by Damon Suede
Silas took a second to reply. “Every fucking day.” His jaw tightened and he shook his head, just once. “My daddy was my biggest fan. Took no guff. Gave no quarter. He always knew the right thing.” He shook his head again and closed his eyes. “Say. Do.”
“Sorry.”
“What for?” The smile was minnow-quick, but his eyes shone. “Parents die. Kids live. He raised me so good that I felt bad for the other kids I knew. Hell, he mostly raised them too.”
As the moon rose over the Jefferson Market tower, they walked up Greenwich, where the foot traffic was lighter. Cold as it was, a clump of secretaries stood jammed into a Red Mango, eating frozen glop out of cups.
One short block from his front door, Trip stopped walking. “Wait…. You hungry?”
Silas shrugged. “I love cooking.”
“Except I don’t really have any real food. From nature.”
Silas clasped the bags of suspiciously wholesome ingredients. “Taken care of.”
“I just….” Trip pulled a panicked face. “I don’t think I straightened up.”
“You can get as messy as you fucking want.” Silas adjusted his crotch.
I bet he’s not wearing underwear. Trip dislodged his own bone with the hand in his pocket.
“We’re a caution.” Silas giggled and rubbed his cleft chin roughly. “Let’s get inside before we end up on YouTube.”
Their arms bumped together as they walked, and Trip reached his door feeling like a sticky ticking jism-bomb.
“This is us.” On the first landing, Trip reached into his pocket for his keys. He had to shove his erection out of the way before he dug them free.
He unlocked the street door and led the way to the second floor, trying not to think about Silas watching his backside as he climbed. He flicked the lights on to reveal the open room. Not horrible. No laundry and only a couple of glasses in the sink. He glanced across at the alcove by the windows. He hadn’t made the bed.
“Home sweet hovel.”
Instead of stepping past him, Silas stopped close. “Big.”
Trip gestured at his cluttered shelves and the framed posters. “Nicer apartment than most New Yorkers can afford, but Hero High pays well.”
“Cool.” Silas stayed put. He didn’t touch but stood near enough that he warmed Trip’s back. “Am I making you nervous?”
Trip didn’t turn. “Yeah. No. I mean, yeah, you do, but in a good way.”
“Likewise.” Silas put one rough hand against Trip’s head.
Did he want dinner? Had they only come upstairs to fuck? Trip wasn’t sure what script to use. His heart stuttered somewhere inside him.
With Silas, sex apparently didn’t follow any of the normal routines. When on the prowl, Trip went out and gradually climbed the ladder from flirt to fondle to fuck, like an erotic Lego set that required permissions and patterns if you wanted to build anything.
Silas didn’t play by any of the rules. His frank horniness rattled Trip and unleashed him… exhilarating, but scary at the same time. All bets were off. Maybe that was his appeal. Silas seemed just as likely to fuck on the stoop and then snuggle watching the Justice League as the reverse.
Silas brushed a gentle hand across Trip’s cheek. “Whatcha grinning about?”
Trip let out a puff of awkward air. “That you’re bad for the rules.”
Silas shrugged. “You show me some rules and I’ll consider ’em. But nobody ever gave me a manual worth shit. You?” His calluses whispered over Trip’s throat and collar as he pulled their faces close.
They didn’t kiss.
Trip breathed as easily as he could and waited for a signal. Their cheeks sandpapered together.
“We don’t have to rush, Mr. Spector.”
Maybe anticipation was a good thing.
Silas tugged his shirt loose and took a couple of steps onto the rug of Trip’s living room area. “Down Alabama, we like taking our time.” He toed off his shoes comfortably. “Just getting situated.”
“Sorry about alla junk.” Trip adjusted his clothes. Maybe they were both nervous.
Silas crossed to cast an eye over the bookshelves, the rows of bound comic archives and figurines, pop culture clutter. “This is a great pad. I don’t wanna know what you pay.”
Trip tapped the floor with his foot. “Well, the bar downstairs gets loud as hell, and the heat is for shit, but you can’t beat the location. Light’s good.”
“But you have so much space.” Silas held a white Guy Fawkes mask over his face. “V for Vendetta!”
