A Madness Most Discreet

by Laura Lascarso

  The boy also began to question the captain’s methods, to grumble when he didn’t agree, to even make improvisations without the captain’s knowledge. He never defied him outright, though. He remembered all too well the night he’d spent shivering on a deserted island, after the captain had made him walk the plank. The boy had spent the entire night believing himself wholly forsaken.

  The boy traded some of his gentlemanly manners for the salt and grit of a sailor. He didn’t even think of the man as his father anymore, but as his captain.

  One afternoon, when the captain woke from his regular nap, he looked at the compass and said, “You’re off course. Move aside and let me take over.”

  The boy kept his hands firmly planted on the wheel. “The wind is in the west. We’ll go with it, and then motor south along the island when we arrive. It’s faster this way.”

  “Uses up more gas.”

  “We’ll refuel in Georgetown.”

  “You payin?” The captain spat out the door and into the water.

  “Yeah, been saving up my wages.”

  The captain gave him a dark look, one that said the boy had won but only because he didn’t care to argue anymore.

  “I’m going for a smoke,” the captain said at last. He grabbed his soft pack of Newports from the helm and took them with him to the boat’s bow where he settled there like a gargoyle.

  The captain got him back the next morning, though, when the boy awoke to find his thin blanket tented and the captain standing over him with a knowing look. “Better go take care of that. Might help with your bitchy attitude.”

  The boy burned with embarrassment, from the surface of his skin to his hot molten core. He had only a loose understanding of what the captain meant. He’d allowed himself only furtive touches, usually when he was in the warm shallow water and out of the captain’s view. Those caresses made it stiff and tender, and sometimes his balls ached as well. The boy didn’t like that aching, irritable feeling. It was like being hungry and knowing there was nothing left to eat.

  “How do I do that?” the boy asked, still with his face half-hidden by his bent arm to hide his shame.

  The captain considered him for a minute, grabbed an empty glass beer bottle, and made the motion of stroking it—just a few efficient movements—then tipped the bottle and let the swill dribble onto the boy’s bare chest.

  “Use the head while I raise the anchor,” the captain said. Raising the anchor was usually the boy’s job, and to relinquish him of this duty was significant. As good as an order, he thought.

  The boy went downstairs to the head, closing the flimsy accordion door behind him, something they hardly ever did. When they needed to piss, they did so off the side of the boat, and when they needed to shit, they usually did their business with the door open, sometimes carrying on a conversation, or more likely, an argument. The head was claustrophobic with the door shut, the roiling of the boat made him nauseous, and the boy started sweating immediately.

  He peeled down his tight bathing suit and stared at his own foreign flesh. Bulbous and oozing slime, it reminded him of those nasty sea cucumbers that puked up their own guts when you squeezed them too tightly.

  He copied the movement the captain had shown him, which elicited both relief and irritation. It was too tender, and it hurt where his calluses chafed the swollen skin. There was a knock on the door and the boy squeaked in dismay. The captain’s fist shot inside with a greasy tube of lotion. Gross.

  “Use this,” he said, another order. His footsteps retreated, followed a few minutes later by the turn of the winch directly above him.

  The boy coated his hand in lotion—too much, he later realized—and set to stroking again. This was better, smoother at least, but no less disgusting. Slimy and slippery like the viscous fluid that covered a sea animal’s skin, like the stingrays he’d once petted at the aquarium’s touch tank.

  He muffled his noises by stuffing a dirty towel into his mouth and jerked himself hurriedly, feeling bad without knowing why and thinking of his mother. She still came to mind most days and in their conversations with each other. Whenever a disagreement broke out between them, the captain usually cited his mother as the one to blame. “Just like your mother,” he’d say bitterly, which only caused the boy to dig his heels in deeper because his mother was generally right.

