Chapter Twelve
“It’s pregnant. Not fat.” Brandon snickered.
“How do you know?” Mark asked.
“Because the sign says Susie’s Pregnant!” Brandon pointed to a cardboard sign taped to the side of the pen.
“Yeah, but maybe the zoo’s just embarrassed because she ate all the other meerkats. So they made up a bogus pregnancy.” Mark stared at the potbellied meerkat, who stared right back at him, her tiny front paws resting on her bulge. “Seriously, where are the others?”
“Do you have meerkats in Australia?” Brandon whispered.
“That’s Africa, mate,” Mark whispered back. He wasn’t sure why they were whispering. “We’re in the Africa exhibit, remember?”
Brandon tried to stop snickering as a man with two children joined them at the pen.
“Look, girls,” the father said.
“Ooh,” said the older girl, who was maybe seven. “He’s fat!”
“That’s what I said!” Mark exclaimed.
The little girl looked at him.
“She’s pregnant,” the father said. “That makes her tummy big. Soon she’ll have babies.”
“How many babies?” the girl asked.
“I’m not sure,” her father said.
“Between three and four pups,” Brandon supplied. “She’ll gestate for about ten weeks, then give birth, most likely at night, in a burrow she’s created. However, infanticides are bound to occur at the hands of other female meerkats, who want to increase chances of survival for their own young. Which is probably why the zoo has removed other females from the pen.”
The family looked at him in amazement.
“You know a lot about meerkats,” the younger daughter said.
“I studied them for a while. In Africa,” Brandon replied. His shoulders jerked as he stifled a laugh.
The father wanted to know more about Brandon’s studies, so Brandon said he’d studied a clan of thirty meerkats over a period of six months when he’d worked as an intern for NatGeo.
“Well, that was a load of bullshit,” Mark said when the family had gone. “You didn’t even know meerkats lived in Africa until five minutes ago! Did you just make all that up about the babies and stuff?”
Brandon grinned. “I memorized the sign outside the exhibit.”
Mark laughed and whacked him on the arm. “You bastard.”
They said good-bye to Susie and wandered on. Doing the zoo stoned really was fun. Mark had never been more impressed by the array of animals that existed in the world, or by the logistics of re-creating their habitats in a hundred-acre chunk of east Pennsylvania. Brandon was in a good mood, and Mark was still preening from what felt like a victory over Bengal yesterday.
When he’d arrived at the Alpha Delt house, Bengal had announced that each pledge was responsible for going to sorority row and locating one sorority girl who would admit to finding him so unattractive she’d never have sex with him. He was then to bring her back to the house. Mark had gone along with that part, since he didn’t care whether girls wanted to sleep with him, and since the time didn’t seem right to defy Bengal yet.
He’d met up with Dan and Fraser on the way to sorority row. Dan, who wasn’t terribly attractive, declared the activity bullshit. Fraser, on the other hand, believed he’d be hard-pressed to find a girl who didn’t want to sleep with him, though he agreed the activity was bullshit.
Only Logan White had been present when Bengal explained the task, which made Mark wonder if any of the other brothers knew about it. If they’d approved it.
“So let’s not play the game,” Mark had suggested.
“What do you mean?” Dan had asked.
Things had gone better than Mark had expected when, at the Phi Mu house, he recognized the girl from his lit class, the one he’d noticed early in the semester and had thought would make a better friend than fifty Alpha Delts. Her name, he’d learned weeks ago, was Chelsea, and she loved Mark Twain.
Which probably meant she had a sense of humor.
When prompted, she’d declared a lack of sexual interest in Mark, and had found a couple of her friends to hail Dan and Fraser complete gargoyles. Fraser looked put out, despite the fact that the girls were kidding. Or pretending to be kidding. Mark didn’t know.
On the way back to Alpha Delt, Mark, Dan, and Fraser had explained to the girls about Bengal. Two of them had already heard rumors about him.
“We don’t know what he’s gonna have us do when we get back,” Mark had told them. “But we need to make him look like an arse.”
When they’d arrived back at the house, six pledges were there with the girls they’d found. Bengal had had the pledges strip to their underwear and line up against the wall. The girls had been given markers and been told to mark the parts of the pledges’ bodies they found unattractive—places the pledges needed to lose weight, tone up, or as one girl had written on Blond Pledge’s nose, get plastic surgary!!
Only four of the girls were participating. They were giggling and seemed to be enjoying themselves. The pledges were trying to laugh it off, but they all looked uncomfortable. The other two girls hung back uneasily.
