North Shore

by Santino Hassell

  God, why was he like this? Shameless unrelenting fucking flirt. And he was filthy about it too. Not coy. Not teasing. Not going for charming or sweet. Everything from the way he ran his eyes all over me to the way he bit the side of his lip made it clear that he wanted to fuck. He wanted to fuck badly. Probably over and over again.

  I cleared my throat and focused on the street. “Thanks. By the way. For fixing my figurine.”

  “Don’t worry about it. It was my fault.”

  My lips mashed together, and I concentrated really hard on not correcting him. It wasn’t his fault. As much as I wanted to blame him, to dislike him, to take every ounce of my rage out on the nearest and easiest target, none of it’d had anything to do with him.

  “And,” I said haltingly. “About earlier.” From the corner of my eye, I saw those shapely lips of his forming into another rakish smile. Ugh. Cocky motherfucker. “I wasn’t spying on you, you conceited prick. I was just surprised about the dancing.”

  “Yeah?” His tone of voice was so smug and humoring. As if he thought I was full of shit. “Why’s that?”

  “Because I’m a dancer too,” I snapped. “That’s why I was gone for six months. I was on a Carnival cruise as a dancer in cabaret shows.”

  Luis dropped the arrogant smirk and his eyes opened a bit wider. “Yeah? How’d you get a gig like that?”

  His response gave me pause. I could smell the interest on him. The excitement at the prospect of dancing leading to a real job. It was exactly the way I’d reacted after hearing about an opening eight months ago.

  “It was awful,” I said flatly. “You would never get to do the type of dancing you were doing in your living room. It’s country club bullshit with safe performances and no creativity whatsoever. I was surrounded by stone cold suckers.”

  “Damn, baby,” Luis said, laughing. “Tell me how you really feel.”

  “I’m just saying. You wouldn’t like it. I can tell.” When Luis opened his mouth to ask me more, I turned away. This was not a conversation I was going to have with him. I’d rather talk about the size of his dick than the artistic connection I could already feel forming between us. “Anyway, thank you for fixing my dancing boy. And I’m sorry for throwing coffee all over you.”

  “Not a problem,” he called after me as I headed for the front steps. “It was barely coffee, anyway. I can tell you like a lot of cream.”

  I tripped on the bottom step and grit my teeth when the sound of his laugh floated from around the side of the house.

  North Shore ch 6

  Chapter Six

  Charles

  I couldn’t decide if my lack of desire to travel outside of Staten Island was yet another insidious part of my depression or a sign that I was over the bar scene in Williamsburg and the Lower East Side. For a car-less person, living in Staten Island was like residing on the moon. People knew it existed, saw signs of it every time they got on the R train or spied the giant orange ferry crossing the East River, but they weren’t sure what people actually did there.

  Once upon a time—okay, like two years ago—I was one of those people. I enjoyed the cheap rent and the access to delicious bagels, but I turned my nose up about just every other aspect of the borough. I’d spent a solid twenty hours a week just getting back and forth to my apartment in my first year of living on the island. Now? I couldn’t bring myself to make the trek across the river. And I certainly wasn’t set up to spend over a hundred bucks one way in an Uber or Lyft, draining the tiny nest egg in my bank account, when the job hunt wasn’t going well.

  After hours of pouring over job listings on LinkedIn and Craigslist, my will to leave the apartment shrank further. It was strange to consider how experienced I felt, and how competent I knew I could be, only for the Internet to make me feel like I was worth nothing. I’d briefly looked at administrative jobs because—why not? Maybe putting myself in a nine-to-five scenario with actual benefits for the first time in my life would ground me.

  But no.

  Apparently, I was not experienced enough for administrative work. I also did not have a college degree in anything that meant something to people outside of the entertainment industry. Two years at Julliard apparently meant shit if you wanted a job as a receptionist. Same if you wanted to be a personal assistant—which I actually thought I’d be good at but had zero experience in.

  The failures in those sections had led to me slinking back to listings for service jobs—bartender, waiter, host. Those were things I had the most experience in. Those were jobs I knew I was good at. And they were jobs I fucking hated with every fiber of my being.

