The Musician and the Monster

by Jenya Keefe

  Ángel opened his eyes. Oberon was watching.

  “That was nice,” he whispered, a smile curling one side of his mouth.

  “It was?”

  “Yeah. Very.” He inched farther up Oberon’s body, elbows on either side of his head. “Close your eyes this time.”

  He tilted his head and slanted his mouth over Oberon’s.

  Teaching the cultural envoy from the Otherworld to French kiss was possibly the greatest idea he’d ever had. His tongue asked for permission to enter, and when he got it, the thrill that ran through his body almost made him groan aloud. If Oberon’s smell was an intoxicant and his touch a stimulant, the taste of his mouth was like a shot of white rum—shocking and toe-curlingly good. Oberon allowed Ángel to explore him, tease him, lips and breath, a nip of teeth. The hot slide of their tongues.

  Oberon had no bad habits to unlearn, and if he didn’t know how to kiss, he sure as hell knew something about foreplay. He perfectly gauged Ángel’s responses, and when he began to kiss Ángel back, there was nothing tentative or awkward about it. He clasped Ángel’s face and pressed Ángel’s mouth open, the penetration of his tongue slow and deep, blood-hot and hungry.

  Then he rolled Ángel over onto his back, covered his body with his own, and Ángel went from playfully teaching him what he liked to swimming in sensation, drowning in the hot velvet friction of Oberon’s mouth. He made a sound like a whimper as Oberon took possession of his mouth; his arms, around Oberon’s shoulders, went lax, his whole body loose and welcoming. Oberon kissed him, and kissed him, and all Ángel’s pathetic defenses crumbled into nothing.

  He was such a total bottom.

  Oberon’s hands roamed over Ángel’s body, stripping his pants off his hips. Ángel squirmed to kick them away, broke the kiss long enough to gasp, “You too. Naked,” then pulled Oberon down for another kiss.

  Oberon did not seem to be one for rushed fumbling with clothes while swapping spit, however. He pushed Ángel firmly into the mattress, stood up, and undressed, revealing in the dim room a magnificent nakedness. He was graceful and strong, mottled like a jaguar; Ángel’s eyes traveled to his smooth, pale, perfectly recognizable cock and balls. Then Oberon crawled over Ángel on the bed, entirely lionlike. He pinned him snugly with his body, their dicks jostling together.

  Ángel shuddered. “God!” Oberon lowered his face to Ángel’s, his breath on Ángel’s lips, and used one big long-fingered hand to grasp their cocks together. “Oh my God,” moaned Ángel, helplessly clutching Oberon. It was the most intense sensation he’d ever experienced. The magical tingle of Oberon’s hand and cock on his, transformed into something so acutely pleasurable it was all Ángel could do to hang on.

  “Such a hurry, Ángel,” murmured Oberon, his hand tight and hips rolling, his cock grinding against Ángel’s with a steady rhythm that sent high-voltage shocks through Ángel’s nervous system. “So impatient.” He tipped his head to one side and kissed Ángel, open-mouthed, a demanding, encompassing kiss, while Ángel’s body worked against him.

  So impatient. It was embarrassing to be needier than the man who hadn’t had it in eight years, but Ángel could no more control himself than he could sing an aria. He spread his legs, braced his feet on the mattress, and writhed, gasping, his hips bucking.

  “I— Oberon— I—I’m sorry, I—”

  “Do it now.”

  He came, crying out into Oberon’s mouth, creaming over Oberon’s hand, adding a slippery wetness to the friction, and it shook him so intensely he nearly passed out.

  “Perfect.” Oberon’s voice was a groan. He flattened himself onto Ángel like a carpet, grinding their entire bodies together, his slender cock sandwiched between them. There was a hand on Ángel’s ass, lifting him, urging him to wrap his legs around Oberon’s hips. Ángel was still gulping for air, throbbing with his own orgasm, as Oberon’s pelvis revolved, rubbing his cock through the slickness that coated Ángel’s belly. Slow and hard. “Hold on to me, beloved,” Oberon whispered. “Oh, hold on.”

  Then he stopped breathing, arched his body, went rigid. He was motionless for a long moment while heated, fragrant semen spurted out of him onto Ángel’s chest and belly.

