by Max Hudson
“That’s fine. Thanks Mom,” Doug said. I smiled and nodded, following suit.
“Why don’t you two get showered and change into something comfortable, while I try and salvage our meal,” she said, looking mostly at me.
As soon as the door closed, I exhaled and sank onto the bed.
“You did fine,” Doug said, ruffling my hair.
“Shit, I feel like a thirteen-year-old who just got caught feeling up the neighbor’s kid.”
“How old is the neighbor’s kid?”
I glared at him.
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“I don’t know, I’m just trying to get a clear picture of this naughty thirteen-year-old Max feeling up the neighbor,” he said with a lewd wriggle of his eyebrows.
“Seriously, your mom is downstairs,” I warned him away.
“Wanna shower with me?”
“Are you serious?”
“What? She knows I’m gay, she knows you’re my boyfriend, she’s probably put two and two together already. It's not like I’m a kid anymore. Besides, Janine and Floyd have always been very open about their sexuality.”
“Really?” I was shocked and then shocked by my shock. I fucked on film for money, who the hell was I to act all uptight and prudish?
“Yeah, I’ve had to listen to them going at it plenty of times. I think that may be part of the reason why I’m gay. The soundtrack of them having loud, monkey sex is an indelible part of my childhood; clearly, I’m scarred for life.” He pulled his uniform off and hung it neatly in the closet as he spoke.
“You’re scarred?” I leaned back on my elbow to admire the scene. His toned, lean body seemed like the perfect complement to this room. He was the kind of guy I expected to live in a room like this.
Instead of action figures and sports memorabilia, his walls were painted a warm gray with dark blue borders. His shelves were lined neatly with books of all types, most of them well-worn and out of print. And, in the middle of it all stood a boy with unremarkable brown hair and green eyes that seemed to hide a secret. Standing in his underwear, beckoning me to come and shower with him; it felt like maybe I could belong here too.
“Oh, what the hell,” I sat up and pulled my shirt up over my head.
“Hey boy, we’re almost ready to, JESUS CHRIST!”
Doug’s father barged into the room, tongs in hand and stood there, glaring at me as I stood bare-chested and semi-erect.
“Dad, this is Max.” Doug sounded so calm that both of us turned to look at him. He smiled, oblivious to the fact that he was only wearing his underwear.
“Uh-huh,” said Floyd.
“Nice to meet you, sir,” I extended a hand to him as well. He just looked at it before turning to look at his son.
“Get washed up, we’ll be ready to eat in twenty minutes,” he said between clenched teeth. He gave me one more hostile look over his shoulder before walking out of the bedroom and disappearing down the stairwell.
“Oh shit, I am never getting naked in your house. NEVER!” I followed Doug down the hall to the bathroom.
“I told you he wouldn’t like you. He can’t. It’s like a law or something. It's in the Bible; thou shalt not like your son’s boyfriend,” he said, turning on the shower and slipping into the warm streams of water.
“Does he always just walk in like that?” I followed him into the shower.
“Not always,” he took the showerhead down from the wall mount and sprayed both of our bodies with warm water.
“Why are you so calm?”
He chuckled.
“What were you expecting?”
“I don’t know. Not this. I guess I didn’t know what to expect. I’ve never done this before,” I admitted.
“Never?”
I nodded.
“First a cuddle virgin and now this. You may have done it all in the bedroom, but you’ve been missing out on all the best stuff in life,” he said.
“You’re the best stuff in life.” It sounded silly, but it was true.
“Don’t sweet talk me. You know I can’t say no to you and if we waste time in the bathroom, Dad will get creative with dinner,” he warned.
I nodded and hurried through the shower. Honestly, his body was too much of a temptation to waste time naked and wet without it ending up very sexual. We dressed in sweatpants and t-shirts and appeared downstairs just in time to grab the ribs while they were still edible. Janine turned off the television and collected our cell phones midway through dinner and declared it an unofficial “family home evening” which I found out meant that we would play games and sip iced tea.
