by Xavier Mayne
“My pillow talk is woefully underdeveloped, due to lack of practice, so I’m going to stick with what I know. Empires fall, and always have, because their leaders cannot adapt to paradigm shift. When the underlying economic and social realities change, and the elites are unable to shift their way of thinking to align with them, that’s when you get uprisings and revolutions and really awesome graffiti. So this morning we have a choice. We can look at what happened last night as an anomaly and go about our lives as if it never happened, or we can embrace the paradigm shift and from this moment on reconceptualize ourselves as having a sexual orientation that includes each other and everything we did last night.”
Fox blinked back at him, his expression uncertain. “Wow. Even your dirty talk is graduate level.”
“What I’m saying is we either jump into this thing we’ve invented, or we pretend it never happened. The first one means we get to keep doing this”—he gripped Fox’s cock, which had softened only slightly during his philosophical disquisition—“or we get out of this bed right now and never look back.”
Fox’s eyes widened with dismay. He shook his head.
“That’s what I thought. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a paradigm shift to accommodate.” And with that he dove beneath the covers, which was quickly becoming his favorite place in the world.
Chapter TWENTY
“JUST SO I’m sure I understand,” Fox said as they walked into Drew’s apartment, “you bring her sausages every Sunday morning, but you pretend you didn’t buy them for her?”
“Right,” Drew replied with a shrug, as if surely everyone had such arrangements in their lives. He walked to the kitchen to grab the sausages he’d bought on Friday.
“You’re a great guy, you know,” Fox said, pulling him in for a kiss. “A good man and a great guy.”
“You don’t have to flatter me. I’m already sleeping with you.”
“And I want to keep it that way.”
“Is that why you loaned me this amazing shirt?” Drew ran his hands down the front of the quarter-zip fleece Fox had thrown at him when they’d finally gotten out of the shower. For the second time.
“No, I just got tired of seeing you naked,” Fox said casually.
Drew set his sausages on the kitchen counter and whipped off the shirt. He threw it at Fox in a fit of melodrama.
“And let’s not start on the pants. God, I was relieved when you finally put your pants back on.”
In short order Drew’s khakis flew at his head.
“Ugh, those horrible boxers. I’ve always hated those, but at least they keep you from waving your dick at me.”
The boxers sailed across the kitchen and landed at his feet.
“Ah, you have fallen for my diabolical plan,” Fox said with a supervillain laugh. He crossed the kitchen in a lunge and took hold of Drew’s semierect penis. “For now I shall have my way with you.” He backed slowly through the kitchen, tugging Drew along with him.
“You are insane,” Drew said with a laugh. His growing erection showed him to be rather attracted to insanity.
“You’re going to be singing a different tune in a moment,” Fox warned. He led Drew by the cock through the apartment and into the bedroom, where he unceremoniously tossed Drew toward the bed. He landed and rolled over onto his back, limbs splayed in obscene repose.
Fox mounted the bed between Drew’s legs, and in one mighty growling attack, he stuffed fully half of Drew’s erection into his mouth.
“Fucking fuck,” Drew cried as he arched his back and flailed his arms. “How are you so fucking good at that?”
“It’s all about the right motivation,” Fox replied once he’d pulled back, allowing Drew’s prick to slide out from his lips. “You take a blow job the way most people get electrocuted. It’s quite gratifying.” He swooped back down and was able to welcome more than half of the hot, hard thing into his mouth.
Fox pumped away joyfully for a minute or two, delighting in the frantic reaction his ministrations elicited. He had discovered last night that Drew responded to oral attention with a shocked frenzy of lust—not only the first time, which Fox had perhaps expected, but every time. It was like he’d never been sucked before. And as a newly minted fellator, Fox was particularly flattered to be the cause of Drew’s frenzy.
