Tales From Cushman Row

by Suanne Laqueur

  He’s taking me, he thought. He can take me. He’s the only one who can.

  “Nobody,” he said, running his hands up and down Stef’s tattooed back. “Nobody will ever do to me what you do. Nobody will ever make me feel this way.”

  Stef put one hand, then the other on the headboard, pulling himself upright. His palms slid flat on the wall, the inked wings on his shoulders spreading wide. Jav slid arms around him, one hand flat on his heart, the other closing around his cock. His mouth dragged up the side of Stef’s neck, tangy and salty with sweat. Stef shivered. His body trembled as he sat back on Jav, coming down in his lap and taking all of him inside.

  “Don’t move,” he said thickly, lacing his hands behind his head.

  “I can feel your heartbeat.”

  “I can’t feel anything but you.”

  Jav turned Stef’s chin back, curled around and kissed him. Bit gently on his lips and sucked his tongue and inhaled the ragged exhales. Pressing Stef between his arm and his body, holding him tight, holding him still and stroking him off. When he took his mouth away, Stef’s head lolled like his neck had no strength left. His hands reached for the wall again.

  “So fucking deep,” he whispered down between his arms. A groaning, babbling sing-song of words as Jav moved in him. Slurred run-on sentences pouring out of his soul. “God Jav you’re so full up tight deep in my ass all the time I can’t even do but want you fucking into me like this…”

  “I want to make you come.”

  “Fuck into me like this.”

  “Come here, Stef. Come right now.”

  “Jav, I can’t even…”

  “Do what I tell you.” He drew Stef’s head back and covered his mouth with his own. “Come,” he said into Stef’s throat.

  Stef moved on him, short little thrusts while his hand wrapped around Jav’s and jerked hard. His cry echoed off the insides of Jav’s mouth before his head fell forward, then back. His moan bounced off the walls and ceiling. Cock bubbling up hot and dripping through their hands. Ass clenching down even hotter, pulsing as Jav held still and came into pieces.

  “Javi,” Stef whispered. Beads of sweat slid down his temple. “I swear…”

  “I know, man. Hang onto me. Come down now.” Holding Stef to him with one arm, he put the other hand down and rolled them onto their sides, carefully easing out of Stef’s twitching body. Stef made a little grunt and then shivered into stillness.

  “So good,” he said, the words slurred and mushy. “Nobody in my life ever fucked me like that.”

  “Nobody ever will.” Jav wrapped arms around him, burying his mouth against Stef’s hot, damp head a minute. “I’ll get a towel.”

  “Not yet, stay here.”

  Jav settled back down, pulling him close.

  “Just hold onto me a minute,” Stef whispered. The twitching aftershocks had blended into a definitive rumble in his limbs.

  “Cold?” Jav asked.

  “Yeah, I got chilled off. Like all my body heat left when I came like that.”

  Jav drew the covers up over them and tucked them tight. “There.”

  “Fuck, that was intense.”

  “I know.”

  “Need to come down.”

  “I got you.”

  “Weird,” Stef said, his teeth chattering. His skin rose up in bumps. His limbs trembled. Then, fast as it had come over him, it left. His body softened, his breathing quieted until it fell beneath silence. Long, rolling inhales and exhales, like ocean waves.

  “I love making love with you,” Jav whispered, the words tiny and shy in his mouth.

  No answer.

  “You all right?”

  The finch was asleep in his arms. Still glistening with sweat. A tiny smile holding his mouth in a curve.

  Jav rested his forehead on Stef’s nape, smiling as well.

  All is right.

  Tell Me

  Stef awoke the next morning, hard and twitchy. His head full of tender thoughts while his body only wanted to fuck.

  Can’t it be both?

  Jav was asleep on his stomach, his head turned away and his fingers lightly twined with Stef.

  Wake up and look at me.

  Jav was so intense and private about his sleep. He could only be spooned so long before he inched away, turned over on his stomach and put his back to the world so he could put the day away.

  He shared Stef’s bed yet he slept alone.

  But he liked to hold hands through the night. Even turned away, he reached back and behind to find Stef’s fingers.