Bengal spotted Mark and Fraser and Dan and ordered them up to the wall. Mark wasn’t sure what the hell to do. He could refuse, but then what? Then he and Bengal would get into a shouting match, and what would that help? It might alert some of the other brothers, but the house sounded oddly quiet, and besides, Mark didn’t know that any of the other Alpha Delts would actually tell Bengal to stop.
He stripped off his shirt slowly, stalling for time.
He needn’t have worried.
Chelsea had walked right up to Bengal. “Ooh, girls, I found one even worse,” she’d said. She circled Bengal, and her friends joined her.
“Oh my God,” one of the other girls said. “I’d fuck any of these pledges before I’d fuck this guy.”
Bengal looked confused. Like Blake stumbling out of a Portaloo.
“And it’s not the way he looks,” the third girl said. “It’s his personality.”
“Yeah.” Chelsea picked up a permanent marker, uncapped it, and circled the area on one side of Bengal’s mouth before Bengal could step back. “He’s got all these scowl lines.”
“And his eyes look mean,” the third girl said.
“And he’s being a complete asshole to his pledges in a way that’s not fun. Or legal,” the second girl added.
The other sorority girls had stopped marking on their pledges and were all watching the scene unfold and whispering. “Oh my God,” one said.
In the end, Bengal stalked out of the room without a word. He didn’t come downstairs all evening, though eventually fifteen more pledges showed up with girls who didn’t find them attractive, and some of the brothers came home from class or work, so Mark broke out the beer, and it turned into one of Alpha Delt’s better mixers.
Mark knew Bengal was furious. That he blamed Mark, and that he’d be looking for revenge. But maybe that was what needed to happen. If Mark could get Bengal to do something irrefutably illegal—in front of witnesses—he’d be set.
“Look.”
Mark looked where Brandon was pointing.
“There’s the Australia exhibit.” Bran looked at Mark. “You wanna check it out?”
The first part of the exhibit was indoors.
“Holy crap,” Brandon said. “Look at all these tree frogs.” He tapped on the glass. “Did you ever see them in the wild, where you lived?”
“One used to live in my toilet,” Mark said, shaking his head fondly.
“You can go back and visit sometime, can’t you?”
“For sure.”
“It’s cool that you’ve gotten to live in different countries. I’m jealous.”
“I guess.” Mark didn’t say any more than that.
They stayed at the zoo until almost closing, sitting on various benches, watching the animals, and eating shaved ice and something called an elephant ear, which Mark thought was a bit insensitive to the elephants. Mark tried to hurry past the bear exhibit, but Brandon wanted to stop.
“Look how cute they are,” Brandon said wistfully.
“Yeah, see how cute you think they are when they’re crushing your skull,” Mark muttered. He tried to attract the attention of a passing zoo worker. “Excuse me, how strong are these bars?”
When they got back to campus, Mark said good-bye to Brandon, and they made plans to meet up for tutoring the next day. Mark headed to the Phi Sig house to see Deacon. Matt and James had gotten good at making themselves scarce when Mark came over, and tonight the only one in Deacon’s room besides Deacon was Anabelle, whom Deacon gently shooed out when Mark arrived.
Deacon closed his scary-titled textbook and smiled at Mark. “How’s it going?”
“Awesome,” Mark said.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” He plopped on Deacon’s lap. “How was your day?”
Deacon kissed his neck. “Okay. Talked to Mom a little bit. She sounded better.”
“That’s good.” Mark arched as Deacon’s stubble brushed his throat.
“What’d you get up to?”
“Got stoned and went to the zoo with Brandon.”
Deacon laughed. “Okay. Not the answer I was expecting.”
“He needs to do something fun! He’d gotten all reclusive since quitting Alpha Delt. I was hoping tutoring me in lit would give him a sense of purpose. But he needs fun too.”
“So you got stoned and went to the zoo?”
“Oh my God, Deke, camels are so funny when you’re high.”
Deacon had wrapped one arm around Mark and was stroking his chest, circling his nipples through his shirt. Mark sighed and sank back against him, his cock hardening.
Deacon was so hot, and so grown-up, and so good, and camels were fucking hilarious, and Brandon was a good friend, and maybe Mark really was lucky to get to live in two different countries. Maybe life was kind of pretty okay.
“How was lit today?” Deacon asked.
“Okay. We’re on Walt Whitman. Sweet beard.” That was actually what Mark had written in answer to the question What was Walt Whitman known for? on his last quiz, but he didn’t need to tell Deacon that. He reached out and rolled the pen on Deacon’s desk. Deacon had been chewing the end of it. Deacon was a pen chewer.