This time, however, he wanted to give him a little something extra. He pulled off Drew’s cock again, then licked and kissed his way down, smooching with Drew’s balls. This much he had done last night, but now he went farther. With his tongue he traced the seam where Drew’s ball sac attached to his body, and when he reached the lowest point he kept going. He ran his tongue along the ridge that disappeared down between Drew’s strong legs.
“Oh, oh,” Drew cried, and his frenzy increased.
Fox took that as a “Yes, please!” and continued his downward journey. Soon he was flicking the tip of his tongue along the crinkled skin of Drew’s most secret place. He slid his hands under Drew’s thighs and then pushed them up gently so that the mysteries of this hidden portal were opened to him.
It made his heart skip a beat to realize he was looking right at—was running his tongue around—a guy’s asshole. And he was loving it. He leaned forward and planted a gentle kiss right at the center of the virginally tight ring of muscle.
Drew thrashed and moaned but did nothing to discourage Fox’s explorations. And so he continued.
With his lips braced against the outer surface, he sharpened his tongue to a point and drove it home. Drew sucked in a tremendous breath and shivered with every part of his body that wasn’t pinned to the bed by Fox’s tongue. The already drum-tight ring of muscle clamped down on his tongue, squeezing and relaxing in perfect synchrony with Drew’s gasps. Fox slipped his tongue out and gave Drew’s ass a slurping kiss, then dove back in. This brought Drew to new exertions, his legs twitching and bucking in the air.
Worried that Drew’s legs would give out and come crashing down to the bed, Fox pulled back once again and eased them down on either side of him. Then he dipped his middle finger into his mouth and coated it with saliva. This lubrication, combined with the spittle he’d left in and around Drew’s orifice, was enough for him to be able to insinuate his finger.
Drew jolted and froze, but then Fox heard him heave a great exhalation and moan, “Yessssss….” He took this as permission to introduce his entire middle finger, and soon his hand was pressed between Drew’s muscular cheeks. With his other hand, he laid hold of Drew’s manically throbbing cock, which he then pulled toward himself.
Then, as he wrapped his lips around Drew’s cockhead, he curled his middle finger upward, bringing it into firm contact with Drew’s prostate.
It was as if someone had installed an orgasm switch in Drew’s ass, and left it there for some future explorer to discover. For as soon as Fox pressed it, Drew’s prostate hardened and twitched, bringing Drew’s moans up an octave. A few seconds later jets of hot semen filled Fox’s mouth. Drew growled like an angry bear as the orgasm thrashed its way through him. He began to thrust wildly, driving himself down more forcefully on Fox’s finger, and then upward farther into his mouth. The headboard knocked loudly against the wall as he bounced and kicked.
Then, without warning, the bed collapsed.
First it tipped to one side as a supporting leg gave way, and then all of the others failed simultaneously. With a great clattering crash, the mattress dropped six inches to the floor.
Drew didn’t seem to have noticed, as he was still busy ejaculating every drop of moisture in his body into Fox’s mouth. It wasn’t until he finally wound down and fell still that he seemed to notice that something was amiss.
“I think you exceeded its design limits,” Fox said with a shrug. He went back to licking up the semen that Drew had sent flying all over his torso.
“Do you smell sawdust?”
“I think that’s what your furniture is made of. First the coffee table, now this.”
Drew smiled down at
Fox. “This was much more fun.” Then his glad expression dropped. “Oh shit. Mrs. Schwartzmann will be—”
At that moment his phone rang.
Drew shot up from the wreckage of his bed and ran back into the kitchen to pluck his phone from the pants he’d thrown at Fox.
“Yes, Mrs. Schwartzmann?” he asked by way of greeting. Fox smiled at his breathlessness. “No, it wasn’t another coffee table. It was… well, maybe it would be better to explain in person. Might I impose upon you for a visit this morning?” He paused, then nodded. “I can certainly take a look at that while I’m up there. Oh, and would it be okay if I brought a friend along?” Another pause, and this time a sly grin broke out on his face as he listened. “Fox is looking forward to meeting you as well. We’ll be up in a minute.”
