Fade In : A Tales of Bryant Novella #1 (Tales of Bryant Novellas)

by V. L. Locey

  “Are you looking for your scripts?” Caiden asked, exiting the world famous restaurant that called Bryant Park home. “Or just a nicer bathroom than the port-a-potties on set? I can highly recommend theirs.” He jerked his chin at the eatery behind him.

  “Did you find them, the scripts I mean.”

  He walked to me, huge takeout bag in hand, and nodded. “Polly did, and handed them to the new intern. Skinny guy, red hair, freckles, scared of me and Polly and Don. Oh, and the dogs. He’s scared of them as well.”

  I stumbled over a table that had been used for a mahjongg tournament earlier tonight. “You gave away my job?”

  Caiden sat down at the table with a sigh. I stood across from him, feeling as if my guts had been pulled out and tossed to the stage for the Shakespeare in the Park folks to wax poetic over.

  “You’re now a key grip under Wally, and above running stupid errands and rubbing oil on Don, which, if I’m being honest, made me kind of jealous…” He lifted a takeout container from the bag, opened it, and began cutting up whatever was inside.

  “I’m super confused.”

  He smiled up at me, making my stomach flip. “Look, Devon, I know this is awkward for you, the whole sleeping with the boss thing, so I’ve made it simpler. You now work under Wally, not me, and even though I will be the one paying you for this week, you’re technically now an employee of Muffin Top Films, which is a brilliant name for a production company given Wally’s cute little roll of chub.”

  My legs folded all by themselves. The park was still open, and people were enjoying the last few minutes of the movie being shown.

  “Thanks,” I murmured, my eyes darting over the families on the grass watching an old Love Bug movie. When I looked back at Caiden, he was staring at me, a small bite of what looked like a Reuben on his fork. “For everything. I know you’re trying to make this easier for me…”

  “Not just for you, for me as well. I’ve grown quite attached to you over this short amount of time. I want you to succeed in this business, and that takes connections. Also, if I can be a greedy gay bastard, now that you’re officially an employee of Muffin Top Films, it will free you up sexually.” He winked, then pulled his little square of rye, corned beef, and sauerkraut off his fork.

  “So, you’re saying I’ve been sexually repressed?” I asked, a laugh bubbling out of me despite how sad I was feeling. “Tell that to my dick because I’m pretty sure we’ve used it so hard it’s calloused like a pig snout.”

  He laughed around his food. “Ah, there’s a mental image I didn’t need, but yes. We have only a few days left, and I want you to be as unfettered by those adorable Corn Belt morals as possible. I have plans for you tonight when we get home, but for now, go find the new intern, Fred or George his name is, maybe Percy?”

  “Those are Weasley’s,” I pointed out as I got to my feet.

  “Right, well, he looks like one of them. Show him around a bit, pass along the bottle of Don’s baby oil, and then park your ass beside Wally for the rest of the night’s shoot. I’ll be here at this table when we’re done. Come find me.”

  “Okay, I will.” I wanted to kiss him, badly, but we were on the clock, so I kept my lips to myself and went off in search of a redheaded kid carting around a mountain of scripts.

  The night seemed to drag on forever. Don was having focus issues, the hellhounds weren’t hitting their marks, and it opened up and rained for about ten minutes, which set everything back as we worked to cover and protect all that expensive equipment. Caiden and I didn’t roll into his place until after four in the morning. We were both too pooped to pop, so we peeled off our clothes, stepped out of them, and fell into bed. I did manage to find the energy to let Lou know I’d need to switch with Sandy and come in at noon. He’d hired Sandy to help fill in when classes started back up in August. And also, she was his niece and needed a job. Having help would be a blessing. I closed out the chat window, rolled to my side, and fell asleep before I could even wish Caiden pleasant dreams.

  My alarm went off at ten, interrupting one hell of a sexually graphic dream. Someone was pressed up behind me, rubbing his hard dick into my ass and pinching my right nipple with just the right amount of pressure. When I groaned, I slipped from the in-between of sleeping and wakefulness to discover it wasn’t a dream at all.

  “About time you woke up,” Caiden whispered beside my ear. “Roll over onto your belly.”

  I wasn’t sure what he was up to, as I had always topped, but my dick was hard, and I had two hours to kill until I went into work. I stretched out on my stomach, arms folded, cheek resting on my forearms, legs slightly gaped.

