Soundtrack: Walter Reed, Michael Penn; Little Talks, Of Monsters and Men; The Ribs of A Broken Umbrella, Bell X1; Good Riddance, Green Day; Überlin, R.E.M.; Measuring Cups, Andrew Bird; Chocolate, Snow Patrol; The Great Defector, Bell X1; Holiday, Green Day; Me In Honey, R.E.M.; Lust for Life, Iggy Pop; Life Is An Adventure, Violent Femmes; Born To Run, Bruce Springsteen; The Passenger, Iggy Pop; Safe Travels (Don’t Die), Lisa Hannigan; Alphabet Soup, Bell X1. The password is AuKestrel.

I don't mind repeating I am not complete
I have never been the gifted type
Hey man, tell me something
Are you off to somewhere?
Do you want to go with me tonight?

- Überlin,” R.E.M.

Little Talks

2012 • AuKestrel

There’s some guy dancing with Stella, and she keeps forgetting to keep up appearances with Ray, because her parents left so she doesn’t care now.

Ray should have just left when her parents did, but at least he was sitting across the table from the hot Navy cousin... and when did he start thinking of guys as hot?

Oh, right... at the Academy. Full dress uniform, Tommy Hunsicker sucking him off on graduation day.

Yeah, that would be when it started. Officially.

Ray knows who the cousin is, of course: he’s the guy Stella’s parents think is worse than Ray.

Well, okay. Not that bad. At least his parents are rich, even if they don’t talk to him any more after he ran off and joined the Navy. There was something about a girl, too, but Ray’s had too much to drink to care about remembering, so he just smiles across the table instead.

The guy smiles back – what was his name? Started with a C... Chris? Christopher. That’s it. Christopher from Connecticut. Rich Christopher from rich Connecticut.

Then some lady with orange hair flies by and sits herself down on Christopher’s lap. She’s got a high, flighty voice but Christopher grins at her.

It’s a good time to make his bow, Ray figures. Hit the john, ignore the Stella, still dancing with the rich guy from Arizona.

Well, Ray doesn’t know if he’s rich, but the way Stella’s parents slobbered all over him, there’s gold somewhere in those hills, the same gold that’s all over the ceiling of this huge ballroom, even in the corners, even on the walls.

And Stella’s feeling guilty, Ray knows that – he knows everything about her. She wouldn’t even have asked except the last time she told her parents they had a fight and broke up, they went out and bought her a car, so she’s really not ready to tell them they’re broken up, for good, she says; but if she means it, why not just tell them?

So poor sad Ray jumped at the stick Stella held out, good dog, fetch me to the ball and I’ll dance with you, and he did, and they did, but then her parents left, and so did almost everyone else except the bridesmaids, the guys hoping to get laid, and Ray.

Oh, and Christopher.

Who somehow made it to the bathroom before him: he’s drying his hands when Ray comes in.

“Hey,” he says with a bright, rich smile. “Christopher Hayden. Ray, right? Stella’s boyfriend?”

“Ex,” Ray says, thanks, Christopher, almost had that one pushed down for five seconds.

Then he feels guilty for snapping, and tries to explain. Hell, Christopher’s some kind of relation to Stella, he’s gotta know how all this works. “She doesn’t want to admit we’re ex. I was kind of, uh, her rebellious phase.”

That’s what she said. Rebellious since 13, sure, whatever, Stel.

Rebellious since Ray got accepted into the Academy, more like: Stella’s going to law school and being married to a cop? Not in her plans. Funny how this breakup happened just in time for her to not go to his graduation ceremony. She skipped, his mom and dad skipped... thank God Tommy Hunsicker showed, right?

Anyway. “She didn’t want to deal with the drama again, not after last time we broke up.”

“What’d they give her?” Christopher asks. “A car? An apartment?”

Fuck, yeah.

He knows these people.

“A car,” Ray says, and for the first time he feels a real smile stretching his mouth. “It’s a four cylinder Japanese import but, hey, free car, right?”

“Tell her to tell them,” Christopher says, and Ray likes how his smile is echoed in his eyes. “She’ll get an apartment next. Or maybe even a house in Oak Park. Talbot had an alcoholic old aunt stashed there. Cute place.”

And he winks at Ray and leaves.

Ray’s thoughts are a jumble: he’s barely conscious of pissing, flushing, washing his hands, and when he goes back into the hall, he’s not thinking about Stella and Arizona any more, but about hot Navy guy. Who winked.

He stands a minute at the intersection of two hallways, trying to get his bearings: no valet parking, no, he needs the parking garage. And then he hears a door open and suddenly he’s being pulled backwards into a...

...a janitor’s closet.

By hot Navy guy.

Or maybe he’s drunk and passed out under the table, because this is really not the kind of thing that ever happens to Ray.

Except Tommy Hunsicker, his dick reminds him, and, yeah, his dick is not passed out, even if the rest of him is.

And neither is Christopher’s because when he pulls Ray in for a kiss – long, hot, and dirty – Ray feels the long, hot length of him all up and down Ray’s own cock.

“You looked like you needed a–”

“–friend?”

“I was going to say quick fuck but...”

“Oh, hell yes!”

It’s not until Christopher laughs that Ray realises he said it out loud, but who the hell cares?

“Shh,” Christopher says then, and he’s got a finger to his lips, grinning behind it in the dim light from the bare bulb, high above. “If Marilyn hears us, it’ll be a threesome, and I’m not man enough, Ray.”

Ray has no idea who Marilyn is, or what a threesome is. It’s all he can do to put two cocks together, two cocks and five fingers, no, make it ten, what’s that with tip, oh God, there it is, Christopher’s cock pushing up into Ray’s hand, warm and slick, getting slicker.

“You’re good with uniforms,” Christopher whispers in his ear, then bites it, and Ray shudders and squeezes, and Christopher shudders back.

“’m a cop, I better be,” he whispers back, licking his way up Christopher’s neck, perfect height for Ray’s tongue, and the thrill of saying he’s a cop, finally, makes it all even better.

“Sailor, cop... we just blew the curve,” Christopher says with a low chuckle against Ray’s neck.

“Please don’t bring up construction workers,” Ray says breathlessly, and Christopher has to bury his face in Ray’s shoulder so he doesn’t laugh out loud.

Or it was just an excuse to get Ray angled against the wall, by an old metal shelf with cleaning supplies on it, because now Ray’s pants are unfastened and there’s a hand inside, and Ray grabs Christopher’s wrist and moans into his shoulder, hanging on hard, hard-on hanging on, Jesus.

Christopher makes a noise that’s kind of a cross between a grunt and a hum, sliding Ray’s zipper all the way down, and Ray’s falling behind here, falling–

Christopher’s going to his knees but Ray hauls him back up, hauls him up and pushes him back against the wall. “You’ll get your uniform dirty,” he whispers, sinking to his own knees: Jesus, he’s been wanting to do this since graduation day, since Tommy Hunsicker–

“Christ!” he hears above him, and then he’s got Christopher all the way unzipped, all the way out, big cock dark against those white uniform pants; and Ray looks up, up up up, all the way up to Christopher’s face, looking down at him across a hundred brass buttons and acres of white. And Ray has to close his eyes, because, fuck, he’s going to come if he looks up at that for one more second. He doesn’t even dare touch himself: he’s on the edge of control right this second, just that fast.

Instead he takes a breath and leans in, and Christopher moans before Ray’s mouth even touches him, he moans just from Ray angling his cock into position.

That’s some awesome power, Ray thinks, almost dreamily: he remembers how his knees literally went weak when Tommy sucked him in, how he felt like he couldn’t stand up, but he had to, had to had to had to, had to push into Tommy’s warm wet mouth, so much bigger than Stella’s, had to push through Tommy’s big, hard hand, so much bigger than Stella’s; and Christopher’s pushing in and out, out and in, sliding in so easy, sliding back out, and he tastes salty and male, and so much better than Ray ever dreamed.

“Yeah,” he hears, soft, encouraging, from far above him, like the light bulb’s talking to him, and Ray sucks harder, closing his eyes again and letting Christopher’s cock fill his mouth as far back as he can take it, letting Christopher’s hands on his head guide him, feeling Christopher’s hand on his cheek, his thumb stroking the hollow where Ray’s sucking, where – oh, Christ, where his cock’s inside Ray’s mouth, and he can feel himself there.

Ray moans around Christopher’s cock without even thinking about it: suck, then moan, and Christopher moans too, and Ray can feel Christopher shake under his hand, the one that’s braced on Christopher’s thigh. So he slides that hand up while he’s sliding his other hand down, down down down to his own cock, rock hard and dripping all over the floor, he feels like one touch and he’ll go off but he knows he won’t, he just wants to feel, feel his own cock, hard in his hand like Christopher’s cock hard in his other hand, hard in his mouth.

Both hands are slippery, both hands are bumping up against the soft crunch of hair, both cocks are hard, getting harder, and Ray squeezes his eyes shut and sucks hard, harder, faster, both hands moving faster.

He hears a whispered, “Fuck!” and then his name, a hand in his hair, on his head, pulling him back–

“Ray!” Christopher says, sounding desperate, and Ray feels the cock in his mouth swelling, and he lets go of his own cock so he can hang on with both hands, hang on tight, swallow, swallow again, trying hard to keep up, and, wow, there’s a lot of it, who knew?

“God, oh God,” and Christopher’s head thuds back against the wall, not trying to push Ray away any more, just hanging on to Ray’s hair and breathing hard. Ray feels kind of triumphant on top of all the horny: he did it, he knew he could do it, why’d he wait so long to do that? Why didn’t he grab Tommy the way Tommy grabbed him and–

Christopher’s pulling away now, finally, and trying to haul Ray up. He’s about Ray’s height but he’s strong, muscled under all that uniform, and Ray stumbles, trying to find his feet and wipe his chin at the same time.

“Fuck,” Christopher says again, right in his ear, right before his mouth finds Ray’s and he pulls Ray against him, Ray’s cock just as hard and big and dark as Christopher’s, Christopher’s cock still poking him.

He’s still hard, Jesus, is it the Navy or what? That turns Ray’s crank all over again and he’s about fifteen seconds from coming when Christopher tries to drop down again. “Your uniform–”

“Fuck the uniform!” Christopher hisses, and, fuck yeah, Ray is all over that, but–

“Hang on, hang on.” He pulls at his tie, loosening it more, realises that’s not going to help, then pulls his jacket off, sacrificing it to the dusty floor and to the gods who sent him the hot Navy guy. “Go, go, go!”

“Oh, fuck, yeah,” Christopher breathes, sliding down down down, his mouth hot and wet on Ray’s cock. And that’s all it takes, Ray doesn’t even have a chance to be polite, he’s jerking and coming from his toes up, but Christopher swallows it all down, sucking Ray fast and hard and loud and swallowing just as loud.

And then Christopher’s back up on his feet, so fast Ray’s almost dizzy, kissing Ray’s ear, Ray’s jaw, his hard cock poking Ray’s soft one, and Ray’s breathing in time to Christopher’s thrusts: it just seems easier somehow.

There’s voices, loud laughter from the corridor and Christopher turns his head, burying his face in Ray’s shoulder and dragging in a deep breath. Ray mirrors it, pulling Christopher in closer and taking another second to enjoy how good he feels, warm solid muscle wrapped in bright white uniform plastered all over Ray, God, there’s a picture.

“God,” Christopher breathes, startling Ray for a millisecond, the echo outside his head, “I want to fuck. Do you want to fuck?”

And swear to God Ray’s cock jerks, and if he hadn’t just come he’d be splattering all over that fucking uniform, those brass buttons: suddenly this sounds like the best idea since about five minutes ago. “Where?” Oh, please, God, let him be staying in the hotel.

But no, Ray’s life does not work out that way, it never works out that way–

“Room 504,” and he drops his head to Ray’s shoulder again, breathing hard; he’s saying something else but all Ray can hear is Oh thank God!

He hopes he didn’t say that out loud.

But he must have, because Christopher’s grinning while he straightens up, zips and buttons himself, and that’s taking some time, fitting that back behind those white, white pants. “Did you think I’d be staying with Talbot and Stephanie? Although now I kind of wish I was.”

“Well, that would be one way to make sure she got the house in Oak Park.” Ray has a brief, wistful, fantastic moment imagining the look on Talbot’s face, and even better, the look on Stephanie’s. He’s not sure they wouldn’t explode, or collapse in a perfectly manicured heap, and he can almost hear the sounds of their martini glasses shattering when they fall, but his fantasy gets interrupted by the sound of Christopher snorting into his shoulder, using Ray to muffle his laughter, trying not to be loud and making more noise than he would if he’d just let it out already.

At the same time, what’s not funny is why he’s not staying with them: their living room could sleep an entire Guatemalan village and have room left over for some stray donkeys. But it could be that Christopher’s a distant cousin or something and doesn’t qualify for the family rate.

“How do you know Stella?” Ray asks, zipping himself up and trying to put his tie back together: he has to know her, has to know them, he calls them by their first names the same way Stella always has, since he met her, since before that, probably.

Christopher leans in and ties it for him, expertly, and Ray finds himself running his hands up Christopher’s solidly muscled arms again. “Stephanie,” Christopher says, sticking a finger behind the knot of the tie and adjusting it. “She’s my mother’s sister.”

Now Ray is racking his brain trying to remember just what happened with Christopher: it wasn’t that long ago, couldn’t have been, must have been his first year of college, and there was a lot of buzzing at those parties Stephanie always threw around the holidays; finally Stella had said she was fed up with hearing about it and if Christopher wanted to join the Navy, that was his business. That wasn’t like Stella: Ray still remembers the way she glared at Stephanie and the way Stephanie shut up, which he’d never seen happen before. He didn’t particularly care one way or the other, but that was Stella, taking up for someone who wasn’t there to defend himself.

Still, joining the Navy gets you uninvited to your aunt’s house for a family wedding? In Stella’s family, anyway... Ray wonders if it’s too late to join the Marines.

And there he goes again, thinking about Stella-and-future, like it’s not over, and his gut flips at the thought of Stella and Arizona, maybe heading up to Room 505 for Friday night fun time.

“It’ll do,” Christopher says finally, tucking Ray’s shirt collar into his jacket collar, his head still cocked to one side. Of course, he looks like he just stepped out of a recruiting brochure. He looks more closely at Ray, stroking Ray’s chin with his thumb. “You okay? Having second thoughts?”

“No,” Ray says, and he tells the truth: “Stella thoughts.”

“Hey, I’m sorry,” Christopher says, grabbing Ray’s shoulder and squeezing it. “It seems crazy, and it seems like a great problem to have, but when you have to live with it, the easier way is saying nothing. At least for a while. Until you can’t any more.”

His grin twists, suddenly and heartbreakingly sad, and Ray forgets Stella, forgets everything for a few seconds: he takes Christopher’s face in his hands and kisses him. “No, hey, it’s good,” Christopher says against his mouth. “You can get out.”

“The Navy was better?”

“God, way better,” Christopher says with such conviction that Ray laughs, his stomach muscles finally relaxing. In a way, Stella did get out: Talbot wanted her at Harvard, and Stephanie thought Columbia was perfect, but Stella chose Northwestern and surprisingly, to Ray anyway, Stella got her way.

“She’ll figure it out,” Christopher says, holding Ray’s hands with his own. “If she wants to. One of the weird things about growing up like we did, it makes strong women. My mother, my aunt, they got locked into a life they chose, and it’s a chicken/egg thing. But the daughters, they’re not choosing that. Or they have a choice, not to choose that. She might not choose that. I know a girl who didn’t.”

“Yeah,” Ray says, pushing away thoughts of Room 505: Stella’s not stupid, and she is strong, and she’ll land on her feet no matter which way the martini glasses break.

“What’s your poison?” Christopher says briskly, like, there, that’s done, let’s move on, and for strange second it reminds Ray of Stella, or, maybe, since he’s got them on the brain, Talbot, the way he moves the conversation on from something he...

...something he doesn’t want to talk about.

Huh.

Stella said once that a cocktail shaker was Talbot’s security blanket, not in the sense that  he drinks too much but in the sense that it’s a great way to change the subject or redirect the conversation, because he mixes the drinks right there in the living room, on a cart that the maid wheels in. And after she pointed that out, Ray started to notice that if Stephanie was politely asking how classes were going at the Academy, or if he was learning to shoot at people, the cocktail shaker came out and there was never enough ice, and Stephanie had to go get the maid and then Talbot would go off after her, and when conversation started up again, it would be about Bitsy’s dance or Stella’s course load or the charity golf tournament.

He’s starting to think there’s a cocktail shaker or two in Christopher’s past.

“No tequila,” he says tardily, realising Christopher’s been waiting patiently.

“Scotch? Vodka?”

“You?” Ray says, wanting to get that easy, warm grin back, the one that goes into his eyes, get rid of that cocktail-shaker voice, that practised smile.

And that does it: Christopher looks startled for a half second, then grins big and he’s not sure which of them leans in for another kiss, they meet in the middle somewhere, and about a minute later they’re both gasping for breath and Christopher moans when Ray palms his cock through his pants: it’s hard again (still) and it’s all Ray can do not to undo all the carefully put back together pants and shirts and jackets and ties that Christopher just finished, well, putting back together.

“Okay,” he says against Christopher’s mouth, when it’s clear he’s not going to stop Ray, and Ray really, really wants to get out of this suit and get naked.

“Yeah,” Christopher says, more of an exhale than a word. “Yeah, okay. Um... if you see Marilyn, just run. Find a stairwell, run. Don’t go in the men’s room, she’ll follow you.”

“The redhead?” Ray says, finally putting two and two together and not really sure if Christopher’s joking.

“That’s the one.” Christopher eases the door open a crack, then pulls it wider. There’s still music coming from down the hall and Ray hopes that Stella’s still dancing and not in Room 505; but it’s not his business, not now.

