Grand Adventures

by Dawn Kimberly Johnson

  “You could have just told them you were a cop,” Alex said between fits of laughter, slowing the Mini down when they hit the main street off the pier.

  “Yeah, but where would the fun be in that?” James chuckled, stretching out as much as he could in the passenger seat. “And I had nothing to do with the fire. Who the hell juggles flaming torches in the middle of a busy boardwalk?”

  They kissed on Alex’s doorstep that evening, a gentle, sweet kiss Alex could taste even after James pulled away and let him go. The man’s arms were around his waist, and Alex pressed his hands over James’s back, exploring the powerful muscles along his spine.

  “God, I hate that I have to leave you, but….” James cocked his head. “I’ve got court first thing in the morning, or I’d try to persuade you to let me stay.”

  “I’d let myself be persuaded,” Alex admitted and reluctantly let him go. “I’m kind of… overwhelmed, you know?”

  “Hey, I’m trying to take it slow. The wild Martin startles easily, I’m told, but God, I want you,” James said, brushing his mouth once more over Alex’s lips. “And if I don’t leave now, that slow thing ain’t going to happen. I’ll call you tomorrow, ’kay?”

  Tomorrow came, and so did the phone call, an early-morning growling purr of sexual innuendo and sweet promises.

  Then another dead body got in the way.

  WORK KEPT the detective busy for the next week, but they’d kept in touch with texts and late-night phone calls. Los Angeles seemed to be competing for a body count to equal a war zone, and James began to seriously wonder if he’d pissed off someone in heaven, because all he wanted was to spend some time with Alex—quality time, preferably naked and with lubricant.

  Hell, even just sitting with the man on the couch would have made him happy. That realization stopped James short in his tracks.

  “Holy shit, I’m falling in love with him,” James muttered, and Lois chuckled under her breath.

  “Castillo, you’ve been in love for the past two freaking weeks. From how you tell it, I’d be able to toss Alex out onto the ocean and he’d just stroll on back, walking across the waves with a piece of bread in one hand and a fish in the other.” His partner snorted. “You’ve only just now figured that out?”

  The late-afternoon call came in just as James debated if the department would forgive him when he shoved his partner out onto the open freeway at eighty miles per hour. They both exchanged a brief glance, and Lois reached for the mic.

  “We’ve got this, dispatch. ETA in ten,” she replied, rattling off their numbers. Cutting off the call, Lois glanced at her partner. “Looks like your boyfriend got another one.”

  “Well, shit. He might be able to walk on water, but I don’t think Alex can raise the dead.”

  Even with their lights and siren going, it took James twenty minutes to fight through downtown traffic. Dodging film crews and road closures, he argued himself in and out of calling Alex before Lois made the decision for him.

  “Look, we need him fresh on the scene, Castillo. In fact, when we get there, I’ll take his statement. You go see about anyone else around.”

  “Can I at least kiss him hello and tell him it’s going to be okay?”

  “Only if he doesn’t have blood on his hands, and even then, maybe I’ll let you. God, I hope I’m not this sappy with my husband.”

  “How many times has Raoul found a dead body?”

  “Other than headless rat corpses? None,” Lois admitted. “But your guy seems to have set the bar. He might feel like he has to compete.”

  Planet X looked like it’d been invaded by extras from a movie. Costumed people mingled with a growing crowd of police officers, and James’s mind strained to take it all in. Most of the outfits appeared to be Victorian-ish, but a few were leaning more toward a spaghetti-western slant. Spurs jingled alongside rattling pocket-watch chains, and there were curious contraptions of antiqued metal, lenses, and gears strapped to arms, legs, and in some cases, heads. Lois couldn’t help but stare as they pulled into the parking lot, and James drove slowly through the crowd, forcibly parting the mass with the front of the sedan before one of the uniforms shooed people to the side.

  “What the hell is going on here?” Lois muttered as she got out of the car. “It looks like crazy town.”

  “Let’s find Alex.” James scanned the crowd, but the sheer glut of top hats and mantillas made it difficult to see over to the shop. “Come on.”

