When Carter was certain the last drops had pumped out, he lifted his head and took the heavy cock in his hand. He squeezed it so that a lovely drop of pearlescent come formed in the piss-slit and then licked it away.
“Yum,” he whispered.
“Lord,” Tony said, slumping back against the headboard, reaching out in a cliché move that Carter had to admit he loved, to snag his hard pack of Marlboro Reds off the nightstand. He lit up and exhaled through his nostrils as Carter curled into his arms, resting his head on his chest.
“That was just the appetizer,” Carter breathed, looking down at his own stiff cock, leaking pre-come.
“I know. I know. Just give me a few to recover. I know what you want.”
After the cigarette and some small talk, Carter slid himself up to position himself at Tony’s mouth. He loved the taste from the cigarette and kissed Tony hard, moving to straddle him. Once he was on top, he ground his hips into Tony’s lap, delighted to feel the cock raising its head once more.
After more kissing, of lips, ears, neck, Carter pulled back to peer at his man. “You ready?”
Tony only growled in response.
Carter rolled off of him and lay next to him. Slowly, he pulled his legs up so that his knees were practically touching his ears. “That’s one hungry hole, man.”
Tony got up to position himself between Carter’s thighs. “That hole’s gonna get fucked. Hard. Good.” He reached over and grabbed a condom off the nightstand, tore it open with his mouth, and quick-as-a-blink, rolled it on to his cock. “You ready?” he asked again.
“Oh, just fuck me,” Carter pleaded, wriggling his ass so that the head of Tony’s cock was knocking at Carter’s ring of muscle.
Tony took only a second to drop a dollop of the Corn Huskers lotion he had brought onto his dick, rub it up and down, and smear a swatch of it along Carter’s inner cheeks.
And then, with very little effort, he was inside Carter. “Oh God, yeah.” Carter shut his eyes and bucked against Tony, forcing him in so deeply Tony’s rough pubes tickled the smooth skin of his ass cheeks.
Tony threw Carter’s legs onto his shoulders and piston-drove into him. The fucking was merciless and went on for a long time, just what Carter wanted.
When Tony’s thrusts quickened and his face contorted, Carter urged, “Yeah, shoot it in me, baby. Fill me up.”
And Tony did.
Carter came without even touching himself, jets of come arcing to splash onto his chin, chest, and belly. He arched his back, losing for a moment his hold on reality. The room, its cheap furnishings, the slatted sunlight coming in through the blinds, even Tony himself, disappeared as Carter surrendered himself to this breath-stealing, nerve-tingling pleasure.
When it was over, Carter gradually reeled himself back to Earth. Tony was lying next to him, a dribble of sweat coursing down between his smooth pecs. He stared straight ahead, smoking. Carter couldn’t even remember when he had lit it. Carter grabbed the cigarette from Tony’s fingers, took a drag, and exhaled a plume of blue-gray smoke into the room.
“Yuck,” he whispered. “I don’t know how you smoke these things.”
Wordlessly, Tony took the cigarette back, took a long drag, and then extinguished it into the ashtray next to the bed. He wasn’t looking at Carter and made no move to caress him, as he often did after they had both come.
“Is everything okay?” Carter asked. “Was it good for you?”
“Oh, it was great, man. It always is.” He rolled over and eyed Carter. “I was just feeling a little guilty again. I don’t know if I can go on like this. I’m a good guy, you know? And good guys don’t cheat on their wives.”
“Yeah, but you’re gay. You can’t get what you need at home.”
“Am I gay?” Tony asked.
Carter rolled his eyes. “You have to ask that after what we just did?”
“If I use that logic, then I’m also straight because I fuck my wife, too.”
Carter felt a nearly wince-inducing pang of jealousy take a stab at his heart. Unrealistic and illogical, but the heart had never subscribed to things that made sense.
