Lonely Hearts

by Heidi Cullinan

  Lejla grinned. “I’m not. I asked for the weekend off work so I could get ready to tell my parents on Sunday, when they come. I have an appointment with Pastor at his house this morning, and then I’m free.”

  Baz winked as he pushed off the counter. “I’ll make the appropriate preparations.”

  Elijah hadn’t realized how seriously Baz considered appropriate preparations until he got roped into assisting. “We need decorations for a movie marathon?” Elijah asked as they pulled up to a party store.

  “No, we need decorations for Lejla. Brian’s printing out some posters while Aaron and Giles do some creative cutouts, but we’re bringing the balloons and streamers and noisemakers. And plates and cups, and a helium tank to blow up the balloons.”

  “I’m assuming there isn’t a section for congratulations on your gender transition.”

  “Like that’s going to stop us.”

  They bought a boatload of decorations, including a few generic movie-themed items. Baz planned to pull a banquet table out of storage and set up a concessions area in the back of the room—he already had a movie-theater-grade popcorn maker. He purchased popcorn boxes, cups, and a few film reel and clapboard props he decreed were within the acceptable boundaries of good taste. They went to the grocery store and stocked up on candy, popcorn, oil, nachos, soda and beer. He also ordered a stupid number of pies from Pizza Lucé to be delivered later in the evening.

  “I had no idea you had this queening-out party-planner side,” Elijah said as he aimed the Tesla for home.

  “You never heard about my White House parties? I know you never came to them, but surely you heard about them.”

  “I did, but I wrote it off as more choir insanity.”

  “Mmm.” Baz trailed a finger along Elijah’s arm. “So has Mina convinced you to join choir yet?”

  Elijah winced. “Not you too.”

  “I’m just saying, I need a new choir roommate for tours.”

  “You have me as a roommate right now in the comfort of your own home.”

  “I suppose I could ask Aaron.”

  The implication being, of course, he and Aaron would fuck. Elijah was unmoved. “Yeah, well, that will make you appreciate me more when you come home because I’d put all my poor Elijah money on me being kinkier than he is.”

  “True.” He ran his fingers up Elijah’s arm, teasing the hair behind his ear. “It’d be fun to be in choir with you, is all.”

  Elijah nudged the touch away as he pulled into the driveway. “How about we focus on planning this party.”

  The others had the living room blacked out when they arrived, and the furniture arranged around the television. Mina and Jilly took over setting up the concessions table, and Aaron and Giles added the decorations and streamers to the pile of anime cutouts. Lejla seemed taken aback by it all at first when she returned from her therapy appointment, but she blushed when everyone clapped and cheered. When she saw the Welcome Home, Lejla sign, she began to cry.

  “None of that.” Baz put an arm around her and led her to the open DVD cupboard. “This is your party. Give me an idea of what you want to watch, and you can get yourself a plate of food and something to drink.”

  Looking through the cabinet, all her protestations fell away. She shrieked several times—apparently Baz had three or four versions of each movie, always including the Japanese Blu-ray. There were more titles there than Elijah knew existed—if they watched them all, they’d be at it twenty-four/seven well into the next week.

  After fifteen minutes of passionate debate, Lejla and Baz decided to start with the English dubs of what they called the “standard canon”. First up was My Neighbor Totoro, followed by Princess Mononoke, Castle in the Sky, Howl’s Moving Castle and Spirited Away. Those were pretty much the movies Elijah had seen, except for Totoro, which he’d heard of but couldn’t track down. It was good—cute, very Miyazaki, and the music was all Joe Hisaishi, so it was great. The other films were familiar, but it had been awhile since he’d seen Princess Mononoke and Castle in the Sky.

  Howl’s Moving Castle naturally resonated in a way it never had before because now Howl was firmly Baz, the handsome, charming boy wizard who didn’t want anyone to see how tender-hearted and vulnerable he was. Elijah was Sophie, a self-depreciating young woman enchanted to live as an old woman, where she became oddly much freer. When Sophie released Howl from his curse, Baz’s arm around Elijah’s shoulder tightened, and when their doppelgängers kissed during the closing credits, Baz made quiet love to Elijah’s neck.

