by A. E. Wasp
Chris gripped Benny by the shoulders and swiveled him back to face him. He trapped Benny’s legs between his knees so Benny couldn’t escape. “Benito. What are you hiding? What triggered it?”
“Nothing.” He drummed his fingers nervously on the tabletop. “Stress. It’s been rough with Mikey the last few weeks.”
“And?” Chris laid his hand over Benny’s to stop the frantic tapping.
“And drinking.” He hung his head. “I may have had a relapse or two.”
Chris squeezed Benny’s hand. “Why didn’t you call me?”
“It wasn’t anything. A beer. Maybe two.” He tried to shrug it off, but Chris could see the shadow of fear in his eyes. It was so easy to backslide, so easy to ruin everything again.
Chris laid his hands gently over Benny’s. “Hey, we’re not going to let anything bad happen. Promise me you’ll call me next time, okay? Day or night. Fuck next time. Call me every day. I’ll go to all the meetings you want. God knows I could use it to; my head’s a mess.”
Benny knocked his knees against Chris’s legs. “Speaking of that, is there anything you want to tell my about you and a certain silver fox boss of ours?”
Chris shot a look towards the stairs to Jay-Cee’s apartment. “Did he come down yet?”
Benny’s eyebrows shot up. “No, man. He flew back to New York in the middle of the night. His dad’s real sick. I think he’s in the ICU. I thought you knew.”
Chris’s heart dropped to his stomach, and the blood drained from his face. Why wouldn’t Jay-Cee have called him?
Benny leaned forward, concerned. He took Chris’s hand. “Are you okay? It sucks, yeah, but from what Jay-Cee said the guy is like eighty and has been sick for a while.”
“He didn’t call me. He was upset I didn’t call him, and then he was all…and then we…” Chris threw his hands up in the air. “And then we had a huge fight, and I kicked him out, or he left or kind of both. And then he doesn’t call me? All day yesterday and then when his dad is dying?” Chris’s voice rose with each word.
Benny sat up, blinking. He held up his hand, to stop Chris from speaking. “Okay. I’m going to make us both some coffee, and we’re going to go sit on the comfy couch, and you’re going to tell me everything? ¿Comprendes?”
Chris nodded. It would feel good to finally tell Benny and maybe get some perspective on everything that had happened since that first night.
He dragged himself over to the couch, dropped down heavily onto the ugly plaid fabric, and threw his arm across his eyes with a dramatic sigh. Benny laughed from across the room.
The coffeemaker sputtered, and Benny hummed along to the music while Chris contemplated all the different reasons Jay-Cee would have had for not calling him. He’d settled on the fact that he was an emotionally stunted child who couldn’t deal with actual feeling as the most probable reason.
Benny nudged his legs off the couch and handed him his favorite mug. Chris took it gratefully. “Thanks.”
Holding his hot mug carefully, Benny sat down and pulled Chris’s legs across his lap. “Now tell your Tio Nito everything. Don’t leave out any of the dirty, dirty details.”
It didn’t take very long to give Benny the broad outlines of what had happened between Jay-Cee and Chris. How they’d slept together at Pride, and then the whole are-we aren’t- we crap. Recounting it, Chris couldn’t believe that the highest high point and the lowest low point had happened an hour apart. He couldn’t look Benny in the eye as he described how he had let Jay-Cee down, pushed him away for the unforgivable sin of being human.
Benny sighed when Chris’s story trailed off. “Fuck, Chris. You don’t do anything halfway, do you? But none of that sounds impossible to unfuck. Just apologize and talk, that’s what normal, not uber-intense people do.”
Chris screwed up his face and stared into the coffee cup as if it held all the answers. He shrugged. “It’s complicated.”
Benny narrowed his eyes at him. “Why do I feel like you’re leaving something out? Come to think of it; I didn’t get those dirty details I asked for. You kind of faded to black there, buddy.”
Chris dragged the old crocheted afghan off the back of the couch and pulled it up over him, so only his eyes and the top of his head stuck out. It was a risky move with that thing. No one knew where the ratty blanket had come from. It had just appeared one day.
