Unhinged

by Reed, Rick R. ;

  It’s in one of these motels that our story takes place. Ghosts of all different sorts lurk nearby its sad, burned-out neon sign.

  * * * *

  It was blistering hot for Seattle. As Carter watched for a break in the traffic on busy, six-lane Aurora Avenue, he had to keep pulling his pale blue polo from the small of his back. Sweat persistently glued it there.

  The cars swarmed the busy roadway, once Seattle’s main thoroughfare before the construction of I-5. Carter desperately wanted to get across the street because the Galaxy Gold Motel beckoned from the other side.

  He knew that in room number nine, Tony waited.

  Part of the sweat coursing down his back, dotting his hairline, and pooling in his pits was, to be sure, from the close-to-90-degree temperature. It was also because of anticipating Tony, whom he knew would be lying naked in the darkened cheesy motel room, waiting for him. Carter could see him now, his ebony body, smooth and muscled, stretched out on crisp white sheets.

  Lord. Carter could remember no man who had turned his head as Tony had. And Carter had had a lot of men turn his head in his thirty-two years on Earth, some even turning it hard enough to make poor Carter resemble Linda Blair in The Exorcist.

  Yet Tony was something different. Even now, with the sun beating down on his head as if it would burn a hole in the top of it, fringing his buzz-cut blond hair with blackened soot, he could think of nothing but Tony, wanting him like a man in the desert wants water. Tony set off alarms throughout Carter’s body, sent neon pulses of electricity coursing through his synapses, made him quiver with need, with want, with lust—all over. Like the old song, Tony sent him.

  Carter looked north, looked south, and could see the top of the Space Needle rising up in the distance, beyond the Aurora Bridge’s great span.

  And the damn cars would not stop! Rushing like a river made of glistening metal, exhaust fumes, and chrome, the whoosh-whoosh-whoosh of the traffic speeding by seemed endless, as though fashioned by Satan himself to keep Carter from the object of his affection, lust, obsession.

  Tony.

  It made it worse that he knew Tony was over there, in the motel room, waiting, perhaps playing with his hard dick in anticipation of Carter’s arrival. Carter imagined himself entering the room. Wordless, he would drop his clothes as Tony rolled one of his Magnum condoms down his cock. With only a shy smile, Carter would approach the bed, forcing himself to make his advance slow, his cock bobbing out in front of him, leaking pre-come. He would crawl onto the bed, never looking down at what he wanted, but catching and holding Tony’s gaze. Oh, those gorgeous eyes—chocolate brown and flecked with amber. He would slither up the sheets and straddle Tony, grabbing hold of his thick cock, positioning it so he could slide down in one fluid motion.

  Then, and only then, would the two of them gasp and sigh in unison.

  Then, and only then, would Carter dare lean forward and kiss this man for whom he had fallen—damn him—so utterly and helplessly in love. He would part Tony’s lips with his tongue, and explore the salty, sweet, and hot interior of his mouth. Their tongues would dance a pas de deux, dueling, while the rest of their bodies merged in a line of silken electricity.

  Carter shook his head and let out a startled cry as a blaring car horn shrieked at him, its wail losing force as the car swept by, doing at least seventy. Carter stepped back, heart pounding even harder, feeling the breeze and the grit the passing vehicle raised.

  “Watch it,” he mumbled to himself, taking a couple steps backward. His reverie had sent him right into traffic. “You won’t be much good to Tony dead.”

  He wished he had driven a little farther north, to a stoplight where he could have executed a U-turn. Then he would have been going south and could have easily parked on Aurora or one of the adjacent side streets.

  He wouldn’t have parked in the motel parking lot. Neither of them needed their vehicles being seen there, not on a busy Wednesday afternoon when both of them should have been at work.

  Finally, there was a small break in the traffic, and Carter was able to make it across. Barely. He stood gasping on the other side, bent over and resting his hands on his knees. He had almost been struck by a Ford F-150 pickup as he neared the western side of Aurora.

