by Willa Okati
Grey groaned and said something Nicholas couldn’t understand, the words too rushed together to make sense. Nicholas nodded, rocking up with his hips, pushing Grey on. “Fuck me,” he chanted in time with the beat. “Fuck me, fuck me, fuck me…”
And Grey did, filling Nicholas to bursting, leaving him empty, then filling him once again. Nicholas tugged at his cock, feeling sticky strands of pre-come trickling down the side, using them to ease his own way. He could barely think by then, and his only thought about moving was to rock with Grey, winding them both up to a climax possibly better than any that had ever come before.
Grey’s eyes rolled back into his head, and he burst out with another string of nonsense syllables. Bending them both fiercely for another kiss, he gripped hard at Nicholas, and stiffened except for his hips snapping forward. Nicholas felt the jets of heated spunk filling him from the inside, so warm and wet that he gasped and felt himself burst, gouts of come running down over his hand.
On the distant edges of his hearing, the drumbeats faded to the sound of a thudding heartbeat, fainter and fainter, and then there was silence. All was quiet except for the sounds of their breathing, rough and ragged, struggling to calm themselves after such an explosive climax.
Nicholas sighed, raising his hand to his mouth to lick it clean. He loved the taste, full of passion and life. Someday, he wanted to find a willing woman who would give him a child to share with Grey. They would teach the boy or girl the old ways, all the old stories, share flatbread with them and play games that were older than the white man’s time on these mountains, and—
“Jimmy,” Grey hummed, stroking Nicholas’ chest. “God, Jimmy, you were amazing.”
Chapter Four
Nicholas was very carefully tending to the coffee bar in the cellar. He’d set up several urns of coffee, some of their best beans, roasted to perfection and freshly ground for brewing. The smell filling the room was nothing short of heavenly.
Jimmy inhaled as deeply as he could, savoring the fine smell of Café Noctem’s good coffee after going so long without it. There was just something about the java they were able to make in this place. He himself had joked that there must have been good spirits in the old building, ones who liked a buzz, and that was why they had the best coffee in Asheville.
He took a sip from his mug, a sturdy ceramic model in a deep cobalt blue, and let the flavor roll over his tongue. He closed his eyes. Perfection.
Pity nothing else was going right. Jimmy watched Nicholas, his old friend, and how absolutely precise his movements were as he tended bar. He didn’t look up, didn’t look down, didn’t look around, and specifically didn’t look at Grey, who had entered a few minutes after him. Neither man was dressed in a costume, although it was customary for Celebration de la Vie.
“I can do this,” a young girl insisted—well, young to his point of view. She was probably nineteen or twenty, a student at college, working to pay her tuition. Piercings ringed her ears from cartilage to lobe, and a tribal tattoo showed on one upper arm. She’d dressed herself in a skin-tight cat suit, complete with furry ears and a tail that swished behind her—and not much else. “Nicholas, go mingle. Make with the schmoozing. I can dish out coffee.”
“Thank you, Belinda. I’m fine right here,” Nicholas replied. Then, as if regretting his terse words, he glanced up and gave her a friendly smile. Jimmy suspected he was the only one who noticed the warm look didn’t reach Nicholas’ eyes. “I’m not even dressed up. Why don’t you go and work the crowd?”
“You mean bus tables,” Belinda groused, but with a grin. She reached for a white plastic tub set underneath the coffee bar, and hefted it onto her hip. “I’m on it. But since when does Catwoman do the dirty work?”
“Since now,” Nicholas called after her. The friendly expression lingered on his face a few moments longer, and then dropped abruptly as Grey crossed the room, heading from one local businessman to a reporter for the local community paper. He turned studiously to the urns behind him, checking them and refilling one with freshly ground beans.
As Nicholas disappeared to go bring down some more clear spring water for the brewing, Jimmy tapped at the edge of his cup in deep thought. He thought he’d figured things out—it didn’t take a genius, after all. He and Grey and Nicholas had always been the closest of friends. It just made sense that the two remaining after he was gone would come together.
