by Harper Logan
And slammed right into Cam.
Cam was nearly knocked backwards, but Serge, full of adrenaline, immediately reached out and gripped him by the arms. “Sorry about that,” he said, and then realized who he was holding. Cam had much thicker arms than he had given the assistant credit for. He could feel the meaty biceps tensing under the sleeves. “Shit. You and I have to talk.” More roughly than he meant to, he turned Cam around and walked him down the hall.
“All right, tell me what you have planned,” he whispered to Cam.
Cam shook his head. He looked like he hadn’t slept in days. His tie was crooked, and his cardigan was buttoned wrong. His hair was tousled, and a cowlick fell over his forehead. It was almost endearing. “Nothing. I nearly lost my job. But I didn’t tell her.”
“You’re kidding me.”
“I thought about what you said. Did I really want to be a drone? So, sure. Your secret is safe with me.”
They made it to the exit. Out in the open air, with the sun and the cool fall breeze, he felt he could actually get oxygen into his lungs. But he didn’t let go of Cam’s arm.
“It’s not my secret,” he said, finally. “Because it’s not true.”
“You know what I mean. The stuff we talked about. It’s secret.”
“Okay, but I’m not gay.”
“That’s fine, Sergio. You made your point about that. I’m sorry I invaded your life.”
“No, I’m sorry. I got scared, and I was an asshole to you. But I need to know, what does she have planned for me, if not that?”
Maybe he was pushing too hard. Cam didn’t look scared or anything, that wasn’t the look he was giving Serge right now. But he definitely looked pressured. What had he been going through the past few days? Why did he look so bad this morning? On the other hand, why should Serge care? What was this guy to him, but an impediment? Not even another writer, but an assistant to another writer.
Cam shook his head, the cowlick tossing to the side. “I don’t want to get involved in this stuff.”
“You are involved. You know what she’s going to pull.”
“That’s between you and her. Have you even spoken to her? She has a phone, you know, email, the whole bit.”
“If anyone on the earth knows that I haven’t spoken to her, it’d be you.”
“I shouldn’t even be out here with you,” said Cam. “It’s fraternizing with the enemy. She’s still pissed at you. But since my big failure at our dinner, she’s frozen me out. I open the mail, I make phone calls, I do her bills, and pick up her pastries and dry cleaning. And everything else she is absolutely silent about.”
“Fuck,” said Serge, running his fingers through his hair. “What am I going to do? I don’t have a single fucking ally in this town.”
“You don’t have an ally? I moved up here to work for Madeleine. I know nobody here. There’s no time to make friends, I haven’t been on a date in over a year, and even with all the sacrifices I’ve made, she’s going to end up firing me, all because I protected you. So, fucking congratulations, Sergio. I’m your ally.”
It was the stress, really. There was no other explanation for it. It was like waiting for the end of the world to come, hearing it rolling towards you like a truck headed straight for you. Serge heard the anger in Cam’s voice, but something else too, something honest. A little sympathy. And there was the matter of that cowlick coiling down over his brow, and the way the ridiculous cardigan was crooked, and all of it, really, combined into something Serge couldn’t explain, but he leaned forward and kissed Cam.
It was shocking to him. Not the softness and warmth of Cam’s lips. No, that seemed very natural. As did the taste of his tongue, when their lips parted. What was shocking was that he should be kissing Cam at all. He backed off.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t know what that was.”
The cynical side of him said he knew exactly what it was. One last ditch attempt to save himself. Draw Cam in. Seduce him. Find his secrets, find what Madeleine was plotting.
Another side of him just wanted to kiss Cam again.
Cam blinked. “I don’t know what that was either. You said you weren’t—”
“I’m not.”
“But then you—”
“I really am not.”
“Okay.” But then Cam’s hand reached out, and his fingers touched Serge’s chest. “I mean, if you were interested—”
“I’m not.” He saw that Cam had somehow moved closer.