“Mostly freebies and swag. From cons.” Trip felt thin and washed out next to all that bronze muscle. He wiped his damp hands on his thighs. “You’re like a stealth dork.”
Silas peered out the windows. “That’s Greenwich? All the boys floating by.”
“And I can get to Big Dog in twelve minutes on the A.” Trip’s erection hadn’t shrunk. He closed his eyes for a long beat and inhaled. “You’re killing me.”
“Uh-huh.”
By the time he opened them again, Silas had unbuttoned his jeans to reveal unexpected briefs. Shows what I know.
Silas peeled out of his pants and step-step-stepped free of them. “Didja get good sketches at the game?” He flopped onto the couch with an easy grin.
Trip moved to join him, his crank seriously tenting his pants at an obscene angle. “See what you did?” He shifted it inside his underwear, which didn’t help matters.
Silas reached and squeezed the oversized roll of meat, his eyes fixed. “Spector, that thing is something else.”
“Sorry.”
“Boy howdy.” Silas swallowed, breathing audibly.
“In high school I felt like an ugly unicorn.” Trip grabbed his buckle firmly. “Big fucking shank hanging off me.”
Silas fell back on the couch. “Hey, I like unicorns. Unicorns are just weaponized ponies.”
Trip frowned, but for once he didn’t try to cover his face with his hands or arms, or bury it in the cushions.
Silas rolled onto his belly. “And you’re awful cute for an ugly guy.”
Trip knelt beside Silas and the couch and ran a reverent hand over the fleshy jut of his haunch, the dimples at his lower back, and the hillock of muscle under his red cotton briefs.
“Spent my whole life wishing I weighed a hundred and fifty pounds. You don’t know. My teammates called me dumpling.”
Trip tried not to grin but failed. “Well….”
“Don’t say it!” But Silas smiled.
“Okay.” Trip bent to press his face to the firm sweep of Silas’s lower back. He craned closer to kiss one cheek. “But I’m gonna think it a lot.”
“But you probably expected me to be like this burly power top and then I pull a switcheroo and—”
“And I guess you can stop talking now.” Trip teased the elastic with his fingertips and squeezed a handful of the firm glute. “Aren’t dumplings always better with gravy?”
Silas blinked.
“Stop telling me what you think I want. Okay? I bet we’ll figure it out.” Trip crawled up onto the sofa to lie full-length on top of Silas, his fat joint tucked between the globes in question through the thin briefs. “Ungh! I love that.”
“Feels fantastic.”
Sure enough, the thunder of Silas’s heartbeat and the slow drag of air energized Trip as he relaxed onto the broad torso and pressed his belly against the hot slope of Silas’s back. “You really love being on bottom. Why didn’t you say something?”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Touché.”
They lay together for a few minutes, just breathing, each in his own thoughts. Trip broke the silence first. “Don’t get me wrong. I haven’t been—”
“Fucked.”
“Yeah. In a while. Like a long while. College, maybe.” Trip growled and kneaded the heavy shoulders. “I spent my whole life wishing I looked like Superman so I could have what I wanted: Captain America in a sling. Tarzan greased and spread-eagled. Ro
bin jackhammering Batman.”
Silas grinned. “You’re playin’ my song.” His buttery accent came through thick, dragging two syllables out of one. “I love it when you take over like that.” The big man squirmed. “Make me take it.”
“You make me make you.” Trip chuckled low in his chest. “Fucking powerless to resist. This”—he squeezed it lightly—“is the most beautiful ass I’ve seen in twenty-six years of nude models and porn addiction.”
“Alabama hams. They grow ’em big.”
Trip ran a tentative hand over the ripeness of Silas’s flank. “Not just that.” He nuzzled the back of Silas’s neck and then his ear. “You are something super special, Mr. Goolsby.”
Silas stiffened.
“Sorry?” Trip stopped hunching. “Am I crushing you?”
“Naw. You kidding?” Silas turned his grinning face. “I could go to sleep like this. A hung blanket.” He pushed up on his elbows and shifted away.
Did I say something bad? Trip scooted back to lean against the opposite arm of the sofa. Silas seemed serious.
“We got time.” Silas sat up and gave a wary smile. “Let’s take it.” He grabbed at the distended pouch of his red briefs as he stood up. “No hurry. I should start supper.”
