Best Gay Romance 2013 (3 page)

“I want you,” Jake said, and it was simple enough, Tommy's smile against his, the way his eyes crinkled up at the corners. He liked to think he'd been smoother before, had known the right thing to say, to do, but Tommy was smooth enough for the both of them, Jake thought, because Tommy's fingers were curled under the hem of Jake's shirt, dragging over his stomach, his ribs, Tommy's mouth following close behind, hot lick of his tongue, scrape of his teeth, and Jake had meant to be self-conscious about this, about his scars, about his body, about the way the dark head of his dick was already poking out of his jeans, but he couldn't be, not now, not with Tommy leaning right up against him, spreading their shirts out on the grass behind them.

Tommy's dick was hard against Jake's hip, soft denim right there, slick skin everywhere else, his voice raspy in Jake's ear, “So fuckin' hot, you have no idea,” and with the way he looked, Jake's back on the grass and Tommy above him, the last of the firelight in his eyes, in his hair, Jake thought he might be right.

“Tommy,” Jake breathed, and Tommy kissed his way down Jake's body, his palm pressed over Jake's fly, tongue darting out to taste the slick trail of precome on his belly before he wrapped
his lips around the head of Jake's dick, hot and wet and Jake couldn't help rocking his hips a little, couldn't help the flex of his fingers on the back of Tommy's neck. “Fuck, Tommy.”

“Yeah, later,” Tommy said, grinning a wicked grin, popping open the buttons of Jake's jeans and tugging them off his hips, knuckles sliding over the scars on the back of his thigh, making Jake shiver. Tommy kept one of his hands right there, palm open, fingers splayed wide, and Jake tried not to squirm. Tommy shifted lower, rubbed his cheek on Jake's belly, in the crease of his thigh, stubble scraping over the shamrocks, his mouth pressed to the lowest one. “You remember these?”

“Luck of the Irish,” Jake whispered, and Tommy bit his lip and swallowed hard.

Jake tensed, wondering, but Tommy just shook his head and laughed real low, his eyes flashing bright as he licked up the length of Jake's dick and sucked it back down. Jake wanted to flip them over, feel the weight of Tommy's cock in his mouth, nudging at the back of his throat, wanted to taste him there, lower, everywhere, and then Tommy's calloused fingers were in his mouth, earthy and smoke-sweet, then gone way too soon, and Jake could hear himself moaning way up high, needy sounds he couldn't stop, Tommy's fingers circling his hole and pressing in, spit-slick and rough, so different from his own.

Jake leaned up on his elbows, scrubbed his hand through Tommy's hair. “Tommy, fuck, c'mon,” and Tommy let Jake's dick slip out his mouth and slap wetly against his belly. Jake was breathing hard and Tommy was, too, his skin flushed and his lips swollen, his fingers in Jake's ass twisting slow. “Christ, were you always this much a tease?”

“Yup,” Tommy said, grinning. He still had his jeans on, and that was wrong in ways Jake was too dazed to really think about, but Jake could see how hard he was at least, could see
where the head of his cock pressed against the faded denim, leaking. “Been teasin' you for years.”

“Yeah?” He wasn't sure if that was true or not, but it didn't matter. This was what mattered, what he had now, what he could touch, taste, remember. “Huh.”

“Sure took you long enough to notice.”

“Hard not to, now,” Jake said. He pulled at Tommy's jeans, buttons popping open and Tommy's dick jutting out, shiny at the tip, red-gold curls dark around the base. Tommy shifted to his knees, mumbling “Sorry, sorry,” as he wiped his fingers on their shirts, dug a rubber out his pocket and tore the packet open with his teeth.

Jake reached for it, but Tommy shook his head, rolled it on himself. “Too close,” he whispered, leaning in to brush a kiss across Jake's lips, his hips pressing Jake's thighs open, his cock sliding in the hot crease of Jake's ass. “Tell me you're ready.”

Jake wrapped his hands around his thighs and hitched them higher, the blunt head of Tommy's dick against his hole, rub of Tommy's hand against his skin guiding it in, thick and hot and bigger than his fingers, better, Tommy's mouth on his, sweat dripping from his forehead, pressing in slow, slow, Tommy's hips twisting, both of them moaning low.