“But if you were,” said Cam. How had he done that? Suddenly they were less than an inch apart again, and Cam was tilting his head back, lifting himself onto his toes to kiss Serge again.
They were out in the open. Kissing. If it weren’t for the fact that this side of the literature building was deserted, Serge didn’t think he could have taken it. He felt so exposed. This was wrong. He couldn’t stand here kissing the enemy. His body couldn’t be responding like this, his cock tightening in his pants, pressing downward as it hardened, uncomfortable and needing to be freed.
He pushed Cam further back, into an area near the building shielded by ornamental cedars. Cam’s arms were around his neck. His lips found Cam’s throat, the heat there, the strong pulse of his enemy’s excitement.
His enemy. This was all a ploy. A trick. His arms around Cam’s waist, pulling him close, until the only thing separating their cocks was a few layers of clothing. He pressed himself against Cam, rubbing, feeling his shaft get harder.
Cam’s hands were traveling down his back, his flanks, down onto his ass, pulling him, encouraging the way Serge was grinding against him. Without quite meaning to, Serge had begun moving in a long, slow rhythm, letting the full length of his cock slide against Cam’s thigh. Feeling Cam’s hardness too, trapped inside, bursting to get out.
His fingers fumbled against Cam’s belt, the button of his pants.
This was unfamiliar territory.
He unzipped Cam. Slipped his hand down into the bright coral-colored boxer briefs. Felt strangely satisfied when his hand encircled Cam’s cock, discovering how thick it was, how ready for him.
No words passed between them. There was nothing possible to say. Serge slipped to his knees.
He found himself hesitating.
I’m not gay. This doesn’t make me gay.
I’m just doing this to protect myself.
It had been so long since he had been in this position. And it was easy for him to deny he ever had been. A passing dalliance. Nothing means anything. His own ignorance about what to do now tormented him. There was Cam’s cock, standing thick and tall before him. And nothing separating it from his mouth except a few inches of atmosphere and a few miles of anxiety.
His lips touched the shaft. It was hot, and throbbed at his touch. His hand encircled it, stroking, pulling it down, angling it toward his mouth.
He’d written about getting blown. His detective was always finding some girl to go down on him, usually a witness he was interviewing. Someone with something to hide. And it struck him now that there was a grimness in those descriptions. A determination in the detective’s eye, something harder and colder than pleasure. A necessity untouched by warmth and emotion.
He hadn’t written about what it was like from this side, because he didn’t understand it well enough. The necessity was still there: As he licked the head of Cam’s cock, as his tongue flicked against the little slit at the tip, and as it traced the veins running down the shaft, he felt a need inside himself that he was scared to put a name to. And even though he wanted to capture the grim stoicism of his detective, even though he wanted this to be all business, it was hard to be cynical when he felt this need inside himself.
When Cam pressed forward, and his cock slipped into Serge’s mouth, there was a dizzying moment of not knowing what to make of it. He began to suck on it, but Cam winced, and using his hands against Serge’s head, slowed him down, and Serge understood. Instead of sucking hard, he began to have a very light touch, usi
ng his lips and tongue, traveling down his cock as far as he could before returning to the tip. This, Cam enjoyed. Serge could tell from his body language, the involuntary hip thrusts, the soft sigh escaping him. And even though this was all fake, even though it meant nothing, the sound of that sigh drove him forward, making him hungrier to get more of Cam’s cock inside him.
“Oh, I’m—” Cam began to say, but his sentence was cut off as he began to pant, shoving forward. Serge felt himself out of control, hanging on as Cam thrust into his mouth, feeling the cock swelling even thicker. Cam’s orgasm flooded Serge’s mouth. For a brief second he panicked and pulled off, but a jet of hot come hit him in the face, so he put his mouth back on Cam’s cock, sucking softly and swallowing down every remaining drop.
They were locked like that for a little while, Cam’s hands on the back of Serge’s head, Serge feeling the strange sensation of Cam’s cock slowly softening, and the coldness of his come dripping down onto his jaw, onto his shirt.
