A Still, Small Voice

by D. W. Marchwell

  Oscar’s mouth came off of his, his breathing labored, his forehead pressed to Noah’s. “Drive me insane when you do that, baby.”

  “You don’t even have to be in the room to do that to me, Oscar.” Noah reached down to the base of the long, thick cock and pulled slowly toward the head, Oscar’s tongue coming out of his mouth. It was Noah who whimpered next when Oscar did that thing that drove Noah right out of his skin. They flicked their tongues together, outside of their mouths, back and forth as Noah continued his long, slow strokes over Oscar’s prick. “Shall I keep going?”

  “Sixty-nine?” Oscar suggested. “You on top?”

  “With pleasure, sir.” Noah pushed himself off the bed and immediately turned to pull off Oscar’s socks and sweatpants. When he was done, Oscar pulled him onto the bed and then returned the favor, making short work of ridding Noah of his socks, jeans, and boxers.

  Oscar stretched himself out on his back and watched as Noah positioned himself. Before Noah could even think about leaning forward, Oscar wrapped his forearms around Noah’s thighs and pulled him down onto his face, his tongue darting out immediately to lick and kiss Noah’s hole. Noah leaned forward a little bit to give Oscar better access and found it was the perfect position for continuing with the front rub. He rubbed his hands together and then began to caress Oscar’s pecs and abs, stopping every so often when the sensations that his lover was creating at his hole made him lose all focus.

  After what seemed like hours, Noah felt Oscar pushing against his ass, and then a gentle hand took hold of his stiff dick. As he leaned forward to begin the process of working Oscar’s enormous length and girth into his mouth and throat, Noah felt his cock disappear into the moist, wet heat of Oscar’s very eager mouth. As his lover upped the ante by inserting a finger into his very relaxed hole, Noah pressed his forehead against Oscar’s belly and tried to concentrate on pleasing his man.

  With a practiced skill that was becoming like second nature, Noah relaxed his throat and took half of Oscar’s length into his mouth, coming up for air after a few moments, teasing the slit with his tongue. He moved his hands so that they were between Oscar’s ass and the bed, squeezing and encouraging Oscar to move. With that finger in his ass and that mouth on his cock, Noah knew he wouldn’t last too much longer. He felt Oscar slowly squeeze his muscled ass, and relaxed his throat, feeling more and more of it pass into the back of his throat as he reached under Oscar’s beautiful ass to press and probe against his hole.

  When he felt Oscar’s legs begin to move away from each other, Noah moved his hands to push them even farther apart. While one hand returned to press inside of Oscar’s heat, the other fondled and massaged his balls. Noah continued to slather the entire length of his lover’s cock with saliva, his head bobbing up and down in contrast to Oscar’s gentle thrusts.

  He heard the familiar whimpers and prepared himself by pulling off and bringing one hand to pump up and down, stopping occasionally to thumb the slit. Noah said the word “soon,” and Oscar pulled out and did the same with Noah’s cock, alternating long, slow pulls with fast, frenzied pumping. Within a few seconds, their cries were mixed together as each man rode out his orgasm, their bodies covered in milky liquid.

  Noah rolled onto his side, and Oscar reversed his position so that they were eye to eye again. They held each other, their lips and tongues moving against each other slowly as they both came down. When their breathing was more relaxed, Noah pulled his head away slightly and pouted. “Does this mean I don’t get my morning tip?”

  Oscar laughed and rolled off the bed, holding out his hand. “Shut up and come have a shower.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  THE recording came to an end. Noah stopped biting his thumbnail and looked nervously at the lawyer sitting across from him at the small conference table. He’d contacted this lawyer the day after Oscar had convinced him that he needed to do something with it. It had taken about ten minutes for Noah to fill the lawyer in on all of the details that had led to the recorded message they’d just listened to. Noah watched with rapt attention as the lawyer took a deep breath.

  “In Canada, recording a conversation that you were not part of is illegal,” the lawyer said, clicking his gold and mahogany pen. “There’s no way this conversation could be of any use to an attorney representing the ex-wife.”

