by Amy Lane
Dex nodded. “Hey—let me go ask. If Ethan doesn’t mind, you can hang out in back.”
Goody goody goody goody goody….
“Yeah, okay. That’ll be good.”
“You’re pretty low-key—that’s good in a way, but I got to tell you, I’m hoping you get more vocal in the sack. It’s like… you know, feedback. Not only is it good for the cameras, the guy you’re with, he wants to know he’s not just banging an unconscious meatsack, right?”
“Yeah, I hear ya. Not a problem.” Chase let his eyes get hooded and one side of his mouth pull up, which was the way he used to smile for Donnie. “I’m good at giving people what they want.”
Dex gave a mock shiver in anticipation. “Awesome. Here, let me go ask Ethan.”
He came back two steps in front of the camera crew and two guys in big fluffy white robes, giving Chase the thumbs up and nodding to a back corner, where they could watch unobtrusively.
The guys were followed by two cameramen, one of whom was John himself, and a girl holding a couple of towels and toiletries. The guys were breathing like they’d just come back from a workout, and one of them kept scrubbing at his face and laughing.
“Jesus, Ethan, you totally got that shit in my eye!”
And ohmygod! It was Ethan, the guy that Chase had been watching fuck like Apollo on his computer at night. He wasn’t actually that tall—maybe 5’10”—but his shoulders. Jesus, his shoulders were massive. Chase looked at Dex, eyeing Ethan with an easy admiration—could have been any straight guy, thinking “Jesus, I’ve got to increase my workout!” and he made sure his expression was the same way. He certainly wasn’t going to let his expression show that he’d been watching Ethan online and coming in his pants without even touching himself.
The two of them hung back in a corner of the locker room as Ethan dropped his robe on a bench, reached inside, and turned on the shower. It was then that Chase realized the showers were pretty open—only part of one of the walls was shut behind glass.
“Yeah, Tango, it’s good. Hop on in, man, see if you can get some of that shit out of your eye.”
For the first time, Chase’s hero worship let him notice Ethan’s companion.
He was taller than Ethan, but shorter than Chase. Maybe shy of six foot total, with straight dark hair and a white-pale complexion, the kind that came with freckles as a child, even though his eyes were dark brown and liquid. His face was long, with a long jaw that came to a plumb little square and a cleft in the chin, and his mouth was wide and mobile. He seemed to have a permanent grin on his face, hyper-bright, with just a touch of evil.
That evil grin flashed nuclear and the young man’s dark eyebrows winged up into little pointed arches. “No worries, Ethan, man, I’ll just return the favor.”
Ethan laughed and they both stepped in. Without warning, Ethan manhandled Tango backward into his chest, running his hands from a taut, ripped abdomen up to his narrow chest—wide with muscles but not really built for mass—and his back. His hand dropped to Tango’s groin and the surprisingly hefty erection swinging low and baggy there.
“Are you kidding? You think I’m gonna let that monster in my ass again? Man, it’s hard enough to suck that thing—”
“You just like it when you get it hard,” Tango taunted, that incorrigible grin amping up a notch. His breathing quickened, and everybody in the room—the two men with cameras, the girl with the bathrobes and shower bag—seemed to stop breathing as that breathless panting took over the enclosed, echoing space.
Ethan’s hand closed over him and Tango closed his eyes and leaned back his head into Ethan’s shoulder. “So do you,” Ethan murmured. “How you doin’, Tango. I’m all hard, you ready to go again?”
“Fuckin’ always, you big-cocked wonder. Man, someone get this man some lube.”
There was a brief rustle, and Tango stood up long enough to catch the tube from the prop girl and pass it back behind him. Ethan’s motions were quick as he condomed up and greased his (oh holy God was that really swollen flesh?) cock, and Tango barely leaned forward before Ethan thrust in.
“Oh, God, you’re so tight!” Ethan praised, patting Tango’s muscled thigh. That flank was quivering with what looked like a little bit of fatigue, though, and Tango gritted his teeth and panted, “Tight as you were, but getting tired, man.”
