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I can hear her cab round the corner. She's chattering brightly at the cab driver, asking him what dialect of Farsi he speaks, on her way to another spiritualist convention. Naomi fades out of my range, and I tip an eyebrow at Sandburg and ask, "Do you think she knows?"
"Well... It's hard to tell." Blair puts his empty beer bottle down and fidgets. The afternoon sun is blinking through a wall of clouds, and I can hear the sizzle of mist settling on the roof and the sidewalk, the splash of fifty cars driving through puddles, the scrape of silverware against plates as people eat lunch in the diner on the corner... and I dial it down and continue:
"She just kept smiling at me. Like she couldn't stop." I shake my head, and Blair sighs and runs a hand through his hair.
"She knows," he says with dull finality. "Man, she's gonna call me as soon as she gets to Mallorca."
I ruffle his hair again, putting the curls right back in the jumbled heap he left them in.
"It's not so bad, Chief. I mean, she didn't seem upset or anything." I'm kind of cautiously pleased. Carolyn's mom never seemed to think much of me, but I figure I've got a pretty good shot with Naomi.
He bobs his head, but his face is thoughtful.
"What I wanna know is-- how could she tell?"
"Maybe she picked up on the psychic resonance of your deep and abiding romantic desire for me--"
I rub my shoulder where he's punched me and he grins at me.
"You big mook."
"Hey, buddy, if you stopped assaulting me for ten minutes, we could go upstairs and roll around." I've been looking forward to this; it's been a week since he topped me. His mom showed up unexpectedly, and I couldn't exactly ask him to fuck me again with Naomi here.
"Really?" Those big blue eyes of his do a passable imitation of innocence. Makes me want to give him rug burn in interesting places.
"Hell, yeah. It's been three days since you've had your way with me--" I hold up a warning finger when he attempts to break in. "The handjob in the bathroom doesn't count."
He practically shoves me up the stairs.
We're both naked and horizontal in less time than it takes Rafe to reload his police issue, and I only get three long, wet kisses before Blair urges me onto my stomach so he can plaster himself to my back and fumble in the night table for the lube.
For what seems like hours he rubs me in all the right ways while my dick prods an unimpressed mattress.
"You're so incredibly generous, Jim," he mumbles against my shoulderblade. His voice, his hands, I'm surrounded-- I can smell the curry his mom made us for lunch on his breath, in his sweat. It's weirdly sexy, like incense; like Sandburg himself.
"Sure, Sandburg. There's a twenty in it for you if you fuck me now."
He chuckles, pets me some more, thumb edging down the cleft of my ass to test me, and he slips it in to the hilt while I hump the mattress and moan.
"C'mon already, Chief! What's a guy gotta do to get laid around here?"
But Blair's in his own little world.
"That you'd... let me... do this," every pause a kiss, and a rough spot on his chin where he missed shaving this morning is scraping a nice little counterpoint to his incredibly soft, wet tongue. "That you'd give me this... It's a beautiful thing... an incredible thing... practically a miracle..."
"You're not gonna... get religion on me now... are you, Sandburg?"
"Oh, yeah, big guy," and I can hear the smile in his voice, it makes the hair on my arms stand up, "Church of Jim and I am gonna worship..." And then he opens the packet and rolls the condom on before he drives into me.
We're both frozen with the sensation of it: I'm trying to remember to breathe, and Blair shivers a little against my back.
"Oh god. Oh god. Okay. Okay, Jim? Would you do me a favor?"
At this point, I'd lend him 50 K, rebuild his Volvo's engine, give him a hunk of my liver, hell, the keys to my truck, just to get him moving again. But I can't say that at the moment, so I just rub my face into the sheets while I nod.
"Talk to me, okay? If you keep talking, then I'll be able to slow down and make it good for you."
"You want me... to keep you... from zoning, Chief?" I can hear a little hitching snicker in there somewhere, although I would have sworn I didn't have the air in my lungs to do it.
A palm strokes the small of my back.
"Uh, something like that, yeah."
I feel my forehead tense up.
"I don't know how good I am at... at talking dirty, Blair."
"Don't," he says hastily, still petting my back. "Don't say anything you're uncomfortable with, Jim. Just... talk."
"About what?"
"About anything you want. About how you kicked Simon's ass at golf at that charity tournament thing, about how many bad guys you locked up this year, about whether your truck needs a tune-up. Anything you've got on your mind."
