“As I keep saying, thank you for the work you do. I wish there were more people like you around.”
“There are. But, thank you, and right back at you, man.”
Silence for a moment. We were both relieved? We had a decent conversation. “Neither of us is where we started,” I said about once-tough Columbia Heights and swanky Foxhall.
“Except that you went back to your neighborhood for the Homeless Coalition in order to make things better.”
“And you went back to your fancy Burkewest Academy in order to make that better.”
“What does that say about us?” Derek asked.
“We believe in our roots, no matter how imperfect. We believe in DC….”
“Is it a problem, though, thinking what is, is never enough?”
“Probably,” I said. “How about this? Is this enough?”
“This conversation?”
“Yes, is this conversation enough? Do we know where it’s going?”
“I believe we do.”
“The papers say we’re visionaries.”
“You don’t believe that shit,” laughed Derek. “The papers like a story. We’re both just doing what we think needs to be done.”
“Okay….” I paused. “What do we need to do about us?”
“Us?”
“This perfect relationship our friends think we should start.”
Derek exhaled and kind of whistled. “Two options. One, a slow, romantic buildup. Or two, get off and get out.”
“I know this isn’t how we’re supposed to do it, but if you’re free next weekend, maybe Friday, maybe we could get dinner?”
“Sure. Next weekend. Why wait?” agreed Derek. “Let’s just do this.”
All week I was happy. Not excited, exactly. Just feeling good that the right thing was happening. Huh? Why was I calling Derek the right thing? Why the paradigm shift? Was I desperate? How could I know this was the right thing? Derek and I chose a new sushi place we’d heard great things about, but in the cool, hip restaurant—maybe too cool, too hip, too loud, too bright, too aggressively modern—we agreed to skip dessert and just go for a drink at his place.
Derek’s condo was as swanky as I thought it would be. High up, the view was great: DC and endless possibility shimmering out the window (and dark skirmishes and struggles we couldn’t see). But his place wasn’t ridiculous. Not what you’d see in a movie about the young guy who’d been born rich and now made even more. No curtains or window shades rolled back with the push of a button. We were only on the tenth floor but seemed to poke above the other buildings. Everything in his condo was big, clean, and matched.
“Nice place.” I stood at the window but turned back to the living room.
“Thanks.” Had he loosened the zipper at his neck, opening slightly more to his chest? He stepped closer and handed me a beer. Was I imagining it, or was there really a warm, expensive man smell around him?
He led me to a large, comfortable leather sofa. Had cheese and crackers appeared while I’d been gazing at the lights of the city?
I hated that I wondered how often someone cleaned his place. Once a month? Once a week? I also didn’t ask because I’d been raised right. No, I’d been raised wrong until Eddie and the Moore family stepped in. Bottom line, I knew not to ask, but of course he had a cleaner.
“What’s up?”
I startled. Shit, I’d zoned out. Right there on the sofa a few inches from Derek.
“Is being here a bad idea?”
“No. I’m sorry.” I carefully took a wedge of a hard, not-so-smelly cheese and placed it on a thick, crusted cracker. Really? Could I have moved any more slowly?
“I obviously don’t know you well, but disengaged doesn’t seem a natural state for you. What’s up?”
I smiled and took a breath. Really, was I going to this? “Sorry.” I finished the cracker and wiped my mouth in case there were crumbs. “This isn’t good first date conversation, but I’m going to go for it.”
“Go for it. Who wants an average first date?”
So I told him about Oscar.
Six months earlier, when we were still together, Oscar had asked to be my weekly cleaner.
“I don’t need anyone to clean my place. Is it dirty? Is it grossing you out?”
“No,” Oscar had said. “You’re an executive director. You deserve a cleaning person. I want to do that for you.”
“You’re my boyfriend. I don’t need you to do anything else.”
“Let me help you. Let this be a way I can help.”
I told Derek that I’d never liked the idea, but Oscar could be insistent.
“I’m totally not proud, but I think I agreed to the idea when he was holding my balls and licking my cock. For three months he cleaned my condo, and I was embarrassed to think it was nice to come home to a place cleaner and more organized.” I took a bigger sip of beer. “After three months, I returned to a half-empty apartment and a messed-up bank account. I talked to Oscar’s parents in Vermont.”
