank her. But when he saw her glistening, exposed pussy, saw that she hadn’t worn panties in preparation for this very event, his gesture of gratitude turned to unexpected, overpowering hunger.

  His first slow, exploratory sweep of his tongue managed to find her clit right at the end. She let out a cry that was as much surprise as bliss—maybe she didn’t expect him to go both ways—then she was grasping the back of his head, guiding him back and forth between her husband’s cock and her throbbing folds.

  Eventually they tumbled to the carpet, breathless, and in the minutes that followed Shane was their ravenous, oral plaything, the taste of Mike Miller’s musk blending with the earthy tang of Sarah Miller’s flowing arousal on Shane’s unstoppable tongue.

  In the few moments when Shane didn’t leave them gasping for breath, Mike managed to yank his wife’s dress down far enough to free her breasts, sucking feverishly at her nipples while Shane deep-throated his cock. By adding Shane to the mix, the married couple had made their bodies taste and feel new to each other again. When Shane added two fingers to the dance of his tongue across Sarah’s swollen nub, her orgasm shattered her, leaving her growling and clawing at the carpet on either side of her spread legs. Then Mike was on his feet, pulling Shane’s head back as he furiously stroked himself to the edge. Shane fought the desire to open his lips, to take the man’s load into his mouth. But the man was a stranger, and some rules still applied.

  And then it was over.

  No chitchat. No small talk. Just over.

  The married couple dressed as if they’d just been woken up from a nap, both of them practically tripping over themselves to avoid Shane’s eyes whenever he glanced nervously in their direction.

  There weren’t a lot of cleanup options; there was no furniture in the place yet, let alone hand towels. But still, the perfunctory manner in which Mike Miller pulled a roll of paper towels from a cabinet and handed it to Shane so he could wipe the man’s cum off his face didn’t feel deliberately degrading with the intent to arouse. It felt simply dismissive.

  You’re excused, kid. Sarah and I will now return to normal, heterosexual married programming.

  Shane was no stranger to quick, no-strings-attached hookups with other men; he’d fled from all manner of French Quarter apartments at all hours of the night. But to have a kettle of new feelings and desire set to boil by such a sudden, ferocious explosion of lust, and then be cast out immediately afterward—it was more than he could take. And when he finally made it back to his Jeep, after he fastened the seat belt and stuck the keys into the ignition with a trembling hand, he was astonished to find himself blinking back tears. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d cried after sex, but that’s exactly what he was doing as the few spots of Mike Miller’s cum he’d missed started to dry on his face. The Millers had left him as confused and frightened and vulnerable as a deflowered virgin, and here he was, crying alone in his car like some idiot.

  But it wasn’t just sex he was crying over. It was something more. An awakening he’d never expected, and at the end of the day, it didn’t have much to do with Mike or Sarah Miller.

  It wouldn’t be like that with Cassidy and Andrew. It would be—

  But he didn’t finish the sentence. Wouldn’t finish the sentence. Could n
ever in a million goddamn years finish that sentence. It was impossible. It was insane. If his head and his heart felt this scrambled after a meaningless threeway with some clients, he didn’t want to imagine how crazy he’d be after—

  Cassidy pulled her dress back for him, displaying the most secret parts of herself for him, after Andrew took the back of Shane’s head in his grip, giving him permission to taste the cock he’s been given only brief glimpses of over the years. After he tasted both of them, together. And then after, the two of them holding him, not handing him a roll of paper towels. Holding him in their arms like they did that night he called for their help against that druggie he’d just thrown out of his apartment.

  He slammed the sides of both fists against the steering wheel, hard enough to make the horn bleat.

  At least he’d stopped crying.

  And that’s what he does now, weeks later, in the bathroom at Perry’s, slams his fists against both sides of the sink. Only there’s no car horn he blows by mistake this time. Just the porcelain basin, and it’s a lot harder than his Jeep’s steering wheel. But a little physical pain is exactly what he needs to stop him from rifling through his entire sexual history looking for more evidence that he hasn’t always been the man he thought he was.

  Then he looks up and sees a golden ghost staring back at him from the mirror.

  8

  Shane makes a sound like he’s been kicked in the stomach.

  When the edge of the toilet slams into the back of his legs, he realizes he jumped backward several feet. Too many things are happening at once for him to make sense of a single one. Threads of gold dust sail out from the four-foot tall mirror as if the glass weren’t there at all, as if the gilt frame bordered a window. Before the ghost vanishes entirely, Shane glimpses its vague, shifting features.

  Jonathan Claiborne…

  A hallucination, for sure. It has to be! Samantha just mentioned the guy so it sort of makes sense. There was something in his food, Shane thinks. Or maybe the stress of the past few days has triggered some kind of psychotic break.