by AM Riley
Brian and Paul established a pattern in the next few weeks. Nothing official, really. Just, Brian would head over to the Faultline, and Paul would show up sooner or later. They didn't have to say that they went there to meet; it was simply known.
And they didn't only have sex during their time together. Sometimes Brian would stay and watch television while Paul worked. Or cooked. He'd wander around the house, checking out the other bedrooms, or he and Paul would curl up on the leather couch and watch stupid television. Like a couple.
And then there were the things that Paul kept here for him. The harness, the cock ring. His own soap and toothbrush. A light blue bathrobe and matching towel that always hung on the door, freshly laundered and ready for him. Just a few things Paul had in his bedroom that made Brian aware he had a place here. That he was something special to Paul. And that was enough for him.
For the first time since he'd moved to Los Angeles, Brian felt like he belonged somewhere.
“Brian, I need to talk to you about something.”
Brian was playing a video game in the living room while Paul putzed around in the office. He set down the remote and padded after Paul as he was led toward the kitchen. Paul pulled out a chair, and Brian plunked down into it.
“I'm going out of town next week,” said Paul.
“Okay.”
“I do most of my sales work up north,” said Paul. “I may be gone for several months.”
Several months? Brian knew something had scored a hit on him emotionally, but he wasn't sure what to call the feeling yet.
“Oh,” was all he said.
Paul studied him for a few minutes in silence. Brian thought there was something that Paul should say. Or something that he, Brian, should say. But he didn't know what it was.
“So I wanted you to know,” said Paul simply, and he turned to the sink. “Will you help me with the dishes?”
Later it hit him. Paul had dropped him back home on his bike. And what Brian realized as he watched Paul riding off was that neither of them had said anything about seeing each other again. About what each expected of the other during Paul's absence.
Several months.
Chapter Two
Paul had been gone about two weeks. No letters or phone calls. Of course Brian really hadn't expected any. Paul didn't talk on the phone. He hadn't, even when they were seeing each other. It was like the man had ridden over the horizon and fallen off the earth. Brian was tootling down the boulevard, pining, when he saw a string of choppers parked all in a line outside a leather store.
Ooh, shiny. Brian bounced over and petted one chrome handlebar. The bike reminded him a little of Paul. Big and burly, with a worn leather seat and embroidered saddlebags.
“Hey, whatareyadoin'!”
Brian jumped out of his skin and, of course, because wasn't that exactly his life, he banged into the bike behind him.
“Oops,” said Brian. “Sorry.”
There was a crunch and then a slow, ominous creak and then so much crashing and banging that Brian didn't even want to turn and look. But he did. And it was even worse than he'd imagined.
Every bike along the line was on its side.
Brian wanted to curl up in a ball and die, a wish that was going to be fulfilled, apparently, by all the bikers who were now running out of the leather store.
Then the guy who had scared him in the first place had him by his collar, and Brian's toes left the ground while voices yelled at him from every direction. He figured the pain was coming soon and was accepting that inevitability in a kind of philosophical way when someone worked through the crowd, parting it like Moses through the Red Sea. Then Brian was on solid ground again, and gentle brown eyes were looking down at him in amusement.
“Well, for a little thing, you sure caused a helluva mess,” said the hairiest man in America, his eyes sparkling.
“I'm sorry, it was an accident. I'll... I'll help... ”
The bikers seemed to acquiesce to the man somehow. He had a big paw on Brian's shoulder, and it was like the protective arm of Zeus, because not one of the other guys was making menacing moves toward him.
“Hey, don't worry about it, man. Let's move on and let these boys take care of their rides.” Brian found himself trotting down the sidewalk and away from the scene of the crime, a big warm arm wrapped securely around him.
“Name's Jim,” said the man who didn't seem about to relinquish Brian anytime soon. “The boys call me Momma Bear, though.”
“Brian. Thanks for saving my life.”
Jim laughed, a big Santa Claus laugh. Ho ho ho. It made Brian tingle all over in a nice way. “Don't mention it, man. Where you headed?”
Brian shrugged. “No place, just walking.”
“You get high?”