  Then Oberon gasped with a sob, tightened his grip around Ángel’s body, and, to Ángel’s astonishment, kept coming. For another endless breathless moment, fluid kept pulsing onto Ángel’s skin. Then he gasped and cried out again, and Ángel kept holding him tight, because he was somehow still coming.

  Finally, finally, Oberon’s body relaxed from its agonized bow. He collapsed onto Ángel, limp, heavy, wrung out.

  That was unbelievable.

  The room smelled powerfully of sex hormones, sweat, and Oberon’s semen, which had a slightly sweet aroma, like fruit. Emotion-magic pulsed through the air. Ángel watched the rosettes fade from Oberon’s body, the dead weight of his lover still bearing him down into the mattress.

  He liked the heaviness, but he didn’t like the stickiness. So after a while he nudged Oberon, who managed to disentangle himself and roll over onto his back. Ángel crawled off the bed, staggered to his feet, and padded to the bathroom, where he toweled a truly amazing amount of greenish jism off himself, then came back to the room with a towel.

  Oberon, awake but limp, was still sprawled flat on his back across the bed, his face motionless and calm.

  Ángel tenderly mopped their semen off his body. “I think you came for, like, seven minutes.”

  Without opening his eyes, Oberon said, “Probably not much more than one.”

  “One minute?” Ángel tossed the towel into the corner and flopped down beside Oberon, who linked a hand around his wrist and began to purr. “A minute. I’m not sure if I’m jealous or horrified, baby. I’d have a heart attack if I came for a minute.”

  “I think I did.”

  “Is that usual, or was it because it’s been eight years?”

  Oberon stirred. “Nine years.”

  “Nine?” repeated Ángel, incredulously. “¡Ño!”

  “Eight years here, about one in meditation and training.” He smelled like ripe honeydew melon and musk. “Does ño mean no?”

  “No. No is no. Ño is, like, fucking goddamn whore.”

  “I shall never achieve fluency,” sighed Oberon drowsily. “A minute is . . . not unusual. You’re quicker?”

  “You were there.”

  “I mean . . . all of you?”

  “Not just me?” Ángel combed his fingers through Oberon’s downy hair, and the purring intensified. “That was way fast. Sex can definitely last longer than that. I was amped up. But the actual orgasm part, yeah. Ten seconds maybe, bam, we’re done.”

  “Hmm. Quick,” Oberon murmured. His voice was slow and heavy with sleep. “I was also amped up.”

  “I’ve heard that women can make it last longer, but I don’t really know.”

  Oberon rolled over on his side and pulled Ángel tight against his body, wrapped himself around Ángel like a strangler vine. “You’re beautiful,” he said. “I like the kissing, except I can’t watch you and kiss at the same time. And you’re so beautiful.”

  Ángel bit his lip. “Not like you’re beautiful.”

  “Me, no,” denied Oberon. “We fae all look the same.”

  “That doesn’t even make sense.” Ángel had never seen anyone more beautiful than Oberon. “Are you going to sleep?”

  But Oberon was already out, arms heavy around Ángel’s waist.

  Ángel drowsed restlessly.

  He wasn’t really used to sleeping with another person, much less a full-body octopus-cuddler with electric-eel skin like Oberon.

  Not that he didn’t like it—he did—but every breath or shift brought him up against the fae’s body and woke him.

  So he wasn’t asleep when the tablet pinged softly. He recognized the sound. Incoming email from Marissa.

  He opened his eyes. The room was dim, but moonlight was streaming in through the window, and he could see the tablet on the bedsid
e table. He reached for it, careful not to jostle the deeply asleep Oberon.

  You should check this out when you have a chance. Be sure you’re sitting down. Maybe do a couple shots of tequila first, it said, above a link to Conner Marr’s blog.

  He hesitated.

  He didn’t want to think about Con right now, not in bed with Oberon. But Oberon was asleep, while Ángel was awake and curious. And the load he’d blown against Oberon’s taut abdomen was definitely the equivalent of two shots of tequila.

  Wasn’t it?

  He tapped the link.

  Hey beautiful people, (it read)

  Sorry I haven’t updated in a while, but I’ve been busy touring. That doesn’t mean I’m not working on new songs though! Maybe an EP next year, we’ll see!