Carter asked, “You want to stop?” He hated to say the words because he imagined a world without even this small part of Tony as a very bleak one, empty. But yet, there also danced behind the words the promise of liberation. There was also the hope that once the pain of losing this married man faded, Carter would once more be free to pursue a love that did not have to be confined to motel rooms and shadows, hidden. Still, he didn’t know if he could bear it if Tony said, “Yes.”
Tony looked at him, reaching down to plant a feathery kiss on his lips. “I should. We should. We both know it’s the right thing to do.”
“Do we?” Carter wondered. Who knew what was the right thing to do, anyway? Who decided that? Maybe the right thing would be for he and Tony to be together and his wife cast aside to find herself a man who liked women—and only women. Why wasn’t that the right thing?
“I took vows.”
“I know you did.”
Tony sat up. “I don’t know. I walk out of here, give you up, what would happen then? Would my heart shrivel up and die? Would I forget you?”
Carter thought the sad truth was, he probably would. Maybe not next week, next month, or even next year, but Carter knew the memory of his touch, how he felt, what his smile could do, would eventually fade away. And then where would Tony find himself? Carter looked away, staring up at hairline crack that ran across the ceiling, not wanting to hear the answer to that last question, which taunted him in his own mind.
He’d be back in the park, more experienced now, looking for another Carter, another young man to lure away to the motel and this whole sad, yet blissful, scenario would play itself out once more. Perhaps it would happen many times, until Tony’s wife found out, or Tony brought the wrong guy back to the motel, or who knows?
Carter sat up. “The romantic me would love to say yes, your heart would shrivel up. You’d miss me so much it’d be like a physical ache. You would just not be able to go on. But the realist in me knows the truth—you’d go on.”
“And be a faithful and loving husband?”
Carter turned to face him. He shook his head. “You’re kidding yourself if you think that. You told me once your need for a man was like a living thing and it wouldn’t leave you alone. You told me that the harder you tried to suppress it, the stronger it would come back.”
Tony stared down at his thighs, at the dick coiled between his legs. He snatched the sheet up to cover himself.
Carter leaned toward him, touching his shoulder gently. “I’m sorry. But it’s true.”
“I know it. It’s a mess.”
Carter asked again, “Do you want to end it?” He was split right down the middle. One part wanted Tony to say yes, another despaired that he would.
“Of course not. I love you.” And Tony looked over at him, catching and holding Carter’s gaze. Carter didn’t need words to know that this was the bottom line—their love. Sure, the sex was mind-blowing, the best he’d ever had, and he suspected the same was true for Tony, but it wasn’t really about the sex. If it was, Tony could go on being married and have some secret encounters on the side, perhaps for years.
But Carter knew they both wanted more. But how to get it? How to get it and not hurt so much those around them? Carter was single, but it didn’t erase the complicity he would feel in the break of a woman’s heart if her man left her to be with him.
“I love you, too.”
Carter sat back, leaning against the headboard, his shoulders touching Tony’s. “So where do we go from here?”
“Why do we have to go anywhere?” Tony asked dully. Carter thought he was referring to leaving the motel room. But his next words clarified what Tony had met. “Can’t we just keep things like this?”
The words simply came out of Carter, without forethought. “Forever? Would you be happy with that? I wouldn’t. We love each other.” Carter
looked away, a stream of images parading by in his head. “What we do here is flat-out wonderful. I mean it! But the words ‘I love you’ encompass so much more.” Carter stretched his arms open wide. “I want us to get out of this motel room. I want to have dinner with you at one of the restaurants in Pike Place Market or maybe you and me at the top of the Space Needle, spinning as the sun sets behind the Olympics. I want to ride a ferry with you from Anacortes to Friday Harbor. I want to get in the car and take a weekend road-trip down to Portland and end up in some little B&B on the Oregon coast. I want you to come to my place and I’ll make my mom’s meatloaf for you. I want to open presents under a Christmas tree. I want watch you blow out the candles on your birthday cake.”
Carter bit his lip, hating the big, painful ball that had formed in his throat, making it painful to swallow, as though a torrent of tears and a bunch of sobs were the only thing that could dissolve it.