“Oh, this is going to be good.” Holding Chris’s legs so they didn’t fall off the couch, Benny shifted around to face Chris.
“I don’t want you to judge Jay-Cee or me badly,” Chris said.
Benny crossed his heart with a finger and held up his hand as a vow. “I promise I won’t.” He looked at Chris with faux concern. “Is it because he’s old? Does he have a hard time, you know, getting it up?”
Chris kicked him hard on the thigh. “No. Dickhead.”
Benny cackled a laugh and trapped Chris’s foot on his lap.
“Don’t look at me,” Chris said. “I can’t tell you if you’re looking at me.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” Benny sighed dramatically, then closed his eyes and dropped his head back against the couch, face pointed at the ceiling. “Is that better? Or should I knock together some kind of confessional booth? Would you feel better on your knees?”
Chris choked on air at that, then he laughed. “Kind of, yeah actually.” Taking a deep breath, he told Benny everything, right down to the smallest detail.
Benny had stopped pretending not to look and stared at Chris when he finished. He squirmed uncomfortably, and Chris could feel Benny’s erection pressing against the backs of his legs where they lay across his lap. Benny’s eyes look a little glazed.
Chris pressed down against Benny’s crotch and arched one eyebrow. “Are you getting off on my sex life?” he asked smugly.
“Yeah. Sue me. It was fucking hot.” Benny pushed Chris’s legs off him. “And if you keep doing that, I’m going to have to tell Mikey I cheated on him.” He reached down and adjusted himself. “Damn. I don’t know who I’m more jealous of, you or Jay-Cee.”
“Did you just compliment me in some weird way? Are you jealous of Jay-Cee having sex with me?”
“Not like, jealous jealous. It’s …” Benny rolled his eyes. “Dude, you know you’re gorgeous, and it’s not like, you know, I don’t have my own memories of your O-face.” He blushed adorably and turned away.
Thank God Chris had Benny in his life. Whatever he had done to deserve such a good friend, he hoped he could keep it up. Lunging forward, he wrapped his arms around Benny and squeezed him tightly. “We had fun though, right?”
Benny kissed him on the side of the head. “Yeah. It was fun. But not the same as someone who’s perfect for you, right?”
Chris sighed and slumped against Benny. “Not the same, no. But,” Chris pulled away, grinning, “If you think Mikey would ever want a three way, give me a call.”
Benny laughed. “I don’t think he’s ready for that. He’s a baby bi who spent the last few years as a single dad. I’m moving slowly. Rimming rocked his world. Then again, he did blow someone he thought was a stranger in the bathroom in his very first foray into the wide world of gaytitude, so who knows what the future could hold?”
Chris clapped him on the shoulder. “That’s the spirit.”
“What about Jay-Cee?” Benny asked slyly. “What would we he think about that?”
“I think he’d love it, as long as he got to direct the whole thing. Not that it matters since he’ll never talk to me again.”
“Stop being such a drama queen.” Benny tugged the blanket away from Chris and draped it over his lap. “So Jay-Cee’s a big old dom top? Can’t say I’m surprised by that. And now that I think about it, you are pretty subby. And bratty.”
Chris bristled.
“Hey,” Benny held up his hands. “A, it’s not an insult, and b, tell me it’s not true.”
Chris looked away from Benny.
“Christopher,” Benny snapped, his voice
deeper than Chris had ever heard it. “Look at me.”
Chris’s gaze snapped to him, eyes wide.
Benny busted out laughing. “Yeah. Not subby at all.”
Chris laughed and punched him. “Fuck you. You asshole.”
“You love me.”
“Not for much longer.” Chris poked his fingers through the spaces in the crocheted afghan. “So. What exactly do you mean by subby?”
30 – Just give me a reason, just a little bit’s enough
“Jesus, Chris.” Benny sighed and tapped his fingernails against his teeth while he thought.
For the first time, Chris felt the difference in life experiences and years between him and Benny. Chris’s experience in the street life was deep, but his life experiences were pretty narrow come to think of it. Benny had traveled more places, done more thing.
Benny settled deeper into the couch. “Let’s pretend this is our own little AA meeting space, okay? What gets said here, stays here. Just between you and me?”