  Spirited Away got to Elijah the way it always did. They’d had a copy in the homeless shelter where he crashed sometimes, and he’d gotten himself through some dark nights pretending he had a home to go to and all he had to do was get his name back and defeat Yubaba. His own fantasy novel had begun as a kind of fan fiction of the story, except his lead was a young gay man whose parents sold him to the witch. And yeah, the lead had sex with his version of Haku the dragon boy.

  The pizza had arrived during Howl’s Moving Castle, and by the time Spirited Away finished, everyone declared themselves stuffed.

  “It’s only nine.” Baz nudged Lejla. “I’ll keep watching, if you’re game.”

  Elijah was on a bit of Ghibli overload, but though Jilly, Mina and Brian bowed out, Elijah, Aaron and Giles remained. He’d admit he dozed as Baz and Lejla got into some seriously deep cuts—Elijah napped through Porco Rosso and Whisper of the Heart. He was about to give in and go to bed when Lejla went up with Baz to switch the movie and gasped.

  “You have Black Butler! Oh my God.”

  Baz grinned at her. “I’m game if you are.”

  “What’s Black Butler?” Giles asked before Elijah could. Baz and Lejla regarded Giles with something between exasperation and pity.

  “An anime adaptation TV series of a Japanese manga.” Baz turned to Lejla. “English dub, or subtitles?”

  “Sebastian’s English dub is so fucking sexy, but they fuck with the translation too much. Has to be Japanese with subtitles.”

  Elijah raised an eyebrow. “Sebastian?”

  “Yes. The demonic, kick-ass butler is named Sebastian Michaelis.” Baz’s smile made Elijah want to go upstairs and get naked. “Want to see?”

  “Sure,” Giles said, arm around a lightly snoring Aaron.

  They ended up watching the first episode in both English dub and Japanese with subtitles. Sebastian was sexy evil, and his cultured British voice did nasty things to Elijah’s insides and made him yearn to turn off the Blu-ray and go write fan fiction. That was the fuck-me guy chewing on his glove in the tailcoat on Baz’s shelf. But when they watched the Japanese language version, Elijah noticed the subtitles had nuance the dub didn’t, and soon they switched to the Japanese episodes only.

  It was a seriously fucked-up show. The premise was a young boy, who’d been about to be sacrificed in some occult ritual, calling out to a demon and entering a pact to surrender his soul if the demon first rescued him then avenged the murder of his parents. When this mission was achieved, the demon could eat his soul. Somehow this meant the boy, Ciel, lost his right eye to some weird pentagram thing and had to wear an eyepatch. The demon, meanwhile, became Sebastian Michaelis, Ciel’s butler, and took a ridiculous amount of pride in being fussy British and carrying out Ciel’s orders. Usually this involved dismembering people with forks and knives which he stashed in his pockets and whipped out like claws fanning from his fingers.

  At first Elijah thought he was writing in his own gay subtext, but pretty quickly he understood he was all but handed the pen and paper to slash Ciel and Sebastian, Sebastian and Grell (a grim reaper who fancied Sebastian) and pretty much anybody else he cared to. The “boy” was technically twelve, but he read as twenty-something. The show writers had a thing for putting him in drag, and during the scene where Sebastian helped Ciel into a corset, it was basically a panel out
of yaoi. The lyrics to the opening credits kept talking about kisses and love and moonlight final nights, and they never missed a chance to pose Sebastian as sex on a stick.

  When they finally went to bed at three in the morning, Elijah’s body was stuffed with junk food and his brain with Japanese movies and television. While Baz took out his contacts, Elijah lay spread-eagled on the bed in pajama pants, staring at the ceiling while soundtracks and images exploded in his mind’s eye. They only dimmed a little when Baz leaned over him, eyes naked in the red glow of the room.

  Baz trailed fingers down Elijah’s neck, and Elijah’s dick stirred easily to life. During the movies he’d felt like he couldn’t keep up with Baz and Lejla’s anime intensity, but now Elijah had a nearly naked Baz in front of him, and mostly he was thinking about sex. He stared at the divot in Baz’s clavicle, on the right side, just above an angry red scar. “Black Butler is pretty trippy.”

