by Daryl Banner
“He’s quite a fan of your music, even without being able to hear it. That’s quite a feat, if you ask me!” he adds with a laugh. “You know, the Lebeau talent can come in many forms. I don’t think we’ve had a singer in the family since your late grandmother. Oh, the set of cords on that powerhouse of a woman. Dessie,” he murmurs over my mother scrupulously directing the driver in the background, “regardless of its form, you have a voice, and you belong in the Theatre world. Whether you act, or sing, or do it all, you have a spot on that stage, sweetheart.”
Tears have a whole new reason to touch my eyes now. “Thank you.”
“Anyway, that young man’s got it right. I might add that he has a strong artistic voice himself, if that act three was any indication. Marv ought to know the lighting talent that’s hiding under his nose.” My dad sighs happily into the phone, then says, “Stay safe down here in Texas, sweetie. We’ll call you later when we land.”
“Love you, Dad.”
“Don’t ever say I pulled a string. You earned and owned that stage tonight, sweetheart, and you’ll own the next.” Then, after that, silence.
I hug my phone for a moment before finally putting it away for good. I take a deep breath, trying to push away the image of my dad and Clayton sharing a bathroom bonding experience. I could almost laugh, if I weren’t feeling so strangely brokenhearted.
When I push back into the theater to get my things, I find the lobby cleared except for two or three stragglers who are laughing loudly and chatting with Eric. He turns around and calls out, “Are you hitting up the Throng tonight, D-lady?”
I shake my head no. “Opening night wore me out,” I say lamely. “I think I’m just gonna head back to my dorm room and interrupt my roommate trying to make out with a bassoonist.”
He winces disappointedly. “Maybe tomorrow night, then.”
“Great job tonight,” I reiterate before pushing into the hallway.
Only three people are left in the dressing room by the time I return. I pack away my makeup and stow all my things into the cabinet above my station, figuring it to be safe there for tomorrow night’s show. With a smirk, I drop by the costumes rack and find Victoria’s crew apron hanging there. I roll up the autographed program and stash it into the apron pocket; that’ll prove to be a most welcome surprise.
Then, I give my tired face one last, long look in the mirror before dismissing myself from the room with an unsatisfied sigh.
Whipping around the corner, I make my trek down the long hall to the lobby, only to find it completely empty now. Even Eric and his friends have taken off. I stare at the vacant chairs for a while, lost in the memory of how noisy and awful it was just thirty or forty minutes ago.
Why does the silence feel so much louder?
“Dessie.”
I turn. Clayton stands there by the auditorium doors dressed in his crew blacks: a black t-shirt that pulls across his chest, black slacks that hang loose at his hips, and a pair of black boots that give his feet such a dominant quality. He wears a leather cuff around one wrist, too, which I notice when his hand goes up to the wall, bracing himself as he leans against it.
And my eyes meet his, dark and focused on me as if he’d been watching me all night. Well, he had been—from the lighting booth.
“Clayton,” I return.
“If your parents could hear you sing,” he says, shaking his head. “If they could see what you do to a room full of people with that beautiful voice of yours …”
“You ran into my dad in the restroom.”
His eyebrows pull together. “What?”
“You ran,” I take a step toward him, “into my dad,” I take another step, “in the restroom.”
His eyes flash with realization. Then, he chuckles unexpectedly.
“What’s so funny?” I prompt him.
“What the fuck is it,” he mumbles, “with me meeting people you know … in fucking bathrooms?”
I shake my head. “What do you mean?”
“Never mind,” he finishes with a smirk. “You were saying?”
“Well, about my dad,” I continue, trying to sign at the same time. “He said something about us not … appreciating … what we have when we have it.” Instead of signing the word “appreciating”, which I don’t know, I spell it out. “Is that something you told him?”
His eyes are so intense right now. He looks fucking famished, like a wolf that’s been left in the wild for days with no food.
