Spirit

by John Inman

  Sam and I slowly turned our attention back to each other.

  I waited until our eyes and minds were solely centered one on the other. No Timmy, no Thumper, no annoying ghost gumming up the works.

  I cleared my throat. “Do you remember what you told me this afternoon?”

  A teeny smile played at his mouth. “Yes, Jason. I remember.”

  My heart lurched inside my chest. “I—I wonder if you’d mind saying it again.”

  “Would you like me to?” Sam’s look was solicitous and kind. There was no mockery in it. He wasn’t toying with me. He was speaking from the heart. I could see it in the warmth of his eyes, in the considerate tilt of his head.

  “Yes,” I muttered, barely able to get the word out. “Please. Say the words again.”

  Sam reached out and rested his warm palm against my cheek. With his other hand, he pushed his hair off his face and dragged his chair a couple of inches closer. When he was as close as he could get, he centered every ounce of attention on me. As he spoke, he slid his thumb across my lips. His fingertips lay warm and gentle against my ear.

  “I’m crazy about you,” he said. “God help me, I am. I want to be with you all the time. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night, and just knowing you’re lying there next to me in the bed makes my heart flutter. The first time it happened, I thought I was having a stroke or something. Now I know it’s just… well… love. That’s what being in love feels like. I know that now. And I like the feeling, Jason. I like it a lot. I’ve never really known it before. Not like this.”

  I was speechless, watching him, listening to him. I leaned my head into his hand to better feel his palm against my skin. He was so handsome, sitting there across from me, our knees touching, his face all somber and sincere, blurred to within an inch of its life because of the tears floating in my eyes. My pulse was thundering in my head, my poor heart putting in overtime what with all the emotions raging through me. I hoped my heart would survive the surge. I had a feeling I was going to need it.

  “Say something,” Sam sighed. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”

  I leaned forward and scooped him into my arms. I pressed my lips to his neck and closed my eyes as his arms came up to circle me and draw me close.

  The words were the easiest I had ever spoken. “I’m crazy about you too, Sam. I think I’ve known it since the day you arrived.” His strong arms pulled me nearer. I could feel his heart hammering next to mine. His breath was sweet and warm on my face. “The first time we made love, I knew I was lost. I’m putty in your hands, you know. Whatever you want me to be, I’ll be. Whatever you ask me to do, I’ll do. I’ve never felt this way before either. I don’t know what I’m going to do when you—”

  “When I what?” Sam urged me gently. “When I what, Jason?”

  And these were the hardest words I’d ever spoken. “When you leave.”

  I could feel Sam smile against my skin. His hand came up, and he buried his fingers in my hair, holding me close. He pressed his cheek, stubbly for want of a shave, against my own. I could smell the heated scent of him. I breathed it in, never able to get enough. Always wanting more.

  Then he said the words I would never forget.

  “I’m not going anywhere. I already told my parents I was relocating to San Diego. If you didn’t want me, I figured I would annoy you until you did. You’d have to give in sooner or later. I can be pretty stubborn when I want to be. But maybe I won’t have to do all that. Maybe you’re willing to love me back already.” There was hope in his words, and there was a prayer there too, I think.

  If it was a prayer, it was my own. And Sam had just answered it.

  “I am willing, Sam. In fact, I’m already lost. I don’t want you to just live in the same city I live in. I couldn’t stand it. I want you to live here with me.”

  For the first time, a troubled look dimmed his eyes. He pulled away just enough to be able to gaze into my face.

  “I didn’t come here to fall in love, you know. I came to do something else.”

  I nodded. “You came to find out what happened to your brother.”

  “Yes. And now I think I know.”

  “No, you don’t. You’re wrong. I know what you’re thinking, and you’re wrong.”

  Sam offered up a sad smile. “I hope I am. Will you let me at least try to learn the truth? Will you not stand in my way while I try to do that?”

  Was I willing to let Sam learn the truth about his brother’s disappearance? No matter what the truth might end up being? I had to think about that for a second. But only a second. For Timmy’s sake, there was really only one decision I could make. In my heart I knew that much to be true. Come what may, it was Timmy who mattered above everything—and everyone—else.

