by Amy Lane
Everyone knew queers did anal—wasn’t that what they were? Queer.
The word queer made his dick even harder than mouthfucked.
He thrust his head down hard on Richie’s cock and slid his finger behind those big, baggy, furry balls. He barely brushed Richie’s taint, barely slid back behind it and teased the indentation between his cheeks, when Richie cried out.
“Augh! Skip! Can’t hold… gonna come. Gonna fuckin’ come!”
Skip was ready.
Thick clots of it hit his teeth, his tongue, the back of his throat. He swallowed and sucked harder, letting Richie come straight down as he gulped. The bitterness didn’t make him gag, and Richie’s cock… oh, he could have sucked that down even farther, he was so in love with it.
Richie convulsed around him, knees coming up, arms wrapping around Skip’s head.
“Sore, Skipper,” he whispered, and Skip released him immediately, laying his head on Richie’s stomach as Richie’s extremities unraveled from the orgasm high.
Skip stared at Richie’s face in wonder, undulating his hips against the mattress.
“Here,” Richie said, nudging him up on all fours and scooting so his head was closer to Skipper’s hips. Richie was obviously replete, because he just reached a hand under Skip while Skip stayed, still and vulnerable, his ass sticking out, his chin hovering directly over Richie’s cock.
Richie caressed his backside slowly, making teasing little forays under Skip’s stomach, and then he began to talk. “Like, I know we got a game, right, and we’re going shopping afterward. But after the game, maybe… maybe I clean myself off real good and you… would you lick my asshole, Skip? The air, it felt real good, and I want you inside me… would that be okay?”
He punctuated the “okay” by wrapping his bony fist around Skipper’s erection. Skip buried his face in Richie’s thigh and thought about fucking Richie’s asshole with his cock.
“That would be awesome,” he whimpered, lips brushing the ginger hair at Richie’s groin.
Richie laughed, low and dirty, and stroked him, playing with the precome on his dripping head.
That’s all it took to make Skipper convulse and climax, collapsing facedown on the bed.
“Skip?” Richie whispered when Skip could hear something over his own heart.
“Yeah?”
Skip looked up and watched as Richie licked his fingers, the come running over them like ribbons. One finger at a time, he sucked Skip’s ejaculate down, leaving them clean.
“Nungh….”
“Yeah,” Richie said with satisfaction when he was done. He rested his damp hand in Skipper’s hair, and for a moment they locked eyes, that held gaze the only speaking thing in the quiet of the sunlit room.
SKIP WOULD never remember moving after that, but they must have. He must have chivied Richie into the shower, because he cooked them both cheese eggs and toast, and he had a clear memory of Richie, hair wet around the collar of his nylon jersey, dropping eggs onto his clean shirt.
Skipper came forward, a damp paper towel in hand, and washed him off, and then Richie urged him into his own shower so they could hurry up and go lose the tournament game and go shopping.
They drove in Skip’s car, and neither of them said a word about explaining why they’d do that. Richie had spent a lot of nights on Skip’s couch—nobody would think anything of it.
But that didn’t mean Skip didn’t think about the world seeing them during the entire trip to the field. It must have been on Richie’s mind, because as they pulled into the parking lot of Tempo Park, he looked at Skip in all seriousness and turned down his favorite Milky Chance song.
“Don’t nobody need to know,” he said quietly.
Skip swallowed and tried not to think about holding Richie’s hand as they walked from the car, or of kissing him while swinging him around the field if they won. “I wouldn’t mind—” he started hopefully, and Richie shook his head.
“Won’t nobody play winter ball if they find out we’re queer,” he said matter-of-factly. “We both like playing. They don’t need to know.”
Skipper nodded, absurdly hurt. “No,” he said. But then, low, between the seats, he turned his hand over so the back rested on the cup holder, and he looked at Richie with meaning.
Richie swallowed, his mouth twisting a little.
And then he rested his palm against Skipper’s and laced their fingers together.
“We’ll know,” Richie whispered. “It’ll be fine.”