“So I get to meet the enigmatic Mrs. Schwartzmann,” Fox said, standing in the doorway to the bedroom, the vantage point from where he’d been watching this conversation.
“Do you feel up to it?” Drew asked, walking nakedly over to him.
“For you, I’m up to do anything.” Fox ran his hands up and down Drew’s rib cage, then kissed him. “You should probably get dressed first.”
“So you really are tired of seeing me naked?” Drew asked with ironic offense.
“Never. But I imagine Mrs. Schwartzmann might not be as happy about your nudity as I am.”
Drew shrugged. “You may be right.”
A few minutes later, Fox followed Drew up the stairs to the second floor, where Drew knocked on the first door they came to. A voice responded instantly, as if its owner had been waiting by the door from the moment she hung up the phone.
“Who is, please?”
The voice was low and gruff, but still clearly aged.
“It’s Drew, Mrs. Schwartzmann. We talked on the phone five minutes ago?”
“Oh, Drew” came the clearly relieved voice from the other side of the door. A rattle worked its way down the side of the door, as if a dozen locks were being worked by not terribly capable hands. The door opened a crack, and then a last defense was repealed and the door opened wide. A tiny woman with a tight bun of gray hair and lively eyes stood beaming at both of them.
“Fox you must be,” she cried, holding out her arms to him. It seemed as though she was demanding a hug, so he stepped forward and took the fragile thing into his arms. “Now here is a real gentleman, Drew. He knows when an old woman needs hugging.”
“I would have hugged you if I had known that’s what you wanted.”
“This is what I am meaning. A gentleman knows.” She released her hold on Fox, but her hands gripped his biceps, struggling to reach all the way around. “And so strong.” She stepped back and motioned for them to enter. “Please, come in so you can be telling me what to your furniture has happened.”
“I’m afraid I broke Drew’s bed,” Fox said, with what he hoped was the appropriate note of contrition.
Mrs. Schwartzmann shot a lightning glance in Drew’s direction, then burst out laughing. “The woman only the coffee table broke.” She looked Fox up and down, then turned back to Drew to stage-whisper, “Your bed, I think, is not the only thing that is different in your life because of him.”
Drew smiled weakly. “Here are some sausages,” he said, holding out the packet.
“You have extra sausage now, I see,” she said, then cackled maniacally. She took the package from him and practically danced through the apartment toward the kitchen. “Come, come, my boys.”
“Sorry about this,” Drew whispered.
“I think she’s wonderful,” Fox replied under his breath. Mrs. Schwartzmann was everything he’d imagined.
“Sit, sit,” she ordered as they entered her kitchen. There were three chairs around the little table in the middle of the kitchen, a table that gleamed with light reflected from its plastic-coated surface. In the middle of the table was a pastry that smelled both sweet and hearty. Mrs. Schwartzmann busied herself with making coffee and getting the sausages up to a good sizzle.
“Hope you’re hungry,” Drew muttered. “She’s going to force-feed us this entire kringle thing.”
“Good,” Fox replied. “You’re the only thing I’ve eaten all morning.”
The deep blush in Drew’s cheek was precisely the reaction Fox was going for. Drew was frightfully handsome when he blushed. Fox leaned over and kissed Drew right on his flaming cheek.
“Ach, you two,” Mrs. Schwartzmann cried, clapping her bony little hands together. “So handsome and so in love. You make this old woman’s heart thump-thump with joy.”
Drew smiled. “You are hardly an ‘old woman,’ Mrs. Schwartzmann,” he said. “I think you will bury us all.”
“Oh, I hope not,” she replied, her hands dropping to her sides. “That sounds lonely.” But then her usual boundless energy returned. “You, my dear, are no longer lonely, are you?” She squinted at Drew. “No, you are not. Fox has taken your loneliness away.”
Drew looked at Fox, whose turn it was to blush. “You’re right, as always.”
