An Exaltation of Larks

by Suanne Laqueur

  Jesus, that’s hot…

  Another rattle of fingernails on the door. “Mom?” Deane called gingerly, as if touching an open wound.

  Val set her teeth and rolled her eyes to the ceiling. “Yes, Deane?”

  “Where’s the bag from CVS?”

  “On the dining room table.” She looked down at Alex and mumbled, “Right where you left it, you stupid child.”

  He gazed up at her, eyes bright and wide, and a smile filled with wicked, complicit joy. He took Val’s head, brought her mouth to his and whispered, “I fucking love being married to you…”

  If marriage was a prison yard, your spouse was the inmate who had your back. Together you were a devoted Gang of Two, each making sure the other didn’t get shanked or shivved.

  You are my wife, Alex thought, letting the word unfold and open up to show all its facets. You’re my wife, you’re my friend. My partner, my lover, my gang member. The mother of my spawn who won’t leave us in peace when we’re trying to fuck. You drive me crazy.

  And I don’t need anything else but you.

  A third presence shimmered beyond his consciousness.

  But right now I think I want more than you.

  “What’s he doing?” Val whispered.

  “I don’t know,” Alex said. “I’m no good at this, I don’t know where to put him.”

  She got off his lap and turned around. Reached back to guide him into her heat and nestled her butt against his groin, firm and soft and wet. He held her hips and moved in her, feeling caged in his desire now, and desperate. Reaching for a maddening itch just out of reach of his fingernails.

  Her slippery fingers glided along his cock. “See, now,” she said, “if I had the two of you…”

  He ran his palms up and down her back. “What,” he whispered.

  “I could be on you like this. But Jav could be kneeling in front of us.”

  Alex’s calves prickled, feeling Jav sinking onto his knees. “Doing what?”

  “Licking me.”

  “Mm.” A hand reached through the wall of his chest and started stirring things around. Heat coiled up tight in his belly, then started uncoiling.

  “Maybe catching a little bit of you while he’s doing it.”

  He jerked up harder inside her as he imagined Jav kneeling before them. His hands on Alex’s twitching quads. Jav’s mouth opening against Val where she was stretched tight around Alex’s girth. Jav’s tongue catching Alex’s skin as he licked her. Accidental contact at first. Then incidental. Then intentional.

  Fuck, I can feel his mouth.

  “How’s that work?” Val whispered. A flick of her head and her hair swept across her shoulders. The shadow in the arch of her back as she leaned on the armrests for leverage. The hard, tight line of her thighs flexing. Jav’s hands sliding beneath her knees and curling around Alex’s legs. Holding him. Spreading both of them open and apart so he could get in and get a taste of their love.

  “It works,” Alex said, his mouth dry around inhaled breath and then damp with each heaving exhale.

  “I’m so fucking turned on.”

  “So am I.”

  “We making you feel good?”

  “Don’t stop.”

  In the reality of the night, Val rode him, hard and fast. Deep in Alex’s wasted mind, she was wrapping her hand around the base of his cock and feeding it into Jav’s mouth. Then putting it back in her. Then in him. In her. Letting Jav have longer and longer turns. Calling the shots. Holding both of them exactly where she wanted.

  “Don’t stop,” he whispered. His fingers curled down on the armrests. His nails dug into the skin of the image and started scratching. A fuzzy static rippled down the center of his perception—like the soundless apex of a yawn, or the limbo of nodding off before bolting awake again.

  “Christ, I can feel both of you,” he said through the wall of his teeth.

  “Come then,” Val said. “Come for us.”

  He came in his head before his body joined in, his cells peeling opening layer by layer, heart pounding thick and hard in his chest. He came forever, flung from the edge as his brain turned inside-out. He came so hard he drooled, sucking wet air between his teeth, cells detonating in feathery white shivers as he shot into a dark, wet warmth that had two names.

  Walking the dogs the next morning, Alex turned off Bemelman onto Main Street. When he saw Jav coming out of the Lark Building, he pulled into the recessed doorway of Murphy’s, hiding under the awning until Jav disappeared into Celeste’s.

  Hiding?

  The hell is wrong with you?

