Declination

by Gregory Ashe

  “That’s right. That’s me. Keep saying it.” North wormed his fingers under the yellow elastic of the jock. He pulled it away from Shaw’s waist and then, with a grin, let it snap back.

  Shaw threw his head back and howled.

  “Oh,” North said. “Did that hurt?”

  Breathing raggedly, Shaw blinked as though trying to clear his vision. When he spoke, he sounded drunk, “North, I’m going to—” He whimpered, twisting away as North worked his fingers under the elastic again. “I’m going to—”

  Snap went the elastic. “No, you’re not. Not yet. Right?”

  “North.”

  Snap. “Not yet. Right?”

  “North.”

  North teased the elastic away from the red, puffy line rising along Shaw’s waist. He knew how sensitive Shaw could be; he knew how the caffeine and the jitters and the weed were making him ten times more sensitive. He could feel the wet patch under him, could feel it slide against his dick, just that sensation almost enough to make North spill over.

  Snap. “Not yet, baby. You need your exercise. Right?”

  “Please,” Shaw said, his voice high-pitched, needy, drawing out the word.

  “Look at that cute little banana,” North said, touching the tip of the yellow fabric and finding it soaking. “Is that for me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Just for me?”

  “Yes, God, yes.”

  North continued to tease the cloth-covered tip. “You want to drive, right, baby?”

  Shaw thrashed, moaning deep in his throat.

  North caught the elastic again, this time gathering it on both sides, ready to drag it down and expose Shaw’s cock. But he hesitated. “You want to drive?”

  “I don’t—North, I can’t—”

  “Baby, if that’s how you get off, then you better fucking drive.” North released the elastic long enough to pry Shaw’s hand from the dresser and guide it up to his hair. “Show me what to do with that pretty little banana.”

  Faster than North expected, Shaw was forcing North’s head down. North had just long enough to peel away the jock before his mouth met Shaw’s cock, taking it deep, and Shaw pumped his head up and down twice, thrusting, panting, and then he cried out and exploded in North’s mouth.

  North waited until Shaw had finished before pulling back. Then he helped Shaw out of the dresser, drawing Shaw against him. Shaw was shaking and gasping. He turned his face into North’s neck, and North could feel some of the tears, hot, as they slicked his chest. He ran his hand over Shaw’s buzzed head, ran it over Shaw’s shoulders, down his side. Shaw’s gasps slowed. The hitching in his chest eased. But he kept his face buried in North’s neck, and the tears seemed to come faster.

  “It’s ok, sweetheart,” North whispered, still running his hand over Shaw, all over him, wherever he could touch, because he had waited so long, so many years, to be able to do this, and he never wanted to go without it again. “It’s ok.”

  Chapter 21

  SHAW FELT BETTER after the sex. He felt better after the water. He felt better, too, after the pizza that North ordered and which they ate in bed, with North’s arm around Shaw’s waist and Shaw dripping reddish swirls of oil onto North’s shoulder and then licking them off while North played the martyr. Shaw felt better in just about every way, except the one that mattered. Once again, Shaw had screwed everything up between them, and North had been the one to fix it all. And just once, Shaw wanted to be the one who could make things right.

  If he had just done what Dr. Farr said.

  But Dr. Farr was wrong. And North was wrong. They both thought this issue was about trust, they both thought it was about something Shaw and North needed to work on together. And that wasn’t it at all.

  After the pizza, North pulled on the fishnet tank top and the jean cutoffs with Plug It! bedazzled across the butt.

  “You look like Jane Seymour.”

  North rolled his eyes. “Where did you find this getup anyway?”

  “Just stuff I had in the closet.”

  One of North’s eyebrows crept up; his hands stilled as he was working the cutoff’s fly.

  “I mean,” Shaw said, his face heating, “I just—they were just some things I—”

  “What else do you have in the closet?”

  “Nothing.”

  Slowly, deliberately, North finished buttoning the fly. “I guess we’ll have to see about that.” He looked up at Shaw. “You know payback is a bitch, right?”

