Tiring of Austin, he put Chinchilla in the car and drove down to Mexico City to see his grandmother. He spent the better part of a month there, living with her and brushing up on his Spanish. Of course she had heard the news. When he tried broaching the subject, she stuck out her chin stubbornly and said, “God judges. I don’t.”
The subject of sexuality was closed to her, but his grandma still treated him like a prince, heaping love and affection on him. He was tempted to sell the house and move close to her permanently, but the American in him soon became homesick for familiar sights and the easy comfort of English, so he headed back. He made a few more excursions like this, but without a friendly face awaiting him at each destination, the trips seemed empty and aimless, a feeling that followed him home from his last journey.
Tim could do whatever he wanted, but what he really wanted was something to do. A real purpose, not just goals he created and accomplished for himself. Maybe a career would help, even if he didn’t need the money.
These thoughts were on his mind one night as he headed to Oilcan Harry’s. Drinking beer at a gay bar usually meant not getting much thinking done. Before long, someone would come along to chat him up. Tim enjoyed these conversations, and the attention of course, although it was rare these days that anything more happened.
On his way into the bar, he noticed a figure hunched against the wall outside, hoodie up and pulled tight around a lean frame. Occasionally some hustler would be hanging around outside, looking for money, but tonight it was raining. Why didn’t the guy just go inside? Unless he was underage. Scoping him out as casually as possible, Tim was taken aback when the hooded head raised. The face was beautiful, framed by blonde hair that came to a point at each side of the chin. Eyes as blue as any sky in Heaven locked on to his, pleading for help even though the delicate lips didn’t open to ask.
Tim gave a friendly nod, those angel eyes widening in hope, but Tim looked away and pushed into the bar. An explosion of dance music and cigarette smoke greeted him. He only made it a few steps before he stopped, pinching the bridge of his nose. What could he do? He wasn’t interested in escorts. Occasionally Tim attended Marcello’s parties, which were full of handsome faces, but he never felt comfortable getting close to those guys. Any of them might be models, a profession he respected, but there was an equal chance of them belonging to Marcello’s elite escort service. The hotter the guys were, the more Tim became suspicious and kept his distance.
The guy outside was handsome enough to be a hustler, but he couldn’t have been working the streets for long. Even indestructible youth showed signs of wear from such a life. But what else could he be doing out there so late at night? A young guy, looking for his first experience? But those eyes had been desperate, not horny. Growling at the universe in general, Tim turned around and headed back out the door.
“What are you doing here?” he demanded.
The guy’s head whipped up, expression guarded. “You bounce here or something?”
“No, I’m not the bouncer.” Tim cocked his head. “I just don’t get why you’re out here in the rain when you could be inside.”
The blue eyes blinked. “I’m not old enough.”
“Never stopped me.” But Tim had looked older—had surely been older—when he had first come here. “Don’t you have somewhere better to be?”
The hooded head shook. “I don’t have anywhere at all.” The guy’s stomach grumbled loudly. If this was a scam, it was a damn good one.
“Come on,” Tim said. “I’ll buy you dinner.”
“I don’t need charity.” But the lack of conviction in his voice said he did.
“Fine, then I’ll take you on a date. Happy?”
The difference was small, but it was enough to get the kid following him to the car. “What’s your name?”
“Ryan. You?”
“Tim. And don’t worry, I’m not some pervert.”
“Then you’d be the first,” Ryan mumbled.
“I mean it,” Tim said, looking at him across the top of the car. “I’m not picking you up. I don’t go for hustlers.”
Ryan eyed him, assessing the truth of this and then nodded. “I guess guys like you don’t need to pay.”
Don’t be so sure, angel eyes! Tim had met plenty of Marcello’s clientele, and some were very handsome. That usually meant they had weird kinks only escorts were willing to indulge. Or that they required discretion.
Tim drove them to Denny’s, figuring the diner chain was good enough to give Ryan a full stomach while avoiding a romantic atmosphere.