  He slid a leg over my ass then settled comfortably on my backside. I drew in a sleepy, sated breath and smelled peaches. “Luis bring food in?” I mumbled groggily.

  “No, it’s this massage oil. Now hush and let me give you what I wanted to give you last night.” He started low on my back, right above my ass, and began kneading the muscles into soft putty.

  “Ah, God,” I groaned in pleasure, his cock hot and hard between my buttocks.

  “I know our time is limited,” he said as his fingers bit into my flesh, working and rolling, sliding up slowly until his slippery fingers were working the tension from my shoulders and neck. His chest brushed my back. “And I’ve done nothing but take from you. I don’t want you to remember me as a greedy pig.”

  “I’d never think of you that way. I enjoy topping.”

  He pressed a kiss to my ear then sat back, his fingers moving over the knobs of my spine. “I know you do, but I want to give you something instead of you giving to me. Now, hush. Let me love you.”

  I nodded, wishing this wasn’t all due to our own personal ‘The End’ racing toward us.

  The back rub went on and on until I was hovering on the edge of dropping back off to sleep. Then he moved, leaving his seat on my ass to kneel beside me.

  “Lift your ass.” He took my hips in his hands, levering my ass up while my head remained on my forearms. “Nice, yes, damn you have a delicious asshole.” He shifted around on the bed, easing between my legs. My dick throbbed in anticipation of what might happen next. Eyes closed, breath skittish, I prepared myself for his cock. What I got instead was a hot, wet tongue gliding down the crack of my ass.

  “Shit!” I gasped, my back arching and my balls drawing up on their own accord. “Caiden…”

  “Mm, yes, I was right. You do have a delicious asshole.” He ran his tongue over my hole again and again and again, as if he were licking a melting ice cream cone, his speed increasing, my moans ramping up as well. Then he speared my hole, massaging the tight pucker with the tip of his tongue. I cried out. He hummed against my entrance. My balls tingled. “So tasty.”

  He moved down to my nuts, sucking on them sloppily. Spittle coated my balls and ran down my cock, a cock he never touched, the fucker.

  “No, do not touch your dick. I get that at the end. That’s my reward.” And his tongue laved a wet path back to my hole. “I bought you something. Do you want it now?”

  “Yes, yes, yes,” I panted, pressing back toward the hot puffs of his words.

  He pressed a kiss to my opening. “Stay in that position. Do not move, and do not touch your cock.” I made some sort of sound of agreement. The bed rolled a bit as he left it, then returned a few seconds later. His thigh brushed mine. I heard the snick of a lube bottle opening and shuddered. He chuckled, dribbled some lube over my asshole, and slid his thumb into me. A grunt escaped me. I rocked back for more, but his short digit was lacking in depth. “Do you like this? Would you like something more? Something bigger? Your ass is incredibly tight.”

  “More, yes, more,” I huffed, reaching under the pillows for the edge of the headboard.

  “Your wish is my command,” he purred throatily, popped his thumb out, and inserted two longer fingers into me. A low, soft keen fell from me. “More?”

  “Yes, more,” I begged, canting my hips. He removed his fingers then ki
ssed a path over my left ass cheek, nibbling and sucking love marks as he rubbed my hole with something round and cool.

  “Have you ever used a prostate stimulator?” he asked then slowly fed a long, curved device into me. My knees nearly buckled when it rubbed over that knot of nerves deep within me.

  “No…ahh…shit fuck uhm shit mmm,” I answered, my garbled reply pleasing him if the depth of his soft laugh was any indication.

  “Oh, my sweet, you are going to love it.” He eased the smooth rubber toy out then back in. My legs began to tremble harder with each bump of the round head against my prostate. “I’m going to turn it on low, then I’m going to suck your dick down my throat. I want you to fuck my mouth just as hard as you do my ass.”

  “Ungh,” I ground out as the first pulse of vibration touched off an indescribable sensation deep inside me. Caiden fell to the bed on his back and wiggled under me. Ass muscles convulsed, my fingers tightened around the edge of the mattress, and Caiden’s lips found my cockhead.

