Maidens and Maidenheads

 

 

HE SPENT Friday painting one of his bedroom walls burgundy, and he liked the effect so much, he painted one of his living room walls blue. He would have gone out and bought some more sci-fi or comic book prints to hang after that, but he understood that Black Friday was sort of a nightmare, so he figured he’d done good.

Saturday, he was shocked to hear knocking on his front door at six o’clock in the morning. He stumbled out of his bedroom in sleep pants and a T-shirt and threw open the door before he even looked through the peephole to see who it was.

Jesse launched himself into his arms, wiggling and breathless like a puppy, and kissed him full on the mouth, morning breath and all.

Kit stumbled backward and managed to find the couch in the front room by luck so he could tumble backward over the arm of it. Jesse kissed his morning breath away, and he smelled like coffee and tobacco, and Kit didn’t care. His mouth was warm and wet and soft, and his body on Kit’s was hard and lithe. Oh… oh God. There was a man’s body, wiggling around on top of him. Seriously! And he didn’t mind that Kit was rubbing his back and cupping his ass. In fact, he was arching against Kit, and their groins were hard and mashing together imperfectly, and it felt… oh damn… even better than his own hand on his cock.

The thought was enough to make Kit come, just a little, and he groaned and pulled back, because he was trying not to embarrass himself by coming in his pants after a little bit of necking.

Jesse perched up on his chest and grinned. “Sur-prised?”

Kit tried to reply and could pretty much only manage a stupid grin. He nodded and then reached up for a little peck on Jesse’s lips. Jesse pecked back, and Kit remembered something to say.

“Did you drive all night?”

“Yeah, pretty much. It was slow coming off the summit anyway. I….” He yawned. “I caught a couple of catnaps at the chain stops, but….” He yawned again and sagged against Kit comfortably. “You don’t mind if I nap with you, do you?”

Kit blinked. Why not? He’d been hoping to sleep in until nine. This way he could sleep in with Jesse next to him. A part of him wanted to dance and sing—or go catatonic with shock—and he ruthlessly squashed it. He wanted to enjoy this, dammit, and not spend all his time being stunned that it was happening.

“Yeah,” he said, and then pushed Jesse off of him playfully and scrambled to sit up. Jesse gave him a hand, and they both went into the bedroom. Jesse looked around appreciatively, letting out a low whistle.

“This is pretty swank, Kit, new paint smell and all! You sure you want to squander it on a lowly assistant?”

Kit shook his head. “It’s missing personality and warmth,” he said seriously. Then he smiled, liking Jesse all sleepy and disheveled, smelling of the car and the caffeine and fast food and, yes, the dreaded smoking habit that Kit hated, but still looking beautiful and perfect. “That’s where you come in.”

Jesse turned half-lidded eyes toward him and blinked. “That could be the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me,” he said softly, and Kit blinked back.

“You need better compliments…. Here, do you want some sleep pan— Never mind.” Because Jesse had stripped down to blue boxer-briefs and a T-shirt, leaving his jeans, hooded sweater, boots, socks, and denim jacket in a puddle on Kit’s floor.

He scrambled into Kit’s new bed like a child, tucking under the comforter into Kit’s spot. “Oh, God, it’s warm,” he sighed, and his teeth were chattering a little. “Something about being up this time of morning and outside, it makes me so cold! What are you doing?”

Kit straightened from laying Jesse’s jeans over the chair in the corner. “Straightening your things….”

“Well, stop it!” Jesse ordered crossly. “Get in here and be the big spoon! I’m freezing!”

Alrighty then. Kit abandoned all attempts at straightening and crawled into bed behind Jesse, using his height and the width of his shoulders to pull the smaller man back into his arms. Jesse wiggled and chattered, and Kit held him closer and tighter, until both of their bodies tightened and relaxed with sort of a sigh, and they melted into the mattress.

Jesse felt so good. Kit closed his eyes and rubbed his cheek against that smooth, honey-colored hair.

“How was your Thanksgiving?” Jesse mumbled, already close to sleep.

