by Damon Suede
In his arms, Dante was shaking harder. I’m wrecking him; this is so wrong. But he couldn’t stop, wouldn’t stop, and Dante kept coming at him like an animal. No wonder the chicks put up with all his bullshit. So beautiful. Their bodies fit perfectly, their strength, their hunger.
Christ, this was just one of the possible “extended activities.” Griff’s brain turned itself inside out.
Dante puled back enough to tip his head and slant their mouths together more deeply. His tongue licked Griff’s teeth, swept the depths of his desire. Dante’s hair was in both their eyes, a lustrous tangle that kept them from looking at each other clearly. And thank God for that.
Griff felt the saliva pooling in his mouth. He swalowed. And swalowed again and thought, I’m fucking drooling. My best friend is making me drool. I’m gonna drown in my own spit.
Somewhere down below their waists, Dante was fumbling with his jeans, unzipping them and jamming them down to his knees.
From watching “Monte” on the HotHead site, Griff knew what to expect but didn’t know what to do with it under his blunt fingers. The silky hairs on Dante’s legs realy did start mid-thigh, like he was wearing slightly darker pants that he hadn’t puled al the way up. Up close, the crescent scar on his knee looked smaler and more delicate.
It’s like he’s teasing me on purpose.
Griff didn’t know if he could stop, but he had to try, for both their sakes. Dante sucking languidly on his lower lip, chewing and licking at it, tasting him deliberately like he was looking for something delicious under the plump skin. Their breath was hot in the space they’d made between them. They were both slippery with sweat. Dante kept his eyes clamped shut, his brow creased with anxiety.
I’m so sorry. Griff’s guilt shredded his insides. He’s thinking about some girl. Maria maybe, or Shelly up the block. He hoped his morning shave was stil holding up. No way Shely had stubble like he did.
Dante just kept his eyes shut and nursed at his mouth with a ravening tenderness.
Make it last.
Griff raised his hand to Dante’s hard chest, snaking under his T-shirt, kneading his sweaty golden pec, rough fingers grazing the dark nipples, tiny under the light hair, unable to stop himself from pinching them lightly.
Dante’s rigid pole gave a jerk against his hip. The front of his boxer-briefs was damp between their thighs.
Dante tugged his undershirt high again, twisting it in his fist, his mouth covering Griff’s nipple, then sucking hard on the armpit beside it.
Griff yelped, arching his back, then groaned, flexing his big arm to keep Dante’s head there tasting him, nursing and biting at him.
I’m a prick. This doesn’t mean anything. Griff knew his buddy didn’t understand what they were about to do. He couldn’t take advantage of his best friend and live with himself.
When did our clothes come open? Griff felt himself starting to panic as he felt the beginning tickle of an orgasm. There was no way he could control what was going on below his equator. Somehow Dante’s calused hand was firm at the smal of his back, one finger just tracing the top of Griff’s muscular crack. Flame licked up his spine and he was afraid he was gonna jizz right there, right then.
He was going to come. He was going to come in his boxers from Dante kissing him like this.
A warning rippled through Griff’s brain. Something was happening outside in the garage. There was movement nearby and a guy’s voice, but Dante wasn’t noticing. Holy shit.
“Wait. Wait!” Griff pushed him back, pushed them apart so he could catch a breath.
Dante froze and jerked his hands free instantly.
Griff covered his wide boner protectively with one hand over his tented underwear and sat down again on the bench, breathing hard and shaking his head.
Someone’s coming.
Dante dropped on the bench opposite. His sooty eyes snapped up to meet Griff’s steady gray gaze. Clouds of guilt or disgust raced across his handsome face. A light went out inside of him— whoomp—like a torch dunked in water.
The footsteps echoed on the concrete right outside the door; then a man’s fuzzy arm swung it open hard enough to bounce.
Siluski poked his head in. “’S’up, ladies!”
Griff’s heart hammered under his ribs.
Dante dropped an arm over his lap and turned his back to Siluski.
“It’s a boy. Ten fingers, ten toes.” Siluski was drinking black coffee out of a thermos. The smel filed the grungy room, pushing back the tang of mildew and medicated powder. “Sorry I’m late.”