Ethan sighed, shivering all over. “Man, I’m still so sensitive… just hold on, I’m almost there.” His arm went around Tango’s stomach, and Tango adjusted his stance and then surprised the hell out of Chase and probably everybody in the room by putting his hand flat against the wall, shifting his foot up onto the soap holder, and pistoning his hips up and down against Ethan with incredible power.
His head tilted back, his teeth bared, and he started a peculiar, growling pant that told everybody in the room that just sex or not, he was really getting off on this.
“Oh crap, Tango, I’m gonna come!” On cue, Tango leaned over the ledge of the shower, reached between his legs, and started taking care of himself while Ethan did the same thing, ripping the condom off and giving some frantic pumps to his own member before spraying all over Tango’s buttocks and back.
Tango grunted and made a keening noise, completely oblivious to the five other people in the room, closed his eyes, and lost himself in losing his wad against the shower wall.
It took a few moments for the electricity in the room to sizzle down, and in the meantime the two guys straightened and leaned drunkenly on each other while they pumped soap from the dispenser and soaped up their own hair and their own chests and groins.
“God,” Ethan muttered, “that was a fucking surprise. Jesus, Tango, do you like live on Viagra or something?”
That evil, evil grin never diminished. “Hey, you’re the one who felt like fucking.”
Ethan smacked his ass playfully. “Well, you’re just so damned fuckable, right?”
“Damned straight.” Tango arched an eyebrow and smirked genuinely at the guy who had just drilled him into the tile. Dex bumped Chase’s shoulder at that point, and Chase let out a reluctant breath. Together, the two of them edged out of the locker room, but not before their motion caught Tango’s attention.
For a moment, just a moment, Chase caught the eye (one of them was still blinking closed) of the guy who had just fucked like Loki the lunatic sex god, and he was stunned to the pit of his stomach. Dex hauled him out of there, and Chase had to fight the temptation to look back over his shoulder, praying for one more look of that pale skin, with the three moles on the side of his collarbone and the wicked/evil eyes.
“C’mon, man. They’ll be out of there in about ten minutes, and then John’ll be gearing up to film our scene, okay?”
“Yeah, sure man.”
“Here, let’s go get some Gatorade. I’m starving, but it’s going to have to hold us, you feel me?” Dex’s casual grin was still in place, and it suddenly hit Chase that this guide, this mentor, was just exactly like him, except probably straight for real and not the lie Chase had put on his profile. He was young and active and starving and joyful, and for a moment, just a moment….
This thing we’re doing, it’s not a dirty little secret, because this isn’t a bad guy.
And then he decided that maybe Gatorade was more his thing than philosophy and simply followed Dex’s lead.
DEX’S mouth was skilled on Chance’s cock, and Chance threw his head back against the pillows and moaned.
“Oh God!” he cried, the sound echoing loudly into the camera, and then he said it again, but this time it was forced past his throat as his hips started to buck. “Jesus, Dex, I’m gonna….”
Dex pulled back and stuck out his tongue, fisting the slick, glistening member while Chance thrashed on the bed.
“Oh God!” Chance cried again. “Oh fuck… oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck….”
His scream when he orgasmed was loud enough to be startling on the tinny sound system of the camera, but the look on his face was… was unaware. There w
as no camera as far as that man was concerned, splayed out, his cock spurting come over the face of the man who had just pumped it into his mouth.
“Now that’s the best part,” John grunted with satisfaction. “Kid, you come like a champion. God, that was awesome. This is going to sell like hotcakes, Chance. Let’s see….” John flipped through his planner. “We’ll be shooting stills tomorrow, so we need you until then. After that, when can we have you back?”
“See?” Dex said, that ever-present, casual, “It’s all okay” grin just as sharp then as it had been the day before, when the scene had been shot. “I told you it was good!”
It was heaven. No gay, no straight, just a friendly hand, a climax I could be proud of, massive approval. I want to do it again.
“It was alright,” Chase said, cracking his gum. He and Dex had chattered all through their shower scene, but their touches had been casual and not nearly as scorching as the one that had gone before them.