  Noah had intentionally not used any names—first or last—when recounting the story, referring to all of the parties involved by a description of their job or role in the events. “So there’s no way of… helping… of letting the wife or her lawyer know the truth?”

  The lawyer stopped clicking his pen, leaned forward slightly, and fixed Noah with a stare and a sly smile. “All I can tell you is that this conversation won’t be of any assistance to you or the wife. And I can also tell you this—a recorded conversation, in order to be legal, has to have the consent of only one of the participants in said conversation.”

  Noah tilted his head and frowned, wondering how that last piece of information would help him. This conversation hadn’t involved Noah; he hadn’t been a part of it. He watched the lawyer lean back in the comfortable chair, pick up the pen, and begin clicking again. “This conversation,” the lawyer had said. Noah wondered why the lawyer had put emphasis of the word this. Suddenly, it dawned on him. He regarded the lawyer with a smile and opened his mouth to speak. “So then I guess it was a real shame that I couldn’t have inserted myself into the conversation somehow.”

  “That is a shame,” the lawyer said, his smile growing.

  “If I may ask you one more hypothetical question, sir?” Noah didn’t wait for an answer. “If someone were to engage the teacher in a conversation that would reveal the same information… and if this someone had no problem with the conversation being recorded… that recording would be legal?”

  “Hypothetically speaking… yes.” The lawyer dropped his pen back onto the pad of paper that rested on the table and stood up. “If you have your ticket from the parking garage, I’ll have it validated for you on the way out.”

  Noah stood up, pocketed his phone, and followed the lawyer out to the front desk. He thanked the lawyer for his time, shook his hand, and declined the validation when the tall red-headed receptionist asked him for his parking garage stub.

  What an interesting line of work, Noah thought as he headed to the elevators, spending your days trying to interpret and read between the lines like that. Noah was quite certain he would never want to be involved in that line of work, but he did find it quite fascinating. Noah pushed the button for the elevator, looked around to see he was alone, and pulled out his cell phone, dialing Oscar’s work number.

  “Oscar Reynolds.”

  “Yes, Mr. Reynolds, this is Noah from The Happy Joy Massage Center. It would seem that you overpaid during your last visit, and I will need to bring you your change.”

  “Well, that is good news,” Oscar said, and Noah could just see him leaning back in his chair and smiling. “Perhaps I could just come by… for another massage? Seems much easier than dealing with credits and issuing refunds.”

  “Very good, sir.” Noah was trying not to laugh, enjoying the flirting a little too much. “Did you have any particular masseur in mind?”

  “I really enjoyed the last massage I received… but I can’t seem to remember the very handsome gentleman’s name.”

  “That would have been me, sir.”

  “What time are you free tonight, then, Noah?”

  “I have two openings tonight, Mr. Reynolds.” Noah heard the ding of the elevator, and then the doors were opening. The lobby of this particular high rise was filled with people of all sorts, but Noah didn’t feel like ending the call or the flirting. “Perhaps you’d like both? Why don’t you come by about eight this evening, and I’ll see if I can fit you in.”

  “You’re shameless,” Oscar said with a laugh. “I can hear all of that noise around you and you’re still going to keep up with this wanton flirting?”

&n
bsp; “Of course,” Noah answered, laughing himself. “I doubt anyone is paying much attention to me anyway.”

  “I find that hard to believe. I mean, how many specimens of a perfectly rounded, firm ass are there in the world?”

  “Besides yours?” Noah figured Oscar was blushing right about now. “I can almost hear you blushing, baby.” Noah switched the phone to his other ear as he headed out to the street and to the parking garage to find his car. “I do want you to come over tonight. I think I might have just come up with a plan for how to deal with the recording.”

  “Sounds good to me. I’ll go home and get a bag and see you between seven and eight.”

  Noah was about to hang up when he heard Oscar’s voice again.

  “Oh, Noah?”

  “I’m still here,” Noah said as he stood outside the parking garage, not wanting to take a chance that the call would be dropped inside all of that concrete.