“I missed you,” Kit said honestly. He could do that, since Jesse was there in his bed. “What made you decide to come back so early?”

“I almost slept with the evil ex.” Jesse’s voice was matter-of-fact, and Kit tried hard not to kick the first man who’d ever wiggled into his bed right back out.

“Waaaah?”

“See,” Jesse didn’t sound so close to sleep anymore. He sounded very… very careful, actually. “The thing is, his sister is dying.”

“Oh, Jesse….”

“Emmy didn’t tell me when she called. She didn’t want to depress me—or even pressure me into visiting—but the whole family knew. She won’t make it until Christmas. I brought her a book, you know, since I wasn’t going up for Christmas, and it just hit me that she’ll never have a chance to read it.”

Forgiven. Kit didn’t realize he could forgive something like cheating or almost cheating. He’d never even thought of it. His dream guys never cheated, period the end. Danny Fit never cheated on him—unless it was on those days Kit skipped strength training, and he was getting it on with the red-leotard girl on the DVD behind Kit’s back—but Kit doubted it. But here, in the real world, with a heartbroken Jesse in his arms, Kit didn’t even need to hear the rest of the story to see where this was going. An “almost” lapse, when he and Jesse had been nothing more than a kiss in the office? Forgiven. As simple as that.

“I’m so sorry,” he said quietly, and Jesse took his hand and kissed it with so much tenderness Kit didn’t think he could say anything else for a while.

“See”—Jesse kept talking like he hadn’t just shorted every fuse in Kit’s brain—“there Pat and I were last night, out on the couch, and I was trying not to just lose it, because the whole family was being so strong and so brave for the whole two days, and I didn’t want to be the big, bawling baby in the middle of them, and Pat put his arms around my shoulder, and there we were. You know. Pity sex—it was going to happen. And then Emmy called me into her room—she’d been out and about all day, but she was too tired and needed to be hooked up to oxygen and shit, and I got up so fast I think I elbowed Patrick in the chest.”

Kit chuffed a little bit of laughter into Jesse’s hair. Apparently Jesse was enthusiastic like a puppy in his natural state.

“Anyway,” Jesse continued, “I go in there, and she tells me to sit down, and then she just starts talking. And she’s only sixteen, but I used to talk to her about everything—like one of those kids in the movies, who seems to know more about adult shit than adults do? And she tells me that she knows what gay is, but she always used to imagine me as a knight in shining armor, and that I’d be the one to come pick her up and put her on my horse and take her away to do icky forbidden things to her when she turned eighteen. She made me laugh, you know? There she is, and she’s skinny and she’s dying and she’s got me cracking up, and then she says, totally serious, ‘Baby, please don’t sleep with my brother’. I almost choke on my tongue, because I still don’t expect shit like that to come out of her mouth. I’m like, ‘Sweetheart…’ and that’s all I got.”

Jesse’s voice was cracking now, and his shoulders were trembling, and Kit realized with some awe that Jesse had driven all night to come here, to his little, cold house, and fall apart in Kit’s arms. He tightened those arms and nuzzled Jesse’s hair and held on.

“So then she starts going on about how she’s going to die a virgin, right? And that’s a girl’s worst nightmare. I crack a joke. I’m like, ‘Well, sweetie, if you thought I was going to be your knight in shining armor, I don’t think you were going to lose that soon anyway’. She laughed and then told me I was an asshole, and I’d missed the point.”

Jesse was quiet for so long that Kit wondered if he’d fallen asleep, shaky breathing and all. “What’s the point?” he prompted gently.

“The point was that she would rather die a virgin than just give it away and have it mean nothing, and that even though I was a guy, that didn’t mean I couldn’t feel the same way. And I thought about it, you know? Pat and I—we fucked each other, and then we went out and fucked anything that moved. When I said ‘enough’, Pat just didn’t take me seriously, you know? That’s why I broke up with him and moved out here and got my tech thing after high school. Did I really want to just up and have pity sex with someone who didn’t take me seriously, when I had a guy in a place I’d sort of made mine, who kept looking at me like I made his heart beat?”

