Poster Boy

by Anne Tenino

  “Ignore it,” Jock whispered, working his leg between Toby’s, then using his knee to push Toby’s thighs apart. Toby rolled onto his stomach and hugged the sheets, letting Jock touch him wherever he wanted. Kisses down his spine, palms tracing his flanks to his ass cheeks. There Jock kneaded him a few seconds before placing his fingers on Toby’s tailbone, then working them into his crack slowly, searching.

  “Do you want to fuck me again?”

  “Yeah,” Jock said into the skin of his back. “I’ll go easier on you this time.” He followed the line of Toby’s shoulder blade with rough lips.

  Toby shivered. Did he want easier?

  Jock wasn’t practiced or suave or smooth; he was exploratory and fascinated. Just like last night, but devoting more time to it this morning. Spreading Toby’s ass open to touch everything carefully from his balls up, feeling it all out as if he were blind. By the time he’d fetched the lube from the floor and slicked up his fingers, Toby was going insane. His whole body tensed up, hips hovering inches over the bed, waiting for Jock to push inside him. “You don’t need to work up to it,” he said. “Just fuck me.”

  Jock groaned, so softly Toby didn’t think he knew he’d done it, and then he forgot about it when the condom wrapper crinkled.

  He could feel Jock’s restraint—his attempt to “go easy”—when Jock kissed his lower back, drawing a design with his tongue right at the top curve of one of his cheeks before pressing the head of his dick against Toby’s hole, pushing in carefully, by centimeters, taking forever to enter him fully, then rocking against him, gradually building a rhythm.

  This might be the end of him, death by orgasm. And it was nearly too much, having Jock fuck him slowly, taking his time and being careful. “Let me know if it hurts,” he murmured in Toby’s ear at one point. “I did you so rough last night.”

  Toby gurgled, angling his hips up more. Oh I know, believe me.

  But gentle wasn’t an easily accessible part of Jock’s nature, and it wasn’t long before he was thrusting harder, straddling Toby’s pelvis and drilling into him, knuckles white where he gripped the bed next to Toby’s face. “Are you gonna come?” he gasped.

  Toby groaned and shoved his hand under his body, gripping his dick even though he barely needed it. “Do it, baby.”

  They came together, Toby as tuned in to Jock’s orgasm as his own. Jock came in waves inside him, each one heating Toby’s insides up even more. As if the friction from Jock riding his ass hadn’t been hot enough. Making his moan build to a wail by the time Jock shoved home one last time, grinding against him.

  Gentleness came easier to Jock afterward. He kissed Toby’s back and caressed Toby’s ass muscles, then pulled out, rolling onto his side, leaving Toby unprotected in the breeze as sweat dried on his skin and he shivered.

  “Okay?” Jock asked in his ear, arm resting on his back.

  “Very much okay.”

  “You called me baby.”

  “I did?” Was that a bad thing?

  “Yeah,” Jock murmured, rolling closer to rub his leg against the backs of Toby’s.

  He didn’t sound horribly upset about it.

  Toby turned his head just in time to see Jock’s eyes flutter closed, and watched him drift into sleep, lips parted, breathing softly. Wondering if Jock defined “relationship” the same way Toby did. He should ask, but looking at Jock right now, no worry or anger on his face, he didn’t care. Just having this was worth it. He’d go with the original plan: let things happen and see where they led.

  Jock had to share Toby with the guys again on Saturday. He resolved not to be too growly about it, but in the end it wasn’t that hard. He knew a part of Toby none of them ever would.

  On Friday afternoon, riding back to the gîte, Jock had told Toby about their history homework for the weekend, all while having a pretty good idea of what Toby’s reaction would be. As a matter of fact, the guys had asked him to broach the subject, and they were now all conspicuously silent, waiting for Toby’s reaction. At least, it seemed conspicuous to Jock, but Toby was too annoyed by the news to notice.

  “What?” He jerked the wheel when he turned to stare at Jock, and had to refocus on the road to get back in their lane. It didn’t stop him from having a mini-rant, though. “That hack of a professor is sending you guys on a self-guided tour of Glanum? You can walk to it in five minutes from campus, and he can’t take you himself? Those self-guided tours are for tourists, not history students.”

