by Cameron Dane
Grey looked at his sister and then the water again, and a familiar knot of hatred he couldn’t control churned in his stomach and grew into a ball that felt bigger than the inflated beach one he held.
“Go on then, kids.” Jeremiah smiled at his children as he waded through the dried out, over-tall grass to the backdoor of their house. “Mommy will be out with some towels in just a few minutes.”
“Dad!” Grey called out, his voice striking, sharper than any nine-year-olds’ should be. His father spun, and their stares found each other from across twenty feet. Grey’s heart once again raced, this time charged with a tinge of fear, knowing that his father was a man and thus much bigger than Grey.
“Please,” Grey pleaded, the sting gone from his tone. “Kelsie…” He slipped his sister’s hand in his, absorbing the chill in her fingers. “She’s not feeling too good. Let’s go to a motel and have a hot shower and sleep with a heater running.” They didn’t have any water or electricity in their small home right now. They rarely did. “Just for the night.”
For just a second, Jeremiah’s gaze narrowed, and a real sliver of uncertainty iced its way down Grey’s spine, colder than the water he knew waited for him in their makeshift bathtub. “Don’t tell me how to take care of my family, boy,” his father whispered, pointing his finger in Grey’s direction. “Now get your sister in there and get yourselves clean. I don’t want to hear any more about it.” With a blink of his eyes, Jeremiah was back to his smiling self. “Now have fun! Your mom and I will be out in a bit to check on you.”
Jeremiah disappeared into the house. As Grey stood there staring at the vacated doorway, his insides grew incredibly hot. His skin felt like it would burst into flames, and he wished with every fiber of his being that he could shoot a ball of fire into this awful house where they never had any water or electricity, where they could never have a friend visit, and where they didn’t even eat every single day. Grey wished the home would burn to the ground, or a bulldozer would come in and knock it over, or that the God his mother always talked about would strike a giant bolt of lightning right down on it, or send a tornado crashing through it…
Kelsie went into a fit of coughing and pulled him out of his destructive thoughts. His sister was pale and skinnier than he knew she should be, and he knew from what he’d learned about nutrition in school that how little she ate made her immune system weak.
Grey tried to give her some of his food when he could, but portions were doled out by the size of the person in their house, so he didn’t get a whole lot more than she did most of the time. The way they lived, in a way that sometimes seemed worse than animals, wasn’t right. Grey didn’t even have to go to school to know that much.
Another brisk gust of air swept through their open lot of a backyard, and Kelsie shook and coughed again. Where heat had previously filled Grey’s blood, ice quickly replaced the burn. Grey knew he was smart. Every teacher he ever had told him so. He went to the school library whenever he could and was always reading tons of books. His teacher, Mr. Meacham, said he was so good at his work because he was a thinker and good at solving puzzles.
“Grey,” Kelsie whispered, her hazel eyes wide, “I don’t want to get into the pool.”
She squeezed her dog against her chest. “I’m too cold.”
Looking around, taking stock of what he had available to him, Grey ran across the yard and snagged one of his T-shirts and a ratty quilt off the wash line. “Here, take this.”
He thrust them at Kelsie then raced across the yard to a pile of junk and fished out a big plastic container. It was discolored, but no dirtier than the pool itself. Grey dragged that to his sister’s side, grabbed a smaller bucket, and started filling the plastic tub with the rainwater from the pool. When he’d filled it about halfway, he took the quilt out of Kelsie’s hands. “Okay,” he moved behind her, “use my T-shirt as a washcloth. Just clean up with the water in the little tub. I’ll hold this up,” with two corners of the quilt in his hands, Grey reached his arms up as high and wide as he could, creating a fabric wall, “and you can be private.” Not that they had any neighbors close by, but still, they were nine years old now. “Hopefully you won’t be so cold.”
“’Kay.” Kelsie’s high voice reached Grey through the fabric. “I think this will be better. Thank you, Grey.”
“No problem.” He knew his arms would get tired before too long. “Just hurry it up.”
Today, Grey would get into the pool and take a bath in collected rainwater. He didn’t have a choice. Tonight, he and Kelsie would both freeze under their covers when the sun went down. Grey wouldn’t have any say so in that matter either.
