Black John

by Amy Lane

  By the time John graduated from college (Tory never would), he was running the company more to have money to feed Tory’s habit than to set up a place for them to live.

  That was their first trip to rehab right there, when John showed Tory the math, done painfully on a piece of paper, two months before graduation.

  “Of course. Damn. ’Cause, you know. We can’t mooch off Nana forever.”

  No. No, they couldn’t. John was pleased Tory saw it that way. He drove Tory to detox and visited him every day for the next twenty-eight, even though finals almost kicked his ass.

  That was the “happy” trip to rehab. That was when there was still hope. They shared a dream then, and John could just see it come true.

  “I LIKED that movie,” Galen said, breaking into John’s thoughts. “Not as much as you seem to, but I liked it.”

  John jerked himself into the present with a sense of painful dislocation. For a moment Tory was just in rehab, and John was remembering what it was like to be a regular college student. Of course, he’d shot Brant and Zion during that time, and the two of them started rooming together, lovers behind the camera and not just in front of it.

  John had always sort of loved that, because for all that they met for a one-time hookup, they worked well together. Zion was smart, a planner, and self-aware. Brant was lost, unanchored, especially when he came out at eighteen and got kicked out of the house. (Yes, he’d lived with Nana too, but she hadn’t exactly known it. The house was that big, and she already thought teenaged boys ate an ungodly amount. John was pretty sure she and Crosby just assumed Brant stayed the night a lot, not that he had no way to go home between his birthday in March and graduation.) Brant made Zion laugh, and Zion made sure Brant ate and interacted with people in public like a human being. Apparently a lot of what made him a bully had been the inability to communicate in the first place, and once he got out of the house, he was damned near meek.

  But they were good together.

  They stuck well. It didn’t matter how many guys they banged when they were in front of the camera, when John called cut, it was all about the two of them.

  Sort of like what John thought of as him and Tory, except Tory never seemed to acknowledge that at all.

  “It, uhm, has some memories,” he said lamely, pulled back to the DVD case with the peeling plastic cover and the frayed corners. He wasn’t sure if he could explain Brant and Zion and the first porn company and how it had really started as a way to give Tory room to have all the cock he could handle.

  God, he should really watch this movie from beginning to end to see if he’d missed anything. How much thinking had he done with his penis, anyway?

  “Good ones?” Galen asked gently, taking the case from his hands. Their fingers brushed, and it was all John could do not to grab his hands and cry.

  “Some,” John said, his voice fading. God. Not now. Not now. Couldn’t do this. DVDs. CDs. Books. He had an order, dammit. “How’s the fish?”

  “Apparently they like to swim,” Galen said judiciously. “I feel this is to be encouraged as much as possible.”

  “In humans too,” John said, dredging up the strength to keep on keeping on. “I’m packing the DVDs, and this is the X-Men case with”—he opened the case—“the Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist disc. Let’s find the Nick and Norah case and maybe we’ll find X-Men.”

  Galen grunted. “Oh God. One of those. Taylor once paid a maid two hundred dollars to fix the mess and then told me he’d done it.”

  “That’s kind of low,” John said, wrinkling his nose. “Not that I’m one to cast moral aspersions, but really. How did you find out?”

  A low, evil sort of cackle issued forth from Galen’s throat, and John, just right then, fell a little in love. “She didn’t speak English. She thought he meant to swap out all of the DVDs with the CDs—the resultant mess took Taylor three days to sort out.”

  John laughed long and hard, long enough that when he wiped cold tears off his eyes with the palm of his hand, he blamed the laughter and not the awful, acidic ache that grew greater and more unwieldy with every breath.

  At four in the afternoon, John was hungry and it was time to quit. He figured he had another two days, and Tory’s scant possessions would be ready to send to Goodwill, and then it was all about planning the funeral.

  But first he needed to track down Zion and Brant and see if they wanted to help. That would be fun. That would be a laugh riot.

  “John, are you sure?” Zion asked while hefting a box of camera and computer equipment into Nana’s purple hand-me-down Buick.

