by John Inman
Before answering, he leaned in and pressed his lips to my stomach again, as if for courage. Then his eyes traveled back to my face. He opened his mouth, but no words came out. He simply nodded, and as he did, his ears turned red. My breath caught, staring at them.
A silence hovered over us. Finally, he managed a single word. “Yes.”
Careful, a tiny voice in the back of my head said. Careful.
Shut up, I told the voice. Just shut the fuck up.
With that out of the way, I reached up and cupped Dario’s chin in my hand. I slid my thumb oh so lightly across his lower lip, the part that wasn’t damaged. His eyes never left my face for a moment while I did, his eyes so big and brown and alive and trusting, and so flecked with gold and sincerity, I thought I might tumble into them and never find my way out again.
“You can see me anytime you want,” I said, but the words sounded empty. I cleared my throat and tried again. “Anytime, Dario. For any reason. For no reason. Call me. Come pounding on my door. Drop through the skylight. I—I—”
“What?” he asked, his white teeth shining through a relieved smile. “You what?”
I took a deep breath and spoke what I felt. No pussyfooting around. No demurring. No false pride. “Dario, I don’t think I could stand it if you didn’t see me again.”
This time it was Dario’s turn to say, “Really?”
By way of answering, I slid his cock into my mouth once again and was rewarded by the sensation of feeling it swell atop my tongue. He unhurriedly thrust his hips forward, burying himself deeper in my mouth as his cock lengthened. I clutched his ass, pulling him in, exhilarated at the taste of him again.
When he pulled my already stiffened cock deep into his mouth as well, my body reacted with an uncontrollable shudder.
“Oh God,” I mumbled around his dick.
He pulled me closer, his hands splayed wide across my back, his fingertips kneading my skin as if searching, searching.
His name tumbled silently through my head. Dario. Dario. The taste of him made me squeeze my eyes in bliss.
When he gasped and filled my mouth with his sweet juices, I knew I was lost.
Maybe I had been lost the first time I laid eyes on him. Back in the restaurant. Back on the first day we ever spoke to each other.
Yes, I thought, knowing it was true. Yes. I was lost even then.
As the afternoon waned and we began to lose the light, we stayed cuddled by the fire until hunger drove us into the kitchen.
Later, as night slipped around us, we readied ourselves for bed. We would have to leave bright and early in the morning for Dario to make his classes. Sex seemed to be far from either of our minds.
Dario crawled into my arms and fell instantly asleep, as if he had been doing it every night of his life. Again, the emotions that soared through me feeling him against me, at the trust I knew he was placing in me to comfort him as he slept—those emotions left me floored.
By the time my own dreams found me, I was so lost in him, I never felt sleep coming.
I dreamed of mountain paths and wildflowers and the sensation of Dario’s injured lips on my skin.
I woke both smiling and sad, my head filled with the scent and taste of the man still lying there, nestled in my arms.
CLUTCH HOWLED from the cat carrier in the backseat all the way into the city. The rain had eased up, so the mountain lane to the highway was no less navigable than it was when we arrived.
Dario’s hand never left my shoulder through the long drive back to the campus, where he had to rejoin academia and continue working a path toward the future he had chosen—a future I knew now he was more than worthy to claim.
I pulled up in front of Dario’s dorm, and before he exited the car, he took a gentle grip on my ear lobe with his thumb and forefinger, massaging me there.
He appeared shy and a bit hesitant. Almost formal. “Thank you, Robert. You have my number.”
“And you have mine,” I said, feeling the same way.
“Please use it,” we said in unison, and then we laughed. All shyness and hesitancy dropped away as if it had been shoved off a cliff.
I twisted my head and kissed his hand—unobtrusively, in case any other students were around, since I had no idea if he had outed himself to his college mates or not.
Clutch grumbled something less than romantic from the backseat, which we both ignored.
After gathering up his belongings—sans the bakery bag with his underwear in it, since he had stuffed them in his backpack this time, unworn through the whole long weekend—he sauntered up the sidewalk to his residence hall. I watched him the whole way.