  “This plan of yours? It’s not going to put you in any danger, is it?”

  “No,” Noah said, his voice certain but soothing. “Because you’ll be there too.”

  “SO THE recording on your phone is useless, but if you engage Paul and or Tim in a conversation about what you heard, that would be legal?”

  “I know, confusing, right?”

  “What if they decide to get revenge somehow?”

  “What could they possibly do? I mean, they’d be in enough trouble already because of Cherie’s lawyer, so doing anything about this would be… stupid.”

  Oscar sat across the kitchen table from Noah and shook his head. “I don’t know. It sounds a little hinky to me. Sounds like it could lead to you being harassed, threatened, even, or your car vandalized or….” Oscar just shrugged.

  “That’s why you’ll be standing just inside the door here. If you think anything is going wrong, you can just come out and get me as if I have a phone call or something.”

  “Lucky for you I studied karate,” Oscar said, taking his hand between his own.

  “You’re just lucky for me, period.”

  Noah knew that Paul was currently on summer vacation, and was trying his best to figure out his schedule. If he could just figure out when Paul would be home without Tim being beside him, then he could confront Paul about what he’d heard. Noah wouldn’t have to worry about their discussion being sidetracked by the self-absorbed cop; he could keep the conversation short and sweet and be back inside his loft before Paul suspected anything at all.

  As Noah prepared himself to go across the hall to see if Paul was home, Oscar took his spot near the door, his own cell phone in his hand as a backup. Noah took a quick kiss and then headed out into the hallway, leaving his own door open. He paused halfway down the hall and checked his own cell phone for the fiftieth time. He was wearing a pair of those handyman jeans that had the pockets covering the thigh and a loop-type thing for a hammer. His own cell phone was stuffed into one of those pockets, Oscar and Noah having tested it out earlier. Paul would have to stand no more than two feet away for the microphone on the cell phone to pick anything up and for the quality of the recording to be clear and easy to understand.

  Noah approached Paul’s door, knocked, and then made a deliberate show of pacing out near the center of the hallway. If Paul came out to speak with him, Noah would ask to speak to him out in the hallway. It was the only way the conversation had any hope of being picked up by Oscar’s cell phone. Noah heard the deadbolt click and then he saw Paul. Noah backed up toward the center of the hallway.

  “Noah? What can I do for you?”

  “I need to talk to you about something, Paul.” Noah had his hands in his pockets, afraid that if he kept them out he would start wringing them together and show Paul that he was nervous about something.

  “Sure, come on in,” Paul said, his smile a little too solicitous.

  “No thanks, I’d prefer to stay out here. What I have to talk to you about… well, you’ll understand why I don’t want to be in your loft.”

  “Okay,” Paul said, his smile fading as he advanced to stand out in the hallway. “What’s this about?”

  “I heard you and your friend—the cop—last night when you were taking the weights into your loft.” Noah took a deep breath, hoping Paul would not interrupt. “I was on my way out,” Noah lied, “when I heard my name and what your relationship is to… Timmy, I think you said his name was. Anyway, I heard enough to realize that you could have done something to help me all those years ago, but you chose to report it anyway.” Noah studied Paul’s face for a few seconds and continued. “You didn’t help me because you had something to hide yourself, didn’t you? You didn’t want anyone finding out that you and Timmy were involved, did you?” Noah took another deep breath. “How could you do that to me, Paul?” Noah watched the expression on Paul’s face change to one of… what? Guilt? Shame? “I never did anything to you but help you, and you threw me to the wolves just to save your own ass. That’s what you meant when you told me that things aren’t always what they appear, isn’t it?”

  “Noah, I… I….” Paul stopped talking and shrugged his shoulders. “What do you want me to say? That I’m an asshole for reporting you instead of telling them that you couldn’t possibly have done it? I didn’t have a choice, Noah.”

  “We always have choices, Paul.” Noah shook his head, the disgust probably quite plain on his face. “What about Cherie? Didn’t she deserve better?”