  But now the Galaxy Gold Motel rose up before him, fifty-one years old and looking every month of it. It had originally been built to house the influx of tourists who descended upon Seattle for the 1962 World’s Fair or, as it was dubbed, the Century 21 Exhibition. The Galaxy’s view of the Space Needle, the talk of the fair, had been one of its great selling points. Now it was run-down, a two-story dump dotted with rusting metal doors and darkened windows, like eyes, that looked out on the busy thoroughfare.

  The Galaxy was one of the few motels along this stretch of Aurora that had survived. Yet, graffiti-littered and paint-peeling structures still stood, filled with ghosts, echoing years past and foretelling the promise of a future that guaranteed demolition one day.

  Carter sucked in some exhaust-filled air, the taste of it sharp and metallic in his mouth. The air was like a wet blanket, so rare for Seattle summer, when the uninitiated might be surprised by the city’s sunny, low-humidity days.

  He started toward the motel, his pace quickening as he walked toward room number nine, the place for that day’s assignation. Tony had texted him in the morning to meet him there at noon, his words bald and spare, but not hiding his desperation to be with Carter for one more afternoon, one in a series of secret meetings, illicit and thrilling.

  And disappointing.

  If you had told Carter, at the beginning of summer, he would be playing out some naughty Peyton Place scenario with a married man, he would have laughed, scoffed at the very idea. There were scores of young, attractive, out-of-the-closet, and available gay men in Seattle. They populated its gathering places on Capitol Hill, manned its LGBT sports teams, met at Gay City’s library space for readings and book discussion groups, prowled the Internet for connection. So many men, Carter once joked to his friends, and so little time.

  Why did he have to end up with one who was married? Married and firmly stuck in the closet by a wife and a family who harbored beliefs that being gay was a choice and, worse, a sin.

  He had met Tony, he was embarrassed to admit, at the city’s Woodland Park, really only a short walk from the motel. The park was a beautiful oasis of green in the city and, aside from its zoo, dog park, tennis courts, and running and hiking trails, was one of the most popular cruising spots on the north side.

  Carter would check it out when he had his horns up and desperation forced him there. It was not his place of choice for finding a man—he preferred a more refined connection than ducking into the bushes for a quick blowjob that could result in, yes, a climax, but also possibly an arrest.

  Three months ago, he had found Tony there, sitting by a picnic shelter in his white pickup truck. Carter noticed him right away. For one, he was gorgeous, some kind of ebony god in a tank top, muscles rippling and shaved head glinting. For another, the guy looked scared out of his wits, like the rabbits Carter had once seen in the woods ready to bolt. He was so unlike the older men who cruised the park, but later Carter would discover he was indeed very similar to many of them, in the fact that he was married.

  Carter had known instinctively this one would not follow him into the shaded woods. He had approached his truck cautiously, the way he might near a wild animal, sniffing the air for predators.

  And Carter did feel like a predator as he wandered up to the open window of the truck, making small talk about the weather. It had been drizzling that day, the sky pewter gray, hanging heavy. Not many people were in the park, yet Carter could still see the anxiety in Tony’s restlessly darting eyes, the nervous way he tapped his hands on the steering wheel.

  They had done nothing that time. But the following week, Carter was drawn back to the park, and he knew, in the back of his mind, it was to see if a certain white pickup would be there.

&nbs
p; It was.

  This time, Tony was a bit more open. Carter didn’t know why Tony had told him his tale of an unhappy marriage, made when he was nineteen, and how trapped he now felt, but knew no way out. Maybe it was simply because Tony did not know Carter, and speaking openly to a stranger had been easier, especially when it seemed he had been shouldering this burden for so long.

  Not a soul knew he was gay, Tony had said. He’d hardly had any experience with men, but the more he tried to force his urges away, the harder they returned, invading his dreams with salacious imagery that left him panting in bed next to his wife in the early morning hours, the sheets dotted with his sweat and his cock pulsing out its last dribbles of come into his briefs.

  “I don’t know if I can stand it, this longing,” Tony had confessed. “It’s like a living thing, always with me, never letting me have any peace, you know?” Carter did.

  And still, Carter wasn’t sure Tony would ever go the extra mile and actually touch another man or allow himself to be touched.

