Golden Boy Two-Volume Set

by Claire Thompson

  “If you touch me again,” Ann said quietly, “it will be the last time you ever do.”

  Chapter 8

  Johnny stood at the back of the gallery, smiling as he watched Albert Miller in the middle of a throng of admirers and well-wishers. Sandra stood next to Albert, a flute of champagne raised in a toast to the star of the evening. Johnny wished Eric could have been there too on this opening night but he had had an emergency call from a suicidal client.

  “You have a real eye for this,” Albert had said when he’d seen the final exhibit, echoing Sandra’s earlier praise. Johnny felt a swelling of pride. Maybe someday his paintings would grace the walls of a SoHo gallery. Meanwhile it felt wonderful to be a part of this artistic endeavor on whatever level.

  Sandra had been lavish in her praise of his arrangement and even Albert Miller, known to be somewhat difficult, had approved, remarking on the unusual juxtaposition of the paintings and small metal sculptures and Johnny’s creative use of light and space to draw the eye subtly to the pieces.

  “Have a glass?” Albert had managed to extricate himself from his admirers, moving back to where Johnny stood. He handed Johnny some champagne and held up his own glass. “To Johnny Wilson. They say it’s all in the presentation and I couldn’t have had a better exhibit. Thanks, man.”

  Johnny felt a warm blush of embarrassment and pleasure at the artist’s words. Albert was standing close to him, too close. Johnny moved back. Albert was well-built at six feet two inches with rich coffee brown skin and long shiny dreadlocks. African American with large dark eyes, a fine, wide nose and a sensuous mouth, he was one of the best-looking men Johnny had ever seen. To make matters worse or at least more complicated, Albert was gay.

  Johnny liked Albert. He was funny and very intelligent. He had a vivid presence, not only his good looks, but his sexy deep voice, ready laugh and quick wit. Johnny also admired his work—bold colorful paintings of urban life and detailed little metal sculptures, mostly of the male body. Albert dressed in flowing, colorful woven shirts over broad shoulders and chest and loose black cotton pants that couldn’t hide thickly muscled thighs.

  “Say,” Albert said. “I was wondering, would you like to grab a drink or something when this is over? I mean, nothing big deal, just a quick thank-you drink.” Albert put his hand on Johnny’s arm. They both looked down at his hand—the warm brown against golden tan, both admiring the contrast of color, both feeling the electricity of the touch, both looking up at the same time into each other’s eyes—clear green staring into deep, chocolate brown.

  Johnny was the first to pull away, stepping back so Albert’s dark large hand slid from his arm. “I’m sorry,” he said, confused at his body’s strong reaction, his cock swelling, his nipples perking against their rings. “I’m, uh, I’m seeing someone.”

  Albert stared at him a moment before throwing back his head and laughing a loud, guffawing bellow. “Johnny, my friend. I wasn’t asking you out! Heaven forefend! Just a drink. Just a thank you. No strings. We’ll invite Sandra as well. She can be our chaperone.” He continued to laugh softly as Johnny blushed anew.

  He’d misinterpreted Albert’s intentions. Turning his body, he hoped his erection wasn’t visible as he willed it to disappear. Eric had been his one and only. Eric had told him many times that one day he would leave Eric in search of more, of new experience, of something different. Until this moment Johnny had thought Eric’s fears completely unfounded and had tried to reassure him.

  Yet as he watched Albert moving away toward Sandra, he couldn’t help the sudden fantasy that leaped full-blown into his mind. Himself naked on hands and knees with Albert crouched behind him, his large cock held in his hand as he guided it between Johnny’s ass cheeks. He could almost feel Albert’s long locks dragging over his back as he leaned forward to kiss the side of Johnny’s neck.

  Johnny shook his head, guilt sliding like knives through his loins. It was just a fantasy! He belonged to Eric. Eric was all the man Johnny needed or wanted. Albert may be good-looking and a nice guy, but he could never hold a candle to Eric. Johnny felt a warmth ease through him as he recalled his true love. A moment’s flirtation only served to solidify his devotion to the man who had become his world.

  When Albert returned with Sandra in tow, he winked at Johnny and said, “I’ve got us a chaperone. Your honor will be intact with Ms. Flanders at your side.” Johnny laughed, embarrassed.