I see the answer in his eyes. “I may have not given you the chance you deserve,” I whisper, drawing close enough so that the spicy scent of his cologne can intoxicate me. I lean against the wall, inches from his face. “Are you afraid of hurting me?”
“I’m always afraid of that,” he whispers and signs.
I poke a finger into his chest. “I want to know the real you.”
“No, you don’t.”
“I’m Desdemona Lebeau,” I tell him unblinkingly. “I’m a pebble in the shadow of my fabulous, talented sister. I’m a blot on my mother’s golden name. I came to this campus and lied about who I was,” I keep on, signing as much as I know while pausing to spell out what I don’t, “while being afraid of men lying to me about who they are, and … suddenly I wonder if I even have a right to be afraid at all. Am I just as bad as the men who’ve lied to me in my past?”
He brings a finger to my hair, drawing a strand of it out of my face. Just the sensation of that sends a shiver of anticipation down the whole length of my body.
“So, yes,” I conclude, finding my voice again. “That’s … the real me. And I want to know you, Clayton Watts. I want to know it all.”
“Maybe I’m just afraid,” he says slowly, “that when you get to know the real me, you’ll make the unfortunate discovery that I’m … really boring.”
I smile. “I doubt that.”
His every breath pours over my forehead. Heat rises to my cheeks as my body instinctively inclines toward him. I don’t know how much longer I can contain myself. This week has been an emotional mess without my Clayton.
“I’ve missed you,” he whispers to my ear.
Electricity lances its way down my neck, through my chest, into my stomach, and branching off far below. I crave his touch so bad that I’m worried I might hurt him if I give him every ounce of my hunger right now. I could demolish him.
I sign to him: I’ve missed—
He grabs my hands mid-sign.
I look up at him, startled.
“Read my lips,” he mouths without voice. “I want to take you back to my place right now, and show you how very much, how very, very, very fucking much I appreciate every moment with you.”
And I read every word.
Ten minutes later, the door to his apartment explodes with the noise of two people who can’t catch a breath.
The door slams at my back.
His hand’s up my dress and I’m thrust onto the kitchen counter, breathless.
My fingers tangle into his dark, tortured hair. I pull hard, inspiring a deep grunt of pleasure—or pain. His fingers claw at my panties, pulling them down so hard, they tear.
“Clayton!” I cry out as he throws my legs over his shoulder, his face buried in my crotch as he lifts me off the counter.
The next instant, I’m dropped onto his bed.
He straddles me and breathes deep, his eyes feral and black.
He’s so fucking hard right now that his cock is about to bust out of those slacks. So I help him out of them. Then he rips me out of my dress. And then his shirt is pitched somewhere and forgotten.
After getting naked in record time, I find myself getting bold, and it’s me who’s off the bed and throwing him down. Clayton grunts, his eyes shimmering with astonishment as I climb over him like a panther, grinning with my intent.
And he lets me take the lead. I straddle his naked waist, pinning him right where I want him.
There’s nothing standing in the way, skin against skin, just sweat and heat an
d … us.
“Get on top of me,” he says suddenly.
I squint, confused. “I already am,” I protest.
Then he makes his meaning clear by grabbing my hips and pulling me forward. Way forward.
On top of his face.
“Clayton!” I cry out, gripping the headboard for support as my eyes go wide. Oh my god, his tongue. I squeeze my legs around his head, trapping him hungrily in place. If he’s going to work his tongue like that, I won’t let him stop until I’m finished with him.
His head dives deeper.
Pleasure washes over me as I howl out, clasping the headboard with so much strength, I worry I could break it.
He grips my thighs firmly, encouraging me.
Then he thrusts his tongue in even deeper, breaching me.
My thighs tighten more.
His name’s the last word I can manage before his tongue slides so deep inside me that I discover a whole new vocabulary of squirming rapture.