  “Of course,” I said. “We owe it to that boy upstairs to find out what really happened to his dad. We owe him… the truth. Whatever it turns out to be.”

  Sam’s eyes drifted to the ceiling, up to where Timmy lay sleeping, peaceful and serene with his best friend, Thumper, snoozing at his side. Ten feet above our heads. After the day he’d had, I was astounded he could sleep at all. But the recuperative powers of a four-year-old must be infinitely greater than those of an adult.

  Sam continued to stare at the ceiling. When he spoke, his voice was sad. “I think Timmy already knows what happened, Jason.”

  I followed where Sam was looking. And what had been a heart full of love and happiness, turned in an instant to a heart full of fear. And dread.

  “Yes,” I said. “I’m afraid he does.”

  EVEN WITH everything else going on around us, Sam and I found a way to slip away into our own private moment. We had to.

  Naked and hard, we lay in each other’s arms on my bed. The bedroom door was locked. The lights were on. Timmy and Thumper were still sleeping soundly in Timmy’s bedroom down the hall. I could hear their gentle nighttime noises coming through the monitor on the nightstand. I was growing used to that sound. I liked falling asleep with Timmy’s soft, childlike snore as a backdrop. I wondered how I would be able to sleep without it once Timmy was gone.

  But maybe Sam would take my mind off that.

  Sam’s warm hands stroked my back as he pulled me ever closer into his arms. I felt his fingers playing with the little patch of man-fuzz situated at the base of my spine, just above my ass. He seemed to like that spot.

  My hands were similarly occupied, one kneading Sam’s lean hip, the other resting snugly on his firm little butt. My index finger was tucked innocently into the crack of his ass, just lying there, all comfy and cozy. I was too wrapped up in the words we were speaking to really get any more invasive than that. Sometimes words mean more than actions.

  Although the action was coming up, and we both knew it. I smiled at the thought.

  “Have you quit your job back in Tucson?” I asked.

  Sam sighed. “Not yet. Maybe tomorrow.”

  “Okay.”

  Our foreheads touched. His lips brushed my nose in a gentle kiss.

  “Ouch,” I said, making him grin.

  “Your sister’s going to be furious that you let me in.”

  I groaned. “I know. She’ll just have to get over it.” I saw my sister’s face in my mind. Remembered how she had looked as a child. How we fought. Continually. “You can’t really believe Sally hurt your brother, can you, Sam? You can’t really believe she—” But I couldn’t finish the sentence. I just couldn’t. The words sounded too alien in my mouth. Too… ridiculous.

  Sam didn’t seem overly fond of hearing them either. “I don’t know what to think. No, I guess I don’t really believe it. But I haven’t heard any other theories, have you?” Sam pulled back from my arms just a couple of inches, just enough to be able to focus on my face and for me to focus on his. “But I do know one thing, Jason. Paul would not have walked away from his family. His wife, his son. Our parents. Me. He wouldn’t have done it. That sort of cold cruelty wasn’t in him. It just wasn’t.”
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br />   “I know,” I said soothingly, pulling Sam back to me, bringing his body snug against my own where it had been before. “I guess I never really believed it either. When you find out you’re wrong about Sally, though, I’d like to hear you say the words. Okay?”

  Sam nodded. “Yes. I’ll be more than happy to.”

  “Good, then.”

  We let the silence move in. Pushing thoughts of evil away, I savored once again the astonishing feel of Sam’s body pressed to mine. Our cocks lay rigid, side by side. His hard knees were pressed tight against my own. Our thighs lay snug, warm, the hair on our legs scraping together, feeling both crisp and soft at the same time. And sexy. Sexy as hell. While I closed my eyes to concentrate on just how wonderful it felt to hold Sam in my arms, his lips alit on mine, his eyelashes brushed my face. The tip of his tongue slid over my mouth, and I parted my lips to let him in.