  But thoughts of his mother were quickly replaced by memories of that handsome doctor who’d saved his hearing and possibly his life. Those amorphous thoughts shifted again to the boy on the beach the other day who’d worn only a Speedo because he and his family were from France. The material had outlined the shape of his privates, and the boy had caught himself staring. They’d not been able to communicate much, but they’d splashed around in the shallow water and swum together until the boy was called back by the captain to make dinner.

  The boy imagined his hand sliding against the other boy’s back while they wrestled, the tightness of their warm bodies pressed against one another, and the boy knew that his fantasies, only half-materialized, featured masculine forms. Flat chests and swollen cocks and rough hands. The boy imagined thick-jointed fingers, crawling all over his cock, forcing their way inside his mouth, shoved like a cork into other places. He imagined himself being held down, being forced to climax by someone else—by a man—so that he couldn’t even help it. So that it wasn’t his fault.

  He ejaculated in a dizzy haze, then sucked in a massive gulp of oxygen and gripped the edge of the counter because he’d nearly passed out from holding his breath.

  The release reminded him of a roller coaster when the car dropped, and your stomach gave out. The fall. The boy had messed the teak wood cabinet. His come dripped down the grooves, thick and white and incriminating. It smelled like a mollusk. He put his finger in the mess and tasted it. Slimy like an oyster and salty too.

  The boy used the same dirty towel he’d had in his mouth to wipe it up, then sat on the toilet to contemplate this new reality. This was a pleasure he could give himself, one that another could give him as well. Another man. Because he was homosexual. Gay. A faggot. A litany of words and phrases assaulted him, and he suffered his first identity crisis and perhaps his first anxiety attack as well.

  He was floating and spinning, his mind hardly tethered to his body, until everything was brought back into focus by a sharp rap on the flimsy slatted door and the captain’s gruff voice.

  “You done in there yet? I need you to guide us off the reefs.”

  The boy wiped his sweating face and chest with the filthy, salt-stiffened towel, and opened the door. The captain had already retreated to his post behind the wheel, and the boy passed by him without a word or a look. He stood at the prow of the boat like a polished masthead and navigated the captain through the maze of reefs, using only the obscure shapes and colors of the water to guide him.

  13

  the gift

  There was one thing I could offer Arden that the millionaire Matteo Giacomo could not—my imagination. Like Scheherazade, I would tempt my lover with stories in order to keep him coming back for more.

  “Arden,” I said softly. “I have something for you.”

  He glanced up from where he was working, sprawled across my couch. We’d spent the morning writing, and I was only waiting for his concentration to stall. He’d been grumbling and sighing for a while now, so I figured a break was in order.

  He set his laptop aside, and I placed the wrapped package in his hands.

  “What’s this?” he asked.

  “A gift.”

  “What’s the occasion?”

  “It’s Tuesday. Now, open it.”

  Arden carefully peeled back the paper to reveal the fifth and final installment of Cold Lake Chronicles. I’d had to finagle the hardback of Thicker Than Water from my publisher, since it was two months ahead of its release date. I could have easily gotten an advanced reader copy, but I wanted Arden to have an official first-print edition.

  “Michael,” he said, wide
-eyed.

  “Hot off the presses.”

  “I can’t believe you…” He bit his lower lip while reading the dedication I’d inked on the title page. “This is the best present I’ve ever been given.” He stood and embraced me with exuberance. I held him close and whispered in his ear that I loved him. He responded in kind.

  “I’m clearing my calendar,” he said, settling on the couch again.

  “What about afternoon blowjobs?” It wasn’t a scheduled event, but we often fell into the habit.

  “Cancelled.” He turned another page while licking his lips in anticipation. He did the same thing before sex and cigarettes.

  “Can you at least read it naked?” I asked.

  “If you make me some tea. Now, no more talking.”

  I left Arden to it, returning a few minutes later with a cup of Earl Gray. Arden was naked, and it must have fulfilled some teenaged fantasy to see such a handsome man reading my very own book in the buff. If I were a painter, I’d surely attempt to recreate it.