They do stop at the bar, where Christopher negotiates for a bottle of Scotch. Ray enjoys watching: the bartender starts out bored and not very nice and ends up throwing in a couple of glasses. Ray’s right there with him: if he was the bartender, and Christopher was smiling at him from inside that uniform...

So they make it to the elevator bank, with Scotch and without Marilyn–

Spoke too soon: he hears the trill of laughter even as he sees Christopher’s eyes widen: “Christopher! There you are!”

Ray hears a clink and realises Christopher’s ditched the glasses in a plant. Gearing up for a run to the stairwell? He tries to remember where it is.

Then it gets worse: she focuses on him. “Oh, poor dear,” she says. “If it’s any consolation, she seemed to be having words with that grotty little Furness.”

Ray’s pretty sure she’s not talking about an actual furnace, which Arizona was kind of the size of, which is not little, and so she’s not talking about Arizona at all. Maybe. Maybe she thinks he’s someone else: she seems half drunk. Maybe three quarters.

“They’re ex,” Christopher says, and it seems noble to Ray, him drawing her attention back to him, because he literally has no idea what to even try to say to her.

“Ohhhh,” she says, her eyes even wider than a minute ago, which Ray wouldn’t have thought was even possible. “Revenge sex, dear? Is that wise?”

“Uh...” Ray says intelligently.

She winks at him, and it’s weirdly fascinating how much like Christopher she’s not. “Mind if I join you?”

“I was showing him the way to the garage,” Christopher says firmly, getting hold of her shoulder and turning her away from Ray. “Go back to the party, Marilyn, and don’t start any rumors about Stella.”

Her smile fades and Ray’s left with an uncomfortable feeling in his stomach. She looks down at the bottle in Christopher’s hand and then back up at Christopher, and then there’s another smile on her face, not nearly as nice as the last one. “You’d think Straub and Francine would have welcomed Lorelai with open arms.”

Christopher turns as white as his uniform and Ray has an instant of absolute, blinding rage before he sees, almost in slow motion, what to do, thanks to Stella: they don’t care what you think, but they think you care what they think; and you have to not care.

He looks Marilyn up and down. Then: “No, thanks,” he says, and turns away from her to Christopher. “Show me the garage, Chris.”

He’s not sure if it’s the name or the hand on his elbow, but Christopher looks down at his hand and then back up again, and the world seems to steady under Ray’s feet when he smiles. “Yeah,” he says, and Ray’s pretty sure the monosyllable is all he can manage, but it sounds natural, even dismissive, so points to Christopher for that, and points to him for walking, not running, to the the last elevator in the bank.

He doesn’t look and he hopes Christopher doesn’t either; instead he starts talking, as naturally as he can, about his car: “Hey, at least you’ll get a chance to see the Goat.”

That gambit works great: Christopher seems to wake up or snap out of it, and as the door slides shut, he’s saying eagerly, “You have a GTO? What year?” and he sounds just like a kid, just like Ray probably sounded when his dad handed him the paper and said he thought they’d got one.

But it was part of the act because as soon as they hit P2, as soon as (he guesses) Christopher’s sure that Marilyn’s nowhere to be seen, Christopher stops talking about cars and the Honda Rebel he just bought that’s still in Coronado because he won’t have time to ride it in Georgia. “I bet Stephanie hates you,” he says, almost confidingly, and Ray laughs, because he’s pretty sure Christopher’s right.

“Is she going to make any more trouble?” he asks, jerking his head backwards.

“That’s all she does,” Christopher says. “On the other hand, you might have upset her so much she’ll start stealing silverware again, and that’s always family fun time.”

He sounds like he means it, and Ray guesses that, yeah, he can see where potential jail time for Marilyn would be amusing to at least some parts of the family: Christopher for sure, probably Stella, who knows?

“If she ends up naked in a fountain again,” Christopher says, “Talbot might give me the house in Oak Park. He can’t stand her either.”

“Maybe I should have gone with my first instinct,” Ray says, leading the way down the back of the garage.

“Which was?”

“To deck her.”

Christopher stops walking and grabs Ray’s arm, spinning him around, and how’d he do that one handed? The next thing Ray knows is his back against a concrete pillar and Christopher’s mouth on his, Christopher’s free hand in his hair and the bottle pressed between them.

Okay, looks like they are going to Ray’s place after all.

“Better not,” Christopher says against his mouth. “Then Talbot would love you and Stella would never speak to you again.”

“Because she likes Marilyn?” Ray says, having trouble keeping up, no, not keeping that up, that’s just fine, thanks, oh God is it, but the Stella weirdness–

“No, because, face it, Ray, her parents not liking you is the icing on the cake,” Christopher says impatiently, like Ray’s the slow learner here.

And, you know, Ray knows that. It just hurts to hear it: it’s true, but it hurts.

When you look at it that way, it was actually pretty nice of Stella to break up before graduation so that he didn’t keep hoping, so he wasn’t introducing her to the future, so that he wasn’t thinking Cop-Ray + Stella-Lawyer 4 Ever 2 Gether with a heart around it.

“God, I’m sorry,” Christopher says, stepping back, and Ray grabs at him. “I’m a dick. Look–”

“No,” Ray says, forcing the word out somehow. “No, it’s true. She said the same thing. I’m the path–”

“No,” Christopher says angrily, cutting him off before Ray can even get the words out: how does he know what Ray’s going to say? “You’re the nice one. Nicer than either one of us deserves. And that is why you are fucked, my friend. You are fucked.”

“Promises,” Ray says, and if his voice sounds harsh it’s because he’s hoping it won’t crack; and he hauls Christopher, his turn, around the side of the pillar and against the GTO, white uniform, black GTO, that’s fuel for a month’s worth of fantasies right there.

“God!” Christopher says, one hand splayed out on the door where he caught himself but he’s already turning around.  ”Jesus, look at this thing! 66? 67?” 

“Yeah, 67 HO,” Ray says from right behind Christopher, right in his ear, pressing him against the car, one hand going around Christopher’s chest to hold him up, the other one pulling him back against his groin so Christopher can feel Ray lined up nice and tight against his ass. Ray’s done with talking, done with thinking: he’s had enough of Stella and her family, enough of everything but Christopher, right now, at least for now.

And Christopher’s on the same page: he turns his head so they can kiss, rubs his ass against Ray’s dick, and still manages to hang on to that bottle. “Are we going to fuck right here?”

“Could,” Ray says against his neck, fitting his hand around Christopher’s cock. “Have.” God, has he: if this was Stella, and she was in the right mood, she’d be pushed up onto the hood right now, her legs wrapped around his waist–

“I bet you have,” Christopher whispers against his chin, and then he bites there, just there where he whispered. And then his empty hand is between them, fumbling with Ray’s fly, and Ray shudders: he hadn’t been sure what Christopher really meant but now it’s pretty clear.

The elevator dings, a soft distant noise, and there’s the sound of low talking, the sound of high heels clicking on the cement.

“Not here,” Ray says into Christopher’s ear, pushing once more against his hand, against his ass. He’s got a good idea how this works, but he sure as hell doesn’t want to tackle it for the first time in a parking garage.

“Yeah,” Christopher says, and Ray can feel him swallow. “Just imagining what it would be like to fuck on the hood of that car with the engine running. I’ve been trying to figure out how to fuck on my bike.”

Ray can’t do anything but laugh: it’s laugh or come, he’s so fucking turned on, and he can’t, won’t come, not again, not yet. “Car,” he says, fumbling the keys out of his pocket. He drops them and Christopher laughs along with him.

The car helps calm Ray’s heartbeat; it’s stopped pounding by the time they get to the cash exit. By the time they cross the river, his breathing’s almost normal, and he finally risks a look at Christopher, who’s lounging in the passenger seat, his legs spread wide, his dick still tenting his pants, the bottle still clutched in his hand. He sees Ray glance at him and he looks over and smiles. “You got your own place?”

Ray takes a second to work that out: does he live alone? “Yeah. It’s a third floor walk up, so, cheap, and pretty convenient to the Academy and home. I grew up in the next neighborhood down.”

“You really are a cop?”

Ray laughs. “You really are a sailor? Yeah, I graduated last month. This turned out to be my first weekend off since I started.”

“Just finished BUD/S,” Christopher says, nodding. “I’m heading to Ft. Benning for jump school next week. This week.”

Well, that explains the muscles: “You’re a SEAL?”

“Almost,” Christopher says, and there’s some grim there. “If I can handle being thrown out of a plane, I guess.”

“Can’t be worse than...” Ray starts to say “Marilyn,” then stops, but Christopher just nods.

“Yeah, that’s pretty much how I got through it,” he says. “It’s not always who’s the best.” He makes a one-handed air quote around “best.” “Sometimes it’s just the guys who won’t give up. And this is it, this is my last chance to make it on my terms, to be... man, I don’t know. Who I want to be, or at least not who they think I am.”

Ray doesn’t know what to say to that: he’s felt exactly, exactly the same way, except he thinks he knows, now, who he wants to be.

Well, professionally speaking; personally speaking, he seems to be more fucked up than he was yesterday, and yesterday that seemed impossible to imagine.

On the other hand: sex. The first sex he’s had since graduation and, no offense, Tommy, Christopher’s way hotter. It maybe wasn’t the first time Ray had wondered what it would be like but it was sure as hell the first time he consciously let himself wonder in another guy’s mouth, and then, tonight, let a guy wonder in his mouth; and it’s surprisingly good, it’s all good. Oh, not that he can’t think of Stella without an instant hard-on; but now he can’t think of Christopher without the exact same reaction.

Maybe Ray’s just a horndog who’ll have sex with anything who wants him.

Okay, not Arizona.

Hey, and not Marilyn, either, he thinks, and that makes him almost laugh out loud and feel better at the same time. Guy’s got some standards.

“You okay?” Christopher says quietly, looking ahead again.

“I’m not freaking out,” Ray says, just as quietly. Honesty’s worked so far tonight, so he tells the truth again: “It’s just not what I was – not what I thought I... you know, wanting both.”

“You do want both?” Christopher says, and he doesn’t  sound mad, just curious.

“Yeah,” Ray says, startled: he guessed he was thinking they were in the same boat; it sure sounded like a girl’s name, the name Marilyn mentioned. “Don’t you?”

“...I don’t know,” Christopher says after a long while, and his knuckles are shiny white on the bottle, reflecting the lights on the garages in the alley where Ray’s got a parking space. As Ray’s backing into the space, he finally says, “I don’t think so.”

“Is that hard, in the Navy?” Ray says, looking at the steering wheel. He wants to know, he wants to fuck, he wants to kiss Christopher and suck him off again, and he doesn’t know how to do any of it right now.

Christopher takes the cork out of the bottle and takes a swig, then wipes the back of his mouth and holds the bottle out to Ray. “It’s not as hard as you’d think,” he says. “There were at least four guys I know of, starting out, who, uh... There’s two of us left. Anyway, it’s a lot easier than being sent to Camp Cure-A-Queer.”

Ray takes the bottle and his own swig. “So your parents said camp or Navy?”

Christopher takes a breath and then takes the bottle back. “No, the camp was punishment for honesty. Marilyn was right about that: you’d have thought Straub, at least, would have welcomed Lorelai as proof that his son wasn’t queer.”

There’s the name, beautiful, exotic. “Your girlfriend?”

“My best friend,” Christopher says, like he’s arguing with Ray. “I was... I don’t know, we were drunk, we were happy, she’s so happy, and I was trying to prove something. I proved it, all right: she got pregnant. But I realised at the same time that... I wasn’t. That that wasn’t me.”

“And you told them?”

“No,” Christopher says with a bitter laugh. “Lor fell on her sword for me. She knew – I told her, I mean, so she knew – and she told them she wouldn’t marry me. I’d have married her, just to shut them up, and to be with her, I don’t – didn’t – care. But when they went after her, not just Straub and Francine, but Richard and Emily, when they went after her, I told them, told them why she wouldn’t, and that was the end of that. I was at camp 24 hours later, and at the nearest Navy recruiting station 24 hours after that. Lor met me there: she got the signature from Straub, I still don’t know how, and I joined up.

“They gave me leave when the baby was born, and the Navy makes it easy to send her child support. But she ran away too, after Rory was born, and she doesn’t talk to any of them any more. She’s working at an inn, small town Connecticut. She says she’s happier than she’s ever been. I don’t know. So I knocked around in boot camp, got a rec for OCS, and in OCS one of my buddies was going to try BUD/S and we started training together for it. It sounded good to me: California was as far away from Connecticut as I could imagine. Actually, it sounded great to me. Still does,” and he smiles, an almost shy smile, like he still can’t believe he’s sitting here in his uniform.

Ray knows that smile; he’s caught himself doing it, off and on, since he got accepted into the Academy. “Yeah, that’s pretty cool.”

Christopher holds the bottle out again, but Ray shakes his head: he just wants to taste the Scotch on Christopher. And Christopher seems to know what he’s thinking, again: he leans over, one hand on Ray’s neck. He tastes even better this way, and Ray’s breath catches, wondering what he’d taste like there, with Scotch–

“Let’s–”

“Okay, we–”

They both laugh and Ray leans over to kiss him quickly, softly. “C’mon. Bring the Scotch.”

“And the cannoli,” Christopher says, and winks again, and that’s going to be the end of Ray, he’s going to die in a puddle of come on the front seat of the GTO and his dad will never get over that either.

Thunder rumbles in the distance as Ray locks the car, and he and Christopher both look up at the same time. Too much to hope that Marilyn gets struck by lightning in a fountain, he supposes, but he doesn’t say that out loud. He doesn’t think he could handle a tenth of what Christopher must have gone through at the elevator bank, but Christopher doesn’t seem fazed. Or he’s good at hiding things.

Which makes a lot more sense.

Anyway, Ray’s not going to rub salt in that wound.

Scotch, maybe...

So he doesn’t waste time, once they get inside: he has his tie off right after his belt and right before his shoes; and Christopher’s not far behind, belt, then starting on his jacket.

“No,” Ray says, his hands over Christopher’s; and Christopher’s hands slow, then stop; and then Christopher reaches up and eases Ray’s jacket off. Ray helps, shrugging off one shoulder, then the other, while he unfastens Christopher’s pants again, works his way through Christopher's underwear again, a weird combination of boxers and briefs, but really fucking stretchy so all Ray has to do is pull the waistband down. And Christopher is hard, so hard, and his skin is hot and soft and his dick is slippery at the end. Ray takes a swig of the Scotch Christopher put on the bill table, then sinks to his knees: this is what he wants to taste, Scotch on Christopher, just to see if it tastes like he imagines it should.

And it does: salty sweet with bitter vanilla undertones: it’s smooth, no bite at the back of his throat, so he pulls off and takes another drink and glances up at Christopher, who’s staring down at him with his tunic and his mouth partly open. And Ray grins up at him, grins up and says, “Mmm,” and slides Christopher’s cock right back into his mouth. And this time is even better, not just because of the Scotch but because he can concentrate on the taste, the feel, the strength of Christopher, in his mouth, on his tongue.

He could swear Christopher’s cock is even harder and fatter than it was before, so he uses both hands to hold him there, to hold Christopher at the base. His thumb, wet from saliva, slips down and presses against Christopher’s balls, and Christopher jerks, moaning, both hands on Ray’s head now. God, that has to feel good, Ray loves to play with his own balls when he jerks off,so he slides both thumbs down, then a whole hand, reaching down and behind to free his balls. It’s not easy: they’re high, high and tight, and before Ray processes what that means, Christopher’s grunting and his cock’s jerking and spurting in Ray’s mouth again.

“Oh, God,” Christopher gasps, one hand on Ray’s cheek again. “Again, sorry, I couldn’t–”

Ray grins up at him, leaning back on his heels and taking another drink of the Scotch just to see what it all tastes like, and, fuck, it’s good, he’s so hard he could pound nails, he could suck on that forever–

“Let me taste,” Christopher whispers, but he’s not trying to take the bottle; he’s kneeling down, too, to kiss Ray, to take Ray’s mouth, not leave an inch of it untasted, unexplored; and he moans into Ray’s mouth, like he’s getting turned on again, which is practically–

Well, not impossible, clearly impossible was not the word Ray was looking for here. Hard, yeah, and big, and aching, that would be Ray’s cock, and maybe Christopher’s, sooner and not later, because now Christopher’s got the bottle, upended and back down before Ray can blink. and then Christopher’s got Ray spread out on the floor, unbuttoned, unzipped, his pants halfway to his knees before Ray can blink again.

“Too – many – clothes,” Christopher says with a grunt as he finally gets his jacket off, and Ray has to agree, wrestling with his own shirt.

He supposes they could be adult about this, mature, get up, take the clothes off, maybe even fold that uniform up, but where’s the fun in that?

And it is fun when Christopher raises up and pushes his own pants all the way off; Ray’s got enough room to do the same to his, and they can finally, finally spread out, cock to cock, chest to chest, even if Ray still has his underwear on, even if Christopher’s cock is still hanging out, even if they’re not quite naked yet.

It’s like Christopher read his mind: he sits up, straddling Ray, and strips Ray’s t-shirt off. Then he grabs the Scotch again and splashes some on Ray’s chest.

Ray’s never had anyone lick him there, in the middle of his chest, and he’s never had anyone suck his nipples: if this is what the Navy teaches you, Ray’s tax dollars have never been put to better use. Amazing hand-tongue coordination too: while Christopher’s sucking, his hands are busy working Ray’s boxers down, down and off, and Ray wrestles them off with a kick and a thrust that brings him into full-cock contact with Christopher, his own hands working Christopher's underwear down the same way, until Christopher rolls and kicks and they're gone too.

He’s not sure what Christopher’s gasping – his own voice is too loud in his ears, pleading with Christopher not to stop. But he does: Christ, he’s good at this, and, Christ, Ray’s balls have got to be indigo by now. Christopher sits up again, pushing their cocks together slow and then stopping altogether, and then he strips off his own t-shirt.

