Acting Up

by John Inman

  Again, his back arched into me. I gently cupped his heavy balls and cradled their softness in my hand as my mouth consumed his iron cock above. He gripped tighter at my hair. Tugging. Steering me. Lifted his knees and clamped them around me. He began to shake. His breath grew uneven. He gasped. He laughed.

  And the moment he laughed, he laid his warm, gentle hands to my cheeks, holding me in place as the come tore out of him. Filling my mouth. Splashing across my tongue. Just as I wanted. Exactly as I wanted.

  I closed my eyes, savoring every drop, every shudder, every scrape of his skin against my face, every cry that he didn’t bother trying to stifle because he wanted me to hear them. Until he was drained. Until I had taken everything from him I could.

  The moment he collapsed beneath me, spent, he turned his attention to me.

  He patted his chest. “Straddle me,” he said, his voice ragged. “Come up here.”

  He slipped his hands in my armpits and pulled me up. Tucking his arms under my legs, he directed my ass down onto his chest. When he had me exactly where he wanted me, perched on his sternum, my balls against his chin, he tilted my stiff cock downward until the head of it rested atop his lips. He kissed me there. He kissed me there and licked away the juices I had spilled as I pleasured him. When I was clean, when his lips were shiny and moist, he slipped my dick into his mouth. All the way in. As far as it would go. He gazed up at me with his nose in my pubic hair, his eyes alight with hunger. It was the same heat that had burned in my eyes only moments before. His hunger was the same as mine. His craving was exactly my craving.

  I stroked his wild hair while his mouth did magical things and his hands played everywhere over my skin until I was shaking like a leaf. I dropped my head back and closed my eyes as his broad, gentle hands slid up my torso to caress my neck, my throat, my face.

  At the first sensation of come bubbling inside me, frothing, climbing, seeking a way out, I leaned over him and rose up onto my knees to better control my thrusts. Cory slid his hands over my ass and clutched me to him, eagerly taking my dick as deep as it would go.

  The heat of his mouth was a heavenly fire. The movements of his tongue, his lips, his hands, sent my nerve endings sparking and firing. My whole body tensed as he sweetly ravaged me. I was lost to everything but my own urges and the feel of this wonderful man beneath me. Showing me his love, just as I was showing mine.

  When I came, he pulled me even closer. His clever hands stroked my back, holding me in place. He swallowed every gush of come that shot across his tongue. While I flailed around above him, spilling myself into him and trying not to scream while I did it, he held me in place and urged forth every drop he could claim. My knees shook and spasmed against his ribs. My fingers tore at his hair. My hips thrust uncontrollably forward, always into him, into his heat.

  And through it all, he stared up at my face while his eyes crinkled with humor. Watching me. Enjoying my loss of control. Claiming everything I gave him as his rightful reward. I was his. His eyes told me so.

  When I collapsed over him, exhausted, he clutched me tight, letting the final shudders of my waning hunger weaken of their own accord. Letting his strong arms protect me, holding me safely in place while my thundering heart slowed. His warm hands slowly stroked me into peaceful silence, his hot mouth still gently coaxing from me those final drops of passion, the ones that usually come unattended. Too late for the show. But not this time. This time they were tasted. This time they were savored.

  Only then, only when I lay calm above him, drained and sated, did Cory release my cock from his mouth and let it slide over his chin to rest against his throat.

  He eased me up until I sat over him once again, and with his hands on my chest, he gazed up and licked his lips.

  “Be my lover,” he said. “Please, Malcolm. Be mine completely.”

  I nodded. Once. Lost in his pleading eyes. Voiceless, bereft of speech in the wasteland of exploded passion.

  He smiled and eased me onto the bed beside him where we both stretched out and snuggled into each other’s arms, easing tangled muscles, stretching knotted spines. It was there, lying at Cory’s side, that I knew in a sudden burst of realization I had found everything I ever wanted. Everything I thought I would never have. Safety, peace, contentment. Love.

  I pressed my face to his chest and gave a final ecstatic tremble.

  He laid his hand to the back of my neck and held me close until my trembling passed.

