Drawn Together

by Z. A. Maxfield

  “I don’t know why not as long as I pay the bill,” said Rory. “But you could run into some trouble from the people who are looking for him. Bad trouble, maybe.”

  “Do I look like I mind a little trouble?”

  Rory grinned. “You look like you cause a little trouble everywhere you go. If you use my card, it may buy us time. I think they found us when I applied to play the high limit tables at the Venetian. That was so stupid.” He’d been berating himself for that.

  “No, it wasn’t, Rory,” Yamane said. “It was just Amelia. She’s evil.”

  Yamane took out a sketchbook, and Rory noticed he was relaxing. By the time the waiter brought them heaping plates of carne asada and camarones adobado with piles of fresh corn tortillas to make tacos and enough rice and beans on the side to feed a third-world country, Yamane was purring like a kitten. He continued to sketch, eat, and drink until the true dinner crowd started coming in, then finally ordered flan for dessert.

  “I have never seen a little guy like that eat so much. Where does he put it?”

  “Well, if he keeps drinking, he’ll probably be throwing it up.”

  “Hey, I can hear you. I’m right here,” said Yamane.

  “He eats a lot of junk food and he smokes,” said Rory. “His looks are deceptive. He’s totally polluted inside, like the guy in The Picture of Dorian Gray.”

  “If you eat any more, you better order a cardiologist to go with it,” said Frank. Yamane burst into drunken tears, sobbing and hiccupping.

  “Oh, here we go,” said Rory.

  “What did I say?” Frank asked.

  “Nothing, I’m taking the princess home.” He helped Yamane to his feet, putting an arm around his shoulder. He left money on the table for the food and a generous tip.

  Outside, with Yamane still sobbing on his arm, he exchanged cell phone numbers with Frank and gave him his gas card.

  “This will only work for about two hundred dollars. After that, cut it up and throw it away. Be nicer to strangers.”

  Frank laughed. “Now, how would I meet interesting people if I was nice?”

  “Bye,” said Rory. “Take care of yourself.”

  “You too, and take good care of the princess. What a handful. Better you than me, man!” Frank waved.

  “I heard that,” Yamane said between sobs. “You know you want me, Frank,” he added, practically shouting it.

  “Yamane, don’t look now, but people are watching,” said Rory, half carrying, half dragging Yamane to the motel.

  “Well, I know they want me too.” He staggered along. “Everybody wants me except you, you straight bastard. Wait, no! Until today!” He laughed right up until he passed out. Rory tenderly carried him the rest of the way.

  “Yep,” Rory said under his breath. “You’re the freaking ninja of love, Yamane.”

  Amelia threw a vase at the two big men, who dodged it and stepped back. They cringed in the Venetian Hotel tower suite that she was currently destroying in a fit of rage. “I told you to find him, you idiots. The man dresses like a Chinese doll. How hard is it to find a man who dresses like that?”

  “Apparently, pretty hard,” said Ethan, “or we’d have him by now, wouldn’t you say?” “You shut up, Calderon.” Amelia turned on him. “We had him right here, at the Venetian, and you couldn’t deliver.”

  “There are times to hunt with beaters, Amelia, and times to hunt with stealth. How do you think your plan of stabbing a prominent cardiologist worked out?”

  “Shut up. He knew where Yamane was hiding. I told you, the doctor called and warned him off,” Amelia raged. “Saying he’d spent the night with Yamane, that liar.”

  “Amelia, did you seriously stab an innocent man just for being Yamane’s lover?”

  “Don’t say it like that!” she shrieked. “You should have been watching the exits. He probably walked right out the front door.”

  “He was alone, though. Do you suppose the redhead left him?” mused Ethan. “Maybe because of the doctor. Maybe they had a lover’s tiff, or something like that.” He felt Amelia stiffen next to him and decided not to talk about that. “What do you want to do now?”

  “If Delaplaines is still here, you can bet Yamane hasn’t gone far. Check the poker rooms again, damn it!” shouted Amelia. “Look for the redhead. Start from scratch. I want every hole out of Vegas examined. Damn, damn, damn. Sooner or later they’ll make another mistake.”

  “There’s another way,” said Ethan, hating himself even as he said it.

  “What?” Amelia stood still for once.