But soon, things would change. Grey was smart. He knew Kelsie would only get sicker as the season changed to winter. Between her allergies and colds, she hardly ever stopped blowing her nose. As Grey stood there holding up that quilt, listening to his sister’s teeth chatter as she cleaned herself, Grey thought about how smart his teachers always told him he was. Right then, in the backyard, Grey came to the realization that he had to be smart. He had to be smart enough to outthink his mom and dad, and still keep him and his sister together. He had to get Kelsie—much more than himself—out of this house, for good.
Grey stood there in the cold and started to think…
*
In bed, Grey jerked and shook his head, fighting the dream, even while still asleep. A small part of his brain tried to force logic and consciousness into his slumbering mind and body, telling him to calm himself and that the past couldn’t hurt him anymore. Grey settled, forcing the childhood memory out of his head. Nevertheless, the night held on to him, and he slipped back in time again…
*
Grey closed his eyes and stuck his face into his boyfriend’s pillow, all the while mentally chanting to himself, you’re gay, you want this; just do it; it’s part of what you do when you’re with a guy. Grey breathed, and logically reminded himself that he’d accepted Joe’s finger okay, and even got a little hard with it. A cock wouldn’t be all that different.
Then why was his heart racing so fast? Why was his chest squeezing so hard he thought he would either throw up or pass out? Why did he want to get off this bed and swear he would never spread himself for another man ever again?
“Found one.” Joe’s voice broke through Grey’s frantic thoughts, and it seemed like only a second later the bed dipped under his weight. “I knew I had a box in the bathroom.”
Joe crawled between Grey’s legs, and the hair on his legs scraped against Grey’s inner thighs, ratcheting Grey’s uncertainty up about a thousand notches. A tearing sound ricocheted in Grey’s ears like it was in stereo, and he knew Joe opened the condom packet and sheathed his cock in a layer of latex. A few seconds later, Joe’s weight covered Grey and something pushed at his entrance, and, oh shit, Joe pushed more lube into his hole.
Grey winced at the pulling on his ring. Joe smacked Grey’s buttocks with his other hand and muttered, “Damn, you have nice ass, Cole.” He withdrew his finger and something bigger replaced it, and immediately applied pressure. “Can’t wait to fuck it.”
Before the next frisson of second thoughts could ripple all the way down Grey’s spine, Joe took Grey’s hips in a tight grip, yanked him almost off his knees, and knifed his dick all the way into Grey’s ass in one jamming thrust, engulfing Grey in fiery pain and stealing the breath from his body. Grey could barely swallow through the blinding hot discomfort of Joe’s first lancing of his channel, but he bit his lip clean through and let Joe go at him, allowing Joe to saw his length in and out of Grey’s virgin ass with increasingly rough strokes.
Grey crouched on the bed on his hands and knees, taking it up the ass in a way he always imagined he would love, and willed himself not to cry out and show weakness in front of this other boy. He would make up an excuse in a week or so and they would break up, but no one would ever know it was because Grey discovered that he could not do this again. He would never roll over and give someone the
power to cause him pain, not even temporarily, not even to fuck.
Especially not to fuck.
Oh, Christ. Grey choked as Joe pulled all the way out, sending Grey’s ass into a strange series of spasms and clenching. Then, Joe forced Grey’s passage all the way open as he pushed his dick in again. It fucking hurts so badly. Grey didn’t dare beg Joe to stop, but damn it—he sucked the blood from his cut lip—he knew it would be better if Joe would just slow down a little bit and let Grey’s body adjust…
*
…“Roll over, baby,” a deep voice—not Joe’s—snuck into Grey’s head, “I’m gonna give you exactly what you want.”
Sirus. Oh, yes, Sirus would make it better.
Wait. Grey jerked, half in and half out of his dream, confusion making him panicky .
I didn’t know Sirus in college. Joe didn’t turn into another man while in that bed. I let him finish, and then I walked away as if nothing were wrong. I never let him see me sweat. He never knew why I ended our relationship.
“He doesn’t matter anymore.” Sirus’s voice whispered in Grey’s ear—in his mind—
once again. “I know how to take care of you.” He pressed a line of kisses up Grey’s spine, ending with his mouth at Grey’s ear. “Now roll over,” he lifted up and gave Grey the space to move, “and I’ll show you how much you’ll crave having me in your ass.”