  “Jesus, look at what they’re wearing!” his partner hissed behind him. “I wouldn’t be surprised if our DB died of heat exhaustion… or embarrassment. Are those girls’ boobs coming out of that thing? What the hell is wrong with these people?”

  He found Alex alone in the store—if being with five police officers could be counted as alone. The store floor’d been cleared in the middle, and long tables were set up with snacks and tanks of soft drinks and water. The walls and ceiling were decorated with black streamers, Tesla globes, and odd creatures, a creepy combination of science fiction and horror.

  But the star of the event was the seven-foot-tall rubber tentacle monster with two stiff legs poking out of the bottom. Slumped up against the wall between the break room and the toilet, it seemed to be what kept the uniforms occupied.

  Alex spotted James and left the conclave of blue, heading over to the door. Many of the uniforms looked guiltily at the detectives and one by one mumbled something, then headed out. The last one opened her mouth but then shook her head, exiting without an excuse.

  Smiling briefly at Lois, Alex reached for James but stopped short of touching him. “Hey, I’m glad it’s you.”

  “Need a hug, babe?” James asked softly, then wrapped his arms around Alex, giving him a quick, firm embrace. Letting go, he stepped back and nodded to his partner. “This is Detective Lois Washington, my partner. She’s going to take your statement.”

  “Tell me what happened.” Lois took out a notepad and clicked her pen. “And what the hell is going on outside?”

  “We’re having a Lovecraft day.” Alex sighed when the two cops stared at him. “Just… never mind. Anyway, it’s an event. Prizes, food—you know, that kind of thing. I hired this guy to be one of the Elder Gods—”

  “Would that be the tentacle thing over there?” Lois pointed with her pen. “What is that? Latex?”

  “A combination of things. It’s a costume worn by—okay, that doesn’t matter, but it’s been worn before.” Alex shook his head. “This time, something seems to have gone wrong. And don’t say the guy was allergic to seafood. I already got that crap from the first two cops who showed up.”

  Lois approached the dead man encased in the rubbery suit, peering through the bulbous eyeball set into the monster’s upper body. “Did you try it on?”

  “Yeah, we all did,” Alex admitted. “Most of the staff, anyway.”

  “Okay, let’s run down what he ate and drank, and then we’ll work through the witnesses. Castillo, kiss the boyfriend good-bye and see if we can’t find someone in this mess who was talking to the guy or something when he went down. They might be able to give us some clue about what happened before tox comes in sometime next year.”

  IT WAS midnight before James knocked on Alex’s front door.

  He’d been awake, sitting on the couch with the TV set to a show he had no idea about. Mrs. Who spent a good amount of time kneading her claws through his jeans, the pinpricks enough of a reminder for him to catch her and clip them, but he was too taken over by the day to care. Instead, he watched as chef after chef seemed to compete with one another in some sort of Lord of the Flies marathon until only one man was left standing, a stern-faced Asian man dressed in a shiny suit, who then introduced the next opponents.

  It wasn’t until Alex recalled seeing those same two chefs in other kitchens that he realized he’d lost the evening and he’d been stuck on the couch through quite a few very different shows.

  Fortunately, James’s arrival shook him up enough to get off of
the couch and answer the door.

  “Hey,” the detective said, kissing Alex on the corner of his mouth. He held up a bag of food, the name of their favorite Thai restaurant in bright red letters screened on the white plastic. “I brought you a late dinner. I’m guessing you didn’t eat.”

  “No,” Alex replied, making a face. “And Mrs. Who only eats tuna. I gagged even at the smell of seafood.”

  “Well, luckily there’s not a sucker or shrimp to be found in here.” James coaxed Alex to the living room with a gentle nudge. “Come on, let’s get some food in you.”

  “Screw the food,” Alex grumbled, plopping down on the couch. “It’s been a long day, and I’m—damn it, I’m glad it was you that showed up. Isn’t that shitty of me? Some guy dies in a squid suit, and all I can think of is Oh good, James is here. Life’s gotten much better.”

