Tales From Cushman Row

by Suanne Laqueur

  “Christ,” Jav moaned.

  Stef laughed around his cock, slowly released him and ran his tongue around the ridge. “Glad you’re home.”

  Jav’s fingers tightened, something between a snarl and a growl in his throat. “Been fucking dying for your mouth all night.”

  Stef’s erection screamed from inside his pants, begging to be let out. He gave his crotch a single, adjusting squeeze, telling it to cut the shit. “Oh yeah?”

  “Take it,” Jav said, rocking his hips. “Please, man. Want it so fucking bad.”

  Stef made short work of him. Within minutes Jav let out a yell and blew his load on Stef’s tongue, his heels digging into the floor and fingers clenched white on the armrests. Stef caught his breath, then, still kneeling, he eased off Jav’s shoes and socks, pulled his pants the rest of the way off. Reached up and helped his arms out of his shirt sleeves.

  “Come here,” he said, standing up and pulling Jav’s naked body against his fully-clothed one. “Listen to me.”

  “What?”

  Stef held Jav’s head and told him, “Tonight was your last job.”

  A beat of staring silence before Jav whispered, “All right.”

  “You’re no longer for sale,” Stef said. “Nobody ever pays for you again. Not for your body, not even for your time.”

  “You get my time now,” Jav said. “And my body. You get all of me.”

  Another fragile beat before each eased into the other’s arms. Skin against cloth. Stef slid his hand along the back of Jav’s neck, staring with an intense ferocity at the room and the world. Mouth moving around silent words.

  You are no longer for sale, Javier Landes.

  Babbling in That Weird Language

  “Dude, that wasn’t even English,” Jav said.

  A forearm flung over his face, Stef babbled something, giggling, his toes still clenched up tight.

  “Pardon?” Jav said.

  “I said, I’ll get you for this.”

  And later, he did.

  “Christ, I love your mouth,” Jav said to the ceiling.

  “Mm.”

  He pushed up on his elbows to watch.

  I’m watching a guy blow me.

  And it is fucking hot.

  “Want something inside?”

  Jav licked his lips, swallowed hard. “Yeah.”

  Stef pulled off the rings he wore on his index and middle fingers. “Hold these for me.”

  “Oh God,” Jav whispered. He lay down again, one damp palm curling around the bits of silver, the other reaching to rest on Stef’s head.

  “We’ll go slow.” Stef flipped the cap of the lube up. “I’ll stop whenever you want.”

  He gently nudged one of Jav’s knees up. Then he took Jav’s hand off his head and held it on the mattress. Jav focused on the feel of their palms resting together. The fit of their fingers. The warm wet engulfing his cock again as a slick caress started stroking along his ass.

  “Don’t hold your breath,” Stef said, licking along the ridge.

  Jav exhaled.

  It was most intense at the first breach. When the involuntary urge was to clench. Jav remembered to breathe out as the pressure moved in.

  “Hurt?” Stef murmured.

  “No.” It burned a little at first. On its own, it was weird. But together with Stef’s mouth it was amazing. And when his finger moved a little deeper and found that golden spot of tickling, tingling, pulsing joy, it was fucking crazy.

  And tonight, it kind of wasn’t enough.

  “That just one?” he said through his teeth.

  “Mm.”

  “Maybe…try another.”

  The cool drip of more lube and then the sensation was doubled. Stef moved his mouth slow along Jav’s hardness, holding them poised on an agonizing edge.

  It wasn’t enough.

  “Try,” Jav said, his eyes squeezed shut. “More.”

  Stef’s fingers pressed deeper, dragging along Jav’s prostate as they slid back out. The tingling intensified until it spread from Jav’s earlobes to the soles of his feet.

  “There?” Stef said, kneading in a little circle.

  “There,” Jav gasped, seeing stars. This was the need center of his existence. Every nerve trembling and howling with need need need need. Screaming in frustration when Stef’s hand pulled back and held still, just the tips inside, hanging Jav by the moment.

  “More,” Jav gasped. “Don’t fucking stop, man.”

