Dreamspinner Press Year Six Greatest Hits

by JD Ruskin

  Brandt blinked, tears edging out of the corners of both eyes, trailing down his cheeks.

  “You would do that for me?” he asked in a voice that surprised him with its plaintive tone.

  “In a heartbeat.”

  Brandt would later reflect that he had no idea why he did what he did next. It was simply what he needed to do. He opened his arms and pulled Nick to him, tightly. He pressed his tear-dampened cheek against Nick’s strong, dry, stubbly one, and held it there.

  “Thank you,” he whispered into Nick’s ear. And then, inexplicably, he kissed it. Just as Nick had kissed his ear when he stood before this bed wondering if he could do what he was there to do.

  He could feel Nick’s grin widening as his cheek contracted against his own.

  “I just want you to be okay,” Nick whispered back.

  Strengthened, Brandt pulled back. He looked at Nick and saw there were tears in his eyes too. That did it.

  “I will be okay. I’ll do this, and I’ll be okay.” Brandt smiled, somehow meaning it.

  Nick smiled back, a glowing, even proud, smile.

  “Awesome. Let’s make sure we’re all set.” He patted Brandt twice on the knee and then got up to check on the equipment.

  In a few moments, the image of Eugene appeared on the screen as Nick tested the video link. Eugene looked up, and his eyes stared straight into Brandt’s.

  “Image looks good,” he reported, as serious as if Brandt were the space shuttle about to be launched and Eugene was mission control. “Let’s test sound.”

  Nick motioned to Brandt to say something.

  “Got any special requests, big fella?” asked Brandt in a comically vampish voice. He was drawing on a reserve of bravado he had not been aware he possessed.

  “Hell yeah, I do,” replied Eugene. “I want to see what you got in that jock that’s worth twenty-four large!”

  “Come up with the money and we’ll talk,” answered Brandt, and he and Nick had a good laugh. Eugene smiled and shook his head while he made some adjustments. Then he looked up again and said, “Levels look fine, video stream is solid. Mr. Drake says the wire transfer has come into escrow, so we’re good to go. One hour!”

  “Got it!” replied Nick, and the image vanished from the screen.

  “So,” Brandt began, somewhat awkwardly, “How does this work?”

  “It’s super easy. No script, just you on the bed talking with the client. Just do what he asks, as long as you’re comfortable with it, and keep an eye on the clock. You want to blow your load right near the end—not too soon, but you don’t want to be rushed.”

  Brandt was trying to take all of this in, but the idea of timing his “load” kind of freaked him out.

  “Hey,” said Nick, his hand on Brandt’s shoulder, “The most important thing is to just be yourself.”

  Brandt was so far from himself that the very idea made him chuckle. Nick seemed to take that as a good sign; for Brandt it was a sign of surrender.

  They did some final checks, making sure that Brandt could move around the bed comfortably and stay on camera. Then Nick left him alone to “prepare,” whatever that meant. Brandt just stood at the window, where, once he had pulled back the heavy blinds, he could see life going on in the neighborhood. People living normal lives. It seemed like a long time since Brandt felt normal.

  The prospect he faced was grim. In a few minutes, he would be the evening’s entertainment for an anonymous, filthy rich man who would work him like a puppet through the magic of the Internet. He had already thrown up dinner at the very prospect; now he didn’t feel anything at all except a grim determination to get through it. He reflected for a moment that it might actually be easier doing this with someone other than Donnelly, especially if Nick had to be here.

  “It’s time, Jason,” Nick called, bringing Brandt back to himself and to his situation. He walked over to the bed and sat down, trying to remain calm.

  “All right. I’ll be back here behind the prompter. If you need anything just look my way, and I’ll give you a hint.”

  Brandt nodded. In a moment he would meet a man with whom he would have the closest thing to actual sex that he’d had in a long time. That realization made the pit in his stomach triple in size. Fuck.

  “All right, the stream is coming up now,” Nick said, and then he pointed to Brandt. Brandt nodded.

  On the screen an hourglass icon spun lazily, leaving Brandt a last precious few seconds to imagine who was going to be on the other end of the video connection. He hoped… what? That it was someone attractive? Would that make it better or worse? He had no idea.

