by Neil Plakcy
On the train, I replayed the evening over and over, my hands remembering how he felt, my tongue sweeping the roof of my mouth with memories of the firmness of him thrusting into me. My balls felt heavy. I tingled when I thought of the smell of him. I tried to distract myself with reading and then nudging my finger around the pointless games on my phone, but all thoughts wandered back to Aiden.
I got off the subway a stop early, counting on the brisk walk to clear my mind so that I could focus. Turning up my collar against the wind, I stepped up to the corner of Broadway and Houston, waiting for the light to change. And there was Aiden—his sultry eyes and his perfect stubble and the rippling expanse of his abs.
Now I knew where I’d seen him.
“Holy crap,” I muttered out loud. The light changed, beckoning the crowd across the lanes of paused cars and yellow cabs, but I couldn’t move. Foot traffic shifted around me like a stream parting to flow around a rock, then joining seamlessly back together, oblivious to the interruption.
The canvas billboard had to be fifty feet tall, pulled sleek and taut to the building by the reinforced rings along its edge. His leg was bent at the knee, elbow resting on it, torso twisted toward the camera to show the curl of his tanned body. His stubble, writ so large I could almost feel its texture under my palms again, looked barely a day old. Lips that had kissed mine just a few hours before were parted just slightly with a hint of a sly smile—as if, as long as I’d happened upon him in only his underwear, he might as well invite me to stay.
The wind picked up, and before I could think about how absurd a thing it was to do, I found myself looking for the rise of gooseflesh on his arms. I felt tugged to join him, like his expression seemed to want me to do, to shield his perfect skin against the blustery morning.
He’d been looking right into the camera, so he was looking right out at me. I could see the texture in his eyes, the little flecks of gray and gold. His hair was tousled, like the wind had taken it. No—like he’d just woken up in a stranger’s bed after a brisk late-night tumble. Like he’d been caught by the lens before he had a chance to run his hands through it and was too sated to care.
My knees were trembling. In my slacks, I was hard again.
I turned my phone over in my hands, tracing my thumb around the circular recess of the power button. Aiden’s name glowed in centered white text, with no last name to push it off to the side. Below it, in slightly smaller font, a string of digits waited to connect me to him.
My thumb hovered over the green Call button, then retreated to the safety of the black circle. I couldn’t do it. Yet I nudged the screen back to life every time inactivity turned it dark. I watched the minutes tick silently past.
Fade. Nudge. Brighten. Fade. Nudge.
It had been one thing when I hadn’t known who he was or why I’d recognized him. To call him now, with his fifty-foot likeness not a block from my office window, was something else. Star-fucker, my head called me, over and over. What could I say to him now? How could I talk to him without mentioning the billboard? There was no way to pretend I didn’t know. I couldn’t just say, “So, what do you do?” over drinks, like I hadn’t seen it. And if I played it that way, I couldn’t backpedal later and admit that I had.
I couldn’t decide.
I would work late. That would bury the urge to call Aiden. It would also delay my walk past the corner with his bedroom eyes looking right into me and his sleek, tight briefs and that little ghost of a sly grin that made my stomach flutter just to think about it. Not that I had to walk past his corner at all—Was I thinking of it that way already?—but detouring to avoid his likeness seemed even more absurd than not wanting to lock eyes with a photograph that couldn’t see me back.
I took a deep breath.
He was gorgeous, and it had been great, and I half-remembered a tender good-bye kiss and nothing to indicate that it should be anything but a positive memory. There was no reason to ruin a good thing by thinking about it too hard.
The phone buzzed in my hands. Startled, I jerked and it fell to the carpet, face up, vibrating insistently and still displaying Aiden’s name. For a moment, I was stunned enough to wonder why it showed his name instead of the caller’s. Then: Oh.
I scrambled to pick it up before the buzzing ended and my voicemail began. “Aiden? Hi.”
