Queermance Anthology, Volume 2

by Queermance Anthology- Volume 2 [MM-FF] (retail) (epub)

  Xavier laughed as Paul moved down his body, nipping and licking. ‘So that takes care of tonight. What about tomorrow?’

  Paul sat back and absorbed Xavier’s laughing eyes and sunny smile. His instincts screamed at him to protect himself, to keep himself safe. Losing Tristan had destroyed him. Alexia too. He couldn’t let anything like that happen again. Then Alexia’s voice intruded in his thoughts. Go get ‘im, Tiger. Exactly what she’d been saying to him since they were five.

  He knew then, they’d never be gone. Tristan and Alex. He’d carry them both with him for the rest of his life. He had to forge something new and different if there was any chance of living. If he carried on the way he had been, he’d only sink deeper and deeper and never be able to dig himself out of the quagmire of loss and guilt. Xavier was here, now, offering light and warmth and laughter.

  ‘Paul?’ Xavier’s voice brought him out of his fugue. ‘What about tomorrow?’ He was tentative now, the light in his eyes dimmed with confusion.

  Paul took a deep breath and jumped in, both feet, eyes open. ‘You want to meet a friend of mine?’ Cord would tease him mercilessly once he met Xavier, but he wasn’t going to keep them separate. He had a feeling Xavier was going to end up just as important to him as Cord was.

  Xavier reached for Paul and pulled him down again, all hesitation gone. ‘I’ll meet anyone you like if you fuck me hard now.’

  The words were flippant but Xavier’s eyes glistened with emotional tears. Paul swallowed against the tightness in his throat. It was a good first step. He and Xavier together would build��� he pressed his lips to Xavier’s. Even with his eyes closed he could feel all the colours of life swirling around him, tempting him to come out and play. Whatever they built together, it would be better than what Paul had been living in for the last nine months.

  As he deepened the kiss, Paul focused on Xavier’s golden hair tangling with his fingers and tried to forget he’d once craved something different.

  THE BIRTHDAY PRESENT

  NM Harris

  Trent had planned on a nice meal. Nothing fancy. He really didn’t do the birthday thing, not since he was a kid. His family fought too much all the time; especially, for some reason, on his birthday.

  Well, he knew the reason. All those toy cars and manly action figures and sports equipment that he never whooped with joy over, the way his dad wanted him to. Sport was fine, and Trent had been good at it, but he didn’t play with the other stuff ‘properly’.

  He would race the cars, then crown the arbitrary winners with crowns he’d made himself from flowers. Or, instead of racing them, he’d put the cars into a fashion parade line-up, and use his GI Joe as the florid commentator who danced and sang to NSYNC.

  He often used his nerf gun to stage an assault on his sister’s bedroom and steal her massive collection of bangles to wear himself.

  Then there was the birthday his mum had caught his sixth-grade classmate Braydon giving him a birthday kiss. That had been a shitty year for everyone. Lots of screaming. Braydon got moved to another school.

  After enough awkward birthdays, Trent gave up celebrating much at home, avoiding parties there or even going out with friends. When he was 15 years old, he’d said ‘fuck off’ to the closet and birthdays and focused on just getting through high school until he could move out and get to uni.

  When he finally left home, Trent kept busy studying then working his way through building and architectural firms, until now here he was on the brink of starting his own freelance company. With the workload he’d set himself, however, he’d not really had anyone special to celebrate birthdays with; he’d barely made time for even casual flings.

  But now there was also Marcus Darrow. Jewellery designer by trade and sometime fashion model; good humouredly making the most of his fantastic cheekbones and coif of dark, wavy hair ‘while I have them’ so he could fund his art. Vibrant, smart, funny Marcus, who made everything in life seem more special simply because he chose to spend his life with Trent.

  They’d known each other for a few years, having met at a mutual friend’s album launch, but this was Trent’s first birthday with Marcus as a couple. Trent had just thought a nice dinner at the local Thai joint, their regular haunt, would be perfect. A little pad thai, a little wine, a candle, a celebration that this birthday, his life was finally coming together - work life, social life, love life, the whole shebang. Not much to ask, surely.