“I love their veggie-burgers,” Ryan said, flipping through the menu. “Have you tried those?”
“Nope. I prefer the real thing.”
“How do you know if you haven’t tried?” Ryan raised a thin eyebrow. Were they plucked, or naturally so fine? With his hoodie pulled back and some color returned to his cheeks, Ryan’s beauty positively stunned.
“How old are you, exactly?”
Ryan toyed with the straw of his drink. “Nineteen. You?”
Not jailbait then. “Twenty-four.”
“So you already graduated?”
“College? Yeah.”
“Lucky! I still have three more years. Well, supposedly.” Ryan’s lips grew tight, but he perked up when the waitress came by. “Two veggie burger platters, please!”
Tim chuckled. “Is one of those for me?”
“Mm-hm.” Ryan nodded, his expression mischievous. Tim could imagine him being quite the handful, in more than one way.
“So tell me why you were outside that bar, wet and hungry like an abandoned puppy.”
“Oh, I like that!” Ryan grinned, but then his eyes dropped to the table. “It’s just been a rough month.”
“How so?”
“Well, freshman year was definitely awesome. Instead of getting called a fag every day, I was meeting all these other gay guys. Finally, you know? If only high school could have been like that. Anyway, I guess the freedom went to my head, because when I went home for the summer, I didn’t stop being me.”
“You came out?”
“Yup! First to my mom, who totally flipped.” Ryan made a face. “She gave me the whole ‘it’s just a phase’ spiel, which sucked. Then she told my dad, and the shit really hit the fan. He blamed me, my mother, and eventually college. I stuck to my guns, but now I wish I hadn’t.”
Tim sighed. “My coming out story wasn’t quite that bad, but my parents didn’t take it well, either. I don’t regret doing it, though. Living a lie felt worse. Believe me, you end up paying the price eventually.”
“Maybe. It’s too late now anyway.” Ryan rolled his eyes. “I kept fighting with my parents, and things got bad enough that they kicked me out. Well, maybe I threatened to leave. Either way, I’m not going back there. I was staying with some friends, but then I got in a fight with them over something stupid.” Ryan gestured down his torso. “And thus the pathetic creature you see now.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, me too. I’m not a hustler though. I mean… you saved me just in time.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” Ryan looked him over. “So what do you do?”
“You mean my job?” Always an awkward question. “I have a degree in architecture, but I’m on sabbatical.”
“What’s that mean?”
“It means I’m not working or doing much of anything right now.”
“Lucky,” Ryan said wistfully.
“I suppose. It gets boring.”
“I wouldn’t get bored.” Ryan’s eyes twinkled as he dreamed. “I would sleep in every morning, and when I woke up I’d stay in bed until noon watching television. Then I would get up, take a shower and make myself pretty so I could order pizza.”
“Why bother if you aren’t going out?” Tim asked.
“Never let the public see anything but your very best,” Ryan said with celebrity wisdom. “Even if it’s just a delivery boy. Then I would take my spoils to t
he couch and eat slowly while watching daytime soaps or talk shows.”
“That’s a lot of TV,” Tim pointed out.
“Which is why in the evening I would grow restless and go out dancing. It’s the only way to burn off the carbs. Then I would end the perfect day by getting drunk or whatever.” Ryan cutely crinkled his nose. “In my fantasies I’m old enough to buy beer, so there.”
Tim shook his head. “Sorry, but that sounds boring.”
“Hm,” Ryan mused. “What if you added another person to the equation? The morning in bed wouldn’t be spent watching TV, and those daytime soaps are a lot more fun if you trash-talk them with someone. No need to go on the prowl in the evening, either, not if you have drinks and music at home.”
“It just so happens I do,” Tim said, willingly taking the bait.
Ryan demonstrated his bedroom eyes. “Then let’s go.”
