He laughs. “It smells?”
“It does. You think I can get stinky? Imagine two ballet dancers in a confined space. Lot of sweat and foot smells.”
Tom briefly squeezes my knee. “Your roommate dances, too?”
“Yeah. He’s Romeo, actually.”
“Oh my God. Tybalt and Romeo in one apartment. That’s like a flat-share sitcom from hell.”
“Drop me here. I’ll run round and grab some things.”
He pulls over, but I can tell this isn’t sitting right with him. Nor should it. Jesus, I never even thought about the camming before. And now that I have I wish I hadn’t. There’s a big black pit opened up in the center of my stomach. “You’re being very secretive,” says Tom. “For someone who wants this out in the open.”
“I know, it’s just…”
“Just what?” He leans back in the car seat, the morning sun slanting through the windshield and lighting up the bright threads of red in his day old beard.
“It’s…” I sigh. “Look, you’re very gay, right?”
“Observant of you to notice, but yes.” His tone shifts, turns crisp with that edge of teacherish sarcasm. I’m fucking this up in a big way.
“By gay I mean you’re together,” I say. “You have matching sheets and tableware and green things in your refrigerator – things that are supposed to be green.”
He relaxes, laughs. “Milos, that’s not a gay thing. That’s just an adult thing; I am more than ten years older than you, remember.”
“Gay. Adult. Whatever. I don’t have any of that going on. It’s just crusty socks and bad smells and male, heterosexual grossness all the way down, and I’m not sure I’m ready for you to see that yet. I’m afraid I’m kind of a pig.”
“You’re not a pig.”
“You say that, but you haven’t seen it yet.”
He smiles and sighs. “Fine. Go. Go grab your things. I’ll wait here.”
“Thanks.”
I kiss him on the side of the mouth and get out of the car. As I jog around the corner that black pit yawns a little wider. Okay, so in this day and age it shouldn’t be a big deal if your significant other does some sex work on the side, but I already have a gut feeling he’s not going to see it that way. And it’s not like I’m going to be able to stop. Not if Mom finds out what I’ve done.
Ed is alone when I get in, already up and killing zombies. “Oh my God,” he says, setting down the controller. “You just came in?”
“That would be none of your business.”
“Yeah, right. I know a walk of shame when I see one.”
I grin and reach over the back of the sofa to retrieve my bag. “That’s where you’re wrong, Edmondo. A) I wasn’t walking, and b) I lost the ability to feel shame in like seventh grade, so…”
“Whatever,” he says, giving me a sidelong look. “You look a lot happier than you did yesterday. I’m guessing your breakup is cancelled?”
“Totally cancelled.” The black pit shrinks and I can’t keep the smile from my face. It’s bad; I’m so far in love that nothing can bring me down for long.
Ed sees all. “Holy shit,” he says. “Is this serious?”
“He loves me,” I say, and just saying it aloud is enough to make my heart feel like it’s about to burst. “And I love him. Mutual L-words. We’ve sealed the whole deal.” His eyes widen, and I can’t help it. “And yes, I do mean anal.”
“You took it in the ass?”
“I did, and it was amazing.”
Ed blinks slowly. “So does this mean you’re gay now?”
“Taking it in the ass doesn’t make you gay, Ed. Being in love with a member of the same sex – that’s the part that makes you gay.”
“So you’re gay?”
“Very,” I say, and make my escape. I grab some things from the bathroom, scour my teeth and rinse my gums. When I enter my bedroom the pit beckons, but I turn my back to the corner of the room while I stuff some clothes into the bag. I have to stop thinking about it; it’ll make me miserable, and Tom will know if I’m miserable. Then he’ll ask questions and our precious time together will be ruined.
He’s waiting in the car, one eye on an e-reader. When he sees me he looks like for a moment he might have been thinking I wouldn’t come back, and the relief in his eyes makes my heart pound even faster. I still feel shaken to the ends of my eyelashes every time I see him.
“You got what you need?” he says.
“Yeah. I think so.”
