Sharp Edges: An Urban Gay Romance

by Moreau, Lenore

  "Where the fuck do the Kellys live?" I ask Harry. My voice comes out more like a shout. Harry sees me. Wide-eyed. He hands me a napkin with an address and I'm moving again. No plan. No time. Just my buzzing blood and my blurred eyes. I kick the door open and burst inside, thanking god this street's so shitty. Old wood. Easy break-ins.

  "Kelly!" I bellow, my gun in my hand. "Get the fuck down here, you piece of shit." Someone steps in front of me. Not the kid I saw. Green eyes, dark hair. Guy from the bar. I pause. Then I push him, trying to slide out of the way.

  "What the hell are you doing?"

  "Getting the fuck who hit my sister. Where is he? Fucking move." I shove him again. He grabs my wrists, forces me backward, twists until the gun clatters to the floor.

  "He didn't do it. He didn't do it," he shouts in my face, pressing me backward more, further. I feel a hard surface behind me. "And he's not here. No one's here."

  "Lying shit-" I say. Both of my wrists are pinned to the wall. His face is inches from mine, and a strange sort of heat fills me, a kind I've never felt before. I push it away. Not helpful. I stop struggling, let him think he's won. He relaxes just slightly. Enough. I knee him in the stomach, feeling the soft flesh yield beneath me. He gasps, pulls back. I run up the stairs. Where is the fucker? Into a bedroom. Not there. Another, nothing. No sound. Then I'm pushed hard, flying for a moment. The ground hits hard. The wind leaves me and I cough for breath. I barely feel the pain. I struggle with everything I have. My legs are trapped, my arms trapped. What the fuck? No one's beat me in a fight since grade school and this fuck hadn't even had to hurt me to do it.

  "Would you fucking stop?" he yells. "It wasn't him. It wasn't my brother. He's in juvie. Has been since this morning. Okay?" He doesn't let go of me. I nearly spit in his face, but even through the adrenaline, I feel it. That primal fear sleeping in all of us. Fear of pain. Fuck. He's got me. He hasn't hurt me yet, not bad at least. And I've already lost.

  "I'll fucking check that. If you're lying-" He lets out a breathless laugh, and the world slows as I take him in. His hair hangs in his face, damp with sweat, and his cheeks are flushed. His hands are warm on my wrists, holding me down but not hurting. Those eyes- that deep green you can see from across the bar- stare into my own, wary, but not hostile. More- curious. I frown.

  "How the fuck are you not kicking my ass right now?" I ask before I can stop myself. We both breathe heavily. He gives me a tired grin, and all of a sudden that hot aching feeling returns. To my shock, I realize I'm hard. If I'm being honest, I'm harder than I've ever been. While I'm stuck to the floor with a guy on top of me. What the fuck.

  "Great fucking question," he says. We look at each other for a long moment. Then we're both laughing. Maybe it's relief- maybe it's just how fucking ridiculous this situation is. I'm achingly hard and warm, and a guy is pinning me down, his face inches from mine, his green eyes boring into me. I'm not a fag. I'd never fuck a dude. But his lips are drawing closer to mine and I don't want to pull away. His arms still hold me down and our legs press together in a sweaty tangle. Everything freezes at once. This is my chance to stop this, to tell this guy to get off me, to leave me alone. The air smells like campfire and salt, warm and heavy around us, and all I can feel is his weight on mine. I am on the edge of a precipice about to jump to the rocks below. His lips hit mine and I'm falling.

  A stranger is kissing me on the floor while he holds me down. Those are the facts. But fuck the facts. My lips part automatically and our tongues brush together, rough, doing the fighting the rest of our bodies just stopped as we each strive for control. My hands are free now. His are roaming up my arms, gripping my shoulders, then making their way up my neck. They lingered there, stroking my skin, each callous in his fingertips pushing into me. I never thought of my neck as sensitive until now. My body is out of my control. It's responding to some sudden urge inside me, something far out of my conscious mind, and it's the best fucking thing I've ever felt. It's as primal as my fear was only seconds ago. Regaining the last bit of self-control I have, I pull away.

  "Don't kiss me," I say. He smirks and pulls us both to our feet. We undress ourselves by some unspoken agreement. What the fuck am I doing? Why don't I want to stop? I can't stop, I realize. This goes beyond my conscious thought. This shit is chemical.