  I want to share with you some new lyrics. I’m sorry it’s a little raw. But you know how a broken heart can make you feel a little raw?

  —Conner

  “Gabriella”

  You gave me your body

  When I wanted your hand

  You spread your legs for me

  When I wanted you to stand

  Gabriella

  You called out my name

  But only in the dark

  You played me like a game

  Yeah, you left a deep mark

  Gabriella

  All I do is think of you

  All you wanted was more

  All night long I think of you

  All night long you needed more

  All I do is think of you

  Gabriella

  You took my heart

  But you just wanted some

  You tore me apart

  But you just wanted to come

  Gabriella

  Gabriella

  Gabriella

  “Fuck you too,” muttered Ángel, slapping the tablet closed and tossing it onto the floor.

  He lay in the moonlight and seethed.

  After a moment, Oberon stirred and patted his hands over Ángel’s body. “What’s wrong?” he said, muzzy with sleep.

  “Nothing. Go back to sleep.”

  “Not nothing.” Oberon dragged Ángel into his arms, one hand splayed across his chest, reading his skin. “You’re angry. I’ve done something?”

  “No.” Ángel found himself smiling. “I see the limitations of your magic-code form of communication. I’m mad, but I’m not mad at you.”

  “I’m the only one here.” But Oberon’s eyes were already searching the dim room for the tablet. He let Ángel go and crawled to the edge of the bed, extending a long arm to grab the tablet, baring his ass to Ángel as he did so. He lay on his stomach on the bed and tapped the tablet to life, reading Con’s blog.

  Ángel took the opportunity to scramble away from him, leaning against the headboard, wrapping his arms around his knees. He wanted to remove himself from Oberon’s all-seeing touch for a minute. But he didn’t deny himself the exceptional view: Oberon in the moonlight, apparently unmindful of his nakedness, lying on his belly in a tangle of sheets, his ankles crossed. The shadowed groove of his spine led Ángel’s gaze down to his lean waist, then over the exceptionally gorgeous globes of his ass.

  “This song is about you,” said Oberon.

  “Yep.”

  “Gabriel is the name for an angel, feminized. It’s a . . . a reference that you were intended to understand?”

  “Maybe. Of course he had to make it a female name, so his fans wouldn’t suspect he likes dick.”

  Oberon turned to gaze at him. “This song . . . this is not a gift? This offends you?”

  Ángel sighed. “That’s not how it happened,” he complained. “It wasn’t like he was in love with me and I was just fucking him. That’s—” He stopped, impatient with himself. Tried again. “Oberon, the thing is this. The world is full of the exes of songwriters, and every one of us is saying, ‘Hey, that’s not what happened!’ But nobody cares. We don’t have a leg to stand on. Artists get to use whatever they want. It doesn’t matter.”

  “A leg to stand on.”

  “Metaphor.”

  “Yes. But your feelings are hurt. It does matter.”

  “Yeah, well,” grumbled Ángel, crossing his arms over his chest. “Not to anyone but me.” He looked over at the tablet in Oberon’s hands, the words there shining in the darkness, and annoyance bubbled up in him again. “It’s a shitty song, for another thing,” he said. “Doesn’t scan. A four-year-old could have come up with those rhymes. ‘You played me like a game’? You play a game, you don’t play like a game. That is not a metaphor.” He scowled, then laughed at himself suddenly. “Man, there is nothing that doesn’t piss me off about that song.”

  “You could write him an email and explain to him how you feel,” suggested Oberon.

  It was hard to stay mad when Oberon was looking at him like that, over his shoulder, his bare back a smooth panorama of gorgeousness.

  “He doesn’t care how I feel.” Ángel shrugged, trying to dismiss his bitterness. “He knew I’d be mad when he wrote this, but he wrote it anyway.”

  “Is that a violation of custom? Impolite?”

  “Artists can chew up whatever they want for their art. It’s fine. Con wants to be a big star. He wants to get people talking about the mystery woman in his past who hurt him.” He hugged himself. “Man, what a conflict he must have right now! I’m, like, halfway famous because of the podcast, but he can’t tell anyone about me, because he’s in the closet. That must be torture. I bet that’s really why he’s mad.” He brooded, his eyes drinking in Oberon’s naked body as he did so. Oberon had delicious little dimples at the top of his ass on either side of his spine, and deep curved creases where his buttocks met his thighs.