Tim mentally took a few steps back. “I promised you a meal. First we eat. If you really need a place to stay, you can crash with me this weekend and fulfill that dream of yours. But you’ll have your own room. No—” Tim hesitated as the waitress approached with their food, finishing with a whisper. “No funny business.”
“Funny business?” Ryan snorted, then shrugged. “Suit yourself.”
When Tim brought him home later, he was true to his word. After letting Chinchilla out in the backyard, they made their way upstairs. Tim didn’t offer Ryan a drink, mostly because he didn’t want one himself, or the weakness it would bring.
“This is your room,” he said, holding open the door.
“Thanks.” Ryan poked his head in without much interest. “Listen, do you think I could take a shower?”
Alone?
“Sure. Make yourself at home. It’s been a long day, so I’m going to crash.”
Tim showed Ryan the guest bathroom and made sure he had everything he needed before whistling for Chinchilla and heading to his room. Once undressed and in bed, he lay there with his eyes open, feeling ill at ease about having a stranger in his home. Then again, what’s the worst Ryan could do? Steal some things and take off? Tim could afford it.
He rolled over, watching Chinchilla sleeping in her new bed, the side of her body rising and falling. The motion was soothing, as was the gentle sound of her snores. More than once that sound had helped lull him to sleep. He was drifting off when his bedroom door clicked open. The hall light burst around a silhouette—lanky hair, a slender frame, and the scent of body wash.
Ryan walked to the edge of the bed, but Tim didn’t make a move until the towel dropped to the floor. Then Tim threw open the covers in invitation. Ryan barely had one knee on the bed before Tim had sat up to meet his kiss. Ryan didn’t miss a beat, his lips not leaving Tim’s as he climbed into bed and straddled him. Then he pushed Tim back against the bed with surprising force, his tongue tracing a path down Tim’s neck, across his right nipple, diagonally across his abs to his hip before returning to the center again.
Tim’s back arched as Ryan’s mouth was filled. The kid knew his stuff! Adjusting to the pleasure, he settled, sighing and moaning. He was lost in a cloud of bliss when Ryan stopped and flopped over to the middle of the bed. Tim raised his head and opened his eyes to find him on his stomach, a wild grin on his face. His ass being in the air probably had something to do with that.
“Come fuck me,” he said.
So much for taking things slow. Casual encounters for Tim rarely involved more than trading blow jobs. What Ryan wanted was special to him, with a few rare exceptions. But damn if he wasn’t pretty! Tim grabbed a condom and lube from the nightstand, hoping that such things didn’t have expiration dates because it had been a long time. Then he positioned himself over Ryan, kissing his neck and smelling his freshly-washed hair while letting his cock rub against Ryan’s inner thigh.
“Come on,” Ryan said impatiently. “Show me who’s boss!”
Tim didn’t like to disappoint. He bit and nipped playfully at Ryan’s butt cheeks while getting the condom on, grinning at the yipes this caused. He meant to start slow, a little finger play and a reach around, but Ryan expressed impatience again.
“Stop messing around and give me what I deserve! Fucking use me!”
Unsure how much of this was just dirty talk, Tim slowly slid inside, but soon Ryan was bucking against him and begging for more. Spurred on by more trash talk, Tim let go of his inhibitions and really started pounding him. Only then did Ryan stop talking and start moaning. The bed shook as their flesh continued to slap together, Tim grunting in ecstasy, but he missed those pretty lips.
“Sit up,” he commanded.
Once Ryan was only on his knees, Tim wrapped one arm around his chest and the other around his neck, holding Ryan’s back flush against his chest as they twisted their necks to kiss. Tim held him there as he kept thrusting, Ryan’s breath huffing against his lips, sometimes in his mouth. Then Ryan squirmed free, falling forward on to his hands.
“Slap my ass!”
Tim was already doing so with his hips, but he started slapping the side of Ryan’s rump, responding to chants of “harder, harder, harder” until Ryan’s words became groans. Tim felt more like an animal than a human being, skin drenched in sweat and nearly howling when they finally came together. As he recovered from this bestial low, he felt a pang of guilt, worrying that he had hurt Ryan, had damaged his delicate beauty. But when they rolled over on their sides, Ryan squirmed up against him and sighed contentedly.