  Sandra said, “The show is winding down. We’ve sold over half the pieces already! I definitely think a celebratory drink is in order. We’d love you to join us, Johnny, if you can. Maybe Eric can get away by then?”

  Johnny nodded, glad the awkward moment had passed. “I’ll call his cell. Where should I tell him to meet us?”

  “The Bulldog, over on Bleeker Street. We should be over there no later than,” Sandra consulted her watch, “ten o’clock.”

  The Bulldog was a small club, crowded on a Saturday night. A three-piece jazz ensemble played in a corner, the music background to talking, laughing and the clink of glass. The three of them sat at a small table near the front. Eric hadn’t picked up but Johnny had left a message with details of their whereabouts.

  After his second mug of beer, Johnny began to relax. Albert was drinking apple martinis and was on his third. With each drink he seemed to laugh louder, his thigh grazing Johnny’s as he leaned toward him. Johnny chided himself for assuming Albert’s actions had any hidden meaning. He’d learned his lesson back at the gallery. He had to stop being so naïve to think a guy was coming on to him just because he was gay.

  Johnny looked around the crowded little club, taking in his surroundings with awe. How amazing to be here with these artistic types in this Village pub and to be considered one of them! How different from the dank, packed local bars he used to spend weekend nights getting shitfaced drunk in an effort to numb himself to the stultifying, lonely existence he lived as a mechanic in his father’s shop, enslaved by his own fear, entombed by his own denial of who and what he was.

  Johnny glanced at his watch. They’d been there a half hour. He looked at his phone but there was no service. “I’m just going to step outside and try Eric again,” Johnny said to Sandra and Albert.

  “I’ll come with you,” Albert said. “I could use a smoke.” They left the bar together, stepping out into the humid summer air. Johnny started to make his call when suddenly Albert leaned over him.

  “Johnny. You are such a sexy guy. I’ve been waiting all night to do this.” Without warning, Albert took Johnny into his arms. Right in front of the club he bent Johnny back and kissed him full on the mouth, grabbing his ass in his large hands as he did so. Johnny froze, for a moment unable to believe what was happening.

  When he finally pulled away, his expression one of outrage and confusion, Albert merely laughed. “Hey, sorry. I couldn’t help it. I’ve been wanting to do that since I first laid eyes on you last month. I know you’re ‘seeing someone’. It’s the vodka, man. It got the better of me.” He flashed a rueful grin, though his eyes were dancing. Leaning close again, he whispered, “Come home with me, Johnny boy. I won’t tell if you won’t.”

  “There you are,” Johnny jumped as Eric’s warm, familiar voice came from behind them. “I tried to call but it went straight to your voice mail.” Johnny whipped around to see his lover, his dark straight hair falling over his eye, his cheeks a little flushed as if he’d been running.

  Albert stepped back, leaning against the wall as Johnny embraced Eric. Eric pulled away, brushing his hair from his face. Johnny swallowed, forcing himself not to read anything into Eric’s gesture. “So the guy? He okay?”

  “My client? Yes, yes. He’s okay. He wanted handholding really more than anything. He did attempt suicide last year to the point of being hospitalized so I take his threats seriously. This time however, I think he was lonelier and more frightened than actually suicidal. I got his brother to come over to his place and I think he’ll be fine now.”

  Johnn
y was watching Eric as he spoke, barely hearing his words. What had Eric witnessed? Had he seen Albert taking Johnny into his arms? Had he seen what would have looked like a consensual kiss? As he tried to catch Eric’s eye, Eric looked away.

  “This must be the famous Albert Miller I’ve heard so much about.”

  Albert stood, towering over Eric as he held out his hand. “I don’t know about famous. Maybe someday. Nice to meet you.” They shook hands and the three of them went back inside to join Sandra.

  “You okay?” Johnny asked softly as they sat down.

  Eric looked sharply at him a moment and then smiled. “Yeah, sure. Why wouldn’t I be? Just a little tired.” Johnny stared at him, trying to read something into his words, trying to discern from his expression what he was feeling, what he had seen.