  “I thought you might enjoy it. I have all the manga, but there’s some great art and cosplay online, and fan fiction.”

  Yeah, Elijah would be finding it directly. For now his Sebastian kissed his neck, and Elijah wrapped his body around Baz’s, encouraging him to take what he wanted, which became Elijah kneeling and bent over a pillow, gasping out his name as Baz drove into him from behind. They spooned together after, Elijah in front, and Baz whispered in his ear, “Let me know if you want to have a little Black Butler role-play.”

  The comment fueled some steamy, fucked-up dreams where Sebastian Michaelis made love to Howl Pendragon, usually with Elijah in the middle of their sandwich.

  He slept in the next morning, and when he came downstairs, he found Lejla and Baz watching From Up On Poppy Hill. They put in Ponyo when Jilly and Mina wandered in with their breakfast, and Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind after that. Elijah elected to do a few loads of his and Baz’s laundry while they watched The Cat Returns, but when they resumed their Black Butler screening, Elijah sat on the floor between Baz’s legs, hiding an erection under his pillow while Baz teased his neck with fingers and occasionally his lips.

  In the late afternoon they stopped, as Lejla’s parents had arrived.

  The Abrahamsens weren’t quite as patently awesome as Giles’s family, but they weren’t Elijah’s or Aaron’s, either. Lejla had fallen back to not quite Lewis but definitely not the full-on girl she’d been all weekend. Her parents didn’t seem terribly surprised, but they clearly sensed something was up. Lejla waved over her shoulder as she walked to their car so they could go to Pastor’s house.

  Everyone mingled in the kitchen for a few minutes, nervous for Lejla but with no real way to help her. Mina declared she and Jilly would take turns with Aaron and Giles, hanging out in the kitchen for when she came home. Elijah was about to put himself on the rotation when Baz led him out of the room, toward the stairs. “I have something to show you in our room.”

  The something was the suit Elijah had worn to Walter and Kelly’s wedding, minus shoes, socks and tie. Three lengths of three-inch-wide black silk lay innocently beside the suit, and unlit candles dotted the room.

  Baz came up behind Elijah, wrapping arms around his waist as he nibbled on Elijah’s neck. “Would my lord like assistance getting dressed?”

  The British accent and silky tone made Elijah instantly hard. He shut his eyes and reached over his shoulder to catch hold of Baz’s hair. “Now? You want to play demon and earl now?”

  Baz kept teasing Elijah’s neck, moving his hand to brazenly cup Elijah’s erection. “Lejla won’t be home for hours. Besides, you were up late. You could use a nap.”

  Elijah’s cock happily filled Baz’s hand, but his gaze kept straying to the silk ties. “How kinky is this going to get?”

  “As kinky as you want.” Baz drew on Elijah’s earlobe with his teeth. “Might I suggest, master, you allow me to blindfold you whilst I prepare the chamber?”

  Elijah tugged on Baz’s hair. “There are three ties. So one is the blindfold? What are the other two for?”

  Baz chuckled and nipped Elijah’s ear. “Come now, my lord. Surely you have imagination enough to figure that out.”

  Elijah sat on the bed, arms spread wide, his wrists tied in loose silk knots against the headboard. Behind the wide, Baz-scented third silk tie, he kept his eyes closed as he listened to Baz putter about the bedroom. In the distance he occasionally heard their housemates, who he hoped to God had no idea Elijah and Baz were playing kinky anime role-play in their room.

  Barefoot, his dress shirt half-undone, his dick in a state of permanent semi-arousal inside his trousers, Elijah’s world was nothing but darkness and tension as he waited to see what insanity Baz was about to lead them into.

  When gloved fingers stroked his cheek, he jumped, but when Baz sat on the edge of the bed, Elijah couldn’t help leaning into that touch.

  “There, there, young master.” Baz still used the sexy British voice, and it made Elijah shiver. “I’ve dispatched your attackers as requested.” He clucked his tongue and ran those gloved fingers across the open vee of Elijah’s shirt. “You seem to have become somewhat compromised. I fear you’ve been given a powerful aphrodisiac and are no longer fit to travel.”