He smiles at me and it’s so strange to think he was ever just a teacher to me. That one time I would have just walked right past him and not noticed the golden hairs on the backs of his sun-browned wrists, or the way his long thighs fill out his jeans. “So,” he says. “What shall we do together? Movies? Hiking? How about a picnic? That could be romantic.”
No, I have plans and they don’t involve picnics. Me, him, a room and a bed. That’s all I’m interested in right now. “Why don’t we just drop the bag off at your place and…work it out from there?”
“Sure. Whatever you want.”
We drive back, and I’m aching with the thought of how much I want him right now. I can still feel him; that’s the part that keeps taking my breath away. Every nerve in my body and every corner of my brain keeps sparking with the memory of being stretched, filled, fucked. I follow him into the house in a daze of lust, my mouth already watering and my pulse pounding behind my fly buttons.
He closes the front door and I pounce, drawing his tongue into a long, greedy kiss. He makes a soft sound in the back of his throat, his hands sliding up my back under my t-shirt. “So…um…movie?” he says, pretending to be clueless, but I’m in no mood to fuck around. I unbutton and offer it to him the way I did that first night when I couldn’t believe he was on his knees in front of me, or that he was making me that hard.
We go back to the bedroom. I kick off my shoes and pants and lie back, legs spread, my hand on my dick. Tom stands there for a moment, breathing fast, his eyes bright and little red patches standing out high on his cheekbones. He’s looking at me in that way that I love, like I’m the most incredible thing he’s ever seen. I stroke myself slowly, wanting to give him a show, and my whole body shudders at my touch. It’s still reeling from that orgasm last night, how it spiraled up through me from somewhere deep inside, shaking the spaces between the bones of my spine. I want his hands. I want his mouth. I want his dick. I want everything right now.
“Wanna watch me watch me play with myself?” I ask, as he toes off his shoes, pulls his shirt off over his head. He’s lean and tan and the sight of his skin makes my mouth wet, because I know how it tastes. Somehow – and I don’t know how this works, but it does – his skin tastes like sunlight.
“Depends,” he says, stripping off the rest of his clothes in a hurry. His thighs are as white as his forearms are brown, but I love them just the same. His cock is high and hard with wanting me. “Do I get to play, too?”
He sits on the end of the bed and goes straight down, making me buck and gasp with the first long lick of his tongue. I push his hair back from his forehead and as he takes me in his mouth he meets my eyes, his gray gaze hungry, his pink cheeks hollowing.
“Oh God,” I say. “I fucking love you.”
Tom slithers up over me, his lips already soft and wet from sucking. His tongue tastes of me. “I love you, too,” he whispers. We kiss and kiss and kiss and I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of it, of the rasp of his stubble and the heat of his breath. It’s like the first time I kissed him and I couldn’t believe how good this felt, just kissing and grinding like this, my spit-slicked cock sliding against his between our bellies. His breath hitches as he slides a hand under the small of my back, pulling me closer, touching me where I’m still quivering from the sweet shock of being fucked wide open. I moan into his mouth and he bucks, his hand still on my back. “God, you’re hard,” he says.
“I know. I can’t stop thinking about your dick inside me.”
/> He lets out a gasp and his teeth come down on his lower lip, like he’s afraid to make a sound. “If you keep saying things like that you’re going to make me come.”
“Good. Oh God, yeah – right there. There.” I can feel it building. He muffles his groan in my shoulder. “No, don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Stop yourself from making a noise. You’re always so quiet.”
He nods, panting as he goes harder. His teeth come down on his lip again but then he remembers and lets go with a shaky, hitchy moan that goes straight to my balls. I grind up into his thrusts, head back, moaning, urging him on. “Come on. Come on – let me hear how you love me.”
Oh God, he’s close. I can see it in his eyes. “I’m gonna come,” he says, and his voice is the hottest thing I’ve ever heard. I’m right there with him, humping and bucking and shaking. “Oh God, I’m coming. I’m coming…”
And I come. It’s perfect. He comes and I come and we’re looking into one another’s eyes at the same moment, and I could die right now and die happy, because in that molten, pumping instant we are as close to one another as two human beings ever get.
