A Fool and His Manny

by Amy Lane

  He stood up and made little shooing motions at Quinlan. “All you’re doing is washing your hands and sitting down. Mom cooked, and I’m serving you tonight.”

  “Because why?” Quinlan moved to the sink on automatic to wash his hands and noticed the pan of beef risotto and the two plates with covers on the counter.

  “Because I asked her to,” Dustin said, surprising him. “I mean, I can cook, but she made that really cool salad, the one with the mushrooms, and a fruit thing for dessert. You know. Special.”

  Quinlan sat down while Dustin washed his hands and started plating the food from the stove. “What’s the occasion?” He stared over into the living room while the nutbar kitten chased the teeny red dot in the same way a race car chased the horizon. Literally—the kitten was going sideways off the couch.

  “Well, the doc said you might live, we got kittens for your apartment, and you’ve let me stay here for a week. She felt like she’d done a good job mothering, and we’re getting laid.”

  Dustin set the plate down in front of him on the placemat, with silverware, but Quinlan was too busy staring at him to even think of food.

  “You told your mother that?”

  “No! Oh my God—that’s way too much information! No. I told her I wanted a romantic meal. Something that would….” Dustin looked away and mumbled.

  “I’m sorry, I don’t speak Martian.”

  Dustin turned back to him and gave an overexaggerated sigh. “Something that would let you know you were appreciated. I’m glad you’re better. I’m thrilled you took the kitten suggestion on faith and ran with it.”

  The kitten went ripping over the front of the couch and down the back of the couch and around for one more lap, and they both winced.

  “We have to name that thing,” Quinlan said, his heart a little overwhelmed at the romantic dinner idea.

  “You got any suggestions?” Dusty asked, setting his napkin on his lap and gesturing for Quinlan to do the same. Nica’s roses—overblown but very sweet—sat in a coffee mug in the middle of the table, and Quinlan’s heart swelled another size.

  “Nutbar,” Quinlan said decisively as the kitten ripped another path up and around the couch.

  “Great! What about the other one?”

  “That one’s yours to name!” Quinlan laughed. “I did the hard one.”

  “He only does one thing—sleeps.” They both looked to the kitten, a ball of tiger-striped contentment in the corner of the couch.

  “Snoozer,” Quinlan said, smiling a little. “Nutbar—”

  “How about Nutjob—’cause that sounds less like dessert.”

  “It also sounds a little dirty,” Quinlan realized belatedly.

  Dustin’s laugh was more than a little dirty. “That’s the best part.”

  Quinlan snorted. “Okay, then. Nutjob and Snoozer. They’re a pair.”

  Nutjob did another zoom around the house.

  “A pair of destructo-bots,” Dustin said, voice dripping with satisfaction. “Now eat!”

  Dinner was—charming. The food was good, because it was Nica’s, but Quinlan had never had a hand-tailored, hand-delivered dinner, and sitting down to talk to Dustin over a formal romantic meal in his own apartment quite simply charmed Quinlan into letting go of his reservations, his inhibitions.

  He and Dustin talked like they had for the past few years—except there was a ripe possibility between them—one he stopped shying away from.

  “So,” Dustin said, finishing off his beef medallions. “School starts next week. You and Mom back doing the dance?”

  Quinlan grunted. “Actually,” he said, thoughtfully chewing his second medallion, “Bobbie called yesterday while you were at work.” He had three pieces of meat—he was probably giving the third to Dusty. “She got offered a professorship and wanted to know if I could share.”

  “Share?” Dustin polished off his risotto. “Like….”

  “Well, like I drop the kids off to school, drive to the college, teach two classes two days a week, and get home in time to pick them up. I mean, I have an MA, and I’m working on my doctorate, and this would put me on campus more so I might finish. And it would give Bobbie some room, because she’s not ready to work full-time. I was going to talk it over with your mom—”

  “When?” Dustin asked, setting his fork down.

  “Well, after I talked to you, I guess.” Quinlan frowned. When had he made that decision? That he would talk to Dustin about it before he talked to Nica? He wasn’t sure, but it seemed to be momentous.

  “So, I like this plan. You’re right—you should be doing more with your music and your education.” He frowned. “You do like teaching college, right?”