  Last night, that was what.

  Big deal. You and Val were stoned and messing around with a threesome scenario. Who cares?

  True. But.

  It’s nothing he’s ever going to know. It was behind closed doors, where anything goes.

  He kicked himself in the ass and started down the street again. Jav came out of Celeste’s with a cup of coffee. Shorts, rumpled T-shirt, flip-flops. Unshaven, his hair undecided. Even hungover he managed to exude a fuckable vibe. It wasn’t fair the man had to work so hard to look like shit.

  “You look like shit,” Alex said.

  Jav swayed sideways and leaned on the building’s brick wall. “You look like you got the shit fucked out of you.”

  “You have no idea.”

  And by the way, you blew me. I rather enjoyed it.

  Nodding the tiniest bit, Jav’s bloodshot eyes held Alex’s. “Por qué estás sonrojando?”

  Goddammit, Alex was blushing. His face burned. All of him burned, his mind’s needle stuck in the groove of last night. How vivid and real it had been. How his calves sensed Jav kneeling between them and how his quads sighed under Jav’s palms. His imagination made a clear distinction between inside Val and inside Jav’s mouth. It was utter craziness.

  “Ever come so hard you drooled?” he said.

  “No. Describe it to me.” Jav’s mouth settled on the rim of his coffee cup and took a sip, his eyes still looking Alex up and down. Appraising. Or perhaps waiting. The moment swelled. Pulsed faintly. It took a moment for Alex to identify the coiled, purring energy around them as chemistry.

  Jesus, if he were a woman, I’d be going for it.

  “If we’re done here, I’d like to go back to bed,” Jav said.

  “We’re done.”

  “Then move, fucky.”

  Alex moved and Jav shuffled inside. “I’ll call you later,” he said over his shoulder.

  Alex stared through the glass of the door, following Jav in his mind. Back to his bed. He thought about all the beds Jav must’ve been taken to in his life. Hundreds. Women paid to fuck him. He was a man in high demand. Yet he slept alone.

  The doorknob hummed with a magnetic temptation. Luring Alex. Attracting him.

  I’m attracted to Jav.

  “Hey, Alex, how you doing?” The manager of Lark’s winebar walked by, juggling coffee, laptop and keys, on his way to work.

  “Hey,” Alex said, blinking back into the present. Back into himself. He hustled the dogs through the rest of the walk, went home and attacked Val in the shower.

  “Jesus, what’s with you?” she said, laughing as she slipped and slid in his arms.

  “Aftershocks.” He closed his eyes as he tore at the itch and reached for the images of last night.

  He couldn’t get hold of them.

  Thank God.

  “You feel all right?” Val said. “You don’t seem yourself.”

  “I don’t feel like myself, no,” Alex said.

  “Anything specific going on? Or just general meh?”

  “General meh. It’ll pass.”

  He hoped.

  This morning, for the third time since Armchair Night, Alex woke up in the throes of a wet dream. Three times in a week. Even at the apex of puberty, he didn’t have that kind of track record. Maybe the fantasy was a flick of the faucet for Val, but Alex was a deluge, spilling out and flooding everything.

  Li
terally, he thought, throwing the sheets in the wash.

  What would Val say if he confessed he was a little infatuated with Jav?

  “A little,” he said, snorting to the shower tiles. “More like I have a man crush.”

  That’s what Deane called it.

  “It’s adorable how you and Jav flirt,” she said the other night.

  “We don’t flirt.”

  “Dad, you totally flirt. You have a man crush.”

  Shaving, Alex thought about crushing on girls in school. Most of the time it was a one-sided experience. You spent more time observing your crush than you did interacting. And interaction was mostly feeling like a moron, and occasionally feeling you were making a good impression.

  Why am I trying to impress Jav?

  He rinsed the blade, digging into the strange nervousness that piggybacked on his shoulders every time he saw Jav these days. The weird need to be…

  “Liked?” he said to the mirror. “You know he likes you.”

  His forearm tingled, remembering the glide of Jav’s palm along it. Jav’s fingers sliding between his, curling down and holding on.

  I’m attracted to him.