  As if he couldn’t bear not to, Sam arched his back, pressing his cock more firmly against my own. I shivered at the feel of it, at the urgency of his need to be closer. The heel of his hand dipped between my ass cheeks. I folded my leg up to open myself wider, and Sam slid his fingertip over my opening. He immediately withdrew his finger and slipped it into his mouth to apply moisture.

  Wet now, his finger returned to where it was before, and with the saliva as a lubricant, he stroked my anus ever so gently, circling the opening, teasing me, smiling at my shudders of delight. I slipped my hand down between us and cradled his cock with my fingers. It was engorged and hungry. At my touch, he drove it harder into my fist.

  I brushed his slit with my thumb and spread the drop of moisture I found there across the head of his dick. Now it was his turn to shudder.

  He pushed his finger more urgently against my opening, and I sucked in a little breath of air. “Yes,” I whispered.

  Again, Sam pulled his finger away and dipped it into his mouth. Wetter now, he reapplied it to my opening, and almost immediately, it wormed its way inside. I gasped at the heavenly sensation. He laid his lips over my mouth while sliding his finger deeper into me. Gently, oh so gently, he eased it all the way inside. Slowly, almost languorously, he began to move his finger. In and out. I arched my back and opened my mouth against Sam’s kiss, pushing my own tongue into him now. Tasting him. Drinking him in as his finger brought me ever closer to that place where I knew only one thing could make me happier.

  “Fuck me, Sam,” I muttered against his mouth. “Fuck me. Please.”

  I opened my eyes to look at him. His face was red, he was so turned on. His mouth was moist where our lips had fed from each other. He slid his other arm out from under me and coaxed me down onto the bed beside him, face down. Rising to his knees, and with his finger still deep inside me, he brushed his lips along my spine, working his way down while his finger once again began to move.

  I buried my face in the pillow and surrendered completely to the feelings rushing through me. I was so hungry for him to be inside me, all of him inside me, that I let out a tiny sob before I even knew it was coming.

  When he pressed his lips to the little patch of hair at the base of my spine, I smiled. When his tongue slid through the hair in my ass crack, I raised my hips just enough to let him know he was welcome there.

  When he eased his finger from my opening and replaced it with his hot, eager tongue, I cried out and clutched the sheets in my hand as I opened my legs wider.

  His mouth on my ass was the most incredible sensation I had ever felt. He licked and kissed and slurped his way around my opening until I was about to fly off the bed. Then, when he inserted two fingers into me and slowly buried them to the hilt, I could stand it no more.

  Without turning my head, I fumbled my hand into the nightstand drawer beside me, fished a fistful of condoms out of the mess, and tossed them over my shoulder at him.

  Sam laughed. “I’m not Superman, you know. One is sufficient. Got any lubricant?”

  I found that and threw it over my shoulder too. “Oh God, Sam. Hurry.” I had my ass in the air now, waiting for what I knew was coming, so turned on I had to grip my own cock in my fist as I waited.

  Apparently, Sam wasn’t in the mood for wasting time either. I heard foil tear, followed by a tense moment of silence while, I assumed, he was rolling the condom down over his cock, and then came the cool feel of lubricant pouring across my hole. He spread it around with his thumb, then once again dipped his fingers inside me until I gasped. I felt the bed move as Sam placed himself on his knees behind me, right where he wanted to be. His strong hands gripped my legs and spread them wider. I heard him mutter “Beautiful,” just as he positioned his hairy legs more solidly between my own.

  Once there, he bent over me and pressed his mouth to the nape of my neck. With his lips on my skin, he whispered, “Are you ready, baby?”

  I couldn’t speak; I could only nod. I reached around behind me and grabbed his hip, pulling him close. Begging.

  Immediately, I felt the firm head of his cock pressed to my opening, and as his lips found my ear and began licking at it like a kid with a lollipop, I relaxed my sphincter and welcomed Sam’s dick inside me. Well lubricated, he slid into me with one fluid motion, and before I could even cry out, his cock was buried to the hilt.