Jake swallowed hard, wished he could see Tommy's cock fucking in and out of him, wished he could see his body stretch to take it, and then Tommy shifted, kneeled up and angled Jake's hips high, and fuck, it was so good like this, the slow burn and the impossible heat, his hips rocking up and up, Tommy's hand wrapped around his dick just right. Jake knew he wasn't going to last, was going to come just like this, too soon, his shoulders pressed into the ground and Tommy's cock in his ass, thrusting deep.

He bit down hard on his lip, on his fingers, but he couldn't
stop it, hot splash of come on his belly, his chest, Tommy cursing low and breathless, his voice hoarse and his hips losing their rhythm. “Fuck, Jake, fuck.” It still felt so goddamn good, so right, fireflies in the tall grass and the stars overhead, slow buzz in his blood and Tommy fucking him hard, leaning over, “Gonna make me come,” his mouth pressed against Jake's throat and Jake's fingers twisted in his hair, in the hot well at the base of his spine.

 

“I missed this, last tour over there,” Tommy said later, his dick soft and sticky on Jake's stomach, his knees tucked up against Jake's ribs. Jake nodded, imagined he probably missed this, too. “We learned to fish right here, back when we were kids,” he said, smiling, his fingers tracing the scars on Jake's shoulder, certain, like he was playing his guitar. “You remember?”

Jake shook his head, ran his thumb over Tommy's bottom lip, and Tommy laughed, licked at rough edges of Jake's nail, the soft pad of his skin. “I just remember you,” Jake said, watching Tommy's eyes light up, listening to the river. It was different here at night, Jake thought, but not so different. It still felt more like home than anywhere else.

Edward Moreno

They say a man's heart is as big as his fist. I have no reason to dispute that, but in Ben's case it begs the question. His heart must be the size of a bucket; I accept that.

I met him on the almost-leafy banks of the Yarra, on that almost-green promenade in Melbourne's liquid heart. There's something about Melbourne I've never liked—something hard. I feel most times like I've been bent by the wind, hung out to dry by the drought, leveled by the tough, flat surface of the city. Every leaf on every tree is edged in brown, every footpath a display of dust. It's not pretty, but it's home.

I've never been one for pretty anyway.

“You're a dog,” he said—the first thing he said to me. “You're an ugly motherfucker.”

He came right up to me—his enormous feet practically trod on mine—and his eyes widened. He brought his face close, getting an eyeful, then pulled back to look me up and down,
head to toe, and cracked a smile.

“I can't even stand to look at you,” he said and turned away, looked up the river to Prince's Bridge, then twisted his torso back toward me and said it again.
You're a dog.

I didn't take it badly. I've been broken, bent and trod on over the years—my face and body are crisscrossed with scars, I'm not pretty—but I was taken aback. I hadn't met anyone this forward in years. I couldn't help but stare after catching sight of him sprawled across the bluestone pillars on the water's edge—his long legs stretched out across the promenade, the river at his back—and the next thing I knew he was in front of me, telling me what a dog I was and asking for my number.

His hair was shaggy, a lion's mane, but his twentysomething face was keen edged, fine and dark. Whenever he spoke, he'd open his eyes wide and run them over the whole of my face, my body, nodding to confirm the truth of whatever he'd just said—but when he talked about what a dog I was he'd shake that shaggy head and turn away, look up or down the river and then look back at me, dark eyes ablaze. We exchanged the basics as he moved in and out of my space—coming in close, inspecting me, stepping back.

Buskers spruiked their shows in his shadow on the promenade, families with prams rolled past; the brown leaves of the plane trees crackled in the dry wind, and Ben circled me like a boxer in the ring.

He had my attention. He sized me up, He stepped back and balled his bucket-sized hands into fists. He landed two quick jabs on my chest. He came in close again, looking down at our toes, drawing my eyes down, his enormous toes and my trembling toes almost touching. He said, “Man, I'd love to go toe-to-toe with you.”

