He wears his tightest jeans, not so much for looks but because they constrict around an erection like a gloved hand. He has a cock ring on under them, too, and no underwear to add to the sensation. His balls hang low—if Chris pokes at them tonight, Lee’s sure to feel it. He’s been waiting years for that touch. He won’t miss it a second time.
A clean white tank top completes the look. It’s August in Richmond, hot and sticky out, and he likes showing off the ink on his arms. Chris’s handiwork is drawn onto every inch of his skin, and Lee’s damn proud to let others know he’s a marked man. With a last look in the mirror and a wet comb run through his hair in some attempt to tame it, he heads out the door at a quick trot, hoping he doesn’t hit any of the lights between his place and Tattoo 804. Even if he’s late, though, he knows Chris will wait for him. They have a date…though Lee doesn’t let himself think of it like that.
A date. The word implies so much more than what they have together. So much more Lee would like.
Outside the tattoo parlor, he pulls to a stop at the curb and is surprised to see Chris already outside. Hands shoved into the pockets of his own painted-on jeans, Chris leans against the bus stop sign in front of the building. His eyes look hooded and mysterious in the dying sunlight, and his hair is tousled from running his hand through it to keep it from his face. Lee’s heart skips a beat—though Chris isn’t exactly a Hollywood hottie, something about him always seems to take Lee’s breath away. Lee should tell him sometime, he knows, but there’s that other guy in the picture at the moment. Once he’s gone, though…
Who am I kidding? Lee leans across the passenger side to roll down the window as Chris saunters over to his car. I’ve had all the time in the world to tell him and I ain’t said shit yet. Why ruin what we have now? How’d they ever get back this easy camaraderie between them if Chris didn’t feel the same way Lee does? That’s what’s stopping him from saying anything. He’d rather have any little piece of his friend he could than nothing at all.
Chris leans into the window once it’s down. “Hey,” he says with a grin. “Change of plans. You feel like clubbing a bit?”
At first Lee thinks he’s joking. “What?”
Chris reaches in and unlocks the passenger side door. Before he drops into the seat beside Lee, he unlocks the door behind him as well. “April’s got free passes into Toad’s and wants us to tag along. Barry’s band is playing there tonight—can you believe it? Toad’s! That’s like a major gig for them.”
Barry, yes, of course. That explains the glint in Chris’s eye and the excitement in his voice. Lee’s smile feels tight across his face as he puts the car into neutral. “Toad’s. Cool. We going?”
“You have to meet him,” Chris is saying. He glances back at the parlor but the doors are shut, the lights inside out. Leaning across Lee, he hits the horn on the steering wheel with a short blast. “C’mon, April. Hurry the hell up.”
As if the horn triggered a reaction, the door to the tattoo parlor opens and two, three, four giggling women tumble out. “Christ,” Lee mutters under his breath.
They’re all in their twenties, scantily clad, with high heels and teased hair. There’s more ink on their legs, arms, and midriffs than clothing. Three of the girls huddle together while a fourth—April, Lee recognizes her from the parlor’s reception desk—locks the door behind them. She tugs on it once to ensure it’s latched, then leads her friends to Lee’s car. They tumble into the back seat like Keystone Kops. The stench of sharp perfume hits Lee at once, and the sound of breathy giggles drowns out the song on his stereo. Mini-skirts are pulled down, tight T-shirts readjusted, as the four of them squeeze together. Lee glances into the rear-view mirror and just sees a row of painted faces smiling back.
It’s going to be a long night.
He knows April by sight—she’s part Asian, so she stands out from her friends. The other three sort of all look the same, white, perky, cute. Two are blonde and the third looks like she tried dying dark hair the same bleached shade and got a head full of honey-colored curls instead of pure white strands. Every time Lee looks back at them, that one with the honey hair is staring back. When their eyes meet in the rear-view mirror, she gives him a saucy wink he chooses to ignore. Just like he’s ignoring the hand Chris rests on the space between the front seats, a hand that taps out a beat from the radio and nudges Lee’s hip with every other note.
We aren’t alone, Lee reminds himself. Christ, we’re going to see his boyfriend play. But that does little to stem the start of an erection filling the front of his jeans.