  I set the mug on the coffee table and ran a hand along Arden’s tanned inner thigh. He opened his legs absently, as though it were a trained response, and offered me a glimpse of his balls and half-hard cock. He made no motion to put the book down.

  “I hope you’ve given Daphne and Nathan their happy ending,” he warned, not looking up from his page.

  “And what if I haven’t?”

  His eyes flashed up at me briefly, utterly annoyed. “They’ve been through so much, Michael. Having Nathan believe she was a murderer, sending her to jail only to exonerate her, the car accident in Snow Blind, and her abduction in Vanishing Point. You were cruel to her, and Nathan had to endure it all.”

  “I had to maintain tension.”

  “You were a meanie.”

  I chuckled at Arden’s inability to say anything more cutting than that. He went back to reading, and I gently caressed him until he was fully erect. I could still squeeze in an afternoon blowjob.

  “She’d better not fall ill,” Arden said a few minutes later. He was chewing on his thumbnail.

  “She does have a heart condition.”

  Arden marked the page with his fingers and glowered at me. “You wouldn’t dare.”

  “I’m not going to ruin it for you.”

  “Then I’ll have to skip to the end and read the final pages.”

  “You’d better not.”

  “Watch me.” He made a motion to do just that, so I laid my full weight on top of him, crushing the book between us.

  “You’re an author’s worst nightmare.” I kissed the tip of his nose before retreating.

  Arden smirked and opened the book again. “They’ve earned their happy ending.”

  I agreed, which was why I’d given it to them, though I certainly wasn’t going to tell him that. I went back to petting Arden, and he shifted to give me a better angle.

  “Let me suck you while you read,” I said.

  “All right.” He spread his legs wider with one knee resting against the back of the couch and the other leg bent with the sole of his foot flush against the hardwood floor. I didn’t give nearly enough attention to his feet and calves, which were just as well-made as the rest of him. There simply wasn’t enough time in the day.

  His positioning allowed me unencumbered access, and I took my time with it. He smelled of springtime and rain, like new green buds pushing through the damp earth in pursuit of the sun. I loved rousing him from milky white softness to a hard, blushing red. With Arden’s attentions divided, there wasn’t any urgency to my task, and I was able to lick and probe until my heart’s content. Between my smoking habit and thumb sucking long before that, I definitely had an oral fixation. And there were so many erogenous textures for my mouth to explore—the pebbled skin of his sac, his smooth, hairless taint, the curve of his glans, the bridge of his frenulum where I flicked my tongue relentlessly until Arden moaned aloud.

  “You’re making it impossible for me to concentrate. I keep reading the same paragraph over and over,” he fussed.

  “Read it aloud.”

  Arden obliged. It was the bit where Nathan gets recalled by the local police force because there’s been another strangulation, but he doesn’t want to leave Daphne, still convalescing from her recent abduction, so he arranges for a meeting with the police at the lodge.

  I took to teasing him then, shallow pulls matched with more substantial ones. Each time I deep throated his cock, his voice would pitch, and he’d groan lowly before recovering and continuing on. It was a guilty pleasure to have my own words read back to me in such a fashion, all the while my mouth worshipped my favorite toy.

  “Lift your knee.” I pushed back on his raised leg, and Arden complied.

  I eased one spit-slick finger inside him while my cock sucking became more deliberate. I choked myself a little on his head, swallowing around him to increase his sensation and milk his savory flavor.

  “Not fair,” Arden moaned.

  “I fight dirty,” I said before taking him down again.

  After reading the same sentence twice, he finally set the book aside. But he didn’t let go of it entirely, only rested it against the floor with his forefinger marking the page. His body lay back in surrender while I catered to his pleasure. His other hand palmed the back of my head, and he forced me down while raising his hips to thrust in deep. I relaxed my throat to accommodate him, loving it when he demonstrated his dominance.