  Quinlan thought about it. “I like teaching,” he said thoughtfully, gesturing to his last piece of meat.

  Dustin took the medallion and caught his hesitation. “But college?”

  “I like kids better,” Quinlan said simply, remembering the overblown drama of musical beds on the college tour. “I mean, I love playing, and I should probably finish my doctorate. I just….” Dustin had been right. “I guess music’s not the only thing in my life anymore.”

  Dustin nodded sagely. “I guess it’ll do for now,” he said, like he had other ideas. He took a bite of tenderly cooked beef and smiled brightly. “So in that case, sharing the job sounds great. Yeah. I think it’s good.” He looked Quinlan soberly in the eyes. “I can say my boyfriend’s a professor.”

  “A teaching assistant,” Quinlan corrected, and Dustin shook his head.

  “Do you think anybody I talk to is going to see the difference?” He leaned in and took Quinlan’s mouth, both of them still tasting like dinner. “I see you. Working at things you love. Taking care of kids, teaching. You’ll figure it out. It’s a good thing.”

  Quinlan flushed and stood to take their plates to the counter. “Are you done? I can put these in the—”

  Dustin stood up behind him and kissed his neck.

  Quinlan dropped the plates the last half inch with a clatter and gasped. “Uh….”

  “I’m still hungry,” he confessed into Quinlan’s ear. “But I got priorities.”

  Some priorities! Quinlan dropped his chin and held tight to the counter. “Uhm….”

  “Do you know how bad I want you?” Dustin whispered, right up against his ear. “I worked really hard to be civilized, Q. But dinner’s over.” He kissed under Quinlan’s jaw, and Quinlan let out a little whine.

  He felt compelled to tell Dustin the truth about sex.

  “This might not….” He gasped as Dustin nibbled. “I mean, I’m not that great at—oh God!” Dustin’s busy fingers rubbed his nipples through his T-shirt, and he had to fight to find words. “Dusty!” He swallowed hard and put his hands over Dustin’s, trying to let him down easy.

  “What?” Quinlan turned in his arms and saw that Dustin had the sort of predatory gleam he used to have during his karate matches or his testing—the look that said he really didn’t care if anyone else thought he could do this or not, he knew he could do this, and that’s all that mattered.

  “Dusty, I’m not… really that good at sex, okay? I mean… I know you’ve been waiting for a while, but I’m… I’m sort of a wash at it. I just don’t want you to get your hopes up, you know?”

  Dustin threw back his head and laughed, so loud and so deeply Quinlan could feel it where their bellies touched. “Oh, Q—that’s… that’s precious. You’re trying to let me down easy! Oh my God! That’s awesome!”

  “What? I’m just trying to say—”

  Dustin’s mouth crashed down on his like the hammer of doom. Every synapse in Quinlan’s brain shorted out—words, gone. Inhibitions, gone. Excuses—annihilated.

  All the fussy, persnickety bullshit he’d used to put between himself and any potential suitor over the last few years disintegrated—even the smoke blew away.

  All that was left were Dustin’s hands spanning his waist and Dustin’s mouth plundering his like a juggern
aut of sexual devastation.

  There were no pauses. There was no coming up for air. Quinlan clutched at Dustin’s shoulders like a swimmer clutching a lifeline, and Dustin kept pumping his breath, his life into Quinlan’s body.

  Dustin’s bare palms were shockingly hot along Quinlan’s rib cage, and Quinlan had no choice but to raise his arms over his head and let Dustin slide his shirt up and off.

  Shirtless in his own kitchen, he shivered—not from cold but from sexual electricity, and Dustin wrapped those brawny workingman’s arms securely around him and kept kissing.

  Quinlan felt himself being maneuvered, walked back, around the table, into the hall, and every time he tried to pull away to so much as steer himself, Dustin would kiss him some more—and keep him away from the doorframe, or the chair, or the wall.

  The edge of the bed against his knees surprised him, but only in a peripheral way, like he was surprised they’d gotten there at all.

  “Stay there,” Dustin ordered. “Don’t run away.”

  Quinlan glared at him as he stripped the comforter down from the head of the bed. “I’m not a—”

  “Frightened virgin? The hell you’re not! Jesus, Q, if I’d known you were this nervous about sex, I would have moved on you three years ago.”