"This isn't some psychology thing where I admit something about how I secretly hated my second cousin or something in the heat of passion?" I crane my neck to see him over my shoulder, and he's smiling faintly, bends over to smooch my spine.
"Nothing like that, no. Although-- Jim, you hated your second cousin?" And that teasing lilt reassures me, and I rest my forehead on my folded arms again.
"I don't even have a second cousin," and that gets me an answering chuckle. "But, sure. I can do that."
"Good," and then he wiggles a little and I grunt in surprise. He scrapes the back of my thigh with his thumbnail and starts a slow glide out before he rocks back in.
"You must look a lot like your dad," I mutter.
He pauses, and I can feel his weight shift as he cocks his head.
"Wh- Why do you say that?" And he moves again, his voice deep and breathless.
"Because... you... sure don't look like... Naomi."
"Not at all?" and his voice is rich and full of suppressed laughter, lust icing every word and I say:
"Maybe... Maybe the nose..." And he does laugh, and I feel every bounce of sound as he shudders inside me.
"Actually, Naomi's a genetic sport," and he sounds so fucking normal that I'm almost pissed at him. Hell, he's fucking me here, shouldn't he be a little rougher around the edges? But his body is paying attention, oh yeah, and he angles his hips with his next sentence and I just about scream into the pillow. That makes him laugh again, a slow lazy chuckle that I've never heard before, at least not in this particular context. It's his 'Trust me, I know exactly what I'm doing.' laugh, only deeper.
"She dyes her hair now," he continues, "but it was always red. She really doesn't look too much like anybody else, except for her brown eyes. Me," and he thrusts deep again and I make another incoherent sound that pretty much proves he's playing me like a violin, and he goes on, "I got recessive blue from somewhere, maybe that's my dad, but everything else, hair, mouth, body type..." He sighs, and withdraws again. "Pure Sandburg." Finally, some effort shows up in his voice. "I have some... pictures of my Uncle Bobby when he was... my age. I look just... like him. Well, his eyes are... brown..."
"Huh," I remark intelligently. His hips tip a little and I shove back against him. His hands tighten on my hips but he keeps talking, a little distracted. But not nervous. Oh no, the first time jitters are long gone. He even smells confident.
"Yeah. See, in twenty years... when you're still buff... and, and... glorious, I'll be this... jowly... little... Jewish guy... with puffy hands and a... and a paunch."
"Really," I say, and if I don't sound engrossed, at least it's polite. And it's an actual word. Hey, he wanted me to talk.
"Yup. Sandburgs are a short... stocky people, Jim. Naomi's the tallest... in every family photo."
"I see," I manage. I shift on my knees and brace my arms, while he shoves balls deep and then holds still, trembling, hands kneading my hips.
I can feel him everywhere, his steamy breath on my shoulder, the way he shifts incrementally inside me every time he exhales, I can feel his heartbeat throb, egging me on, the echo of his pulse in his cock, every tiny swelling nudge against my prostate. Hell, I can feel him sweat, it's like a hot fog rolling in, and I feel my own skin reflect his heat back at him.
That tremble... I dial it up, dial it up and o god Blair I can't--
and I bellow into the pillow and shoot the sheets, feeling every spasm like a whipcrack of pleasure, soaking into my skin like hot sunlight.
I'm still sobbing into the pillow when he loses it, and I'm so gone I can't even pay attention until he slumps forward, rubbing his face against my back.
We just lay there until Blair is soft enough to slip out. He pokes me with an elbow when he reaches down to tie the condom off.
"Ow," I complain.
"'Ow?'," he snorts. "You're killing the mood."
"Shut up, Sandburg. I'm trying to sleep, here."
He closes his teeth on my ear and I prop one eye open.
"What?"
"Did you like it?" And Blair's no fool, there's no chatter of performance anxiety-- he's fishing for compliments, pure and simple.
"I'll erect a monument in your honor."
It makes him giggle so hard he rolls right off me, and I take the opportunity to snug him into my armpit until he stops squirming and lets me kiss him.
When I let him up again, he flings his arm across his eyes and starts to chuckle to himself again.
"Having fun, there, Sandburg?"
"More like... a uniquely Freudian experience. Jim, do you realize I just fucked you while we discussed my mom?"
I consider that, and then shrug.
"Blair, you're in bed with another guy, a guy who has supersensory powers, and a bald spot. Who also," I add, "voted a straight Republican ticket last year."
This is an outright lie, and he knows it, but he plays along, getting all wide eyed and theatrically horrified.
