Laugh Cry Repeat

by John Inman

  Wyeth stuck out his hand, and the old priest pumped it a few times, grinning broadly. “Glad to meet you, son. Any friend of Mr. Long’s is a friend of the school. And that new library is a wonderful addition to the city. I envy you working there.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Wyeth said. “We’re very proud of it.”

  Father Mike gave each man a last perusal, then shot Deeze a wink. “Now that I know you aren’t burglars or terrorists or Methodists, I’ll leave you to it. Don’t forget to lock up when you go, Mr. Long.”

  “Aye, aye, Father,” Deeze said, shooting him a merry little salute. “And you have a pleasant evening.”

  When the priest was gone, Wyeth commented, “Nice man.”

  “He’s more than a nice man. He’s been my champion from the beginning. The Catholic hierarchy was leery about hiring a non-Catholic to teach their five-year-old students. Father Mike rather forcefully reminded them the greatest teacher who ever lived wasn’t Catholic either.”

  “Really? And who was that?” Wyeth asked.

  Deeze’s eyes sparkled. “Jesus, of course.”

  Both men laughed, then Deeze lifted his hand and rested it against Wyeth’s cheek. His thumb scraped across the blond stubble that had sprouted there during the course of their long day together.

  “You must be getting hungry,” Deeze said. “I know I am. Let’s go have dinner.”

  Wyeth tilted his head slightly into Deeze’s hand to better feel it pressed against his skin, then gave his head a more businesslike nod. Deeze was right. He was hungry.

  “Yes,” he said, chewing on a grin, wondering what Deeze had planned. “If it’s to be anything like the rest of this crazy day, I’m sure you’ll surprise me.”

  “If I don’t, it won’t be for lack of trying,” Deeze said, flipping off the ceiling lights and ushering Wyeth through the classroom door before locking it tight behind them. Then he breathed in a gulp of night air and leaned in to steal a quick kiss, after first glancing around to make sure Father Mike was good and gone.

  The unexpected kiss jarred Wyeth’s glasses, so he pushed them back up his nose.

  Reclaiming Wyeth’s hand and pulling him toward the street, Deeze added, “Now then. Dinner. I hope you know how to cook.”

  Wyeth stopped in his tracks. “Say what?”

  NOT THREE blocks farther up the street, Deeze steered them into a steakhouse tucked in among neighborhood shops and a string of bustling fast-food joints. Wyeth had never noticed the restaurant before in his long walks around the city with Chaucer trailing along at his heels. Once inside, Wyeth was surprised to find a lovely, quiet restaurant with a large flaming grill placed in the middle of the room. Unsure what the grill was doing there, it all became clear when they ordered their dinners, only to find moments later that raw cuts of meat were delivered to their table.

  Deeze grinned at Wyeth’s look of surprise. “Like I said, Wy. Hope you know how to cook.”

  Laughing, they moved to the grill and threw their steaks onto the flames. While they carefully prepared the main course, still laughing and trying not to set themselves on fire, along with several other strangers who were doing the same thing, their baked potatoes and side dishes were delivered to their table by a waitress who cast them a wink now and then as if they were old friends.

  Despite their best efforts to ruin it, dinner was delicious. And just as Wyeth suspected it might, it turned out to be an astonishing experience as well.

  They savored their meals in silence since it had been a long day and both men were starving. As the feeding frenzy began winding down, Wyeth sat back, emitting a dainty burp, then peered shyly across the table at Deeze, who was just finishing up his meal. While Wyeth was barely halfway through his steak, Deeze was already gnawing diligently at his bone like a rabbit munching on a carrot. There had been something Wyeth had wanted to say for hours. He figured this was as good a time as any to get it off his chest.

  “You’re always smiling, Deeze. I’ve never met anyone so filled with happiness. I hate to be the one to tell you, but it’s not normal. I can barely crank up happiness six minutes out of any given day. How do you do it? How can you be so insufferably mirth-riddled all the time? How is it that everything you do becomes a merry adventure?”

  Deeze blinked in surprise, then threw his head back and barked out a laugh, startling an older couple at another table. Even the waitress, halfway across the restaurant, looked up, bemused. Deeze saw the reaction of all these strangers to his hoot of laughter, but it clearly didn’t bother him. He turned his back on the room and leaned across the table, lowering his voice. “Life is an adventure, Wy. And I enjoy adventures. Don’t you?”