  “If they’re still together, we can bring them both to us. I don’t think Delaplaines would sacrifice his family, even for Ran Yamane, and I don’t think Yamane would allow him to do it.”

  “Set it up,” snapped Amelia.

  15

  Rory placed the passed-out Yamane on the solitary queen bed and sat in the chair next to him. When he was lying there sleeping so peacefully, it was hard to imagine him taking on Frank like that. Rory remembered he’d been unusually chilling with Amelia face-to-face as well. Yamane, he guessed, was just one of those people who found his cool when there was real danger, and jumped on chairs if he saw a spider in the kitchen. Rory massaged the back of his neck as he got back up and shucked off his own clothes, down to his briefs. What a roller coaster the day had been. If that was what came from not smoking, Rory would buy Yamane a carton and an ashtray and back away on his knees. He sighed.

  Yamane stirred, rubbing his feet together in his shoes. Rory sat down on the side of the bed with the intention of removing Yamane’s clothes for him, and found himself studying his beautiful face, the profile of which was now facing away from him. Rory gave in to the desire to undo Yamane’s braid. Something about the man’s hair made Rory’s fingers ache to touch it wherever they were. Rory stroked its softness, letting it fall through his fingers like liquid.

  Yamane was still unconscious, but Rory had no misgivings about undressing a passed- out man. He thought of the many times he and his mother had undressed Charles and poured him to bed, yet this was different. Guiltier. Rory relished the opportunity to look his fill.

  I’m just going to make him comfortable.

  Rory unbuttoned the shirt, keeping a careful watch in case Yamane woke up. He slid the shirt off Yamane’s shoulders with the palms of his hands, enjoying the feel of smooth skin gliding under his touch. He removed the shirt completely by lifting Yamane a little to get it out from under him. Holding Yamane in his arms, he pressed a kiss to the base of his throat where the pulse was ticking gently under his creamy skin. This wasn’t exactly consensual. Rory put Yamane down.

  I’m just going to make him comfortable, he repeated to himself as he placed his hands on Yamane’s fly button. Rory touched first, ghosting his fingers across the fabric over his limp cock. After pulling the jeans off, he put them on the chair with Yamane’s shirt.

  Seeing Yamane like this, in only his briefs, Rory felt heat suffuse his cheeks. Damning the consequences, he placed his hands on Yamane’s body, exploring his shoulders, chest, and abdomen. The hollows of his pelvis, his hips and thighs. He ran his hands lightly over Yamane’s nipple ring and tasted each café au lait-colored bud.

  Rory lay down next to Yamane and held his breath as Yamane sighed and rolled over, facing away from him. Yamane caught Rory’s arm and pulled it around him like a blanket. Faced with this, Rory had little choice but to lay beside him, spoon fashion. He used that excuse to pull Yamane into his body and hold him close.

  Rory tried to shove the sure and certain knowledge that he was feeling up a drunken man aside. The pleasure of running his fingers over Yamane’s skin made almost all the guilt recede, leaving only a modicum of shame in its wake. He held Yamane, slipping both his arms around the sleeping man, and touched him as he might have touched himself. He cupped Yamane’s dick and balls with both hands, and then slid down Yamane’s knit briefs…

  None of Rory’s experience prepared him for wanting a pass
ed-out man. Yet the evidence was unquestionably there; Rory was erect and he wanted Yamane. He burned with it. He pressed himself between tight little ass cheeks, his cock grazing the crack, parting it and rubbing along the hidden recess behind Yamane’s balls.

  Yamane’s upper body still felt boneless against him as Rory’s breathing grew shallower, coming in faint gasps. He began to press his erection upward, to get friction from Yamane’s unresisting flesh. He jerked forward and felt the slap of Yamane’s balls against the head of his dick. Yamane made small noises that had the effect of stirring Rory’s senses, and soon Rory was slipping along, gliding between Yamane’s thighs using his own precum to slick the way as he pulled Yamane tight back against his chest. He continued to move against Yamane, doing what felt good to him until he uttered a shuddering cry and emptied himself in a splash of heat high into the junction of Yamane’s thighs.