  “Mm, so much precum,” he whispered, then cleaned it off with his tongue. I thrust between his lips hard. He gagged then purred like a contented cat, his hands slapping my ass to pull me deeper into this throat. I fucked his throat like a man possessed, the steady vibrations on my sweet spot hurtling me toward orgasm with embarrassing speed. I heard his groan as I spilled my load into his throat. He coughed and swallowed, his fingers biting into my ass to keep me where I was. Wave after wave washed over me as I pumped my hips furiously. Caiden moaned and writhed, rolling his head to the side to pull free from my cock. Cum spurt out of me. He gave me a shove then scrambled over me, using my spunk and his spit as lubrication, he sat down on my dick.

  “Fuck!” I ground my heels into the bed, thrust upward, and felt him tighten around me. It was all just too much, his ass, the pulsations against my prostate…

  “Yes, damn it, give me every fucking inch of that dick. Yes, ah fuck yes.” Hands splayed on my chest, he rode me like a maniac until he shot all over my belly and his own hand. His body melted over mine a moment later, his lips sliding across my cheek to linger by my ear as he huffed and puffed. “Jesus…so good…”

  “I can’t…breathe,” I gasped.

  “Sorry.” He squirmed around until his weight was braced on his arms.

  “No, not you…fuck, that thing…” I shivered and reached for the simulator but couldn’t reach it with him in the way.

  “Ah, babe, let me.” He eased himself off my cock then reached between my legs. The steady throbbing stopped. I sighed and wet my dry lips as he slowly removed what was probably my new favorite toy. He collapsed down beside me, his arm lying over my chest, and kissed a line up and down my bicep, taking time to nuzzle his face into the hair under my arm. “Forgive me for forgetting. I know how intense that becomes.”

  “Fine, so fine.” I rolled my head to place a kiss to his knotted brown hair. “I think I might have died and come back.”

  He sniggered into my armpit. “Had a moment of divinity, did you?”

  “I think so.” My eyelids were heavy, my body humming and weighty. “My parents would be pleased to know that I’d been that close to God.”

  He lay still beside me, his nose resting on my pit, his ragged breathing calming. “Are you not generally close to God?”

  I felt the late June sun warming the side of my face and legs. “Are you?”

  He moved around so that he was facing me, his cheek on my bicep. “I became an atheist a long time ago, so no, I’m not close to God as the organized religions see him. I’m more of a wandering spiritualist, finding my divinity in the movement of the earth, the joy of nature, the caress of a hand over hard, male flesh.”

  His hand moved over my chest. I smiled. “Yeah, same here. I mean, I think that’s where I’m at right now. I can’t handle the hatred of the churches. My parents literally threw me out with nothing and called it the will of God. If that’s their God, then I really don’t want any part of him.”

  He rubbed my pectoral. “I understand your disgust and pain. My family had some issues with my being gay as well, but we were an artsy sort of intellectual unit. My father and mother were science-based hippies, so they were cool with my sexuality. The grandparents had a rougher time, but they did at least come to accept me. Some of the things they say, well-intended they may be, make me shudder.”

  I let his words sink in. We’d never really touched on such personal things before. “My father is the worst. He hates me. My mom…” I opened my eyes to stare at the sun-bright ceiling. “She’s not so set, but she’s also too weak to stand up to my father’s dictates. I worry about her there alone with him. He’s a fucking authoritarian. It’s his way or the highway sort of bully.”

  “Maybe if you reached out to her, she might be willing to meet you halfway?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe. I’m not sure I’m over the fact that she stood there crying but said nothing when I was thrown, and I mean literally thrown, out of the house.”

  He patted my chest. “I get that, I do. Healing takes time.”

  “Mm, yeah. Man, I want to go back to sleep so bad,” I whined just as a tap-tap-tap at the bedroom door occurred. Caiden groaned in misery.

  “I know you two are awake. I hear the throats of pleasure opening wide!” Luis called through the door. We both made crabby baby sounds but did manage to pull the covers over our bare asses before the door flew open, and Luis appeared in the doorway, grinning like a bear in a berry patch.

  “Ugh, you’re so yellow,” Caiden complained, burying his face in my armpit again.

  “Yes, I am yellow today because it is the sunniest day of the year. Now, up and out of bed! I need to strip the sheets I am sure, and I have foods ready for two hours now. The oatmeal is lumped.”

  I blinked at the man in the bright yellow shirt and shorts. He really was incredibly yellow. Even his dark hair had yellow streaks. So much yellow so early was cruel.

  “Okay, give us fifteen minutes,” Caiden said into my armpit hair. “Get the patio ready for breakfast.”