  “I—I’ve never really had any.” Not until today, he failed to add. “And don’t call me….”

  Deeze shot him an innocent moue, all wide eyes and deep dimples. There was a smear of steak sauce on his chin. “Hmm?”

  Resigned, Wyeth shook his head. “Never mind. Call me whatever you want.”

  “All right, then,” Deeze said. “I’d like to call you my friend.”

  Wyeth chose that moment to concentrate on sawing off another chunk of his own steak. “Fine. Friend it is.”

  “Really?” Deeze reached across his plate and laid his hand over Wyeth’s, capturing his knife in midslice. “And what if I should decide ‘friend’ doesn’t quite cover it? What if I take it into my mirth-riddled pea-brain to want more than friendship?”

  Wyeth was embarrassed and startled, but he was pleased too. He didn’t want to be, but he was. “Then I’d say you were jumping the gun. Unless you’ve forgotten, we’ve only just met.”

  “Not true,” Deeze said. “I’ve spent more time with you, just today alone, than I’ve spent with anyone else in a month. I’ve watched you go from pale-faced librarian to bronzed sex god.”

  Wyeth felt his ears begin to burn. He was glad the restaurant was dark so Deeze couldn’t see him blush. “Oh Jesus, Deeze, do shut up.”

  But of course Deeze didn’t. “I’ve seen you digging your toes into the sand on a Southern California beach and looking scrumptious doing it. I’ve seen you pick a winning horse out of a field of twelve, while I chose the only horse of the day who ended up riding an ambulance off the track.” He molded his face into a vaudevillian glower. “And I’m the one who knows how to gamble!”

  Wyeth wiggled his fingers in Deeze’s grip while he sat patiently waiting for the guy to wind down. It looked like it might take a while, but Wyeth didn’t mind. He was actually beginning to smile at Deeze’s tirade.

  “I’ve also shared my life with you, Wy. You met one of my students, you charmed the good Father who got me my job, you’ve seen where I spend my days, you’ve learned during the course of our time together to smile when I compliment you and stop acting like you’ve been offended, and last but not least, your kisses are more delicious than any kisses I’ve ever sampled. And I mean ever.”

  Wyeth sat speechless, and if the truth were known, a little breathless too. Finally, he sputtered the only two words he seemed able to capture on the spur of the moment. “You’re crazy.”

  Deeze applied pressure to Wyeth’s hand. The insipid grin fell from his face, and he leaned farther across the table to capture Wyeth’s gaze with his.

  “Look at me,” Deeze muttered under his breath.

  So Wyeth looked. He had never seen such hypnotic eyes. He was a bird under the thrall of a snake, only this snake wasn’t a threat. Well, yes he was. And maybe the very worst kind. But still he couldn’t look away. Wyeth sat stupefied under Deeze’s gaze; even his equilibrium felt thrown off balance, like he was about to tumble over the side of a cliff to crash bloodied and lifeless on the rocks below.

  Weakly, Wyeth slid his hand from beneath Deeze’s. Deeze let it go, but his warm brown eyes never once left Wyeth’s face.

  “You’re the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen, Wyeth Becker.”

  “Y-you’re nuts.”

  “I’m smitten.”

&nb
sp; Wyeth tried to ignore the pounding of his heart. “Nobody says smitten anymore. It’s archaic.”

  “I resurrected it.”

  “You’re certifiable.”

  “You keep saying that. How is your steak?”

  “Huh? What?”

  “Your steak. How is it? Don’t you love this restaurant?”

  Wyeth looked around the dimly lit room. “Uh, sure. It’s great. I’ve never been in a place where you cook your own meal.”

  “Stay with me tonight. Stay with me tonight, Wy, and let me spend the day with you tomorrow. I don’t want to let you go quite yet.”

  “I don’t underst—”

  “Yes, you do. I want to fall asleep tonight with you in my arms. I want to breathe in the scent of you while I nod off. I want to feel you smile against my chest. I want to lay my hands at your back, pull you close, and feel your heart hammering against my own. I want you naked in my bed, Wy. I want it more than anything in the world.”

  Wyeth laid his knife and fork at the side of his plate. He sat back and wiped his napkin across his mouth, simply because he didn’t know what else to do. It was a struggle to get the words out, but he managed it in the end. He was ashamed to speak the words, but he was more afraid of not speaking them. The happiness he had felt during the course of their long day together sloughed away in a matter of moments. He felt suddenly empty inside. Empty and resigned.