  If I was honest with myself, I’d been suffering from a continuous low-grade depression since leaving Julliard. So having to always be around people while wearing a big fake smile, having to be on in order to get the tips I needed to survive? It was soul sucking. And exhausting. It had been that way before the cruise, so now that my state of mind and general mood had deteriorated further? Impossible.

  With office and service jobs on my do-not-want and cannot-have lists, I girded my loins and navigated my way to backstage.com. The website was basically a trap because it exclusively listed performance-based casting calls and jobs, but every creative in the Tri-state area flocked to it. There had been so many times when I’d shown up for a call for dancers in a show, or a music video, or a tour, only to end up on a line with hundreds of other people. And the times I had scored a gig, my pay had been along the lines of five or six hundred bucks a week.

  Unless I made it big, it wasn’t a livable wage. I couldn’t figure out how to make it a livable wage. At the end of the day, I wasn’t good at figuring out how to exist in this city as a creative person with no desire for a “normal job”. I wasn’t like Ashton or Meredith or Jace. I didn’t have the luxury of wealth to back up my passion projects. I had to hustle to exist in New York, and to try to match their lifestyles, and I was frankly… exhausted by it. I was exhausted by living in a city meant for rich people with rich friends who would never understand why the fuck I was so disgusted with my life.

  I was even exhausted by having to explain my depression to non-rich friends who didn’t understand my rants about not being able to follow my passions. It wasn’t their fault. I knew it wasn’t. They’d found their niches and were happy there. But my only niche was dancing, and it was hard to accept a life of mediocrity when I knew I had so much more potential.

  Bleakness settled over me, and my throat constricted. Here came the tears. It was almost a month since I’d returned to the five boroughs, and I couldn’t think of a day that hadn’t led to me crying at least once.

  “Fuck,” I whispered, pushing myself to my feet. “Enough already, Charles.”

  I abandoned my laptop on the floor where I’d been sprawled, ignored the phone I had still yet to fill with social media apps, and went into self-care mode. Survival instincts for me led to me sitting in the papasan in my sunroom in my underwear with my feet propped up on the window sill as I smoked a perfectly rolled joint and drank a glass of wine.

  It was sunny outside for what felt like the first time in days. I set my phone to play a random list of my favorite song, closed my eyes while absorbing the delicious Vitamin D, and inhaled deeply. I was pretty sure I was smoking Landon’s stash, but the asshole had yet to contact me or attempt to return to it, so I figured it was safe. And he hated wine, so my collection had sat untouched for months.

  The combination of my favorite things eased the stress from my body and turned me into a languid mass. While slightly baked, I could console myself with the knowledge that I had at least three or four months before I completely ran out of money for rent and bills. Finding a job right now was not urgent. If anything, maybe I could get spend a couple of months getting a handle on my depression—maybe even seeing a doctor—before venturing out into the world again. Maybe I could just hide out in Staten Island and learn how to be a version of Charles who didn’t always need to be surrounded by friends and parties and
events.

  The daydream of a fresh new me lulled me into a daze, but the sound of a deep voice speaking Spanish snapped me right out of it. My neighborhood was a solid mix of just about every ethnicity, leaning more heavily towards Latinx, so it could have been anyone’s voice. But I knew it wasn’t. My awareness of Luis had fucking quadrupled since our little moment in the basement.

  Because my apartment was usually so quiet, and we both kept our windows open, I heard every random thing he did. When he woke up and hummed to himself, when he spoke loudly on the phone in rapid-fire Spanish, when he watched TV, and especially when he played music and danced. It was a struggle to not find reasons to spy on him again, but… I wanted to see.

  It didn’t help that we’d started playing weird games. The other day, we’d both been at Hot Bagels yet again but this time I’d paid for his breakfast before leaving in a rush and hopping on the bus. He’d followed up by ringing my bell and leaving a pink drink from Starbucks in front of my door. How he’d known I was a whore for pink drinks was beyond me, but I suspected my downstairs neighbor had found my Instagram where I’d done near weekly posts of me holding the beverage.

