by Tom Collins
I came back, filling in detail; the teardrop shaped cup of his navel, a pale, spiky treasure trail leading down to hips shaped just right for hanging onto; certain luscious, V-shaped tendons running from hip to groin barely showing at the top of one hip; thighs lined by sinew; the sheet draping him. He was Michelangelo’s David in repose.
I came back and filled in extra detail; a set of feet, the delicate-looking, pale arch of his farther foot exposed to my view; the exact shape of his ankles; a heavier covering of hair on calves with a perfect shape; the light creating a bright spot on his bent knee cap; ribs making the skin seem to ripple with shadow; thicker patch of hair peeking from under his arm; his collarbone casting a shadow on his shoulder.
I zeroed in on his face; the stubble darkening his cheeks and giving him a rakish mien; the little lines in his lips and a bright spot off the white teeth; fine, straight nose, aristocratic; the expression he wore, smitten—that wasn’t right. I did some judicious erasing and reworked the expression to match what was there now; the eyes wide and pale.
I did a double take.
“Baby!” I exclaimed, hopping down and jumping onto the bed to cuddle up with him. “I didn’t know you were awake.”
“I know,” he replied, an unreadable look in his eyes. He pulled me against his side and reached for the sketchpad. I let him have it, busy nuzzling his tiny, stiff nipple with the tip of my nose.
“You should’ve told me you were awake. I would’ve stopped drawing,” I admonished, licking the little pebble.
“I know,” he repeated. “That’s why I didn’t say anything.” He took a deep breath, hesitated then blurted, “Is this really how you see me?”
“What?” I asked, distracted. I scooted up to nibble on his chin stubble.
“This picture…is this how you see me?” He showed it to me as if to be certain we were speaking of the same one. I looked from the picture to him, bewildered.
“No. That’s how you are.” I couldn’t understand what he meant. “What say we,” I kissed him in little pecks, “get dressed, take that basketball in the corner over there, and go find a hoop for a little one on one? We can also snarf down a couple hot, pastrami sammies at the deli down the street ‘cause I don’t know about you, but I’m starvin’ Marvin, man.”
“Actually, that sounds like a great idea,” he said, looking from the sketch to me and smiling. My brain turned to gruel, my sphincter quivered and my cock twitched. How could he do that without even trying? Just look at me and I was ready to bend over? “I’m not so sure about the pastrami though.”
“Aww, c’mon,” I said, jumping up. “Loosen up a little, baby.” I shook my ass at him and headed for the bathroom to get some clothes out of my backpack.
“Don’t call me ‘baby’,” he shouted after me. “No baby, no Ollie.”
I poked my head back out. “Snookums?”
“I’m a medic. I know all your soft spots and I know all the doctors in the ERs. So come up with a more masculine pet name or I sell your kidneys to the highest bidder.”
“Okay. No Ollie, no baby. Anything else, Masked Man?” I smirked at his one piece of art.
He crossed his arms. “No disrespecting the Lone Ranger.”
“Surely, you jest?”
“Nope.”
“Funsucker.”
I pulled on a pair of socks, his bare floor made my feet cold, grabbed a t-shirt and some cargo shorts.
The shorts were a pristine white when Brendan bought them, but I took some fabric paint to them and over the course of a couple weeks I painted the same dragon as I’d painted for the flyers for Bren’s band, Private Dancer. It was rampant over the zipper, wings swept back over the hips. From the back, you saw the dragon’s back. Everything that wasn’t part of the dragon was still a bright white. I came out of the bathroom, pulling the David Bowie concert shirt bearing the legend Space Oddity over my head and carrying the shorts.
“One pastrami sandwich every blue moon isn’t going to kill you, Ollie,” I said, shoving my feet into my sneakers. He was sitting on the edge of the bed staring at me.
He raised a brow.
“Oops, forgot. No Ollie.”
“Thank you,” he said politely, and glanced down. “And we’ll never get out of here if you don’t put your dick away.”