“I want to see your clothes hanging next to mine in the closet.”
Tony stared at him for a long time. Finally, he shook his head and rose up from the bed. He began to dress.
“You’re not gonna say anything?” Carter wondered. It was weird how the room had gone from the heights of blissful passion to the depths of despair so damn fast. “I just poured my fuckin’ heart out to you, man. And you’re gonna give me back silence?”
Tony pulled up his pants and struggled to pull his T-shirt over his head, saying nothing. At last, he said, “If I had answers, I’d give ‘em to you.”
He gathered up his tool belt and then kissed Carter on the forehead. Carter looked up at him. “Same time next week? Room nine?” Carter asked. The question seemed inane, after the dreams he had just confessed. He might as well have said, “I’ll take whatever crumb you give me.”
Tony shrugged. He moved to the door, opened it, and let in a blinding block of light. He was only a silhouette as he stood there in the brilliance, the sound of traffic suddenly loud behind him.
Carter barely heard him say, “I have to think.”
And then he closed the door, plunging the room back into murky darkness. Carter was alone.
He slumped back on the bed, staring down at his feet. He moved them back and forth, trying not to think. Was this the end? It sure felt like it.
Curiously, the sobbing and tears that had threatened to erupt seemed to have left along with Tony. Right then, there was only a curious numbness. He supposed his mind and his heart were both doing what they could to protect themselves from the pain he was certain lay in wait.
He got up, crossed the room, and lifted a blind to look outside. The same river of traffic flowed by, relentless, leaving Carter feeling isolated, as if he were the only one in the world with such problems. The little boy he had seen earlier, the little redheaded imp, zipped by on his bike, laughing, on Aurora itself, and Carter wanted to open the door to tell the little idiot to get off the highway, use the sidewalk, where it was safer.
But the boy was in and out of his view before he even had a chance to move to take any action.
Carter let the blind drop back into place. He went into the sad little bathroom and showered, then dried off after with a towel that was so thin and rough it barely absorbed anything.
When he returned to the bedroom, a man was sitting in one of the chairs opposite the bed. His legs were crossed, and he made Carter think of the TV series, Mad Men. He had that perfect Don Draper look: dark hair neatly parted at the side, a crisp white shirt with the sleeves rolled up to reveal hairy forearms, gray slacks, creased, and a pair of black wingtips. The man was smoking a cigarette and blowing the smoke into the air in rings.
He looked over at Carter as though he had been expecting him. He smiled.
For Carter’s part, he didn’t know whether to scream, laugh, run, or question his sanity. “How did you get in here?”
The man sighed. “I’m always here. I was here when you and your boyfriend were fucking today and every time before.”
Carter cast his gaze around for an unnoticed closet where the man could have hidden himself, but there was only the freestanding wardrobe in the corner and Carter doubted he could secret himself there.
“Look, I don’t know who you are or what you want, but I’ll give you a minute to get out of here or else I’m calling the cops.” Carter edged a few steps closer, so that he could snatch his pants from the floor. He felt in the pockets, relieved when he grasped the outlines of his wallet and phone.
He struggled into the khakis, almost losing his balance. Creeps walked up and down Aurora, at all hours of the day or night, and all Carter could think was that this one had gotten in when Tony left, forgetting to lock the door behind him.
Yet, didn’t the door lock automatically? And what did the man mean about always being in the room?
And while it was true there were prostitutes and thugs that regularly walked the lengthy north-south traverse of Aurora Avenue, none of them looked as neat (and neat was the best word) as this character.
Carter shivered, even though the room had no air-conditioning. He grabbed his shirt off the floor and put it on, buttoning it with trembling fingers.
“You know what? Forget it. I’ll just leave, and I’ll let the guy at the front desk know you’re here.” Why not? Carter had all his important belongings now. He needed only to slip into his wingtips.
“Sit down.”
“What?”
“Grab a seat on the bed, bud. You know I’m not real.”