Ray’s not sure where to look first: Christopher’s nipples, sticking out, or all that hair, giving the nipples a place to stick out of. “Christ,” he says, and this time he says it out loud, running his hands up Christopher’s six pack, straight up to his pecs, God, thank you for taxes and PT and chest hair–

Christopher lifts up when Ray’s fingers find his nipples: he lifts straight up and then comes down again so Ray’s cock is right up against his ass, pushing up, and Christopher’s pushing down, and there has to be a better way to do this but Ray can’t think of anything that could be better.

At  least not until Christopher pushes hard, then shifts and pushes again, one hand going down to the base of Ray’s cock to steady it, the other bracing himself on Ray’s thigh.

“Jesus,” Christopher pants. “You’re so fucking big.” He pushes again and Ray swears he hears Christopher growl, like he’s frustrated. Ray’s not so much frustrated as insane: he doesn’t know where to push, what to touch, what to do, next. “It’s not working,” and he’s not sure if it’s him or Christopher who’s talking.

Yeah, insane: this is insane, there’s a bed ten feet away, and if Christopher really does want to fuck (duh, Ray), this way is definitely not working. Ray’s not sure what way would, but, hey, they’re guys, if there’s one thing they can do, it’s fuck.

“We’ll make it work,” he says, pulling Christopher down for a kiss. “C’mon, breathe: we’ve got all night.”

Christopher laughs against his mouth and kisses him again, his body relaxing down onto Ray’s, and this is good, this is great, they could just–

But apparently Christopher was listening, apparently he has a plan, because he’s pulling off and away, getting to his feet and getting the bottle of Scotch at the same time, and it takes Ray a few seconds to realise Christopher’s offering him a hand up. “I keep forgetting,” Christopher says, pulling him in for another kiss. “I keep forgetting I don’t have to be anywhere at 0500.” He grins and Ray grins too: the Academy was close enough to that, sometimes, that he knows what Christopher’s talking about. So while Christopher takes another pull at the bottle, Ray regroups, mentally and physically.

First things first: the uniform. It’s all Christopher’s got to wear, so Ray picks it up and folds it over the back of a chair; when he turns back to Christopher, Christopher’s got his suit jacket and pants held out so he can stack those up too, and then he turns and bends over to get Ray’s shirt and Ray gets an eyeful of his ass.

Yeah, Christ, that is pretty small compared to Ray’s cock, but his cock feels like it has a mind of its own and two steps later his hands are on Christopher’s hips and his cock is fitting right up in there, snug against Christopher’s ass.

“Oh, God,” Christopher chokes, pushing back against him and grabbing Ray’s ass with the same hand that’s full of shirt. “God, yes–”

“It’s never going to fit,” Ray says, and he knows it can, he knows it’s possible, but he doesn’t see how. “How the fuck–”

Christopher spins around fast, practically climbing Ray, his arms like steel under Ray’s hands. “Condoms. Lubricated. It works, it’s enough, but they’re in my hotel room.”

Ray’s still not convinced: he and Stella have used those and it’s still not enough, even the lubricated ones, because she’s pretty small and he’s... well, not; but first things first: “Okay, Chris, you’re not the only guy with condoms in this room.”

Christopher laughs and Ray starts walking them towards the bed and, more important, the nightstand. “Condoms?” Christopher’s saying. “Stella’s not on the pill? Are you kidding?”

He supposes he ought to feel worse than he does right now to hear Stella’s name, but with Christopher it’s hard to feel guilty; it’s hard to feel anything but hard, and maybe it’s because Christopher’s so matter of fact about it, the way Stella would be if this was all reversed somehow. So Ray’s matter of fact too: “Birth control failure is not an option,” and Christopher’s eyes crinkle even before the grin hits his mouth; Ray guesses he does a pretty good Stella imitation by now. “The pill and condoms. For all I know, she has – had – has an IUD too.” He feels Christopher hit the bed: it really is only ten feet from the door, through an archway: they can’t call it a one bedroom because there’s no door, so it’s fifty dollars cheaper on the rent, and, honestly, between her schedule and his, it was mostly just a place to sleep together without worrying about his parents or hers. Shit, did he lock the door?

“Condoms are in the nightstand,” he says over his shoulder, because the door needs to be locked and chained: it’s not the worst neighborhood but it’s not the best either, and the only reason Stella could be convinced to ever stay over was because of the deadbolt and the chain.

He hears the lamp switch click and the drawer pull open while he’s fumbling with the chain, and then: “Ray, I love you,” Christopher says in an awed tone. He’s holding up a strip of condoms – Trojan Magnums – and the tube of KY. Ray feels himself blushing, like he hasn’t been having regular sex for five whole years now, and he’s glad he hit the light switch by the door.

So that’s how Ray ends up spread wide on the bed, digging his heels into the mattress to brace himself, Christopher above him, straddling him again: he knows what he wants, what he’s doing, and Ray doesn’t care, doesn’t care about anything but the end of his dick, pushing up and in, tight, so tight Ray’s seeing stars. Christopher’s panting again, like he was before, on the floor, and holding onto Ray with one hand: he got the condom onto Ray, a practiced hand, and he got the KY all over Ray, and that was good, that was cool, that backed Ray down enough to not come yet, but he has to close his eyes and clench his fists so he doesn’t grab Christopher and push, Christopher saying, “Slow, slow,” over and over, and he wants to just thrust up, up and in–

“Oh, God,” Christopher says in a voice that sounds far away, and the next few seconds are a jumble to Ray: he feels Christopher convulse above him, around him, feels him push down at the same time Ray’s pushing up, and then wet warmth hits his chest, his chin, and he’s shoving up and in at the same time Christopher’s dropping down, pushing down, his cock spurting between them, and by the time he’s finished coming Ray is all the way in, all the way up to the hilt, and he can’t even move because it feels so good and because he’s going to come if he so much as breathes.

Tighter even than Stella, tighter than anything he’s ever imagined, warmth and strength all around him, like Christopher has muscles even there; and Ray lets himself laugh out loud at the idea of some kind of PT for this. The laugh is what he needs to back him down, so he can move without coming, and Christopher tries to join in but he’s breathing too hard. “Funny?”  he says against Ray’s neck, and Ray feels him smile.

“You have – PT – for this?” Ray grits out, risking a thrust with each word.

That does make Christopher laugh out loud. “Flutter kicks.”

Ray’s got a dim idea what those are but he doesn’t care any more because Christopher’s got his breath back and he’s sitting up again, sitting back, pushing his ass down and pulling back up in time with Ray’s thrusts. He’s solid on top of Ray, solid and warm, and Ray can unclench his fists now and reach up to that chest, to that hair, to rub his palms across it, across the nipples while Christopher slides back and forth on Ray’s cock, everything loosening just enough to feel sensational instead of just tight tight tight.

“That’s it,” Christopher whispers, arching his head back and sliding up and down in a quicker rhythm. His cock stirs on Ray’s stomach and Ray runs a hand down his abs to hold his cock, there, to feel it pulse in his hand, stroke by stroke getting harder and harder.

Jesus, what do they feed them in the Navy?

Or is he just that turned on?

Oh, fuck – that was not what Ray needed to think, not this second. And then Christopher makes the not-coming even worse: he leans back, bracing both hands behind him on Ray’s thighs, holding Ray down and fucking himself, fast and hard, on Ray’s cock. Ray’s helpless, he can hardly move, but he doesn’t have to, Christopher knows exactly what to do, long slow slide, fast hard jerk. “Come on,” Christopher grunts. “I want to feel you come.”

Ray’s orgasm hits him like a bottle to the back of his head and even Christopher can’t hold him down when he bucks up, up and in, grabbing Christopher and holding him down tight while he empties his balls deep in Christopher’s ass.

He feels a hot sweaty flush run across his chest: he tried to hold out, tried, but Christopher’s not paying any attention, just fucking himself on Ray’s cock, settling into a warm dark murmur, a warm, slow rhythm: “That’s it, God, yes, Ray...”

He can’t move but he doesn’t have to; Christopher’s thighs are strong and warm under his hands and he can kind of pet, stroke him, move a little, but Christopher’s got it handled, yeah, got it handled.

“Relax,” Christopher says, like Ray’s not about to pass out, but Ray hears the grin in his voice: “We’ve got all night.”

He pulls off, then, and Ray’s still too blissed out to do more than open half an eye, then let it fall closed: Christopher’s got this handled too, stripping the condom off, hitting the wastebasket on the first try.

Ray’s eyes are still closed but when he hears the pop of the cork he grins. He hears the liquid swish in the bottle and then almost comes up off the bed when he feels Christopher’s mouth close over his cock again. He’s not hard again, not really, still in that kind of rubbery recovery room, but Christopher’s mouth is so big and warm he pushes up into it anyway.

“You were right,” Christopher whispers against his belly, and then he feels a splash there too, and the warm squirm of tongue.

“Oh, fuck, Chris,” he says, laughing helplessly, too gone to even try to move away.

“I love that,” Christopher says against his chest. “Was that a lucky guess?” He doesn’t wait for an answer, sliding up his chest, full body hair contact, and then his mouth is warm on Ray’s, and Ray tastes Scotch and semen and Chris, and it tastes so, so good. His heart’s finally slowing down to a fast thud, and Christopher’s off him again, thunk of the bottle on the nightstand and then his hand is on Ray’s cock. “What is this? This is so cool.”

“It’s a penis,” Ray says, finally opening one eye. Chris is staring down, playing with Ray’s cock, moving the foreskin up and down. Ray gets it now, Christopher’s never seen an uncut cock, or at least not a half-hard one.

And Christopher reads his mind again, pulling the foreskin up over the head: “Is that what it looks like?”

“You didn’t have gym class?” Ray says.

“I’ve showered naked with more guys than you’ve ever met,” Christopher says with a wicked twist and a pull, and Ray gasps, and tries hard to pull his thoughts together. “I guess I never saw this, or I never noticed it.”

“Yeah,” Ray says, closing his eyes and pushing up into Christopher’s hand. “My dad was old fashioned, so my brother and me, we had to – uhhh – to look like him.”

He wonders, now, what Stella ever thought of it; she’s never mentioned it, not once, but blow jobs, not high on her list – her mouth is as small as the rest of her – so maybe she’s really just never noticed. Or maybe, she was his first, and he was hers, maybe she doesn’t know, and that kind of makes him laugh inside, it would make the idea of Arizona funny, at least for that.

Fortunately Christopher’s still playing with his cock and missed that little dash down Memory Pain, and Ray lets himself concentrate on the feel of it, getting heavier and heavier in Christopher’s hand. He wonders what it would feel like to rub himself on Christopher’s chest, push his cock through that hair, leave a trail of wet behind him all the way up to Christopher’s mouth.

“Nice,” Christopher says huskily, jerking him harder, leaning down to lick the top of his cock.

And that’s all it takes, Ray’s back in the game now. He doesn’t think Christopher ever did get soft but it doesn’t matter: he sits up and grabs him around the waist and wrestles him down to the bed so he can lick Christopher’s cock, suck the top of it the way Christopher just did, and then Christopher pulls him around, shifting under him sideways enough so that Ray’s cock is dragging through that hair, oh, fuck that feels weird, and good, and did he mention good? There’s a warm wet tongue on his balls and Christopher’s hands on his thighs, dragging him backwards–

“Mmmf,” Christopher says around his balls, and then he’s leaning over again, the swish of liquid behind, and Christopher’s mouth is wetter than before, licking and sucking Ray’s balls, one at a time, then trying to fit both in his mouth, and Ray’s completely forgotten what he was doing until he drops his head and Christopher’s cock pokes him in the cheek, leaving a wet trail behind.

So Ray makes his own “mmmf” sound and gets his mouth down to the base of Christopher’s cock, licking there, sucking on his balls, and Christopher curls his back and moans, pushing his cock into the air, fucking the air like he fucked Ray’s mouth. And finally they figure it out, Christopher’s cock in his mouth, his in Christopher’s, and this is it, this is heaven, this is almost better than fucking Christopher’s ass, it’s like sucking on his own cock: he sucks hard, so does Christopher; he licks the base, so does Christopher; Christopher pulls on his balls, he pulls on Christopher’s.

And now the edge is off he can take his time, he can suck and lick, and even hum, he can play with Christopher’s cock and his balls and even run a finger down to his ass, wondering how the hell that fits in there. At the feel of his finger, Christopher’s cock goes even stiffer and Christopher lets go of Ray’s cock to grab Ray’s ass with both hands, to bury his face in Ray’s thigh and moan. So Ray licks a finger and then feels down there again, and this time it’s slicker, and he pushes in, just a little, just a fingertip. “God,” Christopher says from somewhere behind him, somewhere under him, “please, God–”

So Ray pushes his finger in further and wonders how it feels, and Christopher moves up and down on his finger, rubbing his cock on Ray’s neck and cheek and anywhere he can reach, his hands holding Ray down against him.

Yeah, this isn’t working, Ray wants to see and feel Christopher, and, be honest, he wants to sink his cock into that tight little hole again; so he pulls off, keeping one hand on Christopher’s ass, and twists around to the night stand again. Somehow the Scotch got put back, upright, so while he’s grabbing for another condom, he grabs the Scotch too, his turn to splash some on Christopher and lick it off his chest, off his nipples, rub his cock up and down Christopher’s chest, soft skin, crisp hair, and it feels as amazing as he thought it would. Christopher covers his cock with one hand, pressing Ray down against his chest, and that feels even better, Ray could stroke off just like this.

But he’s not going to: Christopher’s ass is just too hot.

Condom. Yeah. He can do this.

And then he makes the mistake of looking down at Christopher, eyes closed, hand still hard on Ray’s cock, pressing Ray into his chest, his other hand behind Ray, stroking himself, and, fuck, it’s a good thing Ray has already shot off twice because that is just fucking awesome, right there, watching Christopher get himself and Ray off. So Ray relaxes, if that’s possible: they do have all night, and Chris is getting into this, rubbing himself and Ray, pushing up into his own hand hard enough that he’s lifting Ray too, so all Ray has to do is catch his rhythm to press into Christopher’s chest, into his hand, sliding into that warm wet space.

And then Christopher tilts his stomach more, pushing Ray up and off balance so Ray has to grab the headboard, and Christopher pulls on Ray’s cock, aiming the end of it into his mouth. Yeah, he read Ray’s mind again: rubbing up through that soft-crisp hair, into that soft, wet mouth, and Ray, balanced on the headboard, pushes slow, pulls back slower, letting Christopher control how deep he goes but helping set the pace. And he has  a free hand, so he leans over to the nightstand again for the bottle. Christopher lets go of him and laughs when he sees Ray take a drink, and Ray slides his cock back down Christopher’s chest, down down down all the way to between his legs, and then leans on an elbow so Christopher can lean up and take a drink too while Ray rubs their cocks together.

He was doing something here... what was it?

Christopher’s ditched the bottle again and has both hands on Ray’s ass, holding them together and thrusting. Ray spreads his legs, trying to push harder, and Christopher slides a finger down between, just touching him there. Ray waits for panic to set in, but screw that, it feels good, so he pushes back against Christopher’s finger, and then pushes his dick against Christopher’s, and then he forgets what he was doing again, because Christopher adds his mouth to the mix, pulling Ray down for a long, deep kiss. Ray can’t reach any part of Christopher down there, not this way, but he feels Christopher’s nipples hard against his chest, and he moves his hand down to rub his palm across one, then uses his  finger and thumb. Christopher moans into his mouth and pushes up against him harder, faster, and his finger slips into Ray’s ass.

And, once again, no panic: Ray pushes back against it, wondering what even more feels like, and knowing somehow inside himself exactly what it feels like, at least from the other direction, which was amazing.

And that, finally, reminds him: condom. Somewhere.

There, by the other pillow: Ray grabs for it, then sits up and rolls it on before Christopher can distract him again.

“Fuck, yeah,” Christopher breathes, his hands restless on Ray’s stomach. “Where’s the–”

“I got it,” Ray says, untwisting the cap. “Is this enough?” He squeezes out a palmful, rubbing it over his cock like Christopher did before. He’s hard, so hard again, and he was kind of hoping he could go longer this time, but suddenly he’s not sure.

“Yeah,” Christopher says, looking up at him; and he grins halfway, then stops. “You think it’ll...” He stops and Ray realises his skin’s heating up: he’s blushing?

The guy who sucked him off in a janitor’s closet?

He thought – well, Christopher is so self-assured, like Stella, that he thought Christopher was older than him. Everyone thinks Stella’s older than Ray, which makes – made them both laugh. But, fuck, now that Ray thinks about it, Christopher’s got to be younger than Stella, and–

But once again, thankfully, Christopher’s missing Ray’s zone-outs, shifting his legs outside Ray’s, curling his back up–

Well, so maybe he hasn’t done it like this before but how hard can it be? It’s almost the same place, just further back.

“I got it,” Ray says, and a sofa pillow would be better but he’s not stopping now to get one, so he pulls the other pillow down and pushes it under Christopher’s hips. Better angle, higher that way.

“Yeah,” Chris says, his voice husky again, spreading his legs wide and grabbing his thighs with his hands. Ray strokes his cock, sticky now, and wrinkles his nose, looking for the KY again. “Just spit on it,” Christopher says impatiently. “It slicks it right up.”

Okay, Ray really wants to know what makes a Navy SEAL blush about face-to-face but talk about spitting on a guy’s cock to slick him up, like, everyone knows that. He and Stella have used the stuff for years and he had no idea  you could spit on it, for Christ’s sake.

On the other hand, his cock is throbbing inside the condom, feeling bigger than life, so Ray spits, and Chris does too, and, wow, he was right about that too: the KY slicks right up. So Ray fits the end of his cock there, at that little hole, and pushes, and Christopher grabs his thighs again and arches his back up, pushing up against Ray the best he can. Ray keeps one hand on his cock to steady it, to not push in too fast, to not lose focus, but he leans forward on the other hand so he can lean down and lick one of Christopher’s nipples, lick it and suck it, and then lick his way up Christopher’s neck to his jaw.