I looked down and realized I’d forgotten to put my shorts on before putting my shoes on. I growled at myself and spent the next minute working my shoes through the over-large leg holes of my shorts. He was still staring at my crotch as he threw on some shorts that had once been jeans, but had defected to the wild side. The way they snuggled up between his cheeks made my tongue curl. I walked over and grabbed him by the hips to pull him against me for a little grind.
“You know,” I breathed into his hair, “we don’t have to go out at all.”
He shivered against me, but pulled away, “No, I think we both could use some fresh air and vertical exercise.” Stern as he sounded, his smile was as broad as mine was. We finished getting ready and headed out.
*Oliver*
I couldn’t bring myself to indulge in a pastrami sandwich after all the indulgences of the week. Luckily, the deli had a turkey Ruben, which sounded good. Liam rolled his eyes when I ordered it.
“Coward,” he named me, and ordered up his pastrami sammie. With potato salad.
The waiter left and he leaned in, chin on fists like a smug kid, and I flashed back on how he’d pounded into me this morning, how incredible it had felt. His cock was perfect, not too thick, but long. It had entered me with ease and bumped back and forth over my prostate until my legs began to give way. He’d been completely out of control, pinching at my nipples, gripping my rod. I’d loved that. It’d been one of those moments, utterly pure in ecstasy, both exterior glans and interior gland being stimulated, lights flashing behind my eyes.
Some men won’t bottom, hating the submissive position, and it is submissive in its way. I find it the best way to know what a top is really like. Liam was surprising. He’d almost been trying to merge us into one creature. Even when he was rough and instinctively dominant, he tried to make love.
“So,” he said now, sipping at his over-large soft drink, “how’d you decide you wanted to drive an ambulance around for a living?”
I was a little taken aback, but really, it was only fair. He’d told me all about himself and I’d told him almost nothing. It was long past time he asked a few personal questions and got some personal answers.
I leaned against the booth cushions and toyed with my fork. “When I was about ten, I was driving with my step-mom to…I think it was to an ice skating rink? Some kid’s party. We were heading through an intersection and some idiot ran the light and smashed right into the driver’s side.”
“Whoa.” Liam was properly horrified.
“It was my dad’s piece-of-junk car,” I said, not bothering to hide my bitterness, “no airbags. I remember this huge crashing sound, a kind of loud bang, and everything jerking sideways. I hit my head and went out for a moment. When I opened my eyes again, there were people trying to get us out. Sandy was…covered in blood and trapped.”
“Shit.”
“I started screaming. I thought she was going to die and I didn’t want to leave her. The EMTs arrived and the police. They freed her and, seeing I was only cut and bruised, took me away so they could focus on Sandy and the driver of the other car. No one would tell me the score or let me near my mother and I started to get a little hysterical.”
Liam’s large green eyes were fixed on me now. Rapt. I drew in a breath and rubbed at my forehead, where I had a scar from that day. I hated the fact that I couldn’t relate past events without feeling them all over again. This was a harder story to tell than I’d thought it would be.
“Sandy came to, and asked about me. Insisted someone let me know she was okay. One of the EMTs came over and took me in hand. I suppose it helped that he was really tall and good looking.” I smiled ruefully. “He spoke to me very
directly, like to an adult, ‘Your mom looks okay, but we might have to take her to the hospital to be sure,’ and I asked him if I could ride with her if she had to go.”
I paused. That wasn’t quite the truth. I’d shamelessly begged him to take me along. “I won’t touch anything, please let me come. I have to be with her. She’s the only one who loves me.”
A little hysterical. Yeah. Even at that age I wasn’t in the habit of admitting such things. Not unless I was in a blind panic.
“He swore to me,” I went on aloud to Liam, “that if Sandy needed to be taken to the hospital, he’d make sure I rode along. I wanted to believe him, but I didn’t. I thought he might be lying to keep me quiet. Well, it turned out her arm was fractured and she did need to go. I was allowed to ride along. The EMT pointed out things in the rig while we headed to the hospital, keeping me occupied, and when we got to the ER, he explained to the doctors and nurses that I was to be allowed to stay with Sandy if at all possible. He remained long enough to make sure they did what he asked, then he squeezed my shoulder, promised that everything would be okay, and left.”