  Later that night, when they were finally lying together in bed, Johnny turned to Eric. Did he say something? Or did he just let it go? When Albert had kissed him, Johnny’s mind had frozen for an instant but his body had not. He couldn’t deny the raging hard-on that kiss had produced. He found himself longing for a second kiss, though he knew his heart belonged to Eric! What would it be like to kneel before Albert, to take his cock deep into his throat, to wrest a moan of pleasure from the handsome man’s lips?

  Come home with me. I won’t tell if you won’t. The words replayed themselves in Johnny’s mind. Of course he would not go home with Albert. He would not sneak around on Eric. But he was disturbed at his own strong reaction to the man. How easy it would be to see Albert while Eric was at work. He could say he was at classes, say he was at the gallery. Eric would never know…

  This was crazy! Johnny didn’t want Albert. It was just a physical thing. It had been flattering to have the handsome, charismatic artist make a move on him. That didn’t mean he planned to throw his wonderful life with Eric away, just for the chance of something new! He would just tell Eric what had happened. They could laugh about it. By saying it out loud, Johnny would shake away the potentially poisonous secrecy. He would tell Eric everything, even admitting his own attraction, secure in the knowledge his love for Eric outweighed any temptation. But would Eric believe that? Eric, who always told him it was only a matter of time before Johnny drifted away? Would telling him only feed the flames of Eric’s insecurities and fears?

  He started to speak, to confess, but instead found his lips meeting Eric’s. Eric didn’t respond to his kiss at first and Johnny, partially fueled by guilt, partially by desire, pushed forward, teasing Eric’s lips apart with his tongue as he moved his large strong hands over Eric’s smooth chest.

  Eric began to kiss him back, rising up and flipping Johnny onto his back as he took control. Leaning over him, he kissed Johnny as he reached down to grasp his rising cock. Johnny moaned with pleasure, for the moment forgetting his troubled thoughts.

  “I want you, Johnny. Get ready for me.” Johnny’s eyes, a moment before closed in abandon, flew open. He’d been doing better with anal sex but still the residual fear of penetration kept him from submitting completely. Yet tonight he found he wanted it—not just to please Eric but to satisfy his own lust.

  Obediently he knelt up, taking the tube of lubricant they kept beside the bed while Eric rolled a condom over his own erect shaft. “I’m gonna fuck your hot little hole, slut boy, and you will stay perfectly still until I tell you to move, understand?” Eric climbed behind his lover, who glanced back at him as he positioned himself behind him.

  “Eyes forward,” Eric barked. “And remember, don’t move. Show me how obedient and open for me you are. No resistance, no hesitation.”

  Johnny turned back toward the head of the bed, trying to stay still as Eric pressed the head of his penis against his nether opening. Johnny couldn’t control the little tremor that spasmed through his body as Eric’s cock head slipped past his sphincter. “Perfectly still, slave boy—remember,” Eric murmured.

  Johnny closed his eyes and took a deep breath as Eric pushed into him, firmly gripping Johnny’s hips as he guided himself into Johnny’s tight ass. Johnny moaned and thrust back, forgetting Eric’s directive of a moment before. He felt the sudden sharp pain as Eric reached forward, grabbing him by the balls. “Still, I said. Don’t move!”

  Johnny stilled as Eric released his balls, dragging his fingertips over them and gliding them up his shaft as he continued to ease himself fully into Johnny’s ass. Johnny trembled and sighed as pleasure erupted over his cock with Eric’s skillful, teasing touch.

  Johnny realized with surprised delight Eric had fully penetrated him without Johnny once whimpering, pulling away or protesting! Eric’s directive to keep still had so distracted him, he realized, he’d forgotten to tense his muscles, focused instead on obeying his master’s directive.

  Eric began to move in a steady hard thrust, his balls slapping Johnny’s ass, his hair falling forward to tickle Johnny’s back. “You can move, boy,” Eric said in a husky voice. “Make yourself come. Go on, slut. Do it.” Johnny didn’t need to be told again. Eagerly he grabbed his own cock, massaging and pulling the taut flesh over his rock-hard shaft as Eric pummeled him from behind.

  “Oh yes,” Eric hissed, thrusting rhythmically into Johnny’s ass. “My hot boy, my delicious golden boy. Tell me,” he panted, “who do you belong to?”