"Sleep on that, laughing boy."
And he shakes his head, still chuckling, rolls over and does just that.
I haven't napped so much since I was in kindergarten.
It's so early in the afternoon that I don't stay asleep for long, though, so when I wake up maybe fifteen minutes later, Jim is still snoozing away.
I'll tell you something: I've never been big on watching people sleep. I mean, hell yeah, I'm nosey, but I pretty much draw the line at voyeurism. Unless I'm invited. Or it's Jim.
Sometimes I feel like one hell of a sneaky bastard trying to pry even Jim's dreams out of him, but he admits that it's important, and so I try to deal.
There's so much responsibility involved in watching people sleep. You can't help but want to do one of two things: take care of them or take advantage of them. Usually both, in my case.
There's a reason I never slept over at my girlfriend's places, okay? I mean, there's your girlfriend, you've just had some frisky romp and you both got off very nicely, and now she's this boneless thing, maybe she snores a little, or drools in her sleep. You feel that deep, freaky tenderness, like she's the most amazingly fragile thing in the world, and you want to make sure she's warm enough, that she's not curled up on the wet spot, you wonder what she might want for breakfast or if she wants a bubble bath in the morning, maybe. And then the compulsion to tickle her nose to see if she swats at you is like overwhelming, or you have a not-so-nice desire to slip into her while she's completely pliant... These are not the kinds of things I want to be even thinking about, but you know, there they are and there's really nothing you can do about it but think about what a disgusting pig you secretly are... and that was reason enough and more for me to skip the whole post-coital snuggling event.
Strangely, even though I have the exact same thoughts about Jim, I don't feel like such a dick about them, because, in part, let's face it, he's a guy, too, and so the chances are good that he has the same thoughts about me, in which case we're even. That's one of the nicest things about him.
I mean, theoretically, I have more power over Jim than any other person I've ever known. When the chips are down, he pretty much does what I tell him to do: dials it down, reaches out with his hearing, with his memory, reconnects to his spiritual side to get his senses back on-line...
I have the sneaking suspicion that if I told Jim that he needed to shave his head with minty toothpaste and let me draw on him with magic markers, that yeah, he'd piss and moan, but he'd let me do it.
How scary is that?
That is an awesome responsibility; I have a duty to Jim to do the right thing. It's ingrained. I couldn't hurt him if I wanted to, and aside from the occasional impulse to kick the guy in the shins for being dense, I've never wanted to.
So, there's Jim, stretched out beside me, breathing deep and even. I put my hand over his heart and feel the steady rhythm, and try not to feel too ridiculously sentimental. I love you, Jim. Jesus, I do.
Eventually, his eyes open, and although he gives me this "What's up?" look, he doesn't say anything.
"Hey, you hungry?" We ate curry not too long ago, but we both get the munchies after we come. I pat his stomach. It's a little scaly from the action earlier. We could both use a shower... and I should probably shave again; chances are good I'll get lucky again tonight.
He grunts an affirmative and I smile down at him.
"There's this new place I want to try. My treat, okay?"
"Sure thing. Want to share a shower?"
"Jim, you know my feelings on conservation. You have to ask?"
He sits up and nuzzles my shoulder before swinging his legs off the bed.
"Come on then, eco-boy. You can soap my back."
Smart-ass.
Nice ass, too.
I follow him down to the shower.
The kid won't fool around with me in the shower.
He'll stand there naked, he'll soap my back, but kiss him and he gets instantly crabby.
I admit that it surprised me at first, but his arguments sort of make sense.
"Jim, you're a cop, man! What, hey don't make you memorize fatality percentages? Have you any idea how many fucked up accidents occur in the shower? It's like asking for a plaster cast... or a head injury! And I've had my quota of those already. So if you don't mind, let's just rub a dub, a little friendly embracing, yes... any heavy groping, though, and I am so out of here. And I won't hesitate to drip on the hardwood."
So we're actually pretty efficient when it comes to showering together. While I get dressed, Sandburg has his second shave of the day... He likes to plan ahead.
I watch him rinse the razor, drag it against his cheek, listening to the fizz of the shave cream as it melts in the water, the sound of the hair snapping like little wet twigs under the blade.
He's shirtless and barefoot and I'm grinning at him like a lunatic.
I do that a lot.
I don't know how Simon hasn't caught on yet; it took Naomi about ten minutes to figure it out.
"I'll be done in a minute, Jim. Meet you at the truck?"