I shrugged again. “I never found out his name or thanked him. Sandy was discharged that evening, a cast on her arm, and that’s when I decided I wanted to be a paramedic when I grew up. Never changed my mind.”
The sandwiches arrived. Liam was quiet, but hefted his hot pastrami and dove in it with gusto. My own grilled sandwich was piled high with turkey, melted Swiss and sauerkraut. It dripped thousand-island dressing as I bit into it, and realized I was ravenous.
After several starving bites and a long draw on the straw of his soft drink, Liam asked, “Do your like your job?”
“Love it. I mean, it can be boring and messy. Dangerous even. Heartbreaking, too. But there’s that thrill of racing to a scene, and getting things under control. And the times when you do get to save a life,” I shook my head, briefly reliving that lighter-than-air high. “There’s nothing like it.”
“Even though no one knows your name or thanks you?” he added wryly.
I smiled. There were EMTs who bitched about that. To me it was the most essential element of the job. A real hero doesn’t expect to be thanked or even recognized.
We finished lunch and headed to the park. It being Saturday the basketball courts were occupied, but one group of guys was willing to share the court, a basket for us, a basket for them. Liam and I took em’ up on the offer and went at it, dribbling, blocking, and darting past each other. I was faster, though that didn’t help, given Liam’s reach. He was sneaky as a cat burglar when it came to stealing the ball from me. His real gift, however, was in making baskets. He was able to hook them in one-handed, a languid move as graceful, and effortless as a dancer’s.
Watching him enthralled me. He took the game far less seriously than me, deliberately getting close enough to foul me with a thrust of his hips, or feeling me up from behind when I tried to keep the ball away from him. As we were near my part of town, his antics lured a modest audience who began to cheer him less for his baskets than his scores on me.
I ended up sweaty, flustered and unable to hide my arousal. Liam didn’t even try to hide his. He had that smile again, and a sparkle in his eyes that was smug and proud.
“Maybe we should go home,” I growled.
A few of the onlookers whistled and offered suggestions as we left. He laughed and waved at their comments, amazing me again with how open he was about being with a man. Most bi men I knew, even if they hadn’t a wife or girlfriend, weren’t into flaunting their “gay” side.
Getting Liam through the door, I nabbed his shirt and pulled it off. Not to be outdone, he got me out of my red-cross tee and on the bed. Clothing went flying, underwear too, and we competitively wrested for each other’s cocks. Next thing I knew I had latched my lips onto his crown and he’d had latched onto mine. There was some pushing of thighs out of the way, the reek of sweaty pubes.
His tongue jolted me, performing its hot, coiling snake dance over my sensitive veins; I jerked and moaned and retorted by getting the tip of my tongue into his slit. Precum slicked my taste buds with his wonderful, malty-sweet flavor. He groaned around my hard-on and started bathing my tightening balls. I went for his furry nuts. And then he shocked me by doing to me what I’d done to him in the morning. He pushed cock and balls out of the way and burrowed further between my thighs, into that sensitive area, licking as close to my pucker as he could manage.
I spilled precum, and began to squirm. In desperation, I did the one thing I knew I could do that he couldn’t. I got my mouth around his stiff dick and deep throated him. A suck and a swallow. He gasped and pulled out from between my thighs.
I felt him stiffen and cry out wordlessly in warning. He shot down my throat. As he finished twitching, I let go my building orgasm, hoping I wouldn’t get him in the face. I felt him going after the spurts, like a boy at a fountain.
He licked off what he could get as I lay panting. Liam was certainly giving me a damn good workout.
We washed up in the shower together, though my bath is so small we couldn’t play much. Liam kept bumping into the showerhead. Out and dried off, he dropped the towel on the floor.
“Hey,” I said, picking it and our discarded clothing off the floor.
“What?” he said. He was back on the bed, clean and naked, pad of paper on his lap.
“If you’re going to stick around, you’ve gotta clean up after yourself.”