  Jock didn’t point out that the average tourist was probably better-versed in history than two-thirds of the guys in the van.

  Besides, Toby wasn’t done with his rant. “I can’t believe that prick.” He threw one hand up in the air. “Well if he’s not going to do his job, I guess I’ll have to do it for him. You’re all going to tour one of the finest examples of a provincial Roman city in the region, and you’re going to have a real fucking guide.”

  “Yay!” Gomer yelled from the back. “We’re going on a family outing.”

  Toby glanced at Jock again, eyebrows raised and chin tilted. In response to Jock’s smirk he rolled his eyes, but he couldn’t hide his smile.

  For dinner they all ended up going down to the village bar. Everyone except Danny, that was, who’d claimed to have a date. Most of the guys didn’t make any comment about that, except Noah. “I wonder who he has a date with?” he mused after Danny walked out.

  The silence that answered him seemed as conspicuous as the earlier silence in the van, but Noah picked up on it about as well as Toby had. Jock and Toby laughed about it later, in Toby’s cabin, lying naked on the bed with the blankets tangled around their legs. “I can’t believe the second smartest frat boy is the only one who hasn’t figured out about Danny and Madame B.”

  “Second smartest?” Jock teased. “Who’s the first?”

  Toby kissed him. “You are, smexy.”

  Jock would be lying if he said it didn’t make him feel good to hear someone like Toby say he was smart.

  Glanum turned out to be as cool as Jock remembered from when he’d visited as a kid. He’d fought off at least twice as many invaders there as at Les Baux, and he’d done it all on his own, mostly from a small hill overlooking the former town.

  The guys seemed impressed as Toby took them up the town’s main street, pointing out details left in the ruins that showed how the houses became more opulent the closer they got to the center. “All the major civic spaces are in this compact area, and they’ve all been excavated. It’s not that Glanum was a particularly impressive city, although it was very important—”

  “Oh! Oh!” Gomer jumped up and down, hand raised high in the air. When Toby looked at him, he said, “Because it was along a major trade route, right below an easily defendable pass over the mountains, right? Right?”

  Toby smiled. “Excellent, Gomer. You get a gold star.”

  Gomer beamed like Toby’d just given him his own basket of Madame’s croissants he didn’t have to share with anyone.

  The morning went on like that, with Gomer and Ricky at the forefront of their group, and every time one of them would excitedly announce some detail, like which temple they were standing in front of, and whether those walls were Roman or dated from earlier, Toby’d praise them like third graders and then catch Jock’s eye, smiling with him.

  It was fun, as much as Jock had expected to just suffer through it. Madame showed up in her car with a picnic lunch and they ate on the hill overlooking the ruins where Jock had fought off barbarians ten years before.

  In the present day, the other guys spent most of an hour after lunch playing anti–beer terrorist agent. “They are such freaks,” he said to Toby as they watched the bros work their way down the hill, running crouched over from shrub to boulder to shrub, pausing behind them to send each other hand signals.

  “They’re obsessed with this thing.” Toby shook his head wonderingly. “I almost hope beermageddon’s a real thing.”

  “I’m kinda hoping that too
, for their sakes. I mean, think of the crushing disappointment if they ever figure out they aren’t really some kind of antiterrorism task force.” Jock waited for Toby’s laugh. When it didn’t come, he turned to see Toby’s brow wrinkling up.

  “Do you think I should put a stop to it?”

  “You really think you could?”

  He snorted, then winced as Julian tripped, somersaulting his way down the hill. Fortunately, a small tree trunk stopped him. “God I hope we don’t have to go back to the clinic,” he muttered.

  Julian hopped up from the ground, arms in the air, shouting, “I’m fine guys. Don’t worry, I’m fine. I planned that.”

  Jock laughed. “Yeah, that’s what a real spy would do, because it’s stealthy.”

  This time Toby laughed with him. “Did you notice who’s not playing commando?”

  “Danny.”

  Toby smirked. “I saw them go over the other side of the hill together. Supposedly he was helping her put the stuff back in her car, but they seem to have misjudged which direction the parking lot was in.”

