Julian

The last day in paradise.

If you can call this paradise, anyway. At six-thirty in the afternoon, it’s ninety degrees in the shade. Although I’ve been informed it’s a dry heat, I don’t feel dry at all. This whole trip I’ve felt like a fish out of water—at a fish fry.

My skin is dry, my hair is turned to straw, and I go into a sneezing fit every time I go from inside to outside, thanks to my sinuses. Every building roars a blast of cold air like an ice dragon when you walk inside, banishing the heat. This whole city is a monument to man’s arrogance. Right now, the biggest thing on my mind is returning to Seattle and the nice, cool, humid world I’ve come to call home.

Well, second biggest thing on my mind. The biggest would be Colton Steele, my best friend’s brother. At this very moment, he’s a scant twenty feet away, cupping a neat whisky in one hand as if he’s looking for the first opportunity to dive off the rooftop bar. Even scowling, he’s so handsome it physically hurts to look at him, like a crushing fist in my chest. His dark hair is always tussled just so, self-organizing according to its own perfection. His eyes are a dark blue, the most striking aspect of his tanned, chiseled features. High cheekbones, strong nose, full lips.

I haven’t seen him in six years and, in the interim, he hasn’t really gotten older, only become more himself. He always filled out his clothes but now his massive shoulders and chest pull the striped fabric of a designer polo tight across his frame. When he breathes, I catch little glimpses of the outlines of ridged abdominal muscles on his belly and, if he moves just right, the untucked tail of his shirt reveals a sculpted V I’d like to trace with my tongue until he shoves my head between his legs.

Yeah. My BFF’s older brother…reason why I know I’m gay. I messed around with Karen a little a long, long time ago, but I realized that despite our tweeny-bopper adolescent “dates” I had zero interest in her in that way, yet her brother brought me to full attention with just a word or a glance. Not that he often favored me with either. He disappeared from her life, pretty much, when the pair of us started high school. From then on, he became a ghost. Every once in a while, she’d show me a picture: Here he is parasailing. Here he is in ROTC. Here he is in his Navy whites. I filed all those away in the deepest vaults of my spank bank and never told my best friend, Karen, that I have a deep-seated thing for her brother.

“Thing” undersells it. Obsession. Infatuation. Hidden crush. Secret lust.

We’ve been in Las Vegas a week; he’s been here the entire time, and I have yet to exchange more than six words with him. When he said hello to me, I was too shocked by his presence to offer more than a muttered “hi” and slip into hiding beneath his sister’s metaphorical skirts. I hovered around the siblings during their tense catch-up sessions, like a potted plant someone forgot to water, before I slunk off to find something to do. Karen and Colton are not on the best of terms. That’s a bit of an understatement: She goes full ice whenever he speaks to her and rarely starts a conversation.

That’s the grind of this trip. Unless Karen has time to hang out, there’s not much here for me to actually occupy myself with. A gambling mecca doesn’t hold much interest if you’ve got no money to roll on the bones or whatever they say. So far, I’ve only managed to lose ten bucks in pennies to a one-armed bandit, and it totally satisfied my gambling-tooth. Why do people willingly play a game they call a bandit? That they know is going to lighten their wallets? What’s the appeal?

So, I have nothing to do but try to wedge myself into hanging out with my best friend or fantasize about her brother bending me over a roulette table.

That mental image is going in the bank.

I’m here on Karen’s dime. I’m in an odd spot: I’m serving as her Man of Honor in her wedding, which is apparently a thing now. The ceremony will be held tomorrow. On Key West. Yeah, she put up her extended family and friends in hotels in Vegas for a week before her wedding, we’re spending another week in Florida after, and then she and her husband Alex are heading off to Europe for another two weeks after that.

Karen’s parents are loaded. As is Colton, and as is Karen herself, though most of her fortune she got on her own. Though she doesn’t act like it’s anything special, Karen built a thriving online makeup business after moving a continent away from her parents. We all grew up on the East Coast—Karen is Mid-Atlantic Aristocracy and I’m the son of a waitress and a “traveling salesman” who only had a house because Mom inherited a half acre of what used to be a ten-acre farm.

I became fast friends with Karen starting in fifth grade and from there we were inseparable. You see, Colton attended private academies from pre-pre-school all the way to Harvard. Karen went to public schools with the likes of me.

Yeah.

Fast forward to my floundering freelancer career. Karen and her business are responsible for about half of the work I do.

