What It Takes

by Willa Okati

  A wicked smirk parted Remy’s lips. “Last time we were here, you said I was perfect.”

  “Damn, I’m smart.” Donovan scooted down, balancing on his forearms, to bring his mouth near Remy’s twitching prick. He licked the tip, tasting savory, bitter salt, and slid the head between his lips.

  Outside, thunder rolled in a menacing growl. Remy twisted his face in the direction of the window. “A storm, she comes. Ah! Oh, harder, harder!” He seized Donovan’s head by the curls and pushed him further down.

  Donovan savored the sharp pain in his scalp as he drew Remy’s rigid cock deep in his mouth. Licking, kissing, biting. Tasting Remy’s tangy musk, his natural scent better than any cologne, a flavor no one in his memory could have matched. Going so deep that his nose pressed against Remy’s faint down of peach fuzz, he swallowed, squeezing the swollen, leaking head of Remy’s cock in a harsh vice.

  Remy choked back a scream by thrusting his fist into his mouth. His hips said it all, though, thrusting madly into Donovan’s throat.

  Donovan bit midway down Remy’s shaft, almost but not quite breaking the skin.

  Remy’s fist flew free of his lips and he let rip with a shrill yell as he bucked, humping Donovan’s face, then shot thick streams of seed down Donovan’s throat. Donovan backed off quickly enough to catch the taste of Remy’s spume, rolling the sticky stuff over his tongue to relish every nuance of the flavor.

  Groaning and giving a mighty shudder, Remy slumped bonelessly into the softness of his bed. His fingers shook as he let go of his punishing grip on Donovan’s hair and stroked, lightly scratching the scalp. “Mon Dieu,” he murmured. “Am I still alive or did I make it to heaven after all?”

  One last lick, and Donovan released Remy’s cock. He kissed the man’s lower stomach. “Trust me, you’re very much alive. Now roll over on your side.”

  “Oh, oui. Yes. You will fuck me?”

  “Till your head explodes.” Donovan wrestled both of them into position, moving back up the bed until he was at the right angle. No need to be gentle, or to warn Remy of what he planned. Remy already knew.

  “Do it, mon Dieu, do it,” Remy choked. “I need you so much. Need you in my ass, no waiting. Now. Please, mon cher, please!”

  Donovan wrapped his arms around Remy tightly as a limpet, soaking up the heat of his skin, smelling the earthiness of his sweat. He paused only for a gnawing kiss on the back of Remy’s neck before thrusting between the man’s slick crack and all the way home in his channel. He’d gotten too worked up to go for long, but the little time he had was well spent listening to the animal noises escaping both of them with each punishing stroke.

  Unbearably glorious, his muscles spasmed as Remy bore down, squeezing him with sadistic glee. Donovan sank his teeth into Remy’s shoulder. His tightly drawn-up balls throbbed, jerked viciously, and spewed his own load of semen, pulse after pulse until he was drained dry and his body slacked limp, unable to hold himself upright.

  His cock slipped free of Remy’s ass. Remy writhed around in Donovan’s arms right away, pressing their mouths together. He licked Donovan’s lips, scouring them for his own flavor. “I can taste me on you,” he murmured. “Très bon. No wonder you like sucking dick so much, eh?”

  “Only yours.” Donovan meant what he said. “There’s never going to be anyone else for me, Remy. You know that.”

  “Oui.” Remy drove his face into Donovan’s shoulder. “I love you, cher,” he babbled. “Love you, love you, love you. Don’t ever leave me. Stay. Please, please, please stay with me. Love you so much. Need you.”

  Donovan felt his heart cracking. “Oh, God, how I wish I could.” He cupped Remy’s head and held him tight. “I’ll have to go. I can escape every now and then, but the graffiti always wins.”

  “There is no way for us to fight this?” Remy tossed his head, burrowing deeper. “I cannot live alone anymore, Donovan. I cannot.”

  “There’s nothing I can do about it, love. I wish I could. I want to be with you as much as you want to be with me.” Donovan’s words were ragged, his tone sorrowful and tired. “If there was a way we could stay together, I’d jump for it. You know I would.”

  Remy stilled. “You cannot stay here with me in New Orleans, I know. It makes me ache, oui, but there is no fighting what magic lets you come and drags you back. But there is another way, I think.”