Kit couldn’t even blush in embarrassment. He hadn’t realized how transparent he’d been—but he couldn’t regret it now.

“So I told Emmy thank-you for the set-straight, and she smiled a little and asked me if I had someone I liked better than her slut-bag brother—her words. They love each other a lot, you know, but they give each other shit too. Anyway, I told her about you, and she told me to go home and go pick out a really good kitten for her, since they hadn’t been able to get her a new one when she got sick. And I told her I loved her, and kissed her goodbye, and said bye to her folks, and left at midnight and came here.”

“I’m glad you did,” Kit told him, feeling weak and stupid. He was crying a little, like a big pussy, and he was really glad that Jesse was turned away so he didn’t have to see Kit come unglued from a story. Then Jesse turned around, and there Kit was, naked with his clothes on, but Jesse had been weeping too. He used his thumbs to clear Kit’s cheeks and kissed him softly on the mouth.

“So I just drove all night to see if it’s true. Are you going to tell me if it’s true?”

Kit looked at those shiny brown eyes, limpid with grieving, and wondered if he’d ever had any courage at all. “Does my heart beat for you?”

“Yeah.”

Well, it certainly didn’t beat for Danny Fit, now, did it?

“Yeah.”

Jesse smiled a little, obviously exhausted, and snuggled into Kit’s arms like a child—or a lover—and raised his face for a quick, sweet kiss. “Good.”

 

 

KIT DIDN’T think he’d sleep then—it was such a new sensation, having someone in his bed, touching his body. But Jesse fell asleep almost in the middle of their kiss, and Kit didn’t want to move. Jesse needed comfort. Jesse needed him. The idea was extraordinary, alien, and amazing. If Danny Fit had walked out of the television one morning and sank to his knees to take Kit’s cock in his mouth, Kit could not have been more dumbstruck—or happier.

What was strange was that Jesse’s misery—and the fact that Kit felt miserable with him—didn’t seem to make it worse than he imagined. There was no disappointment in the real-world pain that Jesse brought with him. There was only joy that it brought Jesse too.

It was on this thought that he actually closed his eyes and fell asleep.

He woke up a little cramped from being wrapped around Jesse, and went to wash his face and brush his teeth and shower, not thinking that anything more extraordinary than Jesse sleeping in his arms could possibly happen.

He came out of the shower with a towel wrapped around his hips and was surprised to see Jesse, awake, lying on his side, the cover pulled up to his waist.

His T-shirt and boxer-briefs were in a puddle on the floor in front of him.

Kit was not quite surprised enough to drop his towel—but it was close. Jesse dropped his head a little, shyly, and said, “I, uhm, used your toothbrush when you were in the shower. I guess you didn’t hear me.”

Kit blinked and looked at him again. His chest had no hair at all, and his muscles were small but well-defined. His chest wasn’t broad, but his waist tapered anyway, and his abdomen wasn’t a six-pack like Danny’s, but it was stringy and taut as it disappeared under the blanket.

“Didn’t hear you,” Kit repeated, his mouth as dry as baby powder. “Uhm….”

Jesse’s eyes met his unexpectedly. “You wanted to, didn’t you?”

“God yes!” Kit burst out with so much passion that he startled himself.

Jesse grinned. “So, uhm, do you like to top or bottom?”

Blink. “Wha?”

“You know, do you wear the condom or not?”

Oh God. Kit needed to correct a very basic assumption right here and now. “Uhm, Jesse?”

And now Jesse was looking both uncertain and a little bit hurt. “What?”

“You’re making this really big assumption—”

“You just said you wanted to!”

“I do! I do! Oh God, I do! I just haven’t yet.”

“Haven’t had sex with me? I thought we were, you know, going to… going to do that….”

Oh God. Suddenly hiding his face was more important than hiding his soft belly and hard private parts, and Kit pulled the towel up to bury his face in it.