"Sure thing, babyface."
I duck the wet towel he throws at me and make for the door.
Once in the truck, I readjust my mirrors just to have something to do, and think about Blair. Blair, who's going to look like Buddy Hackett when he's fifty, apparently. Sandburg, the guy who moved in for a week and who now seems pretty much intent on sticking around for the rest of his life.
It makes me smile.
It's nothing like being married to Carolyn.
Not like Carolyn was a living hell or anything. Just... different.
Hell, I loved her, but we never clicked the way Blair and I do.
For example, here it is the middle of the day, middle of a weekday, in fact, and I spent it naked with my roommate.
Blair doesn't seem to have any problem with nudity by daylight. Carolyn was pretty much an after dinner girl. I tried to talk her into a quickie once, before the PAL softball game one Saturday, and she was appalled. I felt like a sex offender for the rest of the day. She was so tiny that I was always worried that I'd hurt her.
By the time she moved to San Francisco to head the forensics department there, she and I hadn't been spending much time together. At the time, I'd written it off as jealousy about the women I'd been seeing, or maybe residual resentment about that damned tax screw up or something, but now, I think it was probably Blair.
She never liked him. In fact, she was probably the only person in the department who didn't succumb to some kind of affection for him.
I wonder if she knew more about me than I did.
He didn't care too much for her, either. When he doesn't like somebody, he smells... kind of like curdled milk. Weird, but that's the best way I can describe it. He's usually really good about hiding it, otherwise. Still smiles, still pays attention, but his eyes won't shine, and he'll get a little... sour. It's more like hearing a false note, then a smell... actually, I don't even know how I know... Anyway.
Caro was determined to dislike him, and he seemed to lose interest in trying to sway her opinion after a while. He asked me once how she and I ended up married, and I could hear the wonder in his voice. He didn't want to know how we got together so much as why I'd had any interest in her at all.
For a year after the divorce, I wondered the same thing, but I know better now. My pride was smarting, then. I hate to fail, and divorce papers to my mind are just documents that make sure your failure is on record.
But, strangely, since Sandburg and I have been together-- even before he started stealing the blankets-- I've been reminded of the things I missed about being married.
It was nice to have someone to talk to, or just listen to. Caro and Sandburg have that in common: they both have a real gift of gab.
But Caro would never have stripped for me in the kitchen. She had a neat, pretty body... but she was a little bony, and she was self-conscious about it. I didn't mind. One of my favorite things about her was this little silky top she used to wear... it was just sheer enough to hint at her nipples, and I liked the way she'd sit up in my lap, so I could kiss her through the shirt. She always sat up so straight.
Sandburg lolls all over the place. Or folds up around me. He's like a human blanket. Sometimes I forget he even has bones, he gets so relaxed after he's come.
I don't think two people could be more different.
I wonder if maybe this little mental comparison would piss him off; it would probably give Carolyn fits. It's also probably not too fair to think of them this way.
Carolyn. She used to like to drink this blush wine at dinner sometimes, and she'd get all flushed and giggly. It was nice. One of her wine nights she told me that she'd dated a boy in high school who'd grown pot in his back yard. 'We used to get so stoned, Jimmy,' she'd laughed. This sweet, girlish laugh. She and her sister would get together a few weekends a year and just giggle together all night. Those were the only times I could ever imagine her in her little preppy girl clothes trying to suck a hit off a joint.
She wasn't big on PDA. Not that Sandburg and I are cuddling in the stairwells or anything, exactly, but it's easy to touch him. Carolyn and I, we didn't touch each other, much, unless we were in bed.
She had this thing about getting to places early. And she was kind of messy. She'd put her dishes in the sink, but never wash them. She wasn't crazy about the loft, and had tried to get me to look into buying a house "with a dishwasher".
But she smelled fantastic, and she would sometimes wear my T-shirts to bed. That used to drive me wild.
She loved foot rubs, and cherry cordial, and cooking shows, even though she left the cooking to me, for the most part. She was a terrible cook; the only things she knew how to make were brownies and salads.
We ate out a lot.
I don't miss her, and I feel kind of badly about that. Mostly, I'm just relieved that we'd already broken up by the time I met Sandburg.
I can hear him locking the loft door and starting down the stairs. He stops to pet Mrs. Landry's cat and then jingles his keys and hums down the other two flights. I lean over to open the passenger door and he swings in, and I just drink him in for a second.