Now, though, it looked like they were on the verge of breaking apart.
Is this what I’m here for? Did someone know this was going to happen, and is that why I rose to find the mask waiting for me on my own grave? He fingered the deerskin edges, running one thumb over its tribal stitching. Sint Holo, Snake Man, you’re a crafty fellow. What do you have in mind? Would it kill you to drop a few hints?
“Oh—music!” Belinda said, hastily setting down her tray, half-full of emptied coffee mugs. “We’ve got to have some tunes. Mr. Grey?” she asked, turning in his direction. He gave her much the same look that Nicholas had and waved his hand at the enthusiastic girl, giving permission. Belinda punched the air with a fist and headed for a stereo system set up in the corner of the room.
Jimmy watched with interest. This Belinda was right; they had been missing the tunes. Café Noctem’s basement always had some music going. Usually ambient stuff, or nature sounds. All of it meant to soothe, and to ease the mind and body. He’d no idea what CD Belinda might pop in. He braced himself, expecting some wild punk or clash metal to burst out of the speakers.
Instead, he heard the opening strains of Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata”. One of his favorite pieces. Jimmy hummed softly in pleasure, wondering if Sint Holo were playing games with him—but he didn’t mind, if he could hear this song again.
Where he had been was—different. There was nothing in that place but peace.
Belinda turned back to Grey, looking for his approval. He seemed surprised, but then nodded and gave her a thumbs up. She looked next to Nicholas, who was standing wholly still, staring at the speakers. He’d even stopped halfway through sliding a basket into the coffee urn he was working.
Belinda’s face fell. “You don’t like it?”
“Bagels,” Nicholas blurted abruptly. “We need some bagels and cream cheese. Muffins, croissants, buns…”
Grey crossed the room, shaking his head. “Not a good idea.”
“Because it was mine?” Nicholas asked very quietly.
Grey looked frustrated. “No. Nicholas, I—look, everything that’s left over from this morning is going to be stale, and we didn’t order anything for the night crowd,” he said in a flat voice.
“You should have thought of that,” Nicholas replied, still ever so quiet. “Free coffee demands free snacks to go along with it. But as I’m night manager, I made the call, and I ordered a special delivery for tonight.” Nicholas seemed to refuse to look Grey directly in the eye. “Small things. The bagels are bite-sized, and so are the muffins. The croissants, too.”
“It’s a waste of money,” Grey snapped, thin-lipped.
“It’s good business,” Nicholas shot back. “I’m going to go get them. Belinda, will you help me?”
Belinda cast a glance between her two bosses, bit her lip, and then followed Nicholas up the stairs. Leaving Grey alone, without anyone to talk to at the moment, and Jimmy, sitting in his chair, watching.
The song changed to something else—apparently this was a mix. A woman’s voice, pure and haunting—and I should know—floated out of the speakers. Jimmy realized with a start that she was singing in the Cherokee language. Someone local, perhaps? He could pick out most of the words, enough to get the gist—
Welcome back, my beating heart…for so long you’ve been gone…come into my arms again…let the Night Wind sing for joy…
Grey leaned against the wall, putting his hand to his face. He looked tired, as if the whole evening were too much for him. Perhaps it was the song. Tomorrow was Valentine’s Day, after all, and if Jimmy knew Grey, he
knew the man would be going over and over old memories of times gone by.
What the hell? he thought. One for the road, before I find out what’s happening here.
One more chance to hold my Grey.
Standing up, his chair scooting back from the table, Jimmy abandoned his coffee cup to cross the room to Grey. This was madness, he knew. Nicholas could come down at any moment, and with the way the tension flowed between his two friends, he knew he could be the straw the broke that old camel’s back.
But just to hold him, one last time…
A pair of college students dressed in the latest Goth gear—definitely not punks themselves—got up and began dancing in a small space between the tables. They caught the attention of the room, the inhabitants of which started eagerly clearing away an open spot on the floor. Couples came together to sway with the music.
