by Amy Lane
But he couldn’t spend forever there, and he deliberately kissed his way down the center of Tommy’s chest, moving to the side to suckle a rose-colored nipple (colorless in the dark) into his mouth, and Tommy grunted and scrabbled in Chase’s short-cut hair for purchase, wanting to hold him there at the same time he wanted Chase to move. Chase didn’t want to move, though, wanted it slow, and when Tommy finally pushed him off, he only moved to Tommy’s other side. Tommy grunted.
“Jesus, Chase!”
“Want it to last!” Chase’s erection was tight in his new jeans, and he wanted to feel Tommy’s bare chest against his, but he didn’t want to let go of Tommy’s taste.
“Make it last while you’re fucking me!” Tommy ordered, pulling back and grabbing Chase’s jeans, dragging them down to his ankles. Chase was going commando—it had made being on the dance floor almost excruciating sometimes—and his cock flopped out and almost directly into Tommy’s mouth. Wet… wet, hot, smooth, with pressure around the crown and… oh God!
“Tommy!” he breathed. “You think I’m gonna last long enough to fuck you?”
Tommy pulled back and said, “You’d better!” while he shucked off his pants and toed off his shoes and socks with movements so smooth they were almost preternatural. Chase scrambled to catch up, shucking his pants and shoes off and then bending to get rid of his socks. He left his shirt on, mostly because Tommy was bent over the bed, rifling through the end table with his ass in the air, and it was begging and needy and Chase needed it right back. Chase was behind him, grinding up against Tommy’s crease before Tommy could find the lubricant, and Tommy’s next breath sounded like a sob.
“You got it?” Chase asked, and Tommy said, “No, dammit! Where the fuck is—oh you bastard!”
Chase was tonguing him, and he was salty and musky, because he hadn’t just come out of the shower, but Chase didn’t care. It was Tommy, concentrated Tommy, and Chase licked him with a flat tongue again and again until Tommy screamed “Arggh!” into the pillow and almost clocked Chase on the head with the lubricant.
Chase pulled back and dumped lube on his cock, shivering because it was cold, and then drizzled a little on Tommy’s asshole while Tommy howled into the pillow again. Chase couldn’t wait anymore. He wanted to, he wanted to make it forever, but he couldn’t. He positioned himself and pushed, and Tommy was so soft inside, grainy like satin, locked tight around his shaft like a fist.
“Oh God!” Tommy groaned and Chase couldn’t ease his way in anymore, he had to snap his hips forward with as much thrust as he had. “Yes!” Tommy reached back and stroked himself and Chase pulled back and thrust again, almost angry but mostly passionate, mostly wanting to claim Tommy, possess him, make him never ever doubt that no matter who else Chase fucked, no matter who else he kissed, it was Tommy, Tommy alone, who could make Chase this crazy, make Chase need this much.
He was needy and on the edge, and he pounded into Tommy like fucking him through the mattress would save both their lives. He heard Tommy shout, felt Tommy’s sphincter lock so tight around his cock that Chase wasn’t sure he could come. Tommy sobbed and released, and Chase angled his hips and nailed Tommy’s prostate to milk that orgasm for as much as they could get. Tommy groaned again, and Chase continued, fucking until sweat rolled down his face and his breath came in pants and he was seeing black behind his eyes in the effort not to come.
“Please, Chase!” Tommy sobbed. “Please… God, please, baby, let me feel you come!”
“Geeeaaaaawwwwwwwwdddddd!” He poured into Tommy, spasming, coming, pulsing, his vision going blank and his bones going liquid as he collapsed on top of Tommy, bearing them both to the mattress.
He caught his breath and went to roll off, but Tommy made a sound of protest.
“I’m crushing you,” he said apologetically.
“Crush me,” Tommy murmured. “Crush me. Just don’t leave me. Just don’t leave me.”
I’d die first. “Love you.” I can’t promise anything. “I’ll love you forever.” Except that. He wasn’t sure if Tommy noticed that just like he never said, “I love you” to Mercy, he never promised tomorrow in Tommy’s arms.