  I’d slipped a handwritten ‘thank you, creep’ note under his door. Then he’d started leaving a neat stack of my mail by my door since the mailperson jumbled it all together and shoved it in our joint box. I returned the favor by leaving Landon’s unopened Species protein powder in front of his, because I wanted nothing to do with that shit and it was expensive as hell.

  We were like, silently courting each other, but when we crossed paths? No words spoken. Just a nod, an eyefuck, and we went on our ways. This was not normal. It was even less normal that I went out of my way to avoid him but then moments like now, when he was walking down the street, I peered down like a freak of nature.

  “Yo no voy pa’alla mami. Por Dios que no. Si tu quieres verme, ven a Staten Island. No estoy por buscar problemas con Bronson y su gente..”

  I was only able to pick out bits of his words to translate, but it seemed like he didn’t want to go back to the Bronx to avoid getting in a fight with someone named Bronson. Also, he was talking to his mother. Which was cute.

  I watched him stride up to the house, wearing sagging jeans with a studded belt and a tight black T-shirt, and admired what I could see of his body. When he disappeared from view, I sat back in the papasan and finished my joint. I was buzzed enough to ponder my sudden interest in Luis without residual feelings of embarrassment or shame. Except, I was so buzzed that my pondering mostly revolved around me thinking about how good he’d looked while dancing.

  My dick hardened and without thinking, I reached down to grip it through my underwear. I closed my eyes, sighing, and stroked myself slowly. It was only the sound of Mrs. Hernandez across the street, yelling at her son, that broke my hazy almost-jerkoff session. With the spell broken, irritation swamped me. I was really jerking off and thinking about Luis now? That’s what it had come to?

  Maybe Caleb was right. I did need to get out there and get laid.

  Groaning, I left the sun room. Time to distract myself from jobs and guys and the fact that I hadn’t had sex in months. I needed to do something menial. Like laundry.

  I gathered all the dirty clothes I’d accumulated in the past month, as well as the stuff that had been sitting in my bags since the cruise, and slapped on a pair of galaxy patterned leggings and a tank top. At the last minute, I also grabbed a spoon and container of Ben & Jerry’s from the freezer before heading down to the basement. The plan was simple—gorge on milk and cookies ice cream while watching dance videos on YouTube as my clothes washed nearby, but that plan was thwarted as soon as I loaded the washer.

  I’d just perched on top of the dryer with one leg tucked under me and the other bent at the side, my phone propped up, when I heard the basement door open. I nearly dropped a spoon full of ice cream when Luis came downstairs. He was holding a mesh bag of laundry, barefoot, and only wearing a tiny fucking pair of cotton shorts. Good Lord. I stared at those shorts with the spoon halfway to my mouth, eyes glued to the outline of his cock and the way those shorts only hit his upper thighs. Upper thighs which were thick and muscular and juicy…

  “Well, well,” he said, dropping his bag onto the floor. “Finally, we cross paths.”

  I nodded and shoved the spoon into my mouth.

  Luis smirked, looking me over, then flicking his gaze to the washing machine. The display read that I had twenty-five minutes to go on my wash.

  “Mind if I wait?”

  “Do what you want.”

  I focused on my phone and did not meet his steady gaze. Part of me wondered if he knew how dramatically my body reacted to his presence. It went into high alert, every sense tuned into him so I could categorize everything about him. His cologne, the way he leaned against the wide wooden table I used as a folding station, and the faint music I could hear from the large headphones hanging around his neck. I noticed all these things, sneaking glances from the corner of my eye, but I kept my mouth shut.

  We sat silently for a while, him absently moving his head and shoulders to his music while staring at me, and me slowly eating my ice cream and pretending not to stare back. I wished he would at least pretend to not be checking me out. My plan in life was to pretend I was unaffected by his presence, but with his attention so fixated, I found myself playing into it.

  I arched my back in a stretch and let my leg fall open a little more so my own muscular thighs and crotch were on display. There were reasons I didn’t normally wear leggings with a shirt this short in public, and me not necessarily wanting every thirsty closeted married fuck staring at my ass and dick were two of them. But Luis wasn’t a thirsty closeted fuck. He was hot, and dirty, and mouthwatering.

