by Amy Lane
Instead, he and Tommy wobbled, walked, finally ran, first to the car for their duffels, then to the hotel room, and Tommy had reservations so it only took a minute to go get his keys. It wasn’t until they got into the elevator that Chase actually turned to look at him, turned to say anything, and it was only then that he saw the drying white streak on the corner of Tommy’s mouth.
He licked his thumb automatically and stuck it out, wiping at it, using his fingernail. Tommy caught his wrist then, his hand hard, and keeping his dark Loki eyes locked on Chase’s, sucked Chase’s thumb into his mouth deliberately, getting it wet, and then letting it go so Chase could resume cleanup.
Chase rubbed at the drying come futilely, his breath coming faster as Tommy kept up that fierce eye contact. Finally, he wet his tongue inside his mouth and stuck it out, leaning forward to lick it off. He licked once, twice, three times, tasting himself on Tommy’s skin, and then Tommy caught his chin and whispered fiercely.
“Leave it. There will be more.”
Chase’s cock, sated and sleepy in his stained jeans, woke up abruptly, pulse pounding in its base.
Tommy grabbed his hand and hauled him, willingly, from the elevator to the room. There was no kissing at the door, no giggling, just grim purpose as Tommy inserted the key card and shoved in.
“Naked,” Tommy ordered, swallowing hard enough to make his Adam’s apple bob. “Naked. Lie on your back. You’re going to see everything.”
Chase peeled off his new jeans and kicked the nice leather high-tops he’d worn off with them. His leather jacket went next, and then the brightly colored silk shirt, and then he pulled the comforter off the bed and laid back with his knees spread, his eyes looking soberly up at the angry, wanting man who had been his first lover, no matter what his film roster said.
Tommy was naked very quickly too, and he rifled through his duffel bag for the ever-present, super-humongous tube of lube that he kept. He came up to the bed between Chase’s knees and suddenly the grim, flat line that his mouth had become softened and relaxed, showing the full lower lip and the wide mobility of it. His long, square jaw loosened, and although his erection was as rampant and as brutal as it had been, the rest of him was suddenly unbearably happy.
“What?” Chase asked, relieved a little to see gentle Tommy, nice Tommy, come to their bed.
“Your socks,” Tommy said softly. “You left them on.”
Chase flushed delicately and went to sit up, but Tommy’s warm hand on his calf stopped him. “I’ll get it. Here. Just lay back and let me look at you, okay?”
“I’m… uh….” Chase trailed off and closed his eyes. Tommy shucked off one sock and then the other and then began rubbing hands down the surprisingly sensitive skin of the backs of his knees, the inside of his thighs. Chase gave a little moan and a shudder and his thighs fell open, spreading his body out for Tommy’s pleasure, as relaxed and as needy as a spoiled cat. Tommy palmed his thighs, and Chase shuddered when the soft skin was stroked. He closed his eyes and saw red again, and the color scared him, terrified him, but not enough to tell Tommy to stop.
“Open your eyes,” Tommy said, his voice still gentle. There was a mirror on the bathroom door, and Tommy had shoved it open while Chase was getting undressed. With strong, capable hands, Tommy lifted Chase’s hips and dragged him on the bed until the apex of Chase’s body was exposed to the mirror. “Grab that pillow,” Tommy muttered. “Put it under your head. Now put that other one under your hips. There. Can you see? You can see?”
Chase closed his eyes against his body, his balls, saggy and bald, his cock, erect and terrifyingly huge. He closed his eyes against his crease and his opening, spread for the world to see. He recognized the parts: this was Chance’s body, and Chance fucked men for money. But Chase’s heart was in Chance’s body right now, and Chase was afraid.
“Open your eyes,” Tommy ordered gruffly, obviously unaware that doing so would sand the membrane that kept Chase intact to a raw, bloody veil. “It’s beautiful, Chase. If it wasn’t, people wouldn’t pay to watch.” Tommy’s fingers, lubed and hot, crept between Chase’s ass cheeks, and Chase’s eyes flew open in pure surprise.