Janine and I chatted happily as we washed dishes and cleared up. And although Floyd never stopped glaring at me, he didn’t say or do anything to make me feel unwelcome, and so I took that as a win. By the time we all began to waddle up the stairs to our respective bedrooms, I was feeling more at home, and less apprehensive about the way the rest of the visit would shape up.
As I climbed into bed next to Doug, I began to wonder what it would be like if I hadn’t spent so much time running away from having normal relationships. What if I had walked away from this lifestyle earlier? Then again, if I hadn’t been on that flight that day I wouldn’t be here now. Doug rolled over and rested his head on my chest and I knew there was nowhere else I would rather be.
Chapter Eleven
The sounds of heavy breathing and loud cries pulled me out of my sleep. For a second, I thought I’d fallen asleep on set in Japan. I opened my eyes to the same grey and blue walls that I remembered from the day before. Doug’s shallow breathing told me that he’d been pulled from a deep sleep as well.
“Is that your mom?”
“The walls are thin, go back to sleep,” Doug said, rolling over in bed next to me.
I tried but couldn’t. Despite the awkwardness of the situation, the sound of two bodies joining together in the next room was stimulating. I pulled Doug’s body against mine, hoping to get some relief from the feel of him in my arms.
“Try not to listen. They’ll be finished soon,” he said.
“You might be used to it, but I’m not,” I whispered against his ear. I tightened my hold, taking solace in the smell of his hair and the feel of his body pressed tightly against mine. But, the sounds of love making didn’t dissipate the way I thought they would. Instead, they seemed to intensify, and I found myself unconsciously rocking to the rhythm of the activities in the next bedroom. In almost no time, I was fully aroused and actively grinding my hips against his body.
Doug sighed softly and grasped my arms. I could tell by his breathing that he was feeling it too. I slipped a hand down his body and under the pajama bottoms that he wore. I found his semi-erect member and fondled him until his cock stood at attention. I pressed down on his body, trapping him between my body and the mattress as I ground my cock against his firm cheeks. I kept one hand between his legs, stroking his cock in time with the sounds of love coming from next door.
“We can’t,” he moaned.
“We shouldn’t,” I agreed. “Do you want me to stop?”
He shook his head. “Don’t stop.”
“They might hear us,” I cautioned. His cock jumped in my hand and he arched his back. “Oh, you like that idea.”
He buried his head in the pillows.
“You can admit it. You like the idea of being watched. You want other people to know what you like.” He listened obediently, surrendering to my every demand. He silenced his moans in the pillows and gripped the sheets beneath him as I intensified my onslaught. I teased him until his breathing became ragged and I knew he was on the edge of release. Spying our cell phones on the nightstand, I decided to give him a taste of what he wanted.
I rolled him onto his back and unlocked my phone.
“Cum for me,” I said, pointing the lens of the camera at him. He looked confused at first. “I’m recording, show me the face you make when you cum.”
One of the corners o
f his mouth lifted slightly and then he locked eyes with the camera and began to fondle himself. His fingers moved along his body with confidence and precision. His face reflected every sensation, making me feel as if his hands were on me instead of himself. I palmed my own cock as I watched him tease his nipples to hard peaks, massage his abs and finally stroke his distended cock until it wept and then erupted with thick, white liquid. His whole body convulsed as he came silently, but his eyes remained locked on the camera.
“Beautiful,” I whispered.
He wasted no time rolling over and capturing the tip of my hard cock in his perfect mouth. The feeling of his tongue on my sensitive head was magic all by itself. I kept the camera on his face, which was rapt with desire. He stared up at me as my cock disappeared in his mouth and down his throat. My hips thrust forward, again and again, and I watched with strange fascination as I played a perverted game of hide and seek with the tip of my cock and his tonsils. It barely took any time for me to reach my peak. I bit my bottom lip hard, trying not to cry out as I came. The whole time, Doug watched me through the camera, smiling lewdly, biting his bottom lip as I sprayed him with hot jets of cum.
