by Avery Ford
When they arrived back at Locust Hill to find Lisa, the owner, sitting with a stony faced Celeste in the office, Dmitri knew that trouble didn’t begin to encapsulate it.
“We brought back our donations,” Arthur said brightly. The embarrassment from earlier in the day had worn off. “We managed to bring in a couple big bags of dog food, some soft towels and blankets, and a few packs of paper towels.”
“And we’ve got the money, too,” Dmitri concluded. He placed the money on the office desk, reaching through the window.
Celeste’s expression didn’t change.
“Thank you for your work today, gentlemen,” Lisa said. “After all you’ve done, I wish I had some better news, but I’m afraid that I don’t.”
“What’s going on?” Arthur asked. He leaned against the ledge and looked into the office. Dmitri stood in close proximity beside him.
“The numbers just aren’t adding up,” Lisa admitted. “I’m sorry, but in three months’ time, Locust Hill Animal Shelter will be shutting down.”
It was as though Arthur’s face was made of glass that had just shattered. Dmitri watched as the grief overtook him, then the confusion. Dmitri dropped a hand on Arthur’s shoulder, but he knew that it wasn’t enough.
Arthur had only been volunteering at Locust Hill for a few months, but his heart was already invested. No one volunteered as often as Arthur did without loving a place dearly.
To know it was going to be shut down was a hard blow.
“What’s going to happen to the animals?” Arthur asked frantically. “All the dogs? And the cats?”
“We’re going to have to divide them and place them in shelters in neighboring towns and counties,” Lisa said. “As of today, we won’t take in any new animals. Those that aren’t adopted between now and then will have to be sent away.”
“But the shelters in other towns are kill shelters.” Arthur looked up at Dmitri, his eyes wide and glossy with tears. Dmitri pursed his lips and tried to hold back on his emotions. To see Arthur that sad made him feel just as sad, and to know there was nothing he could do to help left him feeling useless. “We’ve worked so hard to give all of these dogs a chance to find their forever homes. We can’t send them to kill shelters. What if they don’t get adopted and…?”
“You can’t save every animal, Arthur,” Celeste murmured. Her expression wasn’t the only thing dour — her tone was, too. “We did the best that we could, and we found homes for hundreds of animals since Locust Hill opened its doors. We just need to remember that.”
Arthur’s gaze flicked from Dmitri to Celeste, then back to Dmitri. His sapphire eyes begged for help, but Dmitri didn’t know what to do. He didn’t have the funds to keep Locust Hill open. He barely had the funds to support his kennel.
“I’m sorry,” Dmitri said softly. He tugged Arthur into a half hug, but Arthur pulled away, shaking his head.
“There’s got to be something we can do,” Arthur said. “This isn’t the end. I mean, all we’ve done is fundraise in parking lots a couple of times. There are so many more options. We can… I don’t know. We can think of something, all of us, together. What do other shelters do to stay open? We should call up some of them and get some ideas. I’m sure they’d be more than happy to share their thoughts with us.”
“I’ll look into it,” Celeste said, but she sounded no more chipper than she had before. “But I think, for now, it’s safest that we start saying our goodbyes. I think focusing our energy on getting these animals out of the shelter and into the arms of families who will love them is the best use of our time.”
“You need to let it set in,” Dmitri said. “Give it some time to settle. No one is going to feel good about this, but when the wound is less fresh, it’ll hurt less.”
“So you’re all going to give up?” Arthur asked. “You really think this is the end?”
“We’ve got a very narrow window to turn things around,” Lisa explained. “The loss is just too great, and the numbers are too high for anyone to expect that there will be change. We can go on three more months, but no more. It’ll give us enough time to make sure all the animals are placed where they need to be placed.”
Arthur took a small step from the window, and for a second, Dmitri was convinced he was going to bolt. Instead, Arthur took him by the hand. His touch was gentle and his skin was warm. Dmitri laced their fingers together, regretful that he couldn’t do more to help Arthur feel better.
“Let’s go, Dmitri,” Arthur murmured. “You’re right. I need some time.”