  “I am not nerv—”

  “Strip for me,” Dustin commanded, his voice hard, his eyes at half-mast.

  Quinlan’s lips parted but no sound came out.

  Dustin gave a sultry smile. “Can’t do it, can you?” He walked back around the bed and pulled Quinlan to his feet. Quinlan licked his lips, mesmerized, a little frightened by the grim, gritty want he saw in Dustin’s face.

  This was not like Quinlan’s other sexual experiences.

  “I… I mean, it’s not even dark yet.” He tried to make it a joke, but Dustin’s eyes darkened.

  “Your face? Your body? And you get in the dark with the lights off? Quinlan!”

  “I just don’t like to be too—”

  “Naked,” Dustin commanded. He made quick work of Quinlan’s jeans and his briefs, yanking them down to his ankles. “Hands on my shoulders—step out.”

  Quinlan obeyed—because otherwise he’d be on his back with his feet in the air, struggling like a pink, naked turtle—and offered Dustin a hand up.

  Dustin scowled and bumped Quinlan’s erect cock with his nose. “You think so, huh?” he asked, rolling his eyes.

  Then he pulled Quinlan’s erection into his mouth hard and fast, bobbing his head and licking like he’d practiced this move for years.

  Quinlan’s knees wobbled, and he warned, “Gotta sit—”

  Dustin pulled away long enough for him to hit the bed and then told him to lie down. “Give me room to work.”

  Oh God. And work he did.

  He used his hand to stroke, his mouth to put pressure, his tongue to tantalize. Quinlan couldn’t find words, couldn’t find his balance, couldn’t find a way to possess himself to keep Dustin from taking complete possession.

  He started to babble. “Dusty… maybe we should… oh God. Do you want me to… oh oh oh… damn, Dusty that… oh—mmlf….”

  Dustin kept one fist solidly stroking Quinlan’s cock and thrust the other two fingers into Quinlan’s mouth.

  “Do something useful,” he whispered. “Lick those.” Then he used his shoulders to push Quinlan up farther on the bed. “Prop your feet up.” He closed his eyes as Quinlan gave a particularly hard suck on his fingers, and Quinlan obeyed his command—and then regretted it.

  He lay on his own bed exposed.

  Naked, bare, unprotected, exposed—all those scary things that had kept him warm and safe up here in his garage apartment, and now he was willingly subjecting himself to open scrutiny.

  He closed his eyes and clamped his knees together, surprised when Dustin let go of his erection long enough to pop him on the bottom.

  “Look at me,” Dustin growled, and Quinlan—the caretaker who had told the kids when to get up, when to eat, when to go, who had made a living at it, for crying out loud—opened his eyes because he had no choice.

  Dustin kept the fingers in his mouth and took his other hand and put it at Quinlan’s throat, which he cupped in the vee of his thumb and forefinger. “Mine,” he said, unequivocally. “You understand?”

  Quinlan nodded, undone, struggling to find himself, lost.

  “No, you don’t.” Dustin swept his hand down, down the center of his chest, taking a detour for each pectoral, then down to his soft, very concave stomach, then down to his nest of pubic hair. “All of this—it’s awesome. It’s beautiful. Nobody’s going to hurt you here—it’s just you and me, and you’re mine. My parents taught me better. You taught me better. I’ll treat this”—he cupped Quinlan’s hardness and squeezed—“like it’s the most important thing in my world.”

  He leaned over to whisper in Quinlan’s ear. “You are the most important thing in my world.”

  Quinlan moaned around his fingers, glad they were there because he had no words.

  Then Dustin removed them and kissed him, hard, drugging him, making him forget his exposed body, forget his splayed knees. Right up until Dustin started kissing down his neck again, stopping at his nipples to tease, to taste, to catalyze, and Quinlan reacted by moaning, pushing against the bed with legs that shook, wiggling his ass, trying to get away.

  “Stop that,” Dustin warned before kissing back down again. He took Quinlan’s cock into his mouth again, and Quinlan whimpered. He was shaking with the effort to not come off the bed, not lose his head and start gibbering, start to scream.

  “Feels good?” Dustin teased.