  Finally, the screen went black and then the image appeared, not quite in focus. Then the picture sharpened, and Brandt could see a bed, but with no one on it. There was something on the bed—what was that?

  Brandt’s heart skipped a beat (perhaps three) when he saw that what was on the bed was a chessboard. Before he could even think about what that meant, he saw Donnelly sit on the bed and look into the camera. Brandt stopped breathing.

  Donnelly smiled, looking pleased with himself. Brandt tried to figure out how to handle a situation that had gone from bad to worse and was now completely off the rails.

  Nick, meanwhile, was evidently growing concerned at the silence on both ends, and motioned for Brandt to speak up.

  “Hi, I’m Mason,” Brandt said, barely audibly. Donnelly smiled and followed his lead.

  “Hi, Mason, I’m pleased to meet you,” Donnelly’s voice rose to a giggle. Donnelly was playing along, but not in a way that would fool Nick, not for long.

  Brandt knew he had to nip that in the bud.

  “So,” he said to Donnelly, trying to sound sexy, “What’s your name?”

  Donnelly looked blankly at the camera and then answered, “Gabriel,” as if that should have been obvious all along.

  Brandt closed his eyes. Fuck.

  “So, Gabriel, what do you want me to do?”

  Donnelly looked puzzled.

  “I thought we were going to play chess,” he said, shaking his head.

  Brandt laughed.

  “You didn’t pay all that money to play chess, did you? No, I think what you wanted was some of this.”

  Brandt pulled his shirt off over his head and faced the camera, kneeling on the bed, his abs drawn up tight. He was intentionally flexing hard, trying to show Donnelly that he was having to play this for real.

  Donnelly was clearly taken aback by Brandt whipping off his shirt.

  “Do you like what you see?” Brandt asked, trying to get Donnelly to catch on.

  “Um, yes?” ventured Donnelly, clearly still clueless.

  “Great. Then how about we get more comfortable?” Brandt started to unbutton his shorts.

  Donnelly stared, his mouth hanging open.

  Brandt unzipped his shorts and then slipped them off.

  Donnelly gasped as the red jock came into view.

  “Wow,” Donnelly breathed.

  “Like it? It’s new,” Brandt said.

  “I didn’t think you’d be wearing the red one,” Donnelly replied.

  “A friend of mine helped pick it out. I wanted a regular white one, but he liked this one, so I decided to wear it instead.”

  “Well, your friend has good taste.” Donnelly smiled weakly.

  “Wait until you see the back,” Brandt teased, and then he slowly turned around to face away from the camera.

  It was as Donnelly sat staring at his partner’s ass that it all seemed to fall into place for him. He sucked in a quick, surprised breath, and his eyebrows shot up.

  “Oh, man, you are so hot,” muttered Donnelly robotically, using the awkward tone of voice in which he might admire a photo of a friend’s not very attractive fiancée. Brandt was relieved that Donnelly finally seemed to understand what was going on.

  “Thank you,” Brandt said, turning back around. “You aren’t so bad yourself.”

  “Well, I’m nothing like you,” Donnelly rep
lied, “I mean, look at your chest and abs compared to mine.” He quickly unbuttoned and removed his shirt. He knelt on the bed, facing his buddy, flexing his not inconsiderable musculature.

  Oh my fucking God, thought Brandt.

  “Hey, I’m the one who’s supposed to be performing!” he chided, trying to send a message to Donnelly to slow down. It was not received.

  “Well, I’m waiting,” urged Donnelly, in a somewhat less stilted but still awkward tone.

  Brandt looked at Nick, who motioned him to lie back on the bed.

  Brandt sank down and then scooted back a bit on the bed, away from the camera, to give himself some room. He lay back.

  He was fully displayed to Donnelly now, stretched out the length of the bed, and Donnelly’s eyes moved slowly up and down his body, from his furrowed brow all the way down to his fidgeting feet. Donnelly closed his eyes and shook his head slightly, as if trying to imagine how they had gotten into this fucked-up situation.

  Brandt was worried. If Donnelly froze up, this could all come apart. He was just about to turn to Nick for help when—

  “Turn over.”

  Brandt blinked and squinted at the image of Donnelly on the monitor. Did he just—

  “I said, turn over.”

