A bouquet of roses and lots of thanks to Solo and SHaron for all their help scanning and proofing these classic stories of Constance Collins! This story originally appeared in the zine The Fix no. 13 which can still be obtained from In Person Press. This story is a sequel to "Fever Pitch - Clandestine Report #104," which appeared in the zine edited by the author, Constance Collins, IT'S LOVE, CAP'N. It also appears on the Archive, so just click the hyperlink if you haven't read it yet.

Comments about this story can be sent to: VenicePlaceAngel@aol.com

Shattered
by
Constance Collins

Clandestine Report #105

I remember after Helen died, Huggy sounding like some kinda sage, saying, "There ain't no such thing as happily ever after." And H nodding and answering, "Very eloquent." I don't know how many beers down we were, or what I mighta said in response, but something in me never really believed him, in spite of all the shit. I always believed there was gonna be a happy ending.

I'm not so sure any more.

******

I don't know what's happening. That first morning after our, oh shit, after he fucked my brains out, everything changed, everything. I just didn't know it right then. Anyhow, that morning-after sure as hell felt like a happy ending. A little confused, maybe, and I was aching in places I didn't know I had, in ways I'd never imagined I could hurt, but God was I happy. Only it didn't stay like that, and I just can't understand what happened...

******

Cap'n called that morning, gave us a few days off -- me to put myself back together, I think -- he didn't know how bad I needed that -- and I guess H to look after me. Well, he looked after me all right: he cooked for me and he straightened up the place and he petted me and kissed me and held me so close and so safe I started feeling like I never wanted to leave his arms... In fact, it was so terrific it took me a while to realize something was really wrong: we'd stopped talking to each other.

But evidently that mysterious communication we'd always had now extended to my state of sexual arousal, because H started bringing me off just about as often as I could get it up - which was more often than I'd've believed possible. It was like I was a teenager again: sex-obsessed, and with a near-constant hard-on.

But it wasn't a give-and-take proposition; I was being "serviced," while H's gratification was pretty much left to chance, and I couldn't figure out why, or how to ask. Anyhow, I couldn't take it anymore.

From the beginning what I most wanted was to be able to touch him in all those places, in all those ways I wasn't allowed. So late in the evening on the night before we had to go back to work, when he started to unzip my jeans for about the fifth time that day, I asked him when I was gonna get the bill.

"What?"

Got his attention. "Well, geeze, what is this? It's like every time I feel a little horny, there you are, but you don't seem to wanna let me reciprocate... you know I wanna touch you, you know..." How he knew still embarrassed the hell outa me, but I forced myself to look into his eyes. I hadn't expected the trace of panic I saw there. "Hutch?"

His gaze shifted away and he wouldn't meet my eyes again, but he kinda nodded and unzipped his own slacks. Not enough -- I didn't wanna give him a quick blow job in the living room. I took his hand and we went into the bedroom and got all the way undressed and lay down on my bed, my head between his legs.

I kissed him and touched him -- his thighs, his ass, and finally his cock, licking him and eventually getting him most of the way in my mouth. I wanted to keep him there forever.

The way H responded really shook me; he pushed me over on my back, forcing his dick all the way into my mouth. He hadn't tried to penetrate me again, but the way he humped my mouth was so much like the way he fucked me it felt like I was shattering into a trillion pieces... and I never wanted him to stop.

When he came in my mouth it was like nothing I've ever experienced before, like nothing I could even have imagined; I was drowning in the taste of him and I couldn't escape. Then H was pulling me up to him, kissing me, murmuring words I couldn't understand, feeling for the stickiness between my legs. He wasn't disappointed. I opened my eyes and found him staring at me, again with that panicked expression. When he saw me looking at him, he looked away. "Hutch?" I waited 'til I had his full attention, his eyes on me, full of guilt. "What happened?" Though I asked it as mildly as I could, it must've sounded like an accusation from H's response.

"I didn't want to do that," he said softly.

"What? Why?"

"Starsk -- God... " H buried his face in my neck, and I could feel him trembling.

"What is it?"

I felt him pull himself together, make the trembling stop and become still in my arms. "Starsky," he said very calmly, "this is the second time I've practically -- I've forced you to -- "

Oh. "You haven't forced me to anything," I began, and stopped. It was true, he hadn't forced me, but it was also true that when we got together things got out of control. I reached for my jeans. "We gotta talk."