  The feel of his gaze on me, unshifting and obvious, was turning me on. Which only made me want to turn him on in return. I dragged my spoon through the softening ice cream just enough for it to coat the outside, then sucked the thin liquidy layer off. Then I did it again, slower, and dragged my tongue along for good measure. I looked his way, unable to stop myself from seeking a reaction, and found his eyes hooded. A glance downward gave me a good look at his dick poking through the thin fabric of his shorts.

  I scooped another spoonful, eating it while we looked at each other. After I licked it clean, he asked, “What’re you eating?”

  “Ben and Jerry’s.” Another spoonful. Another slow lick. “Milk and cookies flavor.”

  Luis nodded slowly. “Never tried it.”

  “Want some?”

  My mouth was a traitor. My dick even more of one. Where had that offer even come from? I willed him to say no, to call me out for being a weirdo, to do something to bring me back to reality, but he was Luis… so he didn’t. He pushed away from the table and sauntered over to me, doing nothing to hide the iron rod in his shorts. He draped himself against the dryer where I was perched, angled towards me so my leg brushed his back with his hand was only a few inches from my bulge.

  I waited for him to ask for a bite, but he just arched an eyebrow—the one with the scar running through it—and opened his mouth. My dick didn’t just pulse. It throbbed with such intensity that my balls ached. In a lust-drenched state, where the basement wasn’t part of the real world and what we did down here had no consequences, I scooped up more ice cream and slid the spoon into his mouth. I watched his lips close around it, his deep brown eyes slide shut, and listened to the low mmm.

  That moan fucked me up. My own mouth fell open, and I listed forward. I wanted to lick the traces of ice cream off his fucking mouth. To suck it off his tongue. Too late, I realized what I was doing and jerked backwards just as he opened his eyes. I pulled the spoon away too quickly and dropped it. We both watched it bounce off the dryer and fall onto the floor.

  “Whoops,” I said, trying to go for flat instead of breathless. “So much for that.”

  “I dunno,” he said. “That’s pretty fucking good ice cream. Be a shame to waste it
.”

  “Then you can use the floor-spoon.” I nudged the container towards him but left it in front of my crotch. “I’m done.”

  “You sure?”

  He was up to something. I knew he was. A something that would further stretch the tension between us, maybe even to the breaking point. I knew this, but I still nodded, shrugging my shoulders like I didn’t give a fuck what he did. It was a good time to shove the container at him and watch YouTube again, but I didn’t.

  I watched him take his index finger and drag it through the ice cream before popping it into his mouth. I watched the way he sucked it off that long digit, his cheeks hollowing, before he drew it out. Then he did it again, and I kept watching because at this point there was no such thing as shame. There was only him, me, the ice cream, and an unfulfilled desire to fuck each other. Or not fuck and instead drive each other to the edge of sanity.

  He scooped up ice cream with two fingers this time, his index and middle, and slowly sucked them clean. His eyes fell to half-mast, dilated and darkened, as the tension between us snapped taut. He knew I wanted him. Could probably feel it soaking into his body. My lust, my need, my desperation to touch him and have him touch me, but we both kept playing the game.

  “You sure?” he asked quietly. “Just as good as a spoon.”

  Was he asking me to suck ice cream off his fingers? Because no fucking way. I would come. Right now. But the idea lit me up like a Christmas tree, and suddenly I was sitting up straight with my legs spread wide and dangling off either side of the dryer. We were closer now, with him standing between my thighs and only the ice cream and my spandex covered dick between us.

  “Be a shame to waste it all—” Luis graced me with another mega invasive eyefuck. “—when it tastes so fucking good.”

  If I spoke, he’d hear the desire in voice. So instead, I followed his example and shoved my fingers into the container. It was a mess. I was a mess. And I made a mess sucking it off the three fingers I’d covered. I had ice cream all over my lips and in my stubble, but I didn’t give a damn. All that mattered was that Luis was panting for me now, his eyes dilated and trained on the white sticky residue smeared on my face.