I wrap my arms and legs around him and we lie there in a velvety silence, breath-to-breath, lip-to-lip, tangled and sticky and bathed in bliss. He pushes my hair back from my forehead and brushes his lips over the line of each of my eyebrows before kissing me once on each closed eyelid. The tip of my nose. My lips.
“So,” he says. “I take it you’re not a big fan of picnics then?”
It takes me a minute, but when I remember I laugh. I strip off the t-shirt I’m wearing – it was bunched up around my armpits the whole time – and toss it across the room. “Nope,” I say, lying back on the sheets. “Nope, nope. I’m a big fan of you. That’s all.”
He reaches into the nightstand drawer and takes out a pack of baby wipes. “Are you sure?” he says, as he cleans me up. “I feel like I’m shortchanging you when it comes to romance. We haven’t even been out to dinner together yet.”
“Tom, what could be more romantic than lying in bed making love all day?”
“Point.” He kisses me on the belly and runs his hands all over me. “God, I love your body.”
“I love yours.” And I do, even though he runs more than he lifts and compared to everyone else I’ve ever been to bed with he’s soft. Ballet girls are like ballet boys, all muscle and bone, but he has the smallest half handful of squish at the back of his waist and I’m amazed to find that I like it. It speaks of comfort.
We kiss again and I take inventory between kisses. “I love your eyes. I love your mouth. I love your tongue, I love your hands and I love your cock.” He smiles and I run my fingers through his hair. “I’ve never felt like this before.”
“Surely you’ve been in love before?”
“Not like this. It’s different.”
He frowns and rolls over on his side, propping himself on one elbow, his other hand on my hip. “Different? How?”
“You’re a man, for a start.”
“Yeah, but…”
“Yeah, I know. Love is love and it’s all the same; that’s the cool thing to say and all, but it is different. It feels different. Like being in love with you has a whole different…I don’t know…texture, I guess.”
“Texture?” says Tom, reaching down to pull the comforter over us both.
“It’s hard to explain. It’s like…I always felt like love feels kind of rich, but smooth. Like rolling around in satin, or how expensive chocolate feels on your tongue when it melts. Like, oily, but in a good way.”
He looking at me like I’m totally bizarre, and I don’t blame him. “And how am I different?”
“You’re rougher. Hotter. More like fur, or thick velvet.” His frown just deepens. “Forget it. I’m weird, I know.”
“No, you’re fascinating.”
“I’m not. I’m just weird. Trust me. When I was a kid I had all these sensory issues going on, like I couldn’t stand the feeling of certain things against my skin.”
He fluffs the covers over my shoulders and settles down to listen. “Like what?”
“Like flooring and stuff. You know that wood flooring where it’s fake? It looks like wood but it’s not.”
“Laminate?”
“Yeah. That. Mom had it put down all over downstairs and I hated it. Even now, if I have to walk across it in bare feet the feeling of it makes me just…uugh. Shudder. And if there’s dust on it? Ten times worse. It’s like nails on a chalkboard to me. There was that and the usual picky kid things, like I wouldn’t touch mashed potatoes unless they were whipped completely smooth, and if there were onions or bacon bits in them? Forget it.”
He laughs and pulls me close under the covers. “I remember being the same with orange juice. No bits. Ever.”
“Yeah. That too. Plus I had this hypersensitive nose. Bad smells would just freak me out to the point where I couldn’t function. There was this one lady who used to carpool us to swimming lessons after school, and her car smelled the worst. Car smell, gasoline and wet dog. I’d try to breathe through my mouth the whole way there and back, because it honestly burned the inside of my nose just to breathe it in. Then one day I guess I was more carsick than usual and she had to pull over so I could throw up. That was all it took. I puked once and it set this total…clusterfuck in motion.”
“How so?”
“Well, when my mom heard about it she was like ‘Oh, he’s sensitive like that’, then she took me home and took my temperature and put me to bed, and I guess she was satisfied with that for all of five minutes, because the next day she takes me to the doctor, right?”
