Black John

by Amy Lane

  “I would have hated that man in the suit,” John said swiftly. “Any man who doesn’t understand doing something out of moral obligation is not someone I could have dinner with.”

  Galen’s mouth twisted, and his hand floated to the side of his ruined face, to the surgery scars that John now took for granted. “Do you see these?” he asked.

  “They’re right there, Galen. How could I not?”

  “You don’t see these scars,” Galen laughed, half mocking. “You think you do—you see the skin twisting, but you don’t see them. You never look at them and then veer your eyes like you’ve done something wrong. You never touch my face and then adjust your position. You treat them just like the rest of me. Like you care about the whole of me, the ugliness and the grace. Is that how you loved Tory?”

  John closed his eyes and tried to back away. This conversation was so far beyond him, like a road stretching beyond the horizon. The pill-popping lawyer knew where it was going, but John most assuredly did not.

  “Yes,” he whispered, eyes still closed. “Yes—isn’t that how you love someone? Is there any other way to do it?”

  “No,” Galen whispered back, moving closer.

  John stopped fighting him, stopped backing away.

  “There is no other way to do it. You will open that box and that computer, and you will live through whatever is in there, and it’s not going to change who you are, and it’s not going to change who Tory was. It’s not going to change that you had to leave, because if you hadn’t, you wouldn’t have survived to stand in this kitchen and let me hold you.”

  “Oh,” he said, with a certain amount of exhausted wonder. Galen circled his waist, and he kept his eyes closed even as he circled Galen’s shoulders and held on. “That’s why I survived.”

  GALEN HELD on to him for as long as he could, but it was that time. John felt the clamminess first, the shaking hands, and thought that he could tell Galen’s activity level had gone up because his oxy wore off faster. John walked him to the bedroom, promising to come back and read next to him when he was done with the dishes.

  “How do you know I’ll fall asleep?” Galen asked irritably, taking the pill with thinly disguised contempt. John hoped like hell that Galen never looked at John the way he looked at the little white tablet that chained him up and kept him alive.

  “Because you always fall asleep,” John replied, feeling exhausted himself. “Don’t worry. It’s better than fucking all the men in the room, throwing up, and then falling asleep, because I’ve seen that done too.”

  “Maybe,” Galen said, with that little lip curl that apparently turned John’s key with spectacular force. “But perhaps I will wake up when you come to bed. Perhaps,” he emphasized, “I would like to make love to—” Yawn. “—you, because you need it.”

  “Oh sweetheart,” John said softly, touched in a way he didn’t think he could be. Galen’s eyes were closing in spite of the determined frown that it should not be so. “The only time I’ve ever gotten the thing I thought I needed, it turned out it was bad for me. I’ll take what I can get.”

  Galen grunted, losing the battle with his eyes but not with his wits. “Was that not a Rolling Stones song some time back?”

  John laughed. “Of course it was. Lucky me, you seem to be what I need.” He bent and kissed Galen’s cheek then, and wandered back into the kitchen to do the dishes and clean up the leftovers.

  There were leftovers, John thought happily. Leftovers were somehow optimistic. They pointed to the fact that there might be a tomorrow, or a day after that. Leftovers implied a future, even though it might be one in which the leftovers themselves got thrown away, devoured by mold and a stench the likes of which should never be allowed on earth.

  When he finished, he showered quickly, thinking he might like to simply crawl in bed next to Galen and hold him. At first he thought just to touch him and to glide skin against skin for a while. Then he thought maybe he needed to feel the solidity of another person in his space, in his life.

  But just thinking about it made him hard. He struggled into a pair of boxer shorts, looked at his phone in the charger next to the bed, and wondered what he should read to get himself to sleep.

  He was rather shocked when the answer in his head was porn.

  Have I not gotten enough of that?

  Not when it’s supposed to mean something to you! When was the last time you watched porn because it felt good?

  Oh God.

  He couldn’t remember.