My head is spinning in circles. Go talk to him. Go talk to him. Go talk to him.

I don’t know why. It’s a lost cause. He’s straight as an arrow. Every once in a while, he’d text Karen a picture of himself with one or two stunningly attractive women in Dubai or Paris or wherever he was that week. I guess when he was in the Navy, he was an actual honest to God girl-in-every-port kind of guy, maybe two at a time. He radiates straightness like body heat off a panther. Yeah, I have no chance.

I mean, hell, he doesn’t even look back at me when I stare right at him. What am I supposed to do, hike up my shorts and show some leg?

Karen bumps my arm with her fist and shakes me out of my weird session of mixed up fantasizing and internal complaining. She’s wearing a giant straw hat and there’s a smudge of sunscreen on her nose, just like every other day we’ve been here. The effort she’s taken to avoid even a farmer’s tan astonishes me, given she’s arranged to be in the sun almost constantly for a month. She and Colton have the same coloring—inky dark hair, pale skin, blue eyes. Only he tans nicely and a hint of sun makes her explode in a profusion of freckles that cover her face and arms as densely as raindrops in a thunderstorm.

“Having fun yet?” she says.

We exchange looks and the answer is left painfully unspoken. I’m a fifth wheel here. Between her parents, relations, and distant friends, she’s surrounded by people. We always used to lean on each other a lot; back when we first bonded, she and I were both awkward. I was skinny and gangly and she was plump and pimply. I grew skinnier and ganglier and she stretched out into a bombshell who can model her own products. If she were vainer, less driven, and her parents gave a shit, she’d be a runway model or a personality on television. I’m kind of glad they didn’t. If they’d cared enough to prepare her for that kind of field, we’d never have met. I never tell her that, though.

The core of her personality never changed, though. She leans back against the railing and stands next to me, looking out over the Strip. We’re on the rooftop of one of the big casino-hotels. Her parents insisted on booking the entire rooftop space every afternoon for the whole wedding party and the guests to mingle before breaking off for various activities.

So far, it’s been all the usual stuff. Shows, casino runs, that kind of thing. She took a helicopter ride with her fiancé and some of her cousins of lesser wealth have been renting Ferraris and tearing around the desert. Tonight, though, is the bachelor/bachelorette party night and it’s time to find out what I’ve been dreading to learn all day: Which side of the wedding party I’m going to be obligated to go with.

I have zero in common with her husband-to-be, and that’s fine. I’m friends with her, not him, and I barely see the guy. It would be weird to join the bachelor party. I already told her I consider the whole thing kind of toxic.

“I want you to go with the guys,” she says.

A sigh flows out of me like air from a deflating balloon.

“Oh, come on. What are you worried about?” she says, and then, “I want you to be my spy,” softly.

I quirk an eyebrow. “Say what, now?”

“Lower your voice,” she hisses, sharply. “I just want someone I trust to be there.”

“Isn’t your brother going?”

She doesn’t go full on smirk, but her eyebrow twitches. “Yeah, he is.”

Part of me wants to shout, I’ve changed my mind, I will gladly go, but I play coy.

Then it hits me. She wants someone she trusts. Her brother is still on the list of not-she-trusts.

“You really should talk to him,” I shrug.

She rolls her shoulders and looks down at her feet.

“I’ve been talking to him. He can’t hear me over the sound of what a perfect military hero douchebag he is.”

They had a serious argument a few years ago. It was over the phone, but something made her just unload on him, start screaming. Before it turned hot, their conflict was a cold war. Things between them have been tense this entire time and he’s just sort of floated along during all the activities, like a teenage boy at a middle school dance who’s too cool to be there. It doesn’t diminish his aloof debonair charm, but it is worrying.

“He met you halfway. He didn’t have to be here.”

There’s a lot more to this argument than she lets on. I still don’t know what the actual quarrel is.

“Are you worried about Alex?” I say very, very softly.

“Yeah,” she says in a deadly whisper. “Well, not him. My cousin Trevor is here, and he’s a douche.”

I agree on the douche-ness of Trevor. When she says his name, I sneak a glance at him, over by the open bar pre-gaming. His hair and wraparound sunglasses make him look like someone put Guy Fieri on a diet and dumped a bucket of tanning chemicals over his head. Someone should tell him that pastel white board shorts and orange skin make him look like he works his day job in a magical candy factory.

My eyes slide right back to Colton, and Karen practically has to snap her fingers to get my attention.