  "You a top or a bottom?" he asks.

  "The fuck's that?" He laughs again. This fucker's happier than anyone I've ever met. How can you be that happy living in Upper East? Right now I decide I don't care.

  "First time?"

  "With a guy, yeah," I admit reluctantly.

  A part of me still wants to run and get the fuck out, but my cock's so hard it hurts, and I'm not used to denying it. I don't want to deny it. As far as I figure, our urges are there for a reason. Whenever we can give into em, we should. He runs his hands down my chest to my stomach while I stand there, not sure what to do. He kneels in front of me, and suddenly my dick's enveloped in warm wetness. I groan as he starts to suck me off. This is better than it's ever been with a chick, different, rougher, more in my head than just in my cock. My hand tangles in his hair, pulling him forward, urging him on. Soon my breath comes in gasping pants and my head is spinning. I'm going to come. I'm going to come in under a minute from some faggot sucking my cock. Somehow that thought makes me hornier. Just as I'm about to blow, he pulls away.

  "What the fuck, man?"

  "Bend over the bed."

  "The fuck do you think I am? Some kind of fairy?" He shoves me toward the bed and I bend over, unnaturally excited. Lots of guys experiment with stuff in their asses, anyway. God knows I have, and it always makes coming fucking intense. That doesn't make me a fag. That just means I know my biology. Something cold and wet drips across my ass and I tense up.

  "Relax," the guy says. A finger slides into me, invasive and burning.

  "You got fucking acid on your ha-" My sentence cuts off as he begins to move it in and out of me. There's an ache, sure, but something about it just feels so right, like I was meant to be spread out for some gay asshole my whole life. Another finger slides into me. He leans over me, fingers moving in and out, then curling against something in me that makes me gasp.

  "You looked like a bottom," he mutters. I turn back to glare at him.

  "Fuck you, man." His fingers pull out of me and I turn, annoyed. "What, you're fuckin' done already?"

  "No," he says. He's got a purple bottle in his hand and he's rubbing lube all over his cock. I look at it for the first time. It's fucking huge. At least nine inches. Puts my five to shame.

  "There's no way you can fit that inside me."

  "What, you scared?" I scowl.

  "No, you stupid asshole, I'm not scared." He looks at me, waiting. I nod slowly. I don't offer any more resistance. There's this terrible guilty part of me that's dying to know what it feels like. And as he pushes into me, I do.

  I wince for just a moment at the sting. It fades in one or two thrusts. He isn't gentle. I like that. But he's slow at first, giving me a chance to adjust to the feeling. Soon the pain is gone and I'm left with nothing but aching pleasure that radiates from my tailbone to my head. The noises escaping me are embarrassing. They're wanton and needy, and I'm bent over the bed like a common hooker, taking everything he wants to give to me. And he wants to give me a lot. His hands hold onto my hips tight enough to leave red marks, and his breath is at my shoulder, his stomach pushing into my back with every thrust. It's primal. Driven. Hard and rough and it feels fucking incredible to be taken like a bitch in the street. My mind is humming with strange white heat, breaking beneath this new feeling.

  "Scoot down," he murmurs roughly, his thrusts slowing. I scoot forward, straining under the weight of his body until my body's fully on the bed. He presses me down into the mattress, every inch of his front covering my back, our skin sticking together. His arms wrap around my chest, holding me in place as he thrusts into me hard, each time hitting that spot inside of me that sent shivers up my spine. That spo
t- it's almost more intense than what I've felt through my cock before. It's a different, harsh pleasure that almost makes me scream. He keeps thrusting, over and over, pounding it relentlessly. I gasp, my eyes rolling back in my head. I'm glad I'm laying down. The world is spinning. I'm getting close. My hard cock presses firm into the mattress, finding friction each time he ruts against me. His hand closes around my cock tugging once, twice, three times and I'm coming.

  The feeling is fucking incredible. It's like a fucking high. Intense, more intense than anything I've ever felt. I'm floating above my body in a wave of pure pleasure, still feeling the cock inside me, hard and thrusting as I spasm around it. I feel the sheet grow wet under me, but the sensations keep coming, over and over, pushing me into new levels of ecstasy. The man above me groans, holding me tight for a long moment as his thrusts stop, as his hips continue to twitch for another moment. The high fades. The world comes back into focus. The full weight of what I've done hits me and I push him off, grabbing at my clothes on the floor.