  “You want more then take it,” Stef said. His mouth came gliding up Jav’s stomach and chest, sucking and biting. Fingers tight in Jav’s hair and pulling Jav’s groaning panting mouth against his cool smile. “Go on. Fuck my fingers. Get off on it. Make yourself come.”

  Jav hesitated. He hadn’t quite yet given himself permission to actively want this. To go get it for himself.

  “Go on,” Stef said softly. “You can.”

  And, as he thought so many other times in bed with Stef, Jav thought now, Oh fuck it.

  He drove down on Stef’s wrist, filling himself up. Sliding and clenching and taking more and more. He reached for his cock with one hand and the lube with the other and then he was sprawled in the sheets, wide open and writhing. Hips bucking up into his slippery fist and down onto Stef’s slick fingers, fucking himself. Openly and unabashedly masturbating in front of this guy who stared down at him, transfixed, lips parted and eyes wide, like he was watching the creation of the universe.

  “God, you are so fucking hot,” he whispered. He set his palm on Jav’s sternum and pressed him down into the bed. His fingers beckoned, curling around that narthex of pleasure. It vibrated so deep, Jav couldn’t even pinpoint where it stopped and his own hand began.

  “There,” Jav said through his teeth. “Right there. Right there don’t stop. Jesus Stef don’t stop…” And then it was his speech that slid out of English, past Spanish and into some ancient primitive tongue. It was him lying spent and giggling afterward, toes curled and limbs tingling. Stef wiping him off and laughing softly, too.

  “I think we’re inventing a new language, Landes.”

  The cloth moved gently, picking up the residue of spit and lube and semen. Jav closed his eyes under the touch. He found he was starting to adore those little moments of caring afterglow as much as he did the sex. When Stef dried him off and then got a bottle of water. Asked if he was okay or if he needed anything. Blithe and unconscious kindness. The tending to. Someone giving a damn about Jav for once. A couple times it left him on the verge of tears, which he hid by lying on his stomach, head turned away while Stef’s palm stroked up and down his back.

  “This is big,” Stef said. “This is just more than I ever…”

  “Yeah,” Jav whispered. “I know.”

  Be brave, he told himself. Eres el más valiente.

  He turned his head and let Stef see the enormity brimming his eyes. Stef gazed back. His hand dropped softly on Jav’s face. He didn’t speak. Just held Jav’s gaze as his thumb ran along Jav’s cheekbone or along his eyebrow.

  “It’s amazing,” Jav said, giving a little shiver. “Everything I thought about being a man is…not what I thought.”

  Stef nodded. His hand reached down to draw up the covers. “This is gonna sound strange,” he said. “But I don’t think I’ve ever felt more like a man in my life. I can’t even say why.”

  “I feel like me.”

  The corner of Stef’s mouth lifted in a tired smile. “I feel like I finally met someone who literally speaks my language.”

  The new vocabulary grew bolder and bigger on Jav’s tongue. He relaxed into the syntax and structure, realizing that “having sex” could mean a number of different things and as Stef said, the things didn’t always involve someone’s ass. Sometimes the things were nothing more than a straight-forward hand job because it was a crummy Tuesday night after a long hard day of work, they were tired, they both wanted to blow a load and go the fuck to
sleep. Business was brisk. They could make each other come in two minutes. Tops. Breath was caught, a hand towel passed from one to the other, boxers and sweats pulled back on and ‘night, dude.

  Sometimes a Tuesday stretched out long and naked, glazed in sweat and juice, until it reached into the wee hours of Wednesday. Leaving both of them stumbling around their work, guzzling coffee and talking through yawns, texting each other sheepishly that fucking all night seemed a good idea at the time. But really they were a little old for these shenanigans. They’d cool it after midnight next time. And then next time came and suddenly it was four in the morning and they were babbling in that weird language again, unable to stop.

  “I can’t get enough,” Stef said hoarsely. “Jesus Christ, dude, your sex is like voodoo or some shit.”

  Jav didn’t answer, his mouth caught between kissing Stef and trying to swallow him.

  Inside, he thought, dire and desperate. This is what it’s like wanting someone inside you.

  I Was Five When You Were Born

  “Check it out.” Stef’s expression was full of the devil as he elbowed Jav’s side.