Then he squints at me, pokes my shoulder.
"So, Jim, you ready to roll?"
"Ready, Chief."
And I pull out onto Prospect, feeling pretty damned good.
Jim sighs when we pull into the restaurant parking lot. He's up to headshaking by the time we're both out of the truck.
"'Tomato, Tomahto'," he mutters, reading the painted sign aloud. "Is there anything that isn't green on the menu?"
He holds the door for me and I shrug past him.
"There is no menu, man. It's a buffet. I think they've got pasta salad... But no egg or cheese--"
"Christ, it's a vegan salad bar? That's just cruel, Chief..." He shoves himself into a blue chintz cloth booth and a cute little waitress in a white smock shows up to take our drink order.
"Yeah, some wheatgrass juice for him--" I grin and wave at the waitress to erase the order. "Just kidding, Jim. Uh, carrot juice for me, and how about some o.j. for the man, and hey, a pitcher of mineral water, okay?"
She nods, and says, "Help yourselves."
Jim starts to slide out of the booth, but I scoot out faster and press him back into the seat.
"Allow me, man. Trust me, you'll like this."
Hey, four kinds of sprouts! I heap a couple of plates with choice ingredients and by the time I get back, Jim's eyes are closed and his chin is tipped up slightly: he's scenting something.
I set his plate in front of him and he nods.
"Raspberry vinaigrette," he approves. His nostrils flare a little, and then he takes a bite and chews meditatively. "Okay, we got radicchio, Boston, watercress, broadleaf spinach, sunflower and alfalfa sprouts, radish shavings, grated carrot and... and pine nuts." He opens his eyes and smiles, expecting to be congratulated. His eyes even twinkle a little.
"That's right!" It's kind of a kick that he's showing off for me. "Jim, before you met me, did you ever eat a salad that was more than chunked tomatoes and Iceberg lettuce?"
"Sure. Carolyn liked Romaine. And that orange dressing, what, creamy French or something?"
I'm mildly nauseated, but you never bash the ex, so I just dig in to my own tasty lunch.
We munch for a while and Jim goes for seconds, and this time he kind of toys with his food and then he beams those skyblue eyes of his right at me. Uh oh.
"The salads. The algae shakes. The egg white omelettes. Those pineapples you call 'lunch'-- you're really, uh, concerned about the weight thing, huh?"
The abstract patterns my fork is making in my leftover dressing are suddenly fascinating.
"Um. Hey. Well, you've met my cousin Robert, he's got like no neck, and he gets winded just walking up the stairs. And my Uncle Bobby looks like Buddy Hackett now, basically. And uh, you know, in college, my freshman fifteen was more like, uh, the freshman forty."
I hold my hands out to show the spread, and then shake my head, meet his eyes.
"So, yeah, I watch what I eat."
He does that nodding/purse the mouth thing that says he's considered it, that he's cool with it.
"If you're worried about, you know..." He waves vaguely. "I could help you out with that. Set up a program, some reps, some coaching, that kind of thing. I mean, I know you work out already, but I could help you make the most of it. Sound good?"
My workout routine, if you can call it that, is mostly chasing after Jim as he runs down crooks, the occasional pick-up basketball game on campus and free weights whenever I remember that they're under my bed. Well, my old bed. The one that I no longer actually sleep in.
"Yeah. Definitely. Absolutely. That would be great!" I mean, short of Jack LaLane, who better than Jim for tips on sculpting the human form into living artwork, right? Not that I'm ever going to come close to the whole rack and pinion thing he's got going on with his frame, but it would be nice to, you know, see some muscle in the torso region.
"All right then." And he seems relieved. I guess he's glad he didn't offend me. As if he could. "So, we'll settle up here and go home and get right to it, huh?"
"Uh, sure."
Jim's a brass tacks kind of guy, but even so, I wasn't really expecting to be shown all the right moves instantly or anything. But hey, no time like the present, right?
I shove the coffee table over and roll out a floor mat. Blair comes in wearing a white t-shirt and soft gray shorts. I kneel up and pat the floor, and he claps his hands together.
"Okay. Let's get to it."
"We'll start with crunches. I'll hold your ankles." He nods and stretches out on the mat, bending his knees and lifting his head.
"Uh, shouldn't I warm up or something? Get my heart rate up?"
"It's crunches," I shrug. "Watch your breathing, and don't curl up too much. Remember not to pull on your neck. Let's see if you can do three sets of fifty."
His eyebrows climb.