  Brandt rolled over and lay with his face down on the pillow, ostrichlike. He knew that not looking wouldn’t make it go away, but for at least a few seconds he could forget that his partner was right now staring at him, laid out on the bed like a hooker. Fuck.

  Donnelly was silent for a long moment.

  Brandt, having summoned up his courage while hiding his face, looked back over his shoulder at Donnelly.

  “So, do you like what you s—”

  “Take it off.”

  A chill shot up Brandt’s spine.

  “What?” Brandt asked, playing for time.

  “I said, take it off.” Donnelly’s tone was steadier now.

  In the corner of his eye he could see Nick gesturing for him to take off the damned jockstrap already. He gave a curt nod so that Nick would stop his wild gesticulating. He looked at Donnelly. He had to hand it to the guy; he was playing the part well.

  “Okay, I’ll take it off,” Brandt said as he turned back over.

  “No.” Donnelly’s calm voice crept into Brandt’s ears like ice water. “Lie back down.” Brandt stretched back out on his stomach, wondering what Donnelly was trying to do. As little as Brandt wanted to lose the admittedly small shelter of the jock, he knew they couldn’t delay the inevitable forever.

  “Now, slide it off,” Donnelly growled.

  Brandt took a deep breath and hooked his thumbs in the soft waistband of the red jockstrap. In order to work it down his hips, he had to lift his ass up slightly. He realized only after he had done so what kind of view that would force Donnelly to look at. Stay strong, buddy, he thought. We’ll get through this.

  Brandt slid the strap down one leg and then the other, and then flung it off the bed, right at Nick, who caught it and slipped it into his pocket.

  Brandt turned back to look at Donnelly, remembering well the disgusted face he had made every time he had seen, or even been made to think about, the ass of one of the guys on the site. Donnelly’s face, though, was one of inscrutable concentration—his eyes were glued to Brandt’s ass. Brandt realized his partner was tougher than he had thought.

  Satisfied that Donnelly was hanging in, Brandt decided to give Nick a reassuring demonstration of his sluttishness. He began to grind his pelvis into the bed, thrusting gently, twisting slightly, moving randomly as if he were fucking a gymnast in the middle of a particularly challenging floor exercise. Brandt saw Nick grin and give a thumbs up. Donnelly, however, still wore his mask of solemn focus.

  “Show it to me.” Donnelly’s voice was raw, and the force of it hit Brandt hard. He felt a heat, a reckless, angry heat, spreading from the place on his body that Donnelly’s eyes were burning through. He stopped thrusting, but his cock didn’t want to stop. It grew, seeming to double in size in an instant, throbbing urgently against Brandt’s lower abs. He was, in a blink of Donnelly’s eye, rock hard.

  Brandt looked at Donnelly in terror.

  “Now,” Donnelly commanded, his voice low.

  Brandt turned. He lay back, his cock bouncing wildly before coming to rest on his stomach, counting his pulse out in tiny thrusts. He looked at Donnelly—his partner, who, in the years they had worked together, had never let him down. It was clearly costing him dearly to play along so convincingly—the look on his face was one of flushed, barely contained panic. And now Brandt had to make it worse by showing him the inexplicable erection.

  “I’m sorry, Gabriel, it has a mind of its own,” Brandt apologized, sincere in his regret at shocking his partner so badly.

  “I like the way it thinks,” Donnelly responded smoothly, covering quite well what must have been tearing him up inside. “In fact, I think I’ll join you.”

  Donnelly, already having stripped to the waist, now unbuttoned his khakis and slipped them off. He was left standing before Brandt in just his—

  What the hell is that? Donnelly was wearing a pair of Ginch Gonch briefs in a pattern that matched that on Brandt’s own pair, except that Donnelly’s were blue instead of orange.

  “Um, nice drawers there, buddy,” Brandt chuckled.

  “Thanks, Mason. But they’re just kind of in the way now, aren’t they?” And with this, Donnelly slipped them off and tossed them aside.

  He straightened up and faced the camera again.

  Brandt couldn’t breathe. All he could see, the only thing in his entire world at the moment, was Donnelly’s cock. Donnelly’s large, bouncing, fully erect cock. Donnelly had a raging hard-on. Brandt looked up at his face, to try to read there some explanation of what was going on down there. But Donnelly just fixed him with the same steely stare, unmoving.