  Johnny sighed, easing into submissive headspace as his body surrendered utterly to Eric’s cock, his mind to Eric’s dominant words. “You, Sir, oh you. You, you, you!” The last word was forced from him with a grunt as Eric slammed hard into his ass, his body shuddering in orgasm as he held Johnny fast at his hips.

  He did belong to Eric, didn’t he? The image of Albert’s broad smile, his large dark eyes sparkling with irony slid into Johnny's mind just as his seed spurted from his cock, splashing to the sheets below.

  Eric pulled him over to his side, his cock still buried in his ass, his heart hammering against Johnny’s back as he held him in an embrace. They lay quietly for some moments as each recovered. Gently Eric disengaged from Johnny and cleaned himself.

  He lay back down, again spooning his lover. “I love you,” Eric whispered so softly for a moment Johnny wasn’t sure he had spoken.

  Johnny answered in kind. Rolling over, he faced Eric, searching his face and seeing only love. He wanted to say more, to confess to what had happened, though he himself had really not been to blame. He started to speak, but something held his tongue. Why ruin the moment?

  “Johnny,” Eric said quietly, his dark eyes fixed on Johnny’s face. “Is there something you want to say to me?”

  “No,” Johnny answered, turning away.

  ~*~

  Eric stared out of his office window. He was glad his last client had cancelled. He needed to think! The scene that had played itself over and over in his head like an endless reel of a terrible movie slid through his brain again. Johnny—his Johnny, his darling—in the arms of that tall, handsome man. Their faces close in a kiss, their bodies pressed together.

  It had happened so fast Eric thought for a second he had imagined it. Eric had been down the street, hurrying toward the bar when he’d seen his golden boy emerge from the building, the tall black man just behind him. As he’d seen Albert bend to kiss Johnny, he’d felt a crack in his heart, an actual physical pain as if someone had taken an ice pick and hammered it through his sternum.

  They’d quickly pulled apart. As he replayed it in his mind, it looked as if Johnny had been the one to pull away. Albert was the aggressor, Johnny the innocent boy. That’s what he’d wanted to think. What he’d been prepared to think. As they sat in the pub sipping drinks and talking about art, Eric kept waiting for Johnny to pull him aside to confide what had happened. To explain himself.

  Instead Johnny had merely shot him worrying glances, guilty looks as if to say, Did you see? What do you know? As the evening wore on, Eric felt a sort of numb sickness fall over him. So this was it, at last. Sooner perhaps than he’d expected but inevitable. Johnny was falling in love with someone
else. Tomorrow, next week, next month, he would come to Eric. With tears in his eyes or perhaps with defiant bravado, he would tell Eric it was over.

  For a moment just before they went to sleep, Eric had thought the words would come, the confession tumbling out, perhaps amidst tears. Instead Johnny had tensed and turned away, leaving Eric with unasked questions—questions pride or perhaps fear would not permit him to voice. Maybe he was making too much of this. Perhaps it was nothing more than a stolen kiss, fueled by alcohol. Harmless, meaningless, best left unexplored.

  ~*~

  “I’ve been thinking,” Eric said as they sat over dinner in their cozy kitchen. “Remember when we wrestled and you showed your dominant side?”

  “How could I forget?” Johnny laughed ruefully, recalling the cock and ball torture he’d suffered as punishment.

  “I was thinking, perhaps we should bring in a sub boy. Someone for you to dom, under my direction of course. It’s a chance for you to more fully explore those dominant impulses. It would be good practice for The Cavern too, since you never know what you might be called upon to do there. It’s quite common for subs to whip one another under the direction of a master.”

  Eric watched Johnny to gauge his reaction. “Um. I don’t know, Eric. It would be weird. I don’t know if I could whip a guy.”

  “You could if I told you to.” Eric smiled to offset the firmness of his tone. More gently he added, “That’s why training is a good idea. There’s no reason to assume you automatically know how to use a flogger or a crop, at least with any skill. You do have the advantage of having felt them yourself, so you’re aware of the different sensations produced by heavy-braided tresses for example, as opposed to a single tail of thin leather, its end knotted just so.” He watched as Johnny winced and sighed as fear and desire mingled—such a potent combination for a submissive.

  “Do you have someone in mind?” Johnny asked.