  But then, he couldn’t remember the last time he hadn’t edited high, either.

  On impulse, he shucked his boxers and slid into bed.

  Oh, that was nice. That was a feeling worth savoring. Galen’s warm body, his bare skin, fed into the infinity pool of wonder John had forgotten he had.

  Man’s skin. Man’s heat. Man’s taste.

  Abruptly, he wanted to kiss Galen—just kiss him, for hours. To remember what it felt like to kiss someone for the first time. That used to be one of the moments he lived for in his shoots—the first time his models kissed. Sometimes their lips would meet and they’d bring hands to faces, and when they separated or repositioned for the first time, he’d see the most intense look of amazement on their faces, and he’d know this was going to be good. It was what he imagined every time he put models on the schedule, every time he aimed his camera, that look of this person is special on my tongue.

  Galen was special on his tongue.

  He turned off the light and reached for Galen in the darkness, smoothed his hand down his lightly furred chest, down to the soft, concave tummy, along the waistband of his boxers. Galen’s light snore answered his ministrations, and John sighed. Thank you, Mr. O, for stealing the first man I’ve had in my bed in a dog’s age. Yessirree, I think I may just owe you a kick in the ’nads for that! But even the unresponsive silk of Galen’s skin on his palm did something sweet to the core of John.

  He stroked his hand again on his own stomach and felt that tingle in his nipples, along his balls, swelling in his cock, buzzing in his asshole.

  Abruptly he remembered something from the shoots in the house. Oh wow. Oh wow.

  Silently he slid out of bed, still naked, and stayed that way. Creeping through Nana’s house—however changed—felt forbidden, forbidden and naughty, which, given John’s past, was sexy as hell. He turned on the hall light (ooh, more sexiness, more boner!) and moved through the living room and into the “porn wing.” He knew where Dex kept these things because he’d seen the videos. When the performers were done with the toys, Dex sterilized them in the dishwasher and put them back in the drawer.

  John knew which drawer.

  He found the bureau in the study, a big, austere ebony masterwork, and opened the drawer in the middle.

  Oh baby, he didn’t know what was in the rest of the cabinet (okay, he had some ideas—he had participated in the ordering and in explaining the expenditure to his accountant), but this drawer had what John needed.

  Your basic cock-shaped dildo, seven to eight inches long, two inches in diameter, with a little bit of give and a real skin texture and a big set of balls to keep it from slipping all the way in.

  John’s cock tingled and swelled erect. By the time he took the toy off of its specialized little vinyl pad and grabbed some lubricant to go with it, his cock was hard like iron, a few drops of precome drying on the tip and making him ache all the more.

  If he thought he could have walked with that thing inside of him, he would have shoved it in right there.

  Oh damn, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d wanted sex this bad just for the sake of his own skin. No frantic beating off, no wailing about how he was alone. Just his own hands on his own skin, pleasuring.

  His voice, whimper-sighing in excitement, echoed through the hallway as he walked back.

  Oh wow. He was going to do this. To himself. With a person who cared about him right there next to him, in the same room.

  By the time he slid b
ack under the covers and lay on his back, legs spread, knees propped up, he was panting in arousal and afraid the slither of sheets across his erection would set him off.

  He needed the dildo in first and the foreplay second, or this was going to be over way too soon.

  The water-based lubricant seemed to multiply once it hit the slick skin of the toy, and he felt guilty for a moment, like a kid who just came all over his own sheets. Then he remembered that he wasn’t a kid, and that even if Galen woke up and found him, spread out, hand on his cock, fucking himself with a dildo, that was John’s choice, and Galen could accept him or move on. (Or get off, which was what John hoped he’d do if that happened, because hey! Pervs should stick together, right?)

  Either way, John felt powerful in the wake of his confession, free of a weight. There was a joy in being able to tell someone, anyone, how bad it had been, and how much it had cost him to see it through, even if he hadn’t been there for the final destruction.

