Wishing on a Blue Star (3 page)

Dale frowned. “You freeze that thing off and you won’t have anything to write with.” He pushed one of the laden packs aside to make room. “Come over here and warm me up.”

Merrick quirked an eyebrow and knocked the snow from his boots as he took them off. “Is that all you had in mind?” He left his boots and jacket, and as much of the snow that had been clinging to his pants as he could brush off, in the outer vestibule and crawled further inside. The wind rattled the outer flaps as he zipped the inner flaps closed and scooted across the small space to lean against Dale, careful not to upset the stove. “Sounds like it’s getting worse.”

“It probably is,” Dale said. “And when the sun goes down it’s going to get a helluva lot colder. We may have to share body heat to survive.”

Merrick laughed. “Ha! I knew you had an ulterior motive.” He cupped his hand behind Dale’s head and leaned in for a kiss. As always, the flare of passion that enveloped him, despite the rough stubble on both their faces, warmed and thrilled him in equal measure. Dale hummed as he opened for his partner and as always, the sound went straight to the base of Merrick’s spine, pooling there like molten silver. Merrick tilted his head slightly and dipped his tongue beneath Dale’s, finding and capturing that faint flavor that was the very hallmark of his partner’s identity. Dale obliged by lifting his tongue to caress the roof of Merrick’s mouth, still humming faintly. They separated when their mutual need for air overcame their desire and they laughed breathlessly.

Thanks again for all the comments!

Patric

Saturday, October 24, 2009

Busy night with the kids.

Honestly, how can I possibly grump about not getting anything written when the kids come over because they decided they wanted to carve pumpkins?

And of course, their daughter, Princess Leaks-a-Lot is forever a charmer, and I can never turn down an opportunity to snuggle the baby.

I can always write tomorrow, right? :)

Just Being

Jaime Samms

On the television screen, the six-legged, pink-freckled creature with three eye stalks reared up on its back legs, tromped onto the enemy critter and promptly collapsed. The game Spore was nothing if not an exercise in the absolutely ridiculous. I couldn’t explain why I loved it so much unless it was maybe because I could create anything at all, and no matter how foolish or impractical, it would excel at some part of the quest I needed it to fulfill. If only life could be like that.

But life is not a Wii game and being afraid of it is a little like not being able to breathe properly. Worrying about who you are and if people will like you tightens the screws and closes bands of fear around you until you forget what it ever felt like to breathe clean air or expand your lungs. I spent a long time squeezing myself into a box and shutting out the fresh air. Years and years, a little bit at a time, putting up the walls and locking the doors and being very careful not to take any chances.

Staring at that foolish pink critter on the screen, watching it hop and dance on command, the sounds of the game disappearing under the wail of my roommate Kennedy’s horrendous violin playing, maybe I just got tired. Maybe I was more afraid of suffocating than I was of poisoning myself with risk.

So I decided. I stopped holding my breath.

I just let it all out in one big sigh, and the best part about it was that, for once, Kennedy, stopped his incessant violin playing.

He played all the time. Badly. Really, really badly. And by all the time, I mean
all
the time. You have no idea. I thought I was used to it, but when he suddenly stopped for a minute the silence was so loud I didn’t even notice he was staring at me.

“Skippy?” his eyes, big, brown and doe-like behind his glasses bugged a bit more.

“Dude, you
seriously
have to stop calling me that,” I snarled at him as I came back to myself.

“Sorry.” Though the way he said it told me he wasn’t sorry at all. Probably the grin gave him away. “Are you okay? You look a little…flushed.”

“I-I’m fine. I just…”

He stood there, violin dangling, bow poised out from his body like he intended to use it as a rapier any moment. The sight, coupled with his skinny frame and shock of red hair, registered as hilarious and the final stick in the dam snapped. I rolled onto my back laughing.

He came over as my hilarity slowed and died and poked me with his bow. “That’s fine? I’d hate to see hysterical.”

I lay on my back looking up at his concerned face, wondering when he’d grown out of the geeky floppiness he’d had since college. “Why do you play the violin?”

“Um.” He tilted his head at me. “Hello, random.” He sat on the edge of the couch beside me and alternated fiddling with the hairs on his bow and glancing at me.  “Because. I like it.”