  I closed my eyes, safe against the man I loved.

  And the man who loved me back.

  I slept. And for the first time in months, my sleep was dreamless. My dreams weren’t relegated to the shadows anymore. They were meant to be lived in the light. With the living.

  Cory was my dream. I no longer needed the others.

  Sometime in the night, I burrowed into his arms, feeling more at home than I had ever felt with anyone before. In my contentment, a smile teased my mouth. I kissed his side, the wales of his ribs. I breathed in his scent as I mumbled quiet words onto his velvet skin.

  “I hate it when my mother’s right.”

  Cory stirred, his voice gravelly with sleep. “What? I missed that, babe. What did you say?”

  I snuggled closer, cooing him back to sleep. “Never mind.”

  THE NEXT morning we faced Beth hand in hand, a united front for the very first time.

  She eyed us with a softening sweetness lighting her face. “I see by the sappy expressions on your faces that you’ve done it, then. You’ve made a commitment.”

  “Malcolm’s my lover,” Cory said, his face beaming proudly, his ears as red as I had ever seen them.

  All I could do was nod. I was still a little speechless.

  “It’s about time,” she said.

  Apparently I wasn’t entirely speechless. “Don’t get all emotional about it,” I groused. “And by the way, you were great last night. I hate your guts.”

  She mellowed a bit at that. “Thanks.”

  Cory leaned into me and whispered, “You were great last night too.”

  Beth did her barfing routine and stuck a finger down her throat, but behind it all I think she looked pleased.

  Since Cory was her brother, and she knew I was sort of a slut, she apparently had a few more questions.

  “Is this an exclusive arrangement you boys have forged? I mean, have you agreed to never cheat on each other until the day you die of old age and all that?”

  Cory stared at me. I stared at him. Then I turned to Beth. “Sure. Why not? Why would I go out for Vienna sausage when I have knackwurst at home?”

  Cory nudged me with his hip. “Is that like a dick-size reference?”

  I batted my lashes and made a little O with my mouth. “Could be.”

  “I’m going to be ill,” Beth said.

  Deciding maybe the subject of dick sizes might get around to mine, and since I was bound to come up short if anyone tried to compare me to Cory, I thought it prudent to change the subject. I pointed to the item Beth held in her hand. It looked like a script. In fact, it looked like two scripts.

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  She gazed down at what I was pointing at. She brought her gaze back up to me and got a crafty smirk on her face.

  “How would you boys like to tread the boards together?”

  “Sure,” I said. “We’d love it. What’s the catch?”

  “No catch,” she said, handing us a slip of paper. “Be at this address at four o’clock tomorrow. Be prepared to strip.”

  “Strip?” Cory asked. “You mean like naked?”

  Uh-oh, I thought. We’re back to dick sizes again.

  Beth smirked. “Afraid so, big boy. It’s Diversionary Theater. A new gay play. A musical. It rehearses for a month and runs for two. It actually pays cash money to the actors. They are looking for a hunky farmhand type and a swishy little wienie boy. You two are perfect.”

  “Which one is who?” I asked, although I figured I already knew the answ
er.

  Beth didn’t bother explaining. Even Cory politely refused to comment. They both chuckled, though. I wasn’t too sure I was thrilled about that. However, the big strong hand that slid down the back of my lounging pants and caressed my ass rather lovingly made me forget about it quickly enough.

  Cory eyeballed me. I eyeballed him back.

  “How’s your voice?” he asked.

  “Not much range,” I admitted. “But I can basically carry a tune. How about you?”

  He looked a little green around the gills. “Cross a bullfrog with a duck and give it a bronchial infection and you’ll be pretty close.”

  “Hmm. Maybe your looks will carry you through.”

  He brightened. “You think?”

  “No. But once they see your dick, we’re in. They won’t care if you can sing, talk, walk, or possess opposable thumbs.”

  Beth dropped to her knees and stared Rosemary in the face. “These two are making me sick again. It’s becoming a habit.” That out of the way, she gazed up at us. “They also need a stagehand.”