  Except that Marcus had gone and made other plans. Trent supposed he only had himself to blame. He should have made it clear that though he didn’t plan to make the birthday dinner a big deal, he had been looking forward to spending the evening with his boyfriend.

  Instead, Marcus had taken a frantic phone call from his friend Madeleine (no surname, just Madeleine, though Trent knew she was really a Joan). The model she’d booked for her big debut at a five-star fashion launch had managed to fall off the event’s party boat into Sydney Harbour the previous night. They’d fished him out again before he was permanently damaged by harbour traffic, but the microbes had had a field day, and he was now folded up in bed shivering and throwing up, when he wasn’t locked in the bathroom as his stomach tried to escape from the other end.

  ‘If you love me at all, Marcus, please, oh god, please, do this for me!’ Madeleine had begged him over the phone, ‘I can’t get someone else suitable on short notice, and you know I designed half this stuff with you in mind. You’re my muse. Please!’

  Perhaps, Trent thought, he shouldn’t be so disgruntled about the disruption to the night. After all, his boyfriend was an artist’s muse.

  Marcus usually only modelled for pay - he was much more interested in creating his own wearable art - with his own long, delicate, clever fingers - than in being the frame on which other art was hung. But he and Madeleine had been in art school together, when she was simple Joan Mawson, and had flat-shared for all the starving years. Marcus had steady work as a designer now, and Madeleine was on the verge of her big break so, as Marcus explained to Trent, he couldn’t let her down.

  Well, Trent decided, that could be something else for him to love about Marcus. His loyalty. And Trent had said he didn’t want a birthday fuss, and that was mostly true, and he did like Joan/Madeleine, despite her poor timing. So there was nothing for it but to be a good friend and not whine about the dismantling of his low-key plans when she needed their help for the fashion show.

  Well, he said fashion. It wasn’t really about clothes. More about accessories, and the absolutely lavish approach to bejewelling that Madeleine had created.

  This ‘fashion event’ had invited her to show because a film starlet had recently shone on the red carpet in some of Madeleine’s custom-designed bejewelling body art. The flash and dazzle of those crystals emphasising curves and hollows, confidence and flair, had caused a stir in Sydney’s Beautiful People scene. Those attracted to her work were unified not by gender or orientation but by a certain peacock-ness of spirit; the desire to rise above the common herd, to literally shine.

  Madeleine’s body-decoration technique took the concept of vajazzling, laughed at how sweetly unambitious the notion was, and then put on the most razzle dazzle display for people who really liked to be seen. But, you know, tastefully.

  The nature of the body art and the huge amount of preparation it required meant that Marcus had gone to the event hotel before lunch and Trent hadn’t seen him since, though they’d traded numerous text messages. Marcus teasingly would not send Trent any pictures. Instead he texted:

  You’ll have to come to the show

  to see the results <3 <3

  Joanie left you a backstage comp at

  the door.

  It was a flash party, so Trent dusted off his best suit. The jacket fit well across his shoulders, sat perfectly around his hips and trim waist. Marcus had only seen him in a suit once before, but had been very appreciative. With only his eyes. Trent had no idea how appreciative someone could be without words, and just their e
yes, until Marcus had looked at him like that.

  Your arse looks brilliant in that, had been Marcus’s exact words, when he’d recovered the power of speech, and shortly afterwards they’d both been naked.

  Trent grinned at the memory. A week after that, they were dating, and here they were, ten months later, living together, and making long term plans.

  Trent checked his name off at the door, got his pass and was guided to the prep room behind the main stage, where the models were running around in a controlled tizz with last minute fixes to make-up and accessories. He was left to his own devices then, and instinctively drew back against the wall to get out of everyone’s way. He had a view of the rear of the catwalk from here, and down the long expanse of carpeted runway into the crowd of fashionistas, reporters and devotees.

  A man clad in what looked like a black felt tube with golden turrets rising from his hips walked with unimaginable confidence to the end of the catwalk, turned and raised his arms to show off something about the cut of the thing, then sauntered back up the aisle again.

  Trent cast his glance around the room, looking for Marcus amidst this backstage, glittery, silk-and-taffeta maelstrom. No sign of him yet. Probably for the best. Trent didn’t want to be a distraction.