Trip wavered, trying to get his bearings.
“’S’my fault. I keep trying to push.” Silas pressed the heels of his hands against his eye sockets. He drifted to the drafting table in front of the bricked-up fireplace. He put his hand on the big sketches of Horny Bastard. “You mind?”
Agh! Trip sprang to his feet. Last thing he needed was Silas finding a bunch of naked demons who had his face and body.
Trip reached for his sketchbook and flipped back a couple of pages as he tried to find a drawing of Horny Bastard that didn’t resemble Silas. He found one and held it up to the mirror on the brick wall beside his chair, then examined it. Not great. Using all Cliff’s notes for this version of the face made the character too… flat, or hollow. There was no fire, no color or movement. He stayed a sketch, but at least he wasn’t Silas.
“Oh.”
“He’s still pretty rough.” Horny Bastard never felt right without the cheeky stare and those wicked eyes. Funny how a character decides how he’s going to look.
Trip regarded Silas’s confusion in the mirror. This Staplegun version of the hero had come out creepier than he should’ve, more vulpine. More horror than erotic.
“Okay. Huh.” Silas sounded hesitant. “He’s so intense. Dirty.”
“Erotic comic.” Trip flipped forward to the later, more impressive images when he’d softened the lines and let Silas’s goofiness and flirty appeal seep back into the character. “He’s a full-on sex demon.”
Silas laughed. “F’real? I didn’t expect that.” He pondered the infernal Cliff. “He is sexy.”
Trip waited for Silas to notice his own features. Then again, maybe he’d given himself too much credit.
“So goddamn talented.” Silas perused the incubus drawings. He clucked and nodded at whatever he saw.
The wonky foreshortening drove Trip crazy. “Hold on a sec. I need to fix something.” Trip held the drawing up to the mirror, reflecting the entire page back at him. Staring into the glass, Trip erased the bicep and lengthened its roundness.
Silas watched him with a bemused smile on his face. “Is that like a two-way mirror? Are you showing it to the cops?”
“No!” Trip grinned and turned back to his revisions on the reversed pad in the mirror. “Your eye gets trained to read left to right, and so your hand will build flaws into a drawing. That mirror is there so I remember to check the balance as I go. I’ve gotten in the habit of drawing in the mirror pretty regularly. Makes for more dynamic posing, everything.”
“Gonna be something special when you’re done. You watch.” Silas ran his hand over the drawing and turned the pages thoughtfully. Finally he looked up. “Art. This is art. I mean, more than capes and scrapes. This sumbitch is gonna rattle a lotta cages when he gets loose. Change shit even.” He smiled up at Trip with a sloe-eyed stare. “Sometimes you do it to teach them a lesson.”
“If I can finish the script.” Trip scowled. “I don’t even know his goddamned name.” He thumped the pencil in irritation. “There’s no story. I can’t find a bad guy.”
Silas bumped his bulge against Trip’s forearm. “Practice, practice, practice.”
Trip sighed. “I mean the big bad, for his story. First issue is him chained up and breaking free. To do what, I have no idea.”
Silas scratched his scalp. “You’ve just gotta find his villain. What’s he fighting for?”
“No idea.”
“C’mon. You have some idea. I mean, look at him. Not fighting for tax reform.”
Trip snickered. “Point taken.”
“You’re not seeing what’s there.” Silas wiped his wide mouth and smiled. “I bet you’ll find your foe and your name, and once you do they’ll both seem obvious.”
“I don’t know. If he did fall for someone, he’d have to defy his masters, and he’d put his boyfriend in danger.”
“Ah! The demon has a boyfriend.”
Trip peered at the floor. “Maybe.”
“So this is a gay erotic adventure you’re whipping up.” Silas bent close and kissed the nape of Trip’s neck.
Trip squirmed and jerked as the soft stubble scraped him just enough. “If I can figure him out.”
Silas straightened. “Y’got so much to go on. Picasso said ‘No artist is a bastard.’”
Trip snorted. “Obviously he didn’t get out much.”
“Ha!” Silas laughed at that, a rumbly bark. “Naw. It just means that there’s no such thing as a blank slate when we make something. Art starts somewhere.” He sighed happily. “We do.”