“Hey.” His voice was warm, and having it amplified so close to my ear was just like seeing him on the billboard—larger than life. “Thanks again for last night.”
I laughed, despite myself. It was relief, and flattery, and a bunch of other things I wasn’t sure I could name. “Thank you, for coming over,” I answered. Then I flushed. That had been lame.
“I know it’s soon, but I’ve got a shoot tomorrow afternoon that’s not far from your place. I wondered if you might want to catch dinner, and…?”
My cheeks were burning, the flush spreading down my chest. Yes, fuck yes, I thought, but instead I said, “Yeah. Yeah, I’d like that. ‘Dinner and’ sounds great.”
“Mm.” A quiet sound to show he was pleased. It reminded me of the little noise he’d made when I’d kissed him below his cock. I felt it all the way through me. “If I stay over, I’ll have to leave early again. Is that okay?”
“Sure, I don’t mind.” Curiosity flared in me, but I didn’t ask where he had to run off to. I didn’t know how to say it without sounding suspicious or insecure. And, I wasn’t. Really, just knowing that he wanted more of me, more nights in my bed, was enough. “I’ll even let you get to sleep earlier this time, if you need to.”
He laughed. “Don’t you dare.”
“Sunrise yoga.”
It was what Aiden had muttered against my lips that first morning. As the weather grew colder, it became as much an expletive as an apology, but it was part of his commitment to keeping every part of his body in immaculate condition, along with manicures, salon treatments, and an admirably careful diet. Some mornings he resented the commitment more than others; some, he tried to drag me along with him; and, once, he succeeded. It was worth it—once—to be invited into his world; to watch his beautiful body in fluid motion; to catch his sly winks and his own appreciative glances toward my ass. But once was enough to fuel weeks of early morning fantasy time, and my body was too greedy to relinquish those quiet, dreamlike hours when my pillow was still warm from him and my skin still smelled of his sweat.
Once a week, or sometimes twice, we would steal each other for an evening. “Dinner and,” or sometimes just the “and.” Each time he left my bed in the predawn glimmer, and his face and body would greet me at the corner on my way to work, as though he’d saved up one last knowing grin for me—one last quiet moment together—before I started my day.
It was surreal, seeing him like that before the feel of him had left my fingertips, but I got used to it, even looked forward to it. I watched the other commuters, men and women alike, and the way they would glance up at the billboard, at my lover with his tight briefs and bedroom eyes. Sometimes they would barely register the advertisement. It was assessed just long enough to be deemed less than vital, filtered out in favor of more pressing visual information: the flow of the traffic, the turn of signals at the crosswalk. Sometimes someone would frown fleetingly with distaste. Because of something about his body? Or the fact of his near-nudity? Or perhaps just because they preferred a man in boxers? But sometimes they’d would linger a moment on him, seeking out something particular. The ripple of abs, maybe. The line of his jaw.
Did they imagine his cock? I would wonder. And if so, I wondered, did they imagine it accurately? Circumcised, perfectly long and thick, with its pronounced ridge. Did they picture it twitching against his smooth, flat belly with each heated breath that crossed the delta of his frenulum? I often caught myself staring at the bulge of potential hiding inside the smooth gray fabric.
I had never been so willing to go to work in the mornings, or to go out for walks at lunch. My productivity and mood, my bosses noted in my yearly review
, had soared.
But I knew billboards didn’t stay up forever. They retired; they rotated. They moved on. And who knows how long it had been there before I’d met him—back when I’d been one of those blank-eyed commuters who’d seen his giant likeness as an unattainable fantasy, out of reach, and also frivolous advertising, not requiring my immediate attention.
One day, I knew, I would turn the corner and not see him there. The thought settled hollowly in my stomach and turned the morning and evening spottings into something different again. Sighting him still gave me a little boost, but now it gave me a flood of relief as well. Still there for one more day. How long did I have before I would lose my stolen moments with Aiden’s likeness? Would it happen before or after he moved on, too?