  Jock lay back on his elbows and lifted his chin, closing his eyes and soaking in the sun—one of the best things about this trip, in his opinion. They sky here really was different. “He’s really into her.”

  “It’s like you said—he’s gotta be, or it wouldn’t have happened at all. Unless he has a fetish or something.”

  Jock grimaced. “What, like a sagging skin fetish?”

  “Stop.” Toby threw his palm up, inches from Jock’s face. “Seriously, I can’t hear any more.”

  Laughing again, Jock reached for him, just about ready to pull Toby down onto the grass next to him, when he remembered where they were and froze. Toby never said anything, but Jock knew it got to him that Jock had some weird phobia about touching him in front of others. He’d sorta gotten over the guys seeing him touch Toby, but this was public. With, like, people.

  Toby’s gaze was locked on Jock’s hand, hanging there in midair, inches from Toby’s arm. Then he met Jock’s eyes. “It’s okay,” he said.

  Jock dropped back onto his elbows, feeling anything but okay. “Sorry.”

  Toby stretched out next to him. Not too close, but close enough to speak softly. “You can only do what you’re comfortable with, baby.”

  Fuck it. Jock did it before he could think it through, leaning forward and kissing Toby quickly, his heart exploding in his ears, drumming away. He couldn’t stop himself from glancing around, but they were basically alone on this hill, everyone around them focused on the ruins or the freaks skulking in the bushes.

  “Hey,” Toby said, drawing Jock’s attention back to him. He didn’t say anything else, but his smile told Jock everything.

  Now Jock felt far more than okay. And he felt as if he’d done something substantial. Just as sharing wasn’t in his nature, neither was hiding, and he’d finally broken through whatever had stopped him from doing it.

  This time he pulled Toby closer to him with less hesitation. Not doing anything other than giving him another small kiss, because making out here would be a little beyond his comfort zone. But still, anyone looking at them had to know they were more than friends.

  Jock would own up to a little anxiety about that, but mostly he just felt freer.

  “Uh-oh,” Toby muttered, then shot up onto his feet, skidding down the gravel path. Seconds later, Jock heard screeching.

  The fratbros strike again. He got up and followed, just in case Toby needed some muscle or something.

  It wasn’t as bad as it could have been. Just a simple case of Gomer jumping out from behind a bush at the wrong moment and scaring a group of nuns touring the site. It said something about their situation with these guys that a bunch of sisters in black habits screeching and clinging to each other didn’t seem like much of a problem.

  Things got a little weirder when Danny showed up, panting and towing Madame B by the hand, then tried to “help Tobes” by explaining about the beer terrorist thing. “See, it’s like this: the frat boy’s relationship to beer is as the nun’s relationship to God—”

  “Okay, that’s it, everyone in the van!” Toby started yelling, clapping his hands. He dragged Danny away with the help of Madame B, shouting “Désolé” at the pack of nuns, squawking and running around like penguins.

  Just another outing with the fratbros.

  Toby never thought he’d describe his life—or any period of it—as idyllic. It simply wasn’t a word he thought would apply to the modern way of living, for anyone. But the next week was best described as exactly that. He hung on to the moment, living in it, because they were in one of the most beautiful, evocative places in the world (that he’d been, although scores of artists agreed with him) and he had the most perfect bed partner he’d ever imagined.

  Or not imagined, as the case happened to be.

  They fell into a routine that worked for them. As the days got longer and hotter, it was as if they had more time to laze around in bed. He spent his days in Saint-Rémy, working on his almost-finished thesis and sometimes meeting Jock for lunch, and in the afternoons they’d all swim, and before long he and Jock would make their way to the cabanon. Sometimes they’d join the guys for dinner, but often not. Mostly they indulged in bed sports, and talking.

  And many times in the morning, Jock would suck him off. He could give an amazing blowjob. Toby’s favorite way to wake up, ever, bar none, was when he did so with his dick in Jock’s mouth.

  Even better, Jock made noises. Low grunts that vibrated the head of Toby’s cock, and soft, higher pitched moans. Noises that were a constant affirmation that he wanted this. Wanted to get Toby off in his mouth.