  “No.” John’s voice, thick with tears, didn’t sound like his own. “I’m not. I hate this. I hate it. But he’s not getting better. I keep telling him I’ll do anything to stop the pain, and doing ‘anything’ is hurting him, and… he needs someone not me. He needs someone who’ll be mean to him and say no. I can’t say no. Not to Tory.”

  “But….” Brant looked lost, which he so rarely did when he was with Zion. “But John… you’re leaving us too!”

  John hugged him then, even though he had to drop a box of clothes to do it. He cried quietly, no sobs, and just held Brant and held him until Zion came in over John’s back and they cried together. He didn’t think they blamed him. Didn’t think they hated him. But he hated himself so bad at that point that he could never be sure.

  “We’re done here,” he said, although CDs and DVDs still littered the ground at their feet like confetti. Galen had discovered a couple of dime bags hiding in the Pink Floyd CD cases, so John felt like they had to do this now. They couldn’t leave all of Tory’s shit on the floor of the apartment. God, if nothing else, someone would track the smack back to John, and then he’d be fucked.

  But he’d reached his limit. That last dime bag had made him sweat. It looked like coke, just a little dingier, and you could snort heroine, right? He hated the dreams, but maybe it was different. And he hadn’t burned out his septum yet. That meant he had a few good snorts in him, right?

  It was time to go back to Nana’s house.

  But first….

  “Let’s grab your laundry,” John said, startling Galen as they headed back to his apartment. “A couple of loads. We have to go downstairs anyway. We can make up your bed, freshen everything out.”

  “Yeah, sure,” Galen said, sounding dubious. “You want to do my laundry. That’s kinky!”

  John half laughed, but even he knew it was a broken sound. “Well, I am a pornographer.”

  Galen’s hand wrapping around his was a surprise, but a welcome one. John squeezed it tight, one hand on Galen’s doorknob, and then Galen tugged gently. John turned in time for the hug, pure comfort, and he had no choice, just like he’d had no choice with Zion and Brant, but to wrap his arms around Galen’s shoulders and hold on.

  THE FISH appeared to be not dead yet, and an hour and a half later Galen and John found themselves back at Cypress Point. John started the first load of laundry and waved Galen into the pool.

  “I’ve actually got some phone calls to make,” he said, feeling noble. “Go out and swim before the storm comes in. You said it was good for you.”

  “What about you?” He looked at John with concern, and the tiny part of John that seemed to be growing colder every day thawed just a little.

  “I’ll work out later tonight,” John told him. “There’s a weight room, machines, an Exercycle for cardio. If I don’t make it by the time the rain starts, I’ll do that.”

  Those pretty eyes narrowed. “What are you doing—who are you calling—that you don’t want me to see?” Galen asked suspiciously.

  John managed a faint smile. “Some old friends,” he said quietly. “I’m not sure if they know.”

  Galen nodded and grabbed his hand, tugging anyway. “Come swim now,” he said soberly. “Come swim now. I’ll be taking my meds in an hour, and I’ll probably sleep. Come swim now, and I’ll be awake, and we can keep talking like I’m a new friend and this whole thin
g isn’t waiting for you to try to face alone.”

  John gave, set the extra three baskets of Galen’s wash down next to the washer, and shut the lid on the agitating sheets. “You are a new friend,” he said, smiling, feeling some optimism.

  Galen shook his head, shouldering his duffel and leading the way this time through the garage, down the hallway, to the kitchen. The day was in the low eighties, but the skies were a suffocatingly dark shade of gray. No raindrops, though, and no arcs of lightning in the sky.

  And no gators in the pool.

  “I need to go get my trunks!” John complained laughingly, because Galen was still towing him with one hand while wielding his cane with the other.

  “Screw that,” Galen proclaimed, letting go of his hand. “There are dry towels here under the overhang, and we are grown men.” He slid his duffel off his shoulder by the dividing wall between the house and the barbecue, and leaned his cane there too. Towels hung there, drying from the night before, and John was glad they were under the eaves and safe from the rain.