  “Wow,” Brandt said. “You’re fucking huge.”

  A smile grew slowly on Donnelly’s face.

  “I don’t think I’m quite your size,” he opined, staring frankly at Brandt’s erection, which was now beginning to drip a clear puddle onto his abs.

  The two men, despite the completely bizarre situation they found themselves in, simply looked at each other for several minutes. Finally Brandt noticed Nick pointing to the digital clock on the wall. Given how well Donnelly had played his role thus far, the rest of the show seemed like it would be an easy coast. Brandt would never have imagined that it could go this well, but then again he had clearly underestimated the professional commitment of his partner. He owed Donnelly a drink for this. A lot of them, in fact.

  “So, Gabriel,” Brandt murmured, the slut-talk coming almost naturally to him now, “What do you want to do?”

  “I want to watch. I want you to do what you did in your video, but more slowly this time. Right here in front of me.”

  Brandt stopped cold.

  “You saw my video?”

  Donnelly’s grin was a crooked, evil snarl now.

  “I watch it every fucking minute of the day. Sometimes I stroke along with you, and when you almost blow your load in the shower I always lose it.”

  Brandt was stunned. His jaw worked up and down, but no words came out. Donnelly wasn’t finished.

  “You on the bed, the way you grind that shit out? Holy fuck, I must have beat it a dozen times watching that.”

  Brandt felt the room start to spin, felt his guts turning to rock. Donnelly seemed not to notice.

  “So now I want you to do it. Do it slowly, but fucking get on it. And when you shoot, you say my name, got that?”

  Brandt was in a daze. “You… you want me to say… what?”

  “My name. When you come you call out my fucking name. Just like I scream yours every time I come watching you.”

  Brandt looked wildly from side to side, trying to figure a way out of this fucked-up mess. Was Donnelly playing the role of the client now, or was he Donnelly? How did he know the details of the vid
eo unless he had actually watched it? Oh my fucking God, he’s been watching the video.

  Nick flailed at Brandt, got his attention, and made a vigorous wanking motion then pointed at his watch.

  Brandt’s mission was clear.

  He lay back on the bed, his cock still, inexplicably, pointing straight up. His hand shook as he reached out for it, took hold, and started to stroke. On the screen at the foot of the bed, he saw Donnelly move too—what was he doing? He was lying back too. He was grabbing his dick too! Donnelly mirrored his every move.

  Each man, each straight man, began to rub his cock—while watching the other do the same. Donnelly matched his tempo, the length of his strokes. They were in perfect sync. Brandt, grabbed by some perverse inspiration, reached up with his other hand and pinched his nipple. The heat shot through his chest, just as it had done when he was filming his video. He looked to Donnelly, saw him tweak his own nipple, and then Brandt noted with satisfaction how his partner’s back arched and a moan escaped his lips. This reaction only added fuel to his own fire, and soon both men were thrusting wildly into their clenched fists, breathing hard and starting to glaze with sweat.

  Brandt felt the tightness in his loins, and he focused his strokes on the tip of his cock. Donnelly did the same. They were close. Then their eyes met, and though neither spoke, a perfect understanding seemed to pass between them. Brandt nodded, and Donnelly nodded back.

  Brandt felt the orgasm begin to tear through him, and saw Donnelly’s face draw into a mask of panic and wonder. They would get there together.

  “Oh my God, Gabriel!” shouted Brandt, as hot jets shot out of his cock.

  Donnelly froze, as if he had just heard the world tear itself open. He cried out, an incoherent stream of anguished, strangled moaning, while his cock erupted like a fire hose. He took a breath, held it for a second, and then breathed out, as a prayer, in a whisper, “Ethan….”

  Silence.

  They lay there, panting, wet. Brandt watched the rise and fall of Donnelly’s chest as the heaving gave way to deeper, regular breaths. He looked back to Donnelly’s face and met his eyes. They lay there, staring into each other, for a time. Then Brandt, unable to hold back any longer, smiled at Donnelly and giggled—the tension had found a way out. Donnelly laughed in return, and soon there were tears running down their faces. When the laughter finally subsided, the tears remained, and in the quiet space left by their laughter there were just the two of them, softly crying.