“Things will look brighter tomorrow,” Celeste said without any heart behind her words. “There’s a lot going on, but… the pieces will fall into place. We won’t be sad forever. Time changes things, and sometimes we have to accept that those changes aren’t always for the better.”
Arthur nodded mutely. He guided Dmitri toward the front door.
“I’ll see you all later,” Arthur said before he pushed the door open and stepped outside. Dmitri offered Celeste and Lisa a small wave before he followed. Arthur took Dmitri all the way to his car before he let their hands part, and even then, it was only so Arthur could sink down into the passenger seat while Dmitri fit the key in the ignition and got ready to take Arthur back home.
Before he could turn on the engine, Arthur took hold of his wrist. When Dmitri looked in his direction, Arthur claimed his mouth in a crushing, desperate kiss. Tears streamed down Arthur’s cheeks, silent. They were glossy in the late afternoon sun.
“I don’t want to go home right now,” Arthur whispered, voice hoarse with his tears. “I don’t want to be alone.”
“You don’t have to be alone,” Dmitri promised. He’d said it before and he’d meant it. He would take care of Arthur in the same way that Arthur had taken care of him.
“Take me home, Dmitri.” Arthur kissed him one last time. The kiss lingered, heartfelt and emotional. Dmitri felt every bit of Arthur’s agony through it. “Keep me, just for tonight. Please.”
It was one more loss. One more dead end. Dmitri rested their foreheads together, his eyes closed. He understood what Arthur was going through. After the loss of his mother, he understood it more than he cared to admit.
“Are you sure?” Dmitri asked. His body had been sure since day one, but his heart was only recently invested.
“I’m sure,” Arthur said. “Please, take me home with you. This is what I want.”
It was what Dmitri wanted, too.
He turned the key in the engine, and they made the silent trip home together.
27
Arthur
Another ending. Another failure.
Arthur was sick of them.
The car stopped outside of Dmitri’s house, and Arthur blinked away the last of the tears that had freely fallen before. He’d worked hard to show his father that he was worth the Jessup name. He’d denied himself fun all through what were supposed to be the best years of his life in order to graduate top of his class and get accepted into prestigious graduate programs. He’d studied something he wasn’t passionate about because he wanted to make his family proud.
They’d left him without a second thought after finding out he was gay.
All the struggle, all the heartache, for nothing. And now that Arthur was finally opening himself up again — had finally found something to love and devote himself to with that same kind of fervor — it was slamming shut in his face, too.
It felt like everything in his life was transient.
Everything but Dmitri.
They crossed the lawn together. Dmitri opened the front door, and Arthur stepped inside. When the door closed behind him, Dmitri’s hands slid around his hips, and Arthur found himself tugged close against Dmitri’s chest. Dmitri kissed the back of his head. Arthur closed his eyes and let out the breath that had been growing stale in his lungs.
For now, all he wanted was to feel like he was important. No one but Dmitri could give him that.
“What do you need right no
w?” Dmitri asked in a low voice as they stood just short of the doorway. “Tell me. I want to be there for you.”
“I need you.” Arthur stretched his neck and craned his head to the side. Dmitri kissed his neck over and over. “All I want is to know that I’m wanted. I need to know that… that it isn’t me.”
“It’s not you,” Dmitri promised. He spoke against Arthur’s neck. “It never was. Nothing about this has anything to do with you.”
“I know. Deep down I know, but… it’s hard to accept that. It’s so fucking hard to remember that it’s not me when I feel like every door in my life is slamming shut all at once.”
Dmitri’s hands sank close to his thighs, and Arthur savored his touch.
“Come with me,” Dmitri encouraged him. His hands slid back around Arthur’s body. He took his hand.
Arthur followed without question. Wherever Dmitri wanted to take him, he would go.
They climbed the stairs together. Dmitri opened a door and led Arthur into his bedroom. Arthur recognized some of Dmitri’s clothes, but more than that, he recognized Dmitri’s scent. It perfumed the air, stronger here than anywhere else. Arthur breathed it in and let it ground him.
Dmitri guided him to the bed, and Arthur sank down upon it without waiting for an invitation. Seconds later, Dmitri had straddled his thighs, and Arthur sank back as their kiss renewed itself. The passion lit him up from head to foot, and Arthur closed his eyes and devoted himself to it.