  “And then what, Deeze? I’ve caught this show before, you know. After our weekend’s over, you won’t call. I’ll see you on the street and you’ll look away, pretending I’m not there. There won’t be any more crayoned notes on your window. I won’t spot you jogging. You’ll disappear. And there I’ll be, wondering what I did wrong.”

  Deeze frowned. He tried to take Wyeth’s hand again, but Wyeth slipped them under the table out of reach. Deeze’s voice flowed softly among the muted sounds of other diners, weaving around the distant clatter of cutlery, the piped-in music, the hiss of flames on the grill, the bustle of busboys clearing tables and filling water glasses and schmoozing the clients.

  “Please,” Deeze whispered, “tell me you don’t believe that.”

  Wyeth gave a cool shrug, already furious with himself for saying what he had. He worked his mouth into a sardonic smile, trying to make light of his words, while what he was really doing was attempting to spackle over the holes in his facade he’d just allowed Deeze to peer through.

  “I don’t know what I believe, Deeze. You’re a little overpowering for someone like me. I can’t keep up with your energy.”

  “You’ve been hurt,” Deeze said. “I’m sorry. But I’ve been hurt too. You don’t have a monopoly on dating assholes.”

  At that, Wyeth did laugh. And it was an honest one. “Are you sure?” he asked around a grin. “I thought I did.”

  Deeze reached all the way across the table, practically climbing out of his seat to do it, and patted Wyeth’s cheek. “Good. You’re smiling again.” He plopped himself back in his seat and gazed down at their plates. “Let’s eat up, Wy, before our dinners get cold.”

  So they resumed their meals. And later, when their plates were empty and Wyeth began to look around for the check, Deeze asked softly one more time, “Stay with me tonight. Please, Wy.”

  Wyeth sighed. Staring across the table, he spoke almost without thinking, even while his heart clenched itself into a knot inside his chest.

  “All right, Deeze. If that’s what you want.”

  Chapter Seven

  DEEZE’S APARTMENT was larger than Wyeth’s, but he was clearly just as reliant on IKEA for his decorating ideas. Napoleon, Deeze’s Maine coon cat, was the biggest, fluffiest, snottiest cat Wyeth had ever met. It shot him a single condescending glance, then yawned, turned its six-inch whiskers and golden brown back on him, and haughtily flounced off, disappearing under the couch.

  “Yep,” Deeze said with mock pride. “That’s who I share my life with.”

  “Lucky you,” Wyeth drawled, unimpressed.

  The cat was forgotten a moment later when Deeze pulled Wyeth into his arms, and with one pleading look, laid his mouth over Wyeth’s lips before he had a chance to say anything. Ten seconds into the kiss, Wyeth had forgotten what he was about to say anyway.

  His body went limp—well, most of it—as he relaxed in Deeze’s embrace. His fingertips, as if living a life of their own and acting entirely undirected by him, gripped the tail of Deeze’s shirt and tugged it from his pants. A moment later, Wyeth dipped his hands beneath the shirt and laid his palms to the heat of Deeze’s broad back. Both men shuddered at the touch.

  Deeze lazily broke the kiss and muttered through moist lips, “Maybe you’re not so shy after all.”

  Wyeth stepped back, shocked by his reaction to Deeze’s kiss. The sensation of Deeze’s warm, strong back still burned on his palms, and he longed to feel the heat of it again. But he was ashamed of his reaction too. Ashamed and frightened. Only Deeze’s grip on his shoulders prevented him from backing away.

  “Please don’t be afraid of me,” Deeze pleaded, holding him in place. “We can take it as slow as you like. I just want to be with you.”

  Wyeth stared at Deeze’s open, handsome face. Because he couldn’t seem to restrain himself, he lifted his hand and slid a thumb across Deeze’s bottom lip, stirring up a smile. His pulse pounded in his temples. His erect cock strained for release down below. His entire body vibrated with need. Too turned on to worry about shame anymore, he stepped forward and pressed his body to Deeze’s. When he felt Deeze’s cock, as hard as iron, against his own, Wyeth’s knees almost buckled. Once again, he slid his hands beneath Deeze’s shirt and sought the heated skin he’d discovered before.