But Tommy noticed. Later, in the bathtub, he laid back in Chase’s arms, both of them drowsing in water scented with something sharp and male and bubbly.
“Couldn’t you lie to me,” he said, sadness saturating his tone like that sexy, male smell saturated the air. “At least once? Couldn’t you lie to me about forever?”
“No,” Chase said, wrapping his arms around Tommy’s shoulders a little tighter. “Because I keep hoping I’ll have the balls to mean it someday, and I want you to know it’s real.”
“God, I hate you.”
Chase sighed, wishing it was true. “You hate that you can’t hate me,” he said resignedly. “Sometimes I do too.”
But the bitter mood sweetened as they crawled into bed together. Chase nuzzled the back of Tommy’s neck and Tommy all but purred.
“Mercy was your first sex, right?” he said, his voice soft with sleep. Chase was too tired to even startle.
“Yeah.”
“And your first guy was Dex, but that was on set, right?”
“You know that.”
“Then I’m really your first lover, aren’t I? I’m the first person you’ve ever loved that you’ve had sex with, aren’t I?”
Chase smiled against Tommy’s skin. “You’re my only lover, Tommy. Don’t doubt that, okay?”
“You too.”
“Love you.”
“Love you back.”
They had to sleep then, and for a few hours, their lives were perfect.
Crashing
THE tall blond boy was on all fours, in a sixty-nine with an uncircumcised boy with a soul patch on his chin. A big, burly, brown-haired giant of a boy fucked the blond guy from behind. The sounds coming from the blond boy’s throat were not quite human. The dark-haired one with his cock in the blond guy’s mouth gave a shout from below, and the camera zoomed in on blondie’s face as he let come slip from his lips while he tried to swallow, and got creamed across the cheeks from his sixty-nine partner’s final blast. He groaned again, his noises so raw and real the other guys echoed them. Sixty-nine buddy was out of his mind, gibbering, “Please, please, please, please….”
The blond guy was just gibbering. Half words were coming out, but every time the man behind him plunged harder and deeper into his asshole, they stopped, and what was left was a keening sound, almost eerie in how much it yearned. Sixty-nine-buddy groaned and rolled, getting out of the way, and the blond boy was still quivering, his movements so out of control it was obvious he didn’t even realize his buddy was gone. Blond guy let out a howl, his hand jerking his cock in painful bursts, and shot cream all over his hand, his wrist, the bedspread. The guy behind him said, “Oh fuck!” before pulling out, ripping off the condom and pumping himself to a quick, almost painful spatter on the blond guy’s back.
The blond guy was still howling, still keening. He pumped himself some more, lubricated by honest-to-god come, the thick, white kind, and his entire body jerked and spasmed as he came again.
“God, Kane, he’s still coming!” said the guy in back, and Kane had gotten up on the bed by now and was supporting the blond boy’s head against his own dropped shoulder.
“Chance, buddy, you still with me?”
Chance kept pumping, and his body kept quivering, and his hands came out from under him and he lay there, his face buried in Kane’s chest as he twitched involuntarily on the bed.
“God, Ethan, he’s still coming!”
And he was. Kane rolled him to his side a little and Ethan grabbed the still-erect cock almost gently. The camera zoomed in on Chance’s cock and it gave one last jerk and spit a final wad on Ethan’s hand.
Kane’s voice was still softly crooning, “Chance? Chance, man? You with me?” as the scene went black.
CHASE came to in the shower, feeling sick to his stomach and out of it, while Tommy he
ld him tight against his chest and murmured shit that didn’t make any sense in his ear.
“Tommy?” Tommy shouldn’t be there. God, Chase had pulled out his total bastard to make sure Tommy didn’t have to waste himself on Chase’s worthless ass anymore.
“God, Chase—you’re so fucking scary when you do that.”
Helpless tears started leaking out of the creases of Chase’s eyes. “I’m so sorry. So sorry. I didn’t want you to be hurt anymore. I wanted you to….”
If I say ‘move on’, I’ll throw up.