The song was a long one, the Cherokee woman’s voice mournful and sweet, and Grey smelled like tobacco, leather and heaven when Jimmy approached him. Grey glanced down at Jimmy, tilting his head as if curious. “Do you need something?”
You. Jimmy nodded, not trusting his voice. Something inside him, too, warned him to be quiet, as he had been before. Somehow it didn’t feel right to reveal himself to Grey—not yet. So in alternate answer, he lifted one hand to Grey’s hip and one to the man’s shoulder, then swayed gently, indicating that he wanted to dance.
Grey went slightly pink under the dusky copper skin of his cheeks. “Oh, man. Look, I’m sorry, but I’m with someone. The gentleman with the light brown hair and the glasses. He just went upstairs.”
So they’re faithful to each other. This is a good thing. Lovers should watch one another’s backs. Jimmy frowned. The words were ones he’d used a hundred times with Grey, but all the same they struck an oddly familiar chord with him, one he couldn’t place.
Grey carefully tried to remove Jimmy’s hands. “I can’t, I mean, I shouldn’t. You’re a charmer of a guy—why not go and find someone else?”
Because I want you. Jimmy refused to be budged. It’s been so long since I saw you, lover, and God, how you’ve changed. He raised up to touch Grey’s long, straight hair, noting all the silver threads running through the otherwise inky blackness. Small lines had appeared by the corners of his eyes, and Jimmy didn’t think they were from smiling. His body, though, it was hard and tempting as ever.
He’d never do Nicholas any wrong, but he did want one last dance.
The crowd was egging them on, he realized, drawing back from his examination of Grey’s face to focus on the rest of the room. Grey looked embarrassed, but Jimmy turned around with a grin to their audience:
“Go on, Mr. Grey!”
“One time around the floor.”
“One dance won’t hurt anything.”
“Show us a little something!”
“Yeah, show them how it’s done!”
Grey shook his head, setting his hair swinging. “Look,” he said, dropping his voice, “my partner’s already angry with me for really putting my foot in things earlier. He’ll be coming back down those steps any minute, and I don’t want to make him even angrier. You understand, don’t you?”
Jimmy nodded, but placed his hands even more firmly on Grey and refused to be budged. He couldn’t have explained why he did as he did. Maybe it was just being able to feel with hands of flesh again. He knew he should move away. This wasn’t his life anymore, and he didn’t have any right—not now—to lay hands on the man who had been his lover. He belonged to Nicholas, and Jimmy had no problems with that. He’d wanted Grey to be happy after he moved on.
The crowd continued to cheer them on. Jimmy had to admit that death hadn’t changed him much, and he did love an audience. Loved the feel of warm skin beneath his hands. Remembered night after night of undoing those buttons, stroking across the hard muscles underneath, being all but crushed under the man’s heavy weight and loving every second of it…
He came to himself with a start. Grey was casting a spell over him again, he knew it, and he had to pull away before it was too late. Before Nicholas—oh.
Oh, shit.
Standing above them on the spiral staircase, a tray of small and fragrant things in his hands, was Nicholas, gazing down at Jimmy and Grey, standing together as if they were embracing.
Nicholas looked down upon the sight he had always most feared he would see—Grey standing with another man, the smaller figure all but pressed up against him, face raised as if for a kiss even through his mask. A mask that covered his face from forehead to chin, and stretched back over what appeared to be dark, curly hair. The body was slim but muscular, dressed in plain black clothes, and looked as if it would be a good one to touch.
But the mask, though…despite the heart-crashing sensation of seeing Grey with someone else, the mask, all-too familiar to him, caught Nicholas’ attention.
His mind went back to a time years past, when he’d still been a teenager like many of those who filled the room. He’d been sitting at his great-grandmother’s feet, holding out a skein of yarn for her to wind into a ball.
“Ah, Sint Holo,” she’d said, waving a wicked-looking knitting needle at him. “That one, you need to watch out for. He’s a clever, cunning sort of spirit. Remember when I would not permit you to have a garter snake as a pet?”
