Making the Hook-Up

by Cole Riley

  Todd is saying something to me, but I cannot hear him. My ears are filled with water and memory. I begin to shake and as I rise for air, my hair plastered against my face, I throw my arms back, and the upper half of my body floats. I look up and see the moon. My body shudders violently until I feel so much pain and pleasure at once that it is unbearable. I have to push him away from me. We stare at each other and for a moment, we too are strangers in these waters. And then, his arms are wrapped around me, and he is leading me onto land. I know why I needed to be here.

  KEEPING UP WITH THE JONESES

  Reginald Harris

  Once you get married and you get busy trying to build a life together, ecstasy gives way to common sense. Working, raising kids and getting them out of the house and off to college, cars that break down, bills to pay, doctors and insurance to worry about, clothes that get grown out of too soon, broken ankles and busted pipes—life, you know what I’m saying, just life. All the things your parents used to worry about are suddenly dropped on you, and you have to deal with them. It makes you realize what an amazing job they did, making it seem like they knew what they were doing when, in fact, they were probably just as lost and confused as you. But you keep going, because, well, that’s what you do, right? And even though you really do still love your wife, what can I say? Inevitably, the passion cools, you’re too busy for sex, or too tired to do anything but cuddle—if that. All those gay people you see on TV now, marching up and down, talking about same-sex marriage? Little do they know that the comedians are right: after about a year or two it turns into a no-sex marriage. I’m positive the inventors of all those porn websites and high-speed Internet access are married. Not that I know anything about that, mind you. I’m just sayin’…get married and your life changes.

  Lynn and I do it once a month now—maybe. Most of the time we have to make an appointment, which I hate. I mean, yeah, sure, it’s great to have her look over at me on Friday evening after we’ve both come home from work and suddenly reach over, squeeze my dick, and say, “I’ll see you tomorrow night,” and know I’m going to get some. But I miss being spontaneous. Like when we first moved into our townhouse and were hitting it right and left because we wanted to “christen” every room: doing it on the carpet in the living room during yet another “Law and Order” rerun, playing Jack Nicholson and Jessica Lange in The Postman Always Rings Twice on the kitchen table, getting between her luscious brown legs and eating her pussy on the stairs, or doing our own version of Jason’s Lyric out in the backyard in the middle of the night, hoping none of the neighbors were watching. Now that was fun. But you know…life happens and things change. Suddenly you’re both older, thicker, and you’re not kids anymore. That’s just the way it is. You seem to forget that a finger slowly run up her inner thigh always gets rewarded with a shudder and wetness between her legs. Somehow you put away the fact that it is her left nipple and not the right one that is more sensitive for that fuck-filled tomorrow that doesn’t come as often as it did. She no longer scratches you behind the ear like a pet, causing the skin on your arms—and your dick—to stand at attention. All these things get lost as Life Happens, and a quick trip around the Internet becomes the easiest way to get rid of a morning hard-on. Not that I know anything about that, of course…

  Sometimes you need something to remind you of what’s what.

  “Have you met the new guys next door yet?” Lynn asked me one night.

  I put down the remote and called out to her in the next room. “What was that? What did you say?”

  “I said,” she repeated, wiping her hands as she came into the room, “have you met our new neighbors yet?”

  “No, not really. I mean I saw them when they moved in, we both did, you know, with all their boxes and furniture. Brian and…uh…Joe, right? I might have seen one of them a few times as I was on the way in to work, but I can’t say I’ve met them yet, no. Why?”

  “You know they’re gay, right?”

  I looked at her. “Gay? What do you mean ‘gay’?”

  “You know. I mean ‘gay.’ They’re, like, homosexuals.”

  I shook my head. “Get outta here—those guys? Come on.” Brian, light-skinned, bald and thick, and Joe, the shorter, darker of the two with longish dreads, seemed like just average brothas to me. I thought they were two young guys who’d maybe been friends or roommates in college and were sharing a house to save on expenses until they could get places of their own. “How do you know?”

  “I was running a little late today leaving the house, and they were leaving too. And I saw them kissing each other in the doorway, and then they both left together. I don’t think they saw me until they got to the end of the walkway and waved to me as I started to drive off.”