He continues his relentless tongue-lashing, grabbing my ass with his big hands while lifting his head off the bed to push himself as deep into me as he can. He alternates between fucking me with his tongue and sucking on my clit. The tighter I seem to squeeze his head, the stronger he pushes his face into me, consuming me.
I can’t stop him if I wanted to. I’m as trapped as his head is. Holy fuck, I’m at the edge already.
Unexpectedly, he stops, grabbing my hips and sliding me off of his face as he comes up for air, which causes me to groan in frustration. I was so fucking close. He chuckles at my distress. I glare back.
I guess that was the appetizer. Now I’m ready for the main course.
And from the look in his eyes, so’s he. Clayton’s eager hand slaps the nightstand and, with a quick maneuver of fingers, a condom’s freed from its tight wrapper only to be made prisoner to his huge, hard-as-fuck cock.
Then, just when he thinks he’s the one calling the shots again, it’s me grabbing hold of the reins. I grip his chest and position myself on top of him. Your meek little Dessie’s grown up, I tell him with my sharp, hungry eyes. My hips dance, smooth as silk as I squirm cruelly, rubbing myself against the tip of his bobbing, furious cock.
This must be really fucking maddening for him. I can drive a man insane in the space of seconds just with my hips.
“Mmm, Dessie …”
My name vibrates down his chest, ending with a growl.
I lean forward. All my hair comes with me, curtaining our view and providing me a tunnel of deep brown that ends at Clayton’s beautiful face. He’s looking straight up into my eyes, as if cursing what my evil little movements are doing to him.
“Let me inside you,” he begs me, gnashing his teeth.
I bite my lip, then gently lower myself just one, cruel inch.
The tip of his cock slips in.
Agony and heaven in one tiny gesture.
But it seems he thinks two can play, for he starts to move his hips slowly. The tip slides in and out, in and out, and soon it’s me who’s throwing my head back, tortured by his movements.
He slips in some more.
“Fuck,” I breathe.
I can’t help it. I reach up and grab my own breasts, fingers pinching the nipples.
In one powerful movement, he sits up and catches the small of my back, lifting me. I squirm as Clayton’s dick slides another inch into me during the maneuver. God, I’ve never wanted to be fucked so badly. He holds me in his lap, one hand bracing my back and guiding my hips as he works to open me up for him.
Then his mouth replaces my fingers, biting that nipple I was so determined to torture myself.
I shudder in his grasp.
He slips even further inside.
Then he trades his teeth for tongue, bathing my nipple and earning himself an even deeper convulsion of pleasure from within me that I cannot control.
He reaches around and takes a handful of my hair, then pulls my whole body down, slipping completely inside.
An earthquake of flesh, sweat, and heat runs down our bodies as his hot breath dances over my breasts. He moves his hips now, pumping me slowly at first as his mouth hungrily works that nipple he’s made his prisoner.
I grab hold of his hair so tightly, I don’t know if I mean to keep him on my nipple or pull him away. It hurts so much. It feels so good.
“Fuck, Clayton. Fuck!”
Pain and pleasure are such close, fickle neighbors.
He moves on to my other breast, desperate for its taste. Hungry for something else too, he greedily pumps me deeper, harder, faster.
I feel myself tightening around him.
Our fingers grip tightly onto anything they’re touching—my ass, his back, my hair, his neck.
Our bodies become a unified machine of rapture pumping in rhythm.
Each breath brings another.
Each thrust inspires the next.
We’re both close. I feel his tightness and he must feel mine, because his breaths are coming quicker. He sucks that nipple, giving it his teeth as he dares to bring me even closer to the edge.
I’m spilling over.
I pull his hair hard, craning his neck. He releases my breast and looks up into my face.
“Clayton.”
“Dessie.”
And then he lets loose inside me, wave after wave after wave of pent-up passion spilling out. My mouth drops as I feel myself climax too, crying out with him.
His eyes never leave mine.
Then our lips lock, sealing the heat between us as we collapse onto the bed, the sweaty sheets embracing us as we gently descend from the unfathomable high we reached together.