“Right.”
“She was worried I had amoebic meningitis from the pool water. I don’t think people even get that in the Northern Hemisphere, but I expect she’d been watching House MD while she was folding the laundry and she was sure I needed a goddamn spinal tap. Luckily she – our doctor, that is – wasn’t buying it, and started asking me questions about what happened to make me throw up. Then I guess she joined the dots about my various sensory issues…” I take a breath, but Tom’s already ahead of me.
“They thought you might be on the spectrum?” he says.
“Bingo. So that turned into a whole thing, only for them to find out that I’m completely average. Average IQ, no major neurological issues. Totally standard wiring, except they scored me really, really high on emotional intelligence.”
“Huh.” He stirs under the covers, our feet touching. “Isn’t that generally the opposite of most autistic spectrum disorders?”
“Yep. Turns out I really was ‘just sensitive’, which was great news, because kids have an unholy sense of where the drama is at. I was starting to stand out, because my mom was always at the school getting notes from my teachers, and even if the kids didn’t know exactly why Mom was there, they knew enough to start wondering what was up with me. I’d slipped under the radar before, but now they were paying attention.”
He winces. He knows what’s next.
“When they found out, it was like all their Christmases had come at once. A boy who did ballet. I was a big pink target in a tutu.”
Tom pushes my hair back from my forehead, kisses me on the mouth. “I’m so sorry.”
“Yeah. It was rough.” Even now I can’t talk about all of it. They started out calling me the Sugar Plum Fairy, ruining the Nutcracker for most of my childhood. Somehow that got shortened to just Plum, a chant that would go up every time I stepped on the schoolbus – Plum, Plum, Plum – and then I’d know to duck, because something was about to come flying. An eraser, a spitball, an unwanted peanut butter and jelly sandwich. It’s been over ten years and it still makes my fucking stomach twist when I think about walking into the yellow belly of that beast, each row of seats like a row of teeth.
God, if those little shits could see me now, after all those years of calling me a fag and a homo. Well, the joke’s on them. Because they never had anything t
his good.
“But you kept on dancing,” says Tom, because that’s what the story is supposed to be. Brave kid sees off the bullies and rises above it. Not what really happened.
“No,” I say. “I quit.”
“No?”
“Yes. I wasn’t strong enough. I quit because I thought it would take the focus off me, but it didn’t. If anything it made it worse, because I kept right on eating the way I did when I was dancing but I stayed on the couch playing video games. So then I was a fat fucking homo.” Oh, this hurts, but I’m here now and he’s here and he’s listening and he loves me. I keep going, even though my eyes are stinging. “You know those dancing hippos in Fantasia? I would find those fucking things drawn over everything – my locker, my desk, my bag. Even now I can’t watch that movie because it still fucking hurts…”
“Sweetheart,” he says, his hands on my face. He kisses me softly, soothing me like a child. “It’s all right. You turned it around, didn’t you?”
“Eventually, yeah. I don’t know what it was that made me start fighting back. Maybe just something as simple as a rush of testosterone to the brain. If people came for me I started punching them. Then I got into trouble, natch. That’s how it goes. They’ll let you get bullied for fucking years, but if you come back swinging then they want to know exactly what’s going on.” He looks uncomfortable and I realize I’ve probably just jammed a foot in it. “No offence. I’m sure you were never that kind of teacher.”
“I never taught those grades, but yes – I’ve heard horror stories. But please. Go on.”
“After I got into trouble for smacking people back they started recommending me for after school activities to blow off some steam. Lose some weight. And I still remember the moment I realized I had no choice; I had to go back to dancing.” I roll over onto my back. “Football. They were trying to get me to play football, and there was the coach, looking at me. And he was like ‘Oh, well – kid’s short but he’s husky. You wanna give it a shot, son?’ And I looked up at him and I just thought ‘This is the ugliest fucking human being on the planet.’ I mean, seriously.”
These Violent Delights Page 13