******

Dressed again, sitting on my sofa again, drinking a couple of beers again. It felt like we were caught in some weird spiral where everything was happening over and over and over. H was having trouble meeting my eyes -- again. I'd said we had to talk, but I couldn't come up with an opening. Finally all I could do was say what I was thinking. "You overwhelm me."

A grimace from H. "Literally."

Sometimes I think there's nothing I hate more than these guilt trips he takes himself on. "That's not what I meant." At last he looked at me, his eyes showing curiosity. "You said you practically forced me, but that's not true. You don't have to force me to do anything; I get around you and I just -- do whatever the hell you want, without even thinking about whether or not it's something I wanna do -- without even thinking, period. I feel like there's nothing I wouldn't do -- "

The self-recrimination was gone from his face, replaced by a kind of wild, excited recognition. "That's it exactly. Starsky, I never meant to -- " He stopped suddenly, as if saying the words would be another kind of violation. Except I didn't feel violated. "I don't know why I did it, except that... I got carried away -- I know that's no excuse... "

"I don't want an excuse. I didn't wanna have this talk so you could adequately apologize for taking my virginity, dammit, I want to sort this out!"

"There've been a couple of times," H said very quietly, "where you've looked so scared... knowing I've caused that breaks my heart . "

I touched his arm. "I am scared, but not of you. I'm scared of me, the way I respond to you, the way you respond to me, it's like some kinda chemical reaction... "

"Starsky, I want to get this under control, before... one of us gets hurt."

'One of us' meaning me. "I don't believe you could hurt me," I told him. "I know you -- " I stopped talking because he was staring at me like I was crazy. "What?"

"You don't remember what happened the other night when I -- "

I shook my head before he could come up with some kind of euphemism for 'humped you on the sofa.' "There's a lot of that I don't remember. So what happened?"

"Everything seemed all right," he began slowly. "You -- you were very relaxed and you seemed kind of -- eager, so I thought everything was all right... shit... look, I wasn't thinking at all, okay? All I wanted was -- "

"Exactly what I wanted," I interrupted him; I didn't want to hear him stuttering around, trying to find a delicate way to put 'screw your brains out.' "So what's the problem?"

All my interruptions had pissed him off. His voice got that let-me-finish-my-sentence-or-I'm-going-to-hurt-you tone to it. It made him speak more bluntly. "I'd pushed all the way into you, and you had your arms around me, and we were kissing, and... and the next thing I knew you were yelling your head off."

I had a vague recollection of him trying to shut me up, but I had not idea what I would've been hollering about.

"You kept yelling 'no' like you wanted me to stop, but you were still holding onto me really tight, you wouldn't let go, so I couldn't... I don't know if I could've stopped... I didn't try... I didn't want to...

"I can't control myself. I've always been a little out of control where you're concerned, but I've kept it under -- " He was going to say 'control,' but realized that sounded stupid. " I've always liked you more than I should, and needed you more, and wanted you -- not like that -- " he motioned to the bedroom dismissively " -- just wanted to be with you. This -- it's not now. I've had as much time to think about it as you have, only I didn't have to do as much adjusting because when I read how you felt, it triggered something in me: another way to love you, to have you. I didn't have any qualms about it; I was just afraid you'd change your mind and never tell me." He paused to take a long breath; he'd been speaking very fast. I waited, overcome -- again. "I very nearly did some more snooping... to see what else you might have written, to see how close you were to telling me... but I never did... "

"I know " I told him, and I did. There was no question in my mind. "And I think I'm beginning to understand." All my fantasies of me and H had been him allowing me to make love to him; I could never have anticipated anything like the fierce hunger and ferocious need now reflected in his eyes.

Only this was real life; real life was a man who'd had two years to comprehend what he wanted, and when he was given the opportunity, had taken it -- had taken me... and he'd done it with such care and tenderness, showing again the kind of man he is. And it answered a question I'd asked myself: I trusted him with my soul but not my body? Jesus, I could trust him with anything.

"I thought about it a lot before I called you the other night, and one thing I couldn't seem to get my mind around was us fucking." His cheeks reddened and his eyes shifted away, but I wouldn't go on 'til he was looking at me again. "I was kinda apprehensive about how I'd feel about you, how I'd feel about myself, if we did."

"And how do you feel?" The question was filled with worry.

"About you?"