  “I don’t really think you need to pay me back. I was just helping you out.”

  “That’s what I meant. I’m going to help you, baby. Really help you.”

  “Is that what you tell all the boys who pick you up on South Grand?”

  North’s eyes narrowed to slits.

  Shaw shrugged.

  “It’s too late to check out where Jadon was shot,” North said. “Let’s go in the morning.”

  “First thing,” Shaw said.

  “I’ll pick you up.” North bent down for a kiss.

  When the kiss broke and North tried to stand, Shaw hooked the fishnet.

  “Baby,” North said. “You’re all tangled.”

  “I know.”

  North stopped trying to stand; he just hunched there, making a noise low in his throat, like something had just clicked.

  “You’ve got to ask me.”

  “Will you please stay over?”

  “Yeah,” he said with a soft smile. “Of course. I’m going to run home and pick up a few things, though.”

  So North left. And while he was gone, Shaw went to the hall closet and shifted aside a stack of bedding on the top shelf and checked the Ryo and Akira costumes. He poked at the bag next to the costumes, satisfied by the metallic jingle that came from inside. And then he moved the bedding back. He showered. When he went back to the bedroom, he found a kilt lying on the floor, and that seemed easier than anything else, so he tugged it on. Then he went to work putting everything back in place.

  Shaw had just finished putting fresh sheets on the bed when North’s heavy tread came up the stairs. He was thinking about how quickly North had gotten him off, and how he had cried after and North had held him, and North hadn’t gotten anything at all. North had just taken care of Shaw, the way he always took care of him. At the sound of the steps, Shaw sat quickly, spreading his legs so the kilt rode up. When North stepped through the doorway, he froze. Even across the room, Shaw could see North’s pupils dilate, the sudden intake of breath, the scarlet clouding his cheeks. He dropped a duffel at his feet and folded his arms.

  With a small smile, Shaw let his fingers play with the kilt’s hem, raising it a few inches, lowering it. He thought he heard North clear his throat.

  “Now that’s a sight every guy would like to come home to,” North said, his voice throaty as he slumped against the doorjamb.

  “Oh yeah?”

  North nodded slowly. He was biting the inside of his cheek.

  “What . . .” Shaw felt his whole body on fire, the heat licking up his chest, across his shoulders, along the hollow of his throat. He caught the hem of the kilt firmly now, drawing it higher. He couldn’t believe he was hard again, couldn’t believe the riot of hormones making it difficult to think, difficult even to breathe. It didn’t matter that Shaw had gotten off a couple of hours before; every minute with North made him feel like this. “What do you like?”

  North looked like a man struggling to hold himself together. “You want me to say what I like?”

  With a nod, Shaw drew the kilt higher. Cool air licked between his legs, and he rolled his head, wishing he could still shake out his hair the way he knew drove North crazy.

  Heavy steps crossed the room. Shaw still let his head hang back, and he watched North cross the room at the edge of his field of vision, his eyelids almost closed. He saw the touch coming before he felt it, but he still jumped when North touched the side of his face, a
nd then he turned into the touch.

  “Tell me,” Shaw whispered.

  “Tell you what I like?” The blunt fingers moved down Shaw’s neck like a string of lights exploding.

  “Tell me.” Nails scraped lightly over Shaw’s chest. He leaned forward, pressing into North’s hand, wanting more. “Please tell me.”

  North leaned down, his mouth close to Shaw’s ear. “You want me to be dirty?”

  Shaw heard a sound building in his throat and tried to swallow it. He nodded, not trusting his voice.

  “What I like—” The pad of North’s thumb flicked lightly over Shaw’s nipple, and Shaw whimpered. “—are those Charlie Brown sheets you put on the bed.” Then he twisted Shaw’s nipple, hard.

  “Ow,” Shaw said, dropping back on the bed. “North! What the hell?”

  “Sorry, baby.” North stepped back, hands on hips, grinning. “You just looked so fuckable.”

  “Well,” Shaw said, rubbing his nipple and frowning up at the ceiling. “That was kind of the whole point.”