Toad’s is downtown near the Canal Walk, in a section of the city so low in altitude it’s called the Bottom. Lee knows in theory where it is, but he’s never been, so the first time he drives down the cobbled street where he thinks it’s located, he turns before he reaches the water and misses the club completely. A harried drive around one-way streets through Shockhoe Bottom and he gets back to where he needs to be only to find there’s no parking nearby. Oh, there’s a deck, but, God damn it—he refuses to pay seven bucks to park in the same city where he lives. His mood darkens as he begins to crawl through the side streets, looking for somewhere to stop…
He’s just about to head back to Toad’s and drop off the giggling girls at the club just to get rid of them and let himself think when that hand Chris keeps between them touches Lee’s thigh. “There,” he says, pointing at an empty spot at the end of the block that isn’t flanked by No Parking signs.
At first Lee doesn’t respond. He can’t—his mind is whirling out in a blur from that casual hand still resting high up on his thigh. Little to the left, he prays, holding his breath. A few inches that way and you’ll know it isn’t your tattoo skills that turn me on.
Chris gives his leg a squeeze. Damn. “Lee? Right there. We can walk.”
With a glance over his shoulder that shows him nothing of the road—just a quartet of girlish smiles and batting lashes—Lee cuts across two lanes to pull into the spot. His hand brushes Chris’s when he pulls up the parking brake, and he yanks on the brake a bit harder than necessary. “We’re here.”
The girls tumble out in a rush, then stand on the street corner like half-priced hookers running a two-for-one special. In the car’s bright interior light, Chris flashes Lee a quick grin, then climbs out after his friends. There is one brief moment where Lee considers putting the car back into gear and tearing away from the curb—just leaving Chris and the girls to fend for themselves and heading back home. An evening alone has to be better than watching Chris drool over his new boy toy, right?
Right?
But Lee can’t do that, not to Chris. So he unbuckles his belt and pulls the key from the ignition, resigned. At least Toad’s has a full bar. Enough booze in his system and Lee won’t give a fuck who Chris flirts with tonight.
Chris leads the way, practically racing through the back alleys and side streets to reach the club. The girls teeter on high heels as they hurry to keep up, and Lee trails behind, reluctant but unable to do anything but follow. He watches his steel-toed boots move over the cobbled street, his mind blank, his face devoid of emotion. When someone ahead of him stumbles, he almost runs her over without noticing.
She catches his arm as he passes, her red-tipped nails digging into his skin like claws. It’s the honey blonde, and this close Lee notices how dried out and frizzy the dye has made her hair. With a winning smile, she leans against him as she wobbles unsteadily on her heels. “Hi there,” she purrs, looking up with half-closed eyes. “My name’s Melanie.”
Lee tries to shake her off and can’t. “Hey.”
The others are drawing ahead. Lee starts after them and finds this Melanie chick holding him back. “You’re Lee, right?” If she knows already, why’s she bother to ask? With a throaty giggle, she whispers, “Chris says you’re gay.”
Lee plucks her fingers off his arm one by one. “Chris is right.”
If he hopes that will deter her, he’s mistaken. “I love gay boys,”
she gushes, launching herself at him before he can move out of reach. As she lays against his back, he feels pert little breasts push into his shoulder. “I think it’s hot when two guys go at it, you know? So hot.”
Lee drops all pretense and shoves her away. “Back up, bitch,” he growls.
Before she can respond, he storms after Chris, who has stopped at the corner and waits, hands on his hips, for everyone to catch up. Lee glares at his friend as he approaches, but the grin on Chris’s face only widens. “What?”
Without answering, Lee keeps walking. Chris falls into step beside him and drapes an arm around Lee’s shoulder. “This is great,” he says, excitement evident in his voice. Lee’s glad one of them feels that way. “I’m so happy you finally get to meet Barry. You’ll love him, I just know it.”
Lee has his doubts.
