by A. E. Wasp
Then Troy pulled off with a pop.
What? Dmitri could barely process it, body trembling on the edge, brain all pleasure-drunk and foggy.
All this foreplay and waiting and he wanted to tease now? “Troy, God, come on man.”
Troy just slid off slowly and shook his head, lips ghosting over the tip. “I don’t know, Dmitri. Don’t want to rush it.”
“Troy,” he threatened. Okay, threatened, begged, whatever.
Troy licked the flat of his tongue around Dmitri’s cock.
“Bastard,” Dmitri cursed, grabbing Troy’s head with both hands and pushing it down. Troy’s wide eyes met Dmitri’s as Dmitri rolled his hips and thrust gently but steadily into Troy’s mouth.
The beginning of his orgasm swelled and rolled across his body. Troy moaned, and his shoulder lifted as he moved one hand down to his own neglected cock. Dmitri needed desperately to see Troy’s face.
“Come on, come on,” he panted, dragging Troy up his body. Face to face, their bodies crushed together as Troy dropped his full weight onto Dmitri with a groan. Dmitri clutched Troy, urging him on, harder, muscles bunching under his hands.
“Come on, come on,” Dmitri urged, caught up as much in Troy’s face - teeth bared, eyes screwed shut - as the feel of the monster orgasm pressing urgently against his spine. “Wanted…wanted to…shit…” The rock-hard muscles of Troy’s arms and legs trembled around Dmitri.
“What? What did you want?” Anything, anything. Dmitri would give him anything, his house, his car, Moby, if he just. Didn’t. Fucking. Stop.
Troy grunted, sounds forced out between clenched teeth. Dmitri’s fingers slipped on the sweat of Troy’s skin. He grasped, unwilling to let go, and his fingers slid down between Troy’s cheeks, a quick drag of a fingertip over the hidden opening, and Troy came with a hoarse shout of Dmitri’s name.
The clench of muscle around his hand, the hot liquid spill of Troy over his body, and the amazing sounds Troy made as he came, pushed Dmitri over the edge. It hit him like a freight train, locking up his muscles, arching his back, and he shot up hard and fast between them.
After an eternity, Troy collapsed on top of him with a harsh exhale. “Jesus, Dmitri.”
Dmitri laughed, patting weakly at Troy’s hair. “Yeah. Yeah.”
They laid there, catching their breaths, feeling each other’s heartbeat, their chests moving up and down with each breath. Troy rolled off with a grimace as their skin peeled apart. “That was…awesome.” He lay next to Dmitri, cradled in Dmitri’s arm.
“Oh, yeah.”
Troy ran his hands reverently down Dmitri’s body. Dmitri could get used to this. “I just wanted to, you know, make it last.”
“Fifteen hours of foreplay not enough for you?”
Troy huffed out a laugh and nodded. “Still, I had plans.”
“Plans are good. Sleep is better.” Dmitri’s eyes closed against his will. “Sleep is good.”
Sleep didn’t last long. A combination of cold, stickiness, and Troy’s knee pressing against his bladder woke Dmitri up. He opened his eyes to see Troy propped up on one elbow and looking at him.
“Hi,” Troy said smiling.
“Was I out long?”
“Nah, not too long.”
“I’m cold and sticky.”
“And crowded.”
“Yeah. Sorry. The bed is kind of small.”
Troy rolled over to lay on his back, crowding Dmitri against the wall. “Is this your old bedroom?” He took in the movie and band posters from fifteen years ago, old school books and paperbacks. The desk pushed against one wall had been too small for Dmitri when he was in high school.
“Yeah,” Dmitri admitted. “I keep meaning to set up my parents’ bedroom, I just never do.”
“Must be fun when you have dates sleep over.” Troy let the implication hang there.
Dmitri smiled weakly. “I, uh, don’t normally have people stay over.”
Troy nodded, pushing himself up to a sitting position. “I get that.” He swung his legs over the edge of the bed. “I should probably get going.”
Dmitri grabbed his arm. “No. That’s not – please stay. Stay? If you want?”