“And biology?”
How did Deacon have his schedule memorized when Mark barely knew it himself, even after a month and a half? “I skipped.”
Mark accidentally knocked the pen to the floor. He leaned forward off Deacon’s lap to retrieve it.
And felt Deacon’s hand connect with his arse. Reasonably hard.
“Hey!” Mark jerked up and looked at Deacon. “What was that for?” The sting had registered, and heat flooded Mark’s arse and groin at the same time.
Deacon looked…“impish” was probably the right word here. His eyes were wide, and he was biting his lip to hold a smile back. “For skipping class to get stoned and go to the zoo. What happened to concentrating more on your studies?”
Mark rubbed his arse. “I’m going to start concentrating tomorrow.”
“Mm,” Deacon said, catching Mark’s wrist and pulling him closer.
“And since when do I answer to you?” Mark asked. The question started off strong but faded at the end as Mark found himself lost in a fantasy of Deacon rolling up his sleeves and giving Mark a proper spanking for missing class.
“I guess since right now,” Deacon said.
Deacon was still holding his wrist. “You gonna do it?” Mark asked quietly.
“Want me to?”
Mark nodded, and Deacon tugged him over his knee. Slapped the seat of Mark’s pants once. Then again.
It didn’t hurt enough. Wasn’t wild enough, real enough. Mark didn’t want it to hurt too much, but he wanted the rush of walking the line between too much and just right.
Deacon smacked him again, and Mark grunted, bracing the toes of his sneakers against the carpet. “Deke?” he asked.
“Yeah?” Deacon rested his hand on Mark’s arse.
“You got a paddle in your house?”
He didn’t breathe while he waited for Deacon to answer. He wasn’t sure if the antihazing Phi Sigs would keep one around.
“In the basement,” Deacon said. “Forged in the seventies and kept around for posterity.”
Mark laughed. “For posteriority, you mean?”
Deacon laughed too. “Why do you ask?”
“You wanna do this proper?”
They headed down to the basement, which, unlike Alpha Delt’s combination torture chamber/den of sin, was tidy. Board games were stacked on one shelf, and there was a ping-pong table that didn’t look like it had seen much use.
“No one’s down here,” Mark said.
“They’re all upstairs studying. Or at the semiformal planning meeting. Or the Science Week lecture series.”
“Oh God. You nerds.”
“Careful,” Deacon warned, pulling an old paddle down from the wall. It was made of blond wood and had the Phi Sig letters carved into it. It had also been signed by a slew of people. “Don’t want to get in more trouble, do you?”
“Dunno,” Mark said, his heart thudding. “I might.”
Deacon had locked the basement door when they’d come down. He pointed at the ping-pong table with the paddle. “Bend over there.”
“Don’t waste any time, do you?” Mark asked, suddenly more than a little nervous. Yeah, he’d wanted Deacon to hit harder when he’d been over Deacon’s knee, his cock nearly hard, his neck still prickly from Deacon’s kisses. But now that he’d had a few minutes to cool down, this was starting to seem like a foolish idea.
“What do you want me to waste time with?” Deacon stepped behind Mark and blew softly on the back of his neck. Placed his paddleless hand on Mark’s hip and slid it around to Mark’s groin, cupping the bulge there and tonguing Mark’s earlobe until the bulge grew.
“Shit, yes,” Mark whispered.
Deacon nipped his earlobe, and Mark yelped. “Bend over that table,” Deacon said firmly.
Yes, okay, it was back again, the fantasy of Deacon, strong and sure and telling Mark exactly how things were going to be.
Mark walked over to the table and bent over it, trying to find a good place for his now uncomfortably hard cock. He almost jumped when Deacon rested the paddle against his arse. “Let’s start with five,” Deacon said.
That didn’t seem like very many, but when Deacon drew back and landed the first blow, it drove every thought from Mark’s mind except, Christfuckholyballs, how about we stop at one?
The sting gave way quickly to a tingling that covered his entire arse. He forced himself to breathe out.
The second blow hurt just as much, except instead of jumping up and yelling at Deacon to put the bloody paddle down, Mark let his hips move forward, let his cock press into the edge of the table, and moaned at the rush of sensation. He let his knees go slack, then straightened up again so his cock slid against the table through his jeans.
The third swat made Mark moan aloud. Deacon stopped and rubbed the paddle against Mark’s arse for a moment. “No more putting off your studies, okay?”