  Donovan stiffened in suspicion. “What do you mean?”

  Remy raised his head, sightless eyes meeting Donovan’s with uncanny ease. “Take me with you when you go,” he whispered. “Take me out of this world to be with you forever and always.”

  “No! My God -- no. You don’t know what you’re asking for.”

  “I do.” Remy caressed Donovan’s cheek, thumbing his lips. “I want to go into the world of the pictures when you return there. Your world. And I will not hear you say no, and this is why…”

  Chapter Four

  Rain streaked down heavy and thick from the New Orleans sky, so sunny a short time ago, now dark with lowering clouds. The raindrops hit the pavement outdoors with sharp, staccato slaps. They reminded Donovan of a long-ago memory of distant gunfire.

  Remy stood at his window again, staring sightlessly into the storm. His shining red hair flew wild, tossing and tangling over his face. Donovan chuckled with no humor as the thought crossed his mind that Remy looked more like a painting than he did, who from art had sprung and to art would return.

  The silence between them hung weighty as fog.

  “It is an old story, this,” Remy said abruptly. “And it is not pretty. But my heart is set on telling you, so you understand better, eh?”

  Donovan sat up in Remy’s bed. He wrapped his arms around his knees and waited. His heart beat a little too quickly, but he kept his mouth shut.

  He’d let Remy speak his piece.

  “Life is not kind to a boy like I used to be. My father -- who is he? I have no idea. He left my mother before her belly swelled, before she knew I would be coming. She never spoke of him, not even when I begged. My mother? She did the best she could, oui¸ but she was not cut of the right cloth for parenting.” Remy chuckled bitterly. “Especially not with a boy who could not see. A double burden.”

  Donovan’s heart ached. They had never talked about Remy’s past. He dodged the subject whenever it came up.

  Perhaps now he would find out why.

  “I gloss over a few years, make shorter the story. A brief stay with my mother’s half-sister, a bit of time with Grandmother before she died, and then a while spent in foster care. I never went hungry there, no, but the homes are so bleak they would have drained any colors, so for once I was glad to be blind.”

  “How long did you stay?”

  Remy lifted one elegant shoulder. “I do not remember, eh? Time passes in strange ways when you are alone, when all you want to do is hide from the bigger and stronger and crueler. Oh, I was their favorite target, I was. They liked to punch me hard in the stomach and then back away so I could not guess where to hit back. Sometimes I got lucky.” His expression brightened briefly with savage triumph. “Enough soon becomes enough, and so I ran away. I thought that living on the streets would be better.”

  “How old were you?” Donovan asked quietly.

  “I think fifteen?”

  “Dear God.”

  “Do not pity me, Donovan,” Remy snapped. “I want no charity; I have not asked for this; I do not tell you to make you hurt. Tears, they change nothing. Grief alters no days gone by.”

  “I’m not heartless. I can’t listen to this like a stone.”

  “Stone. It is something better to be stone, yes? Stone does not bruise, it does not bleed. I soon learned how to become stone when I set out by myself.”

  “How did you live?” Donovan spread his hands. “What did you eat? Where did you sleep?”

  Remy barked a laugh. “Oh, you think I was poor as a church mouse? Non. I have never seen myself in a mirror, but no sooner did I walk the French Quarter tha
n I had new friends and admirers beyond counting. Plenty men told me I was beautiful, and if I only did what they said I would be rich.” His lips twisted cynically, but not bitterly. “You can guess what they wanted, eh?”

  “God, Remy. God. You were only fifteen.”

  “For such men, age is no matter. Some like the younger meat. I thought I had gotten so lucky. A room in a snug, warm house where hot meals better than any I had ever tasted came three times a day. Too skinny, they said, ‘fatten him up.’ But not too much, eh?”

  “You had no idea you were in a -- a what? A brothel?”

  The look on Remy’s face was pure scorn. “I am not stupid now, Donovan, and I was not stupid then. I knew the smell of sex. The house they brought me to reeked of sweat and come. I knew what they would require, perhaps sooner, perhaps later, and I did not care. So far as this concerned me, I had the better bargain.” He exhaled. “But I was a virgin, and so while I was not an idiot I was naive and it turned out there were many things I did not know.”