  “Oh. You wanted me to fuck you?”

  “No, that’s not—”

  “Kind of greedy, don’t you think? I mean, I just gave you one of the best orgasms of your life.”

  “That’s not—I wasn’t being greedy, I was just—It wasn’t the best orgasm of my life.”

  “I didn’t say it was the best. I said it was one of the best.”

  Propping himself up so he could meet North’s gaze, Shaw said, “North, I just wanted you to, you know.”

  North’s face was exaggeratedly blank. “Help you put on the sheets?”

  “Come.”

  “What?”

  “I wanted you to, you know, get off. You didn’t, you know, when we were . . . when you . . .”

  North started laughing. It was rich, deep, surprisingly sudden. He laughed until he had to wipe at the corners of his eyes.

  Shaw found a sock and threw it at him, and it caught him right in the mouth.

  North just kept laughing.

  “It’s not funny.”

  “I know, baby.” But he was still smiling, still wiping at the corners of his eyes. “I’m not laughing at you. Not really. I just didn’t expect you to say that.”

  “But you didn’t.”

  “I didn’t what? Come?”

  Shaw gave an angry shrug.

  “So?” North said, his expression transforming first into confusion and then hardening. “Oh.”

  “It’s always so hard for me to, I don’t know, do this, and I didn’t want you to—”

  North laid his index finger across Shaw’s mouth. “Didn’t we just talk about this?”

  His words muffled, Shaw said, “I’m not supposed to talk. You’ve got your finger over my mouth.”

  “Didn’t we just have a big fucking fight about this?”

  “No, we talked about—”

  North pressed his finger more firmly against Shaw’s mouth. “Didn’t we?”

  Peeling North’s finger away, Shaw said, “I know you said you don’t care that this is hard for me. I know you said you’re not worried about it. I just wanted you to have—”

  “It’s the same fucking thing, Shaw. You just did some nice mental acrobatics and made it look new. It took you less than an hour. This fucking pisses me off, Shaw. Do you not believe me? All the stuff I keep telling you, do you not believe me?”

  “I wouldn’t do that. Twist it around, I mean. And I do believe you, I do. I just . . . I just want to do this for you.”

  North crossed his arms. “What? Keep score on how many times we each have an orgasm? And I’m down one, so you’re going to throw me a fuck so we can be even?”

  “That’s not—”

  “Like it’s a fucking soccer match.”

  Shaw dropped his head and mumbled, “That’s not how you play soccer.”

  North’s hand ran over the short bristles of Shaw’s hair, and he kissed the side of Shaw’s head. “That’s how I play soccer,” he whispered. “I’ll show you sometime.”

  In spite of himself, Shaw smiled, and he felt North’s thumb trace the curve of his lips.

  “Thank you,” North said. “But no thank you.”

  “You don’t want to—”

  “Oh, I want to. But I don’t want you to get this idea stuck in your head. So instead, I’m going to take a cold shower and think about the Ring Cycle and Tycho Brahe and Euclidean distance and not think about you pulling this kilt over your head.”

  “Snob.”

  “At least I graduated college.”

  North kissed him again. Then he pushed back, grabbed his duffel, and disappeared into the bathroom. A moment later, his high-pitched falsetto of Britney Spears drifted out with the shower’s steam.

  Shaw closed his eyes, listened, and couldn’t stop smiling. But deep down, he could already feel that part of his brain going back to work. He’d find a way. He knew Dr. Farr was wrong, thinking this problem was about Shaw and North, together. This was a Shaw problem. Exclusively. And Shaw would make it right. He’d figure out this messed up part of himself, and he’d find a way to give North all the good things that North deserved in a relationship. Before North got tired of always having to make sacrifices. Before North left.

  Chapter 22

  THE NEXT MORNING, they drove to North City, following broken asphalt through industrial lots until they reached residential streets again. Here, though, the difference was obvious: the brick homes would have fit on any other street in the city, but their trim was warped and peeling, the tuckpointing damaged and missing, the windows boarded up. Weeds grew to the top of the chain-link fences, and along the sidewalk, empty Juul pods and foil wrappers and a flattened Popeyes takeout box choked the storm drain.