  Trent grinned. He wasn’t much given to vanity, but honestly, tonight he felt pretty damned smart in this suit. Better than smart. Delicious. Several models and make-up artists had stopped to admire how the suit emphasised his broad shoulders and strong legs. He didn’t hold out much hope they’d still make dinner, but he hoped at least to evince that hungry look in Marcus’s eyes; to render him speechless again.

  Trent Springfield was about to learn a lesson in mute appreciation.

  He hadn’t really understood Madeleine’s artisan bedazzling treatment from her description and the few black and white photographs she’d shared. He had no way to properly appreciate her art until Marcus swayed out from the wings where he’d been waiting and began to strut down the catwalk in his high heels and his��� his��� besparklement!

  Oh. Holy. Fucking. Christ. On. A. Bicycle. I. Want. That. Want. Want. Want. Want. That. Oh. Dear. God. Dear. God. Want.

  The that which Trent wanted with such a burning, single minded intensity?

  Marcus’s long, lovely self, standing in five-inch, open-toed silver-and-gold shoes; his long, bare legs shaved and moisturised and no doubt as soft to the touch as they looked on the eye.

  Marcus, parading to the rhythm of the show’s soundtrack with sass and swagger, showing off the fine curve of his hip and backside, showing off the elegant stretch of his thigh and calf muscles. The line of his belly, with its little natural curve, the swell of his pecs and the dusky rose pink of his nipples. The strength of that long back, with its delicious smattering of freckles and moles. The slight hint of make-up dusting Marcus’s face to emphasise his high cheekbones, his merry eyes, his softly smiling lips.

  And all that lovely long length of the barely-clad Marcus Darrow was bedecked, beglittered and bedazzled with silver and crystals.

  At the end of the catwalk, Marcus paused, splayed his arms, his fingers held as elegantly as a ballet dancer’s to show off the lines of crystals on his skin.

  God, Trent loved Marcus’s hands. They were strong, subtle, clever and supple, whether working on delicate metals or holdings pencils as he created sketches, or dancing along Trent’s skin in their bed at night. Trent wanted to crawl up onto the stage and start sucking on those wonderful fingers.

  The nail polish Marcus wore, dusky and embedded with stardust it seemed, led the eye to the rings clustered on Marcus’s fingers. Those rings shone. Not just on one finger, and not just a single ring per finger. Four fingers and a thumb on each hand, laden with silver and jade and zircon and amethyst. Tiny chips of coral, a circle of lapis lazuli. A sliver of jasper, glowing dark in a twist of silver, accented with rose gold.

  One ring sprawled elaborately down Marcus’s finger and curled elegantly over the back of his hand, the tail of a dragon, forever poised in the midst of motion; in exactly the same way that Marcus would drape his body over the sofa at home - absolutely motionless, constructing jewellery in his mind’s eye before jumping up to committing it to paper. Stillness captured in a moment before frantic activity. Even slack with ennui, Marcus only ever seemed be only temporarily at bay, waiting for the merest signal before firing up again.

  Trent liked the dragon ring. He loved the coral and lapis and jasper. He loved the glinting silver and the amethyst. He loved how they looked against Marcus’s creamy skin, and the lines of his strong muscles underneath.

  But there were treats to behold once Trent could lift his gaze from Marcus’s elegant, bejewelled fingers too.

  The bangles. A dozen on each slender wrist. Some of them tinkled, sweet light sounds, like tiny bells, as Marcus shifted his weight and turned in a circle designed to show how the light caught the movement. Every tiny motion gave forth a bright, light, silvery song.

  The line of little Swarovski crystals followed the curve of the bones under his skin, with diversions into little swirls of light and colour, like an echo of a Van Gogh starfield, only in lighter colours, on a warmer canvas.

  The silver armbands: three on Marcus’s left bicep, two on his right. The crystals dotted up to the points of his shoulders, across towards his neck, then down the sweep of his clavicles.