“I’m going to LA for a couple weeks,” Aiden said one night. He took his time with my shirt buttons, kissing his way down my chest. “That jeans shoot came through, and my agent lined up a couple more jobs as long as I’m out there.” He continued unbuttoning when he got to my slacks and used the two loose ends of my open belt to pull me forward to his waiting mouth.
We celebrated, long and enthusiastically. In the morning, I’d forgotten about his trip until he reminded me, lips lingering on mine at the sunrise kiss.
“Don’t get into trouble,” I teased. I slid my fingers into his hair and tightened them, drawing him close, kissing him until he hummed his little “Mm” into my lips and perched a knee on the bed for balance. He reached under the sheet, hand closing around my cock, cool from the air compared to the heat of my shaft. His thumb swept a retaliating tease across my glans and I groaned.
“Get into lots of trouble,” he murmured back, his voice as sly as the secret grin he wore on the billboard. “And tell me all about it.”
He squeezed. My back arched and my cock surged in his hand, already primed for the morning-after release I usually gave it. I pulled him back into bed without much resistance, kissing him hard, pausing the needy jerks of my hips only long enough to tug down the exercise pants he’d just put on.
Back and forth, tighter, faster, until his hand was just a blur pushing my foreskin up and down my swollen crown. I came in sticky arcs across his chest, and he only rested in his accomplishment for a few moments before scooping up the pearly cum with his fingers. He guided my head to his lap and reached around me, stroking up and down the cleft of my ass with my own slickness, gliding slippery circles around my tight, willing pucker. While I slid my lips up and down his shaft, with heady suction and swirls of my tongue, his strong fingers fucked me. Powerful, jerking thrusts pumped his fist against my ass, harder and faster as I got him closer.
Aiden was late for yoga.
When I passed his corner, the simmer in his eyes made me remember his instructions. Get into lots of trouble. Maybe he expected to be partying it up in LA and he didn’t want me thinking we were exclusive. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. Maybe hearing about his lovers’ erotic adventures was just something that turned him on.
I looked up at the icy-blue eyes for an answer, but his likeness didn’t offer any hints. It looked into me with the same knowing expression it always had.
The light changed, and I walked on.
Rachel was having another loft party at the weekend, and I decided I would go. It would keep me occupied, at the least; keep me from wondering where Aiden was, and what or who he might be doing.
On Rachel’s roof, I met Chris. Dark-skinned, slight where Aiden was toned, he was in town from Miami and had never seen snow. We made small talk and our bodies drifted closer while we squinted into the sky, watching for the flurries that the forecast had warned about. His hand slid into my pocket seeking a haven from the cold. About half an hour later, his tongue slid into my mouth.
Chris’s hotel was closer than my apartment. He was disoriented by the scale of the city, but I knew where we were going, so I led the way. It was an older building, narrow and historic. I passed it frequently and knew it by name. It was around the corner from my office.
I filled my lungs with the chilled night air and let my breath out slowly. Aiden was lit from above and below, casting long shadows on his face and making his pale eyes seem to glow. It was his touch that I felt lingering on my skin, the sense memory of him; his scent. His warmly lit bare chest and sculpted thigh had been visible from Chris’s window, and I hadn’t been able to look away.
Absently, I turned my phone over in my hand. A few stray flurries had started to filter down from above. One landed on my sleeve. I wondered if Chris was watching them. If maybe he was waiting for me to leave the corner so that he could get back to the party and pick up another guy. I hadn’t meant to lead him on, and he’d been gracious enough for the walk back to his hotel to “find his bearings” and “learn the city.” It just hadn’t felt right to go through with it when Aiden filled my vision…and my thoughts.
Aiden’s name—first and last—glowed white on my screen, and I pressed Call before I could have second thoughts. It wasn’t early, even in west coast time. I was surprised enough that he answered but even more surprised that I didn’t hear the thumping bass of a loud club behind his voice.
“Hey…” He sounded quiet. Tired, maybe, but his tone was warm. “I was just thinking about you.”