Brian frowned, considering. The usual answer to this question when asked by a stranger was no, just for safety's sake. But this guy had dragged him out of a pit of angry bikers. He doubted the man meant him harm.
“Sure.”
So then they were in the guy's van, passing a little pipe back and forth, and the next thing Brian knew, he had both fists full of soft, curling chest hair, and his mouth full of a sweet, gentle tongue, and those pretty eyes were gazing into his and asking and... well... he said yes, didn't he?
He found a little nipple ring amid all the hair and played with it, making Jim hum like a happy top and go at his neck. Soft warm tongue lapping and drawing tingles up Brian's spine and down his ass to his thighs.
Jim lay back, his shirt and fly open, and Brian crawled on top of him. Jim was like a big furred couch— with good springs. He gave enough to bounce, but underneath was a nice bed of muscle.
His cock was about six inches long and thick as a soda can, straight and red. Brian peeled off his jeans and shorts while Jim slid a glow-in-the-dark condom down over that tree stump. Brian crawled up over him again, wrapping his legs around the soft hair of Jim's thighs, and sat down on the glow. The tip pushed into his prostate, just there, and he quivered and moaned, barely moving, while Jim chuckled and jacked him off.
The orgasm climbed his spine, setting off flares throughout his body, while Jim arched a bit, hips jerking, that thick cock throbbing against Brian's spot, and he was just thinking man, that was something, when another orgasm started rippling through him.
Hours later, it seemed, and Brian was lying against Jim's chest, blinking the stars from his eyes.
“So,” said Jim softly, twining Brian's hair around his fingers. “You come around here often?”
They both laughed at that. “Yeah,” said Brian. “You?”
“I get around,” said Jim. “So I'll see you here and there again, I guess.”
“Oh, yeah, I'm sure you will,” said Brian. Fuck, he hoped so.
He could barely walk up to his door when Jim dropped him off. And his asshole ached all the next day. It was a nice ache, and it masked the ache of missing Paul pretty well.
So the next night he had off, he went tootling down the boulevard again, and, sure enough, a white van slid up to the curve, a certain hairy bear grinning at him from the driver's seat.
“Want a ride?”
Brian grinned and wiggled his eyebrows suggestively as he climbed in. “Momma, I've been wanting a ride all day.”
Jim seemed to drive aimlessly. Up into the hills above the Bowl, the old van lumbering through narrow streets, around sharp turns, until they sat under black night, looking down onto the pink and blue dish of Los Angeles. The end of the doobie glowed in the dark cab as Jim passed it to Brian.
“So what do you do?”
“You mean for money?” Brian inhaled until he felt the burn at the base of his lungs. He spoke around trailing smoke. “I clerk at a grocery store.”
Jim blinked at the joint in his hand. “You seem pretty smart for that.”
“Lots of smart people do what they have to do,” said Brian. And then he laughed. “'Sides, where'd you get that I have brains?”
Jim inhale
d slowly. Stared out the window. “I do, that's all.”
“Well, yeah, maybe. But there was trouble at home and no money for college. I guess I'm okay where I am.”
“What kind of trouble?”
Brian laughed nervously. “Nosy guy.”
Jim's head swiveled and he smiled at him. Soft and easy. Big gentle bear. “I've heard it all, kid.”
“Well, not trouble like legal stuff. My old man... ” Brian shrugged, compressing his lips over the sudden sharp pain in his gut.
“Hmmm.” Jim carefully stubbed out the joint and leaned back in his seat. He sort of waited. Like Brian could keep talking or not.
“You know those Saturday afternoon specials on TV where the kid tells his dad that he's, like, gay? And his father tells him he loves him no matter what?” Brian spoke, looking out the window at the lights blinking below.
“Sure,” said Jim, noncommittally.
“Well, it wasn't like that.” Brian frowned at his knee and worked a crease into his jeans. A minute later a new lit doobie appeared in front of him. He took it gratefully.
“Why Los Angeles?” asked Jim.
Something about the softness of his voice. Warm and deep and serene. It made it easy to talk. Like Jim really cared.