“Just all right?” John asked, honestly incredulous, and Chase rolled his neck and shook out his shoulders, like he would before a big game.
“It was invigorating,” he grinned, thinking that was true. It was like the usual sex endorphins had been multiplied to the nth power by the fact that people were watching, and the fact that there he was, getting touched by another man in front of the entire world, and that it made him so straight, it was part of his job title. God, he could have gone out now and pitched a no-hitter. He could have worked a double shift on a road crew. He could have done anything, even and including going home and jumping his girlfriend like a Dachshund jumped a table leg.
John shook his head, his longish hair flopping in front of his pale eyes. “Right on. That’s the kind of answer I was hoping for. So when can you do it again?”
Chase bit his lower lip and thought about it. “The problem,” he said reluctantly, not wanting to share too much of his business, “is hiding the marks from the girlfriend.”
He’d seen Tango and Ethan; they were covered in hickeys, and even though Chase wasn’t sure if the guy he got partnered up with would want to do that, he was pretty sure with the way he came just from being sucked off that he would have something on his body to show for it if he penetrated or was penetrated by another human being.
“Mmm….” John nodded like the duplicity was completely normal and understandable. “You can stay in one of the rooms if you like, one of the ones not being used here. Guys do it all the time. What did you tell her this time?”
Chase looked away. Geez, he’d always hated lying. Donnie had always said he was really bad at it; he’d rather be a jerk and just walk away or get out of the situation than really lie.
“I said I had a construction job out of town.”
John nodded again. “All right then, tell her you’ve got one for a week. We’ve got a Florida set; we’ll fly you out there, shoot the stills on day one, the shot on day two, and set you up in one of the rooms in our suite for the next four days, how’s that?”
Florida? Florida? Chase’s college baseball team went up and down the state, but the truth was, he’d never really been out of California.
“Sounds decent,” he said.
“We’ll make it six weeks, then,” John said decisively. “We’ll get you in and out two weeks before Christmas, and have your check cut in time to go shopping. How’s that?”
Chase actually felt a shudder of relief and excitement ripple up his spine, like scales on a muscular snake. “That’s awesome. So, you said I could stay here if I needed to. Can I stay here tonight?”
John looked at him, an off grin on his face. “Well, yeah kid, but you don’t need to. There’s not a mark on you. Just come back tomorrow for the stills, okay?”
Chase flushed and masked it with a crack of his gum. He turned to Dex and winked and said, “Yeah, sometimes you think a life-changing experience is just written all over your face.”
Dex smirked. “No, genius, it was written all over mine, but it washed off.”
Chase cracked his gum again. “We’ll see if we can keep our life-changing experiences washable then, right?”
John laughed. “Good, good—practice your banter for the shoot. People love that. Now before we ship you off to our beach house in Orlando, I’ve got to ask. You ready to top?”
Chase shrugged, this time truly at a loss.
God yes, but I don’t want to hurt anyone.
“I’m not sure how?” He literally ended it with a question.
John nodded. “That’s okay, we’ll pair you with Cam. He’s sort of a cock-whore—loves to bottom, he’ll be fine.”
Dex nodded judiciously. “Ass like a steel trap,” he said fondly. “You’ll love him.”
Tango!
He blinked. His inner voice surprised even him.
“Sounds good,” he said, swinging his shoulders a little in enthusiasm.
Tango! Tango! We want the guy with the evil smile and bright black eyes! Tango!
“Awesome,” John said. “Talk to Kelsey after the stills tomorrow, and she’ll make sure you get the ‘Carey Industry’ stamp on your check. That way your girl won’t get suspicious when the money comes in.”
Chase’s stomach suddenly congealed, because he hadn’t thought about this one detail and it could have… oh God, it could have….
Mercy! Oh, Jesus, Mercy, you’re not supposed to get hurt here! Oh God, I almost hurt you!