  Oh my God, how long had it been since he’d felt joy?

  The toy was cool and slick as he pushed it up against his sphincter, and he shuddered. Oh yes. He remembered this—he usually topped, but that didn’t mean he didn’t remember this feeling of being full, of relinquishing himself to that thing that would fill him.

  He missed this feeling. The freedom of sex for the sake of singing nerve endings, for the sake of joy. Oh, oh, oh… ah….

  The thing slid in slowly, and he was conscious of having to make himself not wiggle, force himself to stay still, to take it, to receive. Oh, the blessings of he who is given.

  He moaned loudly, with abandon, when that thing sat firmly inside his ass, and he could not stop shivering with the ache, the fullness, the force of the invasion. He paused for a moment with his eyes closed, panting, wondering if he should try to play with his cock or his nipples or if he should just start stroking himself off, when a soft voice spoke in the darkness.

  “Oh, don’t stop now. This was just getting interesting.”

  John didn’t open his eyes, but he did smile. “Trying to decide what to do next,” he breathed. “So many opt—” Oh holy hell, Galen’s fingers on his nipples, his mouth on John’s cock. “—tions!” His voice cracked and he bucked, a black wave of want washing behind his eyes.

  Galen came up for air and palmed the back of John’s thigh as he spoke. “I can see that,” he mumbled. “Have I mentioned watching a man get himself off is one of my turn-ons?”

  As he said this, he found the base of the fake cock and tapped it.

  John was embarrassed by the neediness that issued from his throat right then. That sound was not powerful. That sound was not furtive. That sound begged.

  Galen wrapped his lips around John’s cock and chuckled at the same time, and then, for the trifecta, slid the dildo in firmly, pushing up for extra prostate-smashing fun.

  “Augh!”

  Galen released him with a pop, his voice still sleepy when he spoke again. “Well, you’re the one who wanted to touch yourself. Do something. Pinch your nipples, man—you’ve got one hand for each!”

  John started to laugh, but then Galen sucked on him some more and fucked in him some more, and the muscles in his thighs turned to water even as his stomach tried to pull itself into his balls.

  “Holy fuckin’—”

  Galen stopped everything. “Play with your nipples, Johnny boy, or I’m going back to sleep.”

  “Fucking sadist!” John snarled, but he went to work, his own fingers rougher than he usually liked them, but he was desperate.

  Galen deep-throated him to his balls, shoving the fake cock in until John felt Galen’s fist between the cheeks of his ass.

  Time stopped, like it does on top of a roller coaster that touches the sky.

  And then the bottom dropped out of the world and John slid down, shaking and screaming, coming without control and without shame, no help for it but to ride that climax to the end.

  The aftershocks went on forever, Galen working his cock until it became too painful. John rolled away from him without meaning to, the movement forcing the dildo out.

  For a moment he lay, useless, floating in fugue, his body humming and his mind blank, so relieved by sex he couldn’t even find words.

  “Thank you,” Galen murmured, draping his warm body along John’s back.

  Ah, there you go. Words. “I was gonna say the same,” John replied, and then gulped some more air. “Can I return the—”

  “No.” Galen dropped a kiss near his cheek. “I’m… my body isn’t quite as….”

  “I get it.” Drugs—wasn’t it funny how sometimes they made you fuck like a rabbit until your cock and ass were raw, and sometimes they made you limp as spaghetti?

  Maybe funny wasn’t the word.

  “But God,” Galen sighed, his body becoming heavy and languorous, much like John’s, “I sure am glad I was there.”

  John laughed softly, then took one of Galen’s hands from around his middle and kissed it. Galen squeezed back, and John used the motion as permission to slip away and wash the toy—and himself—off in the bathroom. He left the dildo standing on the counter with the lube, as sort of a memorial to the fact that it happened. He slid back next to Galen naked, even enjoying the wet spot. More proof.