“Good place for people like me, I'd heard,” said Brian. He inhaled deeply. Passed the stub back.
Jim nodded and smoked thoughtfully. “You met a lot of guys since you came out here?”
“You mean did I go crazy and work my way through the male population of West Hollywood?” Brian gave him a grim smile. “No. I saw guys doing that, and it scared the shit out of me.”
“See, I knew you were smart.”
Brian shrugged. “I did meet one guy... ” Oh. Ouch. He'd thought maybe that ache had regressed a bit but there it was, sharp and new under the pleasantly stoned feeling.
“And?”
“He left.” Brian's voice sounded way too old and bitter for his age, he figured.
A big warm hand on his shoulder. Fingers gently digging in. Kneading a bit.
“You're gonna be okay, kid.”
“You think?”
“I know,” said Jim, all growly and sweet. “You have my personal guarantee. And I'll kick anybody's ass who says otherwise.”
Brian snorted. “Momma Bear says.”
“You got that right.” That big hand rubbed and kneaded down Brian's back. “So. You wanna fuck?”
They clambered into the back, into the familiar smell of sandalwood and Jim's earthy odor and leather. Brian hadn't noticed the ropes and things before. He handled one nervously. “Should I be worried?”
“Oh,” Jim smiled sheepishly. “No. You don't have to. I... like... ”
“Ah.” The man liked to tie them up. Well, Brian was young, but he wasn't naive. “Don't know about that, but how about... ” Brian gripped the seat back and laid the ropes over his wrists so it would look like they were tied. He heard Jim inhale.
“Okay,” said Jim, his voice a little tight.
Jim tugged at Brian's pants, and soon that thick cock was working itself slowly into his hole. A whole lotta lube and gentle care later, and the whole van was rocking on its wheels up there on the mountaintop while Brian squealed like a happy stuck pig and Jim howled.
Then Jim drove him down to Mel's and stuffed him with burgers and a milkshake and drove a fat, sated Brian back to his apartment.
“See yah,” said Jim, giving him a big sloppy kiss across the gear stick. He held Brian's face in a big paw for a second before Brian climbed out of the cab. “You're special, kid. Remember that.”
Brian gazed into those molasses-colored eyes and almost really believed him.
Brian got a little wacky about white vans for a while after that. Jim would seem to appear out of nowhere, that old van rumbling down the boulevard and that horn tootling its Charge tune. They'd been humping like happy bunnies in the back of the van off and on for weeks it seemed, when Jim decided to take Brian home.
Fuck if it wasn't a certain bungalow a couple blocks from Melrose.
“My roommates are out of town,” said Jim. “I rent from this great guy who sells Harleys up north. He's been gone for weeks.”
Brian had seen Jim's bedroom from the door before, but he hadn't realized that the partition in the back corner with the weirdly glowing blue light behind it was actually a small forest of marijuana. Jim tipped a long-nosed watering can over a pot plant that was almost as tall and wide as he was.
“Gets too damned quiet here, most times,” he said.
Brian was feeling a combination of guilt and sorrow. It wasn't like he and Paul were a thing or anything. And he hadn't had a phone call or a postcard or anything in the past few weeks. It was just, this was Paul's place. His roommate.
But then Jim was taking off his big beaten cowboy hat and smiling at him in that happy, gentle way of his and playing with his beard and he looked so huggable and sweet...
It wasn't like he and Paul were a thing or anything. Several months, he'd said. And he hadn't said much else.
Jim had a heated water bed, and he laid Brian down on it and stripped him slowly, taking the time to kiss his toes, his ankles, the insteps of his feet.
Brian giggled, then arched and hissed as Jim's mouth traveled up his calves and licked a line to his balls.
“Hey.” Jim's beard tickled Brian's face when he looked down at him. All the man's warm heat lay on top of him, the water bed giving, easy and plush and warm beneath him. Brian felt like a melted-cheese sandwich.
“Mmm,” said Brian.
“Can I ask you something?” said Jim, nuzzling at Brian's ear.
“Sure.”
“Would you let me shave you?”