“I figure if you’re there, nobody will pressure the group into doing anything stupid, you know?”

“Yeah,” I admit. “Yeah, that makes sense. So, less eyes-and-ears and more boat anchor?”

“That’s not what I meant,” she jabs back, her voice warbling back and forth between apologetic and annoyed.

“I should have just joined you in Florida. I don’t fit in this crowd.”

“Me either,” she says, downing the last of her drink. “Having you around is the only thing keeping me sane. I try to hang out but someone is always trying to pull me away.”

“Especially her,” I say quietly, nodding to Bethany.

Bethany is one of Karen’s many cousins, the kind of cousins who are constantly at each other’s throats but must tolerate each other for social purposes. Karen and Beth belonged to the same sorority. Beth stalks, prowls, hovers. This is one of those family situations where Beth is from one of the “lesser branches” of the family, and she knows it. If the family tree was a river of money, she’d be on the fork of one of the tributaries. Nobody in the whole clan really has to work, but some are more equal than others.

Karen’s dad is the firstborn son of a firstborn son and so on, so it all flows that way. There’s some resentment there. Some scheming. Bethany has shark eyes, ready to roll over white when she sinks in her teeth.

Back then, Beth was like a lesser copy of Karen—shorter, squarer, with worse skin and limper hair. Karen rolled out of bed in the morning looking better and she quickly became the star of all their social circles, and Bethany hated it. When she showed up here, she’d been liposuctioned, bleached, and implanted. I overheard Colton remarking that she looks like a stripper. I’ve also noticed she’s been showering Alex with attention all week.

Karen glances at me.

“I’m just nervous,” she says. “It’s something in the air. Look, you don’t have to get wasted. I’d prefer that no one get wasted. We’re flying out tomorrow at two and everyone has to be out of the hotel by eleven. I planned it that way.”

I nod. “Yeah.”

“You’ll still have to peel Trevor out of a gutter by morning,” she says, disgusted. “Look at him.”

Trevor, presently, holds a superhuman quantity of beer in a long plastic container shaped like a trumpet with a giant curly straw. Disgusted, I clear my throat.

“We’re going to break this up soon and my parents are taking the older family members to see Cirque. Meanwhile we celebrate our last night of ‘freedom.’”

“I hate that,” I say.

“So do I. Getting married shouldn’t feel like going to prison. This whole destination thing was his idea, you know. I wanted to go to the Justice of the Peace and get this over with. Then my parents insisted on a ceremony and Alex jumped in with his huge plans. Aren’t guys supposed to detest weddings?”

She’s getting cold feet, or just nervous. Growing up, Karen had crippling social anxiety, and it only started to fade when she grew into her genius, supermodel self, but it’s still there. Despite her gorgeous looks and brilliance, she has to steel herself to do anything that makes her the center of attention. She must be pining for the chance to just be alone with Alex on their honeymoon.

My heart is starting to speed up. Going to a bachelor party with Colton. Whatever the party might entail, I might work up the courage to actually talk to him. I don’t know why I want to. I’ll just get hurt. It’ll be like running face-first into a brick wall. With an erection. He hasn’t even looked at me.

Except right now. His eyes snap down to his phone as I look over. Karen doesn’t notice.

“Just do this for me, alright? I’m really going to appreciate it.”

“Yeah. You know all you have to do is ask.”

She punches my arm and taps her forehead against mine. It gets a few looks from distant members of the family and friends who might not realize I’m gay, or that we only do that because cats do it. We were those kinds of kids.

Yeah.

The pre-party starts breaking up. Alex’s best friend Jeremy, also his Best Man, is the organizer and master of ceremonies, and he’s started herding all the guys together. I drift over, halfway between invited and uninvited, in the awkward position of being sent by the bride.

Karen is over in the corner having a tense conversation with Colton about something I can’t hear. In my secret realm of fantasies, I desperately hope she’s trying to set us up.

She probably doesn’t even know I like him.

Like? Listen to yourself, Julian. What am I, twelve?

Finally, he heads over, walking with a canted posture, shoulders bunched, like a bull who’s picked out a plump runner who doesn’t belong in Pamplona. He squares up next to me.

Jeremy and Trevor have hit it off, by the looks of things. Birds of a feather. They give Alex those challenging guy-pushes on the chest and shoulders as they loudly declaim the night’s activities. We’re going to a bar first, surprise surprise. I guess somebody rented a shuttle. That’s good. I don’t want to end up sloshed and stumbling around the streets of Las Vegas. I’m sure by the end of the night I’ll have downed enough Cosmos to kill a bull elephant. I doubt I’m getting through this, either way.