  Cory’s face fell. It was like somebody dynamited Mount Rushmore and Thomas Jefferson’s head went sliding down the cliff. Cory shuffled his feet. He sucked on his cheek. He tugged at his ear. “I prefer to be onstage. Maybe even be a headliner,” he said quietly. “You know. The star. Like in the truck commercial. I’ll audition with Malcolm and take my chances. I’m not working backstage. No way. Uh-uh. Never.”

  Beth and I gaped at each other. “We’ve created a monster.”

  She shrugged. “It was bound to happen.”

  The three of us did a round robin thing, staring at each other in turn. Finally I broke the silence. “Guess we’d better see what this script is all about, then,” I said.

  Cory grunted. “Yep. I guess we’d better.”

  “Sex first?” I asked.

  “You bet.”

  Beth slapped herself in the forehead and stormed off screaming, “Actors! Queers! Brothers!”

  I turned to Cory. “Your sister isn’t very romantic.”

  “The batteries in her vibrator are low.”

  “I heard that!” Beth screamed from the other room.

  Cory’s hand was still moving around inside the seat of my pants. Now something else was moving around inside the front of my pants. I was pretty sure it was my dick.

  “I love you,” I said, turning into his arms, trying not to think about Beth’s vibrator.

  “I love you back.”

  “Let’s fuck.”

  Cory beamed. “Okay.”

  So we did. Quite strenuously.

  Later, with that immediate need sated, we settled in, naked in each other’s arms, to read the scripts. After all, this was Diversionary Theater. That’s probably how we’d be auditioning. Naked. We might as well get used to it.

  Since I read faster than Cory, I completed the first read-through before he did. By the time I finished, I was bug-eyed. Yes, even I can be shocked. In the process of realizing what we might be getting ourselves into, I had frowned in dawning horror, gaped in disbelief, chuckled more than once, and finally redevoured the pages just to make sure I had really read what I thought I’d read.

  With immense satisfaction I turned my attention to Cory, who was flat on his back beside me in the bed, the script held aloft over his head. He hadn’t come to the weird part yet. I could tell by the nonchalant expression on his face.

  I waited patiently, hugging him around the waist, idly tweaking his nipple with my tongue, watching a final drop of after-come ooze from his beautiful cock before I scooted my face down along his belly and lapped it up for dessert.

  It was about then that he stiffened in the bed. Not from my attentions, but from what he was reading. He sat up, dumping my head in his lap, which was fine with me. There was no place I would rather my head end up.

  He gaped down at me. “Did you read this?”

  I had his cock in my mouth by now. So sue me. I’m a slut. “Umm-mmm.”

  He cupped my cheeks in his hands, eased his dick from my mouth, and twisted my head so I was staring up at him. I thought he looked a bit flabbergasted. Handsome—maybe even a little turned on—but flabbergasted.

  “This script—” he began.

  I cut him off. “Remember when I said the next time you are called upon to act you might very well be dressed as an armadillo and quoting Shakespeare?”

  He went from flabbergasted to befuddled. “Uh, yeah.”

  “Well, this time it might actually be worse. You still up for it?”

  He stared down at the script in his hand. He stared from the script to my face. He stared from my face to his cock, which was slowly lengthening against my nose.

  “But this one scene—”

  “I know. It’s experimental theater. You game?”

  His dimples slowly deepened on each side of his mouth. He licked his lips and showed me some teeth when a smile erupted.

  “It could be worse,” he said. “At least we’ll be getting paid. And I’ll be the one with clothes on.”

  “Not in scene seven,” I said.

  He frowned down at the script. “Oh. I haven’t got that far.”

  “I didn’t think so.”

  THE DIVERSIONARY Theater was in a downtown loft with supporting stanchions awkwardly placed throughout for people to have to crane their necks to see around. While they were craning their necks, they had crappy metal folding chairs for their asses to grow numb on. The patrons who knew the theater well brought pillows with them to sit on. The patrons who really knew the theater well brought neck braces and hemorrhoid medication.