It was the shirt that brought him back to the present. Realizing that he had Cam’s juices now on his clothes, visible evidence of what he’d done. Something the entire world could see.
Fear gripped him. He stood up.
“That was…that was…” Cam looked at him with softness in his eyes.
Serge shook his head. “I’m sorry. That was so wrong. I’m sorry.”
He began to back away.
“No, wait,” Cam said. He held out a hand for Serge, but Serge turned away.
Serge’s cock was still so hard in his pants, begging for release, but no. This was such a mistake.
He never made it back in to the panel. He went straight home.
9
Cam
The entirety of the panel, Cam sat very still, not looking around at all the gathered people. He made eye contact with Madeleine exactly once, but the look she gave him was so heavy with significance that he had to turn away. Serge, naturally, was not here.
So what the hell had just happened?
Clearly that was the wrong question. How did he feel about what had just happened?
The strange thing was, he felt pretty good about it.
Cam never felt good about anything anymore. But having a big, sexy man unexpectedly go down on him?
It should have been really complicated, right? Should have been the latest in a long string of humiliations?
That was the crazy thing. It didn’t feel like that at all. He felt like laughing, right here in the middle of the panel. It was so ridiculous. But he had to admit it: he had a crush on Sergio. Not like, head over heels. It wasn’t like that. But it was a crush, and surely, surely what had happened out there meant that Sergio felt the same way? Unless maybe he just went around giving blowjobs to all his worst enemies?
“But I see not everyone could join us,” said Madeleine, to light laughter from the crowd, and suddenly his attention was jolted.
He hadn’t heard the question she was asked. But she looked confident in her answer, her fingers tossing the end of her lavender scarf, her gaze traveling over the audience.
Someone in the audience said, “Were you hoping to confront Mr. Faletti today?”
She leaned forward as though to see who had spoken. A ruse: her eyesight was perfect. “Why ever would I want to confront him, darling?”
The leader of the panel, the head of the creative writing department, cleared his throat and said into the microphone, “I do not think we need to take questions about this.”
“No, no, perfectly all right,” said Madeleine. “While Joe Middle America may not read the Rosebridge Review, I certainly expect everyone here has. But confront Mr. Faletti? For having an opinion? That’s hardly professional. In writing, as in boxing, one quickly develops the ability to take a punch without complaining.”
Cam glanced around. He wondered how many people today had come as fans of Sergio. And how many had come just because they knew there was friction between the two writers. Certainly there were some rapt, delighted looks in the audience now that Madeleine was addressing the topic. But he wished she wouldn’t. He didn’t want to hear anything against Sergio right now. Sure, he’d hear it soon enough anyway. But for just a minute, couldn’t he bask in what had happened between them? Just for a minute?
“I quite agree,” said the department head. “Are we not all engaged in criticism? It is in our bones, both to receive it, and to give it.”
“And I fully support Mr. Faletti’s decision to stay home today, rather than risk indulging in any cheap theatrics regarding it,” Madeleine continued.
“Yes.”
“Although…” she said, her voice trailing off. “One would think that if Mr. Faletti believed in his words, he might be here to stand up for them.”
The entire panel suddenly reminded Cam of a tank of angry piranha, waiting for a cow to fall into the lake. The department head, feigning a look of unbiased indifference, leaned closer to Madeleine. “There is something in what you say,” he agreed.
“You have to wonder whether he decided to avoid controversy by staying home,” she said. “Far be it from me to say such a decision would indicate his character.”
Cam rolled his eyes. The audience was eating this up. They’d come for blood, and now they were getting it.