“I haven’t had sex at all, ever!” he confessed piteously, so embarrassed he thought his penis might fall off with the pure shame of it all.

The silence in the room was so profound that Kit found he had to look over his hands to make sure Jesse hadn’t killed himself laughing.

Jesse had swung himself up in the bed and kept the sheet around his waist, and was regarding Kit with absolute sobriety. When Kit met his eyes, he said, “Really?”

Kit nodded and shrugged at the same time. “It was just easier,” he rasped, feeling like some sort of explanation was demanded from him. “I lived at home, with my mother. I… I wasn’t a catch, you know? I’m a pudgy accountant, right?” He shrugged again and tried to look anywhere but Jesse’s wide, sympathetic eyes. “I don’t know if I like to top or bottom. I don’t know how to”—oh God—“touch things, or what feels good to someone else or… etiquette, or….” He trailed off and then manned up. This could be the worst thing he had to confess, ever, and he’d done it. Finish strong or not at all, right? He looked Jesse in the eyes.

“About all I really do know is that I probably don’t need a condom. Which is good. Because I don’t have any.”

And that last part seemed to prompt Jesse into action. He stood, and for a second he struggled with the sheet like he was going to take it with him, and Kit struggled with the towel to put it back around his body, and then Jesse dropped the sheet and came over to Kit and took his hands.

The towel flurried to the floor.

“You didn’t even hope for me?” Jesse said softly, and Kit avoided his eyes. He’d pinned all of his hope on Danny Fit, really, because he had absolutely no expectations of that one ever coming true.

“It hurts to hope.” It was a painful admission. He wondered if he could ever tell Jesse about Danny Fit and decided that maybe, just maybe, that would be harder to do than confessing to his overripe virginity.

Jesse nodded. “I know that,” he said. “I do need a condom, okay? Because you don’t want to wait for someone who might be special, because it hurts to hope for something like that. And then you just sleep with anyone who might make it hurt less, and not with the right someone who won’t make it hurt at all.” He kept his head down and seemed to stare at Kit’s hands, his soft accountant’s hands, as he stroked the backs of them with his thumbs. “I’m not a virgin,” he said with a sardonic smile. “I’ve done lots of things… lots of men that I’m not proud of.”

He looked up at Kit then, and he grimaced, and Kit thought maybe he was fighting tears too. “Do you remember the first day at work? You were showing me how to use the copy machine?”

Kit shook his head. He’d spent the entire day dazzled. There was no single moment he remembered, just Jesse, big eyes, sweet smile, all of it.

“Well, I was feeling a little out of my league—that thing’s a monster, and it’s all hooked up to the computer and everything, and you showed me how to use it, and you were like, ‘No worries. Just think of it as the helm of the Starship Enterprise—you’re like, Chekhov, right? We won’t make you wear the red jumpsuit, I swear’.”

Kit couldn’t look at him. Were they both just standing there, naked, staring at each other’s hands?

“Look at me, Kit.”

Apparently not. Kit looked up, and Jesse smiled into his eyes.

“It was the nicest thing anyone ever said or did for me on the job or at school or anything. And you were nice every day since. You said ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ and put aside your work to talk to me. You were funny—when you let yourself talk. And I kept thinking, ‘God, if he liked me, even a little, I would so totally risk my job to hit on him’. And I did—and it was worth it. It was worth it to drive all night because you weren’t going to try to nail me when I felt like shit. The look on your face when you opened the door and saw me? I don’t know how I lived my whole life without someone looking at me like that, okay?”

Kit looked at him now and let his dazzle shine through. “Okay. Okay.” He nodded and said it again, because suddenly being naked wasn’t a scary thing; it was an exciting thing. Jesse wasn’t going to hurt him—not on purpose. He wasn’t going to laugh at him or make fun of him. Something in Jesse was just as dazzled by Kit as Kit was dazzled by Jesse, and it just might be all right.