Chris nodded.
“Do you know anything about the Army Rangers? Who they are, what they do?”
Chris shook his head no.
“Anything about D/s?” At Chris’s blank look, he continued. “Dominance and submission?”
“Apparently not.” Chris realized how little he knew about a lot of things.
Benny shook his head. “Orales, baby, you jumped into the deep end of the relationship pool from the high diving board without a personal flotation device. I think you have some research to do.”
“Jay-Cee gave me some books. That night after Vincent’s. I haven’t looked at them yet. Let me get them.” He got and brought his backpack over to the couch. He pulled out the books and handed them to Benny.
Benny checked out the front and back of the books, nodding approvingly at the one about the Rangers. His eyebrows rose at the second book. “On Killing?” He flipped it open and read a few pages, and then covered his mouth with his hand, eyes serious. Closing the book, he pushed it back towards Chris. “This one, this one is good. You should read it. Could I borrow it when you’re done?”
“Yeah, man, of course.” Chris slid the books back into his backpack.
After a long second of silence, Benny cleared his throat. “So, do you know anything about BDSM?”
“Of course I know something about it. I’m not completely clueless. Why does everyone think I’m some sort of virginal child who doesn’t know what he wants and is going to faint and the first hint of kink? Jesus, Benny, you know some of the shit I’ve done and what I’ve been through.”
Benny patted him on the arm. “Yeah, I know, babe. It’s that angel face of yours. Nothing touches that innocent thing you’ve got going on. You can get dragged backward through ten miles of shit and still look like a barely-legal porn star.”
“Thank you?” Chris dropped his head down against the arm of the couch. “Did you ever wish that your outsides could match how you felt inside? Like people would look at you and really see you?”
Benny cocked an eyebrow. “You mean like the way Jay-Cee is covered with tattoos from neck to knee? It’s not just because he likes the pretty pictures.”
Chris lifted his head. “Huh. I never thought of it like that. It feels more like armor to me. Like he’s never completely naked because of it.”
Benny snorted. “Sounded like he was pretty naked at least some of the time.”
“Yeah, he was.” Chris wiggles his eyebrows suggestively.
“Anyway, back to you and your kinky D/s sex that I am absolutely not picturing in my mind.”
Chris frowned.
“What?” Benny asked.
“I’m not sure ‘D/s’ fits. Dominant, submissive. It all sounds so, I don’t know, so fake? Like it’s theater. I mean, It conjures up images of some big hairy bear of a guy in a leather harness with whips and shit, telling some guy in a dog collar how he’s going to paddle his ass red and make him say he likes it while telling him how good he takes it.” His voice trailed off as he remembered his bruised ass, some of the things Jay-Cee had said to him, and how much he had liked it at the time. His cheeks flamed bright red. “Oh.”
Benny didn’t look at Chris as he pulled a sketchbook and a pen out of Chris’s backpack. “It’s not all chips, dips, chains, and whips. It’s most about power exchange, and there is a wide spectrum of behavior.” Scribbling something, he tore the page out of the sketchbook and handed it to Chris. “Here, do some research. These are good places to start. Stay off porn sites for a bit, and for the love of all that is holy, stay off Tumblr, okay?”
Benny rubbed his face. “God, I feel like I’m having the sex talk with my kid.” He looked up, stricken. “Oh, God, am I going to have to talk to Jasmine about sex one day? Oh my God. I can’t do that.”
Chris read the list of websites Benny had written. “I think you’re jumping the gun on that issue, my friend. She’s four. You have at least eight years.” He waved the list in front of Benny’s face. “So how do you know all this shit? You’re so wholesome and clean cut. You’ve never said anything to me about being into this stuff.”
“I know. My boyish charm throws everybody off. I look like everyone’s goofy little brother.” He gave a Chris a wide smile. “Chris, from eighteen to twenty-four, I did nothing but follow orders. Then I was an alcoholic and druggie in the gay club scene in California for two years. My best friends were Drag Queens and rent boys. You think I never went to a leather club? You think I never let some leather-wearing Dom beat my ass black and blue and then fuck me until I couldn’t walk the next day?”