  "Where are you going?" he asks. The pleasure's gone. I hate him. He'd worked some gay magic on me and made me take his cock. My body tingles still, reminding me just how fucking willing a participant I was.

  "What? Do you want to cuddle?" I ask. My voice shakes. I'm still dizzy.

  "No," he says, frowning. My scowl deepens. "What's your name? You work down at the Concord, right?" He'd noticed me. He knows of me, knows where I worked. I pray to god he's a terminal closet case and not one of those out and proud fucks. Or maybe he's straight, like me. Maybe this was just a weird hormonal after-fight fluke.

  "Caruso."

  "Your first name?"

  "Everyone calls me G," I say reluctantly.

  "What's your real name?" he asks, rolling to a seat at the end of the bed.

  "Why do you care?"

  "Just curious."

  "It's, uh, Giovanni. Which is why everyone calls me G." He grins, and I scowl at him. "Think that's fucking funny?"

  "I like it. I'm Oliver Kelly." I nod at him, pulling on my pants. I already knew that. He's the one that draws my eyes the most whenever he comes into the bar. With the military ID. I try not to let on, though. "That was crazy."

  "Yeah well don't get used to it. I'm no fag."

  "Alright." He looks hurt. Against all my instincts, I feel bad.

  "Sorry for breaking into your house," I offer. "I thought your brother was the shit-head who beat my sister."

  "Sorry about your sister," he says. "I'll tell ya if I hear anything?"

  "Thanks." I give him a last look. This is the last time I'll see him, I'm sure of it. I hope it, anyway. His eyes are smiling though his mouth isn't. His hair hangs wildly around his head like a dark halo. His cock's still half-hard, and- why am I looking at his cock. With great effort, I turn away. I rush out without another word.

  3

  It didn't mean a fucking thing. I keep telling myself that the whole walk home. It meant nothing. The adrenaline and rush of a good fight had me horny, and he was the only thing around to fuck. That was all it had been. I'm only human after all. We adapt to our surroundings and my surrounding was that I was horny. The street's dark, and I'm glad I remembered to grab my gun from the floor. Walking here at night alone is stupid otherwise. Just asking to get mugged or to have to fight some asshole who's got to prove how alpha he is to his buddies. Tonight, though, it's just drunks wandering around, trying to find a place to sleep.

  Manny's sitting on the couch with Marco when I get home. They both turn at the sound of the door.

  "Looks like somebody got lucky," Marco says, waggling an eyebrow at me with a grin. My heart sinks and I desperately comb my fingers through my hair, trying to hide the evidence.

  "You didn't hurt that Kelly kid, did ya?" Manny asks. "It wasn't him."

  "I know. He got arrested or some shit. I saw his brother." I run my hand through my hair again, then hurriedly add, "Then I ran into Sarah Gellar and thought I'd blow off steam before coming back to figure out who really hit Lina. Did she tell you?"

  "Nah. We'll find out, though. When she's ready to talk about it. Put em in an early grave."

  "Cool," I say.

  I grab my towel from the floor and hop in the shower, cursing as the lukewarm water hits me. It's hard to find hot water in this house, with the six of us cramming into it. Our pipes are probably so corroded the heat slips through the cracks and the lead replaces it. Still, it feels good to be under the water, to get some of Kelly off me. I'm trying not to think about it. I'm not a queer. If I ever had any of those sorts of tendencies, my dad beat em out of me long ago.

  You can't be a fag in this part of the city. You especially can't be the fag that takes it.

  Fags get no respect, and when you do the kind of shit I do, respect is all that makes your money. It's what makes people scared of you when you're roughing em up. Nobody'd piss themselves over a fag threatening em. Loss of respect means loss of connections. And sometimes those connections are the only thing that makes money to keep the heat on. Not that it matters. Because fucking one guy one time doesn't make me gay. It was an adrenaline-driven sexual release. That's all it fucking was.

  I get to my bed but can't sleep. My brain's working overtime, every fucking cell I have left focusing on either finding the kid that hit my sister or reliving the shit that happened earlier. I can't deal with either one right now. I'm too fucking tired and I work all day tomorrow. I'm pissed and horny and I don't want to be either. I grab the whiskey bottle from the side table and take a few swigs, making a face. Even for shitty liquor that's bad. Marco snores in the bed beside mine. It's soothing, really. A sound that's been around since I was born. Slowly I drift off.