  Once Toby did, Jock would haul himself up the bed while the orgasm still echoed through Toby’s nuts, grabbing Toby’s hand and holding it to his dick. Toby obeyed the implied command, wrapping his fingers around Jock’s shaft and holding it against his stomach. Often Jock came less than a minute after Toby did, shooting until he’d gummed up Toby’s body hair, not ready to stop until he was limp in Toby’s hand.

  Then he’d roll off, breathing in gasps, working his arm under Toby’s neck, using one huge palm spread across Toby’s back to pull him close, until Toby took full advantage and wrapped himself around his frat boy.

  “You like that,” he murmured into the skin of Jock’s shoulder after their blow- and handjob session the Friday morning after their trip to Glanum.

  Jock squeezed him. “Like what?”

  “Giving head.”

  “Yeah.” Jock ran a hand down his back and up again. “No guy is more under my control than when I have my mouth on his dick.”

  He couldn’t argue with that. He didn’t like thinking about it that way, but he couldn’t argue with it.

  “You’re the first guy I’ve ever done that for without a condom,” Jock went on, chin grazing Toby’s forehead.

  Toby did his best to hide his surprise, because he didn’t know if Jock understood how significant that was for him. At least that explained the look on Jock’s face the first couple times after he’d sucked Toby off.

  He closed his eyes and asked in his most casual voice, “I am? What do you think of the taste?”

  Jock shifted, rolling to face him, although still with his chin at Toby’s forehead. “If it wasn’t you, I probably wouldn’t have done it again after the first time.”

  He could understand—he’d sort of hated it at first, too. “It’s not like anyone’s clamoring for them to make ice cream that flavor.” But he did love the taste of Jock, for the same reason Jock kept letting Toby come in his mouth. Because it was him. Warm fuzzy.

  “There are people who’d love it, though,” Jock said. “They’d buy that ice cream by the gallon.”

  Toby nodded, hair catching in Jock’s chin stubble. “Smearing it on themselves and begging people to lick it off. I think we just started a whole new kink.”

  Jock laughed with him, then kissed Toby’s forehead.

  Such a boy
friend thing to do.

  “It’s not my kink. The way some guys go on, I was expecting something more like cotton candy and less like slimy baking soda.”

  Toby lifted his head. “Really?” He hated disappointing Jock.

  Jock smiled and used his finger to shift hair off Toby’s brow. “Not really, no. I mean, that’s what it tastes like to me, but I didn’t expect a night at the carnival.”

  “You don’t have to swallow, baby. I can warn you next time.” It was only polite, and who cared if it left him a little bit emotionally raw? More of that insecurity from the other day rearing its head. The whole conversation was a little too menacing to his carefully constructed shell of “now.”

  Jock cupped his face, oblivious to what was going on inside him, and stretched up to kiss his mouth. Using his perfect, poster boy lips to shape Toby’s, and his very assertive tongue to soothe Toby’s blip of emotional vulnerability. “But . . . doesn’t it seem like I should be able to suck off my boyfriend?” he asked when he was done. “I don’t have to like the taste, but I can like doing it for you, right?”

  Okay, fuck being casual and cool about this. Jock had to know that word was significant, right? He tangled his hands in Jock’s hair, holding him loosely while Jock continued to caress him. “Do you mean that?”

  Jock swallowed, eyes suddenly uncertain. “That you’re my boyfriend? Only if it’s all right with you.”

  Toby tightened his grip in Jock’s hair and pulled his head up. “It’s all right with me,” he said, just before kissing him.

  That weekend, Toby took the guys to Barbegal. He’d originally wanted to go with Jock only, but the guys whined if he and Jock went off alone too often, and they tended to get in trouble if left to themselves too long. Noah would sneak off with that girl from the village, which wouldn’t have been a big deal if it didn’t result in Turbo having some kind of competitive reaction and dragging whomever would go with him down to the village bar to try to “pick up chicks.” Toby had to impose a strict “buddy-system” rule for trips to the village, just from the fear of Turbo going too far someday. According to Danny’s reports and the occasional time he went down to the bar, Turbo was mostly the butt of a lot of local jokes. Fortunately, he couldn’t speak enough French to figure that out.