  Do you need me?

  Stef reached to caress him, then stopped and only let his palm hover a quarter-inch above Jav’s skin. Moving atop the force field. Almost touching.

  Wanting so bad it hurt.

  Tell me, he imagined Jav saying. I won’t laugh.

  One day, Stef’s mouth moved around silent words. Someday. I’m going to fuck you.

  How, Jav said, his fingers tightening.

  I’m going to kiss you until you’re limp. Then turn you away and bend you over my bed. Then I’ll slowly pull your pants down and lick you in places you didn’t know you wanted my tongue to touch. Then I’ll roll you over and wrap my mouth around your cock and slide my fingers into your ass. One at a time I’ll work them into you. I don’t care if it takes an hour to get you to open. Get you loose. Get you begging for me to fill you up because you need to be close to me.

  God, I want to hear you say you need me in you. I’ll make it so good, Jav, I swear. I’ll hold your trust tight in my hands like it’s the best gift I’ve ever been given. I’ll get you so ready and slowly, watching your face the whole time, I’ll slide my cock into you. Wrap you in my fist while I breach that tight, hot ass of yours.

  I don’t want to scare you. I don’t want to make you something you’re not. If it takes months, it takes months. If it’s never, it’s never. But if you want it…

  His chest got thick and muddy, desire caressing the back of his throat like a waft of perfume.

  If you want it, Jav, if you want me in you, then we’ll go slow. Slow as you want. Kill an entire bottle of lube if we have to. Just the tip until I feel you relax for me, feel you start to want me. Want more. A quarter inch at a time I’ll fuck into you. Until you have all of me and you’re fucking my hand while I’m fucking your sweet ass. I’ll make you come harder than you ever came in your life, Jav. You’ll be dying for my cock after that. You’ll want me to fuck you all the time. And I will. Anytime you want. Anytime you ask me. Anytime you tell me.

  His palm touched down, spread wide and warm on Jav’s back.

  And each time I’ll be wondering if you have any idea how crazy about you I am. If you know I’ve never wanted anyone, male or female, the way I want you. That I’m just as shocked as you to hear this kind of stuff coming out of my mouth. I’ve never talked like this to anyone. I’ve never wanted to say these kinds of things to anyone. Never felt this way with anyone else.

  Every time I fuck you, I’ll be wondering if you know what all of this means to me…

  Jav rolled over, the sheets twisting around his body. “I can hear you thinking, you know.”

  “Come here, you moron.”

  Jav yawned, then pushed his face into Stef’s side and his arm slid heavy and warm across Stef’s stomach.

  “Tell me more,” he said.

  One For the Road

  I never had any intention of this scene being in the final draft. Jav would never want to work again and Stef would never let him. Really I just wanted to write something around that hot black-and-white picture I found. —SLQR

  “I need to talk to you about something,” Jav said.

  “Oh boy.” Stef closed his laptop. “Well, we knew we’d get to this point someday. Honeymoon’s over.”

  “Whenever you’re done.”

  “Sorry. What’s up?”

  “I got an email from one of my clients. She was a re
gular of mine for years. She needs a date and she begged me to walk her.”

  “What did you tell her?”

  “Nothing yet, I wanted to talk to you about it.”

  “You’re asking my permission?”

  “No,” Jav said slowly. “Yes. Kind of.”

  Stef scratched fingers along Roman’s head. “Well, when you say date, is that a biblical date?”

  “It could be. Or it could be just a walk. I haven’t talked to her about the specifics yet.”

  Stef crossed his arms and his ankles. “We got tested but we really haven’t talked about exclusivity.”

  Jav nodded. “Do you want to?”

  “Be exclusive?”

  “I’m not sleeping with anyone else.”

  “Neither am I.”

  Roman looked from one man to the other, not sure what had been decided or declared.

  “At this moment,” Jav said. “I don’t want to sleep with anyone else.”

  “Me neither.”

  Roman yawned.