  It wasn’t long before the enormity of what he’d done hit him and he wanted to die of embarrassment. He touched the creamy wetness and pulled his glistening hand from beneath the covers. Fascinated, he held it up in the still-lit room and then tasted it.

  Still unwilling to comprehend that he’d just gotten himself off on an unconscious man, he left the bed as carefully as he could to keep from disturbing its occupant. He found a towel and dampened it, cleaning himself up and returning to do the same, carefully, for Yamane.

  Rory put on the flannel drawstring pants he usually wore to bed and climbed in beside his lover. If Yamane sensed this, or remembered it, Rory knew he’d have some explaining to do. He pulled Yamane back against him, still feeling the languid warmth of passion’s aftermath in his lower body. Yamane’s mouth dropped open in the relaxed way of children when they sleep, and he began to snore delicately.

  Rory stroked Yamane’s hair, admitting to himself, at last, that this strange and beautiful man had hardly made a move, yet Rory’s “knight” was taken.

  When Rory woke the next morning, Yamane was busy repacking yesterday’s clothes. He had already showered and was letting his hair dry down. “It’s about time. It’s already nine, and I’m starving,” Yamane said, a happy smile on his face.

  “You’re in a good mood this morning,” Rory said carefully.

  “So, it seems, are you,” Yamane said. He pointed to Rory’s morning wood, which would have been difficult to hide at the best of times, but in the warmth of the early Arizona morning, Rory had thrown off the covers. “When I woke up, I thought I was being robbed.”

  “Shit.” Rory rolled over and put a pillow on his head.

  “Don’t be embarrassed. I thought about taking advantage of the situation, but then I thought, what kind of a jerk would do that?”

  Rory’s eyes snapped open to look at Yamane closely, but he detected no sarcasm. “You’re blushing. How cute. I’ll tell you what, I was going outside to smoke, but unless you’re planning a bonfire or a baseball game, what do you say you let me take care of that before I go, okay?”

  Yamane leaped on him. Before Rory really got a handle on what was happening, Yamane’s sweet mouth found him, and before he could even think, he was tangling his fingers in Yamane’s long hair and coming in his hot mouth. He gazed at Yamane afterward, dazed and robbed of speech. Yamane kissed him and shared the flavor of their lovemaking.

  “I need a cigarette.” Yamane grinned.

  “No. You don’t.” Rory ran his hands down Yamane’s back. “How about you suck me off?”

  Rory’s eyes snapped back to his, and he knew his face didn’t exactly look…eager. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to. He wanted to taste every square inch of Yamane. He wanted to suck him and screw him and eat his ass. But when Yamane said it? He realized he’d never, ever done it before, and he felt his blood run cold. What if he wasn’t any good at it?

  Yamane got up and sailed out the door, laughing at him. Rory stayed in bed for a few minutes longer. His face was on fire, and his heart was pounding.

  Did Yamane remember last night? Did Yamane know he was clumsy and ignorant and content to hump him like a dog?

  Finally he got up and used the bathroom, taking a quick shower. He joined Yamane outside, and they went to the same little Mexican place, this time for huevos rancheros and coffee.

  “I love these homemade tortillas,” Yamane was saying. “I read somewhere that every culture in the world has a flatbread. I don’t know why, but I’m just ravenous today.”

  “Uh-huh.” Rory was deep in his own thoughts. “Today we’ll head up to Salt Lake City. Then we’ll get some more camping gear and drive east on the eighty. Would you be okay camping out a couple of nights?”

  “I’m not sure I’m exactly your camping type.”

  “How about we try it for one night, and then if you hate it, we’ll go back to motels?”

  “How about we make some kind of trade?” teased Yamane, and Rory’s face flamed up again. “I’m just kidding. You sure are jumpy today.”

  “Sorry.” Rory looked down. He ate the rest of his food in silence.

  When they finished breakfast, Rory and Yamane got into the car and headed north on Interstate 15. Soon they were driving through Utah, listening to the classical music station on the radio, awed by the vast sky and otherworldly landscapes. Rory wondered if Yamane liked the silence, or if he was allowing it to play out between them because he felt as out-of-depth, as uncomfortably new, as Rory did.