“You suck. You know that.”

I braced for him to get mad, but he just nodded. “I do. In more ways than one.” He never failed to grab an opportunity to remind me how very much he liked cock. This time, I found myself fascinated by his lips as he spoke. “I can play when you’re not here, if you want.”

“No!” I sat up, alarmed by the speed with which my mind fell into his gutter trap. I did imagine him playing, all alone in the house, but his violin never entered my mental picture. Heat flashed up to my hairline and he gave me a lascivious grin.

I pushed myself back to get a better look at him. He was always so calm, so still, and aside from that huge, knowing smile, he still watched me from a pool of steady patience. Of all the people I’d ever known, he was definitely the most geeky, the most ill fit to blend into society. And the most unaware of his awkwardness. I know I’d always felt on the inside the way he looked on the outside, but he never showed the first sign of caring what anyone thought.

I swallowed, unsure where all this deep analysis was coming from. “No. Don’t stop playing on my account. Lord. Six years. I barely hear it anymore.”

“So. What was the sudden gasp and abusing the game equipment all about?” He bent, picked up the Wii remote and handed it to me.

As my fingers brushed over his, all that sudden, illuminating freedom rushed like a retreating wave back inside and I clamped my lips shut.

For a long moment, he watched me, his gaze searching while I held my breath and my tongue. He sighed.

“You know, Skippy, after six years, you might not hear my playing, but I can hear what you’re not saying.”

“Yeah?” The room spun around me a bit, my vision narrowed, and there was Kennedy’s face at the center of it, a bad b-movie special effect.

A light, secretive smile crossed his face and he stood as he spoke. “I didn’t agree to share this house with you
just
for the cheap rent.” He swished a bit, letting the violin bow swing from thumb and forefinger as he walked away.  That shouldn’t have made me do a double take, but I was so busy watching his ass swish lightly down the hall I almost missed the kiss he blew over his shoulder.

And that was why I held my breath so much of the time. After six years, how did I say ‘I’m not really as straight as I’ve been letting on—exactly’, to the guy I wanted to nail? The guy who’d patiently watched me burn through one girlfriend after another and likely even made tea and cookies for them when I was too busy being a jerk to notice they needed the attention.

“Kennedy?” I’d followed him after a few minutes, and stood outside his bedroom door. He’d left it open a crack and I could hear him putting away his instrument.

“Come on in.”

I pushed the door open with two fingers, watched him setting the case on the shelf above his desk. His room was immaculate. He had a ton of stuff. Every bit of it was neatly stowed on the bookshelves around the room. One thing I always associated with him was this endless array of shelved stuff. Books and hobbies and clothes and things that mattered to him; so much of it and he never lost track of anything.

Turning toward me with a smile and a speculative look, he reminded me why I’d waited so long. Here was the one person in my life I could not risk. Better to hold my breath, keep my dubious peace, than to risk.

“You’re still not ready?”

“Ready for what?”

There went the room again, spinning, and him at the center. I reached out a hand to steady myself, and, oddly, it landed on his chest. Flat, a little bit boney, it didn’t feel like…

He smiled, and I realized I was fondling him, flexing my fingers against the soft flannel of the over shirt he always wore.

“Then again, maybe you are.” He layered his hand over mine, held it there. He was so warm. So close.

“Breathe, Skippy.”

“Can’t.” I managed to lift my gaze from my fingers curled around soft plaid to his lips. Almost to his eyes. It took his fingers under my chin to get that far.

“Let go.”

“I–”

His thumb touched my lips, quieting me. “Breathe.”

“How?”

“Just let it come naturally.”

“I don’t know what’s natural anymore.” It felt good to have his hand on the side of my face, though, and to feel his heart beating under my palm.

“This isn’t hard.”

“Uh–speak for yourself.”

He gave that brilliant comment the eye-roll it deserved.

“You’re not behaving like this is a surprise to you,” I said, wondering if I’d been hiding only from myself after all.

He stepped back a bit. “I’ve known you for six years.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t–”

“Know?” he tilted his head. “Really?”

“Well.” I tried to get annoyed, to be angry at him for being so matter-of-fact. “I don’t…know.” I could feel the clamps tightening again. The old habit of backing away, of telling myself no, surfaced and shuffled me backwards toward the door. Being afraid was what I knew.

“What do you think will happen if you let go?” he asked, like he was simply curious and not at all like he was trying to force the issue.

I opened my mouth.

He touched my lips with his fingers to stop me answering. “If you say ‘I don’ know,’ I’ll have to kiss you to shut you up.”

I closed my mouth again and for the first time, his eyes narrowed, his pale cheeks went a little paler. His bottom lip quivered up between his teeth and he let it go again.

“I’m scared,” I whispered, wondering if I was echoing his own feelings right then.

“Of a kiss?” his fingers on my face were gentle. “Don’t think I didn’t notice how you did that, making it look like you’re opening up, but still avoiding the inevitable.”

“Which is?”

He lowered his lashes and stepped out of reach.

“Wait. Wha-what are you doing?”

“I’m being responsible, Skippy.”

“Why?”

He sighed through a smile and sat on his bed. “Because this is important, and you might want to talk it through before you jump into sex.” He looked up at me and I saw exactly what he wasn’t saying. He didn’t want to get hurt.

“Well. No. I mean. Wait, sex?”

“Not that I’m easy or anything, Skippy, but six years.”

“Stop calling me Skippy.” I plopped onto the bed next to him. The air this close was thinner, easier to process.

“Kiss me.”

I did. A quick peck on the lips. He caught me by the back of the head and kept me there, his lips moving smoothly under mine, his tongue probing, and just like that, the light came on.

“It can’t be this easy,” I managed after a few minutes.

“Can’t it?”

I shifted a bit and before I knew it, he was straddling me, sitting there looking down into my eyes and tracing my face with the pads of his thumbs. “I’ve known who I’ve loved for six years. I stopped trying to pretend there was something else going on a long time ago.”

Love. I was not there yet. I was barely past the getting hard part and the sex. But there he was, looking into my eyes and just being. How was it so easy for him to just be? To just accept that any moment I might stand up and dump his ass on the floor. There was no going back to roommates now I knew what his tongue in my mouth felt like, but love…

“I’ve never been in love,” I told him.

“And I’ve never fallen for a straight guy, but things happen. You can’t predict life.”

“It sure as shit would be easier.”

He shrugged a shoulder and made a non-committal noise. “Would it? All this time, you’ve been predicting what I would say when you told me you wanted to nail me. So was convincing yourself it wasn’t worth the risk better than just saying what you want and letting the rest take care of itself?”

“I could be walking around with a violin bow up my ass right now. It doesn’t count to say it’s easier this way because this time it worked out.”

“It counts.” He moved so suddenly I was completely off guard and pinned against the mattress, the breath knocked out of me. “It all counts. Life is too short not to count every second.” As he talked, he kissed, first my lips, then down along my jaw and he kept going, undoing buttons along the way. “Most of the time, you don’t get to chose. You get swept along, not even realizing you don’t have your feet on the ground until they snag you and you’re tumbling, ass over teakettle.” His lips trailed across my chest, his tongue slithering over my nipple. “When life hands you a choice, make it.”

I couldn’t stifle the moan when his tongue laved lower, along the bottom edge of my ribs and down my side.  I was so engrossed in the sensations of warm tongue and cool air on the slick trail it left behind, I didn’t notice he’d opened my jeans until his lips nibbled at my hip bone and the chill of exposure sent a ripple of uncertainty through me.

“K-Ken–” I blinked and touched his hair, not sure if I wanted to guide him or pull him away. “Kennedy.”

“Breathe,” he whispered against delicate skin, “or don’t breathe.”

His fingers curled under the waistband of my jeans, ready on either side of me to pull them down.

I lifted my hips.

He didn’t give head like he played the violin. Or if he did, I didn’t notice. I was too busy immersing myself in the feeling of rightness, of relief, to pay a lot of attention to the details. It wasn’t that the physical sensation of Kennedy’s mouth on my cock felt all that different from a girl’s. It was the knowledge it was him, that he wanted it, wanted me, as much as I wanted him that pushed me up, higher and higher every time I let myself think about it. His deep, satisfied moan when I said his name dropped me into freefall I never wanted to end.