"Jim, man, lets work our way up, okay?"
I grin. "Fine, fine. Show me fifty. Can you give me fifty?"
"I guess we'll find out," he smiles back, and then he folds his hands behind his head.
I'm counting off for him, and I can feel his blood rush round the veins in his ankles as I tighten my hands around them. It's muffled by his socks, but it's there: his pulse, strong and steady. By forty, I can feel little splashes of sweat as it drips off the ends of his long, loose curls on the up-swing. He's nearing fifty and beginning to shake. His lips are firm and set: the lines around his mouth are deep, determined. He crunches again, elbows tight, nostrils flaring as starts to lower himself back down to the floor.
He makes it to fifty and then flops back, hair spread out on the mat. He's let his arms fall open and his ribcage is heaving, and he's just... just beautiful.
"Hey, I made it all the way to fifty, man! Not bad, huh?"
Jesus, would he look like that with me inside him?
"Not bad at all, Sandburg."
The idea charges me up so much that I don't realize I'm humping him, already hard against his gym shorts, hands still locked around his ankles, until he leans up on his arms, kind of smiling at me.
My thumb is rubbing the slippery skin above his droopy sock, and we lock eyes.
I run my hand up the inside of his right thigh, right up the leg of the drawstring shorts, and hook past the elastic of his briefs to stroke his balls with my fingertips. He smells like fresh sweat and something tangy... raspberry vinaigrette. And like my shaving cream. Our shaving cream. He switched to my brand when he moved in, so I wouldn't have to "get used to so much new stuff".
"Uh, Jim?" And that deep note that makes me want to suck him off floats out of his chest.
"Yeah?"
"Technically, this counts as an aerobic activity... but will it improve my muscle tone?" And he grins at me and I tug his shorts and briefs down in one shot and toss them over my shoulder. Blair looks a little dazed, his nostrils flaring like they do when he's getting hot, or ready to come.
He's bent his knees again, and I rest my chest against his fuzzy, naked shins. I cup Blair's kneecap and take his cock in hand, asking him with a look.
I want this so bad my hands are shaking.
Eyes steady and bluer than blue, he nods.
"I've gotta get..."
He shakes his head. "I stashed some under the cushions."
I just stare at him for a second.
Blair's wearing his best smug grin, all those little pearly teeth gleaming at me.
And I feel around under the cushion for the lube and a condom.
Jim coats his fingers and then he leans against my legs. I kind of fold them back until my knees are nearly touching my shoulders and he's cradled against the backs of my thighs and I want him, I am ready.
"Yeah," I say. "Yeah. Please."
And he's in me with slick fingers, kneading my left thigh and I'm writhing and moaning, "please please please please Jim" and he stops, and takes my jaw in one shaky hand-- he is on the edge and he says, "You don't... you don't have to beg, Sandburg," and he sounds frayed and needy and almost scared of himself, and I say, "But Jim, I, uh, I like to beg..." and he gives me this look, so relieved and so turned on, like he has his equilibrium back, like he's hot and bothered but he's himself again, and I have my knees hooked over his shoulders and my heels are sliding on his back for purchase and I'm goading him every way I know how to and he admits:
"I like to hear you."
"Okay then, please please please Jim will you please fuck me, fuck me fuck unhh! oh god god I don't I can't I want I Jim Jim Jim please" and finally, he tears open the foil wrapper, gloves up and moves into me and I ache, hello, burning here, he's too much and I buck against him because I want him in or out IN OR OUT I can only take all or nothing and then that scary 'he's gonna kill me with that thing' feeling fades, shifts, throbs into something... Something... I'm not even speaking in actual words anymore, I'm freaking out, terrified out of my mind, thrilled to the little bones in my inner ear and I have Jim all the way, buried deep, crushing me, he looks faint, and stunned, and and and I feel like I'm jumping out of that plane again, only this time there's no way I was gonna get out of this in one piece.
I've never heard anything like it. Never. And I've done the kid every other way, he's come dozens of times, on me, near me, for me, hell, in me, but I've never heard this low, hoarse keening... he's incoherent, his eyes are screwed shut and it almost sounds like he's praying in some weird language only he knows and I'm worried that I'm hurting him but when I stop moving he clutches my face in his hands and lifts his head. He doesn't open his eyes, but he grinds out "Don't. You. Stop."