  Motionless, he hovered over me, into me. He waited as I grew accustomed to his length, his girth. His cock remained as still and hard as stone until I made the first move. When I began to rock my hips against him, dragging myself away, then swallowing him up again as I pushed myself back, he slowly began to respond with movements of his own.

  “Oh, yeah, Sam. Fuck me.”

  “I love you,” he whispered in my ear. “Your ass feels amazing.”

  I nodded, again speechless. His cock filled me to the brim. I felt impaled. My legs trembled around his and his mouth continued to tease my ear as I moved my hips faster, pulling away from the piercing, then pushing my ass back to slip it over his cock like a sheath until he was once again buried inside me as deep as he could go.

  Sam’s movements grew more frantic as his cock plowed into me over and over and over again. Still on his knees, he was upright behind me now, his hands at my hips holding me in place, my ass slapping against his crotch. The bed was squeaking. I was on my knees before him with my head against the wall as he plowed into me with his cock.

  My own dick was hot and hard and dripping like a leaky faucet. I didn’t want to come yet, but I didn’t have the willpower to stop pumping it as Sam fucked me harder and harder.

  Suddenly he froze, motionless, with his cock buried all the way inside me. He ever so slowly eased it out until only his glans remained inside me, then he lazily slid back through the ring of muscle that guarded my core until I felt his pubic hair pressed against my ass. Slowly, he repeated the movement. In and out. Over and over and over again.

  He whispered in my ear. “Come for me. Come for me while I’m inside you. Stroke yourself, Jason. Come for me.” He slid his hand beneath me and cupped my balls as his cock kept sliding in and out of me with that excruciating slowness.

  When his fingers brushed the base of my cock, I bit into the pillow and gasped.

  His fingers slid up my shaft and circled the head of my dick. He squeezed me there, once, and suddenly, I knew it was over.

  I cried out as my semen shot from me, soaking Sam’s hand, filling his fist. Jet after jet of hot come tore out of me, and he stroked and prodded and teased me until every drop was spilled.

  And only then did his cock begin to move again inside me.

  His come-soaked hand slid around to my face and pressed itself to my mouth. I could feel my own semen in his caress, and when Sam drove his cock ever harder into my ass, he worked his fingers into my mouth, and then I tasted my semen too. It was sweet against my tongue. Sweet and thick.

  At that moment, Sam pulled his dick from my ass and flipped me over onto my back. He crawled higher over my body until his balls were on my chest, then he tore away the condom and gripped his dick in his hand.
I reached up and stroked his chest, and the moment I touched his nipples, he came.

  I begged for what he was offering, and he positioned himself so that his sperm spilled over my face. Across my lips, into my hair, over my cheek. He stroked his cock until he was drained, all the while cupping my chin as he slid his dick across my face, his come puddling on my skin.

  I looked up at Sam hovering over me. His head was thrown back, the tendons in his neck tight, his eyes closed. A few seconds later, he opened his eyes and gazed down at me.

  He smiled a weak smile. And when he did, I shivered again.

  He collapsed onto me and buried my mouth beneath his. I circled Sam with my arms and held him tight.

  “Thank you,” he mumbled over my mouth.

  And I smiled beneath him, our faces soaked in his come, our hearts pattering down to a quieter rhythm.

  “I think it’s time to wash these sheets,” he said. “And maybe take a shower. What do you think?”

  I laughed.

  Sam. My Sam.

  IT WAS Saturday morning. Timmy was eating cold cereal and eggs and watching classic cartoons on the tiny portable TV I kept in the kitchen. He set his spoon down between every bite because, even two days after he tried to pound the bejesus out of the basement wall with his father’s hockey stick, Timmy’s hands were still sore.

  The boy’s hair was shorn off to practically nothing. It was the only way the barber could repair the damage Timmy had inflicted on his head with my sideburn trimmers. Since the buzz cut made Timmy’s largish ears stand out like sails, I began to understand why Sally had always insisted on keeping his hair long. When the barber apologized to Sam and me for making the kid look like Dobby, the house elf in the Harry Potter movie, even Timmy had laughed. He thought it was great. He loved Dobby.