  Every night in dreams, Jav’s hands were on Alex. Not in a way that was particularly sexual. Technically he was just hugging Alex. Wrapping arms around from behind and crushing Alex tight in the fist of his body. Hard muscle and immutable strength. Ruffling Alex’s hair and kissing his head. A brother’s embrace.

  A father’s embrace? Alex thought. Is this nothing but a gigantic Freudian analysis? I’m looking for Dad?

  If that was the case, what about the dreams where Alex turned around? Turned in the circle of arms, turned to face the broad plain of Jav’s chest and feel his hands ache for it. His watering mouth open for it. His cock stiffen and rise up to meet it. Until he woke up coming for it.

  Alex looked at his reflection a long time. “You’re not gay,” he said. “Don’t be fourteen about this. He’s a highly sexualized person. Sex is his business, for fuck’s sake. It’s his job to be crushed on. Chill and ride it out. Crushes never last forever. Have some fun with it.”

  It certainly wasn’t doing Alex any harm in the bedroom. Threesome thoughts had him continually worked up these days, and he made love to Val like the world was ending. Every wild night gave him the opportunity to fit Jav into the action, any way his masculinity would permit. Sometimes Jav just watched. Sometimes he and Alex went to town on Val. Sometimes she took both their asses to church. On adventurous nights, Alex let Jav hold him from behind. He didn’t let Jav be in him. None of that shit. He just had Jav press his chest against Alex’s back. Hold him tight while Alex gave Val his best. And if Jav happened to be sporting wood while he was doing his job—hell, that wasn’t Alex’s fault. Nor was it anything close to unpleasant.

  I like feeling him there.

  It was hot. It turned him on, fired him up. He took everything in his head, flung it into Val and made her come like a freight train to Crazytown.

  He should be thanking the guy.

  Or paying him.

  “Will you relax?” he muttered inside a towel. “Quit picking it apart.”

  He couldn’t. Any time his phone pinged, he hoped it was Jav, wanting to hang out. Then they’d hang out and Alex’s mind turned into a team of statisticians, analyzing every word and thought and look. And why did Alex look at Jav so much? How much was too much? Jav made real intense eye contact when he talked. Did he always do that? Why did holding his gaze feel like playing chicken?

  What the fuck is happening?

  “You all right?” Jav said. “You don’t seem yourself.”

  It was Memorial Day, and they’d met up at a sports bar to watch Milan play Liverpool in the UEFA Championships.

  “I’m good,” Alex said around a mouthful of Buffalo wings. “Tired.”

  “Val keeping you up nights?”

  Alex smiled. “I call her fucky for a reason.”

  On the TV, the network cut to sports news. A clip of an interview with John Amaechi who’d come out as gay the previous February: the first former NBA player to go public with his sexuality.

  “I underestimated America,” the athlete said. “I braced myself for the wrath of a nation under God. Instead the support has been overwhelmingly positive.”

  “Huh,” Jav said. “He should try the wrath of a household under Tío Miguel.”

  Alex regarded what seemed to be a baited hook. He tore a wing into two sections and took a casual bite. “Tell me about your cousin.”

  “Nesto?” Jav chewed and swallowed, then took a long, thoughtful pull of his beer. “We grew up together,” he said. “We were born days apart. His mother had some problems afterward so my mother took care of both of us. We were like…boobmates.”

  Alex laughed.

  “There’s a word for it,” Jav said, laughing along. “Some slang expression for two kids who nurse from the same woman. I know I’ve heard it but I can’t remember. Anyway. Literally we ate together, slept together, played together. Had chicken pox together…”

  Jav wiped off his fingers, crumpled the napkin and tossed it aside. He grimaced against a fist, shaking his head. “I used to be able to eat three dozen wings and not even belch. Now I look at them and get heartburn.”

  “How you guys doing?” the waitress said, looking only at Jav. “Can I get you another round?” She made it sound like a proposition.

  “I’m good,” Jav said, looking only at Alex. “You want more?”

  “If it’s good, I want as much as you can give.”

  Upstairs, the statisticians were having a meltdown. Jav kept looking at him, ostensibly to ignore the waitress but Alex could feel his face starting to burn.