“Are you shitting me?”
“Nope. He was gone. His father asked me how long Oscar had been using again. The dry spells were getting shorter. Seriously, I had no idea, which his father didn’t believe. ‘How could you not know?’” On the sofa in Derek’s heat, I exhaled more than I’d intended. Why was I so dramatic? I was never like this.
Good point. How could a person not know? How could I not know? My job, my father, years ago. Starting life in old Columbia Heights? I knew the signs. Looking back at Oscar, I could see it perfectly. How could I have missed it? His secrecy? His constant questions about my finances? His frequent disappearing? I was stunned. Mortified. “How could I be so clueless?”
“Love is blind,” Derek said beside me.
“Seriously, how can I do the work I do and not have seen it?”
“How about this? How could I live with someone for two years and not know that the whole time he was seeing someone else?”
“Are you serious?” I asked.
“Mortifyingly serious.”
“You said love is blind.”
“Sometimes we only see what we want to see.”
“That’s what I worry about,” I said.
The outside lights kept glimmering, the darkness between the lights growing. Cities made no sense. Or was it this city, this problematic place of extremes, this capital of a nation of extremes that made no sense? Did Derek and I make no sense?
“Is it too cheesy to say I like what I’m seeing right now?” Stunningly good-looking Derek sprawled across his sofa. Was the opened V of his sweater and shirt anything but an invitation?
“Yes, it’s too cheesy.” I smiled. “But I hear you.”
Derek was a good kisser. That was the first thing I noticed. That and the fact that wherever I placed my hand, it landed on the warm power of muscle. Kissing Derek, holding him and being held was amazing. I’d missed it, the dance of connecting with another man. The getting off with hookups since Oscar had been release, not connection. How could this so quickly feel better? I didn’t care how quickly I changed. I’d take this extreme.
THAT WAS why I woke up a few hours later in Derek’s bedroom. My fingers and lips still held the musk of Derek. Why did his smell make me smile? I’d practically just met the guy. Since the Oscar disaster, I hadn’t lasted this long with anyone after sex. I certainly hadn’t invited anyone to my place. I’d hooked up elsewhere. I usually said goodbye before falling asleep. This was the first time since Oscar I’d woken up with someone’s arm around me. With someone’s smell. Someone’s breathing.
Crap. I had to admit that I’d missed it. Did I miss Oscar himself, or just the comfort of waking up with someone?
Oscar. Fuck Oscar. Fuck me for being so stupid.
Fuck.
At least I’d had some fucking since Oscar’s departure. But not last night. Not with Derek. Funny, it just never came up, so to speak. We were doing what we were doing, and it felt good. It all was good. Maybe I was thinking about it because
, with Oscar the hungry bottom, sex had only been fucking.
“We can do other things,” I’d said to Oscar one night.
“Nope. This is good.” He turned onto his stomach and pressed his ass up. “You don’t like it? Guys usually do.”
“I love it.” I smacked his butt and grabbed the cheeks.
There was more of it—Derek’s butt—than Oscar’s. One hand on each of Oscar’s cheeks, and I’d felt in total control of all of him. Derek, however, would be a bigger job. Two hands on one buttcheek was only a beginning. And who the hell knew where it would finish? If online porn actually reflected reality, then most likely Derek would be pounding my butt, not the other way around. But last night, we hadn’t made it that far.
I left the bedroom to pee. Of course, it was a nice bathroom, spacious, well-lit, a black-and-white photo of a crowded beach framed on the wall. Spotless.
How soon had Oscar started pilfering my stuff? His first night with me? The day I gave him a key?
“You’re back,” Derek mumbled from somewhere in the pile of sheets on the bed. How much deeper was his slow, sleepy voice. “After the flush, I assumed I’d hear the front door close. Asshole.”
“Asshole? But I didn’t leave.”
“I know. I was getting ready to think you were an asshole, but now it’s looking like that you might not be one. Unless you’ve forgotten something in here, and you’re still on your way out.”
