by Janey Chapel
Patrick licked him again, letting his tongue wander through his fingers to the salty skin of his dick, then going lower, nuzzling his nose against Jay’s balls, sniffing him, licking him. Jay had a death grip on Patrick’s shoulder now, and he’d started to pump himself. That had to be the hottest thing Patrick had ever seen. They were so close, Patrick could see Jay’s dick twitching in his hand on the down stroke, see the wet stuff start leaking out the top. Enough watching. Time for tasting. He got up on his knees on the bed and leaned over, taking the head of Jay’s dick in his mouth. Jay started to take his hand away, but Patrick made him leave it there, and stopped licking him long enough to say, “Do it yourself. You know what you like.”
At that, Jay moved his hand from Patrick’s shoulder to the back of his head and leaned over to kiss him, hard and fast, his hand cradling Patrick’s head while the other started a more definite motion on his dick. He let go of Patrick’s mouth, and Patrick had it back on Jay’s dick by the time Jay was standing up straight again. That way Jay could thrust in as much as he wanted, but still do his own thing. Patrick didn’t know why that turned him on so much, but it did, so he went with it. He started some suction on the head of Jay’s dick, and Jay gasped out, “Hold still.” So he stayed right there, crouched over Jay, sucking strong, flicking his tongue in the slit, tasting salty, bittersweet stuff and feeling the spongy head swell in his mouth. Jay was pumping steady now, long strokes that brought his fingers right up against Patrick’s mouth.
When Patrick thought he was almost there, he grabbed at a finger with his mouth the next time it brushed by and kept it there, sucking it and Jay’s dick at the same time. Jay shouted something hoarse and incoherent, and Patrick’s mouth flooded with come, just flooded. Some of it leaked back out onto Jay’s stomach and pubic hair, some on his finger. Patrick swallowed the rest. It was like having an explosion of Jay’s smell and taste. He’d be smelling that smell in his sleep.
He licked Jay clean, and when he looked up at him, Jay rubbed two fingers across Patrick’s chin and licked them off himself. That made Patrick’s dick really start to beg for attention. He got back up on his knees and put his hands on Jay’s neck, bringing him down for another kiss, a harder, longer, wetter kiss that tasted like him now, like his semen and saliva and just him. Patrick pulled him close enough to rub against him and start moving his hips, circling and thrusting against Jay’s stomach, against the parts he had just licked clean, against the now-soft parts.
Jay pushed on Patrick’s shoulder, pushing hard before it even registered, and said, “Lie back. Spread your legs.”
Patrick’s heart and dick both jumped. Whatever he wanted. Anything.
Jay crawled between Patrick’s legs, pushing on his knees, opening him up. How did he know? How did he know? Oh God, Patrick couldn’t remember ever being that exposed. Jesus, the lights were on, his knees were up, and Jay could see every inch of him. Every single inch, every hidden place. He felt like Jay could see right up inside him to all those faces he had to wear that didn’t belong to him, like Jay was stripping them all away and leaving him exposed and hungry.
Jay was still soft, so Patrick didn’t think he was looking to penetrate. He’d have let Jay, in a heartbeat. He growled softly, impatient. “This is going to be all over if you don’t do something, and I mean quick,” he said.
Jay shushed him with a hand over his mouth, and even that took Patrick one step closer to the edge. Jay was looking at him, looking him over from head to toe, like he liked what he saw. Like he was trying to decide exactly what he wanted to do to him. When he got to Patrick’s crotch, Patrick had to close his eyes. If he watched Jay looking at him, he’d come, no doubt about it.
The next thing he felt was a cool finger, slick with something Jay had found somewhere, stroking between his balls and his hole. Jay pressed hard there, with two fingers now, and Patrick groaned before he could stop it.
“Feel good?” Jay asked, almost whispering, and Patrick nodded.