Dante seemed frozen, seated there. His pants were around his knees and his medium-rare mouth was swolen.
Griff opened his mouth and tried to think of something normal to say. “We’re good. Anastagio came by to, uh”— give me a leaky boner and suck my brain out through my tongue—“see if I wanted to get dinner.”
Dante nodded silently, chewing a wet lip. He couldn’t look up from the floor.
Siluski was banging around inside his locker. “Then get your ass out of here, son!” Flashing a grin, he vanished back into the front of the house to share his news.
The door swung slowly shut and settled.
Dante raised his eyes to look at Griff, and the terror in them made Griff shrivel inside. Griff’s pulse was so loud he could hear it around them. He could see Dante’s pulse thundering against the holow of his throat. Alone, together.
Thwap. Thwap. Two hard slaps against the door.
Again they almost jumped out of their skins, each gripping the bench under him, each holding his breath.
Siluski’s voice came from just outside, already walking away. “Truck looks great, Muir. Thanks!” His whistle faded away with his tread upstairs.
“Jesus Christmas.” Griff didn’t know where to stand, where to look.
Dante was breathing hard and holding his extended fists like a tightrope walker, balanced between the white knuckles like he thought he’d fal. Even like that he was beautiful, chest rising and faling, the carved lines of his muscle under that honey skin.
Samba floated down to them from the boom-box in the kitchen; Siluski was banging around cooking something, and the other guys would be down in here in a couple minutes.
“Sorry.” Dante looked sick. “Realy stupid idea. Coming here. I didn’t think….”
Griff felt sick but smiled at him gently. “No. It’s okay. I’m… I’m….”
Dante waited, getting ahold of his own breath. He looked down at his underwear and his bared legs like he couldn’t remember where his clothes had been going.
Spilt milk.
The room suddenly came into sharp focus around them, like a lens had been adjusted: the graffiti on the lockers and the busted clock and the mildewed ceiling tiles that the city wouldn’t fix. Razor sharp. The lost moment of heat stretched between them, thinner and thinner til it was a delicate thread.
“It’s fine. Sorry.” Griff found his voice buried at the bottom of his throat and buttoned his shirt. “I just freaked a little.” The thread connecting them stretched further, barely a cobweb now.
“Got carried away.” Dante fake-laughed and something slid into place in his eyes— clunk— like a cel door. His grin hardened into armor. “I guess a guy realy can fuck anything.”
With that, even the edges of the cobweb dissolved, and then they were just two friends joking around in their firehouse. Alone, together. Twin towers.
“Yeah. Anything.” Griff looked at the floor, hands in his pockets so they wouldn’t give him away. “It’s just first base. You’re a”— fucking unbelievable—“good kisser.”
“Yeah. Uh. You too.” Dante barked another laugh but looked completely creeped out, unable to meet his eyes. “So, we’re good?” Shit. Shit. But Griff couldn’t make himself regret any of it.
It doesn’t mean anything.
Without standing, Dante bent to pul his clothes together and cover himself: sweatshirt, jeans, shoes. “And the extended-whatever-bonus thing? You
’re down?”
“Yeah. Yeah! Sure, no problem.” Griff pointed down at the contract where it had falen. “And you’re right. It’s worth it, ya know. Whatever extended stuff you think. I trust you. You figure it out and I’m ready.” He knew he’d already pushed it too far, but he couldn’t stop his mouth moving. He wondered when Dante would say something and he’d have to ’fess up.
Dante picked up the HotHead contract from the floor and folded it carefuly. He tucked it into his jacket and immediately shrugged the jacket on, like he needed to put a barrier between them for his own safety. “Thanks, Griff. Seriously. I’l make it up to you.”
“No big deal. Whatever you think.” Griff felt like a fucking molester. He went to his locker and grabbed his own leather jacket and a scarf. “C’mon. I’m starving.”
“What are we doing?” Dante looked confused there in the front halway.
Saving face. Griff thumped his back, a manly period on the mind-bending homo-moment they’d just shared. “You let me get to first base, Anastagio. Least I can do is buy you a steak and a corsage.”