“Derek, are you saying that you’ve never left someone in the middle of the night?”
“Not after a conversation about how everything between us felt different from life as usual.” Derek sat up and disentangled himself from the sheets. “The odd feeling that we’ve known each other for a while. What I’m saying is that this night with you has felt better than a lot of nights recently. I’m hoping it has for you too.”
My eyes continued adjusting to the dark as I watched Derek. Those curves, those muscles, that suddenly vulnerable smile. “Am I allowed back in?” I asked.
He made a space in the sheets.
HOURS LATER I wasn’t sure who started round two. It simply happened. It was morning dozing. Who was holding whom? Derek caressed my back. We turned over together. I caressed his butt. More sleep. More turning. His head rested on my chest, his hand between my thighs. Was it moving slightly? So slightly that nothing was happening? Or slightly enough that everything was waking up? Derek took hold of my stiffening cock. He squeezed slightly. I played with one of his nipples.
I think I was the one who went in for the kiss. But maybe not. Just as I was thinking I shouldn’t open my mouth too wide because of morning breath, his tongue worked its way in. That was a boyfriend move when you’re no longer afraid of first impressions. Not a hookup move.
We kept kissing and kneading each other’s cocks. Caressing and grabbing. What a chest. What a stomach. So many ridges. So many curves. So many muscles. I hoped mine were sufficient for him. I thought I worked out enough and usually felt confident naked. But compared to Derek?
He grabbed the sides of my chest, and his kissing moved to my pecs, to my stomach, and down, his hands on my haunches. He’d felt my body last night in the dark but was now seeing it in the full morning light. He could see the whole thing. We made eye contact for a moment, and he flashed his perfect smile before turning his attention lower. His tongue stroked the bottom of my shaft between my balls, licking up, circling, his breath warming. Slowly up my cock, tongue circling the tip, until the whole thing disappeared in his mouth.
Derek gave one hell of a blowjob.
Afterward, I hoped I did the same. He offered a lot to work with, his cock long, thick, and leaking precome. “Oh my God,” he moaned. “Oh my God.” I slowed, let him ride it out, appreciate it, for him and for me. The cock in my mouth. My tongue, my throat, my hands, my fingers slowly working it. Heat built. With one hand I worked his chest, the other kneaded the base of his cock. I sped back up. The crown kept hitting the back of my throat. His moans vibrated his chest. “Oh my God!” He erupted.
The calm of early morning dozing returned. We held each other, forehead to forehead. We breathed. The night, the morning had happened. An hour later, we agreed it was time for brunch.
SATURDAY MORNING, of course the café was packed. A hostess with a killer smile and a streak of purple in her hair ran her hand over Derek’s arm and promised two coffees and a ginger scone for the half-hour wait. Half hour? Ordinarily I’d wait no more than ten minutes. I hated waiting as much as I hated being late. I hated lines. Food wasn’t worth it. But with Derek, his beige linen button-down shirt open, the smirk of his mouth eased into a soft smile, I couldn’t imagine being anywhere better. Who were all these people? Had they been part of DC’s light or dark I’d seen from Derek’s window last night? Of course, I couldn’t tell. Who could?
Derek broke off a corner of the scone and put it in my mouth. Not big or sexy like in a second-rate movie involving a hot dog, but easy and sweet. It broke my negativity. Whatever was happening between Derek and me, this was the light.
The hostess seated us, and a cute waiter with a tight, dyed-bright afro kissed Derek before explaining the specials. After ordering, I squeezed between tables and made my way to a one-toilet restroom in the back.
“So, you’re the new one.” A pale red-haired guy seemed to be waiting for me as I left the restroom. He had to step aside to let me around. But instead of entering, he allowed a girl to slip in before him. “You,” the guy repeated. “You must be the new one.”
“Excuse me?”
“You’re Derek’s new white boy.”
“I’m—excuse me? What?”
“You like the big black dick. Take it. Take it, faggot.”
The hall was cramped, and the small restaurant crowded. Lots of people. I didn’t feel unsafe. I just thought the guy was an ass.