Troy turned and caressed Dmitri’s cheek. “Are you sure? I’m not offended if you want to have some space to yourself.”
Dmitri pressed into the touch, kissing Troy’s palm. “Stay. Please.”
Troy smiled. “Okay. But not on this bed.”
“I do have another bed. It’s even in the other room. Just not set up.” He ran his hand down Troy’s arm, tracing the tattoos with his fingers. Naked Troy was very distracting.
Troy grabbed his hand. “How ‘bout this? We clean up a bit, set up the bed, and then make some food. I’m starving.”
“That is the sexiest thing anyone has ever said to me.” Dmitri realized his stomach was growling.
Troy stood up, and Dmitri immediately forgot what the plan was. Naked Troy standing with his naughty bits at eye level was incredibly distracting. Dmitri grabbed for Troy’s hips, trying to pull him back to bed.
But Troy was slippery and twisted out of Dmitri’s grasp. “Shower. Food. Then big bed. And then…” He trailed off, his voice full of promise.
Dmitri jumped up. “I’m in.”
The old house had no separate bathroom for the master bedroom, only the one hall bathroom. On the plus side, that bathroom was huge, with an actual claw foot tub and pedestal sink. Sadly, neither one worked at the moment. For the last six months of a moment. There’d been some sort of leak somewhere and shutting the water off to the tub had been Dmitri’s best (read cheapest) option. No more leak, but also, no more baths, which sucked. He loved baths. At least the toilet worked.
Now he used the smaller bathroom his father had put in the basement when his brother moved down there sometime in high school. It had a small stall shower and a toilet seat that managed to be cold even in summer.
“That’s why the washing machine is where it is,” Dmitri explained as Troy followed him down two flights of stairs stark naked. He carried a pair of sweatpants and a clean t-shirt for each of them. “It used to be upstairs, but I couldn’t figure out the plumbing and had to reconnect the washing machine somewhere else.”
The downstairs bathroom had been semi-modern in the nineties, but now it just looked ugly. At least it functioned.
There was no way both of them could fit in the little shower stall, so Dmitri sat on the toilet and watched as Troy showered. He had to say, the view was amazing. By the time Troy rinsed the last bits of lather off his muscular body, desire had edged out hunger in Dmitri’s awareness.
Troy shut off the water and took the towel Dmitri handed him. He raised one eyebrow as he noticed the effect his showering had on Dmitri. “Maybe you should take a cold shower.”
Dmitri reached for Troy’s hip, pulling him in. “Or…”
Troy bent down for a kiss, hands on Dmitri’s shoulders to keep a little distance between them. “Or, we can eat some food, then lay down in a big bed and you can let me have my way with you again.”
Dmitri pretended to contemplate that. “So, if I’m understanding you correctly, you are offering me food and sex? And to help me set up the grown-up bedroom.”
“Yes. And all you have to do is shower.” Troy gently pulled the clean sweatpants and t-shirt out of Dmitri’s hands.
Dmitri stood up, sliding his hands up Troy’s arms as he did. “Sold.” He gave Troy one last kiss and got into the shower.
He showered quickly and ran upstairs to help Troy set up the bedroom.
One thing led to another, and they never did get anything to eat.
chapter nineteen
Angel sat on her usual stool in the kitchen, her usual mug of coffee cradled in her hand. Troy stood at the stove, cooking up a mess of eggs and bacon. “I can’t believe you called in sick to work,” Angel said to Dmitri. “Have you ever done that before?”
Dmitri tried to remember. He must have. Everybody gets si
ck some time, right? “Oh! There was that time I had pneumonia. I missed like three days of work.”
“You hear that, Detroit? You’re almost as exciting as pneumonia.”
Troy pointed the spatula at Dmitri. “You told her! That was between us. Just for that, you get the egg with the broken yolk.”
“Aw man. And after I did, you know, that thing.”
Troy nodded. “It was a good thing.”
Angel laughed. “Dima’s going to give me all the details eventually. You might as well just tell me now, Troy.”
“I’m not giving you the details of my sex life while he is standing right there!” Dmitri said, scandalized.