So I stroke into him again and his mouth falls open, soundless this time, and he-- he convulses and his eyes flip open and his hair is like an explosion. He arches back until all I can see is the soft underside of his chin, and he tenses before he finally splashes me, collapsing with a little grunt.
He squeezes me, like a woman does when she comes, but times ten... muscles trying to wring my skin off the bone, and I give into it, shoot deep, and feel him shudder beneath me.
I try to get my breath back, and remember to roll off of him and tie off the condom.
He's just laying there, eyes wide, looking shell-shocked.
"Christ, christ, Blair? Chief, you okay?"
"No. No, I'm not. But. But. Jim," he says softly, and I pull him into my arms. He's boneless and shivering, but his eyes are dry, and I can't smell the tang of blood. Sweat, come...but no blood.
I kiss his hair over and over and he finally mashes his palm against my nose.
"Ease up, Jim. I'm okay now. I was just... I was... Overwhelmed. Blown the fuck away."
He shifts in my arms and I stroke the still-jumping muscles of his belly.
He makes a small complaining sound.
"Man, am I gonna be sore tomorrow." He shifts again and grins at me, with a wrinkle of his brow. "Scratch that. I'm sore now"
"Well, I've been there."
He rolls his eyes.
"Way to sympathize, Jim."
"It wasn't so bad for me. But then, you uh... you went easy on me the uh, first time..." Jesus, I rode the kid like he was a rodeo bronc. On a fucking gym mat.
"I, uh, Jim man, I meant from the workout. I don't think I've ever even done fifty sit-ups. I mean, I'm not even sure that all the previous sit-ups I've done add up to fifty."
"Oh." But he's lying, I can tell.
"Look, I tell you what, if it will make you feel any better you can wait on me hand and foot until your guilt bores you and then we can both move on." He gives me that 'Okay? Just let me talk you into this.' look and I rest both hands on his stomach.
"Hey, you want a hot bath or something?"
For some reason, this cracks him up, and he nods.
"Yeah. Sure. That would be great. And you're cooking dinner."
"Deal."
Okay, so I'm getting wrinkly in the tub, and because I don't have to close the bathroom door, after all, Jim at this point has pretty much seen me about as naked as I can get, I can hear Jim futzing around in the kitchen.
So.
This is me, post-virginity.
I feel funny. Kind of wide open. Not just in a literal sense, either... Like, anything that comes along is really gonna reverberate in me. It's almost like being hollow... but in a good way. A spiritually cleansed kind of way.
A spiritually cleansed, holy shit Jim just did me, kind of way.
I wonder if it was like this for Jim at all...
I'll feel more like myself again in a few days. But I won't be going in with Jim in the morning, or the next day, either.
Things like this have happened before. Some emotional watershed event, and I get so... full... I have to step back. It was like this the morning after Jim and I slept together the first time, at the YMCA camp. Well, actually, it was the third time we'd slept together... but it was the first time I'd made him come. It was good there... quiet, no people, no demands on my time for a few days. Nothing to worry about except Jim.
Jim.
I feel a dopey smile spread itself out on my face. After I settle down a little, I'm gonna keep him naked for an entire weekend, man. Maybe I can talk him into a whole week...
And then I hear a sound that makes my blood run cold: the phone is ringing.
She can't be in Mallorca already.
I mean, it could be Simon calling to consult with Jim on a case, it could be Brown or Rafe calling about this month's Poker game, it could be another one of Jim's old girlfriends, or one of mine, or Fitch calling to con me into taking a class for him...
But it's my mom.
I can tell because Jim just sneaks into the bathroom and hands me the phone.
"Mom!"
"Honey! I'm calling in flight, but I couldn't wait until I got to the hotel, it's hours away, and I wanted to speak to you."
There's something really unnerving about being naked (and let's not forget recently fucked) while you're talking to you mom. Even if your mom has spent a summer at a nudist colony here and there. "Clothing-optional"-- whatever. It's freaking me out.
"Oh, sure, just, hey, hang on just a sec, okay?" I slap my hand over the mouthpiece and mutter for Jim to present himself, front and center. He peers in cautiously, and I point at him with the phone.
"Get this out of here, man! I can't talk to my mom naked! Jeez. Take it! Now get out of here!"
As soon as he's out of phone-shot, I slosh out of the tub and wrap a towel around me until I get to my old bedroom, where I rummage for something reasonably clean. Then, taking a deep, cleansing breath, I walk out to the living room to face my mom long-distance.