“Thank you,” he said quietly, shoving his suddenly clammy hands in his pockets. He found his pack of gum in there and pulled out another piece, spitting the piece in his mouth—mint, for fresh breath—into the wrapper very carefully, and making very very sure his fingers didn’t shake with the sudden adrenaline rush of the almost. He dropped the gum in the trashcan while John said, “You’re welcome,” and filled out some travel vouchers for him to give to Kelsey too.
“I don’t do the Florida set, but that’s Dex’s first week behind the camera, so it’ll be him and Grant.”
Chase turned around, relieved to find another emotion to put on his face. “Dude. You takin’ pictures? That’s awesome!”
Dex shrugged. “I’m twenty-six, dude. Can’t be pretty forever.”
Oh God, at twenty-six, I’ll be married. I’ll never… I’ll never… never again.
“Make good memories, right?”
Dex held out his fist and Chase bumped it.
“Right on!”
That night he swung into the unmarked spot he usually parked his old truck in while thinking over what he was going to tell Mercy about how clean he was. Showers at the site? Hadn’t happened yet, but it could. Stopped by a friend’s? Why not? He knew guys on the different crews. There’d be no shame in that, right?
As it turned out, Mercy wasn’t in the apartment. Like a fool, he checked the voice mail on his cell phone and heard her telling him she was going to stay the night at a friend’s house, since he was going to be gone, and the wash of relief that blew through him left his knees weak and spots dancing in front of his eyes.
Oh God, he wasn’t going to have to face her. Not tonight. Not when it was all so vibrant in his head and his body was still tingling from an orgasm that almost blew his eyeballs out of his head.
The thought of it made him hard again, and without thinking about it, he grabbed a towel from the bathroom and threw it on the bed with the olive-and-rose-flowered comforter before toeing off his tennis shoes and shoving his jeans down to his knees. He’d always masturbated furtively, inside his pants, under the covers in a darkened room, or in the bathroom after Mercy was asleep, but not now. Now he sprawled himself out on the bed by the light coming in from the living room and relived that final, mind-blowing moment when his cock had been in Dex’s mouth and it had been warm, and wet, and… oh God… oh God….
Dark eyes, wicked black laughing eyes in a pale face, with a long jaw and an almost elfin nose, looked at hm.
His hips spasmed within moments, and his cock swelled, sensitized, and erupted in his fi
st. But even as his vision went white-blind in climax, even as he brought his hand, coated in spend, to his own lips to taste, he was still looking at the face of the lunatic sex god and thinking of Tango.
HE WASHED off in the silence of the apartment and decided to watch some television before he fell asleep. He found an old George Clooney movie on cable—One Fine Day—that his mother had watched a lot before she’d died, and he settled down to watch it, wondering if it had changed since he was six.
It had, he realized.
He saw Michelle Pfeiffer’s helplessness this time, how completely overwhelmed she was, how sure she was that no help was ever coming, and her complete determination to hold on and do the best for her child without it.
Was that why his mom had watched it so often? Was she trying to find some sort of strength in that movie that she knew she didn’t have?
Well, it didn’t work, did it? Because she was dead, and Chase was here, in an empty apartment, feeling like a fairy (and wasn’t that a godawful analogy) who had escaped from his bottle, just for a minute. Tiny, insignificant, limited creature with one power in his enormous wand, he was going to make the most of his freedom, if he could.
But that wasn’t the idea that haunted him before he went to sleep that night. It wasn’t the idea of freedom, or the feel of a man’s mouth on the private parts of his body, or even his mother’s lifeless corpse in a bloody bathtub.
It was the first time he’d ever had sex, period.
“YOU’VE done this before, right?” Mercy whispered, because she had a roommate who may or may not have been asleep.
I’ve gotten a hand job from the guy I’d loved since the sixth grade.
“Yeah! Of course I have!” Chase kissed the skin of her shoulder, of her neck, of her chest, steeling himself for the plump and naked breast with the extended nipple and puckered aureole.
“You’re moving awfully slow,” she said breathlessly, because he had just gotten to her nipple and was taking his time, trying to love the way it flickered under his tongue and the way she trembled when he touched it.