“But that’s what it always comes down to, isn’t it?” she said. “He can criticize my book. Of course he can. But when he uses that devil-may-care language, you can almost hear the pleasure in every word. He’s enjoying getting in his jabs. He’s making it personal. And what could anyone expect of me, except that I’d take it personally, as intended?” She leaned again towards the audience. “But then, how clever of him to steer clear of me now. Because now I would feel positively guilty speaking about his book, without him being here to defend it. I would feel awful pointing out that, bestseller though it may have been, it was a really terrible book! That plot! What was that? I don’t think he had any plan for it at all. And that detective! What misogynistic basement cell did he pull that monster from? And we are to praise him? Oh, many did, surely. A bright new light in the firmament, they called him. Whenever a young man makes a particularly violent book, the world rushes to his door.” She smiled. “I suppose it’s my fault, for being a woman, and for no longer being young, but I’d say there is enough violence in the world, without forcing it onto a novel. But that’s just me.”
“There was more applause than I was expecting,” she said on the way back to her house. The minute they’d gotten out of the building, she’d lit her cigarette, and the way the smoke followed them reminded Cam of a train. “Why did no one defend him? There’s a lesson there, Cam. If he’s not inspiring people to great emotional heights, then what is he really doing writing?”
They passed two guys holding hands. The sight made Cam’s heart beat a little faster. It didn’t seem fair that other people had a chance at a relationship! He wondered what they were whispering about that’d put such big smiles on their faces. They were walking a fluffy white dog and murmuring almost conspiratorially, the way loving couples seemed to do. The one guy was so clearly a jock, with dirty blond hair that made him look all rakish; the other by contrast was wearing a tee that said, “Master Has Given Dobby A Shirt” in that Harry Potter font. They looked like opposites…and that made Cam wonder what he and Serge would look like, if they were holding hands.
The one in the t-shirt said to his boyfriend, “But you’re such a Hufflepuff!”
The jock shook his head, looking mildly offended. He said, “No way, bro. Gryffinclaw,” which made the first guy laugh.
Madeleine scoffed. She whispered to Cam, “Speaking of people who have no business writing, remind me to tell you how JK Rowling snubbed me at the Women in Literature conference when To Swim with Swans came out.”
Cam had to wonder if there was anyone she didn’t have a grudge against. He tried to remember any conversation about other writers, where she wasn’t tearing them down.
“As for Sergio, it’s
a relief that it’s over,” he said, his hands in his pockets, moving his head to avoid her smoke cloud. “At least now you’ve had your revenge, and we can get on with our lives.”
“Revenge?” She stopped on the sidewalk and turned to him. “Is that what you think this is, Cam?”
“That’s exactly what this is.”
She shook her head. “Revenge is senseless. It’s nothing more than the satisfaction of a base, primal urge.”
The thought of base, primal urges made him think of being pushed up against the wall again. He kept his face still so he wouldn’t smile. “So what was that, in the panel?” he asked. “What were you asking me to do before, if not get revenge? What did you ask Angela to do all those years she worked for you?”
“I don’t like your tone,” she said, beginning to walk again. She stubbed out her cigarette on the No Smoking sign they passed. “I don’t want to use a phrase like ‘thin ice’ with people I’ve taken under my wing, but…”
He shivered. In all the time he’d known Madeleine, she’d never been the sort to give out warnings. He was surprised he hadn’t already been fired for not living up to her expectations. The fact that he hadn’t been, though, made him wonder why she was keeping him around. Was his job more secure than he realized? “I’m sorry I had a tone.”
“It’s a very emotional time for all of us,” she said. “And in the end, I think you’ll see that there is no vendetta against Sergio Faletti, and certainly no plan for revenge. Vengeance is about one’s definition of justice. An eye for an eye. The infliction of an equal amount of harm to compensate for harm done.”
Cam nodded, a little worried about where she was going with this.
“If you have a cancer,” she continued, lighting another cigarette, “the goal is not to meet it with an equivalent amount of harm. The tumor in the beginning has little effect, and to punish it, to apply justice to it by attacking it in the same magnitude, would be foolish. We must look, not at the harm it has caused, but at the harm it can cause.”