He nodded.

"I love you, like I did before, only more so."

He took both my hands in his. "You don't feel -- used?"

"Or violated?" I felt like laughing. "By you? God, no. Yeah, you lost control -- so did I. So what? I've seen you out of control a hundred times before and it's one of the things I like best about you. Anyway, you didn't hurt me. And I know too much about you to believe you could hurt me, or use me. You're not a user, Hutch."

He gave me a relieved smile. "And how do you feel about yourself?"

"Different," I said, realizing how inadequate that word was. "Only not-different, you know. I feel different mostly 'cause I don't feel different. You see?"

"Sounds like perfect Starsky-logic to me," he answered sarcastically. "You feel different because you don't feel different because you feel different. What could be clearer than that?" Now he was really smiling at me.

"Shut up. Look -- say you found out fire didn't really burn your skin . All your life you've known it does, but one day you held your face in a flame for an hour and nothing happened. Your face doesn't get burned. So nothing's happened, so you don't feel any different. See?"

He was looking at me kinda dubiously, but he nodded.

"But you've just found out that something you knew was true isn't, that something you knew was dangerous isn't. That makes you feel really different, inside. All my life I've been told one way or another -- that two guys doin' it was horrible. But it isn't. It's -- " I couldn't think of the right word, and then it came to me. "Miraculous. With you, it's miraculous." The smile on his face was worth all the anxiety I'd been feeling.

"Hutch? Would you tell me something?" Without waiting for an answer, I went on. "Why'd you bring the whistle with you when I asked you to come over?"

"After everything that had happened, I thought maybe you were finally ready to talk to me. I hoped it might make it easier for you. It never occurred to me you'd feel -- "

"Like you'd been snooping through my diary?"

"Like you wanted to punch my lights out. I am sorry about that."

My partner, the only person I know who'd apologize to someone who tried to punch him. No, the only person I know who'd apologized to me after I tried to punch him.

"Would you tell me something else?" H looked at me again with that look of ultimate patience he gave me when if I didn't get on with it he was gonna get up and leave. So I stared at our hands (still clasped) and said, "Well, you know exactly what I've been... fantasizing about... if you have been... " I looked up to see him smiling at me, the sweetest smile I've ever seen; it made me daring. "So, Blondie, ya got any requests?"

I dunno exactly what I did, but I guess it was the right thing. H gripped my hands harder and his face sort of glowed. "There is something I've been thinking about, but I have to warn you, I learned about this from someone who -- well, he's unquestionably the most dangerous person I've ever met."

It took me a second to figure out he was talking about me.

*****

Back in the bedroom, naked again, H kissing me like there's no tomorrow, trying to get his nerve up. No question he was getting up. I was wishing I'd been keeping track -- I know I broke my own personal record for orgasms. I nearly told him, but I didn't wanna break the mood. It could wait for later.

"You remember, " he whispered intently, "something you -- " He stopped, went back to kissing me.

"Do I remember what?" I whispered back.

"It was something you wrote, something that really got to me."

"Yeah? So?"

"Well, I think what it's called is interfemoral intercourse."

"Sounds hot," I said out loud. "What is that, some kind of Latin position?"

H sighed, annoyed. Annoying him worked, made him quit hiding behind his fancy words. "You had this dream where you put your dick between my thighs, and I thought -- "

Well, I could tell what he thought, since just talking about it got him hard. I remembered that dream; I'd had it a lot, and acting it out was a major fantasy of mine.

"You're gonna have to turn over," I said.

"Yeah." He sounded excited and reluctant -- just like I felt. He turned over, spread his legs just a little and I slipped between them. I was wet enough to make the friction just right. It wasn't like fucking -- at least, not like any fucking I'd ever done before. It was like - fooling around, like in the backseat of the car, when you're so hot you could come just from your own incendiary thoughts, and touching somebody else's skin is all the accelerant you need. I was fucking right into his balls...

It didn't take long for me to get off -- or H either. I held him close, licked his neck, put my nose in his hair like I'd always wanted to do, while he shuddered and called out my name over and over and over. And we slept.

*****

So we talked and fucked and went back to work, and right now things are terrific. But I feel like I really know something now: Huggy was right, there's no such thing as happily ever after. But that has nothing to do with people dying, or leaving you. H and me are gonna stay together, but that doesn't make it happily ever after. Life's just not like that.

end