“I will…eventually,” he demurred, but I wasn’t going to let that sweet smile of his put me off.
“If you’re going to do it eventually, why not now?”
“Jeeze, you sure have a lot of rules. What does it matter if things are out of place for a while?”
“What does it matter? Tell you what, I’ll let all the medical supplies in your uncle’s rig remain out of place for a while, and then we’ll toss you out a window. When we arrive to put you back together you can tell us if it matters to you that I didn’t put those supplies back in place.”
“Ooo!” He eyed me sidewise. “And the sarcasm meter says—” He lifted an arm and made it go up and down like a dial, stopping mid-way. “Beep! I’m sorry, but that was too drama queen. Would you like to try again?”
I laughed. “All right, all right. Let me try this again: Liam, I live in a very small place. Please. Put things away.”
“Okay.”
He went back to sketching. I thought of the drawing he’d done of me this morning. I hadn’t any false modesty, I knew I was good looking, a hunkish bit of eye-candy. Yet his sketch had suggested I was more than that; that I might be as handsome on the inside as I was on the outside.
Phenomenal talent he had. He was going to go far.
I chewed on a lip. The more I was with him the more I feared losing him. I’d never met anyone quite like him. He seemed to have no secrets, no hidden catches or tricks. He was exactly as he seemed to be, and what he seemed to be was so very wonderful.
“Do you know of a good restaurant?” I asked. “My stepparents are coming into town on Tuesday and I’d like to take them someplace nice, but not extravagant.”
Liam perked. “Do they like Italian?”
“A lot, yeah.”
“I’ve got just the place,” he said, setting his drawing pad aside. Digging into the discarded shorts I’d set beside him, he pulled out his iPhone and brought up the address and number for a restaurant named Buon Mangia.
“They’ve got the best food,” Liam went on enthusiastically, “reasonable prices. Dress is casual but nice, you know? Their specialties are, lasagna—which they layer up real thick and cheesy—and veal parmesan. They also make a mean steak pizzaiola. I’m partial to the spaghetti and meatballs, myself.” He shut his eyes and licked his lips. “Huge, spicy meatballs on a gi-normous mountain of spaghetti, mmmmm. Oh, and you ought to get the tiramisu for two for dessert.” He held up the phone. “Want me to call and make reservations for you?”
I hesitated. Sparkl
ing green eyes, real and trustworthy. “Would you…be able to join us?”
A heartbeat of him looking at me in an odd way, as if thrilled or moved. He grinned. “I’d love to.”
He touched on the phone number, and made reservations for four at six-thirty on Tuesday night. My stomach flipped over. He’d be the first boyfriend—if I could call him that—I’d ever introduced to my stepmother. I knew he’d like her; he seemed to like everyone. I knew she’d like him as well. I had to wonder, though, if she’d feel we were right for each other.
I never ignored Sandy’s advice, and I could all too easily see her taking me aside and telling me frankly that I was making a terrible mistake getting involved, more and more, with this rare, strange man who might fly away at any moment.
*Liam*
The more time I spent with Oliver, the more amazing he proved to be. I reclined in his bed with my fourteen-by-seventeen sketchpad turned to a fresh page. I was using my watercolor pencils, blending the pigments on the paper with a spit-moistened finger, to capture a depiction of Oliver tricked out in a Conan the Barbarian type furred underwear and boots with a huge bastard sword held on guard across his body. The watercolor pencils let me get his eye and hair color just right, though I did give him long, flowing Rock Star hair.
When he finished picking up, he settled on the loveseat and turned the TV on. I grabbed my pencils and moved over to sit with him. When he saw me coming, he turned sideways. I sat between his spread legs and used his chest for a backrest. I loved being naked with him, feeling his warm, flaccid cock and soft balls nestled against the small of my back.
I curled up tight against him when he decided it was time for bed, contented as a milk-fed cat. His fingers were still toying with my hair when I fell asleep. I woke early Sunday morning, before his alarm went off, and slipped on my favorite pair of underpants, fluorescent purple bikinis.