The pain, the frustration, and the fear washed away. When Dmitri touched him, all his troubles disappeared. For a little while, surrounded by the man he’d come to admire and crave, Arthur found peace.
“You’re not to blame,” Dmitri whispered against Arthur’s lips between breaks in their kiss. “None of this is your fault. You’ve done everything you can.”
“I feel like if I’d just tried harder… things would be different.” The conversation shifted away from the situation at the shelter. Arthur felt the tears gather behind his eyelids. “All I want is for things to go back to normal, but they can’t.”
“Everyone fears change.” Dmitri kissed him once, slow but sizzling. Arthur gasped into his mouth and kissed back. When the kiss broke, Dmitri continued. “I feared change, too. But without change, you can never grow. It’s going to be okay. I know it doesn’t feel like it, but it will be.”
Arthur reached up and tangled his fingers in Dmitri’s hair. He drew Dmitri closer to him, then kissed him all over. Every kiss erased the negativity harbored in Arthur’s chest and freed him of his emotions. He craved it.
“Let me stay the night tonight,” Arthur whispered. It was barely six, but he already dreaded the thought of returning to his studio apartment and sinking into his bed alone. “All I want is you.”
“You can stay if you want,” Dmitri promised with another kiss. “You’re more than welcome. You know that.”
Arthur hummed against Dmitri’s lips, and soon enough they’d abandoned conversation in order to pursue each other’s bodies. Dmitri stole the breath from his lungs and sent trembling waves of red hot pleasure down through Arthur’s core. Arthur’s body responded, his cock straining against the front of his jeans as Dmitri showered him with affection.
When the kiss broke, Arthur took time to catch his breath and calm his racing heart. His cheeks were hot, and he was beginning to feel humid heat beneath his t-shirt.
Dmitri kissed down his neck, then made his way past Arthur’s collarbone. Arthur breathed out in bliss as Dmitri kissed across his chest, then his stomach, and came to rest between Arthur’s thighs. He’d moved off the bed, crouching by the bedside to get that angle, and although Arthur missed the weight of Dmitri’s body, he was stirred by the promise of what was to come.
Dmitri kissed the inside of his thigh, then worked the button of Arthur’s jeans open. Arthur let out a breath and lifted his hips slightly, allowing Dmitri to guide the denim down his thighs and past his knees.
The only thing concealing Arthur’s cock was his boxer-briefs. The cotton hugged him tight, and when Dmitri moved inward to kiss his shaft through the fabric, it almost felt like he was bare. Arthur gasped and moved his hips on instinct.
He’d never been touched like this before, and it felt better than he had ever imagined. The unexpected, shimmering pleasure that rolled through him stopped for nothing. The hot exhalations of Dmitri’s breath teased him and left him wanting more. Even the pressure from his lips was outstanding in a way Arthur never would have guessed.
He couldn’t wait to feel the warm, wet interior of Dmitri’s mouth.
“Do you want me to?” Dmitri asked in a husky voice from Arthur’s groin.
“Yes.” Arthur didn’t have to think twice about it. “Please.”
Dmitri hummed in contentment, then nosed at Arthur’s bulge. Arthur moaned softly, the noise dying seconds after it had left his lips. It was too tender to last.
Dmitri guided Arthur’s boxer-briefs down. A cool rush of air passed over Arthur’s cock, and he felt it most on his crown where precum glossed his skin. With an airy sigh, he reached down and caressed the back of Dmitri’s head, guiding it forward.
Dmitri was happy to oblige.
Lips met Arthur’s bare cock. Dmitri kissed his shaft, treating it with such delicacy that Arthur couldn’t help but whimper. It felt good to be treated like this. For the first time in his life, his homosexuality was rewarded instead of punished. The first physical confirmation that what he felt was okay, and good, and right soothed Arthur in a way he hadn’t been expecting.
It gave him the confidence to want more.