  He turned toward Galen, who was asleep, snoring by this time, and kissed his temple.

  “I needed this,” he whispered. “I needed you tonight. I wish I’d had more of you, I do, but I’m just so….” He closed his eyes, afraid of getting maudlin, even in the dark, even by himself. “I’m so grateful,” he finished, because much like getting himself off, he had to see this through. “I’m just so grateful that you were here for this.”

  “For the sex?” Galen mumbled, surprising him.

  “For everything,” he said back, smiling a little even though Galen couldn’t see him. “For being… here.”

  “It has been my pleasure,” Galen said, and his voice sounded sincere, even if, within moments, he was snoring.

  The Big Silver Boxes

  THEY TOOK the boxes of stuff to Goodwill the next day, including three boxes of clothes John had found in the closet. A lot of it was leather—pants, halters, BDSM-wear—and John and Galen laughed like kindergartners at the thought of what Goodwill would do with all of that. The sex toys, they picked up while wearing rubber gloves and just threw away. John spent a half an hour on the phone that morning making arrangements for movers to come the next day and get the couch, chair, and table, which weren’t in that bad a shape, and then? They were done.

  In celebration, John took them out to lunch, someplace on the other side of town, the side with the hotels and the beaches and the really nice restaurants. Galen dressed up—he pulled out a nice button-up shirt and a relatively unwrinkled pair of chinos, shaved fully, and even splashed on some aftershave. John, who had spent the morning schlepping boxes, sighed and showered and borrowed another one of his good shirts.

  “No,” Galen said consideringly when John picked up his razor. “Don’t shave. I like the stubble. It’s a good look for you.”

  John eyed him up and down. “You,” he said distinctly, “are bossy. I don’t know if I’m ready for all that bossiness. Maybe I’ll drop you off at the nice restaurant and go get some McDonald’s for myself.”

  To his surprise, Galen didn’t laugh. Hell, he didn’t even sneer in that way he had that showed amusement.

  “Please,” he said, surprisingly sincere. “I’ve been pretending too. We’re going to get back and open those boxes—and we should do it here so they don’t… taint… the house at Cypress Point. And you won’t be mine anymore. Maybe not ever again.”

  John grimaced. “You are exaggerating,” he said, trying to keep it light. “Didn’t we agree that we would—”

  “That was before I saw what he’d done to you,” Galen said simply. “And now….” He shook his head. “Depending on what’s waiting for you in there, I’m not sure if you’ll have the strength.”

>   John shrugged, but inwardly he was stung. “I suppose you’re right,” he said, hearing Dex in his head. Something about not being able to throw a drowning man a rope. Well, Dex would know.

  “Don’t be that way,” Galen muttered, putting the razor away. “If I was a better man, I’d do it myself.”

  “Asking for help is not a crime,” John said irritably.

  “Says the man who was wheeled into rehab and forced,” Galen said rightly, but, well, ouch.

  “Some men should not hold your secrets,” John pronounced.

  Galen rolled his eyes. “Please. Like you had a choice when you met me. I held the key to your locked box, John—I was warm, I was breathing, and I was here.”

  Oh. Was that what this was about? “And you were Galen,” John said, smiling uncertainly. “I think that’s the key piece.”

  Galen—God. All that cynicism, all that assumption of human weakness, but when he smiled, it was as boyish as a kid in a condom store. “You are a gentleman. How could I forget?”

  “Hunger,” John said, thinking that at least that hurdle was over. “That’s how you forget.”

  Galen gave a slight smile, and they were off.

  Lunch passed like a date, but the façade was wearing thin. For better or worse, the big bad thing was waiting in the confines of the two silver boxes.

  “So,” John asked as they arrived back at Galen’s apartment fed, watered, and generally talked out. “Which first? The computer or the memory box? The lady or the tiger?”

  Galen sighed. “Well, the computer might just be acres of porn—let’s do that first. We may end up having sex and forgetting the rest of it.”