  Galen took his attention from the towels then by stripping off his shirt and sweatpants with short, jerky movements that belied how nervous he was.

  He stood before John, scarred and defiant, before he gave a manic grin and dared John to join him in what was very soon going to be swimming naked in the rain.

  John couldn’t resist him. He knew he couldn’t—he’d always been weaker that way.

  He stripped down, shaking his head. “I do not see what the big deal is to have me in the nude,” he said dryly, hauling his shirt over his head by the neck. “If my body was all that exciting, you could bet I would have put someone else on the other side of the camera.” And there went his cargo shorts and boxer-briefs. He spread his legs and wiggled his junk, knowing he didn’t have a six-pack so much as he had a xylophone, and that he was pale and freckled and his legs were covered with cinnamon-colored hair.

  But Galen shook his head and licked his lips. “If you are trying to make me not want you, you are failing miserably. But that’s not what we’re doing right now.”

  With that, he turned and limped to the pool before John could make him wait. John wanted to study him. He had pale hair on his shins and thighs, the kind that made John think the brown hair used to be blond when he was a kid. John had seen his scars the night before, and his leanness, but the hidden parts, the parts John usually didn’t photograph unless erect and swollen, John wanted to see those parts now, when they were plain and unguarded.

  It was like seeing a girl without her makeup—bare and vulnerable, unprotected—seeing that shriveled, naked manhood, and suddenly John wanted the privilege.

  He watched Galen execute a neat dive into the deep end of the pool, and thought, He’s graceful in the water.

  It took John a minute to understand what was going on as he stood, watching Galen surface, bobbing like an otter, staring at him challengingly and daring him to get in. It wasn’t just need for a friend or blind desire for companionship.

  It was real, honest-to-God want.

  Dazed, John pattered across the concrete apron and leapt into the water, curling his knees in front of his dangling privates before he could smack them on surface. The water closed over his head, cold and silken, and let his heart open its eyes in the privacy of the liquid cocoon.

  Galen, I could fall for you. I could care for you. If we can walk away from this wreckage, I could take care of you.

  John shoved himself up to the surface just as the sky opened overhead and the first streak of lightning cleaved the heavens.

  Galen was laughing, face turned toward the sky, and John saw the daredevil who had ridden the motorcycle in his open face. A roll of thunder came after the lightning, and John grabbed his shoulder.

  “C’mon,” he said. “Let’s get out of here before we get cooked.”

  “How often does that happen?” Galen asked.

  “Isn’t once too many times?” John demanded, incredulous. “C’mon!”

  “What? You’re afraid of a little thunder?”

  Another lightning fork, another roll of thunder, and John’s stomach dropped to his balls.

  “Get out of the goddamned pool, Galen, or I will drag you out by the fucking hair!”

  Galen turned toward him, surprised, eyes full of wonder. “You do care,” he said softly, smiling. “You care, you can do something about it, see?”

  John wiped water from his eyes with shaking hands. “Go!” he snapped, and he followed Galen across the pool, up the stairs, and under the overhang, not looking at him when he threw one of the towels at John as they both stood, dripping.

  “Hey,” Galen murmured, venturing closer. “Hey—I got out. I just… you know. Wanted to make a point. You won’t always be helpless, you know? You won’t always be too late to the crime scene or too—”

  “Shut up,” John rasped, capturing Galen’s wrist as he reached out to stroke John’s arm. “Just shut up. You… you come on to me, and you make me care, and you think it’s okay to do that to me? Think it’s okay to just… risk that? Dangerous isn’t funny, asshole! Dangerous wrecked your motorcycle! Dangerous was Tory’s last fix! Dangerous gets you kicked out of your parents’ house at eighteen!”

  Galen didn’t jerk away, he moved closer. “Dangerous is getting involved with another junkie,” he said softly, under the lash of the wind in the palm trees and oaks. “Dangerous is wanting me when I’m no better than Tory—”

  “Would you want me?” John asked, feeling piteous but needing the answer. “Would you want every other guy you saw more than me? Would you fuck anything that moved and expect me to film it when I was hurting and sad?”