  “Don’t tell me what happened next. Don’t. I can’t listen.”

  “Your heart, does it bleed for the boy I was?” Remy snorted. “I will skim again, then, for your sake, because this once-upon-a-time whore loves you enough to spare you ugly details. I will skip to the part where one man, the one man who had been kind, bought me from the brothel. Yes, I was bought and sold like a piece of sugar candy, but by then I did not care. He, though, he made me care again. He did not demand my ass or mouth or hand. I think he felt the guilt for my sake, maybe?”

  “He treated you well?”

  Remy folded his arms across his chest. “He did. He was a good man. Roy, that was his name. Roy Delacroix. He joked about the rhyme, and we both laughed, once I learned to laugh again. He was une enigma at first, though. Why, I wondered, would he want me if not to fuck?”

  Donovan hesitated over what he wanted to ask.

  Remy’s lips softened into a smile. “You are wanting to know why Roy took me in. Alors, I do not know for sure, not even to this day. All I can do is guess, eh? He cared for me as if I were a son once lost, now found. Brought in a tutor to teach me the Braille, bought the long white cane I needed, and walked by my side through New Orleans until I knew the streets by their sounds and smells and the way they felt under my feet. Ha! He even gave me Bo.” He shook his head. “A good man, oui. There are few left of his kind in this world, even in the Big Easy. I knew no other such man of a truly gentle heart until I met you.”

  “What happened to him?” Donovan thought he knew, but left it for Remy to say.

  “Old, he was. Not so very old, perhaps no more than fifty, but he loved the fried food and rich sauces and bourbon. How I fought him to eat a bite or two of vegetables now and again!” Remy sighed. “His heart, it gave out. I think he had an easy death, as such things go. We sat on the couch, Bo between us. One minute he was scratching Bo behind the ears, the next he was still.”

  “And you were all alone again.”

  “Somewhat. This house, where we stand, you and I? This was left to me by Roy. Also money, all he had hidden away, and he had no family to fight his will.” Remy bit his lip. “Perhaps that is why he liked me, eh? He was alone, I was alone, but together we were not.”

  He fell silent. Donovan waited.

  “And so here I am,” Remy said when the silence had grown almost impossible to bear. “Here are we both. But I know again what I had once forgotten. House, money, pah! They are good, I am grateful to have such things, but when you go I am alone. I have learned to hate being alone, and when I think of you going again my chest aches.” He curled one hand into a fist and pressed the knuckles against his breastbone. “I will not be left by myself, Remy, not any more. I cannot bear to be apart.”

  Donovan lowered his head in misery. “But I can’t take you with me, Remy. The magic doesn’t work that way. I don’t know how else to say it.”

  Remy turned sharply, hands flying to his hips. “And how do you know, eh? You ever try?”

  “I -- I --”

  “At least we try. Please.” Remy crossed to Donovan and sank gracefully to his knees. He stroked Donovan’s bare thighs, scratching just hard enough to tantalize. “This world beyond, you never say much about the place…”

  “It can’t be described.”

  “But you are not frozen like a statue, no? You move. You live. Perhaps you even have friends?”

  “No.” Donovan swallowed. “No friends. I’m alone there myself.”

  “Then we follow Roy’s example and keep each other company. We will no longer be desolate.”

  “I don’t know how to let you in!” Donovan burst out, frustrated. He caught Remy’s hands in his and squeezed hard enough to bruise. “I don’t even know how I get out. One minute there, the next minute here. It’s like -- like -- waking from a dream, or going to sleep. I can’t tell which. It just happens.”

  “You would turn me aside?”

  “No! God, no. If there were a way, any way, I’d be enough of a selfish bastard to take you with me. You have a life, though. You have a city and a dog and --”

  “I have many things. What I want is you.” Remy laid his cheek against Donovan’s knee. “Let me try. Where is the harm? We try, and maybe we get lucky and live happy ever after.”

  Donovan caressed Remy’s silky hair, smoothing down the tangles. The sound of rain filled Remy’s bedroom, as if the sky were weeping. In New Orleans, who knew? It might have been.

  “You really would give up everything for me, wouldn’t you?”

  “Oui.” Remy grinned mischievously. “Well, except maybe Bo. I know he hates you, but he has been my only company for the most part for the count of six years. We take Bo too, yes? He would be safe there?”