So it begins. Jeremy and his co-conspirator Trevor make loud bullish calls and then everyone—about thirty guys—pile into two elevators, since one won’t hold the entire group. I end up smashed into the corner—next to Colton.

God, what a sweet hell. It’s just the outside of his arm pressed against my back, but the warmth is intoxicating, and I can smell him, earthy musk beneath leathery cologne. He sniffs the air—though he isn’t the only one—as if to ask who’s wearing the flowery scent. That’d be me.

The doors open and the press ends. I gravitate towards him, hoping that maybe sometime this decade I’ll work up the courage to say something like “hi” or “so, how do you feel about this objectifying ritual of toxic masculinity?” but before I even formulate any words, I’m swept along with the crowd through an opulent palace of a casino lobby and out into the blasting heat and sunlight and again into the dark, in the back of a shuttle van. The shuttles are big, hulking cargo vans with lifted roofs painted black with graphics.

They, uh, also have stripper poles.

Yeah.

Then again, it’s Vegas. The airport had stripper poles squirreled away somewhere.

Tucked in between two guys I don’t know, I fiddle on my phone during the interminable ride down the Strip. Day or night, the traffic is obscene, with solid walls of cars crawling from stoplight to stoplight at five miles an hour, waiting what seems like hours for endless tides of cargo shorts and Hawaiian shirts to flow from sidewalk to sidewalk.

Finally, they dump us at a bar. The bright baking sun and brilliant blue sky, with not a single cloud, make it incongruous to be piling inside, but, as they say, it’s five o’clock somewhere—and anyway, it’s seven o’clock here.

It doesn’t hit me just what type of bar it turns out to be until we’re inside. Rhythms pulse, party lights dance, and every surface is either mirrored or chromed, even the bouncer’s sunglasses. Everything is centered on the main attraction: Half-naked women gyrating on aluminum posts.

Yeah. I’m a fish out of water and the water is wearing a thong.

I get pulled along, realizing I need to stay close or they might literally forget me; I’m pretty sure neither Jeremy nor Trevor give a shit that I’m here, if they even counted me. Getting stranded in a strip club to miss my flight to my friend’s wedding is pretty low on my bucket list.

So, I keep an eye on the guys and head for the bar. A little liquid courage will get me through this.

The bartender does an admirable job of scrunching her cleavage. I’m half-tempted to tell her she’s wasting her time but end up leaving as generous a tip as I can muster anyway. Call it an A for effort.

“You’re with the party?”

“Yeah,” I say.

“Drinks are on the party tab,” she says, appreciatively tucking the crumpled dollar bills into the tip jar.

That’s what I needed to hear. I throw back a swig of Corona and turn only to nearly jump out of my skin. Colton has appeared at the bar beside me.

“Scotch whiskey, neat. Whatever you call top shelf.”

“Sir, that’s eighty dollars a shot,” the bartender protests.

“So, pour it carefully,” he says, smooth as silk.

Meanwhile I stand there gaping, and nearly drop my beer.

“Do I have something on my shirt?” he says, side-eyeing me. “You’ve been staring at me since we got here.”

“Oh, sorry,” I say, looking away. “I’m not really interested in this kind of thing.”

“I mean here as in the city, not here as in this dive. You’re Karen’s best friend, right? I remember you from when you were fourteen.”

Oh my God, if you are listening just strike me dead right here. Please just don’t make it hurt, okay?

Colton snorts as he takes his drink.

“Yeah. I remember you, too,” I say, trying to be sly. I think my voice cracked a little.

“Weird to see little Karen getting married,” he shakes his head. “It’s like I stepped away and everyone got old while I was gone.”

“I’m old?” I chirp, lamely.

He snorts. “No. I am.”

“You don’t look old. You look pretty much like you did when you left.”

“Flattering, but no,” he says, touching his side. I glance at his impossibly taut stomach in profile and wonder what he was indicating. Whatever it was, his shirt covers it.

“I never pegged you for the strip club type,” he says.

“You last saw me when I was in my teens. This is the longest conversation I’ve had with you in my life.”

He snorts. “You can tell. Trust me, look at that jackass,” he points at Trevor, who has three strippers giving him a lap dance at once, “I bet when he was fourteen, every other word out of his mouth was titties.”