Chris shook his head, eyes wide, holding back a grin. “No. I truly never crossed my mind. You don’t talk a lot about those years. Or any years. Just about your two friends, Honey D, and Venus. But not the other stuff.”
Chris got it; he didn’t talk about the reality of his life much either, especially with people who hadn’t lived through something similar. He just mined the tragedy for funny moments that he could use to satisfy people’s curiosity without telling them anything real or important. Just like Benny and Jay-Cee did with their time in the military, he realized.
“So, you tried it, and you didn’t like it?” he asked Benny.
“I didn’t say that.” Benny smiled. “It’s just too intense, too much work for me. I want to hang out and have sex and pizza. Now with Mikey, I want to have those romantic dates and some of that sweet, sweet lovemaking I used to make fun of.”
“So there’s not a right and a wrong way to do this D/s? And is it like every time? Can you ever just, like, screw around?” It was a little embarrassing to be asking Benny these things, but there was no one else he would ever ask.
“There’s no one way to do anything. I saw all kind of D/s, BDSM relationships, from lovely-dovey pampering sweet stuff to guys in full leather hoods and leashes. People did it now and then or lived it twenty-four seven. There are as many ways to be as there are people. I don’t care what anyone does as long as it’s consensual.”
“It was totally consensual,” Chris assured him. “Jay-Cee asked me if I was sure. He kept asking me if I wanted this.”
Benny made a scoffing sound. He looked almost angry. “Did he give you any more detail about what he meant by ‘this’?”
“He asked me if I had submitted to anyone before.”
“And did you know what he meant?”
“Kind of?”
Now Benny did look angry. His eyebrows were lowered and he frowned. “Chris. You can’t give a valid consent when you’re not sure you’re consenting to! And you obviously didn’t.”
“I’m sorry.” He knew he was an idiot.
Benny shook his head. “No, this is one hundred percent on Jay-Cee. You feeling confused and blindsided is his fault, not yours. He should have known better.”
“But I liked it. I mean, I loved it.” Chris closed his eyes, remembering the sex and the immediate aftermath. “It shut down my mind, put me in this nice soft, safe place where all m
y problems went away, and everything felt good and kept feeling better and better from there.”
“Sounds like heroin.” Benny pointed out gently.
“That’s what Jay-Cee said,” Chris admitted.
“Is he right? Are you looking to trade addictions?”
If both Benny and Jay-Cee had made the same leap, Chris owed to himself and them to consider the possibility. So he did. He thought about the difference between how heroin made him feel, with its lies and knife-edged promises, and how Jay-Cee made him feel. The feelings were worlds apart. “No,” he said decisively. “After the sex—”
“And the spanking,” Benny added.
“And the spanking, you perv. Before I freaked out, I felt good. Really good. Not like my problems had gone away, but that I could handle them. Clear and kind of new. Fully present in a way I hadn’t been in a long time. I felt seen. Like he listened and knew me and cherished me and pushed me to be more honest.”
“What changed it? You said he saw the paintings and you flipped, but I’m still not sure exactly why.”
Chris tried hard to put his feelings into words. “I didn’t want him to be affected by my past. And I want to forget that shit every happened, know what I mean? I guess I felt too seen. He saw stuff I wasn’t willing to share.”
Benny reached down and picked his coffee mug off the floor. Taking a sip, he grimaced. “Cold. Gross. Look, I don’t want to tell you how to live your life. Though I guess you get off on that now.” Benny snorted a laugh.
“Shut the fuck up,” Chris said, laughing as well.
“But, dude, I am not the one you should be having this conversation with.”
“No. I needed to talk to you about it first. It’s less embarrassing to ask you this stuff. You won’t laugh at me,” Chris said.
“Yeah, I will. I laughed at you like four times.”
“You didn’t laugh at me for not knowing basic stuff,” Chris elaborate. “Plus it’s different with you. You love me.”
“And Jay-Cee doesn’t. So you don’t trust him not to laugh?”
“No. I think he might love me. And it’s terrifying. That’s what’s freaking me out.” Chris realized it was the truth as he said it. “And he doesn’t trust me.”