Christopher arches up against him and forgets to hold onto his legs, wrapping them up and around Ray instead, and, just like that, Ray’s in, buried all the way in, his balls tight up against Christopher’s ass, and Christopher is moving underneath him, somehow still managing to fuck himself on Ray’s cock even though Ray’s pushing him down into the pillow, into the bed. “You are so good,” Ray says into his neck, kissing him, then sucking there, licking it again in case he left a mark: Stella is big on no marks. But Chris shudders and arches his head back too, letting Ray lick his neck, his collarbone, the top of his shoulder, and the whole time he’s moving underneath Ray, keeping the rhythm he set, and Ray’s carried along with it, easy and slow and just as tight as before.

And laying on Chris, kissing him, touching him, that’s good, but they’ve got time now, time to enjoy, time to explore, time to play. So Ray pushes up, sits back, pulls Christopher with him, so he’s still buried deep in his ass, and he runs his hands up Christopher’s thighs. Christopher pushes against him, bending his knees so he can dig his heels in the bed, fuck himself on Ray’s cock a different way, and Ray runs his hands all the way up Christopher’s thighs and and around to his ass, pulling him up onto Ray’s thighs now so the pillow is bunched under his back. Christopher moans, grabbing for his cock, for Ray’s arm, coming partway off the bed, and Ray guesses it feels good that way, so he pulls out and shoves in again, slow, then fast, slow, then fast.

“Ah, fuck,” Christopher groans, grabbing his cock and pumping it. “Keep–”

Yeah, Ray can keep, keep doing that, keep pumping in, out, pushing up and then in, and every time he does, Christopher gasps and tightens down around him. And Ray feels like he can keep on doing this, keep on forever. He licks his thumb and presses it down between them, under Christopher’s balls, right where he’s joined to Christopher, and that makes Christopher’s hips jerk up, out of control. Ray slips out, slip-slides back in, and this time he’s got his hand on Christopher’s cock, playing with it, pumping it, not too hard, not too fast, squeezing around it the way Christopher’s squeezing around his dick, then making a circle out of his thumb and forefinger and popping the head of his dick through it. Christopher tenses, bucks up again, and then he grabs for his cock, his ass squeezing around Ray’s dick while his cock spurts up through his fingers, Ray’s fingers, his come (not much, now, and not thick and white like before) running down their hands while he grabs onto Ray’s other hand and gasps for breath.

And finally, finally, his erection goes down, maybe half-mast, and Ray takes a second to smile at his own joke while Christopher pants at the ceiling, his eyes closed, his sticky hand still holding onto Ray’s just-as-sticky hand. Ray made it through, he rode that wave, and now he feels like he could fuck all night, forever, moving in and out so smooth, so slow, so good, Chris spread out loose and relaxed under him, still catching his breath, a slow, smooth smile curving his mouth.

Their hands are still wrapped around Christopher’s cock, Ray’s hand held there by Christopher’s, and Christopher starts moving again, slow, picking up the top of Ray’s stroke and not much more, guiding their hands on his cock, slow and not much more. Ray watches, just watches, watches his dick push in and out of that tight clasp, watches Christopher’s dick push in and out of their fingers. And then Christopher’s cock starts to firm up, and he starts to pull harder at it, and he opens his eyes and grins right at Ray.

“Yeah, I’m impressed,” Ray says, and Christopher laughs, his body shaking around Ray’s cock.

“I love this,” Chris says, just the way he said it before, when Stephanie hated him, when Christopher loved him. “Could go... all night.”

“You probably could,” Ray says, pushing in a little harder, a little faster, to match Christopher stroke-for-stroke on his cock. “Jeez, what – what do they feed you?”

But Christopher’s answer – just a laugh, really – is drowned out by Ray’s moan, Christopher corkscrewing down on him, somehow, then squeezing, and Ray speeds up again without really meaning to. Christopher’s hard in their hands, warm and sticky friction, and Ray’s not sure if he’s on the edge of uncomfortable or not.

“Hey,” Christopher says, leaning up, pulling himself up like he’s doing sit-ups, sit-ups with Ray’s cock buried in his ass, and Christopher’s eyes are crinkled at the corners. “Want to fuck?”

Ray laughs out loud and sits back with a thud and a grunt, pulling out, and Christopher follows him up and over, just that easily, kneeling over Ray, his cock sticking out between them again, Ray’s cock rising high and hard to meet it. Christopher grabs the bottle again, one more drink, then the tube, smearing more on Ray and more on himself. He leans down and kisses Ray, hot and sweet as the Scotch, and then he pivots on one knee and ends up on his elbows, his ass in the air. Ray doesn’t need any kind of engraved Gold Coast invitation for that: Christopher wants it hard, wants it fast, Ray can do this, he was fucking born to do this.

He pulls his legs out from under Christopher and gets behind him, pushing in even before Chris starts pushing back. He hears Chris spit, feels his hand go down to his dick, and as he starts moving, sliding in and out, hard, harder, he feels Chris stroking himself, hard, harder.

There’s the soft sound of his dick gliding in and out, the quiet slap of his balls against Christopher’s, and the slick sound of Christopher’s hand on his dick, sliding up and down in time with Ray’s strokes. He grabs the bottle one more time without breaking his rhythm and splashes some on Christopher’s spine, hits the nightstand with the bottle again (just barely), then licks his way up Christopher’s spine, pushing in, pulling out, licking up, licking up. Chris shudders under him, his hand working his cock faster. “Spit,” Christopher grunts, pushing back hard against Ray’s stroke so Ray slams into him. It takes Ray a few seconds to balance but then he’s got his hand to his mouth, and the next second he’s got Scotch-flavored spit stroking up and down Christopher’s cock.

“Oh fuck,” Christopher groans, falling forward onto his elbows, letting Ray slam into him, letting Ray pull it out of him, and he shudders again, then again. “Come?”

“Come,” Ray agrees with a growl he didn’t know he had in him, and he feels Christopher’s cock swell in his hand. He shoves in harder, faster, burying himself in the rippled silk of Christopher’s ass, shooting him full while Christopher jerks around him, almost perfect counterpoint until they collapse in a ragged, arrhythmic heap.

Ray really does feel like rubber this time and Chris isn’t even moving except for the heaving of his chest. It takes strength Ray didn’t know he had to pull out, get rid of the condom before it starts coming loose. He thinks he hits the wastebasket and he knows he hits the lamp, and that’s all he remembers.

Drive a G.T.O.
Wear a uniform

- “Lust for Life,” Iggy Pop

The next thing Ray knows is the smell of coffee, and bright sunlight slanted against the far wall. He still feels like rubber, and his dick is kind of sore – yeah, chafed, he thinks, squinting a little at the sun. Then he remembers Christopher all at once, his hand going out to the other side of the bed. If Ray’s sore, Christopher must be–

“Hey!” Christopher says, coming out of the kitchen. He found sweats from somewhere, Ray’s PD sweats from the academy, and Ray guesses they must be the same size in shoes too because clearly he’s been up and around and maybe even out. And, wow, Ray’s t-shirt is tight across his chest–

Christopher holds out a mug of coffee and Ray sits up fast, shifting over to the edge of the bed. “God, Chris, I love you.” He wasn’t sure whether to feel awkward or embarrassed or both but the coffee wipes that right out. And so does Christopher, leaning in to kiss him, then sitting down next to him. “How long have you been up?”

“I got up to run,” Christopher says with a grin. “Best cure for a hangover.”

“For crazy people, sure,” Ray mumbles around the rim of his mug. “What happened to nowhere to be at – what time–”

“It’s not even nine yet. I’m starving. The food last night was crap. Is that diner around the corner open? It didn’t look open.”

“...yeah,” Ray says, swallowing another mouthful of coffee.

“So not a morning person,” Christopher says with a grin and almost a bounce, up and off the bed again and into the bathroom before Ray can blink twice. “Aspirin?” He’s holding out a bottle.

The familiarity is unsettling: Stella took charge like this too, well, not taking charge, but moving in Ray’s space like she belonged there, like she’d always been there, like she was there first, even. “Uh, no, no, ’m good. Just not awake.”

And he is good: he’s more wired from the sex than not, happy zinging through his body, and he sure as hell didn’t drink enough last night to be close to hangover territory today. He looks more closely at Christopher: no circles under his eyes, his smile bright, and twice as handsome in the daylight; and he smiles too. “Get a shower too.”

“Oh, I didn’t shower,” Christopher says, his grin warm, intimate. “I was waiting for you.”

Yeah, there’s morning wood and then there’s morning wood with Christopher in the room. His mouth is hotter than Ray remembers: coffee? sunlight? Does it matter? Chris rescued his coffee mug so all Ray has to do is enjoy it. And he does, letting himself fall backward onto the bed, holding Christopher’s head so he can pump up slow into his mouth. And Christopher’s enjoying it too, saying something around the mouthful of cock, and then Ray feels another rhythm and knows it’s Christopher jerking himself while he sucks Ray off.

Yeah, that didn’t take long, even though five minutes ago Ray would have sworn he had nothing left. But Chris is swallowing, swallowing again, the hand that was on Ray’s cock now flat on Ray’s hip, holding him down. And then Christopher’s breathing speeds up, the bed shaking in time with his hand, turning his face into Ray’s thigh to breathe and moan and then moan again, low and urgent. And then everything stops in slow motion, everything so still and quiet Ray can feel the tremors through Christopher’s fingers on his thigh.

He pets Christopher’s head, still trying to catch his own breath. Christopher turns his head to kiss Ray’s wrist, then drags himself up on the bed to flop next to Ray, still breathing hard. “Still hungry,” he says against Ray’s neck, and Ray pulls him in for a kiss.

And then Christopher’s stomach growls and he laughs against Christopher’s mouth, clicking their teeth together. “Hang on,” he says, and Christopher lets him roll off the bed with a warm smile, a warm hand lingering on his arm until the last possible second.

He finds some underwear, pulls on his jeans, gets a t-shirt out of the dresser, and Christopher watches him from the bed, smiling just a little every time he catches Ray’s eye. Ray grabs some socks and gets out his other pair of sneakers and sits down next to Christopher to put them on and he feels Christopher’s hand, warm on his back. 

He used to do that with Stella, and he has to swallow hard. He’s not going to say this was a mistake – in fact, it was pretty much the opposite of that – but it’s a shame he has to waste the limited time they have still working on getting over Stella. And, really, that’s what he gets for going to the wedding with her. He knew better. He did.

And, hey, wedding, Christopher, so, really, between the realisation and the sex – God, the sex! – he’s probably batting at least .200.

“That diner’s never been shut down,” Ray says, leaning down to tie his shoes, hoping that will hide the catch in his voice from the lump he’s still trying to push down in his throat. “It’s not because they actually pass the health inspections, though.”

“Yeah, I have the immune system of a cobra,” Christopher says from behind him, and then he snickers, he fucking giggles, and Ray snickers too, then snorts, then giggles right along with him.

“Navy COBRAs, G.I. Chris.”

“Maybe we can trademark that.”

Ray doesn’t have an extra toothbrush but before he can apologize, or even think, Christopher’s squeezing toothpaste onto Stella’s. Yeah, he should have thrown it away. Didn’t. There’s a lot of things he should have done, and didn’t. And it’s kind of funny to watch Christopher brush his teeth with Stella’s hot pink toothbrush.

Well. Now it’s Christopher’s hot pink toothbrush.

Breakfast is cheap and not that fast but they’re not in any kind of hurry. At least as far as Ray can tell. Over plates of biscuits and gravy, they plan the covert extraction of Christopher’s stuff. “We should go after breakfast,” Christopher says, winking at the waitress when she brings another plate of biscuits. “They’re doing a brunch cruise at 10:30, so almost everyone will be gone, especially Marilyn. It’s an open bar.”

“So you have another night in Chicago?” Ray asks casually, God, he hopes it’s casual, because this is casual and he doesn’t want to weird Christopher – or himself – out.

But this is where Chris is different from Stel. He nods happily, his mouth full of biscuit, gravy at the corner: what you see is clearly what you get with Christopher, and Ray relaxes abruptly, only now realising how tense he was. “Yeah,” he says, taking a gulp of coffee. “I fly out tomorrow afternoon.” This time the wink’s directed at Ray. “Plenty of time.”

He doesn’t say anything else but he doesn’t need to; the husky register he just dropped his voice into is – apparently – all Ray needs to hear to pop a boner, just like that, just like he’s fifteen again.

“So is that okay?” Christopher’s saying, and Ray has to shake his head to focus. “Finish up here, hit the hotel?”

“Fine, fine,” Ray says hastily. He was trying to listen, honest to God, but all he can think of is–

“Maybe grab some pizza,” Chris is saying.

“Have it delivered,” Ray says, pitching his voice low too. Christopher looks startled and then grins at Ray and Ray hopes, devoutly, that Christopher’s as uncomfortable as he is right now.

But he’s got sweats on, so, no, not so much.

Back at Ray’s apartment, he gets a lesson in Kit Bag 101. It’s not much of one, not yet, Chris says, but Ray’s got binoculars (old ones his dad gave him for baseball games), a Mag Lite flashlight that makes Christopher’s eyebrows go up in approval (“That can take someone out”), some old clothesline (“It’ll do for now”), matches, a candle, and a Swiss Army knife.

“Want some toothpicks?” Ray says, hitching his hip onto the kitchen table and watching Christopher buzz through his apartment.

“Funny guy,” Christopher says. “You might want to keep a bag like this handy. Add to it. Where’s your weapon?”

“Uh...” Ray says, because, seriously, they’re just going to get luggage, not take Marilyn out.

“You should keep extra ammo in here too,” Christopher says, looking around the kitchen. And he spots it before Ray can say anything: the cabinet over the refrigerator, and then there’s a box of ammunition added to the canvas knapsack Ray’s had since he was nine. “Handcuffs,” Christopher says, like he’s checking off a list. “Blanket. Cable ties. Condoms. Batteries.”

“Condoms?”

“Stretchy, waterproof,” Christopher says, flashing a grin over his shoulder on his way to the night stand. “Handy things to have.”

“For underwater demolitions, sure. We do a lot of that in the Chicago PD.”

That just makes Christopher laugh again, which is what Ray was hoping for.

The hotel’s not far from the Navy Pier, where the boat with the open bar is, and Ray learns a thing or two about recon. He’s learned about surveillance, a little, but there’s more to it than that, it’s clear. “Just for fun,” Chris makes Ray take point after they finally see Stephanie and Talbot – and Marilyn – get into a taxi.

“It’s three blocks,” Ray mutters, but Chris is gesturing to him, and, it’s true, Ray’s never walked in high heels. Drunk, he’s done that, but not in heels.

Or backwards, and he almost looks over his shoulder for Stella, he can hear her so clearly.

And again – just for fun – Christopher makes them take the stairs. Not really, of course: people who take a taxi for three blocks aren’t going to use stairs. Ray figures that out by the second landing.

Fortunately Christopher’s only on the 5th floor. Ray popped another boner – Ray’s sweats are tight across Christopher’s ass and he’s perfectly happy to let Christopher take point this time – coming around the half landing on 4, so it’s a relief when Chris eases the door open and checks out the hall.

“It’s go time,”  -Christopher whispers, and Ray drops a kiss on the back of his neck without even thinking. Christopher grins and turns his head enough to kiss Ray back, on the cheek.

While Christopher gets his stuff together, Ray wanders over to the window to look out. There’s a view of the lake, not that exciting to Ray, but he can pretend that Marilyn’s getting drunk on a boat out there and maybe she’ll fall overboard. And take Stephanie with her.

Except that would make Stella sad, so, no.

“Hey!” Christopher says, and just that syllable is already starting to bring a smile to Ray’s face every time he hears it. “Let’s shower here, what do you think?”

Clearly it was a rhetorical question; he’s already stripping off his borrowed clothes. “C’mon.” His smile is friendly and open and Ray’s lake-deflated hard-on starts to come back.

This is awesome: he gets to finally see Christopher naked, in broad daylight, bending over to test the water, then stepping in the shower. And Christopher gets to see him too, grinning big when Ray steps in the shower. Ray’s a little self conscious, and he makes a mental note that he should work out more, but Christopher’s gaze is not just warm and open – again – but even appreciative.

But frankly Ray would rather touch than look, so he does. Uniforms? Kind of a new turn-on. Soap rinsing off chest hair? Even newer. Ray rubs the washcloth across one nipple and it tightens, hardens under Ray’s touch. “Yeah,” Christopher breathes, one hand on Ray’s head, the other caressing Ray’s cheek, drawing his thumb across Ray’s mouth. Ray takes the hint, licks Christopher’s thumb, then leans forward and licks Christopher’s nipple. And, oh, God, that’s fun, Chris gasps and grabs his head, arches back up into Ray’s mouth like–

Yeah. No. Not going there. Ray concentrates on licking, sucking, even uses teeth, and that’s even better as far as Christopher’s concerned, so Ray moves to the other nipple, licks, nibbles, sucks, using his fingers on the first nipple until both of them are pebbled hard and Christopher’s grabbing him and pulling him in for some full-body contact. And, God, that feels good, both their cocks rubbing together with the water running over them, not too much friction and then not enough. Ray grabs but Christopher’s even faster, wrapping his hand around both their cocks and rubbing them together. “Yeah,” Ray says, and Christopher bites him on the shoulder, then licks his way up Ray’s neck to his ear.

“Jesus,” Ray says and Christopher laughs into his neck, then turns Ray around and gets back to business, soaping up Ray’s back. Ray’s breath catches: he’s waiting, waiting waiting waiting and Christopher doesn’t disappoint: his hands are on Ray’s ass, smoothing the soap there, then around to Ray’s hips, turning Ray to angle them both under the water; and then Ray feels Christopher’s cock there, pressing hard up against his asshole. It feels amazing: Ray braces a hand on the wall and angles his ass back better, and he wonders for a few seconds if Christopher’s actually going to fuck him: his arm is like steel around Ray’s chest and his cock is hard and wet back there.