The bartender gives Colton a reverent look as she pours him a second drink. I barely noticed him draining the first.

“So, what are you doing here?” he says.

“You want the truth?”

“Yeah,” he says. “I’m big on truth.”

“No telling anyone,” I say. “Cross your heart.”

He makes the little gesture and my own heart nearly skips. I swallow hard.

“I’m a spy. Karen planted me in the crowd to keep an eye on things.”

Colton laughs, a sound like velvet being drawn over steel. He eyes me and eyes his drink.

“Funny. I’m here for the same reason.”

“She talked you into it?”

“No,” he says, a quick shake of his head. “She told me not to cause trouble. She’s afraid I’ll make a scene with her boyfriend.” He draws out the word, punctuating both syllables, “boy-friend,” as if to highlight that he didn’t title the guy her fiancé.

“So, why are you here?”

“Same as you,” he says, offering his drink at me. I stare at it for a second and realize it’s a toast.

I tap my bottle against the rim of his glass and murmur Karen’s name. For a heart-squeezing second, I think our hands might actually touch. Get a grip, Julian.

“So, you’re spying.”

“Keeping an eye on, more like. I get a bad vibe from this guy’s friends. They seem like the type to get him hammered and top off this evening with him in the champagne room with a blowjob.”

“There’s no sex in the champagne room,” the bartender mutters.

“Sure there isn’t,” Colton says, smiling at her. He waves his glass.

“Maybe you should slow down,” I say.

“Maybe you should sack up and have a real drink,” Colton laughs. “Give him one too.”

She pours me the same stuff she offered him and slides the glass my way. I reach for my wallet for the tip and Colton waves me off, smoothly slipping her a folded hundred-dollar bill. She nods appreciatively and steps aside to serve another member of the party.

“So,” he says, nodding at the tumbler on the bar in front of me. “Drink.”

Hesitantly, I lift the glass and sip some. It tastes like giving an exhaust pipe a blowjob. I almost drop the class, coughing, and wash out my mouth with citrusy pale beer.

“Don’t have a lot of practice, I see,” he says.

“I have plenty of tolerance. I just enjoy drinks that actually taste good. I don’t see why everything has to be a contest to see how much dick swagger you roll, you know?”

He laughs. “Yeah.”

I glance over at the stage. “How long do you think I’ll have to sit here?”

“Couple hours,” he says, shrugging.

“That long?” I sigh. “They’re just tits. You can’t tell me none of these guys has seen tits before. What’s the appeal?”

He quirks an eyebrow with me. Despite being the manliest manly man that ever manlied he looks remarkably like his sister when he does that, and it gives me a little chill.

“That’s an odd question.”

“I’m gay,” I shrug.

Maybe it’s the booze, not that I’ve had much to rely on that for an excuse. The impulse has me blurt it out before I can manage to contain myself and then, like an idiot, I’m staring longingly into his eyes hoping for any kind of a signal that he might be interested.

He looks away before I can complete my search. Damn it.

Well, he didn’t run off screaming. In fact, he’s still standing there. Only a foot away, but he might as well be on the other side of the planet. A flash of light catches my attention. The rest of the guys are crowded around a stage show. When I look back, Colton is looking right at me.

I finish my drink. The taste is horrible and it makes me shiver all over. Colton leans casually against the bar and motions for another drink. His third.

“Maybe you should slow down,” I say.

“Pretty much the only way I can stand this,” he says in a low, husky voice.

“I thought you were a party animal,” I say.

He does that eyebrow-quirk again.

“How would you know that?”

“Karen shows me pictures,” I say, sheepishly. I neglect to add that I memorize them and masturbate to them, picturing him fucking me.

“Does she, now,” he says. “I hadn’t sent her any.”

“I guess she stalks you on Facebook,” I shrug.

He glances at me. “So that’s what you think of me. Party animal?”

Before I can answer, there’s a call over the loudspeakers inviting our entire party up to the upstairs lounge. A pair of strippers flanks Alex and leads him up the staircase. In place of the tassels of the old burlesque dancers, their bras bear sparklers on the pointed cups, lighting up the dark room around him.

With a bone-weary sigh, I fall in line. Colton is behind me. I can smell him, his unique mix of scents rising above the chaotic mess of the club. The world around me is ashes, stale beer, and just a hint of either old vomit or cheap melted chocolate bars. Somehow Colton’s scent floats to the top, an overpowering blend of his deliciously manly natural scent and that leathery deodorant he wears. I think his chest just bumped into my back.