I took a walk when I handed him the phone, and when I get back, he's sitting on the couch with his elbows on his knees, with his hands folded over his mouth. A sure sign that something's wrong.
"She give you a hard time, Chief?" God, I hoped not. It was tough for me to picture Naomi being upset about this. I mean, my dad, he'll probably have a coronary, but I really thought Naomi would be okay about it. About us. Me and Blair.
"Huh? Oh, hey, Jim. No, no nothing like that. I've just been thinking, that's all." Those aren't my favorite words, 'I've been thinking': from Carolyn, they signaled her trying to wheedle me into some Plummer Family Social Event; from Blair they usually mean I'm doing something wrong and I'm going to have to modify a behavior. I get the sweats for a second, thinking he's going to want to modify our behavior.
"Thinking about...?"
"Us. You know, the 'you and me' thing."
I try not to swallow too noisily. "And?"
"Well, my mom was cool about it, I mean, I knew she would be, really, but then I was wondering: am I cool with it?"
"Huh?" He hadn't seemed to be having a problem with it a couple of hours ago, but I didn't want to get defensive, and I didn't want to get antagonistic either. Another too loud swallow, and I try not to get tense about this. Okay. Let him tell me what to think. Don't jump to conclusions. That spaghetti I boiled is going to be too waterlogged to eat.
"Well, I mean, besides you, only my mom knows that I'm... That we're..."
"What?"
"I don't know. I mean, I love you, but are we gonna be in or out? I mean, you just fucked me on a gym mat, right? I've been fucking you... but I don't know how I feel about letting other people know that. The Rainier GLBSU had a fundraiser two years ago and I bought a t-shirt that says 'I'm not Gay, but my boyfriend is', and you know what? Suddenly, it's not so funny anymore, man."
Second thoughts. Buyer's remorse. I pushed him. I pushed too hard, and now I've pushed him away.
My hands are numb, but I try to pay attention.
Then his hand, his warm, warm hand, is on top of my two cold, folded ones.
"Because not everyone is going to be as cool as my mom. And this is a major identity thing. Suddenly, you're the only thing I care about-- fuck the dissertation, right, and the fellowship, screw it, I can just take out a school loan like everybody else... But what about my observer status? You still need me out there, Jim. And Simon couldn't set us up as partners if he knew you were doing me. And then there's just the whole constant deception thing, and then the rumor mill, and maybe I'm just not man enough to be out, maybe I'll fold in the face of crushing het oppression or something, I just don't know..."
"Whoa, whoa, Chief. You're getting all revved up, here. We can take our time. And we can probably tell Simon." At his alarmed look, I add, "Eventually. He already knows you mean more to me than anyone else. He's not stupid, Sandburg. Even if we weren't sleeping together, Simon knows that there's nothing I wouldn't do to keep you safe. It's not going to affect my judgement more than it already has.
"As for being out... I don't know. I'm not exactly ready to put up a pride flag, you know? I don't know if I'll ever be comfortable with that. I mean... I don't... feel gay..." and I trail off, because Blair's laughing so hard he can barely breathe.
He gropes me, and when I perk up, he snickers, "You feel pretty gay to me," and then I pinch him and he yelps, but keeps sniggering.
"Yeah, well, I don't feel this way for anybody but you, god dammit. Okay?" And I know it's fear, nerves, whatever, but it feels like I'm in a pissy mood about to devolve right into a shitty one.
"Same here. But the demographics don't lie. I'm still sporting the Y chromosome, so what we've got here is a same sex love-in. And probably, we're gong to have to eventually deal with that. In a public sense."
I nod and cup my hands around his; the numbness faded a while back.
"Just tell me, Blair, okay? Are you all right? With everything?"
"As far as the you and me, and the stupendous sex part, I'm cherry." He flushes, and then says, "Well, not anymore. But, uh, you know what I mean."
God, there's a knot of shame in my belly that's undermined by the twitch in my dick, and I'd like nothing more than to roll him over and nail him, hard, fast, now...
"I know." And I squeeze his hand instead, and just look at him. His stomach rumbles faintly; someone with normal hearing with their head in his lap probably wouldn't be able to hear it...
"The spaghetti's probably crawling out of the pot by now," he says conversationally.
"Yeah. Yeah. Uh, I'll spring for dinner. You want anything special? Leaves? Twigs?"
He grins at me.
"Man, you know what? I could seriously go for a Wonderburger."
"That's the spirit, Chief." I pat his belly approvingly. "And tomorrow, seventy-five crunches."