  Kelly shows up at the bar the next afternoon because of course he fucking does. He grins at me and I nod back, an unusual flash of nervousness hitting me. Why is he back here? Has he told someone? Will he tell someone? Nah. Like I said, you can't be fucking gay down here or do shit that's even kind of gay. Like take it or give it up the ass. For example. This time he doesn't sit in the back. He stays at the bar, sitting on a stool a few feet away from the nearest regular.

  "Hey," I say. "Two days in a row, huh? You turning alcoholic now?"

  "Full on." His eyes are so fucking green. If I was a sap, I'd say they look like gemstones or some shit. Luckily, I'm not. "Can of your cheapest beer, please."

  "Glass of piss coming up." I pass it over to him, listening to the unusually loud hiss as he opens it. I refill Bob from 4th street's glass, then return to Kelly.

  "You find out who did your sister yet?" he asks. I scowl, remembering.

  "Not yet. She's protecting him. Too fucking good for this world." Kelly takes a sip of his beer and makes a face. I grin. "Piss water. I told you. Buck fifty."

  "God, I don't think it's even worth that." He forks over the money, still grimacing. His face shows emotion like a fucking neon sign. It's expressive enough that even a smile looks dramatic on him.

  "You work around here?" I ask, curious despite myself.

  "Yeah, on fifteenth. Mechanic."

  "Shit, I hear that's good cash."

  "Not bad. Keeps the roof over our heads." Who is our? A girlfriend? "I heard somebody talking about Lina today. I don't know for sure if he's who did it, but he was talking like a shit-head. Todd Mason."

  "Fuck. Lina loves that guy. You sure?"

  "Not sure. But I can find out. Give me a day?" I glance over the bar. It's pretty empty. Harry can handle this shit.

  "Can we do it tonight?" My face turns red as I hear the words that came out of my mouth. "Find out about the kid tonight. He hangs out at the park with my sister's friends."

  "I'll have my brother check it out. He runs with Todd."

  "Thanks." He nods, crushing the half-empty beer can and throwing it toward the trashcan behind the bar. It bounces off and hits the ground. "Come on, man, what the fuck? I gotta clean that shit up." He raises an eyebrow.

  "You broke into my house last night." I
throw him the finger and leave him alone. I can't stop looking over at him, though, even when I'm helping the other drinkers. There's something magnetic about him. Something rockstars and presidents have that draws people to em, and it goes beyond his looks. I couldn't have pulled away last night even if I'd wanted to. He's hypnotic. He stands up and I walk over to him.

  "Let me know if you hear anything, huh?" He nods.

  "Give me your number." I hesitate for half a second. That could be dangerous. Still, I need to know. I give him the number. "See ya, Gio."

  "Gio? Nobody calls me that." He shrugs.

  "Bye, Gio."

  "Fuck you, Kelly."

  We meet in the park when we get confirmation. The kid's sixteen, so I'm not gonna kill him. He's lucky he's sixteen. Lina can take care of herself but when it comes to people who fuck with my family, I get so mad I can't see straight. We don't have much down here, but I've got them and they've got me. Not having much else makes them worth more, I think. And I'm lucky enough to have kick-ass siblings. Nobody fucks with them without answering to me. Kelly sits beside me on the bench as we scout him out. He's there with a friend, but that won't be an issue. The friend's one of Kelly's brothers. I look at Kelly and raise an eyebrow. He nods. We walk toward him. Kelly's brother splits.

  "Yo Mason," I call. Kid turns around, all red hair and acne. "Fucked with the wrong girl, man." His freckles turn white.

  "Hey, G, I didn't mean it. She fucked another dude. I walked in- I just lost it."

  "So you bust her face? A girl who's half your size. You think that makes you a man?" He turns, ready to make a break for it, but I yank him back by his collar. "Fuckin' rude to walk away when someone's talking to you."

  I rough him up a bit, focusing on his face. Kelly stands behind me watching, but he doesn't try to stop me. Not even after I've kicked him a few times as he's motionless on the ground. My respect for the guy- Kelly, not the wife-beater- grows a few feet taller. Mason's crying hard now, so I let up, spitting on his face.