“You can’t even say it,” Tommy snapped. “You’re no more convincing now than you were a month ago.”
Chase started to cry softly, clutching Tommy around the waist, weak with confusion and aftermath, emotional in a way he never let himself be.
“I can handle anything,” he choked. “I can let her touch me, I can live without you, I just need to know you’re okay. I wasn’t there when you weren’t okay. I wasn’t there. I wasn’t there. I wasn’t….”
Tommy sank to his knees in the shower and Chase went with him, sobbing softly on Tommy’s shoulder, completely unable to pull himself back together.
MERCY managed to drag Victor to two of Chase’s home games that season—Chase was never sure how. They had awkward conversations over pizza afterwards, where Victor would praise him extravagantly for being a jock and say things like, “It’s too bad you gotta take all those classes to play the game.” Chase managed to be on his best behavior for most of that. He made conversation, talked about the game, avoided talking about Donnie or Kevin or any of the shit that would make Victor go off. They’d take Victor home and Mercy would look up at Chase luminously, telling him how proud she was.
Making love to her on those nights was sort of a penance, like a reward for lying about not hating the old man anymore, punishment for letting the world think his heart was anywhere near at peace.
So Mercy saw two more home games, and that made Chase happy.
Tommy saw every one of the other twelve, with or without the other guys. Most of the time it was with—Dex, in particular, came out with him a lot, since Dex was newly single.
Chase never asked, but he suspected that Dex was to Tommy as Donnie was to Chase, except Tommy and Dex probably had fewer secrets. He thought about being jealous, but he couldn’t. Tommy had promised. Dex had apologized. And Dex looked so damned lonely without Scott. Who was Chase to keep the two of them from being friends? Didn’t he have enough neuroses without adding insane jealousy into the mix?
Besides. Tommy wouldn’t do that again. Not to him. Chase sometimes thought it would be easier on them both if he would.
In the summer, when Mercy still worked but Chase didn’t have school, they often ended up spending days together before Mercy got home. They worked out with the other guys from Johnnies, and if Chase didn’t have anything going with Donnie (which he did at least once or twice a week) then it was the two of them, Chase and Tommy, playing video games, volunteering at the local pet shelter, working on Tommy’s house, driving to Folsom Lake or the Sacramento River to swim. Sometimes the guys would come with them, and once or twice they even went with Donnie and Kevin and Alejandro. But, more often than not, it was the two of them, having a plan, even if it was just sitting around the house and watching television, twining their lives together without escape.
Tommy had been in the Johnnies stable for three years and his toys were infinitely superior to Chase’s, but as Chase continued to make a film or a set of still shots about every four weeks, he had enough money to upgrade. Mercy didn’t really notice—and when she did, she didn’t care. They were comfortable, they were happy—she worked her job, Chase went away for a week a month—to her, it was a fair trade-off.
So when Tommy took him to go buy the newest, best, most amazing video game system, Chase talked about it unabashedly, and Kane and Dex ended up going with them to pick it out after two hours at the gym.
“So this one, right?” Kane insisted, hopping on one of the models. It was his third in as many minutes, and Chase and Tommy grimaced.
“Not that one,” Chase said seriously. “Don’t you read consumer reports? Man, that one’s games are the lamest in the industry. No, if we’re getting one, we’re getting the wireless remote and the—what?”
Kane was tilting his head back and pretending to sleep, tongue extended, eyes rolled in his head. Dex took advantage of his pose and reached under his arms to tickle him, and Kane yelped loudly and doubled up, protecting his vulnerable pits.
“Serves you right!” Tommy crowed. “Man, you buy a new setup like twice a year, because you don’t look shit up! You’ve finally got a guy who does the research because he thinks it’s cool, and you’re gonna blow him off?”
Kane blinked and straightened up warily, casting a dark look at an unrepentant (and laughing his ass off) Dex. “Yeah, yeah. I forget the guy’s got a brain, so frickin’ sue me.” He came up behind Chase and smacked his ass, getting a big, lascivious handful. “What can I say? I’m checking out his other ass-ets, right?”