Grey trembled as he turned over, his mind and body hovering somewhere between excited need and abject fear. He settled comfortably on his back, breathing deeply before he looked up … right into Sirus’s eyes. Sirus kneeled between Grey’s thighs, his hard face somehow handsome, and his smile somehow soothing and sexy at the very same time. Grey glanced down the length of Sirus’s body, letting his attention wander until it landed on Sirus’s cock. Thick and long, Sirus’s member stuck out straight and rigid from his patch of dark hair, and it pointed right in the direction of Grey’s asshole.
Grey’s exposed, rosy asshole … because Grey suddenly had his elbows hooked under his knees and his legs spread high and wide on either side of his chest, giving himself to Sirus. Grey’s pucker clenched visibly and his channel contracted in a strong spasm.
“Oh, yeah.” Sirus made a clicking noise of appreciation, his eyes locked on Grey’s entrance. “Look at your sweet body begging me to fill you up.” Grey didn’t know how it happened, but Sirus’s erection somehow grew even bigger, not stopping until the cum-covered head touched Grey’s ring.
No! Grey opened his mouth and tried to say he didn’t want it and he never begged, but the words wouldn’t move past his throat. Instead, his voice raw, he looked into Sirus’s eyes and ordered, “Fuck me, Sirus. Fuck me goo—”
Sirus didn’t let Grey get that final word past his lips. He threw his head back and roared, spearing his massive cock into Grey’s ass, ripping him open with sweet pain…
*
Grey convulsed with a start, suffering the dizzying sensation of falling as he jerked out of sleep. His eyes popped open on the end of the powerfully real dream, his breathing choppy as he struggled to erase it from his mind. He blinked repeatedly, careless of the bright light that streaked in through the window and hurt his eyes, only wanting the remnants of the strange dream—nightmare—to get out of his head.
Why would he dream about the pool he and Kelsie bathed in as kids? Shortly after that moment, Grey had researched his mother’s family on the computer at the local library and found the phone number for a grandmother he could barely remember seeing more than four or five times in his young life. Grey had called her, told her about what was going on in that house, about how sick Kelsie was all the time, and his estranged grandmother had come and taken them to her apartment right away, where they lived with her from that day forward. It had scared the shit out of him to do it, but Grey had taken the control of his and his sister’s lives out of the hands of their parents and made their circumstances a million times better.
Grey had resolved the situation with Joe in much the same manner. Grey knew he was gay. He could not stop being gay; he was attracted to and wanted men. That encounter with Joe, however, had taught Grey a valuable lesson. He would never be submissive, no matter how minor the part, with a partner. Grey surmised that any relationship he even thought about starting after that, he would have to set the rules and parameters of what he would and would not do. After Joe, Grey had sought bottoms for partners and had once again found success in taking control of his life. At least until the guys started wanting to share families and histories. As a result of that, Grey had also found success by ending those partnerships, until he eventually took a sabbatical from dating entirely.
So then why now, less than a week into knowing this new man, did his mind keep twisting the role Sirus would play in this vacation tryst? Grey didn’t want the entanglement of knowing personal information about Sirus, so he couldn’t understand why in the hell he kept asking Sirus questions about his work and family. And why, why, why in the hell did he keep dreaming about Sirus Wilder fucking him? Grey didn’t bottom.
Did. Not.
Grey knew how much the receiving end of screwing hurt. As far as he was concerned, he might as well be tied up with chains, cuffs, or ropes as let someone as big as Sirus hold him down and invade his body. Grey jerked and his brow broke out into a sweat, but goddamnit, his cock stiffened with excitement in his sweats too. His ass clenched, as if reaching for an invasion from Sirus. Grey cursed, angry with himself for allowing this kind of confusion into his thoughts and dreams.
“Did you win?” Sirus murmured, making Grey jump again.
Shit. Grey’s heart beat hard and fast enough to make him sweat a little more. I still haven't adjusted to having another person sharing my bed. Grey glanced over his shoulder, found Sirus’s scrutiny more than he was ready to handle, and shifted back to stare at the wall again. “What did you say?” he asked, his voice still thick with sleep and the intensity of his dream.