Dante nodded and puled the door of the locker room open; something scary seemed to turn inside his head. Like maybe trying to figure out how much they could make with a repeat of the past five minutes in front of Alek’s cameras. Or why Griff had popped such massive dripping wood in his best friend’s arms.
What almost happened?
Walking past the engine and the racks of turnout gear and the boots’n’pants waiting for someone to step into them, Griff folowed him into the street wondering the same damn thing.
GETTING out of the neighborhood seemed like a fine idea right about then.
Dante was eerily quiet in the car as Griff drove toward Manhattan. It was totaly unlike him not to fil the air with jokes or firehouse gossip or gonzo sexual anecdotes, but as Court Street whipped by, his stony face was turned to watch the lit signs through his window.
Griff steered with one hand and glanced at his friend. “You’re okay?”
“Sure.” Dante nodded but didn’t look back at him to do it. The tension in the car was stifling.
Behind them someone impatient honked to let Griff know that the traffic had shifted forward a few feet. Asshole. It was less than a week since Dante had almost died. Maybe he was hurting. Griff asked softly, “Is your head hurting you?”
“Nah.”
The traffic for the Brooklyn Bridge inched along, and Griff drummed the steering wheel with his thick fingers. He tried to figure out how to let Dante know it was okay; they were stil friends and he wasn’t freaked.
Again, Griff flicked his eyes to get a read on Dante. “He didn’t see anything. Siluski didn’t.”
“I know. I wasn’t… sorry.” Dante shook his head and blinked, finding his words.
At a red light near the Fulton Mal, Griff tilted his head, looking up at the row of signals toward the bridge. Griff waited for him to go on, but he’d falen silent again. “Dante?”
Not turning, Dante was pretending to watch the storefronts rol past while he figured out what he wanted to say. “Extended activities is al. I think… it’s not nothing, you know? Doing… sexy stuff on camera. You feel….”
“Exposed.” Griff nodded.
“Yeah!” Dante looked sharply at him and twisted in the seat so his back was against the door more. “When Alek first asked, I figured this HotHead deal would just be just like getting your nut and hamming it up while your girlfriend recorded you on her iPhone. I mean, if you had, like, a million horny girlfriends online. Who were dudes, I guess. I’m a dipshit.”
“No argument.” Griff crossed his eyes and gave him a chimp grin, adding, “You are a dipshit. And a midget.”
“Har har. A six-foot midget. Seriously… I guess I never noticed the people in porn were people. Guys. Girls.” Dante’s brow was beetled and he was almost frowning. “Creepy, huh? I mean, I know they have lives and bils and alergies and pets, whatever. But I dunno. Doing private stuff that public is weirder than you’d think. It’s not free money. It takes something from you too.”
Now you notice?
Shaking his head, Griffin changed lanes and headed up the ramp to the Brooklyn Bridge. “Not than I’d think. That’s why there’s cash, Anastagio. Companies pay because it’s fucking work.”
“That’s what I mean: fucking and work. Complicated.” Dante settled back into his seat. “I realized how far I’d go if I had to. I think I freaked a little bit.”
“At the house. ’Cause of the kiss, you mean.”
Dante’s face squenched in confusion. “What? No!” Dante laughed.
“No?”
“Nah! Griff, you’re a great kisser. I mean yeah, we never…. But no, that was fine. Realy fucking fine. Damn.” Dante rocked his head on the seat and raised his eyes.
Sheesh! The shit he says without realizing it. Griff’s cock flexed in his pants, remembering the way they’d felt together.
Dante grinned wide to himself and shook his head, like he was thinking about the same exact thing, which was even hotter in some way. The lights from outside slid over his stubbled face rhythmicaly. He needed a shave.
Christ, he’s gorgeous. And right then, Griff knew. I’ll never love anyone else. I would never want to.
Griff coughed and checked his side mirror and concentrated on the shifting lanes of traffic, ignoring his semi-hard so he didn’t miss the ramp that he needed to get uptown. “Okay… so… not the kiss.”