  My finger dug a little deeper and crooked at the last joint to tickle his gland. Arden’s grip tightened in my hair, and he pumped his hips, using my mouth for his enjoyment. His tight, round testicles bounced against my chin. My jaw ached as saliva pooled and flooded around him. I couldn’t see his face, but I imagined the look he sometimes got, one of fierce concentration, eyes staring past me and aimed at his own climax, somewhere on the horizon.

  “You’re such a good cocksucker,” he said in admiration.

  He sunk in deep and held me to him, my nose flattened against his groin, his cockhead breaching my esophagus. His body went rigid as he held his breath, and then that sweet release. When he came, it was a coil of warmth spilling down my throat, soothing to my bruised tissues. He made a motion to pull out, and I stopped him with a hand on his hips. His absence, so abrupt, would upset me too much, so I cradled him in my mouth like an unbroken egg until he’d fully softened. Then, I took to cleaning him gently.

  “Was I too rough?” he asked.

  I shook my head and rested my cheek against his thigh while tonguing his slit, so that I might have one last taste of him.

  “No one sucks cock like you do,” he said.

  “How’s that?” I asked with a roughened voice.

  “You take it like it’s a hit.”

  “One of my many addictions.” I nuzzled the joint where his groin met with leg, warm and fragrant. “Keep reading.”

  Arden read for a while longer. I zoned out for a bit, until he set the book aside and demanded I make out with him. We kissed until our warm affection flared into passion. Arden turned over and arched his back, inviting me to take him there on the couch. I grabbed a bottle of lube and fingered him open while he hissed like a cat. His only resistance was the tight squeeze of muscle as I sank inside him.

  I’d never had a lover before who was so giving. One who teased, coaxed, and begged, and seldom with words. A lover who pushed me out of my comfort zone yet made me feel safe the entire time. Arden put my needs before his own, something so simple and yet, so profound.

  Afterward, I cradled him in my arms, and Arden bemoaned the desecration of my couch.

  “I’ll have it steam cleaned,” I said, unbothered.

  “What’ll we do until then?”

  “Flip the cushions?”

  He shook his head in mock disgust, and I played with his pretty pink nipples because even when my lust was sated, I couldn’t stop myself from touching him. I asked him then if he would join me at my upcoming launch party to celebrate Thick
er Than Water’s release. I’d expected an easy agreement, but I was met with silence.

  “What’s wrong?” His work schedule was fairly flexible, so long as he had notice.

  “Your father will be there,” he said.

  I kissed the top of his head. “And Bitzy and Franco and Liam. The whole gang.”

  “How will you introduce me?”

  I studied his profile and didn’t understand his concern. “As my boyfriend. How else?”

  “You think that’s a good idea?”

  “Why wouldn’t it be?”

  “Your father is a respectable man.”

  “And?”

  He sat up and untangled our limbs in order to address me. “Michael, he’s the head of a well-known literary agency, and you are both his only son and a rising star. You can’t show up to a professional event like that with a prostitute.”

  “First off, you’re not a—”

  “Yes, I am.” His severity brooked no argument.

  “Fine, but you’re also a model and an aspiring writer and the man I love. I want to share in these experiences with you, Arden. All of them. It wouldn’t be the same without you there.”

  Arden stood and ambled toward the French doors, standing with his arms spread across the doorframe so that his back was to me, offering anyone who might be looking a stunning view.

  “I’m not good at hiding who I am,” he said.

  “I’m not asking you to.”

  “It’d be better if we kept this between us. Your apartment, night clubs, parties with friends… Those are all safe spaces.”

  “You’ll be safe,” I assured him.

  “It’s not me I’m worried about.”

  “What do you think’s going to happen?”

  “You’re going to be profiled by media, and if they link us together, it won’t take much investigation to figure out what I do for a living.”

  “You said you were discreet.”

  “Those who know, know. I want you to be celebrated for your talent and nothing else. I don’t want to be a stain on your reputation.”