  North rolled down the window; it was another perfect September day, the air crisply cool. The smell of a fire drifted in, and at first, it made North think of roasting marshmallows and bright leaves falling and apple cider warmed at the edge of a blaze. Then more smells drifted in: burnt rubber, overheated wiring, the stink of a dirty fire burning textiles and melting metal. He rolled the window up and caught Shaw’s eye.

  Shaw shook his head slowly.

  When they got to the location that both Ricky and Coker had provided, North spotted the site where Jadon had been shot and the source of the smell simultaneously. Dark stains marked the pavement where Jadon had bled onto the street. Farther down the block, a fire truck, an ambulance, and several cop cars formed a U in front of the smoldering ruins of a house. As North watched, the firefighters released another blast of high-pressure spray, and burnt wood splintered as the water from the firehose hammered at a gaping window frame.

  “What are the odds?” North said as he pulled the GTO to a stop and killed the engine. They watched the firefighters work; the blaze looked like it was out, and now the men sprayed the house intermittently. North guessed they were just making sure they’d doused every hot spot thoroughly.

  “It’s not impossible,” Shaw said. “Not in North City.”

  “But it’s not likely either.”

  Shaw shook his head in agreement.

  Several of the officers seemed to have noticed them; one was pointing at the GTO while talking to another.

  “Shit,” North said.

  A discussion ensued among the uniformed officers. Finally, one broke out of the group and began marching toward the GTO. From a distance, North could only make out her form: stocky in the blue uniform, her utility belt straining over her wide hips. She took off her hat as she came toward them, checking the bun of dark hair, and then she put it back. When she got closer, North recognized Officer Kelso. He rolled down the window again, and the smell of char floated in on the humid air.

  “Hands where I can see them, gentlemen.”

  North put his hands on the wheel; Shaw put his hands on the dash.

  “She probably wants to buy me some new gloves,” Shaw said. “That’s
why she wants my hands on the dash. So she can measure them.”

  “No,” North said. “She’s an artist. Hands are the hardest thing to draw; she wants some extra practice.”

  “I want those gloves like Audrey Hepburn wears.”

  “Audrey Hepburn’s dead. She doesn’t wear any kind of gloves anymore.”

  “She might be buried in some. Maybe she’s wearing them for eternity.”

  “Excuse me,” Kelso said.

  “You want to wear the same gloves that Audrey Hepburn was buried in?”

  “Not the exact same pair. They’re probably all corpse-y and gross.”

  “Excuse me,” Kelso said again.

  “But, like, the same kind.” Shaw mimed a glove running up to his elbow. “White.”

  “Oh,” North said. “Like in Breakfast at Tiffany’s.”

  “No, she didn’t wear them in Breakfast at Tiffany’s.”

  “She sure as fuck did—”

  “Hey,” Kelso said. “Dumbass. Dumbo. Shut up.”

  “You’re dumbass,” North said to Shaw.

  “You’re Dumbo,” Shaw said. “Because your ass is bigger.”

  “My ass is more proportionate to my frame than yours.”

  “I know,” Shaw said, tsking and patting North’s arm. “It’s ok. I know.”

  “Are you done?” Kelso said. She leaned against the window. North was struck again by how beautiful she was: the midnight skin, the dark eyes with golden cusps, the twist-up bun of sleek hair.

  “I’m not done looking at you,” North said.

  “He’s done,” Shaw said. “He’s just being an asshole and sexualizing you.”

  “She’s pretty,” North said. “I’m not just being an asshole.”

  “I’m pretty,” Shaw said. “She’s beautiful.”

  “You’re beautiful too, baby.”

  “Ok,” Kelso said. “I need both of you to cool it. Do you hear me?”

  “Do you want to tell us what happened?” North said.

  “I want to know why you’re here,” Kelso said, “when we’ve done backflips to keep people from finding out where Detective Reck was attacked.”