March 17, 2015

Mitch:

Lachlan tries to do another card trick with his losing poker hand and smashes the cards down on the table when it fails again, sending one of the filthy bar cards flying to the floor. Preston guffaws and the sound of his own laughter makes him laugh even more. He leans over and puts his forehead on Rob's shoulder, the card game forgotten as he giggles into the taller man's green hoodie. Rob smiles and swats at the orange and white fuzz on Preston's cowboy hat that tickles his face as he moves a red chip into the middle of the table, causing Vik to rub his chin in drunken contemplation. Vik folds and reveals his pair of fours and he makes a face when he sees that Rob had absolutely nothing but had won, anyway. Preston throws his unrevealed cards in the middle and takes another gulp of beer, even though we can barely understand his slurring now. Lachlan grabs the remaining pile of cards and starts dealing them out while Vik tries to take the deck away from him to shuffle the used cards back in. They stare into each other's tired, half-lidded eyes before Preston starts cackling about something again.

"Look at 'em go!" Jerome snickers as he puts his empty mug down and points awkwardly at the four guys at the other end of the table while he barely holds onto his phone. He must be texting Helen again. I've seen him type something then look up to see if I'm watching him about twenty times now. He knew that him getting back together with his little flowery fling from high school would piss me off, and as much as I hate to admit it, it's working. I know that he gets jealous of my girlfriends, but I never thought I would be on the other side of that line.

Things didn't work out the first time they dated, so why would they try it again? She always acts like she is so innocent and flawless, like she is an angel who could do no wrong. The perfect girlfriend, the perfect kisser, the perfect hostess, the perfect cook. She is a cardboard cut-out of a 1940s housewife and if she played any more into the stereotypes they would be pumping out carbon copies of her for the As-Seen-On-TV section at Walmart. She is everything I hated about being female. He could do so much better than someone as boring, uptight, and traditional as her. Imagine all of the things he's missing out on when watching American Idol and falling asleep alone on the couch is the highlight of their scheduled date night. I have more fun than that on my own in the hot tub. "You okay?"

"Huh?"

"You okay? You drunk off your ass, too?" He spins his empty mug around on the table in front of him, his eyes trying not to meet mine. Why is he acting so guilty?

"No, I'm fine. You're the one who looks like a space case, dood." He bobs his head and pushes the mug down to the middle of the table, watching as the tipsy Lachlan recoils when he sees the movement. He glares at us and turns back to trying to see Vik's hand of cards over his shoulder.

"Yeah. Think I'm gonna turn in for the night. Someone's gotta be the one to go get coffee and Mickey D's and shit when these guys wake up tomorrow." He stretches and waves as he gets up from his chair, stuffing his phone and his hands into the front pocket of his hoodie defensively. I watch until his pointed leprechaun hat disappears into the crowded bar before I toss a couple of Euros on the table and walk in the opposite direction towards the bathroom, dodging through the crowd to circle back around to the door. Even though the other four are all drunk into oblivion, too, Vik isn't as saturated as the others and I don't want him to get any wrong ideas about what happened tonight. The early morning air is cold as I take my time walking back to the twins' infamous Reptile House after Jerome, the sidewalks gently swaying as I make up my mind once and for all. If he wants to talk about it so badly, then we're going to talk about it. I'll worry about the rest after I wake up and deal with my hangover.

It feels like hours have passed before I'm sliding the key into the lock on the front door. The lights in our room are on but he is nowhere in sight. I quietly shut the door with a click and lock it. I turn the lights off before I throw my Ireland garb on the chair by the bed with my keys and my wallet, and I duck into the closet when I hear the toilet flush. The sink runs for quite a while before he unlocks and opens the door. He stops and sways on the spot, frowning when he sees that he is suddenly standing in darkness instead of too-bright light. He rubs the back of his head while he tries to figure it out and I slowly swing the door open and walk over behind him. I snake my arms around his neck and he jumps from the unexpected contact. I feel him tense up until he looks down and sees the hands glowing on the watch he had bought me for my birthday. He lets out a soft sigh of relief and he cautiously reaches up and wraps his fingers around my wrists. We both smell like we've been pickled in alcohol as we lean against each other to keep ourselves upright, and I get a whiff of spicy chicken wings and deep-fried cheese from dinner when he leans his head back against my shoulder. We stand there for quite a while before he finally speaks.

"I didn't think you'd come back to the room tonight. After earlier."

"When was the last time Lachlan out-dared us?"

"But he got a picture of us kissing."

"It was just on the cheek. I've seen you go further than that with Shadow."

"Yeah, but..."

"Hmmm?"

"This's you and me we're talkin' about. You... We're not like that. We aren't Poofless." I let go of him just long enough to walk in front of him and I feel him slump at the loss of contact. I look at his dark outline against the grey curtains blocking out the light from the street outside the room window, and I slowly reach up to touch the side of his face. He inhales sharply as I run my thumb over the trimmed lines of his beard and put my other hand around his bony waist to ask him to stay.

"Who says we aren't like that?" I see his shadow move forward uncertainly and I lean closer to meet him firmly, pulling him flat against me as our lips come together like magnets. The taste of the cheap spearmint gum he bought from the airport fills my mouth and it blocks out the musty smell of beer and bar food lingering on his clothes. Something pokes me in the forehead and I reach up and grab his lame ass hat and toss it somewhere over by the bathroom. He gives a shuddering breath as he slowly wraps his arms around my hips and starts rubbing my lower back in long strokes. I reach up under his hoodie and t-shirt and run my fingers across his warm, smooth skin, playing with the sharp curve of his hip bones and gently tugging him toward the bed. He doesn't resist and we move backwards until my knees hit the end of the unmade bed and he pushes me onto my back on the stiff mattress. I break away from his lips for the first time so I can push myself up onto the middle of the bed and he eagerly follows, crawling up to rest on top of me between my legs with his hands on either side of my waist. My hands travel down from his back to rest on his ass, earning a smirk from him as I grab at him through his jeans. I bite down gently on his tongue when he tries to force it into my mouth and he withdraws it immediately and pulls away with a gasp.