Jesse straightened and reached, and they kissed again. Kit encircled Jesse’s shoulders, feeling the urge to protect him. He’d been hurt by life, Kit realized, and Kit was afraid enough of life to want to keep him safe—and to think he was incredibly brave.

Their skin rasped together, and Jesse tasted like Kit’s toothpaste and raw enthusiasm. Kit loved that, and he returned it, pushing Jesse backward, steering him toward the bed. Jesse stopped when the backs of his knees hit the bed, and he sat down abruptly, then scooted back and stretched out, patting the space next to him for Kit.

“Want to start again?”

Kit grinned. “Are you kidding?”

Jesse grinned back. “Not even a little.”

Kit crawled in and lay on his side, and Jesse started the kiss back up, and this time, their hands were free to roam.

Jesse’s skin was smooth. He had tight, stringy little muscles, and Kit could feel his ribs under a shallow layer of them. The hollow where the small of his back dipped to his buttocks was silken, and the slightly furry tops of his thighs were soft even under the coarse hair. Kit was erect again, except now his cock was mashed up against Jesse’s groin, and Kit could feel the ridge of Jesse’s cockhead right by the crease in his thigh.

Kit whimpered.

“Let me touch.”

Jesse smiled against his lips. “Me too.”

They backed up a little, and Kit took Jesse’s actual throbbing cock in his hand. It was not as large as his own, which both surprised him and didn’t bother him at all. Jesse, on the other hand….

“Holy God.” Jesse’s fist tightened around Kit, and Kit gasped. “This thing…. Jesus, Kit—it’s a fucking thing of beauty!” He stroked from Kit’s base to his tip, and Kit had to remember to keep his own fist wrapped around Jesse. He stroked again, and Kit groaned and threw his head back against the pillow and let go of Jesse’s body, which sucked because he wanted to explore, but… but….

Jesse stretched up and kissed his cheek. “Easy there, buddy. I’ve got this, okay? You’re primed to go off here—trust me, I get it.”

Kit was about to say “But…”, and then Jesse scooted down the bed and engulfed Kit’s cock in his mouth, and Kit let out a sound that he didn’t know a human could make. He stroked Jesse’s hair back from his face, and Jesse hollowed in his cheeks and sucked hard, pulling back until Kit popped out of his mouth. Then he turned his head and grinned up at Kit, and Kit’s breath just trammeled up in his chest and stayed there.

“That felt good, right?”

Kit couldn’t manage real words—about all he could do was groan and thrust his hips up, so his cock slid through Jesse’s spit-slick grasp. Jesse’s grin widened, and then it went away entirely as he took Kit in again. He was doing a swirly thing with his tongue on the upstroke and using his fist at Kit’s base, too, and his other hand (oh, how very sneaky!) came to play with Kit’s balls and to finger the cleft of his bottom. Oh God. That was unnecessary. That was too much. That was going to…. Not so soon…. No no no no no no no no….

“Gwwwwaaaagghhhhhh!” Kit didn’t even have a chance to warn him, and Jesse swallowed quickly and again and again, until that precious, bee-stung mouth was just gulping Kit’s come, and the way that felt on Kit’s cockhead was…. “Gwwwaaaaahhhhhgggg! Jeeeeee-sus!” Kit’s knees came up, and he turned sideways, dislodging Jesse, who scooted up the bed, wiping his mouth while Kit curled up into a little ball and shuddered.

Suddenly Jesse was there, arms around Kit’s shoulders, gooey kisses in his hair, and tender strokes against his shoulders. He smelled like Jesse and sweat and Kit’s come, and Kit wanted to kiss him worse than he wanted to breathe. He captured that sweet little mouth and demanded, and Jesse gave in to him so free and easy Kit could almost believe that sex, all of sex, would work.

Kit’s breathing subsided, and Jesse thrust against his thigh and grunted, just enough to let Kit know that his friend (lover? They were lovers now. Fantastic!) was still in need. Awesome!

Kit pulled back and said, “Can I?” and Jesse smirked at him.

“I thought you’d never ask!”