  It had been an amazing four weeks. The auditions had gone swimmingly. To Beth’s utter amazement, as well as our own, Cory and I were cast in the lead roles. Cory would play the part of the hunky farmhand (just as I suspected he would), and I was cast as his love interest, the little wienie boy, which was no reflection on my manhood per se. It merely meant I wasn’t exactly butch. Or big. Or manly.

  Beth called it typecasting. Beth is sometimes a bitch, or have I mentioned that already? With a month of rehearsal, most of it in the buff, behind us, it was finally opening night. After flouncing around naked for a month with our fellow cast members, blocking our moves, memorizing our lines, tweaking the choreography for the song-and-dance numbers, all embarrassment at our constant state of undress had been put to rest long ago. Well, most of it.

  Diversionary Theater sported no curtain for there was actually no stage. The play was performed in the round, on a bare patch in the center of the floor, surrounded by all those uglyass folding chairs with the craning audience members perched uncomfortably on them trying to see around the fucking stanchions.

  Radio City Music Hall on welfare.

  It was almost time for opening night to begin. Backstage (which was actually another room separated from the “stage” by a couple of doors) was a madhouse. There were naked men everywhere, and dicks flopping all over the place, including my own. Oddly enough, the biggest and most beautiful dick on the premises, which belonged to Cory, was the only one not on display. That’s because he wore a pair of battered bib overalls, with the side buttons undone to show a goodly expanse of very attractive hip. His broad shoulders were bare and beautiful, his muscular fuzzy arms a dream. Strangely, with all the naked men all over the place, most eyes in the place gravitated first to him.

  But was I jealous? Hell, yes! Half the cast members, each and every one as gay as a maypole, hated my guts for being lucky enough to have latched on to Cory before they did. It was a nice feeling. It had taken me twenty-six years to realize how much I enjoyed being envied. Cory accepted the ogling with his usual calm grace, amused, I think, and flattered too, maybe. But every time he caught me bristling at some queen who was giving him the once-over, he would scoop me into his arms just to let the rabble know where his devotions truly lay. I ask you, how could anyone possibly not love a guy like that?

  Still, tonight I envied Cory. He at least got
to start the show with clothes on.

  The orchestra consisted of a bow-tied music teacher on electric keyboard and an old man with astigmatism on drums. Period. Just as I suspected, upon first seeing Cory stark naked at auditions, the salivating director gave him holy dispensation to speak his songs rather than sing them if he liked. Even the music teacher thought it was a good idea. In fact, Cory could have signaled the lyrics to the audience in semaphore if he wanted. Neither the director nor the music teacher were fools. They knew what sold tickets. And a naked Cory Williams would undoubtedly sell bunches.

  As the overture began and the theater darkened, Cory and I stood at one of the doors leading backstage and peered out. Spotlights lit the stage area, and the rest of the place fell into shadow as the house lights dimmed.

  “Lookit,” Cory hissed, pointing a finger through the door at a woman in the front row.

  I followed where he was pointing. It was my mother. She was sitting beside the newly surgically enhanced Gerald, who was appearing rather pleased with himself, I thought. Even my mother appeared pleased. And friendly too, for her hand never left Gerald’s thigh. Apparently the pecker enhancement surgery was a success. My mother had never looked happier.

  On the other side of my mother sat Beth, perusing her program. She looked happy too. Maybe she had replaced her batteries.

  I cringed and was almost floored by a sudden burst of stage fright. I grabbed on to Cory’s arm like a drowning man. “Oh God. I’ve never felt so naked in all my life.”

  Cory laughed. “Don’t worry. She’ll love the show.”

  “Who? My mother or Beth?”

  “Both of them.”

  I cringed again and threw in a groan for good measure.

  Cory slipped an arm around me, tugging me close. “This is everything I ever wanted,” he whispered in my ear. “Right here. Tonight. Thank you, Malcolm.”

  I twisted into his arms, laid my head to his brawny chest, then immediately pushed myself away. The last thing I wanted to do was step out on that stage in front of my mother and a bunch of peeking, craning, sore-assed strangers with a hard-on.