  “Glad we had this little chat,” Stef said, trying to focus on the point but the sun was coming in the windows and backlighting Jav’s neck and shoulders. He wore jeans and a grey thermal shirt. His clothes clung to some of his muscles and left no doubt, and draped in other places, making Stef imagine things.

  “If you’re only walking her, I guess it’s okay,” he said.

  “I was thinking I’d do it for free.”

  Stef chewed on that and found, oddly, the money being out of the picture made the scenario not okay. “This is weird,” he said, “but I almost rather you do it as a job.”

  “Huh.”

  “And only as a walk. I mean, I’m not laying out a command here. I’m just saying how I feel.”

  “No, go on with the command thing. It’s hot.”

  Stef threw a pillow at him. Laughing, Jav caught it.

  “I’m serious,” he said. “Lay out the rules.”

  “The rules?”

  “Put it on the table.”

  “All right. Number one, you tell her you’re seeing someone.”

  “Done.”

  “And it’s a walk. No sex.”

  “No sex.”

  “And no kissing.”

  “No kissing.”

  “I mean, you can kiss her on the cheek…”

  “No tongue.”

  “Right.” Stef caught the pillow Jav flung back and hugged it to his chest. “I wait here for you.”

  “I like that rule. What happens when I get home?”

  “You hand over the money and I fuck you senseless.”

  A crackling moment of smiling silence.

  “You whore,” Jav said.

  Stef opened his laptop. “Oh, you have no idea…”

  He wasn’t worried. But he ambushed Jav in the shower and jerked him off anyway. “Just to empty the tank,” he said.

  “Great, now I’m sleepy,” Jav said from under the spray.

  “Which means you’ll be home even earlier.”

  Stef almost changed his mind when he saw Jav emerge from the bedroom in suit and tie, his trench coat over an arm.

  Holy fuck. “You look like shit,” he said.

  “Thank you.”

  “Goddamn, Landes, you scrub up nice.”

  “Stop staring at my ass,” Jav said.

  “Impossible.”

  “I’ll text you when I’m leaving.”

  “Nah. Just show up and surprise me.”

  “Whatever you want.” Gazing in the mirror by the door, Jav gave his tie a little adjustment and pulled on his cuffs.

  “You look good,” Stef said.

  “Thank you.”

  “You wearing underwear?”

  “Yes, dear.”

  “Got condoms in your wallet?”

  Jav opened his mouth then shut it, eyebrows drawing down. He took out his wallet and opened it, then chuckled and tossed two Trojans to Stef. “There you go. I’m unarmed and dangerous.”

  “I’m kidding, I’m kidding.” He made to toss them back but Jav put up a shooing hand, then leaned and kissed him. “I’ll be back.”

  “Well, you live here.”

  Jav kissed him again. “Make yourself at home.”

  Stef did. And truthfully, he was tired, and it was nice to have a night in. Nice to be sprawled on the couch, watching TV, with Roman and all of Jav’s things for company. He made a little dinner and cleaned up. Took Roman for a last walk. Every now and then he glanced at his watch and wondered what Jav was doing, but with a benign curiosity. He wasn’t worried.

  It was nearing one in the morning when Jav’s key scraped in the lock.

  “Honey, I’m home,” he called softly as Roman trotted over, dog tags jingling.

  “How was your day, dear?”

  “Fine.”

  Jav looked tired. A slightly blurred version of the sleek, sharp man who’d left the apartment five hours before. He looked gorgeous. But he looked forty-five, too.

  “Have a good time?” Stef asked.

  “It’s a job,” Jav said. “It’s not about me having a good time.”

  “Must be exhausting,” Stef said. “Keeping your attention focused on someone that intensely for that long.”

  “It can be.” Jav had shed his trench and suit jacket and was pouring rum into a lowball. It was the only hard liquor he drank. And always Appleton Estate. Stef didn’t care for it, although he liked the taste of it when they were kissing.

  Jav sat on his desk chair, loosening his tie and undoing a couple buttons on his dress shirt. As they talked, he took out his cufflinks and rolled his sleeves up. It made for a pleasing picture. Something vintage 1950s about it, Stef thought, his eyes narrowing. Frank Sinatra after a gig in Vegas. One for my baby and one more for the road.