Kit kissed his way down Jesse’s body, feeling giddy as he suckled on a nipple and felt Jesse’s hands tighten in his hair. Oh God… his skin tasted so good. It was sort of honey colored, like his hair, and Kit wondered what he’d look like tan in the summer, and then he kissed his way to the vulnerable skin of Jesse’s stomach and nibbled, just to hear that throaty giggle that he’d heard Jesse make on occasion.

Jesse made the sound now, and Kit grinned up at him before turning his attention to the one part of a man’s body that all things seemed to center around.

Jesse was right—it was a little smaller than Kit’s, but it was gold with a flushed pink head, and the skin felt soft and tight against Kit’s hand. Kit squeezed and the head turned purple, and Jesse moaned a little and thrust up inside the cave of his fist.

The first slide of the thing between his lips felt awkward, even when he made sure his teeth were safely covered. He kept going, though, because the sound Jesse made was… sweet. Begging. Cock-stiffening. Kit squeezed the base again and slurped down until his lips met his fist, and then he moved his fist to see how deep he could take it down his throat.

Almost all the way, he discovered, and Jesse groaned harshly and then gave Kit’s hair a little jerk until Kit pulled back.

“Just use your hand, okay?” Jesse panted when Kit had pulled off it and was meeting his eyes. Kit must have looked disappointed, because Jesse touched his cheek. “I haven’t been tested recently. Just to be safe, okay?”

Kit nodded. Even a thirty-year-old virgin had heard of HIV. He propped his chin up on his arm and started stroking Jesse’s shaft, and then he sat up a little and switched arms, stroking with one hand and moving his other hand to explore a little. Jesse’s balls were hard (at the moment) and the skin around them was soft and covered with dark-brown fur. Jesse pulled his knees up and spread his thighs, and Kit looked at him, asking permission.

“Feel free,” Jesse grunted, squeezing his eyes shut as Kit thumbed the pre-come on the mushroom head of his cock. “Explore at… oh God… will!”

Kit grinned, but Jesse didn’t see it; then he stuck one of his fingers in his mouth and sucked, slicking it up, because he’d read a little about this and wanted to see what would happen. Then he stroked again while he took that slick, naughty little digit and finger-walked it to the entrance of Jesse’s asshole.

Jesse keened, begging, and Kit grinned again. Oh God—in all his imaginings, he’d never imagined how much fun it would be to hear Jesse make those noises begging him to play with his body in carnal ways. He slid in one finger and wiggled it around, and Jesse clenched against him and thrust forward some more, and Kit was delighted enough to slide in two fingers and then grasp and squeeze and stroke some more.

“Oh Christ!” Jesse gasped. “Now!” His come was hot on Kit’s fist, and some of it was white and some of it was clear as it spattered across his stomach and his lean chest with its vulnerable ribs and the tiny mole up next to his right nipple. Kit longed to taste the fruits of orgasm, like Jesse had tasted his. Jesse’s face was contorted without any self-consciousness at all. He looked fierce and almost in pain, and then, as Kit kept pumping, he relaxed a little and reached out a hand to stop Kit’s pressure.

Kit pulled back and reached over the bed to where he’d dropped his towel on the floor. He used the towel to wipe off his hands and clean Jesse up, his movements patient and reverent, while Jesse watched him with wide, limpid eyes. When he was done he moved up next to Jesse and claimed that mouth again with so much tenderness aching in his throat he just knew Jesse would laugh at how young he was, a virgin, in love with the first guy he laid.

When he pulled back, Jesse’s eyes were shining, and he wiped the back of his hand across them with a rough movement.

“You’re pretty good at this sex thing, you know that, Kit?” His voice was rough and wobbly, and Kit felt his eyes get bright too. He kissed Jesse softly and stretched out next to him, and thought that maybe it wasn’t the sex he was good at, it was the love part, but he didn’t say that.

It just may have been too real.

They lay quietly for a while after that, and Kit spent some time running his hand up and down Jesse’s chest and arms, skimming his fingertips over youth-prominent clavicles and stroking his deceptively strong-lined jaw.