I said nothing and tried to squeeze past.
“I can tell it on your face. He’s plowed your ass.”
“I don’t know who you are. I’m going back to my table. Don’t interrupt my Saturday morning. Goodbye.”
“Haven’t you figured it out yet? Derek likes the white boys. White boys who worship everything about him. Ask him to give you his big black dick. Beg him. Cry for it. He loves that.”
“Sorry, dude, but I’m not talking to you.”
“I get it. It’s not fun to know you’re replaceable. You’re nothing special. Tons of white boys want to be ripped open. We’re easy to find. Dime a dozen. And our friend Derek has lots of dimes.”
A heavy murmur seemed to move through the crowd as a waiter pushed past with an armful of empty plates.
“Here’s my advice—don’t repeat fuck me as he pounds. That’s cliché. And it’s directing the act. You’ll never be the director. Derek wants to be totally in control. Instead, whimper. Ow. Ow. Ow. Be on the verge of crying. He likes to think he’s got the power to do that to a guy. Seriously, you’re going to have to work at this. You’ve got some heft yourself, not as much as Derek, but who does? The point is, he usually goes for the white twink. You seem nicely sculpted, borderline beefy. Your job will be to think small. Wait a minute.” The guy dramatically paused and pointed a finger at me. “He’s working his way up. He’s conquered the twink. Now he’s going to conquer the white beef.”
“I don’t care about anything you’re saying. I’m not talking to you. All I care about is not letting my food get cold. Excuse me.” I pushed past.
“Tell Derek that Greg says hello.”
I made it back to the table. The moment I sat, the waiter brought our eggs Benedict, Derek’s with smoked salmon and spinach, mine traditional ham. Timing was so perfect that I had the feeling that they’d been waiting for me to return so they could present the food at that very moment.
“Sorry about that,” I said.
“No worries.” He rolled his fork through the hollandaise sauce.
“A friend of yours stopped me,” I said. “Greg says hello.”
“Oh Jes
us.” Derek sighed. “That’s not good.”
“He thinks your thing is mowing down white guys.”
“Mowing?”
“You like to pound the white boys rotten.”
“He brought that up in the two minutes you guys talked?”
“It was close to his opening line.”
Derek sighed again, but that time he seemed less annoyed than amused. “I’m not a player. I didn’t leave Greg because I needed a new white guy. I left him because he’s an idiot. A cute idiot, maybe, but cute can never be everything.”
I started to say something, but Derek raised his hand and talked over me.
“To be clear, leave is not the correct word. I didn’t leave Greg. We were never officially together. There was no one and nothing to leave. He was the hookup who wouldn’t go away.”
“He’s bitter.”
“Greg and I were never going to go anywhere. He was rebound sex. I wasn’t thinking clearly. Just wanted to get off. Like we all do sometimes. I ignored the signs.”
“Signs?”
“That Greg was immature, maybe damaged goods, and would do stupid things like stop a stranger in a restaurant and talk trash.”
“Why did you need rebound sex?”
“I’d just learned about my boyfriend’s long affair. I was pissed, on the rebound, and not at my best.”
“How long ago was that?”
“Four months ago.”
“Oh no.”
“Oh no, what?”
“You could still be in the rebound phase.”
“Perhaps.” He gulped his coffee. “But that’s not what this is.”
“Derek, it doesn’t matter. It is interesting, though. Mowing me isn’t what you did last night.”
Derek issued a hearty laugh. “There was no mowing at all.”
“Are you off your game? Or maybe I’m not your type?”
“That’s why I dropped Greg. He’s simple. Conversation was deadly. He lives in this great city and never does anything. No museums. No music. No interesting movies. No social action. He doesn’t follow the news. He only knows bars. He might be thrilled not to be small town anymore, but he doesn’t realize or care what DC offers. We can be anything here. Capital of the damn nation. Yet his only desire is to be a twink.” Derek shook his head and chuckled. “Greg says I only plow white boys? He might be the one obsessed with a particular type. Whenever I see him, he’s hanging on another big brother. That shit he said to you about the type I like? It was his own hungry ass projecting.”
Power Players Page 4