“You may be sleeping on the floor, but at least you will be together,” she said in a singsong voice. She turned to attend to the kettle, which had begun to whistle.
“I love her,” Fox whispered to Drew.
Drew shook his head. “And I love you for saying that.”
“I love you too,” Fox said, as naturally as exhaling.
Fox had planned how he would say that he had fallen in love—with the eventual woman with whom he would someday fall in love. It would be after a romantic dinner, perhaps during a weekend getaway. He would lead up to it suavely but subtly, and she would be both surprised and delighted. He had constructed a number of scenarios that would bring maximum effect.
With Drew, it just flew out of his mouth.
And that seemed exactly right.
For on further reflection, he realized that they had actually done most of the things he had imagined: romantic dinners, a weekend getaway, surprise and delight. It all added up, quite as surely as it would in a spreadsheet.
He was in love.
IT WAS not just a Monday. It was The Monday.
Two months after the pilot of a new initiative, the launch team at Q*pid would gather for a progress report and a decision on whether to commit to, or discontinue, the program.
Veera spent the first twenty minutes of her workday staring at the calendar in the upper corner of her computer monitor. No matter how hard she stared, it obstinately informed her that today it would be her turn to defend Archer and to argue for his wider release.
The results had largely been solid, if not revolutionary. Archer had, over the last two months, matched up thousands of people who wouldn’t have qualified as matches under the legacy system, and a good number of these had entered into relationship status. There had been more than fifty engagements, which struck many on Veera’s team as impetuous but did not surprise her at all. If Archer provided the right person, what more did they need to know? Might as well get right to it, as people had in her family for generations.
But no matter how many successful matches Archer produced, the legacy of his going rogue a month ago and trampling all over Parameter Three was a millstone around his virtual neck. He’d been perfectly well-behaved in the weeks since that horrid Saturday morning, but the event had quickly passed into company lore. Jokes, some of a rather off-color nature, ran rampant, and someone had posted a sign in the kitchen about how Archer would be tasked with deciding whether you really need decaf and simply don’t know how to ask for it. It had been presented in the form of a limerick.
Veera sighed.
To prepare for the debrief, she needed to gather the current state of Archer and his subsystems, so she began to scan the windows in which log files skittered by. Everything seemed to be running well until she got to the window she’d set up to monitor Few. There had been no updates here for some time, but this morning something new had appeared.
“Relationship status changes
,” read the anodyne update.
“Oh crap,” Veera whispered. Somewhere deep inside her was a shred of hope that this was good news, but she knew, rationally speaking, that this would be the nail in the coffin of Archer’s freewheeling experimentation. Instead of a PR fire drill that ended with a whimper, there would now be a dataset of one proving that matches discordant on Parameter Three were doomed.
She launched out of her chair and ran to the conference room. Once there, she shut the door behind her and dialed with a trembling finger.
“Hello. This is Archer.”
“Resume voice interface.”
“Voice interface ready.”
“It’s Veera.”
“I recognize your voice, Veera,” Archer replied.
“I notice that there is an update on the discordant match Few,” Veera said, exerting considerable effort to keep her tone steady. Voice interfaces were easily confused by overwrought speech.
“There are four such updates. Would you like to hear them?”
“Yes.”
“One. User Fox set his profile to ‘match unavailable.’ Two. User Drew set his profile to ‘match unavailable.’ Three. User Fox changed his status to ‘in a relationship.’ Four. User Drew changed his status to ‘in a relationship.’ That concludes the updates.”
Veera pondered this terrible news for a moment, then her curiosity got the better of her. “Are these users in a relationship that accords with their Parameter Three preferences?”
“One is, the other is not.”
Veera’s heart leapt into her throat. “One of them is in a relationship with another man?”
“Yes.”
“And the other?”
“Is also in a relationship with another man.”
She sighed. Archer’s conversational ability had made her forget for a moment that she was speaking with a ruthlessly logical interlocutor. “They are both in relationships with men?”