His eyes on me. My eyes on him.
Breath after breath.
Epilogue
Clayton
– Six Months Later –
The spring musical opens tonight.
I have my first lighting design credit in the program.
I have an opening night good-show gift in my pocket for Dessie.
I’m nervous and I’m excited and I’m debating whether it was a good idea to eat lunch at all, because it might end up all over the lobby floor.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
I pace in front of the glass windows as the audience slowly gathers, pulling up in their cars, dropped off by taxis, students walking in. I see their smiling faces, couples holding hands, some dressed down, some dressed up.
I wipe a sheen of sweat off my forehead and breathe deep, just like Dessie taught me.
It’s hilarious, how shockingly calm Dessie is. She was calm during all the rehearsals, singing her heart out on that stage. Everyone knew she was going to get the lead this time, and it had nothing to do with her dad, or with her name, or with anything other than the fact that she had a voice that could touch every corner of the room and make everyone fall in love with her.
I think back to when she took me home with her for Christmas. Fuck, I could not keep my jaw closed when I saw Times Square for the first time in my life. It was so bright that even after the sun fell, it was like high noon. I had also severely underestimated how cold it’d be. Holy shit. She even warned me. Hell, she learned ten different ways to sign to me how frigid, freezing, chilly, bitter, icy, shivery, and otherwise horribly cold it would be that time of year.
I met her parents for the first time. Well, second time for her dad, but really, a chance meeting in a restroom pales in comparison to my getting to meet him officially at Dessie’s New York City home. The lights were drawn across the room like a fucking dream, and the tree in the living room spanned to the ceiling. It was enormous. I must’ve stood there for a full minute staring up at its awesome height. Dessie made some joke, asking with her hands if I was figuring out in my head how I’d light the tree differently.
It was in a warm, fire-lit gazebo on Christmas Eve that we had exchanged presents. She gifted me with a hot designer leather jacket that fit so perfectly, I’d swear it was handmade for me. Well, actually it kind of was. Dessie was
sneaky about it. Swearing it was to practice for some costumes thing that Victoria was doing, she took all my measurements and, unbeknownst to me, sent them to a contact of her sister’s in New York—some up-and-coming fashion designer who spent eleven years in France after graduating from NYU—detailing precisely how she wanted this jacket to fit. And she got the style just right; I look like the perfect mix of up-to-no-good and sophisticated-as-fuck.
My gift to her was a charm bracelet I got for a steal at a pawn shop. It had the exact balance of beauty, fragility, and strength that I felt fit Dessie so perfectly. I’d adorned it with three charms: a musical note to represent her beautiful voice, a little light bulb to represent my visual voice, and a linked “C” and “D” that … well, they speak for themselves. I left room for more charms to be added on special occasions.
When I kissed her that New Year’s Eve, I’d never felt more complete. I was frigid as fuck and couldn’t feel my dick, but I watched that ball drop, I had Dessie in my arms, and I was the happiest man alive.
And then she dropped the L word on me.
For some reason, I didn’t return it. I felt it. I had it. I still have it, but couldn’t get that word past my frozen lips. What the fuck was wrong with me? The moment was perfect and I let it slip away.
Now, Dessie will be leaving to go back home when this semester’s over. And that’s just in six weeks. Six weeks I know will fly right the fuck by. Then, she’ll have an amazing summer in New York. She told me her sister’s latest “gorgeous boyfriend” also happens to be the owner of a chain of popular piano bars, and he was looking for a regular act to rotate through them over the summer. Of course, Dessie was Cece’s first—and perhaps only—recommendation.
What do I have to look forward to this summer? Cleaning pools. Landscaping work. Construction too, if I can work something out with Pete like I did last year. Anything to build up the funds for my fourth and final year. Normally, that sounds like bliss to me.
But the thought of staying here without Dessie … I feel so guilty, to be so fucking happy for her, yet torn apart inside.