But Christopher’s just getting them situated: he finds the right angle, finally, and his other hand finds Ray’s cock, and then he’s moving against Ray, holding Ray’s dick to hold Ray there. His cock feels wet and smooth and like a tongue, licking at Ray’s asshole–

Shit, he can’t believe he even thought that, and he’s coming all over Christopher’s hand, all over the bathtub tile, his legs braced apart. Chris shudders against him, still holding his cock tight, rubbing faster and harder, his cock trapped in that space there, behind Ray’s balls, and then he shudders and slams his head down against Ray’s shoulder, slamming his pelvis against Ray’s ass, two more times, then once more, and then Ray feels his cock spurting, more warmth and wetness down behind Ray’s balls.

“God,” Christopher breathes against his shoulder blade, still moving against him. “God, I want to fuck you.”

“Yeah,” Ray breathes, leaning his own head against his arm, hardly knowing what he’s saying, just wanting Christopher again and more. His legs are shaky again but so are Christopher’s and they stay like that, Ray holding Chris up, the wall holding Ray up, for a few more minutes, until Ray’s heartbeat is steady again, until Christopher’s is. Meanwhile Ray pokes cautiously at that idea: just like before, when Chris had a finger up his ass, Ray waits to panic but instead he’s just interested. Curious. Even a little horny, or would be, if he hadn’t just come, because Christopher sure seems to get off on it, so it must feel pretty fucking good.

Although he’s not sure anything can match the tight, strong grasp of Christopher’s ass around his cock. God.

"Mmmm," Christopher says against his shoulder, kissing where his face was just resting. This time, finally, he’s soft, and Ray wonders if he finally wore himself out or if it’s just the hot water. He wonders for a few seconds what it would feel like to kneel in the spray and take Christopher in his mouth, soft, and get him hard.

Maybe they can try that. In the morning or something.

The towels are big and fluffy and Ray makes a mental note to figure out where the hell those come from, because he’s never felt anything like that. When he goes back into the bedroom to get dressed, Christopher follows him, like he read his mind, two more towels in his hands, and then he’s stuffing them into his duffel bag, grinning at Ray.

"So you are related to Marilyn," Ray says, and Christopher cracks up.

"House, apartment warming present," and then he’s kissing Ray again, natural, unselfconscious, and Ray was not expecting this, is he fucking crazy, is he fickle, what the fuck? It’s been him and Stella for so long and now it’s him and Christopher and he feels like he’s known him all his life, he feels like he met him in kindergarten, and it’s so fucking weird how fast this felt so good. He tries to conjure up Stella’s face, her smell, her voice, but all he gets is Chris, the way his eyes look when he smiles, that quick, ready smile, the way it pulls up at one corner before it crosses his mouth, the warm spark of his lips, the way he smells like Scotch and guy, even right out of the shower...

But that’s okay: it’s over, with Stella, it’s over, and he needs to let it go, he’s been carrying it too long.

Christopher opens the dresser and gets out jeans and a t-shirt, and then he pulls out more of that weird underwear. Ray stopped getting dressed to watch him, and Christopher glances over at him, unselfconscious as before. “Hey, you want to try these?” He holds out a pair of them and Ray takes them automatically: legs like boxers but stretchy like briefs, only softer. “These are the only thing that kept me sane through BUD/S. Well, one of them.” He grins wide and drops his eyes to Ray’s cock.

Fuck, Christopher could be handing him an iron maiden with that look and Ray’d still be putting it on. And, holy fuck, these things are soft, and weird, and did he mention soft? His balls and cock have some play, more than in briefs, but not swinging loose like in boxers, and it feels like a warm soft hand cupping him down there.

“Huh?” Christopher says, another intimate grin, an eyebrow up.

“Yeah,” Ray agrees, sliding his jeans back on, and, wow, even his jeans feel more comfortable now, and they’re old, broken in, almost white in places so it’s not like they weren’t comfortable before.

Christopher’s jeans fit better than Ray’s sweats, but Ray’s glad to see his t-shirt is still kind of tight across his chest. It’s just a plain grey t-shirt that has ALL THE PAIN MONEY CAN’T BUY stencilled across it, and it makes Ray laugh for no other reason than that Christopher’s wearing it. Christopher laughs too and then he’s turning back to the drawer, pulling out a navy blue t-shirt that he tosses to Ray: “Here’s one for you.”

Ray shakes it out and looks at it and laughs, pulling it on. STOP WHAT YOU’RE DOING, his chest says now, and Christopher laughs again, full-throated. “One of the ways Pickles stayed sane through Hell Week,” Christopher says. “As soon as we got released, he grabbed me and made me drive him into town. We were so fucking dead on our feet, and he couldn’t even drive because of his leg, so he made me. And he stood there and ordered those shirts, he’d kept track of how many times he’d heard each one and he’d count them over and over in his head so he didn’t forget, so he had something – something else to think about. We stumbled to the nearest motel and slept for about 24 hours straight. By the time we woke up, they were ready, and we took them back up and handed them out.” While he’s talking, he’s pulling the rest of the clothes out of that drawer now and stowing them in the duffel bag, on top of the towels.

To Ray’s not-quite-surprise, Christopher checks out, turns his key in, even though Ray’s scared to death either Talbot or Marilyn is going to walk up. But they don’t, and the walk back to the car is actually anti-climactic.

Kind of like – Ray is learning – cop work. A lot of paperwork, a lot of canvassing, a lot of “who what where,” and every once in a while something exciting happens for five minutes and then it’s back to the paperwork. In fact, exciting things make more paperwork, or so the guy they assigned to mentor Ray – Sam – says.

Ray kind of hopes he’ll never be that cynical. Sure, he and Stella aren’t going to save the world one crime at a time any more, but he can still help get the bad guys off the streets. And he tries not to think about his brother’s best friend, Dwayne, the guy who never met a joint he didn’t light: “They are the bad guys, don’t fool yourself, kid.” And while his mom scoffed, and his brother smacked Dwayne in the shoulder, his dad just looked over at him, like he does, and Ray can’t help thinking, once in a while – okay, more like once a week – that his dad’s more of the Dwayne mind than the Ray mind about it all. Part of it’s the DNC; his dad’ll never get over that. But part of him wants to say, hey, Dad: you raised me better than that, you know you did.

Right?

But maybe he doesn’t think so. Ray still doesn’t completely buy the story about Aunt Wanda; she’s got two kids of her own, she didn’t need his mom and dad then, not that day, not the day he graduated.

Of course – again – fate conspired, because it meant he and Tommy were the last ones left in the duty room, which wouldn’t have happened if either one of them had had someone there to take pictures with, to drink punch with, to – well, Ray doesn’t really know what was going on out there, because he was getting his dick hoovered by Tommy Hunsicker and afterwards, when Tommy rocked back on his heels and looked up at Ray, half fearful, like Ray was going to sock him, Ray wiped the corner of Tommy’s mouth with his thumb, realised all at once what he was doing, and took off, zero to gone in six seconds, because he didn’t want to think about the expression in Tommy’s eyes then, turning from fearful to knowing to – no. He wasn’t going to stick around to see hope, he was not going there, he was a one-Stella man and that was that.

But it turned out Tommy was right after all, and Stella was wrong, and here Ray is, eighteen inches from Christopher and two blocks from (probably) getting his dick hoovered again, or vice versa.

And he wants to think about that, suddenly; he wants to think about that for a little longer than two blocks and eighteen inches. “We should pick up some beer,” he says, trying to sound natural.

Christopher looks over and grins. “Okay,” he says. He doesn’t seem put out by Ray’s zoning, hasn’t, since minute one; but he’s probably got his own zoning going on. Probably. Must have. ’Cause, Jesus, it could be worse: Ray could be related to Stephanie. Ray’s dad could have sent Ray to Camp Cure-A-Cop.

And there he goes again, but Christopher’s talking, saying something: Frisbee? What the fuck?

“...that park, what, six blocks away?” Christopher’s saying.

Does Ray have a Frisbee? Okay, yeah. Probably. Somewhere.

But it kind of makes him feel good, which makes him feel worse, that Christopher wants to hang out and not just have sex, wants to do something else, and again: what the fuck? Nothing in almost ten years of Stella prepared Ray for anything like this, right now, in the front seat of his car.

But if Chris wants to hang, he can do that. Ray’s the best hanger there ever was, Ray’s got badges in hanging. “The Cubs are in town,” he says suddenly, remembering. “You want to try to catch the game?”

The way Christopher’s eyes light up sends Ray reeling and he wonders, following Chris into the 7-11, how the hell–

No, wait, he thinks, slower now, grabbing some pretzels on the way back to the cooler. His only frame, his only framework here is Stella, and that’s not helping but it is. Stella didn’t even know who the Cubs were, didn’t know Chicago had two (okay, one and a spare) teams.

Stella had never had a hot dog from a cart before she met Ray.

And, yeah, she’s a girl. Maybe some dads don’t take their daughters to baseball games.

Maybe, Ray thinks doubtfully, because he’s pretty sure every girl he’s ever known in school for sure knew who the Cubs were, at least.

But put all that aside, just for the sake of argument, Ray’s trying to be fair here, just like Stella, just for the sake of argument, Ray, she’d say, say guys don’t take their daughters to baseball games. Okay, Stel. So you never saw a baseball game. But what kind of dad doesn’t take his son to a baseball game?

It’s old hat to Ray. He remembers even when his dad was laid off for that long stretch they still went to the nosebleeds, at least once a month in the summer, and when the plant called them back in, it was back to every week, every couple of weeks, whatever. The year after that, his brother got a part time job and he and Dad split the cost of a season package. His dad enjoyed that so much they’ve had that package ever since, sometimes better seats, sometimes worse. Huh, he thinks, distracted, he ought to go in on it with Dad now: he’s got a real live paycheck now.

And the idea seems to have driven all thoughts of vacuuming or anything else out of Christopher’s head. Ray has to show him the best, cheapest place to park, and how to get scalped tickets, where to find the best deals – there’s a sweet spot about two or three blocks out, farther away they’re overpriced or bad seats, closer in they’re looking for desperate people with fat wallets, taking more risk for a bigger payoff – even how to talk the guy down a couple bucks. The closer you are to game time, the easier that is, but too close and they start sweeping in.

“It’s a game,” Chris says, looking happily bewildered. Yeah, that’s part of the fun, for Ray, at least: he went with his dad and his brother together once in a while, although usually they just traded off, taking turns going, and they’d always try to see how close they could get a third seat to their season seats. If it wasn’t close enough, Greg would go off to the scalped seat ’cause Ray was “too little” to sit by himself, but usually they were in the same section, even the same row once in a while, and that was all part of the excitement, just like the excitement when his dad let him sip the foam off the beer if Ray was on the side to pass it to him, and the every-single-game Crackerjack box, even when – he realises now – even when they were probably flat broke and his dad didn’t have money for a beer.

And yeah, he thinks, worrying right back around to that now that they’re settled into their seats, now that he’s waved the peanut vendor over, now that Chris is settling back with both beers in his hands, a big grin on his face, while Ray digs his wallet out, sure, clearly Christopher’s been to games. Now. But – just as clearly – this is more new than old to him, more fun than taken-for-granted, and for the first time Ray gives up the pencil, lets someone else keep the box score, because Christopher’s so serious about it. He doesn’t have to teach Christopher to taunt the batter but it’s clear Chris is enjoying himself hugely, his wide grin encompassing Ray, his laughter making even the serious old guys turn around and smile.

He makes it so easy, Ray thinks, finally relaxing: Chris waved the hot dog guy over and he’s trying a brat, probably his first one ever. Ray’s starving, all at once, so he goes for a hot dog with everything, and when Christopher winks at him as he opens his mouth wide to fit the brat in, Ray hardly blushes. Because Chris makes it easy, and it is what it is, and he can’t worry about tomorrow. He has to grab today with both hands, like Christopher does, and stop planning and hoping and... worrying about the future, about Stella, about any of it.  Last month, last week, he couldn’t imagine putting his cock anywhere but inside Stella (shut up, Tommy); today he’s imagining what cock feels like inside him, and if that’s not freaking him out, well, that’s good, right? Cop ought to be able to keep his head, and, come on, it’s sure as fuck not freaking the Navy SEAL out.

The Cubs lose, of course: they want to make sure Christopher has the full Chicago experience. And Christopher’s in no hurry to leave: he looks at the crowds of people, streaming down and out, then looks at Ray and shrugs, putting his feet up on the chair in front of them and leaning back. Ray looks down Christopher’s legs and back up, up to where the jeans crease at his groin, and suddenly his mouth goes dry: this baseball thing was a bad idea. Bad idea, bad. It’s at least 45 minutes, door to door with the post game traffic, and Ray closes his eyes and swallows, a reflex: he’s remembering how Chris feels in his mouth, how it feels, how it tastes, when he sucks on Chris, then swallows, then licks and sucks again.

It’s probably a trick of the light but if Ray squints he can thinks he can see the outline of Christopher’s cock under the denim. No, he definitely can, and he wishes they were the only people in the ball park right now, wishes he could lean over and put his mouth there, over the cotton, over the warm, firm mound, rub his face against it, feel it get even harder under his cheek.

But he can’t, and Christopher’s staring off into the distance, his eyes unfocused, his hands slack on the program. For once it’s Ray’s turn to pick up on his mood, so he does, respecting Christopher’s reverie. They sit there a while: the shadows are long, the crowds long gone, and the cleaning crew’s making its way up to their seats. They’re not the only ones left; there’s a dad and a kid across the way, and three guys sitting down, behind home plate, stretched out in their seats and looking up at the sky. There’s a knot of people by the visiting dugout, too, but Ray doesn’t have his glasses so he’s not really sure what’s going on down there.

“There was a night during Hell Week,” Chris says, his voice sounding like he’s talking to himself, “that was nothing but wet and sandy. But it wasn’t the usual. We weren’t doing push ups, we weren’t running into the water. They sat us down for two minutes, got us up to run in, stood until they dropped us, then dropped and rolled. They weren’t giving us, you know, push ups, we weren’t running much, and it was the first time since it started they weren’t telling us to carry the damn IBS through the surf. It took me a while to realise they wanted us to be cold, they didn’t want us to be generating heat, because, you know, we had to learn that, had to see what it was like, how to get through that. Whatever. I didn’t think I’d ever get warm again, I was getting slower and slower and I couldn’t even think any more.

“Then I saw Pickles and Booty rolling together and pretty soon I figured out, some of us figured out, they were doing it to stay warm. Then we were all doing it. We all went down in a line the next time the order came, and we made the master chief laugh. It didn’t get us out of anything, but when he laughed, everyone in our line laughed, and pretty soon everyone on the beach was laughing. I looked at Pickles and he looked at me and tapped his wrist: we had forty minutes to go until chow. We’d made it another six hours, and everyone was fucking laughing their wet, cold asses off in the middle of Hell Week.”

Ray can imagine, a little: he’s been out, once, with shots fired, everyone ducking, trying to figure out what was going on, where it was coming from, and the laughter afterwards in the bullpen, tinged with hysteria: no one killed, no one even injured, but the adrenaline had to go somewhere. At the same time he gets even more of a sense of how much he doesn’t know.

Chris moves his head, not just his eyes, to look over at Ray, and he’s smiling, a simple, quiet smile. “It was the first shift – that was Pickles’ idea, call them shifts, one shift at a time – it was the first shift in Hell Week that no one rang out.”

“You hit the wall and...” Ray says. His PT instructor was an ex-Marine, so Ray definitely got a sense, more than once, what that concept really meant.

“Yeah,” Christopher says, a quick jerk of his head, a quick smile. “And we laughed.”

“That’s pretty awesome,” Ray says, and he means it. He wants that: he wants to laugh like that, he wants to feel like that, like he can be pushed to his wall and still laugh instead of–

Yeah, whoa, where did that come from? He hasn’t thought about that guy, that bank robber, in years. Literally. He didn’t even think he’d  remembered what he looked like, but now it all comes back.

And he shakes himself out, because that’s a dark place and he doesn’t want to think about that; even now there’s a hot flush of shame rising in his face, helpless, inevitable: who would do that to a kid?

Well, junkies will do anything, anything for a hit, and maybe he was a junkie, Ray can see the sweat pouring down his face, the way his hand shakes when he holds out the bag, and Ray can rationalise it now, after six months at the Academy, after two weeks walking a beat, but–

“Whoa, Ray–” and Christopher’s got one of Ray’s hands in his, trying to uncurl it from the fist it’s in. But Ray’s not going to tell him, he’s never going to tell anyone, ever, and, Jesus, if he never sees Stella again he’ll never, ever have to think of it. Never. Ever. Again.

That is a fucking awesome upside, and he says it again, different this time: “Awesome.”

“Yeah,” Christopher says, still frowning, his thumb still moving across Ray’s knuckles, “what–”

“Let’s find the can, let’s get at her,” Ray interrupts, feeling absolutely shitty, because Christopher just walked blind into Ray’s crazy, and Ray’s just an asshole, but if he starts blubbing in the middle of Wrigley he’ll never be able to come here again. “Traffic should be mostly cleared out by now.” And he’s up and out of his seat so Christopher has no choice except to follow.

Yeah, they stayed so long even the bathroom’s empty, even the cleaning crew has already been and gone, the floor still a little damp, and he and Chris use urinals side by side. Ray looks ahead, not down, trying not to think, to remember: fuck, every time he pisses, now, is he going to think of that? And then a movement of Christopher’s head catches his eye, Christopher’s neck craning just a little.

He’s fucking checking Ray out, like he already hasn’t seen everything, and a hot, grateful swell rises up in Ray’s chest: Chris is such a guy, just a guy, a hot guy who thinks Ray’s hot, and it’s a good thing he’s finished pissing because he can feel his dick start to get hard just at the idea of Christopher looking at him. He shakes off, tucks it in, as casually as he can, pretending he didn’t notice but “warm happy” would only start to describe how he’s feeling right now. He goes over to wash his hands and Christopher follows a few seconds later.