"What the fuck was that for?!"

"I'm not your bitch. You have to earn it." He laughs quietly and I reach up to bring his lips back down to mine, running my teeth over his bottom lip to earn another gasp from him. He gives up on trying to control my mouth for the time being and he starts playing with the hem of my t-shirt, his fingers ghosting over the exposed skin on my stomach. He trails his hands along my hips and my ribs several times, testing to see if I'm going to swat him away. I have nothing to hide, not from him. His fingers find the slightly thicker scar tissue on the sides of my chest from the blood drains from my surgery and he gently rubs circles around it before moving on, searching for new things to discover.

I thrust my tongue into his mouth and I start exploring, lingering on the rough flesh of his now submissive tongue. He is finally starting to learn that I'm not just going to roll over for him. I reach between us and unbuckle his belt, and he starts to pull away from the kiss before he thinks better of it and gives in. I run my fingers along the outline of his bulge, feeling it get harder as I slowly palm him through his boxers. He is breathing heavily into the kiss and I feel his muscles tense up as he gets bolder. He pushes my shirt up and he runs his hands over my bare chest, starting at the middle and moving outward as he searches for my nipples. Either he still imagines me with a female body, or he has never taken the time to think about where they would be on another guy's chest. I feel him smile into the kiss before he pushes my tongue out of his mouth and moves his head down to my chest, careful not to move his cock out of my reach. I can't help but laugh as he fumbles around with his tongue, trying to find my left nipple again before he starts running his teeth over the hardened skin. Him nipping at thick, nerveless flesh is an interesting, empty feeling.

"That feel good?" he asks in what he was probably hoping was a seductive voice as he runs his fingernails down my sides.

"I honestly don't feel anything. It's one of the downsides of having top surgery."

"Oh."

"I appreciate the effort." He starts to move away in disappointment and I lean forward and catch his lips again to pull him back in. At this point, he has a damp streak across the front of his boxers and it feels like my bottom half just climbed out of the pool. He breathes sharply whenever I circle his tip through the scratchy fabric and I can tell he won't last much longer. I pull my hand out of his pants and his tongue withdraws in protest before I slide my fingers down the back of his jeans and push him down against me so our crotches are pressed together through the thick layers of denim. He pulls away and cautiously reaches down to unzip my jeans to remove part of the barrier before he slips past my tongue and resumes exploring the inside of my mouth. I grab his ass and bring him back down so our thinly veiled cocks will meet, mine mostly blocked by the thick silicone of my packer. I can't help but feel small compared to him, but I can't let that ruin the moment. He seems content to rest against me until I arch my back up to grind against him. The friction sends a powerful wave of electricity through me and I hear him moan at the pressure, too.

"Oh, fuck." Our make-out session is forgotten as I push up against him again and he responds by repositioning himself an inch or two lower and crushing our cocks together. Neither of us can hold back a sigh of relief and he pulls away just enough to do it again. He starts slowly until he finds his rhythm, with his rough hands holding my hips in place and my nails digging deep into the soft skin of his ass. In what seems like only a minute or two, he is pressed tightly against me, shuddering as he releases in his boxers with his face hidden in the crook of my neck. The bruising pressure of his cock pressing against mine sends me reeling over the edge, too, and he gently places kisses along the side of my neck as I lose control of my body. He gently pushes against me over and over again, smearing the cool fluid through my underwear and leaving a trail of his wetness across the bottom of my stomach. He collapses on top of me and rests the side of his face on my bare chest. His warm breath tickles the cold skin and he tucks his hands up under me to wrap his arms around my waist like he is afraid that I am going to get up and run away. We lay there in comfortable silence for a while before he turns his head to look up toward my face, even though he can't see me in the dark. "Are you okay with it?"

"Of course I'm okay with it. If I wasn't okay with it, it wouldn't have happened," I laugh as he starts tracing shapes on my back. Every touch feels a thousand times warmer and stronger than it did just a few minutes ago. I haven't lost it that hard in a really long time. Maybe this was a good idea, after all. We both got off to the speed of sound, and he got a taste of what life could be like if he let go of Little Miss Tightass. This was tame compared to how things could be.

"You, uh... You're not gonna get all pissy with me about it in the morning, are you?"

"As long as no one else finds out about it somehow, I have no qualms about it. You only live once, dood."

"Yeah. Sounds fair enough." He doesn't sound convinced but we are both too tired to debate about it now. The alcohol and the afterglow are both setting in and dragging us down, and the world feels fuzzy as I start to drift off. He carefully climbs off of me and moves over to lay against my side, grabbing the crinkled bedspread from the messy bed and throwing it over us. He puts his arms around my middle again and I slip my right arm around his shoulders to pull him in. He rests his head against my shoulder and finally finds a comfortable spot when I notice something stuck to the roof of my mouth and burst out laughing. "What?"

"Did you want your gum back?" He squints up at me in the dark as I reach for the empty water bottle on the table and spit the wad of bright blue gum in, then I shake the bottle around right next to his ear.

"Goddammit, Mitch. Stop stealin' my shit and get your own."

"Yours is always better."

"Damn right it is."