  At a rest stop just before Provo, Rory used his cell phone to call his friend Brian. He used the men’s room and came out to find Yamane sitting at a picnic table sketching some children. Rory sat down next to him. The feeling of rightness, the sense of peace that came with being by Yamane’s side, had grown with every look, every word, that was spoken between them that day

  “I like it here, Rory,” said Yamane. “It’s clean and beautiful.”

  “Me too. I wish we were free to camp in Bryce. It’s like being on another planet.”

  “Rory, are you all right?”

  “I am.” Rory was puzzled, but it was true. “I’ve even stopped wishing we’d met under different circumstances.” He got up. “I’m going to get the first aid kit from the car. I want to change the dressing on your hand.”

  When he had the wound uncovered, Rory said, “You know, I don’t know if you still need to keep it bandaged. It’s healing nicely.”

  “Is that your professional opinion, doctor?” Yamane flushed when he realized what he said. Rory smiled at him, unconcerned.

  “Don’t, Yamane, please. I understood then, and I understand now.”

  Yamane lowered his eyes. “Thank you.”

  Rory finished up. “Let’s go horrify Utah with our bad gay selves, shall we?”

  “Are you kidding me?”

  “Yes,” answered Rory, “probably. But while we’re in Utah, if instead of flaming, you could quietly sort of smolder, I’d appreciate it.”

  “I may smolder, but you, my friend, brought the wood this morning.”

  “That doesn’t have to mean anything.”

  “That depends,” Yamane told him, “on what you were trying to do with it, doesn’t it?” Rory kept his eyes on the road.

  “You’re blushing!” Yamane began to sing, “Yamane’s got a boyfriend… Yamane’s got a boyfriend.”

  Rory reached over to give Yamane’s good hand a squeeze. “Yamane’s got a lover.” he said, and it was Yamane’s turn to be silent.

  When they finally reached their destination, Rory phoned his friend from a Denny’s where Yamane managed an embarrassment of pancakes and some sort of omelet with everything in it. After a while, a young couple walked in with a toddler and two car carriers with tiny infant boys in them.

  Rory got up and gave his friend a bone-crushing hug, and after a few confusing moments, they shoved together a couple of tables and sighed when everyone was seated. Rory introduced Yamane to Brian and his wife, Amy. Brian introduced his daughter, Asia, and their twins, Paul and Jared. A waitress came by and Brian and his family got their food o
rder in.

  “So, Rory,” said Brian. “I haven’t seen you in ages. I’m glad you could come and meet the family. Mom and Dad hope you’ll stay at their place tonight. Did you bring sleeping bags?”

  Rory nodded.

  “That’s settled then. I take it you still resist the waters of baptism?” Brian asked.

  “I do. But you’ve been very magnanimous about that, for which I am grateful,” Rory replied.

  “Why do we have so much trouble in New Orleans, I wonder?”

  “Perhaps it’s because we’re drunk, armed, and Catholic.”

  “And you’re an inveterate gambler, don’t forget,” said Yamane. “Although you’re phenomenally good at it.”

  “I do not gamble, Yamane,” said Rory. “I play poker, which for the men of my family is not a gamble.”

  “Yes, I know,” said Yamane. To Brian, he said, “It’s like he’s made a deal with the devil or something.” He looked at those freshly scrubbed, earnest faces. “I mean, not really…”

  “Oh, of course not,” said Brian seriously. “I’m sure we’d have heard about it if he had.”

  Amy nudged him hard and laughed.

  “Rory, Brian said he met you when he was on his mission?” she asked. “Yep,” said Rory.

  “But you guys got together again after the hurricane?”

  “Yeah. Wasn’t Asia just born then? He had about a million pictures.” One of the twins gave a sharp cry, and Amy leaned over to pick him up. Asia seemed content to stare Yamane down.

  “Brian told me all about how you volunteered at the shelter together. He sang that pancake song in his sleep for months.” She smiled. “He said when you got out of school you planned to stalk the Snoggs artist until she married you.”

  “Uh, well…” said Rory.

  “Yeah.” Yamane grinned. “You never told me. How did that turn out? With that artist?” Yamane, the shit, took out a sketchbook and began to draw pictures of Asia dancing with Snoggs.

  “Uh, well,” said Rory again. “Allow me to introduce you to Ran Yamane, creator of the Snoggs and Princess Celendrianna.”