Jesus, a year ago, Mark had thought there was nothing more exciting to sex than a blowjob with a stranger in an alley. He’d never thought about stockings or paddles or mechanical bulls or nerdy older boys who looked unbelievably hot hunched over their textbooks. Okay, maybe the last one. Richo’s older brother had been a bookworm, but Mark hadn’t—
Good God. Mark wasn’t going to have an arse left for Deacon to fuck if Deacon kept on like this. But now the pain hardly bothered him at all; it got all caught up in something else. Spoke directly to his dick, which was so swollen it ached. Deacon ran the paddle briefly between his legs. Mark clamped his thighs around the paddle, grabbing a sharp breath and arching his back. Then he spread his legs as wide as they’d go.
He’d lost what number they were on, and he didn’t care.
Deacon rubbed his arse with the paddle again, then drew back and hit him. Mark curled his fingers into his palms and pressed his forehead against the cool surface of the table. He wanted Deacon to keep going until he came.
“Drop your pants,” Deacon said quietly.
Mark obeyed without hesitation, fumbling with his fly. Deacon helped him tug his jeans down, and then Deacon’s hand was moving gently over Mark’s underwear. He hooked his fingers in Mark’s waistband, pulled on it, then snapped it against Mark’s sore arse.
Mark moaned. Deacon yanked his underwear down the rest of the way and stood behind him. Deacon set the paddle alongside Mark’s torso on the table. Mark felt the denim of Deacon’s pants against his thighs, Deacon’s shirt against his back as Deacon bent over him, dragging his palms down Mark’s sides. “Learned your lesson?” he whispered.
“Maybe not quite?” Mark said uncertainly. His cock pressed against his belly, wetting the skin there. “Brandon, um, wanted to tutor me today, and I said no, we should go to the zoo.”
“Hmm,” Deacon said, straightening. “Two more, then.”
He picked up the paddle and laid the cool wood against Mark’s bare arse. Mark flinched and squeezed his eyes shut.
The impact was louder and more painful without the barrier of his jeans. Mark pressed his knees together and rocked against the table, slapping one palm against the surface.
Deacon stroked Mark’s arse with his palm, using his fingertips lightly on the blazing skin. Mark got control of his breathing and lay there in the stillness, his right cheek resting against the table. He stared over at the shelf that had two different versions of Risk, a deluxe edition of Scrabble, Scattergories, and Scruples. Wondered idly if it was difficult for the Phi Sigs to play Scruples together—if they all just gave precisely the same morally commendable answers to the questions.
Deacon’s fingers ghosted down Mark’s crack and between his legs, rolling his balls. Mark hitched a breath and tried to move his cock into Deacon’s hand. “One more,” Deacon whispered, stepping back.
Mark didn’t bother bracing himself. He lay there, the tension gone from his body, and accepted the final blow as easily as he’d accepted Deacon’s touch.
Deacon dropped the paddle and rubbed Mark’s back. “All right?” he asked.
Mark nodded. “Yeah. Fuck yeah, Deke.”
“Shit, Mark. So hot. Your arse is so hot.”
No kidding.
Mark arched into Deacon’s touch, trying to shrug Deacon’s hand lower until it was between his legs again. He felt delirious with arousal and was glad that this time Deacon had condoms and lube in his pocket. Mark had brought some too, but his jeans were all the way down around his ankles, and he didn’t want to get up, just wanted Deacon to stick his cock inside him and fuck him brainless over the Phi Sigs’ ping-pong table.
Deacon seemed only too happy to oblige.
“Come on,” Mark said, spreading his legs. “Come on, please.”
He heard the rasp of Deacon’s zip and then felt the warmth of Deacon’s body as Deacon leaned over him. Deacon’s breath was hot against his ear. “You are shameless.”
“Yeah,” Mark said, closing his eyes as Deacon guided his cock into him. He loved that sting, and that pressure that gave way so slowly into fullness. “Wasn’t always.”
“No?” Deacon rubbed a hand over the small of Mark’s back.
Mark rocked against the ping-pong table. “No. I’m at least fifty percent more obnoxious here. Can’t—Oh, shit.” His breath whooshed out of him as Deacon bottomed out. “Can’t be a total whore in a town where the gay scene is so small your high school science teacher warns most blokes off.”
Fake ID or not, Mr. Gallin was not prepared to let anyone take Mark home. He’d given Mark a serious talk about how he had to look out for himself, and picking up guys in the street outside the pub was not a sensible or safe choice, and he should be sticking with boys his own age. Mr. Gallin had promised that once he was at university, he’d be able to have more fun. Mark wondered if he should send Mr. Gallin an e-mail telling him he was right about university broadening his horizons.