At the door, he turned and lifted a hand to wave good-bye. Then he did a pirouette like Julie Andrews on the top of that fucking mountain and disappeared through the door.
I barked out a laugh, and no sooner had I laughed than I felt myself sinking into a funk. I drove back to the city, wondering what I would do now. Wondering if he would call. Wondering what I would do if he didn’t. Wondering what I would do if he did.
After lugging all the crap—including a still-howling Clutch—all the way from the parking structure where I store my car through the crowded city streets to my condo, my funk was suddenly the least of my worries. As I stepped through my front door and dumped everything in the middle of the floor, I knew something was wrong. I’m not sure why. I simply sensed it.
Nothing in the living room was out of place. I moved warily into the bedroom, where I felt my stomach cramp like I’d eaten a bad oyster as I stood in the doorway and stared vacantly at my empty desk.
I couldn’t believe it.
My computer was gone.
Chapter Ten
“IT COULD be worse,” Chaz was saying into the phone. “You weren’t three hundred pages into a new novel. How many times have I told you to back up your computer? You might have lost everything.”
“I did lose everything,” I groused.
“Well, yeah. But not a new unfinished novel.”
“Harrumph,” I said.
“Did they steal your David Hockney off the wall?”
“I don’t own a David Hockney!”
“Oh, yeah,” he smirked. “Good thing, huh? How about your world-class collection of TV dinners. Did they steal those?”
“Oh, shut up!”
“Did you call the cops?”
“They wouldn’t even come out to check. They said the crime is over and done with, so what could they possibly hope to accomplish now. Since there was no sign of a break-in, they informed me I probably left my front door unlocked and someone just walked in. When I asked them about fingerprints, they merely laughed. Fucking cops.”
“Did you leave your front door unlocked? You were pretty eager to get out of town.”
I harrumphed again. I was getting good at it. My harrumphs were becoming quite polished. “Hell, I don’t know, Chaz! I suppose it’s possible.”
Chaz is as transparent as I am. When he tries to be sneaky, I always know. And I knew it now. “It must have been lonely up at your cabin all weekend all by yourself with only that stupid cat to keep you company.”
I was angry enough about the computer, and Chaz’s cavalier attitude toward the robbery—not to mention the fact he’d insulted my cat—to purposely toss a monkey wrench into the conversation.
“What makes you think I was alone?”
There was a deafening silence on the line for about five seconds. I hate to admit it, but I rather enjoyed that silence. Chaz can be such a prick sometimes. It’s nice to return the favor now and then.
Chaz’s voice took on a note of wounded incredulity. “You weren’t alone? You told me you were going to the cabin to write and needed to be alone.”
“I lied.”
“You lied? Who did you invite to go with you? Do I know him?”
I was beginning to regret baiting the guy, but I couldn’t see any clear way out of it now. I’d already said too much. “You’ve seen him around,” I
said, trying to be evasive. “So—I guess I’ll be shopping for a computer later. Want to go with me?”
It was Chaz’s turn to harrumph. “You don’t want me. You want my computer expertise.”
“Yes,” I snapped. “And to get that, I need your sorry ass to tag along with it. Coming?”
“Who went with you to the cabin? Was it the one you lied to me about not tricking with the other night?”
“How do you know I lied?”
“I know you! You can’t bluff at poker and you can’t tell a lie without letting everybody in a fifty-mile radius know. Who was it?”
I exhaled enough air to fill a dirigible. “It was the busboy.”
Silence. “What busboy?”
“The busboy with my book in his back pocket.”
I heard something clatter at the other end of the line, like maybe Chaz had dropped his coffee cup, or more likely, threw it. “That kid? You tricked with that kid?”
“Maybe.”
“He was young enough to be your—”
“Oh, shut up, Chaz! He’s not a kid. He’s twenty-one.”
Chaz’s voice gained an edge, and it wasn’t a nice one. “And what do you suppose he saw in you? A meal ticket, maybe?”