“Fuck,” I collapsed onto the bed. My legs felt like jelly.
Doug pulled a rag from a drawer beside the bed and wiped up the evidence of our activities.
“I guess we’re not going to be able to go back to bed now. We gotta change the sheets,” he said.
“Later, for now, come here and lie with me.”
He rested his head on my chest again and we lay in silence and let the minutes pass by. When I felt the strength begin to return to my body, I held up my phone so that we could both see and replayed the scene.
“Put that away. That’s so humiliating.” He tried to push it away, but I clamped his head to my chest and refused to let him look away.
“It's not humiliating. It's hot. You’re hot. Trust me, I know,” I said in his ear. His ears turned red, but he stopped struggling. We both watched until the end.
“Nobody can ever see that,” he said.
“Nobody ever will.” I let him watch as I deleted the clip from my phone. I had no intention of running the risk of ever letting anybody see him like that.
“Why did you do that?” He seemed honestly confused.
“Because you wanted me to.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Yes, you did. The only way to be sure that nobody will ever see it is to get rid of it completely.” I dropped the phone on the nightstand and pulled him into a hug.
“I thought you would want it for your collection, part of the unreleased works of Max Lover,” he teased.
“What I do on camera is work. It’s different with you. What happens between us is private, and I intend to keep it that way. We can record as many scenes as you’d like. We can watch them together if you want. But I would never run the risk of exposing you like that unless you wanted it.”
“It’s just a private recording between us. As long as it stays between us, I don’t mind.” I could almost kill him for his naivete.
“Nothing stays private forever. Never let anybody record you or take photos of you naked unless you are willing to run the risk of getting them leaked to every free porn site on the internet.”
“What about if I want a naked photo of you?”
I took a deep breath and stared at the ceiling.
“It doesn’t matter with me. I’m already exposed. You don’t even have to ask. Just google it and take your pick,” I said. The words were just facts, but they hurt to say.
“Hey,” he rose up on his elbows and looked down at me. “Those aren’t photos of you. They are photos of Max Lover. I want pictures of my boyfriend, Maxwell Glover.”
I ran my fingers through his messy hair and kissed him softly.
“You know, until today, right now, I’d never felt dirty because of my job. I never felt like it contaminated me.”
“I don’t think you’re contaminated.” He frowned.
“I know, and that’s the best part, because you understand. It makes it feel like I can choose to be this guy too. Just Max, in bed with his boyfriend, listening to his boyfriend’s parents fuck like hyenas down the hall.”
He flicked my nipple as punishment and we both had a chuckle. We lay in bed like that until we heard his parents head downstairs.
“We should get up and get showered,” I sat up. “I promised your mom I would help make pancakes for breakfast.”
“Hmm, you go shower first, I’ll change the sheets and meet you down there,” he said, bouncing up from the mattress. He caught my hand as I was about to leave the room and looked at me shyly. “Next time, we should use this DSLR that my dad bought me. I have a tripod and everything.”
I kissed the top of his head and squeezed his hand.
“You got it.”
***
It was Saturday, and so we were going to engage in the most American Saturday afternoon activity ever: a trip to the mall. Floyd had finally stopped glaring at me. I suspected I didn’t look quite so disgusting to him through the post-coital haze he was in. Janine, clad in a sundress with large yellow tulips all over it and large yellow beaded necklaces, sashayed out of the house and into the sedan in the driveway. Floyd followed us out of the house, exhaling audibly as Doug reached over and took my hand.
We slid into the back seat and waited as Floyd adjusted the mirrors and started the engine.
“I hope everybody had enough to eat,” Janine called over her shoulder.
“Mom, that was a mountain of pancakes. I’m going to have to live on lettuce and water for the next three days to make up for all of that,” Doug said.
Janine pulled down the sun visor and adjusted it so that she could meet my eyes in the makeup mirror.
“And what about you, Max?”
“Oh, I have a pretty high metabolism. And, it has been a long time since I had pancakes.”
“You still gotta watch it, you won’t be young forever. How old are you now? Twenty-two? Twenty-three?”
It was the first time Floyd had spoken directly to me since I arrived, and I wasn’t sure how to answer. It seemed like a simple question. How old was I? But, I suspected that he was really trying to figure out whether or not I was too old or too young for his son. And, if I was the right age, what did I have to show for it? What were my prospects?
“Dad!”
“Come on now, Floyd. What does it matter? As long as he keeps fit and healthy…”
Janine saved me but met my eyes again in the mirror. It was an unasked question, but it still hung in the air like a rancid fart.
“Oh, I am completely healthy.” I knew the answer to this one. “I just got tested and I see my doctor regularly.”
“Good to know,” Janine said with a smile.
Doug slid his hand into mine and squeezed it gently. His gentle smile told me that I was doing well. I didn’t let go of that hand all the way to the mall. During the course of the twenty-minute drive we sang along to the radio, pointed to several places where key childhood moments happened, and established that I was out to my family, though they didn’t want to have anything to do with me at the moment. We were just about to get into the reasons why when Janine, sensing that we were setting out into deep water, steered the conversation back to safe shores. By the time we pulled up to the mega-complex that they diminutively called a mall, we were all laughing like old friends.
We got out of the car and walked into the mall hand in hand. Janine and Floyd followed by Doug and me. We looked like two couples on a double date. It was so normal, it was almost disturbing. Despite the huge breakfast, we managed to talk ourselves into getting frozen yogurt. Janine had a list of things she needed to buy and an app with coupons for each of them. We followed her as she hunted down her prey, one outlet at a time.
“So?” Doug nudged me as his mother waited in line.
“So, what?”
“So, not as bad as you thought, right?”
“But everything is going very well.”
I touched the tip of his nose with mine.
“The weekend isn’t over yet,” I cautioned.
“You worry too much,” he whispered.
“You are too cute.” I pinched his bottom as his mother paid for her items and handed the bags to Floyd.
Chapter Twelve
Floyd and I stood outside the movie theater waiting for Doug and Janine to exit. They had ducked into the bathrooms to empty their respective bladders, leaving us standing at the entrance. We didn’t speak, but I was beginning to get used to that. He didn’t say very much to his son either. I was beginning to understand that he was just a man of few words, but I felt like I should make an attempt at small talk.
“That was a great movie,” I said.
He nodded.
“I wanted to thank you again for having me. I’m having a great time,” I tried again.
He snorted and shoved his hands in his pockets.
“With my son?”
“He’s a great guy. You must be proud of him.”
“I am. It’s not easy raising a gay kid out here, and it ain’t easy for a gay kid to grow up normal here. He might look a little fruity, but he’s one of the strongest people I know,” he said proudly.
“He is.”
“So, how did you two meet?”
“On a flight,” I said with a smile. “I got sick to my stomach on the flight and he helped me to keep my shit together until we landed. Then I vomited all over him.”
For the first time, Floyd cracked a smile.
“You serious?”
“As a heart attack,” I nodded.
“Well…” he looked at his feet and chuckled.
I was beginning to think maybe, just maybe, I had won Floyd over. I was just beginning to breathe easy. And then I caught it. The look that people give you when they recognize you on the street. It starts as surprise, and then a dark kind of glee. I locked eyes with the kid as he passed by. He looked like he was deep into his adolescent rebellion; the kind of kid who does shitty stuff to people just because it's shitty, and who would, of course, know my work because anything his mommy and daddy deemed to be naughty is the exact kind of thing he would be heavily into. Our eyes met, and I knew instantly that I was busted. Not only was he going to come over and talk to me, but he was going to make a scene, and make sure that everybody who saw it, knew exactly how he knew me.