“Fine. I’ll wait until he leaves.” She poured more coffee, then held the pot out to Troy. He nodded. “You want to hear about my sex life?” she asked as she poured.
“Yes,” both men said in unison.
“Well, you can’t. Because I don’t have one right now.”
Troy slid the eggs onto the plates. Dmitri distributed the toast, and Angel grabbed a handful of silverware, and they headed for the living room.
“What about Jay?” Dmitri asked as they found places. Troy and Dmitri on the couch, Angel sitting on the floor next to the coffee table, her back against the bottom of the couch.
“I haven’t slept with her yet.”
“Yet.”
“I have hopes. And a third date.” She looked up Dmitri over the edge of her coffee mug.
He could tell that she was actually a little nervous about this third date. He didn’t think he’d ever known her to date someone three times in a row. Which was a crying shame, because Angel was one of the best people he knew. “You really like this girl, don’t you?”
Angel nodded. “Yeah. I think I do. And I think she’s too good for me. She’s an artist.” She said it as if that was the most amazing thing she had ever heard.
Troy shook his head. “You’re awesome. There’s no such thing as too good for someone. Everyone has good things and bad things.”
“True. Troy snores, for instance.”
“Is that the only bad thing?” Troy asked.
“So far.”
“That’s a lot of pressure to live up to. Maybe I should fart or something?”
“Please don’t,” Angel begged. She reached for the TV remote. “Anyone mind?”
“Nope,” Dmitri answered for both of them.
She went right to the cartoons section of Hulu. Breakfast and cartoons had been their tradition since high school when Dmitri’s mother had started working in the afternoons.
“Ooh, let’s watch South Park.” Troy waved his egg-laden fork at the television. “Since I live in Colorado now, I feel like it’s my duty.” He settled back against the couch, leaning into Dmitri. “I used to watch this with my brother all the time. My mom would get so mad if she caught us, but my dad used to sneak in to watch.”
Dmitri magnanimously waved at Angel. “Make it so.”
She went through the menus and pulled up a random season of the show.
“I wasn’t allowed to watch anything,” Dmitri said. “My parents were all about educational television and NPR. My poor brother and sister didn’t even have a television in the house. And the only computer was set up in the living room, screen facing out.”
“Harsh,” Troy answered. “Makes it really tough for surfing porn.”
“That was the only good thing about my house,” Angel said. “We could go there after school and watch whatever we wanted. Hell, we could have watched porn. No one would have cared.”
Dmitri reached down to hug her, but she shrugged his hand off her shoulder.
On screen, the kids of South Park watched the fictional Chinpokomon cartoon and got brainwashed into becoming Japanese child soldiers.
“I always wanted that Pokémon game for the Gameboy,” Troy said.
Angel pointed at the television. “Good thing you didn’t get it, look what could have happened.”
“Yeah, I could have ended up becoming a soldier. How awful would that have been?” Troy said wryly.
Angel shot a glance at Dmitri. Say something, she mouthed.
“I always wanted a Tamagotchi.”
“So why didn’t you get one?”
Dmitri shrugged. “It was for girls.”
“I’m surprised your parents cared about that.”
“Oh, they didn’t. They’re all about the gender-neutral toys, gay rights, all that stuff.”
“So why not?”
Angel answered for him. “They weren’t the ones getting bullied for being a fag in middle school. Think of all the people I’d have had to beat up if he’d gotten a girl’s toy.”
“Oh. I thought Colorado was more progressive than that.”
“Parts of it are. But the year I graduated high school, 2006, they amended the state constitution to define marriage specifically as between one man and one woman. I wasn’t quite in the closet back then, but I wasn’t exactly out either.”
“Don’t ask, don’t tell.” Troy nodded.
“More like, deflect and deny if confronted directly.”
“I get it.”
They watched silently for a few minutes, until the next commercial.
“Nobody in my family knows I’m gay,” Troy blurted out into the silence.
“Really?” Angel sounded surprised. “How could they not know? I had you pegged in ten minutes.”