And so it was that Brian sat on the toilet seat, legs spread and balls held carefully in Jim's big hands. A razor blade barely touching them.
“You sure you aren't high?”
Brian trusted Jim. He totally did. He'd never met a gentler, kinder, more trustworthy guy in his whole life. But this? Was a little scary.
“I'm sure, man. You don't want me to do this, though... I won't.” And Jim sat back, withdrawing that cold steel and rinsing the shaving gel off it in the sink.
“N-n-no. No, its okay.” Actually, it was a little hot. It was intimate, strange— and it made him feel vulnerable. “Do it.”
Then there was the soft scrape-scrape. It didn't even sting. Brian breathed and felt the whisper of hair falling against his skin, and then Jim was leaning over and blowing softly and Brian's toes fucking curled.
“Oh. Oh crap.”
“Feels good?” Jim's eyes twinkled up at him.
“Feels fucking amazing, man.” Brian looked down. Oh God, look at him. Getting hard now, standing up tall and proud and naked as a jaybird. His cock looked longer. Sexier. And every wisp of air was like a touch. Jim leaned over and blew a line around his cock and balls again, and Brian had to grip the toilet seat with both hands.
“Gonna fucking shoot, Momma Bear.”
“Not yet.” Jim stood, brushing pubes from his chest and legs, and held out his hand to help Brian up. “Let's go back to bed.”
Back to the warm bed, with its velvety deep brown coverlet, and Jim lit candles while Brian lay on the bed, arms in the Velcro wristbands and tied to the headboard.
He writhed, trying to find a way to rub his cock between his own legs. “I'm dyin’ here, man.”
Jim took pity on him right away and crawled back onto the bed, kissing his knees, his calves. Then something brushed Brian's balls. Something complicated and tickling, and his legs would have curled upward but Jim was holding them.
“What was that?”
“Mmm.” Jim flourished a peacock feather.
“Oh God, man. You're gonna kill me.”
But of course, Jim would never torture him long and only brushed the feather up and down Brian's oversensitized groin a couple of times before taking his cock into that hot mouth and letting saliva coat it. Jim's tongue
moved around and under and over, like a fucking anaconda.
Brian started to whimper and twist against his restraints immediately. “Gonna shoot, Momma. Get a glove.”
Jim stopped. “Not yet.” Gently he pushed back Brian's legs, his own cock right there. That thick presence always stretched Brian so much, and Jim pressed in, slow and sure and didn't let up. Slick and the condom making it a little easier, but he stretched Brian so wide... so wide.
And then he stroked him with that damned feather.
“Oh! Babe!” Brian jerked, shooting across Jim's chest. His lover bowed over like he was praying, jerked a couple times, eyes closed in concentration. Then he leaned over and wrapped himself around Brian.
“That was good,” said Jim. He sounded dozy.
“Wait, man” laughed Brian. “Untie me first.”
And good thing he asked because seconds after he'd untied him, Jim was asleep on the bed. Like a fucking hibernating bear.
“More bacon?”
Brian's belly was a perfectly round bulge sticking out above his boxer briefs. He patted it. “Can't eat another bite, man.”
Jim shoveled the rest of the bacon onto his own plate, poured more maple syrup over it.
They'd had pancakes made from scratch, fresh-squeezed orange juice, scrambled eggs. Brian sighed in utter contentment and lay back in the chair, spreading his arms and legs so his body would have more room to pack all those calories somewhere.
Jim looked up from his plate. Pretty brown eyes perusing Brian's torso.
Brian relaxed and let him look. God, he felt good. Dopey, relaxed, completely safe and warm despite the fact that he was sitting practically naked in another man's kitchen. With Jim he felt at home.
Jim finished every bit of food on his plate and set down his fork. “Brian, we need to talk,” he said.
Brian stiffened so quickly he almost got a cramp. Well crap, he'd thought things were going so well...
“I have to go,” said Jim. The way he said it was like it wasn't a good thing or a bad thing. It just was. “And I wondered if... if you wouldn't mind watering my plants while I'm gone?”
He stood and went to a kitchen drawer and produced a little key on a KEEP ON TRUCKING key ring.