by Amy Lane
“You’re not abrasive,” John said, wounded. “You’re sarcastic and blunt, but you’re not abrasive.”
“Well that’s a relief. I was afraid I’d lost your good opinion being sarcastic and blunt!” Acid dripped through the phone wires, and John felt like he’d been aptly rewarded for his own denseness.
“What’s the matter, baby?”
“I’m horny.”
“That’s not it.”
“No, that’s exactly it. I don’t even have a picture of you, do you know that? I mean, I’ve got your ass, but I’m a bottom, and it isn’t doing it for me. I’ve got nothing to jerk off to except your goddamned porn, and I’m starting to hate it. It used to be ‘Oh, yay, Johnnies porn!’—but now I don’t want to see the guys in front of the camera, I want to see you!”
“Oh. Easy!” John took a selfie and sent it back over the phone. After the moment it took for Galen to check the picture, Galen let out another sigh.
“What now?” God, did he have something in his teeth?
“You’re beautiful,” Galen said, his voice thick. “You don’t believe it, but I do. Now naked.”
“Heerk!”
“What in the hell was that? That wasn’t even real words!”
“Why would you even want a—”
“Do you want one of me?”
“Hell yes!”
“Same.”
“No.”
“Same.”
“Then you send me a naked picture.”
“I don’t have a mirror,” Galen said, his voice dripping with Are you stupid?
“Well, a selfie?”
“Fine.”
Galen was smiling shyly at the camera, and John stared at him for a moment, fascinated. He stroked his phone screen, wanting to feel his scruff, the narrowness of his chin, the shape of his eyes.
“It’s beautiful,” he said throatily, feeling like a pervert.
“Your turn.”
“I just sent—”
“Please, John?” And there was an honest thread of need in his voice.
John sighed. “Fine. Give me ten—”
“Ten?”
“I want a soda and I need to take a leak—sue me. I’m getting it all done at the same time—”
“Soda is bad for you!”
“So is cocaine! Soda is legal. Now hush. I’ll be back in ten.”
Okay, so picture first. John stood and stretched, feeling silly in his own home, and went into the bedroom, all the better to strip, take the naked selfie with his little wrinkled cock, and be done with it.
But no, his professional pride wouldn’t let him do that, would it? He stood in front of the mirror, slim but defined (as he would put on the website) with ivory skin and freckles on the backs of his arms and his shoulders and his nose. Fading freckles, he noted with surprise—well, age had its privileges.
His thighs weren’t thick, but his calves had some runner’s definition, and his stomach was remembering it had some musculature as well. Not someone he’d put on the website, no, but those guys….
He thought about it and shook his head.
What they did to be beautiful. He’d never demanded it—in fact, one of his favorite models (and lovers, in the early days) had been a husky guy who loved hamburgers, and you could tell. But something about being naked on camera made most of the guys demand this sort of supernatural beauty from themselves. And John was a businessman, after all.
He made a mental note to talk to Dex about real-looking models and ran his hand along his stomach and his thighs. Almost playfully he tapped his flaccid cock back and forth with his middle finger, laughing a little when it started to fill up and stiffen. He caught his eyes in the mirror then, and his smile, and realized—oh, holy God, he wasn’t that bad-looking when he was aroused. No self-consciousness, no grimacing away from the camera—just an average-looking man, really.
But wasn’t that who was buying his porn?
Mesmerized, he ran his hand down from his throat, his chest, his stomach. Then he went back up and flicked his nipples the same way he’d flicked his cock, and watched as they swelled up, stiffened, engorged.
And he remembered Galen helping him out when Galen was too tired and too stoned for sex.
He grabbed his phone and texted, Hold on. Got a phone call. I’ll get you the pic in a second.
It was a lie. He was pretty sure Galen would forgive him.