  Deeze tasted his mouth yet again, and as their lips met, Deeze began to tug at Wyeth’s clothing. In moments Wyeth’s shirt was unbuttoned and pushed back off his shoulders, exposing his torso for the first time. Deeze broke the kiss to step back and stare at him. Wyeth stood trembling under Deeze’s gaze. When Deeze began to smile, Wyeth swallowed hard and reached out to pop the buttons on Deeze’s shirt, but his hand was shaking so badly, Deeze finally finished the job himself. With the last button undone, he whipped his shirt off and flung it aside.

  Wyeth gaped at the dark pelt of hair shadowing Deeze’s chest from one bronze nipple to the other, then to the line of hair that trailed down his lean stomach to disappear behind his belt buckle, promising all sorts of wonders below.

  Still trembling, Wyeth started to unbuckle Deeze’s belt, then stopped as if surprised by his own boldness. He lifted his eyes to Deeze’s face and saw a smile there that was so beautiful it almost stopped his heart.

  “Come to bed,” Deeze whispered.

  Wyeth nodded, trembling and mute.

  WYETH STOOD naked and aroused at the foot of the bed as Deeze dropped to his knees before him. In the first rush of heat when Deeze’s warm hands cupped the back of his thighs and Deeze’s questing lips surrounded his aching cock, Wyeth let himself go. He no longer feared the man kneeling before him. He wanted only to be with him—to be with him more than he had wanted to be with anyone for a very long time, to share himself in every way he could. And to lose himself in Deeze’s beauty, even if it was just for one night.

  Slowly, so slowly, Deeze savored Wyeth’s cock, taking it deep, releasing it to plant kisses along the pulsing shaft before taking it in again. Loving the way Wyeth’s legs trembled when his tongue slid across the seeping slit. Relishing the way Wyeth craned his head back and groaned when Deeze cupped his balls, caressing them gently as he took in every inch of Wyeth’s erection.

  Lost in the heat of Deeze’s worshiping mouth, Wyeth knew he couldn’t hold back his release much longer. In fact, he couldn’t hold back another second. It had been less than two minutes since Deeze first tasted him, and Wyeth was already too far gone to pull himself away.

  “Oh no,” he gasped. “Deeze, I’m sorry!” No sooner were the words stammered than Wyeth’s body tensed. He wrapped his hands
tightly to either side of Deeze’s face, holding him in place. He bit down on his cheek to keep from screaming out in shame as his hips thrust forward and his seed exploded prematurely.

  Deeze clutched Wyeth to him, cupping the back of his thighs, bracing his bucking body, never once pulling his mouth away. He suckled and relished the jetting streams of come, his own cock aching with need at the same time. He wasn’t bothered one little bit that the eruption had come before either man was ready. In fact, Deeze loved it even more this way. He pressed his forehead to Wyeth’s heaving stomach while he savored Wyeth’s juices. Even when Wyeth’s fingers clutched Deeze’s hair, damn near pulling it out by the roots, Deeze almost laughed at the wonder of it all. When this librarian let himself go, he really let himself go. While Wyeth’s body quaked and rocked and lurched against him, Deeze made himself a greedy receptacle for every drop of passion Wyeth spilled.

  With the last pulsing jet of semen, which was weaker than the others, but still heart-stoppingly intense, Wyeth could no longer maintain his silence. He cried out, and when he did, Deeze, still on his knees before him, pulled him ever closer, still drinking from Wyeth, still relishing every sip.

  When Wyeth stood empty and shuddering, he gazed down at Deeze’s face staring up. There was a beatific smile on Deeze’s moist lips, and a shimmering rope of semen splayed across one cheek from mouth to ear that had somehow escaped Deeze in the explosion. While Wyeth watched, his knees still threatening to buckle beneath him, Deeze dipped his fingers into the precious smear and dragged it toward his lips, where he licked it away with a groan of lust.

  “You,” Wyeth managed to mutter, his throat dry, his pulse still hammering inside his head. “I want you.”

  Still trembling on rubbery legs, Wyeth pulled Deeze to his feet and, twisting him around, pushed him down on the bed. Deeze landed hard, bounced, and spit up a laugh. Wyeth didn’t mind at all. He grinned too, while with trembling fingers that were still not completely under his control, he managed to unbuckle Deeze’s belt and peel Deeze’s jeans and undershorts down over his long, furry legs. With a little help from Deeze, the jeans were flung aside and Deeze lay there before Wyeth wearing nothing now but a pair of white socks and his gay pride bracelet.