“Not real?” Carter neared the man. “You look real to me.” He reached out to place a hand on the guy’s chest, and it was like his hand passed through a fog of cold air.
Carter jumped back, heart thundering.
“That’s right. If you haven’t figured it out yet, I’m a ghost. I’d shake your hand, but you saw what happened when you tried to touch me. Damned ectoplasm. My name’s Bill Silver.”
Carter stood, simply staring. He realized his mouth hung open, and he shut it.
“You gonna take a load off? I have some things to tell you.”
“Tell me? What?” Because Carter felt like if he didn’t sit down, his legs would give out, he reluctantly seated himself at the edge of the bed. You’re asleep, that’s all and this is just a dream. Play along. “So, uh, Bill, what it is you wanna tell me?”
Bill took a puff off his cigarette and snuffed it out in the ashtray. Carter wanted to giggle when he had the thought that ghosts didn’t have to worry about the health hazards of smoking. And what would a ghost cigarette taste like, anyway, menthol or regular? Carter couldn’t help it. He let out of a little titter.
“I’m glad you’re amused. Now, if I could begin.”
Carter gestured with his hand that the floor belonged to Bill. “I’m listening.”
“As I said, I’ve watched you and that colored guy have sex. Pretty racy. In my day, even here in Seattle, that kind of behavior could get a man in a lot of trouble. The queer stuff is bad enough, but throw in mixing of the races and even in the northwest here, you’ve got big trouble. Still, it looked very sexy, watching that colored dick go in that white ass.”
Carter started to get up. “Is this what you want? I’m not into it, dude.”
“Sit down, sit down. You know, because you touched me, I’m a ghost. And I was just setting the stage a bit, letting you know I know the score.
“What I really want to talk to you about is me. What happened to me right here in this room, just before the World’s Fair opened up back in 1962.
“I was twenty-nine years old, had a little Craftsman over in Wallingford, wife named Gloria and two kids, Bill Jr. and Sally. Worked as a CPA. Everyone that looked at me thought I was the perfect young man who had secured for himself the American dream.
“And I had.
“But what no one knew was what you and Tony understand—how good it feels to be with a man. See, I knew even before I had ever touched another fellow, knew because it was like a piece of me was missing. What could fill it up?�
� Bill grinned. “I think you know. But it’s more than that. Get your mind out of the gutter.”
“I needed a man to love me, even if I couldn’t admit it to myself, let alone anyone else. I kept thinking if I just stayed true in my marriage, concentrated on being a good dad to my two kids, worked hard, all those longings I felt in the middle of the night would eventually go away.”
Bill looked over at Carter, and Carter thought the man seemed as real as Tony had only an hour or so ago.
“But you know the end to that story, don’t you? Nothing went away. If anything, it got stronger the more I tried to hide it. I’d be out with the kids and Gloria, over at Green Lake, and we’d be hanging out at the beach, and I’d see these young guys in their trunks and, man—”
The guy’s gaze drifted away, and Carter knew he was seeing those almost-naked young men right then, robust, diving into the water, endless yards of tanned and muscled skin. Carter could see it himself in his own mind’s eye, but because of when he had been born and the life he had led, he felt no guilt at his appreciation and even arousal at the thought.
He knew, though, for Bill it was different.
Bill seemed to rein himself back in and looked over at Carter once more. “I felt helpless, like there was nothing I could do to stop these feelings, these urges. I felt like I was bad. Weak-willed. I thought if I could just toughen up, I could make these feelings go away.” He laughed.
“I even talked to a priest about it once. In the confessional, of course, so I could be anonymous. You know what old Father Frank told me?”
Carter shook his head.
“He told me to pray and that God would lift the burden from my shoulders. He told me that if I lived a good life and one of devotion to God, God may see fit to take this trial from me.” Bill paused. “Or he may not. But even if he didn’t take the feelings away, it was my duty as a Catholic, as a husband and father, to resist what my body was screaming at me to take.
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