  “Estás sonrojando,” Jav said. “Again.”

  “It’s hot in here.” Alex glanced at the waitress. “Is it hot in here, or is it him?”

  She giggled. “Oh, I think it’s him. Although you’re easy on the eyes, too. You guys brothers?”

  “Boobmates,” Alex said.

  “Ignore him,” Jav said. “You can take that.” He slid the plate of bones and crumpled up napkins over. “Please.” The waitress blinked at the dismissive tone, took the plate and left.

  “Meanwhile,” Alex said. “Back in the playpen.”

  “Hm? Oh. So we grew up together and… Ever since I can remember, Nesto was always hanging on me. It’s one of my earliest memories, actually. Napping with him and he was jammed tight into my side. He was touchy-feely. You know the type.”

  “Nobody questioned it?”

  “Between family? Why would they?”

  “So the night up on the roof was the first time it went beyond family affection.”

  “Yeah.” Jav ran his hands through his hair, held them there a moment then put up one index finger. “I’m getting my thoughts together. It’s easy to see a lot of things now that I didn’t then. It’s not so easy to get back into my teenage head and remember the narrative.”

  “Plus you were drunk.”

  “That, too.” He rolled his beer bottle around on its bottom. Let go a second as if to balance it. “I remember… My mind kind of splitting straight down the center. One half thinking, This is nothing I am. The other half thinking, But it sure feels good.”

  Jav’s tone had dropped and his cadence slowed down. Each word parceled out.

  “What were you doing?” Alex said.

  “Well his finger wasn’t on my prostate but—”

  Alex threw a stack of napkins at him.

  “Nice,” Jav said, laughing. “We were just jerking each other. Kissing. And… It felt like a natural extension of all the other contact. It didn’t feel wrong. I was into it.” He smiled. “I know I definitely had the thought, Um, maybe this isn’t a good idea. But it wasn’t… Shit, this is hard to put into words.”

  “It sounds like you weren’t exactly shocked by it.”

  “Right,” Jav said. “I wasn’t. And look, maybe that was the booze, who the hell know
s? But once it was happening, I didn’t try to stop it. He kissed me and I kissed back and it felt good. He touched me so I touched him. My body thought, All right, this is interesting. Let’s check this out.”

  Once again Jav was pushing chips onto the table. Anteing up and Alex couldn’t match the bet.

  “Sounds like it felt safe,” he said. “Not only because it was him, but because you had the excuse of being drunk.”

  Jav nodded, a smile lifting one corner of his mouth. “I guess at a time when we were both experimenting with girls and not getting far, we were kind of a sure thing with each other.” He exhaled heavily. “And then my uncle walked in. Game over. The rest is history.”

  “You never saw Nesto again?”

  “Oh I saw him plenty. When he and his buddies were beating me up and down.”

  “What about your buddies?”

  Jav gave a bitter chuckle. “All of a sudden I didn’t have any. Funny how that works.”

  “Jesus.”

  “Eventually Nesto’s father, my Tío Enrique, moved them to Manhattan. After that, no, I didn’t see him again. Didn’t talk to him, didn’t hear about him. Not until I found out he was dead.”

  Alex hesitated. “What happened?”

  “He jumped off the GW Bridge.”

  “Are you shitting me?”

  Jav shook his head.

  “Why… What would’ve made him…?”

  “I think because he was gay,” Jav said. “I mean, I’ll never know. But when I fit the pieces I have together, it seems to be the picture that emerges. He was gay. He got caught and let me take the fall. He went on to live a lie until he couldn’t anymore.” Jav shrugged. “It’s the story I tell myself, anyway.”

  “I wonder if what he did to you haunted him.”

  Jav’s shoulders gave a flick up and his jaw hardened. A man’s instinctive clench against intense vulnerability. Refusing to believe it was that bad when in brutal fact, it was.

  “Your cousin really broke your heart,” Alex said. “Your entire family, every one of them, just smashed your fucking heart to pieces.”

  Jav rubbed his fingertips across his forehead. “Yeah.”

  Their eyes held across the table, both of their chins raising and lowering. Alex swallowed and his instincts told him to look away. He held instead.