“Yeah.”
Fine.
HE WORRIED, though, right up until he, Scoggins, and McAllister lined up on the pitch. As he and the team greeted, as he ran through the plays, as he assessed the other team during warm-up, he double-thought every time he patted someone’s ass or flank or clapped them on the shoulder. Had he done the same thing to Scoggins, just as often? Had he done it less? Would anyone see it differently? Would they know? Could they tell, just by watching Scoggins scowl restlessly at the opposing team, that just hours before, Skipper had been sucking his thick red cock into his mouth and loving it?
Of course that line of thought was going to give him a boner, so maybe he’d better leave that bullshit alone!
But as soon as they lined up, moving their feet restlessly in the damp grass to keep their muscles from chilling, the breath from their heated bodies smoking faintly in the cold morning air, everything he and Richie had done in the past forty-eight hours went away.
It was his team, the ball, and the opposition, and God help anyone who got in their way.
Skip had expected to lose that first game, get ousted from the tournament, and then have the rest of the day—and Richie—to himself.
He didn’t expect Scoggins to score the tie-breaking goal with a minute to spare, striking it so cleanly into the net that it cleaved the air between the goalie’s fingers as he launched himself in for the intercept.
Skip didn’t expect Scoggins and the team to be doing the victory dance, the cold forgotten, as McAllister lifted Scoggins up in the air on his shoulders and ran down the field.
He didn’t expect to feel an evil knot of jealousy down in his stomach as he watched Richie Scoggins take a ride on another man.
Skip tamped down that feeling with a big stick and called the team to the sidelines to plan.
“I thought we were gonna lose,” he said, and they all nodded at him soberly, because they had too. “How about we send someone to the store for more water and some dried fruit and shit, and we run some drills on the empty field down below this one. You all game?”
Scoggins grabbed Skip’s keys and Skip pulled out his wallet to fund, but Scoggins waved him off. “You always buy, Skip—how ’bout the rest of these deadbeats pitch in!” He turned away then, avoiding Skip’s eyes as he made the collection, but something in Skipper warmed.
The riding McAllister’s shoulders? That was just regular playing stuff. But the collecting for the kitty? That was Richie having Skip’s back.
That made playing so much easier the next time around. Skip pretty much forgot the entire queer thing and concentrated on playing.
And they won the second game too.
“Well shit,” Skip muttered this time as they reconvened. Everyone looked at him in shock, and he grimaced good-naturedly. “Halloween’s tomorrow, and I don’t have any decorations! I gotta go buy them tonight, and I guess I’ll put ’em up tomorrow after the game.”
The guys were unimpressed.
The smile creases in the corner of Singh’s eyes deepened as he squinted at Skipper in confusion. “We’re actually winning, and you’re mad because you can’t decorate?”
Skipper shook his head. Oh no. This was going to be a thing, wasn’t it?
Jefferson shook his head. “Man, you got just enough time. What is it, three? Yeah—you and Scoggins run and buy shit now, and you might have some time for setup before it gets too dark. You don’t want to have Halloween without stuff up, and candy and shit. Kids will destroy you if yo
u’re not prepared.”
Skipper grinned at him. Jefferson still lived with his mother—mostly so he could support her—but even without that, he was such a good egg.
“That’s what I’m talking about. Okay, guys, don’t forget tomorrow is ‘fall back.’ Set your clocks before you go to bed or you’re gonna be real pissed off when you get in early and nobody’s here to practice.”
“Oh my God!” Galvan and Owens were practically in stereo. “God, thanks, Skip—way to have our backs!”
With that the team broke up, leaving Skip and Scoggins to haul ass up the hill, sweaty under their hooded sweatshirts but chilling quick in the October wind.
And then, right then, as they were hustling their asses to Skip’s car, was when Skip missed it. The wind was whipping at their faces, and they’d just won two games, and they were going to go do something fun with their weekend, and damn if Skip didn’t want to hold Richie’s hand.
He contented himself with what they would do later, after decorations, and dinner, and cookies, and TV, when it was him and Richie, breathing alone together in the dark.