  “As if! It has been ready for two hours.” With that he made his exit, a little bell on one of his anklets tinkling softly as he walked out of the room.

  “He has issues with punctuality and lumpy oatmeal,” Caiden said then sighed as he shuffled around the bed, rolling over to pin me to the mattress then bite my neck playfully. We tussled around a bit, the sheets and covers slithering to the floor, and then made our way into the bathroom. He shaved and brushed his teeth while I showered, then we switched places. My scruffy face was left alone after he shouted to me that he liked my whiskers rubbing on his tender spots.

  I smiled at my reflection in the small round hole I’d made in the steam clinging to the mirror. If the man asked me to stand on my head naked in the fountain in Bryant Park, I would, just to see him smile.

  Amazing what a man in love will do.

  The sappy smile I’d had slipped a little as the one-two punch of my admission hit me on the jaw. I spun to stare at him, a fleshy shape behind misty glass. I knew that shape well though, I’d been in it and over it and on top and below it. I’d touched, tasted, and smelled it for close to two weeks. The small flaws were becoming familiar. The scar on his arm, the birthmark on his shoulder, the way his hair curled counterclockwise on the top of his head, the quirk of a smile, the huff of exasperation, the brisk commands at work, the soft dirty nothings in the dead of night. I’d come to know them all well. And I’d fallen in love with it, with them, with him.

  The water died off, and he stepped out of the shower, his skin moist and slick, pink from the heat. His gaze met mine, the cocksure smirk reshaping into a slim line of flat lips.

  “What’s wrong?” He grabbed a towel off a heated bar then began patting off his face and neck. When he met my gaze again I’d managed to swipe whatever worrisome look I’d been wearing away.

  “Nothing, I was just thinking about how much I was going to miss you today.”

  The cor
ner of those sinful lips curled. “We’ll meet at our table in Bryant Park after we get this final combat scene in the can. Please, let Don remember his lines tonight.” He glanced skyward, kissed his thumb, then held it to the sky. “If that man comes on set unprepared tonight, I might bitch slap the cow.”

  A shaky laugh burbled out of me. Not knowing what to do with myself, I scurried into the bedroom to get dressed. Caiden would be at least ten minutes getting his hair gelled, so I pulled on clothes that were mine yet not mine, new things Luis had brought in for me on Caiden’s dime. Feeling cheap and stupid and far too vulnerable, I yelled that I was going to go up and ran like a man with Satan’s minions on his heels up to the patio. Luis whipped around, brown eyes wide, when I exploded out of the door.

  “You scared me short of nine lives!” I balked at the chastisement, muttered an apology, and then walked past the table full of food to lean my elbows on the white fence and gaze out at the city. “Come and eat,” he beckoned, the ting of lids coming off platters reaching my ear to mingle with the whoop-whoop of an ambulance trying to break through midtown traffic. “I have beat the lumps smaller.”

  “I’m not hungry but thank you.”

  “Oh you, so polite.” He appeared at my side, going up on his bare toes to peek up at me. “I know you must be hungry. There was so much yelling this morning, both of you must be famish.”

  That brought a rush of heat to my face that made the warmth of the sun on my cheeks pale in comparison. Yeah, there had been yelling and grunting and moaning. There had also been the whispering sigh of someone allowing his heart to go where he’d forbidden it to go. I shook my head, drew in a breath through my nose, and pushed back from the fence.

  “I have to go to work. Tell Caiden I got a call and—”

  “But you got no call,” Luis argued, planting his fists on his hips after craning around to face me.

  “Tell him I did,” I snapped, leaving him to gape after me. I ran. Yep, I did. I ran through the condo right out the front door and into the elevator. Sure, people gave me funny looks. I was wearing mango shorts, a dark green tank top, and my old sneakers with lime green ankle socks. I was never letting Luis shop for me again. Not that it was a worry for much longer anyway. I hit the street and never looked back. The tour buses were lined up in front of Bryant Park. They had plates from all over the eastern seaboard. I was tempted to stowaway in the underbelly of one of them with the passengers’ suitcases. Didn’t matter where I ended up. Maine, Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio. Well, maybe not Jersey, but any of those other states would be fine. I’d be far from this mess I’d created, and over time I’d forget about Caiden, Muffin Top Films, college, love, and a bright future and just go milk goats for a living.