  Galen recoiled. “No,” he said, lips parted in surprise. “Is that what you want? Life like porn, but real?”

  John shook his head, wanting to cry. “No,” he confessed. “No. I only want one person. Right now, it’s you.”

  “I’m dangerous,” Galen warned, moving closer.

  “I know.” John’s heart thundered in his ears, his chest, along the surface of his skin. “You’re dangerous. The most dangerous thing about you is that you want me.”

  Galen stepped closer, so close they were almost touching. John could smell the cold chlorine on his skin and feel the heat of the heartbeat underneath.

  “I want you,” Galen whispered. “I haven’t wanted anything or anybody in the longest time, but I want you.”

  They met halfway, mouths hesitant and cold at first. John broke, sweeping his tongue inside, discovering heat, and Galen opened his mouth further, letting John in, just that easy.

  Oh God.

  John grabbed Galen’s hips and pulled him closer, bodies aligning, and just held him, glutting his skin on the rough and the smooth of Galen, rubbing all along his body. A part of John, the part that planned scenes around a twenty-minute arc, was thinking, Take him down in the chair, lay him out, rim him, stretch him, thrust in….

  And then he remembered this wasn’t the set. Neither of them had blood tests. And Galen was too hurt and John too old to have sex on a pool recliner with aluminum springs.

  John pulled back, rubbing Galen’s chest because man in his arms. A moderate coat of silky hair ruffled under his palm, and after all of those smooth, pretty boys in his camera sights, he was fascinated by what a man felt like.

  “I don’t even know if I have condoms,” he gasped.

  Galen smirked. “This is a porn set—”

  “All the boys are tested now!” John protested. “We started going bareback two months ago. They’re tested three days before the shoot, and they sign a celibacy contract for those three days. We test them the day of the shoot and a month after the shoot on general principle if they don’t come in and film earlier. We drill it into them—condoms off the set, condoms off the set, condoms off the set—and unless they’re screwing around with someone in-house, they’re pretty damned good about it.” John tried not to let his sulk ruin the feel of Galen in his arms, but he checked Galen�
�s expression, and he was laughing.

  “Wow!”

  John glowered. “What?”

  “I’m just impressed. You’ve effectively managed to sabotage your own sex life by running a clean porn shop. It’s sort of amazing.”

  The wind whipped his hair in his face, and that sarcastic smile turned John’s key and turned it hard. John stroked his skin some more, reaching between them and taking his hardening cock into his hand.

  Galen closed his eyes and tilted his head back, and that wide grin relaxed into softened lips, a parted mouth of need. “How funny is it now?” John whispered, squeezing.

  “Still fucking hilarious.” Galen punctuated that with a little whimper and arched into John’s hand.

  “Great.” Ah, slick and hot, moisture spurted at the tip of Galen’s cock. John rubbed his finger in it and dug into the slit a little, and listened for Galen’s breathy moan. “I’ll keep telling jokes.”

  “Nungh….”

  “Did you hear the one about the nice soft bed in the air-conditioned house that may or may not have condoms and lube in the bed stand?”

  “Ooh,” Galen sighed, his breath hot against John’s neck, his stubble teasing. “That sounds highly entertaining. Let’s say you tell me that one inside.”

  John tilted his head back and let Galen nibble his way from one side of John’s neck to the other.

  “We can do that,” he breathed, and lightning slashed the sky some more, and the rain started tumbling down. One more minute, one more breath, the elements assaulting the air about them and leaving them unscathed.

  Galen locked his lips around John’s nipple and pulled, and John’s cock snapped to full alert, slapping Galen’s thigh gently as he jerked.

  One… two… three…. “Now!” he rasped and pulled away, grabbing Galen’s hand and turning toward the kitchen.

  They left moist footprints as they pattered carefully through the kitchen, working hard not to slip, and then their feet hit the beige hallway carpet and it ceased to matter.