He watched as Tommy’s first finger penetrated him, and he gasped. It burned, it stretched it… oh God… what was he… he could feel it, that same thing he felt under his cock when the other guys had begged for it. It was small and round and spongy, and Tommy was rubbing on it, slowly, while that delicious burn traveled his body, making him shudder with need.
“Tommy?” he asked, scrabbling on the covers, trying hard to find something to ground him.
“Watch,” Tommy murmured, and Chase did, watching himself be penetrated and stretched while his insides threatened to shatter through his skin.
“Why?” Chase begged. His eyes fought to close and Tommy scissored his fingers, and they flew open again. “Oh God… why?”
“Because this is real,” Tommy told him, stretching him some more. “You’re here, now, and this is real, and you can’t pretend I don’t exist….”
“Tommy!” Oh God. His whole body was shaking, and he couldn’t keep his eyes open, he couldn’t, but he still knew he was here, his legs spread, his cock weeping pre-come, needing more of Tommy’s touch, more of his body. “You’re real,” he cried. “You’re real… Tommy….” He needed… he needed… behind his eyes, that door was buckling on its hinges, and he couldn’t keep it together, couldn’t keep the door shut, couldn’t do anything, he was so lost, so terrified. His hands flung out at his sides again, then contracted against his chest, shaking in a terrible clench. He keened, beyond words, and suddenly Tommy was there, lunging up over the bed and penetrating Chase’s stretched, open body.
Oh God… oh God… he needed. Tommy was inside him, invading him, yes, and that was important, because that was pleasure and pain and intensity and all of the things his body craved, but it was more than that, because Tommy was also giving him something to cling to, and Chase’s hands came up, unclenching long enough for him to dig his fingers into Tommy’s ripply, ripped shoulders and howl.
“Oh God… oh God… fuck… fuck me… fuck me… fuck… fuck… oh shit… shit… God faster… Tommy… Tommy… ohmy godfuckin’now!”
It didn’t take long. Tommy was desperate for him, crazy, frantic with needing to bury his flesh into Chase and mark, claim, possess, and Chase was sick with wanting. Tommy plunged into him, the fullness overwhelming, painful in its intensity, and Chase lost himself, fragmenting, too many Chases to keep track of, scattering into the searing white light that, for a moment, ripped the door off its hinges and left Chase crouching, naked and shivering, in the light pouring in from that place in his soul.
He came to in the shower, his head cradled helplessly against Tommy’s wide chest while Tommy ran a soapy washcloth up over his come-spattered stomach and down between his legs, to his balls and his still stretched, dripping asshole. He was saying Chase’s name in sort of a frantic litany, like he was trying to get his attention.
“Chase? Chase, man, c’mon. Chase, you there? C’mon, Chase. Tell me you’re there. Chase? Chase, would you say something, buddy? Please? You in there?”
“Yeah, Tommy,” Chase muttered hoarsely. “Yeah. What do ya need, baby? I’ll do what I can.”
Suddenly he was engulfed in Tommy’s wet, soapy arms to the point where he almost lost his balance, and Tommy was laughing helplessly above his head.
“Oh, Jesus, Chase. Jesus. What in the fuck happened there? You… man, you were coming and then you just wouldn’t stop shaking! You wouldn’t. You just kept talking to yourself and shaking and… God.” Tommy stepped back in the confines of the shower and shook his shoulders. “Jesus, Chase. You scared the holy fuck out of me!”
Chase felt a semblance of his usual grin come back, even though he still had black spots swimming vaguely in front of his eyes. “You think you’re that good, hah, Tommy? Getting fucked by you is a religious experience?” He giggled a little over that, even though it probably
wasn’t funny, and Tommy swore again and gave him one of those terrific, engulfing hugs, and even though the water and the hug made it hard to breathe, Chase still didn’t want to leave that hug because he couldn’t remember ever feeling that safe.
“Fuck you, Summers,” Tommy muttered. “Jesus, I’m serious. Where in the fuck did you go on me?”
“Mmm…,” Chase said, feeling like he was going to fall asleep right there. “That little room in your head you go to, right? When you’re scared. Mine is full of red water.”