“Thanks for not punching me out,” he says with a twist of his shoulder and a grin, and, that’s it, Ray’s hard just like that. “I guess you’re used to that.”

What the fuck.

Oh, fucking fuck, Ray has to ease his pants over his cock because he’s going to blow in about .3 seconds. “Yeah,” he says, and his voice isn’t rough on purpose but Chris closes his eyes anyway, a flush staining his cheeks. Ray waits until he’s opening them again and, looking right at him, says, “Usually guys follow up with something, though.”

Christopher’s tongue moves inside his mouth and Ray has to work to not close his own eyes; he keeps them wide open and watches Christopher. “I figured,” Christopher says after a second, more quietly still, taking a step closer to Ray, his hands going to his own jeans.

“No,” Ray says, surprised at his own daring, and Chris stops just like that. “Me,” Ray says next, and Christopher’s eyes flash, hot and dark, and he reaches out for Ray’s jeans.

And this is fucking insane, they’re both insane, and there’s no uniform to worry about this time – no, wait, they just met, he doesn’t know about the uniform – and Christopher’s already on his knees on the damp tile in front of Ray, already has Ray’s jeans unzipped. “Nice underwear,” he says, pulling Ray’s cock out from under it, and Ray snorts. “Nice cock,” he says then, his voice going deeper, and then he opens his mouth up and sucks Ray in.

Christ, he’s not going to last long, not the way Chris is sucking, going down deep and coming back up, hard and fast. “You’ve done this before,” he says, grasping for something to give Chris, anything, and it seems to work, Chris moans around his cock and nods, his thumb burrowing down to find Ray’s balls. He presses down and Ray jerks: he wants to come and can’t, won’t, no, definitely can’t, and Christopher pops off with a wet sound and then his tongue is licking down Ray’s cock to where his thumb is, his nose buried in Ray’s crotch and his tongue licking at Ray’s balls. He didn’t shave, Ray didn’t shave, and there’s stubble prickling against his cock, a light, glorious pain, and Christopher’s tongue on his balls.

“Fuck,” he gasps out, and Christopher’s mouth is back on his cock again, licking it, sucking the head in, hard, harder, then deep, deeper. What’s the – the etiquette here, he can’t remember what they’re doing, only Christopher’s mouth on his cock, Christopher’s fingers on his balls– “I’m, I’m–”

Christopher pulls off, it was the right call, pulls off and licks up the side of Ray’s cock again. “You gonna come?”

And thank God Christopher’s fast, he pushes Ray’s cock to one side, leans to the other, and right before the first spasm hits Ray sees Chris watching him, his cock: oh, fuck, he wants to watch Ray come.

Ray has to brace himself on the sink, still shuddering, still coming down, Chris stroking his cock, leaning in to lick off what didn’t make it to the floor. He’s got his own cock out now and Ray sees it in glimpses, dark in Christopher’s fist, Christopher jacking himself and licking jizz off the end of Ray’s cock. He tries to remember who they are, what they’re doing: “That’s it,” he says, and his voice sounds harsher than he means it to, but Christopher’s hand tightens on his thigh. “That’s it, clean me off.”

And Christopher’s eyes squeeze shut and he jerks hard, butting his head against Ray’s naked crotch, and now the glimpses are swells, white swells welling up, over, through Christopher’s fingers and spilling back down his cock.

Fuck, and Ray abandons the posture, sinking down to one knee, bending over, burrowing in, grabbing Christopher’s fist and cock in his mouth, licking and sucking Christopher’s fist, his fingers, until Chris lets go, then licking Christopher’s cock,  swallowing it all down. He gets most of it, too, even the stuff that dripped into the hair there, right at the base of Christopher’s cock, and it tastes so fucking good he could come all over again.

“Jesus, Ray,” and Christopher is breathless and surprised, half sprawled on the tile, and Ray heaves a deep breath, grinning like an idiot: he did it, he finally got Christopher. He folds one leg under him and sits too, resting his forearm on his other knee, breathing almost as hard as Chris. And then it hits him, what they just did, and he gusts out the rest of his breath and puts his forehead down on his arm.

He hears denim on tile and then he feels Christopher’s hand on his head, stroking down his neck; and then Christopher’s pushed up against him, pulling Ray against him, his lips in Ray’s hair. “Jesus,” he whispers again, and then his lips are against Ray’s ear, and Ray turns his head just enough to kiss him. Then he feels Christopher’s thumb across his lips and warm lips against his ear again. “Ray,” Christopher whispers, and his arm is tight across Ray’s shoulders. “I don’t...”

He sounds so not Chris that Ray tries to turn, but Christopher’s hand is suddenly on his jaw, holding him still, and his lips are warm and soft, and Ray closes his eyes reflexively. “Okay, I just have to – Stella’s fucking crazy.”

And that was so not what Ray was expecting that he laughs out loud. Christopher’s arm relaxes too, and the fingers on Ray’s face fall away, and then Christopher’s laughing along with him, almost like he’s surprised – again – and maybe even relieved.

Oh.

Stella.

He pulls his arm out from under Christopher’s, his turn to pull Chris closer, his turn to feel Christopher’s cheek under his lips, and he closes his eyes again because that was a really, really nice thing for Christopher to say, and, hell, he knows Ray’s been dealing with Stella since the second they met and he still told Ray that Ray was the nice one, in the parking garage. “You’re the nice one,” Ray whispers.

But wrong thing to say, apparently, because Chris pulls back enough to look at him, his head even cocking just enough to set the frown on his forehead off center. “Hey. I’m serious,” Christopher says, and, it’s true, he’s not smiling. “I didn’t want to, you know, rip the Band-Aid off, but seriously: she’s fucking crazy. You’re fucking hot.”

Ray shrugs, uncomfortable all at once: his cock’s still hanging out and the bathroom tile’s cold and a shiver goes up his spine before he can stop it. It’s over, it’s been over, it was really kind of a miracle there was ever anything to be over, and this – she –is not what he wants to think about now.

“It’s over,” he says, shrugging, tucking himself back into his pants and zipping up. Christopher’s slow to follow his lead but he does, finally. “I’m...” and he has to stop there, because he doesn’t know what to say: I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to realise it, I’m sorry I’m still getting done being over her when you’re here, I’m sorry...

“Don’t be sorry,” Christopher says, and when did he get so close to Ray again? His breath is warm on Ray’s lips, and he smells like beer and brats and sunshine. “I’m not sorry.”

Fuck that, this just keeps getting worse. He’s not sorry either, for any of it, and Chris thinks–

He pushes away, gets to his feet in a flurry of elbows and knees, and leans over the sink to wash his hands. He hears Christopher behind him, slower and quieter, and then Christopher’s washing his hands too, but mostly, Ray guesses, mostly so he can look at Ray in the mirror and Ray can pretend not to notice. He looks down at the floor and sees the mess so he grabs a paper towel and scrubs it up, then grabs another one and finishes drying his hands.

“I’m not sorry either,” he says to the garbage can, and then Christopher’s arms are around him, pulling him back, and Christopher’s kissing the back of his neck.

“I know,” is all he says but a weight lifts off Ray’s chest. He doesn’t want that with Chris, he doesn’t want that baggage, that drama, that... vibe he gets from Talbot and Stephanie, from Stella, once in a while, and, now, from his dad even. “Think traffic’s let up?”

And, again, Chris makes it easy, easy for Ray to shrug and smile at him, sideways, even make eye contact for a few seconds. “Guess we’ll find out.”

They don’t talk much on the way to the GTO. Once or twice Ray feels Chris looking at him but it’s probably his imagination, because when he does look over at Chris, he just gets a grin in return and, once, a movement, like he’s reaching out his hand, like he wants to touch Ray again, more.

Which Ray totally gets.

And then they’re at the car, safe in the spot him and his dad found years before they even thought of buying a GTO. Well, Greg and his dad probably found it, but they’ve been parking here ever since. Someday someone’ll develop it, his dad says; it’s a right-of-way for the El or something, but they haven’t yet.

He’s getting the keys out of his pocket, just like he did last night in the garage, and, just like last night in the garage, Christopher’s looking at the GTO kind of the same way he looks at Ray, like he doesn’t realise that his face is giving away how much he wants–

“You want to take her for a whirl?” Ray says slowly: really, no one’s ever driven the GTO but him and his dad and Greg. His mom’s ridden in it, of course, and once Uncle Martin said he was going to take it out, but Dad had just poured some more vodka and that was the end of that.

“Oh, fuck yes!” Christopher says, and there’s a warm glow in Ray’s chest. He makes a split second decision: if Chris wants to try out the GTO, he’s going to get to try out the GTO.  He tosses the keys to Christopher and circles around to the other side. “Let’s take the Eisenhower.”

“Okay,” Christopher says, a kind of dazed smile on his face. “Uh... that’s, that goes out to I-88, right? Isn’t that a toll road?” He’s sliding into the driver’s seat as Ray ducks his head and takes his place on the other side.

“Yeah,” Ray says, opening the glove box to show him the roll of quarters. “Trust me.”

Most of the post-game traffic’s thinned out, so it’s a little start and stop to the expressway and not much at all after that. He can see Christopher getting the feel of the car, and Christopher’s smile just gets bigger when the traffic finally falls away and he powers up. “Nice,” he breathes. “I took Richard’s Jag out once when I was fourteen. Lor dared me, so of course... and then there was Trip’s Maserati. Well, his dad’s. Trip stole that one but we all took turns driving it. How fast does this go?”

“My dad’s had it up to 200,” Ray says, and Christopher pushes down on the accelerator, making them both laugh. But he has to slow down: first toll plaza.

“This is where it gets fun,” Ray says. “Give me your watch.”

Christopher fumbles the watch off his wrist but doesn’t fumble the change in the basket. He waits a few seconds, watching Ray, and Ray says, “Mark... go!”

Christopher laughs out loud, ending in a whoop, but he shifts flawlessly. “5.9,” Ray says, leaning over to look at the speedometer. “Not bad for your first try.”

It’s actually really fucking good, but he knows Christopher knows that, and they both grin at each other like the insane idiots they are.

“There’s hardly ever any cops here so you can do quarter miles too, especially between Downer’s Grove and DeKalb.”

“What do you get?” Chris says, serious now. “HO, you said, right?”

“I’ve done 15,” Ray says. “My dad’s gotten low 13’s, last time we had her out: he loosened the belts and that was probably the difference. We never broke 14 before that.”

“You guys built this?” Christopher says incredulously.

“Not all of it,” Ray says, grinning sideways at him. “But, yeah, we rebuilt the engine, and don’t get me started on the paint job.”

“I never knew anyone who could even fix cars, before I went in the Navy,” Christopher says.

Yeah, vo-tech, not big in Connecticut, Ray guesses. Or not big in rich Connecticut. Where Ray grew up, how Ray grew up, not everyone rebuilt engines, sure, but everyone knew someone who did. Of course, everyone knew Ray’s dad, so that was probably where that came from.

He lets Christopher settle in and enjoy her, after that: he marks time at the toll plaza and sure enough, at the one outside Downer’s Grove, Christopher makes 14.9. When Ray reads the time at the 1/4 mile marker, Christopher makes a fist in the air and says, “Hoo-yah!” under his breath.

Yeah. Christopher knows his way around a stick.

And Ray tries really hard not to take that the way it just sounded in his head but he can’t help it, and he snickers, then snorts, then laughs out loud.

“Fuck yeah,” Christopher says, when Ray shares the joke, and he slides his eyes to the side to meet Ray’s; and suddenly Ray’s heart is pounding. Fuck, how does he do that?

“We, uh, we’re getting off at DeKalb,” he hears himself stuttering, and the blush follows as soon as his ears catch up with his mouth. But Christopher just looks ahead at the road, then snakes a hand over to squeeze Ray’s knee before he goes back to the gear knob to downshift. “We usually get gas there, and we can grab a burger.”

“And then back?” Chris says, pulling into the toll plaza again.

“Oh, no,” Ray says, and he enjoys the surprise on Christopher’s face. “We’re just getting started.”

“Sixty miles in 34 minutes,” Christopher says, one eyebrow raised. “Where are we going, Kansas City?”

“Better,” Ray says, although really he has no idea because, Kansas City, what? Barbecue. Cows. Dust?

They get gas at the truck stop where Ray and his dad usually stop for burgers. It’s cheap, smoky, and the pie’s homemade. Ray’s dad always gets a slice of coconut cream and a cup of coffee for dessert, so that’s what Ray orders. Christopher orders the lemon chiffon. It has a slice of candied lemon on top and Ray finds himself suddenly wishing they had more time, wishes he could take Christopher home on Sunday, let Chris try his mom’s pot roast, her lemon meringue pie. He knows his mom would love Chris: she loves everyone. But Christopher makes it so easy, even Ray’s dad might get along with him.

His dad never took to Stella, although his mom got along great with her. He didn’t tell his dad he was going to the wedding with Stel: he didn’t have to, his mom already knew, and Ray wonders if she thought they were getting back together. His parents are hard to read that way: even though Ray’s pretty sure his dad would be perfectly happy to never see Stella again, it’s just a feeling he has, because his dad would sure as hell never say anything like that. And he’s not really sure how his mom feels about her either, although she said all the right stuff after they broke up the first time. The second time, not so much, and that’s why Ray wonders, a little niggle here and there, if his mom was relieved that they broke up again. But it’s nothing he can put a finger on: his parents are fucking Switzerland when it comes to his and Greg’s love lives.

But his mom did like Stella. Maybe still does, and Stella liked his mom, loved his mom’s cooking too. She taught Stella how to make pies, or at least how to try to make pies; the kitchen at Stella’s always seemed to be foreign territory, at least every time Ray’s been there. No one hung out there, no one even went in there unless they were chasing down ice cubes or the maid. In fact, Ray thinks he’s maybe seen the kitchen once, when the door swung open wide. At his house, the kitchen’s where everything happens, the table big enough for all of them plus Dwayne, an uncle, the new guy who took over the junkyard, whoever. There’s beer always cold, and Mom’s always making something on the stove, in the oven, something for someone: soup for a neighbour who broke her leg, a cake for the lady up the street who lost her husband, cookies for, well, everyone.

He ends up sharing his pie with Christopher, who eats so much that Ray’s sure his mom would just absolutely love him. It’s too sweet for Ray; now he knows why his dad drinks a lot of coffee with it. But nothing’s too sweet or too bitter for Christopher, and Ray has a feeling that that explains Christopher better than anything else he’d be able to come up with: coconut cream pie and coffee that would melt a spoon.

It’s full dark by the time they finish the pie. Christopher tried the peach pie too, since it was in season: even though the waitress was tired, she was still flirting with Christopher and somehow the pie was involved; it was Ray’s turn to use the bathroom so he missed most of it. She made a fresh pot of coffee though, which was all Ray needed, so he watches Christopher flirt with the waitress, drinks his coffee, and grins at Christopher from behind the mug when Chris glances over at him.

She tries to send a pie home with them, too, but Christopher bows out of that one in a way that leaves Ray breathless with admiration and the waitress breathless for other reasons (Christopher’s wink plus tip equals deadly; Ray has to file that away in the “To Remember” file). Probably better that way, he thinks, bracing the door to the parking lot with his foot to let Chris through. Even though the pie was good, they’re doing Illinois 23 next and the GTO does not need peach pie splatted all over its roof: his dad would have a heart attack.

And that makes Ray laugh, and Christopher too, and when Ray looks over at Christopher again, just to see the rest of the grin on his face, Christopher’s eyes go dark and he pulls Ray up close and personal, a fist in Ray’s t-shirt, his mouth hot on Ray’s.

A truck door slams nearby, but Ray hardly registers it.

A few seconds later he realises he should have. “Fuckin’ Chicago faggots, take it up the ass somewhere else,” and on the other side of Chris there’s the broad side of a barn door, a nice corn-fed barn door.

But Christopher doesn’t miss a beat. Ray didn’t see it coming, and the barn door sure as hell didn’t. He drops like he was poleaxed and Christopher doesn’t even shake out his fist.

The whole thing is surreal: one of them is about to get their ass beat (and not who Ray thought five seconds ago), but Ray hears himself saying, “Navy SEALs, yeah!”

Christopher’s mouth quirks up in a sideways grin that only Ray can see, but he’s still looking at the guy on the ground, who’s trying to get up.  “Fuck... you’re a Navy SEAL?” the barn door says, wiping the blood away from his mouth with the back of his hand and catching himself with his other hand when he tries to stand.

“Not yet,” Christopher says. “But when I graduate, I’ll be a Navy SEAL who takes it up the ass. And you’ll still be a dick I’d never fuck.”

“Fuck you,” the barn door says, but he’s not even trying, and Christopher just cocks his head at Ray and shrugs. Ray shrugs too and jerks his head towards the car. No one in the diner’s realised anything’s going on yet, and they’ve still got a lot to do tonight.

“What the fuck ever,” the barn door says, dragging himself upright and then putting his head down fast, his hands on his thighs. “What about you, Chicago? You a Marine?”

“I’m a cop,” Ray says, going around to the other side of the GTO.

“You take it up the ass too?”

Ray looks past Christopher, across the roof of the GTO, right at the guy. “Fuck yeah,” Ray says, just like Chris said it before, outside Downer’s Grove. Christopher’s head jerks up and he stares at Ray, and Ray feels heat start to uncoil in his belly at the look in Christopher’s eyes.

Fuckin’ A.

“The best part is that waitress will never believe him,” Christopher says happily, pulling out of the parking lot in a peel of rubber.

“PsyOps,” Ray says, and they both laugh like fucking crazy, adrenaline spilling out and over and onto the road through the open windows. “No, straight here,” he says, catching his breath. “We’re not going back that way.”

“Kansas City, I told you,” Christopher says.

“You’re never going to let Kansas City go, are you.”