Chase rolled his eyes and pulled up a corner of his mouth. “That’s harassment,” he said, and Kane started laughing again, forgetting Tommy’s little lecture and bounding away to the next big thing. Dex watched him and pinched the bridge of his nose theatrically.
“Needs. A. Keeper.”
Chase and Tommy bust out laughing and Tommy said, “You volunteering?”
Dex grimaced. “Naw, man. I’m still on a string.”
Tommy and Chase met eyes, because Chase had opened his mouth to say he needed to cut that string, and Tommy knew it. They hadn’t had another fight since the one in the rain, but Chase had said, on more than one occasion, that he did not want to be the anchor weighing Tommy down.
Tommy said that he’d be the buoy keeping Chase above water, and as, more and more, these days with Tommy seemed to mean as much as the nights, Chase had to agree. But he hated himself more every day for leaning on Tommy when he had no right, for keeping Tommy from seeing someone who had the balls to be out and proud and love Tommy forever and ever. Maybe not as much as Chase did, but better, because it was unafraid.
So Chase bit his tongue about watching Dex break his heart, and Tommy’s expression grew dark and grim. Dex looked at them both and sighed, then went to stop Kane, who was juggling with the DVD cases to the complete dismay of the overworked clerk who could be heard saying, “Please sir… could you not do that?” while Kane shined him on.
“They’re talking about coming to my place when we’re done,” Chase said hopefully, and Tommy closed his eyes.
“It’s logical,” he said, his voice completely neutral. “They’re all invested now—they want to know if that’s the one they should get.”
It was true. Chase couldn’t believe he was the only male his age who had ever heard of consumer reports. He’d read the damned publication like the frickin’ Bible before he bought Mercy her car.
“I was thinking some beer—’
“Since you’re of age,” Tommy interrupted dryly, and Chase blushed. Tommy would be turning twenty-four in November. It wasn’t a huge age difference, but Chase wondered if Tommy thought all of his fucked-up bullshit was because he was younger. Chase hadn’t ever felt young in his entire life.
“Yeah, and some pizza and snacks and shit. You, uhm… I’ll ask you now, so you can say no—”
“No,” Tommy said softly, meeting Chase’s eyes with a sort of angry misery. “No, I do not want to come and see the apartment where you lie to your girlfriend about who you are and what you need and what sort of monsters are buried in your brain. I can’t think of a single more painful thing on the planet right now than going to your apartment and playing videos.”
And with that Tommy stalked off to go buy one of the games that Chase was going to get, so they could hook up their systems over the net and play each other that way. It was stupid—a totally juvenile—trivial pastime, but the thought that they couldn’t sit next to e
ach other on the couch and play did something serious and irrevocable to Chase’s heart.
You’d better do right by him.
Chase wasn’t sure if it was Donnie’s voice or his own echoing in his head, but it was getting increasingly angry.
Dex and Kane had driven to the gym together, so Chase piled into Dex’s car (a black Acura—leather seats, very sweet), so Tommy could go home. They had their little video party, and Chase called Donnie, and Kevin showed up with him. (’Yandro begged off, and Donnie rolled his eyes. Apparently he didn’t really get video games, which was heresy in Chase’s world.) Donnie’s eyes widened slightly when he saw the two guys from Johnnies, but he didn’t contradict Chase when he told Kevin they worked construction and road jobs with him. Dex raised an ironic eyebrow, but Kane didn’t have an ironic anything. He just nodded earnestly like there wasn’t a way in hell that could possibly be a lie, and by the time Mercy got there, their first real college party had hit its stride.
Mercy walked in and waved to the guys, getting some catcalls and whistles as she came in. She laughed gaily, grabbed a piece of pizza and some beer out of the refrigerator, and then called next for the video game. It was official. She was one of the guys.
But Chase was playing when she called next, and in spite of how happy she was—and how sweet the guys were to her, making room for her, getting a coaster (!) for her beer—he still made an effort to zag instead of zig in the next game, losing when he should have won.