“Better than good,” he managed to say, but it got choked off at the end because Jay started sliding those same two fingers around the outside of the hole there, circling twice then slipping in both at once. Patrick’s insides were shocked and clamped down on him, hurting him and surely hurting Jay, and Jay leaned over, putting his mouth in the middle of Patrick’s chest. He made soothing noises, petting him, and Patrick could feel things start to loosen up. Jay changed the angle and delved in again, and it was already better, it was already feeling more good than bad. Jay sat up so he could go deeper, and Patrick opened his eyes again, looking at the size of him, the danger of him, crouched there between Patrick’s thighs with his fingers lodged inches deep inside him.
This slow, intense exploration wasn’t something you did with a one-night stand. Patrick didn’t know how he knew that, but he did, just the same, and he marveled at how easy it felt with Jay, how… right.
Jay didn’t look aroused, but he was still enjoying what he was doing. It showed in everything from the light in his eyes to the gentleness of his fingers. It showed in how slowly he was moving, how much care he took. He’d taken all that urgency from earlier and dragged it out into something deeper and closer and sweeter.
He’d made it about the two of them, not just two random men with a chemical reaction, as if he, too, recognized the difference.
Patrick could hear his own heavy breathing; he could see his diaphragm shake with every breath, see his heartbeat there. He could count his pulse in his dick if he tried. He was sure he’d never been harder in his life. His dick stood out parallel over his stomach, straining up, a whole little life force all its own, defying his age and recent goings-on. If Jay didn’t touch him soon, he’d scream, or beg. Jay must have been watching him pretty closely because when he started making fists in the sheets to keep from just grabbing himself and ending this, Jay reached for him, sliding another slick hand down the whole length of his dick, from tip to root, then slipping back up again.
“Oh yeah, just like that,” Patrick said, moaning.
Jay did it again, and his fingers moved in Patrick’s ass again, and then he started hitting that spot inside and outside, jerking Patrick off from both directions, thrusting and pumping, pumping and thrusting, stronger and faster until Patrick lunged his hips up to meet Jay’s hand, then down on his fingers, stretching himself around two fingers, then a third that made its way in, stretching him beyond capacity.
When the third finger hit his prostate, it was all over; Patrick heaved up, sitting up on Jay’s fingers, driving himself down on them while his dick spit streams of semen on Jay’s hand and his own chest. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t breathe at all, and all he could see was Jay’s hand still on him, rubbing him, rubbing all the wet stuff into his skin. Patrick leaned back on his hands, still impaled on Jay’s fingers, and Jay wiggled them around, sending more shock waves through him, surprising one more streak of come out of him. Jay tried it again, but Patrick had grown sensitive to the point of pain, and he lifted himself off Jay’s hand and collapsed back on the bed.
“Jesus Christ,” he panted, one hand over his thundering heart. “I think I’m too old for that.”
Jay laughed out loud and dropped down beside him, putting his hand on top of Patrick’s. “Trust me, Patrick. You’re not too old for that.”
When Patrick could breathe again, he got them both wet washcloths and they cleaned up a little. He left Jay some room and opportunity to leave if he wanted to, but Jay just slid under the covers and pointed to the light switch. “Now can we turn them off?” he asked with a very nice smile.
Okay, so he wanted to stay.
Jay rolled toward Patrick when he crawled in beside him, and a warm heavy hand dropped back on his chest. Patrick slid his arm around Jay’s back and brought him in so his head rested on Patrick’s shoulder.
He didn’t plan on going anywhere, and it looked like Jay was down with that plan too.
Jay had accepted Patrick’s game face, but he’
d liked it when Patrick let his guard down. He’d liked it when Patrick let him in. Jay had let him just be himself for awhile.
Like he said: it was a luxury. He had nine hours left, and he could spend them with Jay.
He could be himself, but he didn’t have to stay by himself.
He hoped Jay didn’t plan on sleeping much.
III
“HOW’D you get so smart?”
Patrick’s low voice rumbled into Jay’s consciousness, lifting him from the drowsy, half-asleep daze he’d fallen into. He shrugged, feeling the motion lift Patrick’s arm from its spot on his shoulder.