When we arrive on the second floor, it’s time for everyone to crowd into a bunch of booths. This is a big place. I barely realized how big. There’s a second level looking down on the main stage and a bunch of poles up here.

I start looking for a seat when a strong hand grabs my arm.

Colton.

Oh my God he’s touching me. I almost let out a little squee noise. God, what am I, fourteen? I’m a grown-ass man. My hesitation ends after a second tug and I crush in beside him, between him and the end of the booth.

The drink of the night is vodka. Trevor and Jordan got us bottle service, meaning cocktail waitresses are strutting around in thigh-high boots pouring top-shelf stuff from magnum-sized bottles. The display is as much the focus as the drink; they each bend artfully at the hip, poking their asses straight out. Their costumes are so skimpy, the only way to tell they’re waitresses and not strippers is that their clothes aren’t designed to come off easily.

Sigh. Yawn. Seriously. I slump against the side of the booth and wait my turn. Glasses are raised, Trevor yells something in brospeak, and the drinking begins.

Vodka goes down easier, but I’m no fan of drinking hard liquor straight. Next to me, Colton grimaces. He leans slightly to his side and speaks to me, and my heart flutters. He remembered I exist.

“I hate vodka,” he mutters. “Doesn’t taste like anything and top shelf shit is the same as comes in a plastic bottle for five bucks. Clear liquor is clear liquor.”

“I could go for an appletini or something,” I mutter.

Colton laughs, but there’s no scorn in it. He snaps his fingers and the bottle service girl comes over, offering more, but he waves it away.

“Go fetch us two appletinis,” he says.

She looks at him like he just asked her to take a swan dive onto the downstairs stage but rushes off to get what he asked. When she returns, he gives her a healthy tip, takes both drinks, and hands me mine.

“There you go,” he says.

He takes a drink of his and looks at it, cocking his head to the side like a wolf who just heard an unusual noise.

“Huh. Not bad.”

I laugh now and start nursing my drink. I’m already pretty tipsy and I don’t want to get any drunker. If I space things out, I’m sure I can keep myself to that perfect level of tolerance for this bullshit I need to keep up with for the evening.

Then Jordan, he of groom-brothery and party-plannery, points us out.

“What the fuck are you two drinking?” he shouts.

Colton’s expression darkens, and I have a sense—almost a vision—of him dumping his drink on the floor and taking his fists to the groom’s brother, which would probably be a bad idea. By the time I grab his wrist, it seems like the storm has passed.

Trevor spots my hand and it’s like a private, unspoken joke ripples through the group. He snaps his fingers, but not for more booze. Rather, he calls over a stripper, tucks a hundred-dollar bill into her G-string, and sends her my way.

I resign myself to sitting back and thinking of England. Not that I mind looking, you see, it’s just that…meh. I can tell she’s hot, I just don’t have any interest in her.

Even when she mashes her giant boobs in my face. I thought there was a rule against touching the girls. I guess they can touch you. I actually yelp when her nipple pokes my eye. Yeah.

All of this is a source of great amusement to everyone present at this party. They’ve made me the butt of a joke. Great. I know Karen meant well. It would be some points for Alex if he put a stop to this and directed his bachelor party to, you know, party, not humiliate me.

“That’s enough,” Colton grunts.

I didn’t get her name. She looks up and grins at him.

“You want a turn?”

“No. He’s done.”

“It hasn’t been three songs—“

He shoves a folded sheaf of bills at her and shoos her with a motion of his hand.

I sink back into my seat, trying to disappear into the aged vinyl. Colton straightens himself next to me and looks down with almost tender concern that makes my heart do a backflip and face plant into my spine.

“You alright?”

I nod, vigorously. “Yeah. Fine.”

“Want another one?” he says, hefting his appletini.

“I’m good for now.”

I can see him debating whether to order another one for himself; his jaw works, like there’s a thick piece of leather clenched in his teeth. With a shrug, he switches from gulping to nursing.

My buzz is coming along pretty good. I’m jovial when I drink, ready to joke around, and by the time the rest of the party is distracted by more strippers, I’m prepared to laugh the whole thing off.

Colton appears deeply offending, brooding into his appletini. It takes supreme brooding skills to pull off brooding into blue liquor.