Mark knew Deacon thought he was the experienced one, the one willing to experiment. He suddenly wanted Deacon to know that he’d never felt that need before, not with anyone else.
“God, Deke,” he panted, pushing back into Deacon’s thrusts. “It’s you.”
Anything remotely coherent was lost as Mark struggled to match Deacon’s pace. The need to tell Deacon vanished, and Mark was instead flooded with the need to come. His breath came in gasps, and he was overwhelmed, off-kilter, afraid of something. Something he didn’t understand, something that made no sense, except Deacon’s hand was on his spine now, anchoring him, and he didn’t have to do anything except fuck. And he knew how to fuck, didn’t he?
Mark didn’t want to peel the layers off this relationship. Fuck that. Mark didn’t have layers, or any vast undiscovered depths. And if he did, now was not the time to go mentally spelunking in them.
“Fuck me, Deke,” he urged instead.
Coming all over a ping-pong table? That was the Mark Cooper everyone knew and loved.
* * * *
Mark didn’t stick around. Deacon was sure something was wrong, but Mark insisted he was okay; he just had to take off and get some laundry done before morning. Later that night, watching a movie with the guys in the common room, Deacon checked his phone when it buzzed. A text from Mark.
Sorry.
Deacon typed out a reply. What are you sorry for?
I’m a crap boyfriend.
Deacon stared at the screen for a moment, wondering if this was a general statement or if there was something specific on Mark’s mind. They’d never talked about being exclusive, but Deacon had assumed they were. Was that a mistake? God, he hoped not.
I think you’re a good boyfriend.
Deacon held his breath waiting for the reply.
It scares me how much I like you, Deke.
God. Deacon wanted to smile and couldn’t. Not when Mark was hurting. And for no reason at all. Deacon left the common room and went outside, dialing Mark’s number.
“Hey, Deke,” Mark said in a low voice.
Deacon leaned against the back wall of the Phi Sig house and looked up at the stars that were still unfamiliar to Mark. “Hey, Mark. What’re you doing?”
“My laundry.”
“Really?”
“No. I’m sitting in my dorm cutting my toenails.”
Deacon smiled. “Okay.” He exhaled slowly, wondering why Mark couldn’t have this conversation face-to-face. “Want to tell me what happened tonight?”
“I freaked out,” Mark said. “The things I want to say, I don’t know if I can. The things I want you to do to me…I think maybe they’ll freak you out too.”
“Nothing we’ve done so far freaks me out,” Deacon said. He looked at the stars. “Surprises me, maybe, but not in a bad way.”
Mark’s breath hitched. “I want you to fist me.”
Fuck. Deacon swallowed. “Um…”
“I push,” Mark said suddenly. “I always fucking push.”
“Mark,” Deacon said, before he realized Mark had disconnected the call. “Shit.”
So Mark wasn’t as shameless as he pretended. Maybe he was nothing more than a homesick kid who was trying to fake it until he could make it. And maybe it wasn’t Mark leading Deacon along the path of sexual experience after all. Maybe they were finding their way together. Mark was so brash, so angry, so fearless…except where it counted. Joining a fraternity just to hate and be hated. Demanding a beer on his birthday. Angry little bunny liked to have something to fight, even when it was as pointless as smacking his head against a brick wall, but he couldn’t have an open and frank discussion about the things he wanted. The things he was afraid to admit he wanted.
And fisting. Deacon had never considered it. It was the sort of thing he’d seen on porn sites and thought that he’d never let someone’s fist near his ass, not for love or money. But Mark loved ass play. And while Deacon didn’t like the idea of being fisted, the idea of fisting someone…? The idea of fisting Mark? What would he look like, pushed to his limits like that? What would it feel like? The resistance. The pressure. The trust.
Deacon’s chest tightened, and his cock hardened. He raised his phone.
Pick up. Pick up. Pick up.
“Hey, Deke.” Mark’s voice was flat.
“You can ask me anything,” Deacon said. “And I’m not freaked out.”
“You’re not?” Mark sounded like he didn’t believe that.
“I’m not,” Deacon said. He closed his eyes. “And if you want me to fist you, Mark, if you trust me enough to try that with me, then I want to do it too.”
Mark breathed heavily into Deacon’s ear. “I…I think I do.”
“Fuck.” Deacon frowned. “We should not be talking about this on the phone.” He needed to see the expression on Mark’s face. Needed to be able to hold him. “Don’t run away from me again, okay? Not from the stuff you want to say to me.”
“Okay, Deke.”
Deacon thought that was a smile he heard in Mark’s voice.