  “Yeah, I thought that too,” James admitted. “Well, about seeing you. Hell, food. In you. And unlike our deceased cephalopod fetishist, you’re not going to expire from eating poisonous mushrooms. I have it on good authority any fungi contained in these boxes are purely for nutritional purposes. Although there might be some vegetables in here that are as shady as fuck, but the ’shrooms are on the up-and-up.”

  “It’s always good to know the alignment of what I’m going to eat. Hey, I’ve got a question, are we ever going to fuck?” Alex surprised himself, probably as much as he did James, because the words no sooner left his mouth than he immediately wished the couch would swallow him up whole. “I have no idea why I said that. Shit.”

  “Yeah, we are,” the other man promised. “I just wanted to… take my time with you. Enjoy falling in love.”

  “Are we? In love?” He studied the detective, and his heart skipped and danced a bit in his chest. “Wow. I guess I never—”

  “Never knew what it felt like?” James offered him a bite of a spring roll, its end dripping with a sticky hot sweet sauce. “Yeah, it kinda kicks you in the gut, huh? So yeah, we’ll do all sorts of things. Probably in about half an hour or so—”

  Something dark filled James’s deep amber eyes when Alex leaned forward and sucked the sauce off the offered roll. Tossing what was left from Alex’s bite back into the tray, James grabbed Alex’s hand and tugged him up off the couch.

  “What?” he mumbled around a mouthful of tofu, rice paper wrapper, and bean thread noodles.

  “That damned mouth of yours. Screw it,” James growled. “Thai food can wait. I’m going to find us a bed.”

  THEY GOT as far as the stairs up to the second floor. Alex debated if his ass hitting the third step qualified as getting far enough up the steps to be called upstairs. He certainly had time to contemplate it because he’d been halfway through one of the most delicious kisses he’d ever experienced when the cop suddenly stopped. Left gasping and wanting more, Alex sat in bewildered confusion while James fumbled with his jacket, digging for something in one of the pockets.

  “What the fuck?” Alex blinked. The foggy haze of desire in his mind was starting to dissipate under the perplexing absence of the man he’d been groping when James grinned and came up with a bottle of lube.

  “I got you covered, babe,” James quipped. “Or at least got me covered. Whatever floats your boat.”

  “Thought you’d get lucky?” Alex smirked back.

  “Yeah, I’d hoped to,” James bent over and kissed the crook of Alex’s neck. “I just didn’t know it was going to be tonight. You sure about this?”

  “Oh yeah,” Alex shifted, the hard edge of the step digging into his ass. “But maybe not on the stairs.”

  “Bed or couch?” James glanced over his shoulder to the living room. “Couch is closer.”

  “Couch.” Alex swore under his breath. “Okay, I’m not going to get OCD about fluids.”

  “Sure you will,” James replied. “Because you’re you. I’ll just have to spend a lot of time scrubbing the hell out of the cushions afterward, but it’ll be worth it.”

  He felt James’s arms under him, and then the world tilted a bit when James lifted him. Gasping with surprise, Alex grabbed at James’s shoulders and hooked his legs around his lover’s waist.

  “I can walk, you know.”

  “I’m trying to be manly here.” James gave a mock wheeze. “It’ll offset my shoddy performance in a few seconds when I come too soon and leave you unsatisfied.”

  Alex was snorting his doubt when James dumped him back onto the couch and the air whooshed out of his lungs, leaving him breathless and panting. The panting and lack of air continued to dog him as James quickly shed his clothes and his dick bounced free, a flushed pink monster of a cock eager to get down to business.

  “Um, I don’t know if all that can get in.” Alex gulped, shifting until he fit in between the back and arm of the couch. “Have you got anything smaller? Something less? Maybe a sampler plate?”

  “You’ll be fine,” James promised, covering Alex with his hard long body. “Let me show you how it’s done.”

  James took his time, touching places on Alex’s body he didn’t even realize had nerves until James’s hands and mouth nipped, pinched, and stroked there. There was a bit of a shock when James’s blunt fingers, warm and slick with lube, teased at his hole for a brief second, but the surprise was replaced with a gasping need when James slid two digits up into Alex’s passage.