  “Kissing? Like out in public? In the open? On the porch or what?”

  “Not completely in the open, no, in the doorway. There wasn’t anyone else out on the street, but even if there were I don’t know if anyone else could have seen them.”

  I shook my head. “I’m not sure that this neighborhood is ready for two men kissing on the front porch.”

  “I thought it was sweet.”

  “Yeah, well, you would. All that running around with your brother and his friend and your cousin Derrick… You’re used to that kind of thing.”

  “See, I always knew you were homophobic.”

  “I am not homophobic! I just…I’m not sure how safe it would be for them to be doing that in public around here, that’s all.”

  “What do you think? That somebody’s going to do something to them? A mid-morning mid-kiss drive-by or something.”

  “No, no, of course not, this isn’t that kind of neighborhood. Most people don’t care. I don’t care. I mean, look at those two lesbians down in the next block—everyone’s fine with them.”

  “Everyone calls Lisa whenever their drains clog.”

  “Well, she does advertise herself as ‘Ms. Fix-It.’ She’s a terrific plumber, what can I say?”

  “I’m surprised this bothers you so much.”

  “I’m not bothered. I’m just…I don’t know.”

  “Homophobic.”

  “Stop saying that!” I slapped the couch. “I’m not no homophobe. I’d just…I just rather not see them doing anything that’s all. I’m sure they’re cool guys and all, but they need to keep it inside.” I picked up the remote and turned up the volume on Sports Center. Lynn looked at me for a while and then went back into the kitchen.

  And that should have been the end of it, right? We had new neighbors. They were quiet and kept to themselves—no problem, right? Gay? No big deal, I couldn’t care less. But then, later on that week, Lynn and I were upstairs in the bedroom. I was just about to fall asleep when she poked me in the side.

  “Did you hear that?”

  “What? Hear what? I don’t hear anything.”

  “Listen.”

  I listened. “I still don’t hear anything.”

  “Wait for it…”

  And then, yes I heard it. Squeaking. But not like a mouse or a floorboard. Squeaking springs. Rhythmically squeaking springs. And then an occasional knock or tap on the wall of the bedroom opposite our bed. There was no mistaking it: the guys next door were having sex.

  “Oh, man, I don’t want to listen to this,” I said, moving to get out of bed.

  “Wait a minute, Roy, where are you going? What are you going to do?”

  “I…I don’t know. Knock on the wall or something. Let them know we can hear them and that they need to keep it down.”

  “You can’t do that!”

  “And why the hell not?”

  “It would embarrass them.”

  “Embarrass them? What the fuck do I care if I embarrass them? I don’t want to listen to buttfucking in my own bedroom!”

  Lynn harrumphed. “You didn’t object to that the time you asked me to do it.”

  “That…that was different. That’s you and me, a man and a woman. I don’t want to hear two guy
s going at it.”

  The rhythm got faster and the tapping became a knocking. A muffled, husky “Uh, uh, uh, ooh…” drifted through the wall.

  “Oh, shit, here we go…”

  Lynn sighed. “I remember when we used to knock headboards against the walls.”

  “Yeah, well…it’s been a while.”

  “I know. I hope we didn’t wake our neighbors when we did it.”

  “There’s nobody on this side,” Lynn said, reaching back and touching the wall behind the bed. “So no one would have noticed. Truth is, you just like it quiet.”

  “And you don’t?”

  Lynn shifted a little in the bed, the strap of her nightgown falling off her bare shoulder. “Loud can be fun, sometimes. But quiet is fine… You remember that time in New York? In the rain, after that horrible trip up?”

  “And the cheap-ass hotel…” I laughed and moved closer to her. “Yeah, that was wonderful. Who knew? Maybe we should check into no-tell motels more often.”

  “That would be great. ‘Mr. and Mrs. Jones’ like a couple cheating on their spouses.” Lynn laughed and moved into my arms. I held her tightly and kissed her on her forehead.

  “You know, that was…” I cleared my throat. My skin began to tingle and flush.

  “That was what?”

  “Well…that was when I knew I loved you. I mean I guess I knew it before that night but…I think that was the first time we actually made love. We’d had sex before, but that was really making love.”