Remembering why I’m here, I keep an eye on Alex. I doubt Karen had any idea where we were headed. The girls might be at one of the many “nude male revues” (for some reason if there’s dicks it can’t be a strip club) in town, so I can’t judge, and Alex is being a gentleman. He even waves off a lap dance, basically dumping the girl on Trevor’s lap, which takes his attention off me. I relax a little and check my watch.

Shit, it’s not even eight o’clock. This is going to take hours. Resigning myself, I order appletini numero-two-o and accept that I need more social lubricant to slip through this night unscathed.

Colton

“Look,” Karen said to me, “Just keep an eye on him, okay? He thinks I’m sending him to spy but Bethany will pitch a bitch if I bring him along on my bachelorette party. She’s been nagging me to leave him behind all week.”

“If he doesn’t want to go, why not just let him stay back?” I said back.

My sister has more of my mother in her than either of them would care to admit. When she plants her fists on her hips, cants her head forward, and digs in her heels, she can be more intimidating than my father. I knew I wasn’t going to move her, so I accepted guard duty. Keep watch over her best friend.

Now I just feel old and tired. I’ve got six or eight, even ten years on most of the guys here and this kind of adolescent bullshit is so far behind me I can barely see it. In a way, I feel like a chaperone for the whole group. Not just a chaperone for the chaperone.

It doesn’t help that I feel strange every time I look at her friend. Julian. I remember him as a gawky, awkward teenager clinging to my sister’s side. I, and I think everyone else, presumed it was puppy love. If I didn’t know better, I’d figure him for a jealous hanger-on, here to wallow in self-pity as his dream girl gets married to another guy. Hell, that might be why the rest of the group is mocking him—they got the same impression.

I knew he was gay before I got here. I talk to Karen a few times a year. We’re not close, but we don’t hate each other. It’s more of an unspoken tension. She resents me, and, in a way, I resent her. We both know that. My parents treated us very differently growing up—both doted on me, the future head of the family. There are expectations. Karen was free of those, but being free of your parent’s dreams is a double-edged sword. She just sort of exists in the family, and Mom talks about her makeup company—the most successful business venture a family member has started in a generation—with mild disinterest or a kind of aristocratic disdain for her girl child getting her hands dirty with actual work, something best left to the province of men.

Neither of our parents have worked a day in their lives. They both inherited fortunes and Dad occupies his time with studiously pretending he manages the firm that bears our name. Curiously, though, nobody seems to have any concern about him going missing for a month for his daughter’s ludicrous destination wedding.

A wedding which has been my bane for the last six months, since they announced. Mom has turned the joy of her daughter’s nuptials into a bludgeon against her lothario son. “When,” she keeps asking, “will I get married?” It’s almost embarrassing that little Karen is getting hitched before the scion of the family.

Like those two are an advertisement for marriage. If wedlock looks like my parents’ life, then to hell with it. I’ll keep my freedom.

He keeps looking at me.

I’m not one of those guys who gets offended by a gay guy paying attention. Hell, it’s a compliment, it’s like being checked out by a woman. I’m a stud, so what. I blow it off. There was a lot of that when I was in the military—I served during Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, which translated into a lot of sidelong glances and people feeling each other out before anyone brought anything up.

What confuses me about this is that my eyes keep wandering to him. I’ve been…curious, before, but not this curious. He’s got everything that draws my attention to another man. He’s tall and slim with a runner’s physique, more muscle in his legs than his upper body, and a wild mop of hipster hair. He has that avocado toast and macchiato look, but beneath that is a femininely boyish face with full lips, big eyes, and soft skin. Something about him makes me want to protect him.

He wouldn’t be the first one. I’ve been close to guys like that before, but I never acted on these urges. Even after a dozen whiskeys or…appletinis.

So, when I pull the stripper off him, my motives are purely altruistic. I give her a big tip, and my brain is thankfully not sloshing around in enough booze just yet for me to make a quip about complimenting her surgeon on his good work with her enhancements. I am not that crass, so at least I have that going for me.

Julian relaxes into his seat and knocks back more of this weird tasting booze he likes. It’s not bad, but I’m pretty sure these would be headache city. Better than vodka, at least. To me, the top shelf stuff just tastes like aluminum. Bottom shelf like cheaper aluminum.

My gaze keeps wandering back to him. To his hands, his chest, his stomach when he breathes, the way the toes of his hiking boots cut little circles in the air. The booming beat of the club music jars my spine and catches my heartbeat, speeding it up in time with itself as my eyes rake him.