  Marcus’s ears had little crystals glued to them, a cascade from the top of his ear, down the rim of it to the lobe, with a few choice circles sparkling just alongside the ear and down the side of his jaw. A delicately-designed earing dropped a long line of silver and crystals which drew the eye to his long bare neck; to his Adam’s apple which was a subtle line, as were the tendons of his neck.

  Trent wanted to resoundingly (though platonically) kiss Madeleine for rightly deciding that part of Marcus needed no adornment; that of itself, that long neck dotted with a few dark freckles and that tiny mole, was beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.

  The glittering, glorious, sparkling show did not end there, because dropping his gaze to the southernmost extreme of Marcus’s body, Trent also saw and ogled the divine strappy open toed high heels which showed off Marcus’s prettily painted toes, and the rings Marcus wore on the second and third of them. Slender and fine.

  Whorls of crystals led his eye back up Marcus’s gorgeous legs, just as Marcus turned again on the catwalk, presenting his back again for the full effect.

  Down Marcus’s back, a line of crystals marked the wings of his scapula; the bumps of his spine, down the swell of that fine, luscious, biteable bum. Crystals sparkled like stardust alongside his freckles, highlighting an arc more graceful and breathtaking than the Milky Way.

  Marcus wore a thin chain around his waist. As a belt it was useless. As a slender demarcation of where his upper body ended and his lower body began, it was very pretty. As a curve to emphasise the swell of his hips and arse, it was perfect.

  The chain’s gentle arc dropped a single slender line of silver just to the very top of the fold of Marcus’s naked backside. It was almost as heart-stopping as the way the front of it swooped just so - just so very so - under the slight curve of his mostly-flat belly. It hung above the carmine-red silk G-string that covered his trimmed pubic region, cupped his cock and sac, and hinted lusciously (and tastefully, and how was that even possible?) at the lines of both, and at the smattering of crystals that peeked above the silk in delicate swirls.

  It was all way, way too much; and somehow, not nearly enough. It was extravagant and should have been vulgar; but the delicacy of the crystals and the extraordinary beauty of the man wearing them saved the whole display from being utterly risible.

  Somehow, on Marcus, this mad treasure trove of sparkles and silver was simply - an emphasis. As Marcus strutted down the catwalk, oblivious to the audience, Trent’s heart nearly stopped at the sight of him.

  At last, Marcus made his return sashay to the rear of the catwalk and off to the bac
kstage area. After a good long while, Trent recovered the ability to walk and hurried with his special pass to join him.

  ‘Trent, baby, you made it in time.’ Marcus beamed, and every motion of his body made the whole sparkle.

  Trent just stared at Marcus; he couldn’t for the life of him remember how to speak.

  ‘Just the final walk-through with the other models and we can go home. Joanie says she doesn’t need me here for the after party. Well, she tried to persuade me, but I told her it was your birthday so she’s letting me pike.’

  Trent’s tongue flicked out over his lower lip. Flicked out again over his upper lip. Retreated to taste the flavour of the air that had shared a room with Marcus Darrow looking like that. It tasted of sparkles.

  ‘That’s our call,’ said Marcus, grinning madly at his boyfriend’s incapacity. ‘Give me five.’

  Trent nodded. As Marcus walked away, he glanced back over his shoulder and winked. ‘Get my coat, birthday boy,’ he said. ‘We’re leaving the minute I get off that stage.’

  Trent could do nothing but obey. He fetched Marcus’s overnight bag that contained his day clothes, and the long, tailored coat he favoured for Sydney autumns. He waited by the backstage steps and the moment Marcus reappeared and spread his arms, Trent draped Marcus’s coat around Marcus’s still bejewelled and beguiling body; buttoned up his own suit jacket and stumbled to the street to flag down a taxi.

  Trent realised just how hard it was to think straight, or move with any grace, when all your blood had moved to your groin and was busy maintaining the biggest, hardest, most lustful erection any man had ever had in the history of such things. After almost falling into the taxi and gasping out their Clare Street address, Trent sat pushed against the door on his side of the cab. He was afraid to sit closer to Marcus, because he would break; he knew he would. He would break into a million pieces, all of them attached to Marcus, all of them kissing and licking and sucking on and damned well rutting into Marcus’s divine, divine, divine personage.