I tried to be funny. “Maybe he was social climbing his way to the top.” I hated myself for saying it the moment the words were out of my mouth. I hadn’t meant it. I was trying to defuse the situation. Still, it felt like a betrayal of Dario.
“Social fucking his way to the top more like it, Robert! Yes, I suppose that was it. He saw the opportunity to stick his dick inside one of his literary heroes, and who wouldn’t drool at the chance to do that!”
I leaned into the phone. My hands were beginning to shake. This conversation had passed beyond funny about thirty seconds back. “Be careful, Chaz.”
Chaz ignored my warning. “I suppose it was just a lark, huh? You get a chance to fuck a young Mexican kid, and he gets a chance to get out of town for a couple of days, consume a few free TV dinners, and hobnob with his idol. That way you both get something out of it.”
“I’m going to hang up if you don’t calm down, Chaz. It wasn’t like that. He’s—he’s sweet. We enjoyed spending time with each other. He’s a student. He’s studying—”
Chaz cleared his throat to interrupt me. “I have to get back to work. If you want to shop for a computer this evening after I’m off, then let me know. Or maybe you should just take your trick with you instead. He’s young enough to be a computer whiz. Hell, everybody under fifteen is these days.”
“Chaz—”
The phone went dead with a click. Well, fuck, I thought. That could have gone a little better.
I sat at the desk fuming, staring at the one pristine square of desktop that wasn’t dusty, because that was the square where the base of my Mac had been perched before some asshole waltzed into my condo and snatched it out from under my nose.
I suddenly realized I wasn’t even that mad about the robbery anymore. I probably did leave the front door unlocked. It probably was my fault. No. I wasn’t angry about the computer. I was angry at Chaz. And I was furious at myself for telling him about Dario. I should have known it would upset him. Of course, even I couldn’t have known it would upset him as much as it had, and I was sorry about that. I truly was.
But still—
I closed my eyes and remembered the texture of Dario’s skin. The smooth, satin heat of his hands as they shyly explored my body for the first time. I remembered the way he tugged my arm around him while he fell asleep. I remember the way his back arched off the bed and he yanked at my hair as he came and came and came. All for me. All for me.
Screw it. I snatched up the phone and punched in Dario’s number. He answered on the second ring—and he answered with my name.
“Robert?” he said, his voice young and eager and once again hinting at his Mexican ancestry with the way the vowels listed a little toward the musical. It was a lilt I never grew tired of hearing.
I felt my anxiety melt away. “How’d you know it was me?”
I could hear the smile in his voice. You can, you know, if you listen hard enough. “I just knew,” he said. “How’s Clutch?”
I snarled. “It’s always the cat with you. How’s the cat? What’s the cat doing? When’s the cat going to write another book? How would the cat like to come to Mexico City with me and shop for dog-shaped piñatas to pound the crap out of?”
He screamed out a raucous laugh. “Okay, okay! I’m sorry. Jeez, are all writers so touchy?”
No sooner did he stifle his laugh, than he spoke in that sleep-soft timbre I remembered from the loft in my cabin. It was the voice he had used when he spoke to me in a hush, lying there in the darkness in my arms while the moonlight rained down on us from the sky outside the window. “I miss you already,” he said.
My heart thumped as if someone had suddenly jarred it to life, which wasn’t far from the truth. “I miss you too. You on your way to class?”
“Soon.”
“How’s your eye?”
He laughed again. “You only saw me an hour ago. Picture it then and picture it now. Same picture.”
“Oh, yeah.” I felt myself blush. Here I was, thirty years old, sitting all alone in my condo blushing. Even the cat was looking at me askance.
I suddenly found myself at a loss for words. “So….”
We both fell silent. It wasn’t an uncomfortable silence, just—expectant.
Then I spoke before I knew what I was about to say. “When can I see you again?”
He lowered his voice, as if someone had come into the room. “Do you really want to?”
Lackadaisical was the way to go here. I would probably fail miserably at pulling it off, though. Acting blasé wasn’t one of my talents. Panic-stricken was more in my line. “Sure,” I said. “You know. If you do.”
I thought I detected another smile in his voice. Maybe he was already as adept at knowing when I was being sneaky as Chaz was. “How about next weekend, Robert? This week I’m working every night at the restaurant, and I have early classes every day. Finals coming up. All that crap. I don’t have a lot of free time right now since the school year will be closing out in a couple of months.”
I wasn’t too crazy about the answer. A week sounded like a year, but I refused to let him know that. “Of course,” I said. “Great. Maybe I’ll stop by the restaurant for dinner now and then to say hi.”
“All right,” he said. “I’d like that.”
“What about your boyfriend? The abusive one with the big fist and the short temper. Heard from him?”
“No. I expect he’s moved on to greener pastures.”
“Good. I hope he finds a patch of poison ivy and sits in it while he’s there.”
Dario laughed. “I have to run, Robert. It’s almost time for class. Uh….”
“Yes?”
Once again he lowered his voice. I could hear the scrape of his lips on the mouthpiece when he spoke. It reminded me of the scrape of his lips against my own, and that memory sent a thrill through me. He spoke so quietly, I had to crane my neck to catch his words. “It’s going to be a long week without you.”
I squeezed my eyes shut, letting that one simple sentence sink in.
The proper answer only came to me after I heard the phone click dead in my hand.
“You have no idea,” I said, breathing the words to no one but myself. Then, simply because I couldn’t bear not to, I spoke his name out loud, just to hear it ring across my empty condo.
“Dario,” I said, and softly hung up the phone.
I SPENT the better part of the day shopping. After first collecting my car from the parking tower and running it through a car wash to get the mud off after our trek to the cabin, I headed away from downtown to the shopping center where I had purchased my other computer about a gazillion years ago. Screw Chaz. I was a big boy. I could make a computer purchase without him holding my hand. I would simply buy one that looked lik
e the one I had now. Setting it up and getting myself back online would be a different story, but maybe I could weasel myself back into Chaz’s good graces by then. Or hire somebody else to do it. Anyway, I’d cross that bridge when I came to it.
Two thousand bucks later—and totally humiliated thanks to the twelve-year-old clerk at the Apple Store who made me feel like a technophobic old twit, but trying not to let it show—I had my new Mac, all boxed up and stuffed in the trunk of my car. It looked lonely lying there, so I set off to buy some shoes. Not for me, but for Dario. I found Reeboks at Macy’s that looked like they might fit him. When I tried them on, they felt a little tight for me, so I figured that would be about right for him since he had worn my hiking boots well enough after he donned an extra pair of socks for stuffing.
While I was at it, I bought him socks. Why not? Everybody needs socks, right? If Chaz were with me, I would have never heard the end of it, but since he wasn’t, I also picked up a couple of casual tees for Dario. Something collegiate with Latin symbols across the chest. I didn’t know what the symbols meant, but maybe he would. After all, he was premed.
When I returned to the parking lot with my arms full of Dario’s presents, I discovered someone had keyed the side of my car, scraping a line through the paint job all the way from the front fender to the rear taillight. Damn! What was it, a conspiracy? Had I angered the gods some way, pissing them off so badly they had sent the minions of Satan out to humble my annoying ass by swiping my computer, scratching my car, and alienating my best friend? Oh, wait. I had alienated Chaz all on my own. I couldn’t blame the gods for that one.
I stared at the marred surface of my poor Toyota and tried to swallow back the aneurysm about to explode inside my head. This too will pass. This too will pass.
I tossed Dario’s gifts in the trunk alongside my new Mac, and after a last forlorn look at the scrape on the side of my car, I headed back downtown.
Later, with my Toyota safely parked and my new purchases piled in a heap on my dining room table, I popped a bottle of Johannisburg Riesling, poured myself a hefty glass, stuffed a fistful of Chips Ahoys in my mouth, stripped down to a pair of boxer shorts and a T-shirt, and set about clawing my new computer out of its box. Clutch tried to assist, but he wasn’t really a lot of help. He spent most of the next two hours huddled inside the computer box, lashing his tail back and forth and stalking me. Like what I really needed was another stalker.