He almost stumbled then, because he couldn’t keep to his feet, but Tommy pulled him out of the shower and then sat him on the toilet to dry him off. Chase was too spent to even shiver in the cold air, and Tommy put him to bed naked and then turned off the light and crawled in bed after him.
Chase was there, halfway between asleep and awake, when Tommy asked a question in the dark, and Chase’s inside was as naked as his outside. He answered without pain or fear or any of the things that would cause him to startle awake, sweat staining the sheets, breath shredding his throat, terrified, the next morning.
“Chase, why’s there red water in your little room?”
“Cause Mommy got blood in it when she was in the bathtub.”
“Oh God.”
“Mmm… don’t leave me, okay?”
“Backatcha, big guy.”
“I’m so afraid of falling.”
There was a gentle kiss on his shoulder blade. “Don’t worry. I gotcha.”
But nobody really has me, Tommy. I’m still all alone in that room.
AFTER he’d woken up in the dark of the morning, drenched in sweat and breathing in bare, tortured gasps, Tommy had soothed him and settled him and calmed him back down into a quiet sleep. They’d gotten up the next morning like nothing had happened—no scary fugue during sex, no night terror, no deep, dark confession—but Chase should have known Tommy wouldn’t let it go.
They’d decided to stay checked into the hotel room—it was Friday and Chase had until Sunday, after all—and went to the Exploratorium in Golden Gate Park instead.
It was a clear, sunny day in the city, and there was a fierce wind in from the ocean, bringing with it the smell of salt water and diesel, of freedom and terrible, earthbound necessity. After they sat in the planetarium and allowed the three-dimensional projections of the universe to make them look small, and then traveled the natural history part of the Exploratorium just to feel evolved, they went outside to the square in front and simply held hands and walked the paths of the park, not saying much but appreciating the gentle tang of the eucalyptus trees and the chilly shade they wandered in.
They were wearing jeans—expensive jeans, yes, but simply jeans—and hooded sweatshirts with an expensive name across them, and Chase was wearing leather high-tops, but it felt like Tommy had gone out of his way to make sure Chase felt like himself as they wandered this exceptionally innocent part of the city, and Chase was grateful. He figured that they would simply forget about the events of the night before, and he’d be grateful for that too, except he’d forgotten that Tommy was only gentle sometimes, and most times he was a little wicked and a lot persistent, and that he was not good at letting things go.
They sat down on a hillside across the street from the museum, using an old blanket Tommy kept in the trunk of his car to keep the wet lawn from seeping through their jeans. The quiet between them was peaceful, and Chase was suddenly so fucking grateful that he didn’t feel compelled to fill it with noise like he did with Mercy that he felt a burning behind his eyes.
“Tell me about when your mother died,” Tommy said out of the blue, and Chase’s breath stopped so quickly his vision almost went black. Tommy’s reassuring hand on his back was the only thing that let him pull in air, and he let out the breath shakily, without any sort of guarantee he’d have the wherewithal to repeat the action, no matter how necessary.
“Not much to—”
“Don’t bullshit me, Chase. Please. Man… I’m fighting ghosts here, okay? You won’t tell me anything and sometimes… last night was scary as fuck. You are always so careful about what you say, what comes out of your mouth. Last night it was like that wall just disintegrated—I swear to God, baby, you were speaking in tongues for a minute. And then… then when you finally spoke English, the things you said… how can I love you like this and not know these things?”
“Not important,” Chase mumbled, thinking about his father, yelling to break the door down. Thinking about the paramedics rushing in, checking on him, shining lights in his eyes, then wrapping him in a blanket and trying to take him out of the apartment to treat him for shock. Leave him the fuck here! Little faggot’s gonna have to toughen the fuck up if he wants to make it without his fucking mother!
Tommy’s hands were not soft. He lifted weights and did housework and garden work; he put a roof on his home and repaired window frames and dry rot. They were strong and bony and uncomfortable. So was their grip on Chase’s hand.
“Do not fucking bullshit me here, asshole. You pony up now or we go back to Sac and I drop you off and the next time we see each other is on the set, maybe.”
Chase looked at him, hurt beyond words. “Tommy!”
Tommy shook his head and pulled Chase’s hand to his lips. “I love you like I have not loved another human being ever, and if something is hurting you this bad, I need to fucking know the shape of it, do you hear me?”