He gave me an eyes-wide nod and then turned on his heel,
looming as he sauntered away on his chunky legs; shaggy headed, yes, but clean and crisp in his preppy jumper and his A&F shorts, walking light in his loafers, a pretty but gigantic young man who'd just called me a dog.

At home five minutes later, I mentioned nothing to Ivan, just double-checked my face in the mirror, to make sure I wasn't that much of a dog. I couldn't decide either way—I'd had a bottle broken in my face in a bar fight, and one of the scars from that night rambles right across my uneven nose. I inspected it and wondered about the meaning of toe-to-toe. In the bed or in the ring? It didn't matter. I smiled at my image before—absently, distractedly—joining Ivan on the couch.

We fumbled around in front of the TV, and I squeezed a few big-hearted cuddles out of my Ivan, and he laid a strip of kisses across my chest, while the TV couples and comedy families squabbled and one-lined each other. We fell asleep at some point, intertwined and sweating wherever our skin touched, behind my knees and on my chest where his head rested. I woke up a little later, untwined myself and went for a swim.

When I'm in the pool everything liquefies, myself included. On solid ground I feel fairly square with the boundaries between myself and other objects in the world, but in the pool those straight lines fall away and everything collapses and I whirl through the water, digging the sound it makes as it percolates through my head. I take pleasure in stretching time and space: I'm infinite when I extend my arm again and again—I'm the universe.

That night I swam for over an hour in my endless bubble state, watching the navy-blue tile floor revolve below me and around me like a marble globe, while outside the sky darkened
above the city and the orange clouds moved through me, inside and outside the building. It was good to be in the water then, with everything mixing together, with all the lines blurred, with the tiles and the city undulating past, rolling past without end, and me thinking of the giant boy with his giant hands, his heart the size of a bucket, his wide-eyed gaze.

My body was rubber when I pulled myself out of the water, into the dark.

Ivan was doing push-ups at the foot of the bed when I walked back into the apartment. He finished and looked at me, his chest and face galah-pink from pumping out a set. I smiled. “Have you always been such an ugly fucker, or is this something new?”

I didn't ruffle his feathers—no one could, he was unruffle-able. He just laughed. “Don't tell me you're only just working that out.”

There's something that separates Ivan and me, and it's not just the quiet space between us, or the length of the hall, or even where I end and he begins. Sometimes we're so close—I'll be inside him, or he'll be inside me—and I'll be free-falling without a net.

I sat on the sofa in front of the TV with the sound turned down. I looked at my hands: one held the TV remote; the other cupped my balls through my tracksuit pants. Ivan was in bed. Watching porn in semidarkness is like moving through water: time stretches out and nearly slows to a stop; my right fist becomes the universe; lines and boundaries blur when I'm bathing in the blue TV light.

I'm only interested in the beginning—the very beginning—of the encounter: the first flicker of possibility, the first glance, the first moment one man begins to lean his head toward the other's,
the unbuttoning of the top button. I shoved my hand into the waistband of my tracksuit, watching the men on the screen as they caught each other's eyes, gave each other a second glance. I rocked my cock in my right fist while the other fist rocked the remote, pausing, replaying in slow motion, pausing, replaying, pausing, replaying; recalling the exact moment earlier in the day when I first caught sight of Ben, with his long legs like tree trunks, his arms like tree branches: that exact moment when one guy first moves toward the other.

In the morning, Ivan woke me with his regular routine. He grinned over the ironing board, nodding toward my right arm, immobilized by my waistband, and asked, “How you going there, champ?”

“I could use a hand,” I said.

“Looks like you're doing all right there by yourself.”

I watched him from the black hole of the sofa that had swallowed me overnight. The rain that morning was heavy—it darkened the sky, and the apartment and the rest of the world—and since I never liked working in other people's gardens in such rain, I decided to reschedule all my work.

“I could use a hand,” I said again, nodding toward my crotch, right hand still thrust down the front of my pants.

“How do I look?” he asked and turned so I could get a look at his arse in his suit pants, then turned again to face me. He looked great, with sexy close-cropped salt-and-pepper hair and his Paul Newman eyes. His chest pressed tight against the light blue fabric of his shirt as he tied his tie.

“You're a bit too sexy, I think.”