His fingers tightened against the back of Dmitri’s head. Dmitri responded to his touch, his kissing trailing upward along Arthur’s thin skin until they arrived at the head of his cock. He kissed at the ridge beneath Arthur’s head, then over it. His tongue darted into Arthur’s slit, teasing.
“Oh god,” Arthur whispered, voice trembling. The pleasure built, and he already felt the pressure in his balls that hinted at release. “Dmitri, I’m…”
Dmitri looked up at him. The flat of his tongue ran across Arthur’s head, then darted downward to lavish his shaft with attention. Arthur moaned with pleasure and let him work. If Dmitri wanted to make him come, Arthur wasn’t going to stop him.
Right as Arthur’s orgasm approach and his balls started to draw up, Dmitri pulled away. Arthur lifted his head, startled, to find that Dmitri had stood. He pulled Arthur toward the center of the bed, then climbed over him. They looked at each other eye to eye.
“I want to take you,” Dmitri told him in a voice so deep with pleasure that Arthur almost drowned in it. “Is that okay?”
“Yes.” Like when Dmitri had asked permission to expose his cock, Arthur didn’t need to think about his answer. He was sexually inexperienced, but he trusted Dmitri. Dmitri would take care of him. He didn’t have anything to worry about. “I’m… I haven’t… you know.”
“You’re a virgin?” Dmitri asked. He brushed the back of his fingers across Arthur’s cheek.
“Yes,” Arthur admitted.
“That’s okay.” Dmitri kissed the corner of his mouth, but before Arthur could turn toward the affection, it was over. “We’ll go slow. All you need to do is tell me what you feel so I can make you feel good, okay?”
“Okay,” Arthur agreed. That didn’t sound all that bad. “What do you need me to do in order to st—”
Dmitri kissed him, and Arthur forgot what he was about to ask. He kissed Dmitri back, eager for his touch. In the haze of their lust, they shed their clothes. Arthur’s pants and boxer-briefs were already around his knees, but he kicked them off along with his shoes and socks. Somewhere along the way, while they panted for breath between paused moments in their kiss, Dmitri lost his shirt. Arthur lost his, too. He only realized that Dmitri was bare from the waist down when Dmitri’s thick, bare cock brushed against Arthur’s.
Arthur shivered.
“We’re going to use a condom, right?” Arthu
r asked. “I… I need to make sure.”
“Of course.” The casual, quiet way Dmitri replied made Arthur shiver. Talking about safety made what they were about to share real — he was going to sleep with Dmitri. They were really going to do it. “Let me take care of everything. You don’t need to worry about a single thing.”
Arthur didn’t like feeling helpless, but there was release in letting go that liberated him. He laid back on the bed, painfully hard and excited for what was to come, and watched as Dmitri fished a condom out of his drawer and tore the packaging. In order to do so, Dmitri had sat back on his haunches, and Arthur got a good look at his naked body for the first time.
Dmitri’s dark hair wasn’t only confined to his head — a dark trail of it ran between his pectorals and down the centerline of his abs, all the way to his navel. A dark nest of it decorated the base of his shaft, and Arthur’s gaze was drawn to it as Dmitri guided the condom down his rigid length.
He was thick and long enough that Arthur wondered if something like that could really fit inside of him. Arthur wasn’t much smaller, but seeing someone else’s hard cock made him question if they would even be able to do this. Arthur had played with himself before, but never too serious, and never to train for size.
“Dmitri,” he murmured. “I don’t know if it’s going to fit.”
“It will fit,” Dmitri promised. “We just have to get you wet first, baby. Are you ready?”
The way Arthur’s cock throbbed at the statement told him that he was.
There was a bottle of lube on the bedside table that Dmitri opened. Soon enough, his fingers were glossed with it, and Arthur watched as they disappeared between his legs. The moment those slicked fingers touched his ring, Arthur shivered. Dmitri didn’t push — not yet — but he knew it was coming.
He knew he was about to be filled.
“Are you okay?” Dmitri asked.
“Yeah.” Arthur bit down on his lips and did his best to relax. “I’m ready. Do it.”
The pressure started, and then, suddenly, he wasn’t empty anymore. Arthur gasped and tightened instinctively. Dmitri’s free hand massaged his abdomen.