“Oh?” Dmitri said archly.
“Shut up.” She hit him on the leg. “Not like that.”
Troy shook his head. “I didn’t even know. Not consciously.”
“So what tipped you off?” Angel asked. “Met some guy in the army? No straight men in foxholes, kind of thing?”
“No, not that.”
“But you told me you’d slept with guys in the army.” Dmitri was confused. “How did you not know?”
“It’s not that I didn’t know I was attracted to guys. I just didn’t…somehow it was separate from me, from who I was. Like, it was just something I did, something over there.”
“So what changed?” Angel paused the television.
“My friend died. About two months ago.”
Angel reached across Dmitri to hug Troy’s legs as best as she could.
“His name was Leo. He was the guy I drove across country with the summer we graduated high school. We stopped at every national park we could.” He blinked away tears.
Dmitri took Troy’s plate from his hand and put it on the table. “That sounds awesome. How long was the trip?”
“About six, seven weeks. We saved up, slept in the truck. That same truck I still have, as a matter of fact.”
“So, this guy was just a friend?” Dmitri asked awkwardly, not sure how to handle this situation. This was why he didn’t do regular veterinarian care. His people skills weren’t the greatest.
“Yes.” Troy paused, looked up at the ceiling, and tilted his head left and right. “At least, he started out that way.”
Angel smiled. “What happens in the truck, stays in the truck?”
“Something like that. It didn’t last. We both went back to our girlfriends when we got home. Chalked it up to being young, dumb, and full of come. Any port in a storm, kind of thing.”
“Just like when you were in the army,” Dmitri pointed out.
“Just like that. Looking back, I don’t understand how I could somehow convince myself I wasn’t really gay. Just bored, experimenting. Just really close with my buddies. I was an idiot.”
Dmitri hugged him with one arm. “No, you weren’t! Sexuality can be confusing.” Though if he was honest with himself, Dmitri didn’t really get it. He always had an inkling, and after that first kiss, he knew without a shadow of a doubt. Go directly to Gay, do not pass Bi. But then again, he’d had parents that had made sure their children knew that whoever they were attracted to was okay with them, as long as they were kind.
“Do your parents know?” Dmitri interrupted.
“God, no
.” Troy looked horrified. “As I’m trying to explain, I didn’t even admit it to myself until a month ago. Good lord, I can’t even imagine talking to my parents about it. Why do you think I picked a school halfway across the country?”
“What happened a month ago?” Angel guided the conversation back to the beginning.
“I didn’t hear from him very much until I got back from the military. I heard through the grapevine that he got married not too long after that. Had three kids in four years, kind of thing.”
“Sounds awful,” Angel said. She slapped her hand over her mouth. “Sorry.”
Troy shook his head. “Don’t be. He wasn’t happy. I know for a fact.”
“How?” Dmitri asked.
“I ran into him at a gay bar in Pittsburgh.”
“The one gay bar?” Dmitri joked.
Troy laughed harshly. “You’d be surprised. The strip is pretty happening. They’ve got go-go dancers and everything.”
“Wow. I had no idea. So you drove how far to take your non-gay self to a gay bar?”
Troy’s smirk was directed to himself. “Two hours.”
“That’s gay,” Angel said.
“You know what they say about hindsight. Anyway, obviously, I had no idea I’d see him there. He definitely didn’t expect to see me.”
“What did you say?” Angel asked, leaning forward.
“Nothing. He was, um, kind of busy in the bathroom when I spotted him. As soon as he and the guy he was with were done, he looked up and saw me. Man, he tore ass out of there. I wasn’t even a hundred percent sure it was him.”
“Did you ever talk to him?”
“Nope. I never went back, afraid he’d see me. And apparently, he did the same because some guy he must have picked up at a truck stop shot him about two weeks later.”
Angel gasped, hands flying up to cover her mouth.
“Oh my God,” Dmitri said. “I am so, so sorry!”
Now the tears did fall. Troy turned to Dmitri, and Dmitri pulled him into a hug. He sobbed against Dmitri, hands clenched on his shoulders.