Illinois 23: this is the place you go, Ray’s dad says, this is the place you go if you want to rip it out. It’s better on a Sunday night but even so it’ll be pretty dead on a Saturday night, they’ve done that before too. “It’s almost a straight shot all the way down to Ottawa,” Ray says. “You can see for miles.”

“Fuuuck,” Christopher breathes, long and low and quiet; and as they leave DeKalb behind, the darkness wraps around them, thick, deep, silent except for the muted growl of the GTO’s engine.

After the third stop sign, Ray stops counting, because Christopher’s not stopping. He rolls up the window, like Chris did, and then closes his eyes. And then he hears Christopher, quiet, talking like they’ve been having a conversation all along: “...and Talbot’s Porsche, yeah, I remember... I just got my learner’s permit and he told me to go move it, let someone out, I don’t remember. I didn’t come back for six hours.”

“Only six?” Ray says, just as quiet, his eyes closed, and Christopher chuckles. Ray’s actually driven a Porsche, but not Talbot’s, of course; it was a junker but, man, could that thing corner. He knows his dad wavered but in the end he stuck with Detroit.

“And I told you about the Jag,” Christopher’s saying, still in that faraway voice. “I wouldn’t want one but it sounded just like a big cat. But this... this is like riding my bike, you can feel the power in it, all the way up your legs, all the way through... your body.” He stretches his back, somehow, as he says it, his eyes closing briefly, and Ray’s mouth goes dry: he looks just like he did last night, in bed, getting... fucked.

And Ray’s hard, just like that (okay, yeah, he’s been hard since the diner, but now he’s harder); and he wonders if Christopher is too. One way to find out: he slides a hand across the console to Christopher’s thigh. Christopher inhales, and the sound is loud between them. Ray runs a hand down Christopher’s inseam, teasing: he knows Christopher’s expecting the other way. This time Christopher gasps, easing up on the gas a fraction.

And there went another stop sign; that just jacks Ray higher.

Jack, yeah, he can do that, it’s been, fuck, four hours since he last saw Christopher’s dick? He lets the back of his hand brush Christopher’s crotch, and, yeah, he’s hard.

“Jesus,” Christopher whispers, and his hands are tight on the steering wheel and he shifts his legs even farther apart, pushing up against Ray’s hand.

But Ray moves again, leaning into Christopher’s space enough to brush down the other thigh, just along the inseam. He hears Christopher swallow, a loud sound, or maybe it’s because he’s so close in. This time when Ray brushes the back of his hand across Christopher’s hard on, Christopher jerks up against him. Yeah, too soon, not soon enough: Christopher’ll probably pop, like that, if Ray touches him there one more time, so he pulls that hand back, bracing it on the console, and leans in with his right hand, pushing up and under Christopher’s t-shirt.

“Fuck,” Christopher says hoarsely, low and quiet, when Ray palms a nipple. Jesus, forget Christopher, Ray feels like he’ll go off if Chris even looks at him: the vibration of the engine, Christopher’s arms like steel, his chest warm, rough silk under Ray’s hand and solid muscle under that. “Christ, Ray...”

“Chris...” Ray whispers, and he licks Christopher’s arm, just there, at the bottom of his sleeve, and Chris is salty and hard and Ray licks again, a faraway echo of how Christopher’s cock tastes, and he licks once more, then starts to suck. Christopher lets go of the wheel with his left hand and grabs Ray’s head, digging his fingers into Ray’s hair and pushing Ray’s head down onto his arm so Ray has to, wants to, suck even harder.

“Fuck,” Christopher says, a different intonation this time, and Ray looks up, looks ahead.

“Just a dogleg,” he says, fuck, are they at 52 already? Where the fuck did the night go? Where did the road go? “Right, then left, pick up 23 again, all the way to Ottawa.”

They have to stop at 52; there’s traffic there. But it gives Ray the chance to unbutton Christopher’s jeans, pull the zipper down, and by the time they’ve picked up 23 again he’s got his hand inside Christopher’s pants, loosening them and straightening out his cock.

“Get your cock out,” Christopher says, shifting to third, his voice gravelly. “I want to feel you.”

So Ray ducks under Christopher’s arm again just as Chris shifts into fourth, his jeans unbuttoned and unzipped in 5.9 seconds.

“Fuck,” Christopher says again, and the next thing Ray knows, Christopher’s got a hand all over Ray’s cock, sliding down, pulling back up.

There’s a stop sign coming up but he feels, hears Chris put the clutch in. “Car,” Christopher hisses, and Ray gets it, grabs the gearshift and pops it into neutral, he can’t see the tach–

But he can feel the engine, he can feel the engine and Christopher’s hand on his cock all mixed together, he can hear Chris rev the engine, feel him step on the clutch again, and they double clutch into second as smooth as lemon chiffon pie. Christopher pulls hard again on his cock, pushes the clutch in one more time, and finds Ray’s balls with the tips of his fingers while Ray downshifts to first.

The car on the cross road pokes by, maybe doing forty, and Chris and Ray watch it, Ray holding the gearshift, Chris holding his cock, both of them breathing hard. Christopher looks over, leans over, kisses Ray, hard, his hand working Ray’s cock up and down, and Ray can’t do anything but hang on to the gearshift and push his dick up into Christopher’s hand, push his tongue into Christopher’s mouth.

“God,” Christopher says into his mouth, letting go of the wheel and pulling Ray closer with that hand. “Jesus, Ray.”

“Chris,” Ray says back to him, letting go of the gear and feeling blindly for Christopher’s thigh, then groping higher. And now it’s Christopher’s turn to push into Ray’s hand, his turn to moan into Ray’s mouth, his turn to push his face into Ray’s neck, way-past-five-o’clock-shadow pricking against Ray’s, and Ray could come now, could sit all night like this, could watch the sun come up and never move.

“Are we there yet?” Christopher whispers into Ray’s ear, and Ray laughs, turning his head blindly to kiss Christopher one more time.

Christopher doesn’t let go of his cock, though, so Ray pulls back to his own seat and upshifts until they’re in fourth. Chris isn’t pulling on his cock, mostly just holding it, squeezing once in a while, like he just remembered it was there. And Ray takes advantage again of the empty road stretching ahead to stretch his hand into Christopher’s lap again, ducking his head under Christopher’s arm too.

Chris laughs, a gusty expulsion of noise, and suddenly his hand’s gone from Ray’s cock, on the back of Ray’s head instead. “Fuck,” he says again, just a whisper in the dark, pulled out of the car on the wind. Ray’s got a hand into Christopher’s shorts now, and he can smell Christopher’s arousal, warm, musky, heady. He pulls himself over farther and the car jerks when Christopher pushes up into Ray’s face, pushing down on the gas at the same time.

“Fuck,” Christopher says, his normal voice, laughing; and Ray doesn’t think he’ll ever get tired of hearing Christopher laugh. “I really can drive your car.”

“Any time,” Ray says against Christopher’s cock, and then he leans in, just far enough to lick.

Chris has both hands on the wheel now; Ray can feel the tension in the arm across the back of his neck. “Suck me,” Christopher whispers. “God, Ray–”

What the fuck, if he’s going to die he can’t think of a better way than right here, right now, and he drops his head down, taking Christopher in, swallowing hard and then sucking even harder.

“Fucking fuck,” Christopher moans, thrusting up into his mouth, short, hard, fast thrusts, and Ray backs off, keeps it shallow. He’s not sure exactly what Christopher says then, because the engine revs and Christopher’s hand is suddenly on the back of his neck again, the back of his head, trying to push Ray down.

But Ray pushes back against it, still keeping Chris on a short leash, yeah, light pressure, light strokes, teasing with his tongue. He’s not sure how far he can push Chris; any second he expects to feel him tense, tense and shake all over, shake and spurt and jerk into his mouth. 

“God, stop, stop!” Chris says, and Ray lets go, but it’s not (just) Christopher about to come, or another cross road: they’re coming up on Ottawa already.

He should have checked the time: he’s willing to bet they put up something decent, even with the poky car. The one time he caught the speedometer Christopher had it pushed up in the 150s, and he feels a thrill run through him: forget the mile high club, do they have a mile long club, blowing a guy at 150 mph?

But he has to sit up, sit up and help Christopher navigate. Christopher tries to go to the highway, and, fuck yeah, Ray wants to get home and fuck, but his dad and him came this way once, along the river, so fun to do in the GTO, enough bends to put her through her paces, and if he can keep his hands off Christopher for another half hour Christopher will get to experience all of Detroit, fuck that Porsche, fuck that Maserati too. “We’re looking for the 6,” he says, glancing behind them: not much traffic. There’s two bars in Ottawa, both on the road to the river, and sure enough that’s where all the cars are parked, doors opening into the parking lot, and Ottawa’s three cop cars parked at the one closer to the river.

“What’s this?” Christopher says as they turn onto 6 and he accelerates, leaving the lights of the town behind, and the two cars that were crossing the river after all, and his voice sounds almost normal.

“Boom some corners,” Ray says, and he’s trying to keep his voice sounding normal too. His hard-on’s gone down about half way, but he hasn’t bothered to put it back in his pants. He looks over at Christopher and, just like he thought, Chris is still hard, all the way hard, it looks like; and Ray’s mouth waters again.

But this is supposed to be the fun part, even though Ray’s not really sure any more what “fun” means, because it’s all mixed up in his head now: the quiet rumble of the engine, the smell of Christopher, the taste of him still in Ray’s mouth, the stars in the sky, the river a thin black ribbon through the trees; and he rolls his window down again to enjoy the summer night, the summer air, and Christopher glances over, then rolls his window down too, with a half-smile at Ray.

Christopher’s figuring out the road and Ray sits back: he remembers the first time he drove this road, the thrill the first time he thought he was taking a corner too fast and then he wasn’t, the GTO gripping the road like it was glue and his dad laughing along with him.

Sure enough, Christopher takes the first corner more cautiously than he’s been driving all night, and Ray can almost see him relax when they come out of the turn, a pleasant, surprised relaxation, and Christopher rolls his shoulders, shakes out his neck, glances at Ray and grins. Ray grins back; and the next bend, when Christopher tops it and throws his head back and laughs, Ray laughs along with him. Christopher shakes his shoulders out again and casually reaches down between his legs and strokes himself. Ray closes his eyes for a second and then does the same, letting himself feel the car through the vibration in the seat, through his cock, pushing up into his hand. He matches Chris stroke for stroke for a few seconds and then another bend’s coming up and Chris reaches for the gearshift again. Ray just leans back, spreading his legs wider, and pushes up into his hand, lazy, slow; and then he braces himself on the console with his other hand and Chris hits the next bend flawlessly, knowing what the GTO can do now: she loves a challenge.

“Sweet,” Christopher says, almost like he’s talking to himself again. “Jesus, can you imagine doing the 101? Do you ever get out to California?”

“Never been,” Ray says. His dad’s talked for years about driving the GTO to the Grand Canyon but something’s always come up, a wedding, a funeral, a cousin needing some cash, a kid dropping out of college, going to the Academy instead–

Yeah, you never know.

“You should come out some time,” Christopher says, so casually that Ray’s heart doesn’t need to start pounding.

That doesn’t stop it, of course.

“You never know, I might get stationed in Coronado,” and Christopher’s still talking, unconcerned, still driving Ray’s car, his dick still poking up. “Fifty fifty chance, right?”

“Is it?” Ray can barely form two syllables, and he has to drag his eyes away from Christopher and force himself to look ahead at the road.

“You like motorcycles?”

“Love them,” Ray says, and they could be talking about popsicles for all he knows, he feels like screaming, he feels like coming, he feels like there’s things inside him he never felt before and he doesn’t know how – where – and sure as hell not why to let them out.

They top a rise and he sees the lights of the highway in the distance. Ahead the 6 turns north; Ray makes a split second decision. “No, go straight here,” he says, and he got four whole syllables out that time.

It’s not a gravel road, not that bad, but it’s a one lane country road, and Christopher slows down for the first time all night, the headlights cutting through the dark like searchlights. Ray reaches over blindly, not looking away from the road, reaches over blindly and connects with Christopher’s cock on the first try. Like a beacon, his hand guides his mouth in and he’s sucking Christopher down again, not teasing him this time, just wanting him, God, wanting to taste him, feel him–

“Easy,” Christopher’s saying above him and Ray’s not sure who he’s talking to, Ray or the GTO. His arm crosses Ray’s back, smoothing down it, then finding the gearshift and downshifting again. “Easy.” There’s a thud and a bump, and they roll to a stop, the cessation of motion, of sound, almost violent. “Easy,” Chris whispers one more time, his hand gentle, soothing as he leans, himself, across the console.

Oh, fuck, yeah, Ray’s dreamed about trying this in the GTO but Stella–

Yeah, not as easy as it seems; Ray has to roll back, shift and brace against the steering wheel, and Christopher has to push and pull him, elbows and knees and, really, just not enough room–

But that all melts away when he feels Christoper’s mouth on his cock, his fingers reaching down, again, for Ray’s balls. They manage like that for a few sucks, but the gearshift is pressing hard into Ray’s kidney, and there’s a knee pushed up against his shoulder so he can’t get his arm free.

“Fuck,” he says against Christopher’s stomach, breathing hard; and then he reaches forward, fumbling the door handle open backwards.

Christopher found a clearing, no lights anywhere but the stars, and somewhere off in the distance a farm dog barks once and quiets. Ray slithers, slides over Chris and out onto the grass; Chris isn’t far behind, and he comes out on his feet instead of his hands like Ray did. They pull each other to their feet and then he’s got Christopher plastered up against him, hard cock to hard cock, and his hand’s on Christopher’s neck, Christopher’s hand is in his hair and they’re kissing each other like they haven’t touched anything, anyone in years.

Then Ray feels Christopher’s hands on his ass, pushing his jeans down, and that’s an even better idea, so he does the same, freeing Chris from his jeans, his underwear, even his t-shirt.

“Good thinking,” Christopher whispers against his jaw, and a shudder runs all the way up through Ray’s body, uncontrollable excitement mounting higher and higher, and he doesn’t know where it’s all going to go, he has no idea where any of it’s going to go, and that is such a fucking lie he almost laughs out loud: he knows exactly where it’s going, even if he’s not sure how. And then Chris pulls Ray’s shirt off and they’re chest to chest, cock to cock, his hands on Christopher’s ass, Christopher’s hands on his ass.

“Fuck,” Ray breathes, and he bites Christopher’s jaw, then licks down his neck, straight down, down to a nipple. Christopher moans, a loud, low sound, and pulls Ray hard against him.

“Now,” he says into Ray’s neck, and Ray has no idea what they’re talking about until a few seconds later, when he feels Christopher’s fingers parting his ass, pressing in. “Now.”

“Yeah,” Ray breathes, closing his eyes and tilting his head back. Chris sucks there, sucks deep and hard, and Ray feels a sting, and he squeezes his eyes tight, jerking against Christopher’s whole entire body and trying really hard not to come right that second. Christopher licks there a second later, then kisses Ray and pulls him away from the car, kisses him again and turns him around, pushing him back down; and Ray lets him, breathing the night air in deep, listening to the chirp of the crickets, the faraway hum of a truck on the highway.

And now he knows what took Christopher so long getting out of the car: he hears a condom wrapper, hears the snap of latex, and he feels like he ought to feel more than he is, but all he feels right now is a sense of inevitability, and he’s strung so tight he could sing with it. So he rests his forehead against his arm, leaning on the roof of the GTO, and he takes a breath, then another, then one more as Christopher steps behind him, pushes his thighs apart as far as he can, puts a hand on Ray’s hip and pushes.

And... ow.

“Fuck, sorry,” Christopher says up close against his shoulder, stumbling over those two words like he’s not thinking straight either, and, really, how can he be? Because Ray sure as hell isn’t: his world has narrowed to Christopher, warm and solid behind him, his dick, hot and throbbing in front of him, and the GTO, cool and sleek and holding them both up.

Then he hears Christopher spit. He spits, too, when Chris tells him too, and, fuck that’s good, warm wet fingers squirming up into his ass. He pushes back against them, hears Chris spit again, and then the fingers are gone and Christopher’s dick is back, pushing in again, further this time, Christopher holding onto Ray’s hips with both hands, pushing slow, pushing steady. He grunts, a startling sound in the still, quiet air, and then Ray feels a hand on his shoulder, Christopher’s right hand on his left shoulder.

And there’s a flash behind his eyes and he sees, with startling clarity, an image of them, caught out of the night: he’s done that, exactly that, to Stella, he knows what it looks like, and he sees them, Chris behind Ray, holding Ray at an angle, pressing inside him; and he moans, loud, hungry, and pushes back against Christopher.

Christopher grunts again, surprised this time, his fingers like steel on Ray’s shoulder, holding Ray just there, and Ray pushes back again: fuckin’ A, barn door, take that, take that right up the ass; and Chris slides all the way in, his fingers squeezing hard enough to bruise Ray’s shoulder. Ray feels him drop his head against Ray’s back, and then he feels a tongue, slow, soft, warm, kissing his back, sucking just enough, then kissing him again. “Sorry,” he’s saying against Ray’s back. “Sorry, I just, I can’t–”

Ray pushes back one more time: he can’t get breath for words, but he can move, he can move just enough, even though he fucking feels impaled on Christopher’s cock, because it is big – huge – and he’s almost scared to move, split in half but together around the edges, but it feels like nothing on earth and he wants to see what happens when he does, or at least when one of them moves.

“Oh, God, don’t–” and Christopher’s arms are suddenly around him, pulling him impossibly closer and he feels Christopher’s cock swell up even bigger, even harder, and then he feels Christopher shudder all through his body, from his arms to his belly to his cock, deep inside Ray, and one hand slips down to Ray’s belly to hold Ray close, still, flat up against Christopher.