“Not smart,” he mumbled around a yawn. “Lucky.”
Patrick snorted gently against his hair. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to. You don’t owe me anything. I just… I’m curious.”
Jay stretched, setting off a new ripple of tingles everywhere his skin touched Patrick’s. Honestly, the man should come with a warning label. “It’s a good story,” he said, “a cautionary tale with a happy ending.” He paused, considering. “So far, anyway. And maybe I should have said something before, but I didn’t know… I thought….”
Patrick made an encouraging sound, and between the warmth, the dark, and the utter lassitude that their sexual tumult had left in its wake, Jay found that he wanted to tell Patrick his whole fucking life story.
“I grew up in North Carolina, outside Robbinsville, near the Tennessee border,” he said. “Graham County.”
He felt Patrick’s nod against him.
“It’s national park land, mostly, long stretches of nothing but green; not a lot of people.”
Memories tried to slide in the opening Patrick had created—being hungry, mostly. He’d grown early and often, and the breakfast and lunch they gave the poor kids at school hadn’t begun to satisfy. Hunger had led to stealing, which led to the back of his father’s hand, because even if everything else had been in short supply, they’d still had an ample abundance of pride.
“I know the area. I work Narcotics, which you probably figured out, and we pass information back and forth between jurisdictions,” Patrick said. “There’s a lot of pot growing up there.”
That there was. The Nantahala National Forest’s thousands of acres of wilderness called to outdoorsmen of all types, including a few entrepreneurs of the cannabinoid variety.
Jay nodded. “Twenty-first century moonshiners.” Now came the hard part, the real test of Bryan’s philosophy of self-acceptance. He took a breath and blew it out before saying, “I started driving for them when I was fourteen, after my dad died.”
Under Jay’s head, Patrick’s shoulder went stiff for a second, then relaxed again, and his hand came up, sifting through Jay’s hair.
Jay took it as a sign to continue. “We needed the money,” he said bluntly. “I didn’t ask questions. I was a damn good driver, and I knew those roads like the back of my hand. I went where they told me and got off on the rush of it, right up until—”
“You got caught,” Patrick said, cutting him off.
Jay nodded. “On my eighteenth birthday.”
He felt Patrick wince, his hand tightening in Jay’s hair.
“I thought you said you were lucky,” Patrick said. “Getting tried as an adult instead of a juvenile doesn’t sound lucky to me.”
“Okay, that part could’ve gone better, but considering what else might’ve gone sideways, I actually came out of it pretty good. See, I had boosted a car because the truck they gave me to drive—the truck I’m sure was covered in residual THC and pot seeds—didn’t have a backseat, and for reasons that will be made clear, I had a profound need for a backseat. So I found a Grand Prix in the parking lot at the Ingles with the keys up under the visor, and I took it,” Jay said, able to smile about it now, when back then it had all seemed oh-so-serious. “I had this master plan cooked up. First I went up to Bryson City to get some beer.”
“Graham County is dry,” Patrick interjected, as if he’d started to figure some things out.
“Yup. I got some guy outside Old Macs to get the beer for me, and then I headed back toward home to pick up this girl I knew from school, this sweet sophomore named Kirsty. We’d been sniffing around each other for weeks. I figured we’d find some quiet spot at Lake Santeetlah, have a couple of beers, move into the backseat, and celebrate my birthday in style. I had it all planned out.”
“And instead?”
“I got tagged by a sheriff’s deputy about a mile from her house,” Jay said. “I knew him—in a town that size, you couldn’t not know somebody—and I swear to God, he knew where I was headed.”
“So you had a stolen car….”
“And alcohol.”
“But no marijuana.”
“Nope.”
“And no underage girl.”
“Right.”
“Damn,” Patrick said, shifting underneath him. “You were lucky.”
Jay smiled. “Yup.”
“So what’d you do?”
“Three years, minimum security, paroled after two for good behavior.”
“Three years? What, did your lawyer graduate at the bottom of his class?” Patrick asked, sounding mildly incensed on his behalf. “The minimum sentence is only six months, so that seems kind of harsh for a first-time offender.”