“HEY, SKIP!” Richie said playfully, pointing to the creepy dolls, artfully shattered and de-haired and staring into space with blank glass eyes through masks of fake blood. “Let’s get a bunch of those and hang them from your tree!”
Skip stared at the macabre decoration and grimaced. “That’s a shitload of money, Richie—I still gotta decorate for Thanksgiving, and I’ve got about three ornaments for Christmas. Maybe we—”
“Ooh! I got it!” Richie started bouncing up and down on his toes. “Okay—you get the tombstones and the strobe light and the ghost thing and shit. I’ll be right back. I’m going to the dollar store—it’s one store over, okay?”
Skip nodded, bemused, and Richie took off, his feet flapping on the ground like he was eleven instead of twenty-five. God, that sort of enthusiasm was contagious.
Skipper bought his decorations—and threw in a giant spiderweb and a Frankenstein mask for kicks—and when he was done, Richie was standing outside with a bag of cheap plastic Barbies, red paint, and rough jute twine.
“Isn’t it great!” he crowed. “It cost me about twenty bucks—that’s what one of those things cost in that specialty store. C’mon, I want to get this shit up before it’s dark. We need a trial run.”
“But I didn’t get candy!” Skip complained. “I need to have the candy, or all this decoration is gonna be moot, because the little bastards will destroy my yard!”
The year before, he’d had to relive his least favorite memories from growing up, and turn off all the lights and pretend not to be home.
“Well, you have to go get a pumpkin anyway. Drop me off home and run and get candy, and you’ll have it all ready for tomorrow night after the game. How’s that?”
Skip nodded, relieved. It was probably silly, a grown man making such a big deal out of this, but he hadn’t had a house with decorations and candy and a porch light and… and normalcy since before his parents’ divorce.
Suddenly this holiday loomed up, and he had a friend who would help him make it perfect, and not in a sad, lonely way either. Hanging the dolls from his little tree in the front yard was a stroke of genius—kids would love it (or hate it) and it would be…
Happy. He’d give the big honkin’ candy bars, and kids would walk away thinking that yeah, that guy in the little house with the brick bottom and the stucco was an all right guy.
It was something he hadn’t had as a kid, and he was starting to realize—like just this moment, watching Richie get all excited like a kid—how much memories like this meant to him.
He was so glad Richie was there to share them with.
BY THE time it was dark, they’d managed to hang all the creepy plastic dolls from the tree and suspend the ghost and the strobe light on the front of the porch. They were both starving, so Skip sent out for pizza, and it arrived while Richie was practically armpit deep in the giant pumpkin Skip had bought when he’d been getting candy.
They took turns eating and working on the jack-o’-lantern, and when they were done, Skip surveyed it with critical eyes.
“Hunh… your parts are real good, Richie, but I think I mangled that… whatever it is, filigree, around the outside edge.”
They’d gone for one of the more difficult pictures in the carving kit, and there was this weird twisty vine thing surrounding the witch over the cauldron. Skip was actually convinced the whole thing was overkill—as far as he was concerned, jack-o’-lanterns should have big goofy faces on them with triangular eyes, like in the cheap clipart, but Richie had insisted. The good ones used the books and perforated the pumpkin on the lines and then carved the detail pieces out with the tiny serrated knives that came with the kit. Skip wasn’t going to argue with him about it—he just shut up and carved the damned filigree.
Richie stood back next to him, munching on pizza and studying the work critically. “No, no. I think you did real good for your first time.” He stopped chewing and swallowed abruptly. “Why was it your first time carving a pumpkin, Skip?”
Skip shrugged and stepped forward to wipe the face off so the last of the inside mung didn’t obscure the picture. “I was, like, ten when my parents split. Who puts a butcher’s knife in the hands of a ten-year-old?”
“Yeah, but after that? I mean….” Skip looked over his shoulder and caught Richie frowning at him. “I know your mom was… like queen of vodka and shit, but didn’t you get to carve a pumpkin?”