  “What?” Jav said.

  “Nothing.”

  “What?”

  “Just… You look fucking hot right now and I’m not really listening.”

  Jav smiled into his glass. “My conversation is shit, but I scrub up nice sometimes.”

  The room expanded and contracted like a pair of lungs as the two men stared.

  “You know, I’m kind of falling for you,” Stef said.

  Jav’s chin raised and lowered. “You know, I couldn’t wait to get home.”

  Stef got up and crossed to the desk. Ran fingertips along Jav’s neck and touched the hollow at the base of his throat. Let them trail down Jav’s chest, feeling his skin rise up in tiny bumps.

  “Put that down,” Stef said, indicating the lowball glass.

  Jav chugged the rest and set the glass on the desk. The heady smell of rum mixed with the even headier scent of Jav’s skin, hair and clothes. Stef was getting drunker by the minute. His hand caressed along the open buttons of Jav’s shirt and began undoing the closed ones.

  “Tell me about your date.”

  “What do you want to know?”

  “Was she hot?”

  “Yeah.” Jav drew in a small breath as Stef pulled the shirt tails from the waistband so he could get the last button.

  “She turn you on?”

  “No.”

  His fingers parted the shirt lapels and glided over Jav’s stomach and chest. “Does this?”

  Jav nodded.

  Stef set his hands on top of Jav’s on the armrests. Slowly he leaned, tilting the chair back.

  “Do I?”

  Jav wet his lips. “Couldn’t wait to get home.”

  Stef smiled at him, then leaned further and settled his mouth on Jav’s neck, gently sucking at the warm, tender skin of his throat. Jav pulled in another breath, this one gruff and ragged in his chest. He sighed as Stef ran his lips along collarbones and the underside of Jav’s jaw.

  “Finch, kiss me,” Jav said hoarsely.

  Stef took his head. No soft, slow buildup tonight. Jav’s mouth was open right away and pulling Stef’s tongue insi
de.

  “I don’t want anyone else but you,” Jav whispered.

  “Good.”

  “Now that I know what making love is really like, I never want to work again.”

  “I don’t want you to either,” Stef said. “I’m getting really greedy.” He went after Jav’s mouth again, a hand tight in his hair, trying to swallow the man alive.

  “I’ve never felt like this,” Jav said. “Never in my life. This is more feeling than I ever had in my life.”

  “Me too.” Stef held Jav’s head, smoothing a thumb over that full bottom lip. “My heart’s pounding.”

  “You know you have more of me than anyone else ever has.”

  “I know. I’ll be really careful with it.”

  “Promise?”

  Stef held his lips against Jav’s, breathing. “It’s safe with me.”

  “Finch.” Jav’s hands came up to hold his head. “I swear to God, I’m in love with you.”

  The whole room contracted like a fist, then released.

  “I’m in love with you, too,” Stef whispered.

  “Want you so bad.”

  “I want to make you come.”

  “Let’s go in the other room.”

  “No,” Stef said, crouching down. “I ruined one profession. If I suck you off at your desk, maybe I can ruin the other one, too.”

  Jav laughed. “I’ll be useless.”

  “I have tremendous use for you.” Stef undid Jav’s belt buckle. “Watch.” Shaking fingers unbuttoned and unzipped. Jav’s legs flexed and he pushed up, freeing his hips, letting Stef slide his pants and briefs down. He sprawled in the office chair like an executive god. Shirt unbuttoned, tie undone, pants around his ankles and a hand closing around his erection, his thumb rolling in a slow circle around the tip. Breathing hard and staring down at Stef on his knees.

  “I love looking at you.”

  “I love you looking at me.” Stef slid his hands up Jav’s strong quads, slowly bringing them in to frame the base of his cock. “This mine?”

  “Mm,” Jav said.

  “All for me?”

  “All of it.” Jav’s free hand slid around the back of Stef’s head, fingers folding into his hair, bringing him closer. Stef closed his eyes and let Jav guide and slide into his mouth.