  “Fuck. I was all ready to try before you mentioned that damn dog.” Donovan chuckled, Remy joining in. “Fine. Bo can come too, if this works.” He hesitated. “But I still don’t know what to do. There’s not any god I know to pray to, just some force that spits me out and chews me back up.”

  “Then we light a candle to honor the power, yes? I have some votives on the dresser, I think. You light one and ask this favor. I go get Bo.” Remy rose, stopping only for a hurried kiss, his mouth clinging briefly. “This is a good rain. Wash away one life, and then the sun, she comes out on a different world, oui?”

  “Maybe so.” Donovan brushed Remy’s leg. “Maybe so.”

  “Bon.” Remy hurried away. Donovan listened to his bare feet pattering through the apartment, and waited until he heard Bo bark before he forced himself off the bed. The votive candles were where Remy had said they would be, along with matches.

  Donovan picked up a small white candle and balanced it in his palm. Pray? He’d pray, all right, but not like a good little Catholic.

  “Listen up, you sons-of-bitches,” he hissed. “I don’t know why you made me or why you let me wander. I know I’ve found the love of a lifetime and you damn well owe me enough to let us stay together. Let Remy in, and his dog too. You hear me, you fuckers? Let him in.”

  He crushed the votive in his fist. The fragile wax split in half, then crumbled, chunks falling to the floor around his toes. Donovan stared down at them. “Amen.”

  “Alors, alors, he is all wet,” Remy fussed as he and Bo entered the bedroom. Remy had apparently grabbed a towel from his linen closet and was toweling off Bo’s sodden coat. Bo patiently endured the rubbing towel, but sneezed three times in a row and growled at Donovan. “Behave, you!”

  Bo obeyed, but if looks could kill…

  “He’ll just get wet again,” Donovan remarked. “We need to find the graffiti I come from. It’s always where I step out into the real world.”

  “And when you return? Or do you not remember?”

  Donovan shrugged. “I guess not, no. It’s the dreaming or falling asleep thing again. I blink, and I’m somewhere else.”

  “I have felt you disappear.” Remy toweled Bo’s coat so vigorously that the well-trained dog ro
lled a curious eye in his direction. “More times than I can count, you are simply gone. I think it does not matter where you are. But perhaps we build a bridge, eh?”

  “What do you mean?”

  Remy grinned. “Look in the top drawer of my dresser and tell me what you find there.”

  Curiosity compelled. Donovan slid the drawer open. “Spray paint?”

  “From graffiti you come. Spray paint is for graffiti, yes?” Remy gave Bo one last rub with the soggy towel and came to join Donovan. He smelled like wet dog, but Donovan didn’t mind. Remy selected a can from the drawer. “We draw on the wall, just here, I think, where there are no pictures.”

  “This is crazy.”

  “Ah, but crazy is what we do best, we Cajuns.” Remy sparkled wickedly. He pressed the can into Donovan’s hand. “Here. You do the picture. Draw us both together, and do not forget Bo.”

  Donovan studied the spray paint. Damned if he didn’t feel the oddest tingle coming from the container. Maybe? Please. Maybe?

  “Okay.”

  “Oui?” Remy shuddered with excitement. “I adore you!”

  “I wouldn’t do this for anyone else.” Donovan leaned in to kiss Remy, slow and sweet as sun-warmed honey. “You take my hand, and hang on to Bo too. I’ll draw.”

  “Bon.” Remy got a good grip on Donovan, and held Bo’s walking frame tight. “You begin now? We do what it takes.”

  “Whatever it takes.” Donovan breathed in deeply, tasting the essence of New Orleans and Remy and broken votives and yes, even wet dog.

  He uncapped the spray paint and aimed its nozzle at the wall. “Here we go,” he said, facing down what could be. “Now.”

  * * *

  Sullivan jerked upright with a harsh gasp. The pen in his hand flew away, clattering against the opposite wall and to the floor. His lungs burned as if he’d been drowning. “What the… what the hell…?”

  “He’s back! Jonathan, wake up. He’s okay!”

  Still gasping for air, Sully found himself tackled on both sides by Melissa and Jonathan. They held on as if they’d never let go, muttering and murmuring sweet words that sounded like gibberish.