HE HAD the camera, an old model, still serviceable but not quite as clear in definition as the ones they used at Johnnies now. He even had two mounts on his wall, left over from the days when he shot the porn in his house. He’d since replaced the mattress, the sheets, the comforter, the rug, the hardwood laminate, and the paint on the walls—but the mounts he’d left up, because he hadn’t been all that mechanically inclined in the first place, and he’d almost maimed himself putting them on his walls.
So he stood up, naked, and set up the camera so it was aimed right at the bed. John knew the sweet spot, and, well, he was thinking he wasn’t going to roll around that much.
Then he went into his goody drawer and pulled out his own toys.
Butt plug, seven inches long, two inches at the widest point, bright red. Cock and ball ring setup, not too tight. Nipple clamps, the kind with the felt on the inside.
Then, feeling self-conscious and silly, he laid the toys and the lube out on a towel to one side, and laid himself down in the center of the bed, right where the camera would focus, and began to talk.
“Okay, so, hi. I sort of wanted to make a present for you, and I hope you appreciate that, uhm, I’m not used to being on this side of the camera. And, uhm, please don’t send this to anyone after you get it. Even if we break up and you hate me, okay?”
Inside his head, he could hear Galen’s dry voice. Kitten. On the. Freeway. But hell. If you couldn’t trust your boyfriend in rehab with what everyone assumed you did in your spare time anyway, who could you trust?
“So, uhm, I got my favorites here,” he said, gesturing to the array on the towel. “And lube.” He pointed to the little pump bottle. “And I’m going to show you what I like to do with them.” He looked around in embarrassment. “Even though you already know what I like to do with them, because you were there the last time I did this.”
He grimaced and then lay back on the bed, explaining as he went.
“See, first I put on the rings, because they go on easier when I’m not, you know, erect, and because they make me harder quicker.” He did that with a minimum of fuss, relaxing a little as his cock and balls began to throb, squeezed tight by the rubber rings. Then he grabbed the nipple clamps. “And I, uhm, don’t really like these, but when I’m alone and I’m doing the thing with the thing and the other thing with the place, I don’t have any extra hands, and I really liked it when you made me play with my nipples, because, you know, no one else has ever really caught on to that before. So I’m gonna do….” The first clamp—not too tight, but still. “Ahhh,” he gasped. “This. Oh God. Yes.” The second clamp drew two hot-wire lines straight from his plumped and blood-pooling nipples, down his tautened stomach, to his cock and balls, which were swelling, filling with blood and feeling the pressure.
He gasped and flicked the little nubs of pain and pleasure, grunting when his cock jerked on his abdomen.
“That feels real good,” he hissed. “God, Galen, I should have tried that before! If you’re gonna do it by yourself….” He flicked his engorged nipples again, and his cock jerked again, splatting a little because it was drooling precome. “Yeah,” he breathed.
He knocked the plug on the towel with his elbow right then and remembered his plan. “You know,” he rasped, “if it was just me here? I’d play with my nipples until I came—I think I could do that. But it’s not just me, it’s for you too, so I gotta make it good.”
He greased up the butt plug and rolled over to his side, out-and-out groaning when one nipple brushed the comforter and the change in position put pressure on his tackle. He
caught his breath, his entire body bound up in the pleasure/pain spiral he’d initiated, and tried to remember he was doing this for Galen.
“Now,” he panted, propping up one foot and giving the camera a better view to his backside, “I usually top.” He pulled his arm back and poised the plug right at his asshole. “I like topping. I like taking care of people, even though I do a shitty job of it.” With a little grunt, he breached his entrance and pushed gently, his speech getting high and tight as the muscles in his throat constricted. “But… ah God… just because I like topping, doesn’t mean… oh fuck. It’s so big, Galen. So damned big. And it feels good inside, right? It has to, or straight guys wouldn’t get off on… on… oh shit… what was I… oh God….” In, slowly, slowly, slowly… his ass stretching, wide and painful.
And so, so good.