  Jav looked over, annoyed that the liquor store was out of Appleton Estate and he had to pick another kind of rum. He took off his glasses and squinted at the shelf where Stef was pointing to a bag’s label.

  Rimming Sugar.

  Sweet Cocktail Trim.

  “Man, I would’ve loved being in that advertising meeting,” Stef said, grinning.

  “Jesus,” Jav said. “Were they even trying to be subliminal?”

  “Hidden in plain sight.”

  As Jav went back to inspecting rum labels, a small elephant tugged on his sleeve.

  Shut up, he thought.

  Dumbo pouted. But we wants to know.

  “Now see,” Stef said, picking up another bag. “This is poor advertising.” He turned it toward Jav. The label read Chocolate Rimming Sugar. “Two words you definitely don’t want next to each other. Probably doesn’t sell very well.”

  The elephant was beating Jav with its trunk now. We wants to know!

  “You ever?” Jav said, circling his hand vaguely at the shelves.

  “Sure.”

  “Rimmer or rimmee?”

  “Both.”

  “Which do you like better?”

  Stef put the bag back on the shelf. “Both.”

  Jav blinked. Trying, unsuccessfully, to get the picture in his mind. Knowing he’d left the words “I’ll never” in the dust months ago.

  “Well, I don’t doubt we’ll be having those drinks someday,” he said.

  “You save it for date four hundred and seventy-two.” Stef smiled and moved a few aisles over toward the bourbons. Jav’s eyes followed, full of confused affection. He knew beer would always be Stef’s best friend. He liked IPAs in summer but when autumn rolled around, he started drinking heavier, darker brews. Porters and stouts. In real cold weather, he liked a lowball of bourbon. He especially favored a brand called High West Yippee Ki-Yay. Probably because the label had a picture of a cowboy riding a bucking bronco. Stef favored anything with a picture of a horse on it.

  Jav knew things like this now.

  He grudgingly took a bottle of Pusser’s rum and made his way to the line at the register. From his pocket, his phone pinged an incoming text. He fished it out. It was Stef.

  FYI, more nerve endings in your anus than any other part of your body.

  Laughter snorted through Jav’s nose as a fiery heat swept across his face. “Jesus Christ,” he muttered, pulled in all direction by happiness, squeamishness, arousal and trepidation. Sloshing together in his stomach and groin in a passionate but lethal cocktail. Rimmed with sugar.

  He had an erection now.

  What the fuck is happening to me?

  “God, my neck,” Jav said, moaning.

  “Get off the fucking computer already.” Stef hooked arms around Jav from behind and bit his ear. “Come on. I want to show you a great documentary on wild ass.”

  “Oh? The ones that roam your mattress?”

  “Them. Come on. Let me rub your back and graze on your plains.”

  “Maybe you should write this book.”

  “Me do the words good.” Stef reached and turned the desk lamp off. “Get the fuck in my bed, Landes.”

  “I’m starting to think you have an agenda.”

  “I do.”

  “Should I shower? Is this under-the-sink agenda?”

  “If you want,” Stef said, swirling his bourbon glass and tapping his finger on the rim.

  Jav crossed his arms, biting down on a corner of his smile. “Real subtle, Finch.”

  “So’s your curiosity. I can taste it from here.”

  “Shut up.”

  “It’s like chocolate rimming sugar.”

  Jav sighed, shaking his head. Red-faced and sporting a half-chubber, he headed for the bathroom.

  “Yippee Ki-Yay, motherfucker,” Stef called after him.

  He half-expected to walk into the bedroom and find it lit up with candles, Stef lounging naked in the center of the bed with a rose in his teeth. But he knew better. Stef detested cheesy, staged seduction scenes. He always left the jokes and wisecrack remarks in the living room. He lay soft and chill on his side of the bed, wearing sweats and a T-shirt, reading under his bedside table lamp. Only one candle was lit on his corner altar.

  Jav put on his own sweats and lay down on his stomach. Stef dropped a hand on the back of his neck and kneaded it.

  “Ow,” Jav sighed.

  “Occupational hazard.”