“No,” Skip said shortly, not wanting to talk about it. Richie looked hurt, and Skip sighed. “She got welfare and child support, and once I paid the rent and bought food, there wasn’t much left. I mean, now I know about those cheap places to shop and the dollar store and shit, but back then I didn’t have a car and the closest grocery store wasn’t cheap.”
“But….” Richie looked at him, baffled. “Skip, you were just a kid. I mean, my folks split up too—and I can’t say my stepmom’s a picnic. But you were just a kid.”
Skip shrugged again, uncomfortable. “Well,” he said, “I must not have done all the shopping. I still barely look old enough to buy vodka.”
Richie set his pizza crust down deliberately on top of the box and wiped off his hands. Then he slid behind Skipper and wrapped his arms around his waist and held him hard.
It took a moment for Skip to recognize comfort.
He turned in Richie’s arms and captured his chin, then went in for a kiss. Richie smiled a little right before their lips brushed. “Are you sure? I taste like—”
Pepperoni and sauce.
Didn’t matter.
This kiss seemed different. They were both still sweaty with two soccer games and running around decorating, and still covered in pumpkin guts. Richie even had a seed stuck to his forearm. They weren’t heading for bed—at least Skip didn’t want to have sex like this, not tonight. It was just… warm. It lingered, the purpose of the kiss being the kiss itself.
Richie pulled away first and gave a shuddering sigh, pushing against Skipper and letting out a little puppy-dog sound. “Let’s clean up and shower,” he said gruffly. “We can skip the cookies in bed—I just want you.”
“Yeah.” They were tired. Not bone-deep tired, because Skip knew he was still ready to go, but if they had that kind of kiss in bed, one of them would fall asleep in the middle.
Skip had plans for tonight.
“You go first,” he said decisively. “I’ll finish cleaning up.”
TWENTY MINUTES later he stepped out of the shower in his tiny bathroom, wondering if he should even bother to put on underwear. Being naked under the pulsing water made him remember that morning, the look on Richie’s face, the taste of his come in Skip’s mouth, and he wanted more.
He was still drying his hair with one towel and clutching the other towel around his hips when he stepped into the bedroom and saw Richie sprawled out naked on the bed with his cock in one hand and a bottle of lubricant in the other.<
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Skip promptly dropped both towels. “You, uh… were we….”
Richie looked up at him with hooded eyes. “I really….” He set the lube down and let go of his cock so he could sit up. “It’s not supposed to hurt,” he said after a moment. “It’s… it’s supposed to feel really good.” Richie lay back then and lifted his legs, reached behind him, and spread his cheeks. “See?” he said huskily. “Right there.”
Skip closed his eyes, gripped his own cock, and squeezed a drop of precome out the tip, shuddering. “I know where your asshole is, Richie,” he said, not sure he recognized his own voice. “I’m not just gonna stick it in.”
Richie dropped his legs and pushed himself up on his elbows, grinning. “But you are gonna stick it in, right?” he said slyly.
Skipper let go of his cock and smiled self-consciously. “You want?”
Richie nodded, and Skip reached over and killed his bedside light.
Richie’s eyes got big and shiny. “You don’t like looking at me?”
Skipper bit his lip. “Just, you know, worried you don’t like looking at me.”
Richie shook his head and held out his hand in a curiously hopeful gesture. “I really like looking at you. I… I can’t look away from you sometimes.”
Skip took his hand and bounded into bed, eager as a puppy. “Right? Like all summer, I kept waiting for you to take off your shirt, and you’d be all sexy and sweaty and shit. It was why I wanted to win!”
Richie chuckled. “You never take off your shirt, you miserable bastard.” He ran a hand over Skip’s chest, stopping to brush his thumb against a pink nipple. “Why is that?”
Skip’s face heated, and not just because the caress was like a little pleasure dart straight to his balls. “’M fat,” he mumbled.
Richie squinted at him. “Not hardly!” He scooted to the side and pulled a mouthful of Skip’s stomach skin into his mouth.