“It’s good.” He breathed. “Good. So good.” His voice was breaking, and he felt tears starting at his eyes. His entire body vibrated with need and with the amazing, awesome moment of having all of his places taken care of just the way he wanted them to be. “I… God, I love this. I miss your touch, but… oh baby….”
He had no words. His ass was full, getting fuller, and his cock was swollen, aching, and his nipples were on fire.
“Oh Jesus,” he groaned, and the plug slid in, his ass clamping around the base, the T-bar at the top keeping it from sliding all the way in. “Oh fuck… Galen, I wanted to make it good, but… oh God….”
He rolled to his back then, bucking against the pressure on the plug, and grabbed his cock with one hand and his balls with the other. His upper arms jostled the nipple pincers, and his vision blackened. “Oh fuck me… fuck me… fuck me… Galen, fuck me!” He screamed, dying, so aroused he couldn’t see, couldn’t even speak when he squeezed his balls and started stroking.
“Oh my God!”
His hands were shaking too hard for an even stroke, and he beat mercilessly on his cock, squeezing his cockhead with every move, no finesse or delicacy, just… just… just….
His hips arched all on their own, and he slammed his ass back against the bed, shooting spangles of pain/pleasure through his sphincter, through his balls, through stomach, cock, and nips, and….
“Holy fuck, Galen, I’m coming. Dear fucking God I’m… auggggggghhhh!”
His vision darkened and his feet flexed, his hand battering on his prick as he shot hard, white spattering all over his stomach, chest, and face, oh holy hell, his face. His entire body shook for what felt like ages, and he lay there, staring sightlessly into space while he licked his own jizz off his lips.
Quiet. Quiet, shaking, sweating come-down. When he could breathe again, when he could speak again, he unclamped the nipple constrictors first.
“Fuck, that hurts,” he said out loud, but without heat. He was too exhausted to be upset about the pain. He undid the cock and ball rings next, gasping as he did so. “And that always feels better going on. If I was going to use those a lot, I’d shave, because tweezing with a rubber ring sucks.” And then he rolled over, facing the camera, so he could remove the plug without capturing it in lurid detail. “I’ll let you imagine this,” he said, smiling a little and then grimacing. Oh, there it was… push… push… full, oh, ouch, oh…. It slithered out easily after it passed the wide spot, and John rested his sweating face against his arm.
“That was amazing,” he breathed, feeling fucked-out and used from a pile of silicone and some specialized clips. “That was… sex to order. But better. Because it was for you.”
And there it was: the last of the exhilaration leaked out of him like the last dribbles of come and lube.
“I miss your touch,” he said, feeling raw. Well, he’d just exposed himself, hadn’t he? “I miss your face and your voice. But this is me, pleasuring myself just for you. It’s what I do best—porn. And what I do worst—being the best man I can be. I love you. I fucking miss you. I hope you like your present.”
He pulled himself off the bed then and got up and stopped the camera. When he edited it, he cut it off right after the word “present.”
He didn’t watch more of it than that, because, well, it was him, and he just wasn’t that excited about himself naked. But he thought Galen might like it, and he wanted to give Galen as much of the fantasy as he could manage.
It was, like he said, what he did best.
AFTER HE washed, dressed, and sent the video, he stayed up for another hour, waiting. Just waiting. If he hadn’t just self-pleasured himself into mindlessness, he would have gotten hard all over again imagining Galen’s reaction.
But he was drowsing in front of his television, watching yet another episode of Friends, when his phone chimed.
It was a picture of Galen’s cock, Galen’s fist around it, everything in camera range—cock, fist, pubic hair, stomach, thighs—glossy with come.
He sent back, I’ll use that to jerk off to tomorrow. Thank you.
You are the best boyfriend ever. I love you.
I love you too. Sweet dreams.
I’ve had them already.
He wandered into his own bedroom, which still smelled like sex. As he slid between the sheets, he had the thought that for the first time in forever, he didn’t feel like he was jumping out of his own skin.
Yeah, he missed Galen, but yeah—the feeling was mutual.