“I….” Chase looked at him helplessly.
Go ahead. Take me back to Sac. Desert me. You should desert me. I’m a douche bag. This shit that I’m doing, making you be faithful, cheating on Mercy, deserting you—I’m a bad person. You deserve more.
Tommy leaned forward and feathered a touch across his forehead—a gentle touch from a man who didn’t specialize in those. It proved to be Chase’s undoing, because suddenly he craved that touch, that softness from this tense, taut-wire man.
“You gonna tell me?” Tommy asked quietly, and Chase nodded to buy time.
“I, uhm, found her,” he said after a minute. “She’d only partially closed the bathroom door. It was locked on the inside, and I saw the water running under the door and opened it and went in and closed it behind me.” He paused for a minute, wondering at why a six-year-old kid would close that door. Did he think she still needed privacy? “I don’t know why I did that,” he mumbled to himself. “It was a stupid thing to do.”
Again, that whisper across his forehead. “Chase, baby—how long were you there?”
Chase shrugged. “I dunno. I just sat in the water. The red water. I sang to her, because she was asleep and she always sang to me when I was asleep and I didn’t want to leave her alone.” He felt so detached, really, from the whole event. Like it didn’t mean anything to him when every spare synapse in his psyche was scrambling, trying to shore up the door that led to that spare white bathroom covered in blood and slam it shut.
Tommy’s arm came around his shoulders again, and they just sat there in the thin February sun.
“Who found you?” Tommy asked, and Chase shrugged.
“Victor had to come home eventually. I guess he had to call the fire department to bust down the door. He was pissed because he had to pay the landlord for it, and to replace the fucking carpet.” “Jesus, couldn’t she have offed herself and not wrecked the fucking carpet? And you, you little bastard, was there any way you could have turned off the goddamned faucet? You were in there for fucking hours!”
“Fucker.”
Suddenly Chase found himself in the unlikely position of defending his father. “I think,” he said thoughtfully, “that a lot of his bitching was trying to hide… I don’t know. His pain. His disappointment. He… he didn’t know how to say it. But I remember….” And he did. Oh God, he did. “He used to bring her flowers sometimes. He’d smile at her when he came home. He….” Was it true? Was it a story he was making up so the truth would be better? There’d been hurt on his father’s face when Chase had yelled at him over Chri
stmas—Chase hadn’t expected that. It made everything that followed that much more likely.
“Maybe sometimes he wasn’t such a bad fuckin’ guy,” Chase said after a minute, shocked as hell.
Tommy grunted, clearly not believing it, and kept his arm around Chase’s shoulders. There were no tears then, no grand epiphanies; they simply sat quietly and listened to the sounds of families running around the park. Eventually they left and Tommy took him to a tiny bistro with thick slices of roast beef and the tangiest gravy that Chase had ever tasted. That night Tommy kissed him and eased his way into Chase’s body so gently that when Chase came, his vision washed in white, not red, and it did for him what sex with Tommy always did for him: set him free and let him fly.
DRIVING home on Saturday was fun: they tested each other on movie trivia and recited song lines to see if the other one knew his shit. They stopped at the outlet stores again, and Tommy made Chase pierce both his ears and bought solid, square diamond studs for them. Chase looked and thought they looked good—male and not girlie at all.
Saturday night they made painful, aching, good-bye sort of love, and Chase woke up the next morning with Tommy’s cheek sliding on the back of his neck, stinging and wet with tears Tommy wouldn’t cop to, wouldn’t even let him see. Chase groaned, and Tommy thrust against him, naked and erect, and Chase was still open from the night before. Tommy slid inside him with enough friction to make Chase lose his mind, and Chase lifted his leg, threw it backward over Tommy’s hips, as Tommy thrust into him in a frenzy. They both came, and Chase was a mess—his own come was sprayed across his stomach and Tommy’s was sliding down between his cheeks. They showered together, quietly, the strain between them telling, and Tommy wouldn’t give Chase the washcloth. He washed Chase’s stomach, his neck, his back, even his balls, but he wouldn’t wash Chase’s backside.