Nicholas had made a gesture of nonchalance. “Not a big deal, Grandmother. All the same, it wouldn’t have hurt anything. They’re not poisonous.”
“Oh, oh, not poisonous, eh? They are the representations of the Sint Holo I speak of, and yes, they are very dangerous, at least to the Cherokee. We keep no snakes in our homes, and no images of them, either.” She’d nodded decisively. “He was once venerated as a god, but even then the People knew better than to invite the attention of such a trickster.”
She’d paused, winding up the last of the thread. Nicholas’ hands had fallen to his sides, then folded together on his knee, sensing that Great-Grandmother was about to tell him a story. They had no kin that he knew of, and they lived far away from any reservation—“On our own land!” she would say, chin upraised—and so there were no elders to tell him the ancient legends.
She’d claimed she would tell the old tales in their place, and even though part of Nicholas had squirmed, protesting that he was too old for things like helping Great-Grand with her knitting and for listening to stories, there was another part that was still like a little boy, eager to listen.
“Did I ever tell you about Sint Holo and the mask he made of Deer?” she’d asked, starting to twine yarn around her needles. She’d been making Nicholas a sweater to wear the next winter. Her first gift to him since they’d spoken about him being gay, and in her own way, it had been a token of blessing on his chosen path. “No? Then make yourself comfortable, and listen…”
Nicholas shook his head to clear it, gazing down at the man in the mask. “So,” he said softly. “Friends do watch out for one another’s backs. So closely that sometimes they don’t even see the knives. Sint Holo is busy tonight.”
It is a night of legends, after all, he thought. And be damned if I’ll stick around while the Snake Man plays his games.
Without a word, Nicholas carefully handed his platter over to the girl who’d accompanied him, and headed back upstairs.
* * *
Grey stared at the strangely masked man who’d come up to him and had the balls to ask for a dance. He must not have been a local or a regular, or he’d have known that Grey was spoken for and his personal dance card was permanently full.
He’d been taken by surprise when the man laid his hands on him, feeling a shock of something almost like recognition. Why, he couldn’t have said. There was an odd familiarity to the way the stranger touched him at shoulder and hip, and the shimmy of his narrow hips as he swayed to-and-fro to the melodic tune coming from the stereo.
This song was one of Nicholas’ favorites. He’d been pleased when it came on, hoping for a dance from his partner, himself, when Nichola
s came back down. He’d planned an apology, too. Nicholas had been right. Providing free snacks was just plain good business, and he’d been a good manager to think of offering the service. There must have been a bad spirit riding on his back to make him short and snappish.
Probably, it was the same one that rode him while he tried to deal with the stranger. Carefully pushing at the man’s hands, he made one last effort to dissuade him. “I have a lover,” he said carefully. “I don’t want to make him jealous. If he saw us like this, he might get the wrong idea.”
The man stopped, looking upward. Grey could make out very few details of the face beneath the mask, but he’d have sworn he read dismay in those features.
He followed the gaze of the bright green eyes and saw Belinda standing on the staircase awkwardly balancing three platters, when she should have just been carrying two. She had a look on her face that spoke volumes, as if she didn’t know whether she should come downstairs and go ahead with business as usual, or go back up…maybe going after someone who’d started down, and then returned. Gone back all too suddenly.
Fuck. Nicholas.
His heart gave a wrench. No longer caring about being rough, Grey pushed his would-be dance partner away and ran for the stairs, dodging past Belinda and up into the café proper. He stood still for a moment, both legs braced wide, searching the room for any trace of his partner.
No sign. None, that was, except for the front door, swinging open on its hinges, left unlocked. The bell continued to jingle faintly in a mocking little chime, as if to say Ha, ha, too late, Grey man, Clever Fox!
Grey made for the entrance and stepped out into the street—right into the middle of a crowd gone wild, the sidewalks choked with men and women of all ages, dressed in elaborate costumes or almost nothing at all, and a few with more body paint than clothing. Their laughter rang loudly and the hum of a thousand voices chattering all at once drowned out everything else. With the crowd and the noise, there would be no way to track Nicholas down.