Knowing that gave him peace. And it gave him patience.
That made all the difference.
Enjoying the Zoo
JOHN HAD bought a tie and a suit and shiny shoes. It relieved him, as he sat fidgeting in his office, to see that Dex had dressed the same way.
“You look awesome,” he said, shaking his leg. “Almost a grown-up. I’m impressed.”
“Not as impressed as I am,” Dex said, eyeballing him. “Holy God, John—if I was worried that you weren’t taking this seriously, I’m not now!”
“Of course I’m taking this seriously!” John’s voice scratched, and he stood up to pace. “These guys came from LA to invest—and one of them came from Korea before that. It’s… it’s….”
They met eyes and John swallowed.
“It could be really good,” Dex finished, and John nodded.
Selling licensing rights to foreign distributors. It took a sound company and lawyers.
Corporate lawyers.
Galen had been working on this too, partly when he was in rehab and partly over the past two weeks when he’d been “getting his myriad shit together” (his words, of course). He was staying at the Cypress Point house. Since neither John nor Dex had their shit together enough to send a film crew out there in the spring, that worked just fine. There were phone calls every night and texts throughout the day. John had made three more videos of himself (getting creative with one in the shower and one on a lounge chair in his back porch), and Galen, in return, had spent a couple of nights talking them both into hot, sweaty, separate messes.
It wasn’t perfect—sometimes it drove John to screaming, bitchy distraction—but in the meantime?
In the meantime John had done exactly what the rehab people told him he should do.
He’d established routines, healthy ones.
Get up in the morning, go for a run before it got hot, come in, make coffee. Go to work, take one person out to lunch each day, whether it was an employee, an ex-employee, or his business partner, who appreciated the lunches and paid half the time, even when he didn’t bring his jealous glowering husband and their adorable charge. (That had happened once. John had fallen in love with Frances and Kane hadn’t throttled John. John was calling it a win.)
At night he went home and reheated dinner (which he made in big batches on the weekends) and spent at least an hour doing something that had nothing to do with work, sex, or porn. Sometimes it was watch television. One week, with help from some of the guys he was closest to from work, it was to enclose his porch so that it served as an extra room. He put carpeting in there, and a daybed, and ran electricity through the walls, and generally made
it habitable by some human person, for no reason that he could think of.
Then he added a concrete apron and a sunshade so you could sit outside like before. It made his backyard a little smaller, but it also made his house a little more welcoming—in case, for example, somebody wanted to move in with him. It would be roomy. Er. Roomier.
John thought roomier would be good, if someone wanted to move in with him. That was as far as he wanted to commit.
By the beginning of May, he’d bought a scratching post for the guest room and a litter box for the bathroom and a cat bed for the bedroom. And toys.
He figured that maybe, after this meeting here that he and Dex had spent the other part of the past two months engineering, he’d be ready to go out and buy a cat.
Of course, they might have other things to do besides that.
“Did Tommy call you?” John asked, trying not to fidget more. Dex had arrived right on time, which meant that their contact, the American lawyer, and his translator—were all running late. John had stocked the little refrigerator in his office with iced tea, water, and soda, as well as a fruit tray and some cheeses. To, you know, not look flamingly desperate to please. Oh God, he was going to throw up.
“Yeah!” Dex said, sounding as needy for a diversion as John was. “Yeah. Kane, Frances, and I were going shopping when this was all over.”
“I was wondering about that.” John got up and paced the circumference of the office. The place didn’t look sleazy, did it? The walls were eggshell white, and the framed prints were new—abstract brightly colored photos—and not porny at all. “Do they have everything? Isn’t she early?” He’d taken Chase and Tommy to lunch a couple of times, and he was so very glad to see that the two of them were doing well. They had all been worried about Chase, but moving in with Tommy and preparing for the baby—and getting out of porn!—seemed to have done him a world of good. He was a lot more natural now that he wasn’t monitoring everything he said for content, and he was much more thoughtful than he’d ever let on.