  “We both got what we wanted out of the marriage,” Paul said, shrugging again. “She wanted a husband and a kid, and I tried to give that to her—”

  “While sleeping with Timmy?”

  “I think we’ve already established that I’m an asshole, Noah, but what you don’t understand is that Timmy and me? We couldn’t risk the ridicule and the problems if we’d tried to live out in the open.”

  “So Cherie and I were nothing more than a little extracurricular activity? Does he even know that you slept with me?”

  “I told him,” Paul admitted.

  “Before or after he arrested me and paraded me through the halls in handcuffs?”

  “What does it matter, Noah? You were offered your old job back, but you refused it. Everything would have gone back to normal.”

  Noah shook his head again, not quite believing what he was hearing. All this time he’d thought that Paul was a victim, a pawn in all of this. Noah thought about his final question. He opened his mouth to speak. “Does Cherie know that she was nothing more than a convenient excuse for you?”

  “For a while, I honestly thought it could work out with Cherie, but….”

  “She figured out you’d been lying to her, didn’t she? It’s why she doesn’t want you around your son.” It wasn’t a question but a statement of fact. Noah knew that Paul had just used her as he had used Noah.

  “She’ll get over it,” Paul said, not really admitting anything.

  “For the past six years, I always thought if I could just figure out why you’d done it, why you’d treated me like that, that it would help me feel better,” Noah said, shaking his head and looking at Paul through narrowed eyes. “But I actually feel worse right now. I actually feel sorry for Cherie.”

  “Look, I’m sorry that you were hurt in all of this, Noah, but you are the one who made this whole thing much worse than it ever had to be.”

  “What the hell does that mean?” Noah heard the disbelief in his own voice.

  “The way you push the students, the way they all have to do exactly what you say—”

  “So this is my fault because I wouldn’t ignore school rules and let Skyler do whatever the hell she wanted?”

  “Those are your words, not mine,” Paul said with a sigh. “But so you ignore a few broken rules every now and then. So what?”

  “And how the hell do you think Skyler turned out the way she did?” Noah shook his head, realizing he’d allowed himself to be sidetracked. “Whatever,” he spat at Paul. “I’m not about to take teaching advice from someone like
you.” Noah took a breath and let it out slowly. “And Cherie? What about her? She trusted you, probably even loved you, and you lied to her. The entire time you were married to her, you were….” Noah shook his head, suddenly feeling like he needed a shower. “I probably wasn’t the only one, was I? The only time you cheated on Timmy? I’d be willing to bet that there’ve been others. I wonder what he’d say when he finds out that you’ve been using him too.”

  “I love him,” Paul said, his voice full of conviction. “He probably suspects. And for all I know, he’s been doing the same thing.”

  Noah shook his head, a small, humorless laugh escaping. “That’s really sad, Paul. Really sad,” he said, repeating himself. He turned and headed back to his own loft. “Just out of curiosity, Paul,” Noah said, his hand reaching inside of the door and finding Oscar’s waiting for him. “Was it your idea or Timmy’s to lie about all of this? To protect yourselves by ruining two innocent, unsuspecting lives?”

  “It was both of us, I guess.”

  “And what about Skyler? Did you use her, or was that just a happy coincidence?”

  Paul shrugged, and Noah didn’t need any further clarification. After a moment, Paul said, his demeanor seeming somewhat contrite for the first time, “I saw a chance to have everything turn out my way… and… I took it.”

  Noah nodded and said nothing further, walking into his loft and closing the door. Oscar tugged on the hand he still held, and Noah went willingly into the open arms.

  “What a twisted, fucked-up way to live.” Oscar kissed the side of Noah’s head. “Come on,” Oscar said as he led Noah to the bedroom. “Looks like you need the massage more than I do.”

  OSCAR was thorough in his massage, not missing one square inch of Noah’s willing body. After almost thirty minutes, Noah felt like he was nothing more than gelatin, ready to slide off the bed in all directions. When he was finished, Oscar made no move toward lovemaking but lay beside Noah, kissing his shoulders and neck.