  “There was something special, you’re right. We were both tired, pissed off, glad to get somewhere to lay our heads. We didn’t care about what the place looked like, or that it was so small you really couldn’t move without bumping into furniture.”

  Lynn paused and looked up at me, running a finger along the back of my hand. “Are you serious about that? That was when you knew?”

  “Yes it was. Why?”

  “Just…I think that weekend convinced me that I should marry you. I knew you didn’t really want to go, couldn’t care less about seeing some Broadway show, and only went because I asked you to. It was really sweet.”

  “Yep, that was some night.”

  “I don’t think we’ve ever been so quiet like that, either. That was part of what made it so amazing; being with you and not saying anything, just making love to you in total silence…that was just…wow…”

  Lynn’s hand reached down to my suddenly erect member. “So I see. I don’t know how you did it, but I think this guy actually got bigger that night, if that’s possible.” She waggled my dick around a little.

  “He wouldn’t go away either, if you remember.”

  “Oh, yes I remember. I could feel you all the next day, walking around the city. You can be a greedy bastard sometimes,” she said, smiling.

  I smiled right back. “I don’t remember hearing any objections that night.”

  “Yeah, well, I would have but…”

  “But…it was too good for you too, wasn’t it?” Even in the moonlight I could see her blush. “Thought so.”

  Casually running my fingers up and down Lynn’s arm, I looked at the wall separating us and our neighbors. “Seems to have quieted down over there.”

  “Mmm,” Lynn said, her hand still wrapped around my erection. I leaned in and kissed her. The residue of the cherry flavor of her lipstick still lingered on her lips. Both were delicious.

  Suddenly all the long days and weeks without sex came back in a flood of raw hunger. I wanted her desperately, wanted not to make love as we’d been talking about, but to just fuck my wife, hard and fast, to see her hair tossing and her eyes roll into the back of her head, to have her under me, begging me to keep going, to push myself deeper into her, her long legs wrapped around my waist. I wanted to turn us away from the dull married couple and back into not our former, younger selves, but into the raw rutting animals that still lived deep in the oldest parts of our brain, that we usually try to hide. A quick flash of concern in her brown eyes showed Lynn could see what I was thinking, what kind of fire was about to be directed toward her. Her lower lip trembled and a thin line of sweat slowly meandered its way between her breasts. Her breathing began to quicken, and she pulled me on top of her. She had an animal inside she wanted to let out, too.

  In the middle of our passion, I had a brief flash of Joe banging Brian’s ‘high yella’ back out. It stopped me and almost made me lose my erection.

  “What’s wrong?” Lynn asked, running her fingers down my back.

  “Nothing, nothing at all,” I said, flipping her over to have her straddle me. My dick grew hard again, a vine curling into the latticework of her pussy hairs, and I slipped back into her warm wetness.

  “They’re at it again?” I asked Lynn two nights later.

  She listened. “I guess so. Young people…I vaguely remember back when we were like that….”

  I shot her a glance. Listening more closely, thinking I heard a repeated, hissing, “Shit, shit, oh, shit,” I said, “You know, that’s not sex. I think that’s a blow job.”

  “You can tell?”

  “Yeah.” Lynn looked at me oddly. “What can I say? It sounds different from fucking… Stop staring at me! It’s a guy thing, okay? Kinda sick though, to think…I mean, I don’t care that they’re gay and all. They can be as gay as they want to. I just don’t want to hear it, that’s all. It’s upsetting.”

  “It doesn’t upset me.”

  “You’re not a man, you don’t have to imagine having a dick stuck in…I mean, having to suck another guy’s dick or something.”

  “I suck your dick.”

  “Not lately.”

  “What?”

  “Sorry, sorry, I didn’t mean to say that…I mean, you know, yeah, like I know you’re not all that crazy about it and that’s okay. But I can still miss it, you know.”

  “You don’t seem to be in no hurry to take care of business with your mouth down there for me either, buddy, let’s get that straight, too.”