  But, as it always did, desire eventually won out. And the two of them traveled to this seedy motel only a quarter mile or so from the park’s 50th Avenue entrance.

  And thus began a torrid affair. It was fun at first, Carter playing the teacher and Tony his eager pupil. They left the room after each assignation in disarray, the force of their coupling so strong it left the sheets torn from the mattress, its striped ticking visible. Carter was certain that when the people entered who cleaned the room, they would still smell the come and sweat hanging heavy in the air. They would gingerly pick up the condoms littering the floor, find perhaps one of Carter’s blond hairs curled on a pillow, telling tales.

  The fun morphed into frustration, though, when something happened to Carter he hadn’t expected. He had fallen in love with Tony. It didn’t happen the first time they made love, when Carter left Tony panting in the room to get back to his job at Amazon in South Lake Union. It didn’t happen the second time, when the pair of them cautiously exited the motel room, looking around for witnesses to their depravity and lust.

  But the third time, when Carter lay in bed next to Tony, after their epic session had ended and their bodies were glued to each other by sweat and semen, something clicked, like the tumbler of a combination lock falling into place.

  Carter had felt, lying in Tony’s strong and warm embrace, complete, safe, at home. He remembered closing his eyes against the sensation, which was like a drug, hot, coursing through his system. The feelings made him want to run, want to grip Tony tighter, want to dance, want to cry, laugh, and finally, to never leave this tacky motel room, as long as this man lay beside him.

  He hadn’t told Tony he loved him that day, but he had the next time they got together. And Tony said, “I love you, too, Carter. But nothing can ever come of it. I’m a married man and my family would disown me. Stephanie would probably get creative on me with her chef’s knife. I’d lose everything.”

  After that response to his “I love you,” Carter had dressed hurriedly, tears in his eyes, and left Tony lying on the bed, saying that, to save his heart, he could never see him again. Tony had solemnly agreed, still smarting, Carter supposed, from the guilt and shame that always assailed him after the pair had made love.

  “It’s the right thing to do,” Tony had said. “This is bad. It’s wrong.”

  Yet they were back at the Galaxy Gold the following week.

  Tony was like a drug, and Carter knew he had fallen deeply into both love and addiction.

  The trap had sprung closed, and Carter realized the only way to get free would be at the expense of great personal harm, as an animal might chew off its leg to get free.

  All of these memories passed through Carter’s brain in an instant, leaving him nearly winded, vague anxious butterflies hitting against the inside of his gut.

  His remorse, his common sense told him to move along, but even as those voices rose in their outrage, he was moving toward the chipped green door of room number nine.

  So focused was he on the door and, more importantly, what lay (literally) behind it, he almost didn’t see the little boy zoom up in front of him on his bicycle.

  “Whoa!” the little boy, about ten, cried, screeching to a sudden halt right in front of Carter, nearly propelled over the bike’s raised handlebars.

  Carter could have snapped something along the lines of telling the red-haired boy to watch where he was going, but he didn’t, because he knew the near-collision was all his fault. He had been focused instead on the immediate future, which lay beyond the sunny confines of Aurora Avenue.

  So all he said to the kid was, “Sorry. I wasn’t paying attention.”

  “You sure as fuck weren’t!” the boy said, but he laughed. Carter took in the boy’s impish features, his pug nose and freckles that put him in mind of Howdy Doody.

  “No, I sure as fuck wasn’t. I apologize.” Carter made to move around the bike, a retro job—lime green with a black banana seat and raised handlebars—that Carter suddenly recalled were referred to as “sissy bars” when he was a lad.

  “Hot date at the motel?” The boy, who should have not even been aware of such adult goings-on, eyed him.

  “None of your business,” Carter said, keeping his words gentle. He now felt in a quandary. Should he pretend to be walking south on Aurora and delay his meeting with Tony so this little imp wouldn’t have his suspicions confirmed, or should he simply say fuck all and go into the motel room?

  Why did it matter that a little boy would witness him going into a motel room on a sunny summer weekday?

  In the end, as it always did, desire won out. He was too full of need for Tony to let anything, including this little rascal, derail him from connecting with his man.