Jesse tried to do the same thing to Kit after a few moments, and Kit remembered that he was naked, and he was imperfect. The thought sent him diving for the covers, and Jesse’s laugh had the ring of hurt to it.

“Come on, Kit…. I like your body too!”

Kit clamped the comforter over his chest with his arms. “You’ll like it better in six weeks!” he said adamantly, and Jesse’s eyes narrowed.

“I’m not waiting six weeks to see you naked, you moron! Jesus—we just…. You just let me go down on you—do you think I didn’t see it then?”

Kit turned red. “Well then, you know,” he said, because anybody would know after that.

Jesse prodded gently at the arm nearest him. “Know what?” His voice was as gentle as his touch, and Kit allowed his arm to be moved for no other reason than it was Jesse.

“Know that I’m the size of a Volkswagen,” Kit grumbled, and Jesse laughed. He actually laughed.

“You’re thick, all right. You’re thick in the head and you’re thick in the cock, but your body is not nearly as bad as you think it is.”

“Fine.” Kit grabbed the comforter and threw it down to his hips, and Jesse laughed some more. Suddenly, Kit thought he might run naked through their little office building if it would make Jesse laugh just like that, warm and throaty and kind.

“Nice,” he murmured appreciatively. “You can see where the workouts are doing their job…. See?” He poked Kit in the stomach, and Kit tightened reflexively. “Look at that. Voila! Definition.”

Kit smirked a little. “You could bounce a quarter off your stomach—don’t bullshit me.”

“Well, you want that tummy, you need to go to my gym!”

Kit colored. “Nah. I think I’ll stick with Danny Fit, thank you.”

Jesse grimaced playfully. “Oh God! How’s a mere mortal going to compete! Danny Fit! God of gay fitness!”

“I didn’t know he was gay,” Kit said, wide-eyed, and Jesse saw the hero worship and rolled his eyes.

“Jesus, Kit, pop culture isn’t just for sci-fi—read a magazine at a checkout stand, whydontcha!”

“Oh.” Kit looked away, embarrassed, but not for long. Imaginary, gay Danny Fit was tucked away on his DVD player, and live, cute-as-hell, willing-to-touch-him-and-like-him-for-who-he-was Jesse was in his bed, and getting ready to go down on him all over again.

Danny who?

 

 

THEY MIGHT have played in bed all day, but Jesse stretched at around one o’clock and said, “There’s a lot more we could do here, buddy, but I’m about all come out.” He rolled over onto his stomach and propped his chin on Kit’s. Kit smiled at him and stroked his hair back from his face. It was a little bit greasy, because, hey, the guy had driven all night to see him, and him alone, and that was a reality Kit could live with.

“Did we want to try the, uhm,” Kit blushed, but he kept stroking Jesse’s hair.

“The thing?” Jesse supplied drily, and Kit nodded. Penetration. Condom. Lubricant. The big A. The thing. Top or bottom, Kit was looking forward to it.

“Can we wait until after we get the kitten?” And Kit was a little stunned. He’d forgotten all about the kitten, and his expression showed it.

The face Jesse turned toward him was tragic. “You said we were going to get a kitten—you’re not going to go back on that, right? It was a promise!”

Kit blinked and saw a whole new Jesse. He put things together, about Jesse not wanting to visit his mom, and strings of boyfriends, and a slut-bag ex.

“Lots of people have broken promises to you, haven’t they, Jesse?” he asked, actually amazed at his own perceptiveness, and Jesse looked away.

“I…I just really wanted to get that kitten. I told Emmy I’d call her and tell her what kind we got.”

Kit nodded and sat up, and pulled Jesse closer to kiss his temple. “Absolutely. Adoption day at PetSmart. You shower, I’ll cook, you eat, I’ll shower. It’s a plan.

Jesse’s grin returned. “You don’t want to shower together?”

Kit looked away and blushed. “I’m, uhm, trying to keep that promise, remember?”

So they showered and ate breakfast instead.