Then when he looks my way I yank my eyes in the other direction, like a flirty teenager who doesn’t know how to sack up and make a move. I’ve felt this urge before, but it’s never been this strong. A dumb notion wiggles its way through my mind and I have to bite down on it to keep the laugh from escaping my lips—I wonder what that insecure douche brother of the groom and Karen’s cousin would say if I grabbed Julian and rammed my tongue down his throat.

Either they’d sit there and take it or I’d kick all their asses. These little boys wouldn’t last five seconds with me.

Julian taps my arm.

“You okay?” he says, his words a little slurred and slow.

“Just fine,” I say, raising my empty glass. “More!” I bark.

The waitresses here are good. There’s another one coming before the empty glass is out of sight. They give one to Julian, too. Taking his cue, I slow down. If I have a drink in my hand at all times, it’ll appear more like I’m enjoying myself and not choking down every passing second waiting for this embarrassing night of unimpressive hijinks with tedious people is finally over. I’m sure after all this that idiot Trevor will have himself puffed up like he’s Hunter S. Thompson and this is Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

Give me a break.

My desperation to get out of here rises with each lap dance I wave off. I sense the moment is near when the guys drunkenly get up and lurch to the balcony to watch the floor show. The club is packed now, the music has ramped up, and I stand behind Julian, as bored as he is as the stars of the evening’s entertainment rush out onto the stage. Posters on the way in said some porn star I’ve never heard of will be in the house tonight.

Standing behind Julian, something begins to happen. My eyes settle on the back of his neck. He has that kind of pale skin that never tans, just burns, and he’s been hiding inside as much as he can manage. Pale skin peeks out above his collar. Tracing down the narrow, athletic lines of his back, my eyes fix on his ass. A perfect round bubble butt that turns me on more than any bethonged derriere in the house.

So that’s how it starts. Blood starts to pump downwards, filling in between my legs. The tension rises with my dick, stiffening in my dark jeans. I’m glad I didn’t wear something less restrictive. With no one looking, I can shift easily and hide my—

Julian takes a step back and bumps right into my dick. A shock, like someone touched an electrified prod to my skin, ripples from between my legs through my whole body. He looks over his shoulder and my mind conjures an image of him doing the same—slack, anxious expression and all—as my cock disappears into his ass, gliding between pale cheeks as ecstasy floods my body and he quivers all over, overwhelmed by my size and girth, a little moan escaping his lips as—

Fuck me, get a grip, Colt.

Julian’s eyes snap away and he looks down at the stage as if he actually cares about the half-naked gyrations taking place below us. His shoulders are quivering. Hell, his whole body is quivering. Is a similar image running through his mind? Is he wondering what it’d feel like to take me inside him? It’s good my hands are occupied. They want to loop around him and skim down his stomach and between his legs so I can grab his cock. I’ve always wondered what it would feel like to have one in my hand. In my mouth. Take control of him. Eat him all up.

Christ, he’s Karen’s best friend and I’m old enough to be his…actually, not old enough to be his anything, we’re only six years apart, but it feels like decades. Twenty-four to thirty is still a big gap, especially after you’ve seen everything I have.

I’ve gone from hoping I can get through this night without vomiting on the groom to hoping I can get through this night without groping the bride’s best friend. My sister’s best friend. Very nice, Colton.

Can we leave now?

I motion for another drink. If I don’t have to drive, I might as well take advantage of it. Maybe if I down enough I’ll get struck by whiskey dick. Tonight, I may be the only man in the history of erections who’s tried to go limp. It’s not working. I can’t get that image out of my mind.

What would it feel like?

I’ll never know. I don’t dare find out. I certainly don’t dare smell his hair as we pile into the van.

Oh, damn it. He smells a little perfumey, but it’s not heavy or overpowering. Could even just be flowering deodorant. He didn’t notice, and I don’t think anyone else did either. I crowd in next to him, squeezing him into the window, shielding him from the rest of them. I’m starting to act protective. Possessive. It’s going to get me into trouble. When has it ever not?

“Where are we going now,” Julian grumbles, talking more to himself than to me.

“Something else stupid,” I muse, and it draws a giggle out of him. “I wonder if Mom and Dad knew where we were headed when they went off to Cirque du Soleil.”

“Probably,” Julian mutters. “They were young once, too, right?”

“Have you met them?”

Keep your mouth shut, Colton. You’re boozed up, don’t know what you might say. