Best Gay Romance 2013 (27 page)

“Hop up,” I told him, tapping the table.

“What? Why?”

“Come on, trust me,” I said. The table was sturdy enough to hold Armando. He stretched his body across the cutting board easy like a cat. His socked feet stuck off one end.

“Relax.” I ran one hand along a firm, hairy thigh. Armando has an awesome body, but you wouldn't know it, the way he covers up in big tees and baggy jeans, and shadows his gorgeous mug under baseball caps and hoodies. I compliment him on his
body all the time, but he says he's too skinny. Armando's the only guy I know who can eat shit like pizza and burgers and never gain an ounce. Says he wants a wrestler build. He even thought of steroids at one point, but I talked him out of it.

I studied the canisters filled with lettuce, tomatoes, tufts of onions and other veggies.

“Let's see what kind of sandwich I want.” I looked to the menu on the wall.

“A Cold Cut Combo.” I plucked a pair of gloves out of the box and worked them over my hands. I peeled paper off slices of bologna. I spread Armando wide, and packed the cold cuts delicately between the cheeks of his tanned booty.

“Oh, it's cold,” he said.

“What's next?”

“How about some pepperoni?” I patted several slices between his half moons.

“Now ham. The other white meat.”

“Yeah, that'll do it,” he said with growing excitement. I couldn't wait to devour this homemade man sandwich of mine. I stood back to admire my handiwork. The best part was yet to come. It was time to add color to the gustatory canvas my boyfriend had become. I thought of the dressing and was sure I wanted lettuce. I grabbed a handful and sprinkled the greenery along Armando's stuffed crevice, then added slices of juicy, vine-ripened tomatoes.

“That's cold.”

“Complain, complain,” I said. A sandwich ain't a sandwich without olives. Or green peppers. Next something spicy. When I mentioned jalapenos, he just about jumped from the table.

“Fuck that!” he yelled.

“All right, all right. Nothing hot.” I added a dash of salt. No pepper. “Eat your fuckin' heart out, Picasso.”

“Are you done?” he asked, “'cause my legs are starting to fall asleep.”

I pulled off the gloves and shoved them in the metal trough beneath the cutting board.

I was tempted to just ram my face into his scrumptious butt, piggish and messy. Armando shifted anxiously. My dick was dripping in anticipation of the feast to come. He had never looked more delicious. His ass was so pretty I didn't want to touch it. But I couldn't hold back. I pulled at his thighs, opening him up as I began to chew. He heaved and sighed as I ate. I was a mess, but I didn't give a shit. I pressed him into the table, occasionally nipping his ass with bites of love. My appetite was insatiable. He was an all-you-can-eat buffet of manliness. When I was done, his ass was littered with bits of olives, pieces of tomato, scraps of meat and streaks of mustard. Armando was a nasty, naked beautiful sight.

“I can't eat another bite.”

Armando eased his legs off the cutting board. He sat up and stretched happily, still hard but hardly satisfied. I went back to sucking him off. Armando ran his dickhead over my lips, across the rug of my tongue.

“Ready for some dessert?” he asked. He cocked his legs on my shoulders as I uncorked his dick out of my mouth. The leftover mayonnaise was slick on my dick. I slid myself into his ass. I hugged Armando's thighs as I pressed and pushed. Tears of sweat beaded his taut stomach. He whacked off as I thrust into him. He spoke dirty to me in Italian. Armando's face was flushed. I couldn't hold back. I slid out of my baby and came across his stomach. Armando came seconds after me. I rubbed my cum into his chest and tongued the last few droplets into my mouth.

We sat, flesh touching flesh and sweat mixing with sweat, hearts still pounding.

I'd be so glad when we got our own crib, when we didn't have to meet behind closed blinds and locked doors.

“I'll help yuh clean up,” I said, exhausted. I grabbed a wet cloth from the kitchen sink and wiped off Armando and myself the best I could. Every muscle ached as we pulled on our pants, worked our arms through the sleeves of our shirts. Armando finished stacking the chairs and mopping, while I cleaned the food area of the store and the kitchen.

“Anything else I can do?”

“Just go home and pack,” he said, kissing me good night. I didn't want to let go. I wanted to hold him, breathe in his sandwich shop scent of pepperoni and mustard.

I was worried about getting caught when I got home, but I was excited because I would soon be leaving the evil castle on Charlie Ash Lane. I killed the headlights and the engine in the road, put the car in NEUTRAL and pushed it quietly the rest of the way into the driveway. I climbed carefully back through the window, but just as I climbed into bed, lights blazed on. There she was: Ma, with anger in her eyes.

“Boy, where you been?” she asked.

“Jus' up th' street.”

“You a lie!” she hollered. “You went to go see that boy didn't you?”

I thought of Armando and what he would do if he were here. He'd stand up to her. I took my beating in stride, with pride and strength, because with Armando in my heart, I could feel no pain.

J. M. Snyder

 

 

 

 

 

 

His folded hands are pale and fragile in the early morning light, the faint veins beneath translucent skin like faded ink on forgotten love letters written long ago. His fingers lace through mine; his body curves along my back, still asleep despite the sun that spills between the shades. I lie awake for long minutes, clasped tight against him, unable or unwilling to move and bring the day crashing in. Only in sleep am I sure that he fully remembers me. When he wakes, the sun will burn that memory away and I'll have to watch him struggle to recall my name. After a moment or two he'll get it without my prompting but one day I know it will be gone, lost like the dozen other little things he no longer remembers, and no matter how long I stare into his weathered blue eyes, he won't be able to get it back.

Cradled in his arms, I squeeze his hands in my arthritic fists and pray this isn't that day.

After some time he stirs, his even breath breaking with a shuddery sigh that tells me he's up. There's a scary moment when he
freezes against me, unsure of where he is or who I am. I hold my breath and wait for the moment it all falls into place. His thumb smoothes along my wrist, and an eternity passes before he kisses behind my ear, my name a whisper on his lips. “Henry.”

I sigh, relieved. Today he still remembers, and that gives me the strength to get out of bed. “Morning, Jim.” I stretch like an old cat, first one arm then the other, feeling the blush of energy as my blood stirs and familiar aches settle into place. Over my shoulder I see Jim watching, a half smile on his face that tells me he still likes what he sees. As I reach for my robe, I ask him, “How about some eggs this morning? That sound good?”

“You know how I like them,” he says, voice still graveled from sleep. His reply wearies me—I don't know if he's forgotten how he prefers his eggs or if he simply trusts me to get them right. I want to believe in his trust, so I don't push it. After fifty years of living with Jim, of loving him, I choose my battles carefully, and this isn't one either of us would win.

Leaning across the bed, I plant a quick kiss on the corner of his mouth. “Be down in ten minutes,” I murmur.

His gnarled fingers catch the knot in the belt of my robe and keep me close. My lower back groans in protest, but I brush the wisps of white hair from his forehead and smile through the discomfort as he tells me, “I have to shower.”

“Jim,” I sigh. When I close my eyes he's eighteen again, the fingers at my waist long and graceful and firm, his gaunt cheeks smooth and unwrinkled, his lips a wet smile below dark eyes and darker hair. It pains me to have to remind him, “We showered last night.”

He runs a hand through his thinning hair, then laughs. “Ten minutes then,” he says with a playful poke at my stomach. I catch his hand in mine and lean against it heavily to help myself up.
We met in the late spring, 1956, when I graduated from State. It seems so long ago now—it's hard to imagine we were ever anything but the old men we've become. My youngest sister Betty had a boy she wanted me to meet, someone I thought she was courting at the time, and she arranged an afternoon date. I thought she wanted my approval before she married the guy; that's the way things were done back in the day. But when I drove up to Jim's parents' house and saw those long legs unfold as he pushed himself up off the front steps of the porch, I thought I'd spend the rest of my life aching for him. I could just imagine the jealousy that would eat me alive, knowing my sister slept in those gangly arms every night; family gatherings would become unbearable as I watched the two of them kiss and canoodle together. By the time he reached my car, I decided to tell Betty she had to find someone else. That nice Italian kid on the corner perhaps, or the McKeever's son around the block. Anyone but this tall, gawkish man-boy with the thin face and unruly mop of dark hair, whose mouth curved into a shy smile when those stormy eyes met mine. “You must be Henry,” he said, before I could introduce myself. He offered me a hand I never wanted to let go. “Betty's told me all about you.”

Betty. My sister. Who thought I should spend the day with her current beau, checking up on him instead of checking him out. My voice croaked, each word a sentence as final as death. “Jim. Yes. Hello.”

I vowed to keep a distance between us but somehow Jim worked through my defenses. He had a quick laugh, a quicker grin, and an unnerving way of touching my arm or leg or bumping into me at odd moments that caught me off guard. He skirted a fine line, too nice to be just my sister's boyfriend but not overtly flirting with me. Once or twice I thought I had his measure, thought I knew for sure which side of the coin he'd
call, but then he would be up in the air again, turning heads over tails as I held my breath to see how he would land. That first afternoon was excruciating—lunch, ice cream afterward, a walk along the boulevard as I tried to pin him down with questions he laughed off or refused to answer. I played it safe, stuck to topics I thought he'd favor, like how he met my sister and what he planned to do now that he was out of high school. But his maddening grin kept me at bay. “Oh, leave Betty out of this,” he told me at one point, exasperated. “I know her already. Tell me more about you.”

I didn't want to talk about myself. There was nothing I could say that would make him fall for me instead of Betty, and I just wanted the day to be over. I didn't want to see him again, didn't want to
think
about him if I could help it, and in my mind I was already running through a list of excuses as to why I couldn't attend my sister's wedding if she married him, when Jim noticed a matinee sign outside the local theater. “You like these kind of movies?” he wanted to know. Some creature flick, not my style at all, but before I could tell him we should be heading back, Jim grabbed my elbow and dragged me to the ticket window.

Two seats, a dime apiece, and he chose one of the last rows in the back of the theater, away from the shrieking kids that threw popcorn and candy at the screen. He waited until I sat down, then plopped into the seat beside mine, his arm draped casually over the armrest and half in my lap. “Do you bring Betty here?” I asked, shifting away from him. Better to bring my sister up like a shield between us, in the drowsy heat and close darkness of the theater, to remind me why I was there. Betty trusted me, even if I didn't trust myself.

Jim shrugged, uninterested. As the lights dimmed and the film began, he crossed his legs, then slid down a bit in the seat, let his legs spread apart until the ankle rested on his knee. His leg
shook with nervous energy, jostling the seat in front of him and moving at the edges of my vision, an annoying habit, distracting, and when I couldn't stand it any longer, I put my hand on his knee to stop it. As if he had been waiting for me to make the first move, Jim snatched my hand in both of his, threaded his fingers through mine, and pulled my arm into his lap. “Jim,” I whispered with a slight tug, but he didn't seem to hear me and didn't release my hand. I tried again—he just held on tighter, refused to acknowledge that I wanted him to let go. Leaning closer so I wouldn't have to raise my voice, I tried again. “Jim—”

He turned and mashed his lips against mine in a damp, feverish kiss.
I shouldn't
, my mind started, then
I can't
, then
Betty
. Then his tongue licked into me, softer than I had imagined and so much sweeter than a man had the right to be, and I stopped thinking altogether. I was a whirl of sensation and every touch, every breath, every part of my world was replaced with Jim.
Betty isn't getting him back
; that was my last coherent thought before I stopped fighting him and gave in.

Later that evening, my sister was waiting when I finally got home. “Well?” she wanted to know.

I shrugged to avoid meeting her steady gaze and mumbled, “Do you really think he's right for you?”

“Me?” she asked with a laugh. “Not at all. But Henry, isn't he just perfect for
you?”

 

From the kitchen, I hear Jim come down the stairs. He opens the front door and I force myself to stay at the stove, fighting the urge to check on him. I wait, head cocked for the slightest sound—somewhere outside, an early bird twitters in the morning air and further away, a lawn mower roars to life. Only when I hear a shuffled step do I call out. “Jim?”