  “And why are you really mad? Because he’s in the closet?”

  “No, I—I never wanted to make him come out. Everyone does that when they can, if they can. Country music is not very gay friendly. I got that.” Ángel rubbed a hand over his face, ran his fingers through his hair. “I guess I thought we were still friends. Oh, kind of. Friendly. I didn’t think he’d take to the airwaves to call me a slut.”

  Oberon rolled over onto his side in a graceful sprawl, dropping the tablet onto the floor and taking up most of the king-size bed. His cock lay against his thigh. Ángel scooted away from him, maintaining his small separation.

  They sat together in the dim, quiet room for a while. Then, “A slut is a person who is indiscriminate with sexual partners?” clarified Oberon.

  “Or who just has to have it. Like you said. Quick to come, quick to come back for more.”

  “That was not an insult, Ángel.”

  “You didn’t mean it as one.” Ángel quirked a smile at him. “I don’t know. Maybe he didn’t either. It feels like he did.”

  They stared at each other for a moment, the room dark and warm, the bed a mess of crumpled sheets. The rosettes bloomed like flowers on Oberon’s skin, and his cock began to grow.

  “You are . . . very far away, Ángel.”

  Ángel launched himself across the bed and tackled him. He tried to pin him down but Oberon was far stronger, heaving him up and tossing him onto the mattress. They wrestled across the bed, ending up with Ángel on his stomach with his hair in his eyes, laughing, Oberon on top of him. Oberon purred and combed Ángel’s hair out of his face, nestling his cock against Ángel’s ass; Ángel’s was hard as a tire iron against the sheets. True to his nature, ready for more.

  “You could write a song,” murmured Oberon, lips brushing against Ángel’s ear. He grabbed a pillow, and Ángel lifted himself off the bed so that Oberon could push it under his hips; as he did so, he ground himself more intimately against Ángel’s upraised butt. “A beautiful song with complex rhymes and perfect metaphors, all suggesting that Con is feeble and sexually inept.”

  “You are—” gasped Ángel. It was almost impossible to think, much less talk, while Oberon’s cock was grinding gently, without lube, between Ángel’s cheeks. “—super mean,”
he managed. “‘Feeble and sexually inept’ is better than anything Con ever wrote.”

  “You may have it for your song,” said Oberon, massaging his ass, rocking rhythmically.

  “Thanks.” The rub of Oberon’s cock against Ángel’s opening was sending thrills jumping over all Ángel’s nerve endings. “Baby. Do you have any stuff?”

  “Am I welcome?”

  “Yes. If you have stuff.”

  “Hmm.” A soft spurt of something thick and slippery made Ángel catch his breath; the connection between them became slick.

  “Did—did you just—”

  “Just a bit, for lubrication.”

  “We have much to learn from your people,” giggled Ángel, a little hysterically, lifting up, ready for more.

  The smooth head of Oberon’s cock slid through the slippery warmth, nudged Ángel intimately. “Relax, now,” murmured Oberon, spreading him with his thumbs, gently breaching him with the very tip. “That’s right.” Whatever he was doing made Ángel’s ass full of slickness, and he thrust shallowly through it, his head nudging against Ángel’s rim, the tip penetrating, then popping back out again. He resumed rocking slowly up and down Ángel’s crack, using his hands to squeeze Ángel’s cheeks tightly around his shaft, every once in a while letting the head of his cock drag against Ángel’s opening.

  “Oh, fucking God,” moaned Ángel. “Will you hurry.”

  “No.” Oberon was clearly in a leisurely mood, kneeling comfortably between Ángel’s spread legs. His big hands pulled Ángel open, exposed him, then let the head of his cock slide inside Ángel, then slipped it back out again. He kept doing that thing, leaking lubrication, warm and syrupy and tingling and copious, and it made soft squishing noises as he moved; it ran down Ángel’s channel, dripped down his legs, pooled in the small of his back, slicked over his balls and soaked into the pillow under his dick.

  Ángel, hanging onto the edge of the mattress with a death grip, arched his body. “You’re killing me,” he panted. “Oberon. Please.”

  “I know. But you’ll just have to wait.”