“Hey,” I answered, cupping my hand around my earpiece and straining to catch background noise over the sparse late-night traffic. “Are you busy?”
“Just sitting alone in my room. I…actually, I have your Face-book page up on my laptop. I was looking at your photo,” he said.
Suddenly, the air around me felt too warm. “Yeah?”
Silence met me for a moment, long enough for me to wonder if the connection had dropped. “Yeah,” he said. “Like it makes you any closer to being here, right?”
I looked up, seeking out his eyes again. They met mine, sharing their secret warmth and assurance with me as always. His lips still held a hint of a grin. Maybe I’d been too busy bracing myself for the day that I would turn the corner and find him gone. I’d been looking at the billboard instead of the big picture. “No, it’s okay,” I whispered. “I know just what you mean.”
MEDICAL MODEL
Logan Zachary
Is it time to play doctor yet?”
“All you have to do is allow the students to perform their tests on you. Answer their questions and try to relax as they work on you. You are evaluating them as much as they are evaluating you,” Dr. James said. “We need you to be a medical model for these students. But unlike the untouchable models on the runway and in the magazine with the Don’t touch me attitude, you’ll be touched, poked, probed, prodded, palpated, and examined.”
I sat on the exam table, naked, except for a paper gown. Why did they always keep these exam rooms so cold? The hair on my legs stood on end and brushed against each other as I rubbed them together. “What?”
“I hate using the rubber arms and body parts for the physical exams. A real medical model forces the intern to problem-solve and interact. I want them to treat the patient, not the problem.” Dr. James smiled at me.
“How does this work?”
“Nate, the intern will hand you a folder that’ll have information about your condition and answers to most of the questions they’ll ask. Feel free to do any acting you want, but don’t overdo it. They’re scared as it is. Don’t freak them out any more than you have to.”
“I know...”
“The seizure you faked was brilliant and was very convincing, but you scared the instructor more than the medical student.” Dr. James peeked behind me to see if he could get a peek at my ass.
I slapped at his hand. “I’ll behave. Cross my heart.” I pulled the gown down as far as it could go to cover my knees. “Will you be in to grade any of them? I love your watchful eye.” I batted my lashes at him.
“I’ll see what I can do, but we’ll see how the day plays out.”
There was a knock on the door. A young female in a white lab coat opened the door. �
�Oh, excuse me,” she said.
“Dr. Martin, I was just leaving.” Dr. James left the room and waved her in.
She handed me a folder, and I flipped it open.
“Nathanial Thomas,” her voice cracked with nerves, “how are you doing today?”
The folder read “Migraine headaches.” I can do this.
The next time the door opened, a handsome young man who looked like a football jock wearing a white coat entered the exam room.
I felt a stirring under the paper gown and sweat started to flow. This was not the time to get aroused. I opened the folder. Prostate cancer.
Fuck.
“Mr. Thomas, what seems to be your problem today?”
I looked down at his hands. He had large, thick, fat fingers. His index finger was going to have to enter me…there. I swallowed hard. “I’ve noticed some blood in my stools...”
Dr. Jock reached over and pulled out a purple rubber glove from the X-Large box. He opened a drawer and took out a tube of KY jelly. He asked a question, but my eyes couldn’t stop looking at his index finger. My balls pulled up and my cock started to swell.
“I…I...”
“I know you think this is my first time, but I have completed this examination may times.” And then he winked at me.
What the hell was that for? Was he playing me to put me at ease? Or…I looked at him. Oh, so handsome, oh so perfect, oh so gay? How many guys’ asses had he explored? Probed? Prodded? Fucked?
Had Dr. James done this on purpose?
“If I could have you stand up and support yourself against the table...” He stepped back and allowed me to stand. He pointed to the table and waited.
“I’m not…,” I started as I pushed the paper gown down and hoped my cock would stop growing.
“It’s fine. Trust me.”
There was a knock on the door.