Silas paused at an angle to the apartment windows; his shadow became a long black tongue that licked the floor. Chased by moonlight, he seemed more imaginary than his demonic doppelgänger in the open sketchbook.
Trip grumbled, wished his clumsy hands understood what his eyes saw. If only he could capture that open, sweet heat. He’d draw that window, that moon, that ripe muscle… with no guilt and no guard. Silas had given him permission to dream, and no matter where he stood, he looked like a hellish hero.
“I mean….” Silas swung his chin to glance over his shoulder, half his face in shadow. “Nobody starts from scratch.” He shrugged. “There’s no such thing as scratch.”
Trip nearly stumbled, stopped. “Who?”
“Not who, what.” Silas chuffed. “Scratch.”
“Wait….” For a second he thought he’d misheard. “What did you say?”
“Scratch doesn’t exist.” Silas’s brows drew together in confusion. “What?”
“Oh. My. God.” A wide, stupid grin bloomed on Trip’s face.
“What’d I say?” He widened his eyes. “Trip?”
“Perfect.” Trip gaped at him as a pile of invisible cinder blocks floated off his shoulders on invisible wings.
Silas smiled. “You sure are, bubba.” His lazy gaze roamed over Trip.
“No, I mean—” Trip shook his head. “You said Scratch. I thought you meant it like a nickname for him.” He waved a hand at the scattered drawings.
“So?”
“Scratch. You see?” Blink. He felt like a hot, shaken soda all set to spray. “You don’t see.” Trip held his hands open and waited for Silas to make the leap with him. “Go with me…. Old Scratch is a name for Satan. And touch and money. Claw marks. And you can start from scratch.”
Silas gathered Trip into strong arms, “’S’pretty badass, Mr. Spector.”
“Sh’yeah.” Trip managed to shut his mouth. What just happened? He contemplated the drawings of Horny Bastard.
No: Scratch.
“I like it.” But Silas didn’t seem to hear. “A lot.”
The light outside had gone deep indigo. The bulge in Silas’s briefs firmed up, and Trip’s followed along.
Trip took another lungful of sharp vanilla, and a quicksilver certainty flickered through him: the name Scratch spun inside his hero’s moving parts like a key, tumbling the lock.
The future crooked its finger.
How exhilarating and odd to talk about his crazy incubus project while their cocks jousted somewhere below. He’d never imagined a world where his art and his heart mingled and smeared together, the possibilities explosive and infinite.
“I cannot believe… I been trying to find his name for two damn weeks. How d’you do that?” He stared at Silas.
“Hey. That’s how art works. Happy accidents.” Silas swung his head and bent to butt Trip’s chest, like a dog wanting to be petted.
Trip nudged his sketchbook. “Thank you. For understanding.” He stroked the two-dimensional Scratch, and Silas kissed the base of his throat with Scratch’s mouth. “For the name.”
“Uh-huh.” The sound a puff against Trip’s collarbone. All Silas’s earlier hesitation had melted. “You came up with it.”
“Well, I thought you did….”
“By accident.” Silas kissed him. “Scratch.” Another kiss, slower this time, more open. “You’re a genius.”
“Not really. More like: we’re a genius.” Trip kissed back then, fiercely and gently devoured that sinful smile, crushed Silas close in that way that made the big man go boneless against him.
And still, and still, Silas stood there sturdy as an oak to offer more than he realized. He pushed up Trip’s shirt and kissed the line of hair on his belly while he popped the button on Trip’s jeans and fumbled to get them lower.
Trip looked down at the urgent ridges bumping below.
Silas sighed against him, too close to see clearly. “Please,” he whispered. A request or an objection?
Trip spread his hand behind that perfect skull, the bronze neck, and whispered into his skin, “Anything.”
Gingerly, Silas hoisted the elastic over Trip’s knob and revealed the shaft to the air. “There’s no hurry.” Silas traced spirals on his back.
“There isn’t?” Trip laughed. “Tell that to my boner.”
And wham, Silas grabbed his cock directly for the first time and wrapped his thick paw around its bare skin to speak into the head like a microphone. “There is no hurry.” Silas chuckled, and sucked the head, just once. “Over.”