  “Yeah.”

  A few moments of page-turning quiet, then Stef set his book down and turned the lamp off.

  It started fine, with him kneeling astride the small of Jav’s back and his huge hands wringing the knots out of Jav’s neck and shoulders. It got great when Stef started biting on Jav’s nape, digging fingers into his hair and pulling a little. Then kissing down Jav’s spine and running his tongue along the edges of Jav’s shoulder blades. His nose slid along the waistband of Jav’s sweats, his fingers curled and slowly dragged them down.

  Goosebumps rashed Jav’s skin and his groin rolled over like a cat belly-up in the sun. Someday, he’d tell Stef that the only reason he wore sweats or shorts to bed was so Stef could take them off.

  You mean pull them down.

  His chest got all thick and tight. Once, just once, when they were making out hot and heavy and Stef was letting Jav suck on his fingers in between feverish kissing, he leaned his face into Jav’s neck and whispered, “Pull your pants down.”

  Jav almost died.

  Died as in he was instantly hard, filled with the Oh shit of intense arousal and the Oh shit of being in big trouble.

  Pull your pants down.

  A million connotations packed into four words. Your adult self hoping you were getting fucked while your inner child thought it was getting a beating. You didn’t know if you were facing heaven or humiliation.

  Well, your brain knew. Your ass wasn’t so sure. And it was fucking hot. Strange, but hot. It stuck in Jav’s spank bank like a golden go-to. All he had to do was think about Stef whispering the words. Or think about him unbuttoning and unzipping Jav’s jeans and starting to pull them…

  Christ, I’m weird, he thought, happily dying as Stef slid his pants off and ran his big hands up Jav’s legs.

  It was good. It all felt good. It was literally all right until Stef slid a hand on either side of Jav’s ass and slowly spread him apart. One ruffle of Stef’s breath on the back side of his business and something felt all wrong. Inherently, almost culturally wrong.

  Jav willed himself to relax, even as the goosebumps rushed in waves over his skin again and a dreadful anticipation folded the sides of his stomach together. Everything in him screamed to laugh it off, make a joke. It was one thing to have a guy check out your ass from across the room. Another for him to be up close, peeking throu
gh your back door window. Like it was something remotely desirable.

  He’s right, Jav thought. There’s no sexy language for this. Only fifth-grade jokes.

  Stef laughed softly. “I can hear you thinking, you know.”

  “Well, I talk out my ass a lot. You’re in the prime place to overhear.”

  Stef gave him a small shove, still chuckling. “Maybe we’ll do this some other time.”

  “No, I… I just need to get used to it. This is the self-conscious weirdness of a guy looking at my asshole. It’s not making me hard at the moment, it’s making me…dumb. Give me a minute.”

  Stef sighed. “No good words.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Jav, if you apologize I’m going to punch you.”

  “All right, I’m s… Never mind.”

  “Let’s just not talk, okay? Put some music on, put your clothes back on, I’ll leave your ass alone.”

  Jav batted away the sweats Stef threw at his head. He’s frustrated as shit with me, he thought. God, I’m such a fucking dork.

  “Quit brooding and put on that Feist album you were playing the other day,” Stef said. “It was cool.”

  Biting his tongue nearly to the breaking point, Jav put it on and forced himself to lay down and shut up. He curled arms around a pillow and exhaled. Stef stretched out beside him, head pillowed in the small of Jav’s back.

  Just lie here. Be naked. Be present. And fucking chill.

  One of Stef’s hands moved over his skin, warm and neutral. Massaging his muscles. Fingertips finding the fine hairs at the base of Jav’s spine and combing his nails through them. His palm ran in circles on Jav’s butt, his thumb digging into the meaty part sore from yesterday’s workout. Then it planed along Jav’s spine to find the howling tension at the base of his skull.

  Stef clicked his tongue, fingers pressing. “God, you’re a wreck.”

  Jav grunted. Editing took a toll on his entire body. Brain. Bones. Muscles. All of him clenched like a fist while he tried to get it right.

  “Jesus,” he said as Stef’s fingers dug into one of the more stubborn knots and the pain rocketed up the side of Jav’s face.