“Well, I knew the judge too,” Jay said. “Or, more to the point, he knew me. Small town, man. I probably wasn’t as all-fired sneaky as I thought. If I had to guess, I’d say he threw the book at me based as much on what he suspected as what he knew.”
“You didn’t try to plea-bargain down? Roll on the growers?”
Jay scratched lightly at the smooth skin on Patrick’s chest. “They tried. Like I said, they knew I knew something, they just didn’t know what.” He suppressed a shiver as he remembered the look on Patrick’s face when he’d walked in Bryan’s the previous night. Men who looked like that had haunted his dreams for years. Maybe this time with Patrick would help replace some of those memories, exchange satisfaction and sweet surrender for helplessness and fear. “I didn’t tell them. I got a message passed along the first night I was at the county jail that there’d be… repercussions if I did.”
“And by ‘message’, you mean….”
“A guy rattling off my mom’s home address, followed by a one-way trip to the jail infirmary.”
More memories slipped in around the edges, and Jay slotted them where they belonged. He hadn’t popped fully formed from the forehead of Zeus. He’d grown by virtue of his experiences, both good and bad. He’d needed both to become the man he wanted to be. That was what Bryan had told him the first time they met, and it was a message he had repeated until Jay had absorbed it like sun on his skin. It was one of the lessons that had stuck.
“So you were caught between a rock and a hard place,” Patrick murmured.
Jay shrugged. “It could have been a lot worse. Looking back on it, it’s a miracle I survived, driving like I did. Roads up there are like a skein of yarn after a cat gets through with it. I’m lucky I didn’t drive off a cliff going eighty, no headlights.”
Patrick’s hands tightened on him.
Yeah, Jay could still picture that bloody end all too easily, Thelma with no Louise, just a truckbed full of contraband and an unheard prayer. “Even that would’ve been better than staying with them, I think,” he said. “The growers, I mean. Climbing that particular corporate ladder just took you closer to Hell. You know what they’re like. You know what I mean.”
“And they left you alone?” Patrick asked.
“Who? The growers? Or the sheriff?”
“Either,” Patrick said. “Both.”
Jay sighed. He’d made his peace, over time, with the choice he’d made. Bryan had a hand in that too. Keeping silent had saved his life—that much Jay felt certain of—and maybe his mother’s too. He’d taken the odds that as tough as the local deputies might be on him, they wouldn’t actually murder him in cold blood. He had looked over his sh
oulder through two solid years of prison, wondering if the long reach of his former bosses would drop down on him like a hammer, but either they’d figured out he wouldn’t talk, or they’d forgotten all about the scrawny, hungry, high school kid who drove like a bat out of hell in a borrowed truck. “Let’s just say I lived to tell the tale.”
Patrick covered Jay’s roaming hand with his own. “That still doesn’t explain how you ended up here.”
Jay rolled onto his back and stared up at the ceiling. “Prison changed me.”
Patrick turned to face him, tucking one arm under his cheek. When Jay turned his head to look at him, he could just make out the shape of Patrick’s jaw in the dark, the sharp edge of cheekbone above it.
“I know that’s a cliché. You probably hear it all the time, but I really did luck out,” Jay continued. “I got what I needed to lay in a new course. I got my GED. I learned a bunch about lifting weights. I kept to myself, best I could.”
He could hear the mountain drawl come out in his tone as he talked about it. The long vowels had their own place in his memory. He could hear his father’s voice clear as day in his head.
“After I got out, my parole officer told me about a guy named Bryan Degraffenreid, who used to work with him. He said Bryan had called him, looking for someone to help out at his bar, and he’d told Bryan he thought I’d do a good job,” Jay said. “More luck. I don’t think I would’ve gone back to my old ways, but I never really had to test it.”
“Did you ever think about driving for a living? Stockcar racing? Or even long-haul trucking? It sounds like you’ve got a talent for it,” Patrick said.