  “Yeah, yeah, well okay, so we’re both…” I glanced at her and saw the weather on her face change and made an instant course correction. “I mean I’m wrong so…anyway what I was trying to say was, I don’t like hearing them having sex. It’s just creepy to me.”

  Lynn put her hands on her hips. “You didn’t mind it when that other couple was next door.”

  “That’s different. That was a guy and a girl. And they really didn’t do it all that often.”

  “Not in the bedroom they didn’t, no.”

  I smiled. “Yeah, that was funny, to be standing in the kitchen and hearing her that night….”

  Lynn tilted her head back, and fluttered her eyes. “Oh, Michael!” she made her voice high and fluttery. “Oh—oh-ho, Mi-mi-mike-all!” We both laughed. “It seemed to inspire you, too. I’m still not sure you weren’t thinking about her when we were together.”

  “Come on, baby, I told you I wasn’t.”

  “Right. Tell me you weren’t thinking about wanting a little somethin’ somethin’ every time that hoochie stepped out of the house. Those shorts she used to wear would’ve shamed Daisy Duke.”

  I opened my mouth, and then closed it quickly. Over the years I’ve learned that there are times when it’s better to just let things drop.

  “I think you’re really a…well, I don’t know what to call it. It’s not a voyeur, ’cause you can’t see them, but I think you like hearing sex.”

  I shook my head.

  “Oh, yeah?” Lynn nodded down at me. “Where did that tent in your sweats come from? Looks like you wish you were next door.”

  “No, no, not at all. It’s just that sound. No way am I letting some guy suck my dick,” I said, trying to push my jumping jimmy down. Damned thing really did have no conscience or sense of timing. In truth, wave the prospect of a wet mouth in front of him and he’s up and ready, pretty much no matter what gender it’s attached to.

  “The lady doth protest too much me thinks.”


  “What’s that, some kind of saying your brother and his gay friends came up with?”

  “No, I’m just saying…” She stroked the fabric barely restraining my raging dick. She looked up at me and licked her lips. “I’m just saying,” she said again.

  I didn’t have to be asked twice. I broke some kind of land speed record to get my sweat pants off. Lynn, too, moved quickly dropping her head down into my crotch while I still had one leg in the sweats.

  It really had been a long time since she’d given me head, and I’d forgotten how extraordinary it was to have a pair of warm lips wrapped around your member. And guys do sound different when they’re getting a blow job. There’s the growl deep in the back of the throat, the jagged, irregular breathing. I nearly shouted when Lynn’s lips first touched the flared head of my dick. Sighing loudly, I put a hand over my mouth, not wanting the guys next door to hear. But then I thought fuck ’em! Those two seemed to have no problem giving us an aural show with their sexual gymnastics, it was about time we held up our end for the straight community. And besides, I doubt that Lynn’s head would have been bobbing up and down between my legs if not for them. Maybe what I really needed to do was to thank them one day, I thought, before looking down to meet Lynn’s eyes staring at me.

  She smiled slightly and licked up and down my dark brown shaft. I leaned my head back. “Oh, baby, yes,” I said as Lynn inhaled my entire thickness into her mouth. She even surprised me at the end, not pulling away when I blurted out that I was getting close. There were tears in my eyes and it almost made me come again to see my cream splash across the plump ripeness of her lips.

  Once, the two of them even woke me up. Brian and Joe had left the house one Saturday night, around eleven, just as Lynn and I were nodding on the couch. Not thinking we could make it through the new Tyler Perry DVD before passing out, we headed up to bed. Sometime around 3:30 a.m. I opened my eyes slowly to the sound of moaning and knocking behind the wall. But something else had woken me, too. I noticed that our bed was shaking. Moving my head slightly, I looked over. I could tell that Lynn’s fingers were moving quickly under the covers. Her eyes were closed, her head back, pushing into the pillow. I wondered if she was imagining being in the room with Brian and Joe, getting serviced by two men. Or if she was just fantasizing about one of them digging her out the way one guy was digging out the other next door. She looked so beautiful it nearly took my breath away. Her pebbled nipples were hard and pointing at the ceiling through her nightgown, a thin veil of sweat covering her mocha-colored skin. She was irresistible, and my mouth watered, jealous of her searching fingers.