* * * *
Despite the early hour, Toad’s is hopping. Chris leads his friends around to the canal entrance, where April hands their passes to a bouncer blocking twin glass doors that vibrate from the pounding music inside. Once they’re waved through, Chris takes the stairs two at a time to reach the second floor, then hurries down the bare corridor to the open door of the club. Inside, the lights are doused, pitching the club into darkness; the only illumination comes from the stage, where Barry’s band is already playing. Chris pushes through the mass of bumping bodies, grinding between strangers as he shoves toward the stage. He manages to get up close—this is a small club, and there’s nothing separating the stage from the dance floor, so Chris bullies his way into the crowd until he’s right up front. Barry’s on bass guitar above Chris, eyes shut, fingers ripping over his strings, completely lost in the music. Chris calls his name like a rabid fan, then whoops loudly, but the guitar riff drowns him out. Still, he raises his arms in the air and sways in time to the beat, letting the people around him move his body as the music washes over him. That’s his man.
Some time later, Barry sees him and winks. Happy his boyfriend knows he’s here, Chris drifts back to the bar, where he finds Lee glaring at the trio of giggling girls who fawn around him. April is nowhere to be seen, but her friends sigh over Lee as he guzzles down a beer straight from the bottle. Sidling up behind his friend, Chris claps Lee on the back and shouts to be heard over the noise. “How many have you had so far?”
“I lost count,” Lee hollers back.
With a laugh, Chris signals the bartender and orders what Lee’s drinking. He takes the seat between his friend and the girls, then points at the stage. “I’m dating the guy on guitar.”
The girl who hit on Lee earlier shrieks. “Oh, my God! That’s so hot!”
Chris thinks so, too. But when he turns to grin at Lee, he sees something troubling in his friend’s expression, a haunted look in Lee’s eyes that disappears before he can comment on it. Leaning closer, Chris asks, “You okay, man?”
Lee tips his bottle as if he’s toasting Chris. “I’m cool. So that’s him?”
A goofy grin threatens to split Chris’s face. “Yeah. God, he’s fine. And in bed? Shit. Don’t get me started.”
Lee doesn’t. He eyes the stage warily, his face an unreadable mask as he drinks down the last of his beer, but when he sets the bottle on the bar, he smiles at Chris and that seems to chase away the shadows haunting his features. “That good, huh?”
“Dude…” Chris drawls, nodding his head.
Suddenly April appears between them, elbowing her way to the bar. As she waves her bottle of beer at the bartender, she glances at Lee and notices the new tattoo Chris inked onto his shoulder. “Sweet!” She pulls the strap on Lee’s tank top aside to get a better look. “This is wild, man. How long did it take?”
If there’s anything Chris likes to talk about more than his boyfriend, it’s his tattoos. Sliding off his stool, he steps around April to tug up the bottom of Lee’s shirt. “You have to see the full thing to appreciate it. Isn’t it awesome?”
April’s friends circle around for a look. Lee slumps his shoulders and hunches over the bar, a low growl in the back of his throat. “Chris, really…”
“Let them look,” Chris chides. He runs a hand down Lee’s bare back—the skin is warm beneath his palm, familiar. He intimately knows the curve of Lee’s spine, the freckles that dot his flesh, the three moles right below his ribs that form Orion’s Belt—the constellation was one of Chris’s first tattoos. The girls ooh over the dragon bones that trail down the center of Lee’s back; they love the intricate piping Chris finished last week, the colors still bright. Proud of his work, Chris beams as they comment on the tattoos, their polished nails tracing the lines of ink.
After a few moments, Lee shrugs them away. “All right, already. Get off me, will you?”
“Just showing off my portfolio,” Chris teases.
As he starts to smooth down Lee’s shirt, one of the girls notices something just above the waistband of Lee’s jeans. “What’s this?”
Chris glimpses the tip of a tiger’s tail and laughs. “That’s one of my best. Lee’s year of the tiger, see, in Chinese astrology?” The girls nod, but from their vacant expressions, he knows they don’t have a clue what he’s talking about. Still, it’s one of his best tattoos to date. Tugging down a little on Lee’s pants, Chris points to the orange and black swirl that comprises the tail of his abstract, Asian-inspired tiger. The beast runs from Lee’s waist down to his upper thigh. “This one’s bitchin’. You can’t see it all but Lee, pop your fly. Let’s give the girls a show.”
He tugs again on Lee’s jeans as the girls giggle, and is surprised when he hears his friend tell him, “No.”