Sirus shifted closer to Grey and slipped his arm around Grey’s waist. He rested his head right behind Grey’s, and his breathing fanned enticingly over the back of Grey’s neck. “I asked if you won,” Sirus said again. “It looked like you were having quite a struggle in your sleep, so I wondered if you beat whoever you were fighting in your dream.”
Grey’s heart started hammering even harder. He knew Sirus must be able to feel it through the hand he had on Grey’s stomach, but he could not slow it down. “Not a fight.”
Their previous conversation about lying tied Grey up in knots and wouldn’t let him out-and-out fabricate a story. “Just a … weird dream. Confusing. Disturbing.”
“Want to talk about it?” Sirus rubbed his fingers in a soothing pattern on Grey’s abdomen, and pressed a chaste kiss behind his ear. “You can, you know.”
“No, thank you.” Grey shivered just thinking about sharing anything too personal with another person, let alone this man he kept dreaming about, in ways he had never dreamed about another human being before. He burrowed under the covers and hoped Sirus would believe he was just cold. “I’d rather forget about it entirely and start the day off on a more pleasant note.”
“Well,” Sirus tickled Grey’s stomach and nipped at his nape, “if you take your death stare off the wall and shift it to the window, the pretty view there ought to make you smile. Look,” he took Grey’s head and angled it for him, “it’s snowing.”
Through the window, white blanketed the ground and capped the tree-covered mountain as far as the eye could see, turning the land into a scene from a movie. “Oh, wow.” Awe hushed Grey’s voice to a near whisper. Up here, where there weren’t any cars or pedestrians to trample the snow, the sun shone down on a pristine layer of white, creating such sparkles of light it hurt the eye to look at it.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Sirus said softly.
Grey covered Sirus’s hand on his stomach, and settled back into his wide chest.
“Yeah.” Everything that had been bubbling inside Grey slowed down,
and he swore it felt like he and Sirus were the only two people in the world. He stared out the window into the purity of nature and let himself enjoy the moment. “It is amazing. It’s a living photograph.”
Sirus pressed on Grey’s belly and edged him onto his back, where he then crawled on top of Grey and settled his lower body between Grey’s legs. With his arms bracketing Grey’s head, Sirus looked into Grey’s eyes, the warmth lighting them from within stealing right into Grey’s locked heart.
“It’s nearly as breathtaking as you are,” Sirus said. He dipped down as he made that declaration, and captured Grey’s mouth in a slow, easy kiss.
Jesus. Grey moaned at the first touch of their lips, and his entire body went lax, welcoming Sirus’s wonderful weight. His fingers scratched up Sirus’s bare back. The man’s skin was so damn hot and his shoulders so fucking wide Grey wanted to touch and taste until he could recreate every square inch of muscle by memory alone. Grey kept right on going until he had his fingers tangled in Sirus’s hair, holding on with a touch he knew had to sting. Grey twisted his hands in Sirus’s thick locks and pulled, drawing a jerk and a nip from Sirus as he pulled back a few inches, breaking their kiss. His mouth open, breathing heavily, Sirus studied Grey with questions in his eyes.
Heat filled Grey’s face, but it didn’t stamp down his ardor one bit. “Sorry.” He lifted up and darted out his tongue, letting his tip graze Sirus’s skin. “You make me feel a little aggressive sometimes.” He dipped his tongue out and touched it to Sirus’s again, pulled back, and then connected a third time. Forcing his fingers to obey, Grey unlocked them from Sirus’s hair. “I’ll ease u—”
Sirus clamped his hand over Grey’s mouth. “Don’t.” His voice rough, he looked at Grey, piercing right through to his soul. “Don’t ever censor yourself with me.” Sirus tore his hand away and shoved his tongue inside Grey’s mouth, kissing him with the same roughness that drenched his voice. Grey’s mouth felt raw and ravaged, and with every thrust, sweep, or bite from Sirus, Grey’s cock grew harder and pushed against his sweats, stabbing the unwavering wall of muscle covering Sirus’s belly. Grey’s balls ached, heavy with cum, needful of release. He whipped his groin back and forth over Sirus’s stomach, searching for any kind of friction that would help him come.