  He swerved to avoid the chunky front tire of the boy’s bike and continued his steady progress toward room number nine.

  The little boy called after him, “You be careful, now, sir.” The boy’s laughs were high-pitched. Carter did not turn around but continued forward. “You watch your ass!” the boy shrieked.

  Carter ignored him. When he stopped at the door, his hand on the knob, he turned to regard the little boy.

  But all he saw was that same traffic swarming by on Aurora. A semi growled loudly as it rumbled past. A scooter trailed it, buzzing like a bee.

  The boy was nowhere in sight.

  * * * *

  “I thought you’d never get here,” Tony said when Carter opened the door. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the murky dim of the room.

  Carter felt blinded. He stood still for a moment, letting his eyes adjust to the darkness of the room, the sun nearly blotted out by the room’s cheap vinyl mini-blinds, pulled shut against the glare. Tony always had the room darkened this way, as though he was afraid his wife perhaps might drive by and decide to peek in the window.

  After a moment, though, the room, the bed with its cheap veneer headboard, the writing desk in one corner, the two worn pleather guest chairs, began to take on form and definition.

  And so did Tony.

  As Carter had imagined, he lay sprawled across the white sheets, his dark skin a breathtaking contrast. His thick thighs were spread, and his dick had already risen to half-mast, simply, Carter presumed, by the excitement of his entering the room. Tony’s workman clothes (he worked construction) lay in a heap at the foot of the bed, signaling to Carter that he couldn’t wait to get out of them.

  Almost as exciting as Tony’s naked form laid out before him like a feast, were the clothes he had discarded: a pair of worn and ripped jeans, a T-shirt from which Carter would swear he could catch the manly tang of Tony’s pits rising up, the reflective bright lime green and black vest, the steel-toed boots, one straight up, the other overturned nearby. Of course, alongside all of this, was Tony’s tool belt, worn leather.

  Exciting as the clothes were, and they were, even more exciting was Tony himself. Although the dimness didn’t reveal them clearly, Carter could still imagine T
ony’s incredible amber-flecked eyes and the way he knew, right now, he couldn’t take them off of Carter, which sent a frisson of passion through him. He eyed the man on the bed and sucked in a breath, struggling now to rip off his own clothes, a pair of khakis, a pink Oxford-cloth shirt, socks, and wingtip shoes.

  In seconds, his own work uniform-of-sorts joined Tony’s on the floor. The small striptease alone and the knowledge of knowing how much Tony appreciated it had Carter’s cock fully erect. He moved toward the bed, thinking only briefly of how trapped he was by his passion, his love. But then need took over, wiping out the reality of how impossible and fragile their union was.

  There was only now. Carter slid into bed beside Tony, and Tony leaned over him, gathering him up in his arms, kissing him like a starving man. Tony’s tongue darted into Carter’s mouth, and Carter sucked it, hungry, savoring its sweet-sour essence. Both pairs of hands, Carter thought, seemed to have minds of their own as they roamed the other’s body, delighting in the touch of hot, smooth skin.

  After rolling around on the bed for several breathless moments, Carter pushed Tony back and crawled between his sprawled thighs. In one fluid motion, he took Tony’s cock down his throat, and Tony groaned. Carter brought his head back up, reveling in the dank odor of Tony’s crotch, still sweaty from his labors, and went down again, so far his nose pressed against the coarse pubes. Carter slid his tongue out to lave Tony’s balls, eliciting another groan from the man. Tony grabbed Carter’s head and thrust almost savagely into his mouth, and Carter did his best not to gag, although he would have not stopped the mouth-fucking for anything.

  “You keep that up, buddy, and I’m gonna fill your mouth with come.”

  Carter stopped his ministrations only long enough to look up at Tony, a mischievous grin playing about his features. “Is that a promise?”

  He went back to work and about five minutes later was rewarded with the first gush of semen splashing hard against the back of his throat. Carter held on, hand firmly on Tony’s chest, as he bucked and writhed, working through his orgasm. Carter shut his eyes more tightly, made delirious by the muscular pumping of Tony’s cock, savoring the brine of his juice.