He hardly has time to think, to figure out what just happened: Christopher pulls out, breathing hard, and Ray feels him pull at his cock, up against Ray’s ass, hears the soft squish of used latex, feels Christopher’s fingers fumbling, moving, rubbing along his dick; and then Christopher’s sinking back inside him, wetter than before, easier now, and still just as hard, before Ray even had time to process he was gone. “God, sorry,” Christopher’s saying up against Ray’s ear, licking behind it, kissing Ray there, along his hairline. “So fucking tight, God...”

And, finally, finally, he moves a hand back down to Ray’s cock, stroking it once, then just holding Ray there, his palm pressing flat against, around Ray’s cock, holding Ray while he starts to move, slow, gradual, until Ray’s aching with a sweet, desperate need, pushing back against him, matching him stroke for stroke. Chris pushes harder, faster, and Ray wants more, more than that, even: it’s starting to feel as incredible as he thought it must, the way Christopher went off when Ray did it to him, and even the queer not-quite-burn around his asshole is starting to feel good. Then Chris pulls out almost all the way and thrusts in again, fast, hard, and Ray sees white lights going off: he squeezed his eyes shut so tight, so fast, he’s seeing stars.

“Got it, take it, God, Ray,” Christopher says up against his mouth, leaning over Ray and somehow still doing it again, and there’s the spark again, and again, and Ray’s pushing back, pulling off, fucking himself on Christopher’s cock, fuck oh fucking yeah: if this is taking it up the ass, Ray’s a lifelong fan and an instant convert.

“Trying – so hard – not to–” Chris grits out, thrusting even faster.

Ray drums up a laugh from somewhere, even though he feels like he’ll  never breathe again, never feel again, never do anything again but feel this, like this: “You’re good for – for at least–” and the only number he can think of, “–four, don’t – don’t hand me that–”

Christopher laughs too, pulling his breath in like a sob, and the sound shakes all through Ray’s body. Then he pulls out, all the way, rubbing his dick up and down, against but not in, and Ray scrabbles for purchase on the ground, for leverage on the GTO, anything–

“Everything,” Christopher says, warm in his ear, licking his tongue up the back of Ray’s neck, his cock brushing across Ray’s asshole; and, finally, his hand’s on Ray’s cock, stroking him hard and just right. Finally, yes, and Christopher’s pushing back inside him, pushing in and stroking out Ray’s cock like it’s all connected, and Ray grabs Chris’s arm, the one braced on the GTO, and he lets Chris pull it out of him, stroke by spurt by spatter, all over the door. And Chris leans up and over, finding Ray’s mouth and moaning into it, and then he’s grunting, holding Ray almost too hard while he thrusts up and in, wet and hard, and then goes rigid, his cock jerking inside Ray.

And, oh God, that feels even better, Chris stabbing wet and hard inside him, and, fuck, Ray was right, maybe: Chris is still hard, still pushing up into Ray, but wet too, sliding in and out, slow, then fast. Sliding, Christ, wet and easy, like Ray’s getting used to it now.

Which he is, kind of: the burn’s gone now, Ray’s wet and loose and there’s jizz dripping down onto his balls, he can feel it slide down when Chris is sliding out, slow, so slow, and back in even slower. “That’s it,” Christopher whispers against his neck, and then Ray feels his thighs pressing Ray’s thighs even further apart, pushing in faster now. “I can’t – can’t get–”

Ray tries to bend over, tries to help: Chris is taller than him, not much but enough; but the window’s still rolled down so Ray just shifts over, gripping the window and bracing himself against Christopher. And he feels Christopher straighten up behind him, feels the angle change, Chris pushing in harder and deeper, relentless, fucking Ray just like that until Ray feels his dick start to get hard again just from Chris pounding into his ass. He chokes on that thought, chokes and bites down on his hand where his thumb’s clenched into his fist, and he pushes back against Chris, stuttering them both out of that fantastic hard rhythm.

“I cannot believe you,” Chris says, his voice a warm dark whisper down Ray’s spine. “Hang on, hang on, God...”

And he’s pulled out again, completely this time, and Ray feels drugged, dazed, he’s hard, so hard, and so’s Chris, and what the fuck? The wind stirs through the trees, leaves rustling: a breeze off the river, cool on his heated skin, cool across his cock,  across his balls, and he feels the goosebumps come up on his arms.

Chris is leaning over him, his chest warm and soft against Ray, reaching in through the window for–

And the trunk pops and Ray takes a breath, another one, to ask what–

Chris remembered the blanket, the one they put in Ray’s kit bag this morning, and he’s shaking it out and refolding it in the two seconds it takes him to get back to Ray, to pull Ray up and off the car and into another kiss, the blanket warm against Ray’s shoulder.

“Once more,” Chris is saying against his mouth and Ray has no idea what he’s talking about, yes, whatthefuckever, anything, Chris, and Chris is shaking out the blanket and then turning Ray, pushing him down to his knees.

Oh fuck yeah, and Ray goes down, all the way down to his elbows, his ass in the air. He feels a warm wet swipe that cools, fast, down his back, down almost all the way to his ass. That jerks him out of his daze: he braces on his left elbow and finds his dick with his right hand just as Chris slides in again. He can’t really be harder than before, or bigger, but it feels like he is: maybe that was the point of this, because it feels so fucking great Ray can’t stand it. He pulls on his dick, trying to time it with Christopher, but Christopher’s pushing in hard, pulling out fast, pressing a hand into the small of Ray’s back and holding him there, like the idea of catching a rhythm is beyond him right this second and the only thing he can do is just hang on to Ray, hang on and fuck him for dear life.

“Fuck you... so deep...” Christopher’s voice is throaty and rough and he stutters hard into Ray on the last word, stutters and holds for a few long seconds, breathing hard. “Fucking... crazy...”

Ray chokes and then laughs, and, Jesus, it’s weird to laugh bent over like this, with a cock hard in your ass.

And that’s what Christopher must be feeling too. Ray laughs again, just at the idea it might be new to Christopher, and then he tightens his ass right down when Chris moves again, back, then forth. And that feels crazy, that’s fucking crazy, because he feels like Christopher’s going to split him, maybe already has, and you know what? Ray can live with that, Ray’s good with that, hell, Ray is great with that. He feels his knees start to wobble under him and the next time Chris pushes in Ray goes over, flat onto his stomach, just to see what it feels like.

What it feels like is having a warm soft blanket draped over him, and a hot hard cock inside him, and Ray’s dick all squashed under them both, up against the blanket.

“No,” Chris whispers, sucking on Ray’s ear, then biting. “C’mere, come on...” He pulls out again and Ray moans, pushing back, but Chris is already moving, pulling Ray’s shoulder, hip, pushing Ray onto his back. And then Christopher’s mouth is suddenly, shockingly, closing over Ray’s dick, and Chris has two fingers up Ray’s ass and, Jesus, he didn’t see that coming. Chris licks and sucks and licks some more, and then he pulls his wet, warm fingers out of Ray’s ass and spits again on Ray’s cock, then rubs his fingers up and down, wetter and warmer than the spit by itself. And Ray’s with the program now: he bends his knees, braces his legs, and pushes up just as Christopher kneels over him, one foot flat on the blanket, one knee on the other side, pushing against Ray.

“Jesus,” he says, and he didn’t mean his voice to go that high, but, fuck, he hasn’t been inside Stella bare since that very first time and this is like that times ten, times a hundred, with coffee and peach pie on top. But Christopher’s busy himself, his head back, one hand still at the base of Ray’s cock, and Ray tries to breathe, tries to pull himself together, pushing up and pulling back in little strokes.

“The fuck didn’t I bring lube,” Chris growls under his breath, like he’s talking to himself again, and he pushes down more and Ray’s all the way in now, Christopher’s balls warm against his, Christopher’s dick flopping against Ray’s belly. He lets Chris move first, now he knows what that feels like, lets Chris move back and forth, just a little, up and down, just a little more, and he wonders if his eyes are crossing with the effort of not tipping Chris over and just fucking him, hard and deep, tighter and hotter than he ever dreamed.

And, oh, fuck, that’s good, that’s awesome, Chris loosening around him, moving more and more. He lets Chris keep setting the pace and pretty soon Chris is back to full hard-on, stabbing Ray’s belly with every thrust. Ray closes his eyes and holds onto Christopher’s ass, lets himself just feel Christopher’s ass impossibly tight around his cock, lets himself hear Chris making the breathy little sounds that blend with the night. Just like yesterday he suddenly feels like he can go all night and Chris seems to feel it too, rocking, more than pushing or pulling, letting himself lean back against Ray’s knees and grinding down, then leaning forward to kiss Ray, still rocking just enough.

Could almost fall asleep like this, Ray thinks dreamily, yeah, they should try that some time. Then Chris leans forward again and Ray’s enfolded in a warm hug, warm Christopher, warm muscles, warm chest hair surrounding him. He hugs back, kissing Christopher where he can reach, on his neck, just under his ear. Then Christopher finds his mouth and suddenly the calm is gone, suddenly Ray wants to fuck up into Christopher’s tight ass, wants to feel every inch of Christopher’s mouth with his tongue, wants to lick Christopher all over, from his neck down to his knees, pushing into Ray’s side and holding Ray tight even that way.

“Oh yeah,” Chris whispers throatily, responding by shoving his ass down hard against Ray’s pelvis.

Yeah, you’re not kidding, Ray thinks, and suddenly he remembers.

It’s the work of seconds to pull out, push Christopher back onto his heels, and seconds more to gather up the blanket and dump it on the hood. He slides into the driver’s seat, brake’s on, of course Chris wouldn’t forget, and he pushes the clutch in and starts her up.

Christopher’s coming slowly to his feet, one knee bent and his hand on his knee, and Ray can see the dazed look in his eyes even though they’re just a reflection in the night. He helps Christopher all the way up, then pushes him backwards onto the hood of the GTO.

Thank God for long legs, Chris is just high enough, and Ray spits again, two, three times, stroking his cock, then pulls Christopher up close and pushes his cock back in. It slides in easy, just a catch at the end, and Christopher groans loud and long, wrapping his legs around Ray’s waist, bracing his hands on the hood. Ray catches them with his own hands, pulling Christopher up just enough to balance them both; and then he starts to move, pulling out slow, pushing in fast, and every time Christopher gasps. Soon Chris is pulling at him, pulling Ray towards him, insistent, faster, and Ray lets him set the pace again: he can do it, he can give Chris what he wants. He has to concentrate on that, has to ignore the rumble of the GTO, the vibration pushing them together and sparking up in his balls: he wants Chris to come again, come with Ray hard inside him, because that felt – that felt incredible, and with the engine running it’s got to be even–

“Ray,” Chris says, and Ray can hear the tremor run all the way through both of them, and Chris is hanging on with just one hand now, the other one on his cock, and Ray wraps his hand around it too, underneath, just to feel–

“Chris,” he says back, and it’s pretty much too late, oh well, he tried, he’s running toward that plateau, about to jump,  hanging breathless in the air–

“She’s – fucking – crazy,” Chris grits out, and every word seems to pull Ray towards him, closer, closer in, and Christopher stops trying to talk then, just throws his head back onto the hood of the GTO and moans, his hand working his cock, his ass working Ray’s cock.

Oh thank God and Ray feels his own eyes squeeze shut, feels his hand grab Christopher’s cock probably too tight, Christopher’s come hot on their fingers in the cool night air, and he pushes up hard into Christopher’s ass and stays there until his balls are emptied, his knees shaking.

Or is that the car?  He laughs, so out of breath it’s more of a huff, and braces forward onto the hood with his hands, pushing up into Christopher’s ass one last time, one last spasm wringing him out; and then Chris pulls him down, down on to that strong, warm chest, soft and furry, and Ray doesn’t even mind this time when he slips out because his brain is whirling in a happy nowhere place where there’s nothing but him and Christopher and the occasional cricket, and the GTO rumbling underneath it all.

He closes his eyes for just a few seconds and listens to Christopher’s heartbeat, slowing down, a steady thud under his cheek. He feels Christopher’s hand, warm on his back, relaxing too. He startles awake when Christopher’s hand slips off his back and falls to the windshield with a dull thump. Fuck.

“Chris,” he whispers, and Christopher’s heart thuds hard under his chin and he grabs at Ray. “Hey,” Ray says softly. “We can’t sleep here.”

Chris nods, his eyes heavy, and Ray reaches up to kiss him without even thinking: Chris looks a lot younger, all of the sudden, and Ray feels a queer tight clench in his chest. “Climb in the back, you can sack out on the way home.”

“’m all right,” Chris mumbles.

He wakes up enough to get dressed; their underwear’s a mess, and Ray wonders if he can get a load of laundry done in the morning while Mrs. Sobczak’s at church. Chris pulls his shoes on without socks and doesn’t bother to tie them, just stumbles around to the other side.

He falls asleep again on the way back, but Ray was expecting that. He rouses outside Joliet, when Ray stops for gas and some bottled water: he’s dry as a desert and he imagines Chris is feeling the same way. Chris downs an entire bottle without stopping and half of another one, asks if it’s a hundred and six miles to Chicago with a low chuckle, and Ray’s pretty sure he’s asleep again by the time they gets back on the highway.

He doesn’t push the GTO going back, just enjoys her, and the quiet sound of breathing next to him. Two days ago none of this would ever have occurred to him but he wouldn’t change a second of it. He feels like he’s seeing the world through new eyes, through Christopher’s eyes, not even different but just more, in a way, things he didn’t think about before – like bratwurst and baseball, or condoms and KY.

Like sex.

With guys.

And that’s the part Ray’s still waiting to freak out over, but he’s pretty sure by this point he’s not actually going to. Plus he’s trying not to think about tomorrow, and he’s really trying not to think about the desert stretching out in front of him again, almost like Stella only not really because this time it was like he was wandering around and suddenly there was an oasis with – with date palms and a spring and not a camel in sight; and he’s going to blink tomorrow and it’s all going to be a mirage, and the desert’s going to stretch out empty and dry and... it’s not fair.

It’s just fucking not fair.

Which is worse, really: to have Stella and lose her, or to never have Chris to begin with?

Chris mumbles something, great timing, and Ray says something back, quiet and reassuring. He sees Christopher’s mouth stretch into a grin, and then he stretches his legs out too and turns toward Ray, his eyes opening.

“Hey,” he says, resting his cheek against his hand on the back of the seat. “Sorry.”

“It’s cool,” Ray says. “It’s been kind of a long weekend.”

“Be back through in three weeks,” Chris says, the end of his sentence swallowed up in a yawn. “Could be, anyway.”

The words hang in the car between them, in the dark, and Ray’s chest feels tight again. “Be awesome if you could come back through,” he says finally, not sure if that’s what Chris means but not wanting to blow it if that really is what Chris means.

“Yeah,” Chris says, closing his eyes again, and he sounds as happy and uncomplicated as he did in the diner, and the tension leaves Ray’s body in a rush. “Cool.”

~O~

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This story was brainstormed in less than 20 minutes:

Sent at 2:19 PM on Monday
A: I would like to see Christopher in navy whites mmmm
TAO: Oh, that would be most delightful!
Or, you know, half out of them. Ray would so blow him in the bathroom, Chris fully dressed except for his cock hanging out.
A: oh he so would
TAO: God, yes. And no, I do not have google images up with Navy Dress as the search option
A: mmmmmf
wow, sex in the bathroom at the hotel
where the reception is
TAO: That is what I was thinking
A: and then back to Ray’s g
TAO: Hell yes
A: Oh, I can hear Christopher now. They’re in the bathroom - of course he followed Ray without seeming to - and he’ll be all “I thought you and Stella were dating?”
TAO: Oh, yes!
A: because there’s some guy dancing with Stella and she keeps forgetting to keep up appearances with Ray
or her parents left so she doesn’t care now
No, I know, “I thought you were Stella’s boyfriend”
TAO: And she is enjoying flaunting, esp because it is on the dance floor and Ray is feeling a bit sick and Chris picks up on it
TAO: So Chris follows him into the bathroom, or better yet, a cleaning closet or something, waits for Ray to walk by on his way back from the bathroom and pulls him in
A: ha ha ha HA
A: yeah and to be fair she wasn’t pretending and she kind of feels bad because she knew Ray would take it that way
but she couldn’t face her parents again
so she is acting out too partly because she feels guilty
TAO: That makes sense!
A: and Ray should have just left when her parents left but at least he was sitting across the table from the hot Navy cousin... and when did he start thinking of guys as hot?
Oh, right... at the Academy. Full dress uniform, Tommy Hunsicker sucking him off on graduation day.
Yeah, that would be when it started.
Sent at 2:36 PM on Monday
TAO: Ha! Yes!

Little Talks

Hey! Hey! Hey!
I don’t like walking around this old and empty house
So hold my hand, I’ll walk with you my dear
The stairs creak as I sleep, it’s keeping me awake
It’s the house telling you to close your eyes
Some days I can’t even trust myself
It’s killing me to see you this way

’Cause though the truth may vary
This ship will carry
Our bodies safe to shore

Hey! Hey! Hey!
There’s an old voice in my head that’s holding me back
I tell her that I miss our little talks
Soon it will all be over, buried with our past
You used to play outside when you were young,
Full of life and full of love

Some days I feel like I am wrong and I am right
Your mind is playing tricks on you my dear

’Cause though the truth may vary
This ship will carry
Our bodies safe to shore

Hey!
Don’t listen to a word I say
Hey!
The screams all sound the same
Hey!
’Cause though the truth may vary
This ship will carry
Our bodies safe to shore

Go go go away
I wish you’d disappear
All that’s left is a ghost of you
Now we’re torn torn torn apart, there’s nothing we can do
Just let me go, me against you
Now wait wait wait for me
Please hang around
I see you when I fall asleep

Hey!
Don’t listen to a word I say
Hey!
The screams all sound the same
Hey!

’Cause though the truth may vary
This ship will carry
Our bodies safe to shore
Don’t listen to a word I say
Hey!
The screams all sound the same
Hey!

’Cause though the truth may vary
This ship will carry
Our bodies safe to shore