“No, no. It was the list of activities thing. Like a menu with prices, only I’m not the restaurant; I’m the meal. I sort of got what porn does when you’re broke and desperate and nuts. It’s not evil or anything, but it starts to seem like a lifeline, and then it’s not such a big deal and you make these decisions.”
“Maybe you should tel Alek it’s off. We don’t owe that guy anything.”
“No! After this next, sure. Hel, I just figured out how to max out the bonuses. We’l clear thirty-five hundred. But when that’s over, I need you to remind me about this conversation, okay. Don’t let me forget what I’m teling you.” Dante smiled at him with familiar affection. “You gotta be my monster-sized, coppertop Jiminy Cricket.”
“Uh, okay….” Griff could feel the crooked smile on his face. “If I sit on your shoulder, I’l crush your midget ass.”
“Nah, I’m sturdier than you think.” Dante had the same crooked smile.
And everything between them was okay again. Amazing.
Griff steered them onto the FDR. Their exit wasn’t far uptown. “But what if you won’t listen, jackass? Tomorrow you might have empty-walet amnesia. If you get desperate, you may not want to remember anything about tonight.”
Dante thumped a thigh with his fist, next to the bulge under his zipper. “Then stick your damn tongue in my mouth, G. I guarantee that’l get my attention.” THEY found parking on East Ninth and walked back to First Avenue. When they found the restaurant, Griff held the door open to let Dante into the crowded noodle bar. The place was packed with suits and staffed by artsy types.
“Noodles okay? This place is kinda Korean-Japanese. Momofuku.”
“Cool. Yeah. You’l have to order for me. I feel like such a guido in here.” Dante looked down at his tight T-shirt and ironed jeans.
“What, ’cause now you’re a porn star?” Griff grinned, raised his red brows and jerked his head at the tables. “You look great. C’mon.” A pretty waitress with cropped blonde hair and a nose ring led them back to long benches, where they sat wedged between loud, chatty groups. The air smeled like scalions and pork and something peppery.
As they slid past people to sit down, Dante’s phone gave a silvery chirrup as he got a text.
Griff smiled and looked up at the menu on the wal. “Booty cal?”
“No, asshole. It’s my sister.”
Griff thought of lonely Loretta hopping around Dante’s front stoop wishing for her horned helmet while little Nicole waited patiently for the aria to stop. “Cal her back. It m
ight be important.”
“I’l cal her later. We’re on a date.”
“The fuck we are!” Griff’s eyes snapped up and he sputtered, “We’re having dinner.” Dante raised his eyebrows and smiled expansively. “You said we were. Expensive Asian dinner in Manhattan. You drove. You’re paying. After I came to the firehouse and put my tongue in your esophagus.” By then Dante was laughing at him. “Relax. I’m teasing you, G.”
“Oh.” Griff went back to scanning the menu and growled, “Numbskul.”
“It actualy feels good to sit down and eat somewhere I don’t know every goddamn person I see.” Dante craned to look around at the crowd chatting and digging into the exotic entrees. “We’re almost invisible. We could make out here and no one would blink.” The hell?
“I didn’t realize this place was so popular. I read about it in the paper.”
“’Cause you read, unlike some of us.” Dante held out a hand like he was presenting proof. “For the record, if this isn’t a date, I’m not putting out.”
“Jesus!” Griff looked to the diners on their right and left, but nobody was paying attention.
“So back off, bub. I gotta save my load for the shoot. And you should do likewise.” Dante raised an eyebrow and glanced down at the table in front of Griff, like he could see right through the wood to the half-hard-on wadded in Griff’s chinos. He jabbed a finger across the table at Griff’s chest. “And you better buy me a damn pork bun! Two pork buns!”
For some reason that was the funniest thing they’d ever heard. They cracked up like a cork had popped, exploding with laughter, spraying beer out their noses and choking for breath. The other diners didn’t get hit but shot a couple of annoyed glares their way. Griff and Dante didn’t pay much attention to anyone else. At these prices, Manhattan could fucking deal with two firefighters taking a breather.
The hard laughter drained al of the tension until it was just them again, across a table.
When the waitress came back and Griff was ordering for them, Dante was a perfect gentleman. Almost like it was a date and he was on his best behavior.