“You all right?”
“Yeah,” Ryan said, then after a couple beats, “but next time you don’t have to be so gentle.”
Tim laughed in relief, wrapping an arm around him and dozing off into an endorphin-induced sleep.
* * * * *
The weekend of Ryan’s dreams stretched into ten days. Tim, who had found the idea so boring, couldn’t get enough. During the day they would sleep in, waking up for progressively rougher sex. Once purged of these demons, Ryan was sugar-sweet the rest of the day. Forget the lost puppy from the first night. Ryan was more like a kitten in the way he would cuddle up to Tim when they watched TV, head on his lap so Tim could stroke his hair.
For food they called on any delivery service they could find, sometimes making brief excursions together for take-out. Or to stock up on beer or whatever liquor Ryan was in the mood for that evening. He kept researching cocktails on the Internet, begging Tim to get the different ingredients so they could try them. So far they’d had appletinis, bloodhounds, cosmopolitans, daiquiris, and el presidentes. The rest of the alphabet was sure to follow.
Tim was used to having the occasional beer, not drinking every night, but he was having fun. Ryan always got silly when he had a buzz, putting on music and dancing or making them do dumb things like shutting off all the lights both inside and out and going for a swim under the stars. Ryan was always at his side, even in the shower. All he wanted was to be with Tim, and Tim found all he wanted was to be with Ryan.
“We need to get you something to wear,” Tim said while folding laundry. “I’m tired of you looking all baggy in my clothes.”
“Should I take them off?” Ryan teased. “Or you could take me shopping.”
That sounded good. Fun as staying in had been, Tim needed to get out of the house for more than a quick errand. “All right. We’ll go shopping, but I’m not buying you an entire wardrobe. If you’re going to keep hanging around, you’ll have to fetch some clothes from home.”
For their shopping trip, Tim took Ryan to Soco, a neighborhood on South Congress Avenue full of weird and funky shops. Ryan ran from store to store like he was on a shopping spree, and Tim had so much fun that he indulged him, spending more money on clothes and music then he had intended.
After a quick meal of tacos from the food trucks at the farmers’ market, they drove by Ryan’s parents’ home. On the way, Ryan kept insisting the clothes they had bought were enough, fighting against seeing his family. Tim promised to take him out for dinner if he went through
with it. The house they pulled up to was big—the neighborhood not quite as exclusive as Tim’s, but Ryan clearly came from money.
Tim waited in the car, not wanting to meet Ryan’s family. Their age difference wasn’t too drastic, but that, combined with Ryan’s parents not accepting his sexuality, made Tim keep his distance. Besides, meeting the parents was a big step, and Tim had no idea if this was an extended fling or something more.
As he waited, staring at the house, Tim could imagine walking through the door and discovering his mother’s often-cleaned but rarely used living room. Or maybe he would hear his father in the den, shouting at a football game on TV. Regardless of what he would actually find behind the front door, Tim felt certain he and Ryan came from similar worlds.
After twenty minutes, Ryan came out of the house lugging a stuffed duffle bag and wearing a scowl. Tim hopped out and popped the trunk.
“How’d it go?”
“Let’s get the fuck out of here!” Ryan went to the passenger side and got in, slamming the door after him.
Tim looked at the house, expecting to see his own parents at the window, judgment on their faces, but no one was there. He drove in silence, letting Ryan decide when he was ready to talk. Sometimes Tim had needed physical distance from his parents before he felt free enough to express himself.
“They’re cutting me off,” Ryan said.
“What do you mean?”
“School. They won’t pay my tuition. My dad acts like going to college made me gay or something. He says the environment there ‘supports my bad decisions.’ So now I’m on my own, unless I want to move back in and go to the stupid Nazarene college he went to.”