  After that, he could only hold on and writhe on James’s stroking fingers, each play of tips inside of him touching his core and sending currents through him. Just when he thought he couldn’t stand it anymore, James withdrew and Alex groaned out loud, disgruntled at the sudden emptiness. The snap of a condom on James’s cock was enough to send tingles through Alex’s spine, a muted promise of things to come.

  “Lift your legs for me, baby.” James nearly purred when Alex hooked his hands under his knees and spread himself open. “Yeah, just like that.”

  His cock fit up against the furl of Alex’s body, and suddenly Alex’s mind blanked, focused only on the press of the hot length of flesh pushing on him. His lungs burned and he realized he was holding in his breath, anticipation gripping his brain.

  “Breathe, Alex,” James said, stroking at Alex’s stomach. “Just breathe.”

  He inhaled, and James suddenly filled him.

  It was too much to take—not James himself—but the feeling of being poured into. Everything around him snapped into focus, too bright, too stimulating—everything so much more than Alex expected. Then James began to move, and his awareness snapped back in, closing down until only the two of them existed.

  The press and pull of James inside him seemed to last a short forever, but Alex needed more. He moaned in shock when James’s cock hit his gland; then the climb to his release began. His balls reached up, curling and folding in on themselves as tiny shockwaves burst out from them. His cock went rigid, slapping against Alex’s belly with a wet smack of its leaking head. James reached down between them and smeared the clear dew around Alex’s slit, toying with the shaft until Alex thought he would lose his mind.

  He lost it anyway.

  He came in an explosive geyser, jerking strands of hot liquid in the tight space between their joined bodies. James thrust with another snap of his hips, and he leaned over Alex, gripping the back of the couch with one hand as he worked Alex’s spurting cock with the other. Somewhere deep inside him, James’s heat was captured in its latex sheath, but Alex could feel its warmth, enjoying the spread of its touch along his insides.

  “God, I love you,” James whispered as his cock softened slightly in Alex’s tight clench. “And damn, you’re going to be the death of me.”

  “No more dead bodies,” Alex promised. “Including yours. I don’t think I could take it.”

  “REALLY?” ALEX looked at the cupcakes Giselle had ordered for Swag Saturday. “Zombies?”

  The display itself was nice, a gothic spread of candied eyeballs, gummy skeletons, and now, garishly colored minicakes. Worms, also gummy in nature, poke
d out of chocolate cookie crumbs masquerading as dirt. Tombstones and decayed limbs completed the graveyard theme, and when Giselle broke one open, it oozed what smelled like raspberry gel from its interior. She licked at it, turning her tongue a bright pink, which she showed Alex in mocking defiance.

  “They’re actually just dead people,” she said with a wicked grin. “Pretty cool, right? Especially since they’re now calling the shop Death by Comics. You should change the name.”

  “I’m not changing—” He cut himself off, shaking his head. “God, why do I put up with you?”

  “Hope you’re not talking about me.” James stepped up behind Alex and wrapped him into a hug. “Wow, those are….”

  “Cool?” Giselle offered.

  “I was going for gruesome, but sure, we can go with cool.” James kissed Alex’s ear and whispered, “I just stopped by to see if you want to catch some lunch, but I forgot you’ve got a Geekfest going on.”

  “Hey, I wear my geek badge with pride,” Alex muttered, but he leaned into the hug. “And no, Giselle, I am not changing the shop’s—”

  He was cut off when his other salesperson on duty came in through the back door. A scrawny scarecrow of a young man, his face was bleached nearly as white as the transparent skeletons filling one of Giselle’s crystal punch bowls.

  “Hey, um… Alex?” Charlie stuttered. “You might want to rethink that. Guess what I found in the alley behind the store?”

  For Dear Life

  MARY CALMES

  Eric & TJ~

  Looking forward to better days.

  All my love,

  Mary Calmes

  I.

  WHAT I had thought would be a beginning turned out not to be, and since I needed normalcy and grounding, I called my brother, Fallon, to come sit with me in a bar downtown, close to Market.