by Willa Okati
“Coming,” Tezcatli gritted, even as he began to spray quick jets of seed. “Coming now.” And, oh, gods, Quentin was too, hot warmth bursting over his hand and dripping through his fingers ...
Quentin couldn’t move. Couldn’t think. Couldn’t breathe. The world narrowed down to a single focus: Tezcatli’s hand around his cock and himself coming in bursts that turned his vision white. Smelling the man’s spunk, his sweat, and the scent of his hair. If Tezcatli hadn’t been holding him up, he thought he would have collapsed on the bare wooden floor, boneless as a rag doll.
Breathing heavily, he looked up --
-- and saw Zach, watching him with round eyes full of some expression he couldn’t name.
“No!” Quentin struggled to get out from underneath Tezcatli’s heavy weight. “No, no, no! Get off of me! Get off!”
Chapter Five
Oh, my God. What have I done?! Zach -- Zach -- don’t --
Quentin’s legs nearly gave out from underneath him, but not because of the ass pounding he’d just taken. No. Zach continued to stare at him, some look in his eyes that Quentin was hard put to define. Part shock, yes, but also something elusive. Zach shook his head slowly. His lips started and stopped moving in aborted attempts at words.
“Zach, I’m sorry,” Quentin managed to get out. He leaned his weight on one hand and reached out the other, damp from the effort of fucking and from fisting his own cock while another man fucked him. Zach flinched back as if touching Quentin would burn him. His reaction was a wound that cut deep. Quentin shook his head. “No. No, please don’t. I’m sorry, Zach. So sorry.”
Zach shook his head slowly. Sweet chocolate turned dark and bitter. He raised himself up from where he had been sitting on Quentin’s abandoned chair and moved backward.
“Don’t go. No, please, don’t leave me!” Quentin pleaded.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Tezcatli whispered in his ear. His breath was hot. It smelled of sugar, mints and sex. “I’m still inside you. Can’t you feel me?”
A thrill rolled down Quentin’s spine. He could yet sense the man, buried deep. Another man’s cock had gone into him, and he hadn’t thought about Zach -- he’d let go for a moment -- he’d given in -- “Not you!” Quentin blurted. “Zach! Zach, please!”
Zach jerked his head again, like a marionette who’d had his strings cut. He didn’t say a word as he backed up, into and through the wreckage of the bar. As Quentin stared helplessly, desperate for his dead lover to say something, words of forgiveness or even condemnation, Zach began to fade. Quentin pounded his fists against the floor. “No! No! You promised you wouldn’t do this! Zach!”
Tezcatli’s grip tightened around Quentin’s middle. “Do what?” he demanded. “You keep saying a name, Quentin, and it isn’t mine. Who do you think you are, to talk to me like that? I asked you if you wanted this and you agreed.”
“Off! Off! Get off me!” Quentin began to writhe, trying to buck Tezcatli off. “Get out of me. Move!”
The other man’s grasp on him tightened. “I’m not going anywhere, boy. You think you can just reach your pleasure, then kick me out? You have a lot to learn about who I am, what I am, and I’m not leaving until you have the proper understanding of things. Am I making myself clear?”
Quentin was past caring what Tezcatli thought about him as Zach became almost insubstantial. “Don’t go,” he whispered, begged, one more time. “I can’t be by myself.”
Zach bit his lip. Finally, he spoke three words, the sound breaking the rest of Quentin’s heart. “I can’t stay.”
And he disappeared.
Tezcatli’s hold became almost painful. “Who are you talking to?” he asked directly in Quentin’s ear. The sex-dampened weight on top of him became heavier as the other man pressed down. Almost as if he were trying to take Quentin down to the floor. Pin him flat until he got the answers that he wanted.
Quentin began to laugh. It started off as the raspy bark of a chuckle he’d heard himself make before, then became crazy giggles, and finally turned into ragged whoops. He hiccupped, bucking against Tezcatli again. He could still feel the bigger man’s cock buried inside him. It burned.
What had been momentary pleasure had in one instant become all pain. He couldn’t answer any questions, couldn’t make speech come out around his humorless outburst.
Tezcatli made a grunting sound and pushed forward, hard, knocking Quentin off his braced hold. Arms that splayed as he hit the wooden floor were caught in a vice-like grip, clearly not about to let go any time soon. Tezcatli lay full length on top of him, restricting his movement.
“I want some answers,” his accented voice hissed. He pulled out, as if it were meant to be a punishment. “Start talking. Who is this Zach? What is he to you? Is he up here? Did he sneak in, like that meddling inc-- like Liam? Is he one of Liam’s kind?”
Quentin couldn’t stop laughing. His shoulders hunched with the force of the gales escaping him. To his horror, he felt tears begin to fill his eyes. Helpless to do anything about it, one escaped and ran down his cheek.
“Talk to me,” Tezcatli ordered. He sounded dangerous, but for the life of him -- the life! -- Quentin couldn’t seem to care. “Stop making that goddamned racket and say something. Now!”
“I can’t stay,” Quentin managed. He giggled again. “Can’t stay! He couldn’t. I can’t either. Don’t you get it? Nothing gold can stay. Nothing sweet lasts.”
A sudden wrath filled him, and with a strength he hadn’t known he possessed, he raised up and flipped over under Tezcatli. The man’s cock dragged out of him with a searing ache. Still half-hard, it jabbed at his belly as he writhed about. Facing the angry man, Quentin rolled his head back and forth, shouting out, “You made him go away! He was mine, and you made him leave!”
Tezcatli’s face was a dark cloud of anger. “Who? Tell me. I’m warning you, Quentin, I don’t share.”
“Neither does he. Neither do I!” Quentin gave another mighty shove, managing to shift Tezcatli a little. He heaved again and rolled out from under Tezcatli and up onto his knees. Naked as the day he was born, cock unprotected, Quentin balanced in a crouch and half glared, half pleaded with his eyes. “You don’t understand.”
Tezcatli withdrew into a similar posture, though he was balanced much lighter and easier. “You aren’t making any sense. How can I understand you when you talk in riddles?”
Quentin rolled his eyes. Another tear slipped loose. He dashed impatiently at it with the back of one hand and swallowed hard, forcing down the rest of the bitter salt. “I have to go,” he said in a rush. He moved sideways and reached out for his clothes. His pants and shirt were dirty with trash from the floor and they stank of sex. He dropped them, feeling himself grow nauseous again.
Tezcatli’s hand landed on top of his. “You’re not going anywhere.”
“Try to stop me.” Quentin shook off the other man’s hand and made a second grab for his clothes. This time he managed to bat away his disgust and hold onto the things. He stood, not caring who might be looking up to get an eyeful. “You can’t keep me here. I was an idiot to fall for your games the first time around. This won’t happen again.”
Tezcatli stood, too, fluid as water, graceful as a cat. An angry lion. Lion? No. A jaguar. Yes, a jaguar, all dark hair and flashing eyes with the peculiar yellow-green lights in them. “You’re not leaving me, boy. I haven’t said you can go.”
“I told you I won’t stay,” Quentin flung back. He tossed his come-stained boxers aside, into the wreckage of the bar.
The gray cotton shorts caught on an angled plank and hung there, looking sad. The remains of a brief affair. Quentin almost started laughing again. When one-night or one-hour stands were over and done, wasn’t that all that was ever left over? Nothing but the smell of spunk and stains. He choked down another fit of hysterics, tasting bile in his mouth.
Shaking his head, he stepped into his khakis and pulled them up. “You want to know who Zach is? Really, really want to k
now?” He cut a glance at Tezcatli, standing in front of him like some angry Indian deity, arms folded, naked and unashamed. Adam in the garden, before he ever needed a deerskin or a fig leaf. Like an animal. He stared at Quentin stone-faced, but any idiot could see how furious he was.
Quentin couldn’t really blame him. This was almost as bad as calling out someone else’s name while they were still fucking you.
“Count yourself lucky,” he said, shrugging into his shirt. “I didn’t think about Zach when you were putting it to me. Didn’t think about him while you shoved your cock deep inside me and while you came inside me. God!” His head spun. “No condom. Oh, God. I’m leaving.”
Tezcatli seemed to simmer quietly at Quentin for a long moment. Then, a sly smile spread over his lips. He changed from an angry jaguar to a cat who’d just stolen the cream. And, really, wasn’t that just what he’d done?
He leaned backward against the railing, pressing his bare ass cheeks into metal that had to be freezing cold. Didn’t wince once. Instead, he reached down to his half-hard erection and gave it a leisurely stroke. “Go then,” he said lazily. “I’ll find you again later.”
Quentin’s fingers had been busy buttoning his shirt. He stopped. “What do you mean, later?”
Tezcatli gave a lazy, rolling shrug. “Later.” He lifted his free hand and examined the nails. The fingers that had been wrapped around his cock now trailed against his thigh. “You’ve had a taste of me,” he said. “You won’t be able to stay away.”
“Fuck! Are you full of yourself, or what?” Quentin demanded, amazed at the man’s, well, balls. “You think I’m going to come running whenever you call me? Snap your fingers, and I’m there?”
Tezcatli made another dismissive gesture. “Maybe I’ll find this Zach, whoever he is, and have a few words with him. You might have belonged to that man once, but you’re mine now. I don’t let go of what I’ve laid claim to.”
His hand returned to his cock, teasing the length. “Maybe if you behave, and I mean really, truly behave, I’ll suck you off. You’ve never had anything like my mouth on you. You won’t need this Zach anymore. I’ll be all you need as soon as I find him and get my -- hands on him.”
A lunatic chuckle spurted out on its own. “Good luck,” Quentin managed, finishing dressing with trembling fingers. “Good damned luck.”
“You think I need it?”
“I know you do.” Snatching up his coat, Quentin stormed from the balcony, heading for the yellow tape and the staircase he’d come up. “Zach is dead.”
He didn’t wait around for a reply. He didn’t need one.
* * * * *
The clock struck midnight as Quentin finally stumbled outside. He hadn’t been able to find the main entrance and exit for Amour Magique. Figures. The management of the club wouldn’t want anyone leaving. Not when they could stay and dance, stuff dollars into the G-strings of the cage boys, and pour out even more cash on watered-down beer or overpriced liquor. He’d stumbled through or run across what seemed like a dozen different bars on his quest for a way out.
One of the bars had had a small door that showed the nighttime sky through its panes of glass. Ignoring the bartender’s yelps of protest, he’d shoved his way through passing customers. He’d tried not to notice the way some of them had sniffed the air, inhaling his reek of sex, or those who’d turned around to stare at him. Had tried, but failed.
The door actually led to a small smoking porch. Another balcony! Quentin sagged against the plaster stucco wall and let the last of his chuckles out. It was a desperate, lonely sound.
What if I’ve driven Zach away forever? I was going to kill myself over losing him the first time. How am I supposed to go on if I don’t even have his ghost here with me?
“You sound troubled.” The voice startled him. Quentin turned around sharply, craning his neck to see who’d spoken.
A small figure hunched in the shadows of two potted plants and a hulking ashtray. The glowing coal of a cigarette wobbled as the stranger lifted it to his mouth. He inhaled, then started coughing. “Filthy things! I will never understand what Bree sees in such rubbish. If he had only not forgotten his pack out here, I would not have been tempted. I --” The man raised his head even as Quentin stiffened, recognizing the lilting cadences of his accent. “Quentin? Is that you?”
“Liam,” was all he could say. Boneless again, Quentin slumped against the stucco. He knocked his head lightly against it. “Liam.” There was nothing else to say.
Not that he had a chance. Tossing his cigarette aside, the little man leaped up and made for Quentin. “You are well!” A small body tackled Quentin, slender arms slipping around his waist. Quentin grunted as Liam squeezed. God, for a small guy he was strong!
Liam paused, breathing in. “Even with the stench of tobacco in my nose, I smell ... Quentin?” He looked up, questioning. Quentin stared down, unable to think of a single word to say. Liam refused to let him look away, holding his gaze. Searching his face for something.
He reached up and brushed at where the tears had rolled down Quentin’s cheek. Brought his fingers to his nose and wafted them beneath it. When he looked up a second time, it was with quiet acceptance. “I see. They tell you to beware of the scratches, but no one knows how deep the claws go, do they?”
Quentin frowned. “Liam?”
“No, no, never mind me. Come! Walk with me back to where I was. There is room on the bench for two.” Liam, still seeming absurdly strong, tugged at Quentin’s waist and forced him to walk along beside him. Quentin couldn’t help but go with him, even though he huffed and tried to hold back. No good. Liam had made up his mind, and he wasn’t about to change it.
They stopped briefly for Liam to pick up his cigarette and dust it off. Then, the three of them -- two men and one ember -- made their way to the smoking perch. A nudge to Quentin’s shoulder and he collapsed into a sitting position. The bench was cold beneath his ass, enough that he shifted uncomfortably. A vision of Tezcatli leaning on the rails sprang to his mind. He shuddered, both with discomfort and with a sudden burst of completely unwanted arousal. The man had been so hot -- but -- no. Zach, he needed Zach. He wanted only Zach.
Liam was ignoring Quentin for the moment. He blew on the filter end of his cigarette, squinted at it, then finally made an expansive movement. “What do they call it? The ninety-second rule? If you pick it up before a certain amount of time has passed, it’s still clean enough to put in your mouth. In any case, it isn’t as if a few germs will hurt me,” he muttered.
“What?”
“Nothing, nothing. It’s not important. Every spot and surface out here is clean as a whistle. Everything is with Magique.”
He lifted the cancer stick to his lips and took another drag. His cough was more subdued. “Perhaps I see what he likes about these, after all. They are somewhat calming.”
With that, Liam turned to Quentin. “I thought that the next time I saw you, you would be dead,” he said simply.
Quentin stiffened. “How did you -- I -- the syringe -- you --”
“A needle? Ah. Something to do with pushing your low blood sugar into a life-threatening range, I would wager. Quentin.” Liam looked deeply saddened. “So you were planning to end your life on the night when it should have been beginning anew. I was so afraid, but how can a man know these things? He cannot, not for sure.”
He sucked at his cigarette, fingers skating up and down the cylinder as if it were a cock. “I would ask why you stopped, but I think I know. Someone found you, did they not? Someone, not me.”
Quentin thought, in a flash, of Zach’s ghost appearing to him. Beautiful dark skin, warm brown eyes, good humor and gentle scolding. He blinked, and the image changed to Tezcatli in all his arrogance, arms folded across that muscled chest, dewy with sweat. “Someone did,” he said, his lips numb. “Do you have another one of those?”
Liam looked at Quentin strangely but, after a bit of wiggling around, withdrew a crumpled pack from his hip po
cket and passed it over. Quentin hadn’t smoked in years, not since his residency days ten years earlier, but it felt so unbelievably familiar and good to take hold of the cigarette and place it between his lips. “Light?” he asked around it.
Liam produced a battered Zippo and flicked the wheel. Quentin dipped toward it and came up breathing in smoke. The tarry air burned his lungs, but the nicotine rushed in like an old friend, flooding him with relief. He took three, maybe four more puffs before he remembered. “Thanks,” he muttered. Then, “What?”
The little man was half grinning and half frowning. “I suppose it would be in bad taste for me to say that these things will kill you,” he said, raising his own cigarette as if in a toast. Quentin surprised himself by laughing -- genuinely -- and lifting his own. The embers touched.
In the darkness, the fused cherries glowed suddenly brighter than a beacon. Quentin stared, mesmerized. He couldn’t have looked away if he’d wanted to. Liam moved his cigarette slightly to the left and to the right. He was humming under his breath. The music sounded unbearably old and just as terrifying.
Quentin felt suddenly freezing cold and all alone.
“There are more things on heaven and earth,” Liam murmured, “than are dreamt of even in my philosophy. I think the time has come for us to have a talk, Quentin. You have to tell me everything that you think I know, that Simon might know, that no one knows except for you. Tell me what haunts you.”
Liam leaned forward. He looked ancient and frightening. Less a man than a wild beast who’d cornered Quentin with the promise of a fleeting buzz. “Talk to me, Quentin.