The word sounds so foreign in Lee’s voice that Chris refuses to believe he said it. “Show off a bit,” Chris says, spinning Lee around on the bar stool. As his friend chugs back another beer, Chris fumbles with the button on the front of Lee’s jeans. “Come on, they ain’t going to see anything major. I just want to show them the tiger—”
“No.” Lee’s hand drops to his lap and pushes Chris away. “Not here.”
Too late. Chris has the fly undone and starts to unzip Lee’s jeans. “So they see your undies,” he chides, laughing. “So what? Unless you’re not wearing any…”
That thought tapers off as the zipper eases down inch by inch and Chris sees no fabric beneath it. No jock strap, no tighty whities, no boxers. Lee isn’t looking at him—his hard gaze is off in the distance somewhere, a million miles away from this crowded bar and the girls huddled around behind Chris. When the first curly strands of dark hair peek through Lee’s open fly, Chris covers them with his hand to hide them from view. His laugh now sounds forced. “Christ, Lee. Why didn’t you tell me you were free-balling?”
Now his friend’s gaze shifts to find Chris. The expression in those bright blue eyes is unreadable. “What’s it to you what underwear I’m wearing?”
“Or not wearing.” Chris tries to rezip the jeans, but the tiny metal teeth catch in Lee’s skin, leaving red little bite marks behind. An awkwardness descends over Chris—this isn’t happening, it can’t be, and why the hell isn’t Lee helping him out here? He pokes under the zipper, ignoring the flutter of soft skin and the faint curls that tickle his fingertips as he tries to undo the damage he’s done. Lee’s staring off again, past Chris’s shoulder, at something only he can see. With a growl, Chris mutters, “Lee, damn it. Help a man out here, will you?”
Suddenly from behind him comes Barry’s voice, a hard edge to it. “What the hell is this?”
Chris turns, hands still shoved into Lee’s pants, and sees his boyfriend glaring at the two of them. In the overhead lights from the bar his disheveled hair looks greasy and unkempt, his face shiny with sweat, but it’s his eyes that catch Chris’s attention, his eyes that won’t let Chris look away. They burn with a singular intensity, brows knit together above them, a mix of distrust and confirmation blazing in their depths.
“Barry,” Chris sighs. He tugs on the zipper one last time and catches a knuckle in its teeth for his effo
rt. Then Lee’s hands brush his away, finally, and Chris turns to grin at his boyfriend. “God, you guys rocked up there. This is—”
“I know who he is.” Barry’s words are short, each clipped in anger Chris doesn’t yet understand. “What I don’t know is why you had your hands down the front of his damn pants.”
“I wasn’t…” Chris turns to Lee in mute appeal, but Lee’s impassive gaze is trained on Barry and he doesn’t see Chris’s silent plea for help. “I was showing the girls his tattoo, Barry. Honest, that’s all it was. He has this really great tiger I did—”
“Where? On his dick?”
Chris tries to laugh that off but Barry turns on his heel and shoves through the crowd, away from them. “Jeez,” Chris mutters, then raises his voice over the noise to holler, “Barry! Wait!”
He doesn’t.
Before he can disappear Chris heads after him, leaving Lee behind with the girls. He pushes strangers aside, catching elbows in his side and ducking under arms stretched out as if to stop him. Ahead, Barry hits the exit door with one hard fist and ducks out into the brightly lit hall beyond. Chris is only a few steps behind him; the door doesn’t manage to latch before Chris rams through it. Barry’s ahead, and with no crowd to impede him, Chris races to catch up. “Barry, please. Stop.”
When his hand falls on Barry’s shoulder, his boyfriend shrugs it off. He turns, his face lit with torment, his eyes wet with unshed tears. “What the fuck do you want, Chris?”
“Barry…” Chris catches his breath and tries to take Barry’s hand in his. He holds tight to Barry’s little finger as if grasping for straws. “It’s not what you think. I was only—”
“No.” Barry closes his hand into a fist, squeezing Chris’s fingers painfully. “It’s not what you think. I knew it all along.”
Exasperated, Chris asks, “Knew what? He’s my friend, Barry. I’ve known him since the fourth grade! There’s nothing between us. Believe me, I’ve never screwed around with him, never. And sure as hell not since I’ve been with you. I’m not that kind of guy.”
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