  “Augh! Oh God—Dustin, let me catch my breath… please… please, Dustin—oh my God!”

  Dustin responded to his pleading—but not how Quinlan imagined.

  He slid his two fingers, dripping with Quinlan’s spit, along Quinlan’s crease. His middle finger dipped in, tapped gently on the entrance, pushed slow, sure, until it found admittance into Quinlan’s body.

  Quinlan froze, entire body waiting, just waiting… what was that? Pain? Pleasure? Pressure?

  Ah…. Dustin slid the finger in deeper, then pulled out. In deeper, then out.

  Pleasure.

  “Dustin… oh God….”

  Dustin engulfed his erection again and kept up that thrust, retreat, thrust, retreat, while pumping his mouth up and down, up and down.

  “Dustin… oh man… I’m not sure if… I don’t think I can do this… oh God, Dusty, I’m falling… I’m falling… stop!”

  Two fingers, buried and stretching in his backside, and Dustin pulled his mouth away from Quinlan’s cock long enough to say, “Why? Does it hurt?”

  “No,” Quinlan panted. “Just… intense. Intense. I’m not sure…. God, Dusty, I’m so afraid….”

  “Course you are,” Dustin whispered, his breath fanning Quinlan’s wet and sensitive bell. “You’re terrified. You think I’ll have you naked here, bring you off, leave you writhing on the bed.”

  He scissored his fingers, and Quinlan whimpered. Oh hell—that sensation right there… it was good… so good… so full….

  “Please, Dusty….” Quinlan heard tears in his voice.

  “Don’t be afraid, Q. I’ve gotcha.” And then he pulled Quinlan’s cock into his mouth to the root and buried his fingers in Quinlan’s ass to the base.

  “Augh!” Quinlan’s shoulders came off the bed, and he screamed in ecstasy, in orgasm, as he poured come down Dustin’s throat and clenched around his fingers so hard, he wasn’t sure Dustin could pull them out. It didn’t matter. He couldn’t control himself, his body, his mind. He was flying, swooping, soaring as Dusty continued to stimulate him, continued to suck on him, continued to master him, until Quinlan’s scream trailed off and he fell back to the bed sweating, shaken, not sure he could so much as move his hand up to cover his face.

  Dustin was suddenly right there, bulkier body covering Quinlan’s, placing little kisses around his cheeks and the
corners of his mouth. Quinlan tasted himself dripping from Dustin’s lips, and he licked, carnal, needing the earthiness to pull him back down to the planet.

  Dustin kissed him more fully, thrusting his own erection between Quinlan’s spread legs. For a moment their cocks wobbled wildly, uncontrolled, seeking each other but unguided, and then Dustin pushed up on one shoulder and grasped them both together.

  Quinlan had been softening, but with Dustin’s grip, the sliding flesh of his dripping member, the blatant animal possession in his kisses, he grew harder, stiff and unyielding and rubbing frantically against Dustin’s rampant raging manhood.

  “How you doing, Q?”

  Quinlan whimpered, no words left, and bucked up into Dustin’s hand.

  “Good. Here, I’m gonna….” He moved his hand and reached under the pillows to his right. He came back with a bottle that he unsnicked, using one hand to dump lubricant on his fingers. He went back down to cup them both, resume his thrusting, but this time the lubricant, slick and warm, made his grip even less satisfying.

  “Okay….” Dustin pulled back, putting his tongue between his lips as he concentrated. “And now a little here—” The two fingers were back, penetrating Quinlan’s backside, and he gasped at first, then keened when they disappeared.

  Then gasped again when Dustin’s erection battered at his entrance, hard and slick and unyielding, knowing the way had already been prepared.

  Quinlan moaned, head tilting back, eyes closing, all of their own volition.

  He was open. Ready. He could barely control his own limbs—he had no choice but to let Dustin invade him, take him over.

  But more than that, he wanted it. He was starting to flail again, losing focus. Dustin, inside him, possessing him—that he could hold on to.

  “You ready, Q?” Dustin kissed his forehead, so gently, Quinlan realized in that moment that all he had to do was say no and Dusty would stop.

  “Please,” he whispered. “Please, yes. Please, Dusty, please.”

  Dustin’s filthy chuckle was his only warning.