  Elijah felt ridiculous. He wasn’t sure what he was supposed to say—Baz had been vague on a script, which was just as well, as Elijah would have ruined any attempts to follow it. Unwilling to spoil the moment, he held still and waited, until Baz’s wandering hands made it clear they would wander near Elijah’s crotch but not onto it. Elijah tipped his head back and groaned when his efforts to push into Baz’s grip failed. “Stop teasing.”

  “I’m afraid there’s no joke about this, my lord. The drug they gave you is quite powerful. You must ride it out as long as possible—if you give in to your carnal desires too soon, the drug will kill you.” Gloved fingers skated over Elijah’s nipples. “I cannot allow you to break our contract, so I must guide you through these treacherous waters.”

  The only thing treacherous was the way Baz kept tormenting Elijah without leading him to so much as the same zip code as relief. Elijah arched as Baz lightly pinched a nipple. “Stop.” He tugged at his wrists. “Untie me, Baz.”

  The pinch came again, along with a slap on his hip. Elijah swallowed a moan. Baz didn’t have to say a word for Elijah to know his boyfriend wanted him to stay in character. He felt foolish, though, so he said nothing, hoping if he waited it out, Baz would take them naturally to the next phase of the game.

  Three minutes later he broke his whimper to gasp out, “Sebastian. Untie me, Sebastian.”

  “I’m so sorry, my lord. You’re a danger to yourself right now. For your own safety, I must keep you bound. But if you wish, I will remove your blindfold.”

  “Yes,” Elijah said before he could dissect whether or not that was a good idea.

  He hissed when the fingers at his nipples ground out even more tantalizing circles. “Remember how you must ask me, young master.”

  Elijah ground his teeth as he tried not to chase Baz’s teasing fingers. In the show, the demon butler always made Ciel give deliberate commands, and Sebastian always responded the same way. Elijah bit back his assigned line in defiance, but he didn’t last long against those fingers. “Sebastian, I order you to remove my blindfold.”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  As the silk came away, Elijah blinked in disorientation as he adjusted to the soft red glow. His libido kicked up at the sight of the deliciously disheveled Sebastian in front of him. His tux was neatly buttoned up, but he had subtle eyeliner on, white gloves and…

  “Holy shit, you dyed your hair black?” Jesus—this was a temporary color, right? Elijah hadn’t realized how attached he was to Baz’s light brown hair. Then he saw no, it was a wig.

  Baz cupped Elijah’s cheek, his expression all concern. “Dear me, you’re further gone than I thought. Perhaps I should leave you alone to your torment and
stand guard so no one sees you in this deplorable state.”

  Elijah tried to lift his leg to trap Baz with it, but Baz had them pinned with his hip. “Don’t you fucking dare.”

  Baz pouted, his naked eyes even more sensual in the red light. “So many hours remain until you are free of the poison, so much torture you must endure. How kind of you to insist I observe. You know how I delight in your discomfort.”

  Elijah had never been more pissed off and turned on at the same time in his life. He could barely keep in character, especially when Baz kept touching his chest. “Stop playing around. Fuck me.”

  “So vulgar. So desperate. Alas, much as I would love to see you open for me in such a deliciously carnal way, as I have said, I cannot until the danger has passed.”

  Elijah wished Baz would come closer so he could bite him. “Enough. No more games. Fuck me. Or at least put your hand on my dick.”

  “But you love games, my lord.”

  Baz put his hand on Elijah’s cock—rested it casually over the lump in his trousers, remaining immobile when Elijah thrust into it. When Elijah cried out in frustration, Baz laughed.

  “You’re so pretty when you’re desperate, young master.”

  Elijah tugged on the silk ties. “Suck my cock, Sebastian. I order you to suck my cock.”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  An eternity passed as Baz undid the button and the zipper. He withdrew Elijah’s throbbing dick with tender, careful touches, and pressed his hips firmly into the mattress. He glanced up at Elijah with an expression promising mischief as he sucked the barest tip of Elijah’s cock into his mouth.

  Elijah groaned and fought him, but Baz wouldn’t let him thrust, would only hold him in place, technically sucking but mostly licking and teasing. At first Elijah thought the tingle was his own anticipation, but when Baz worked his lips deliberately over the glans, the prickling sensation on his genitals became intense. “What the fuck is that?”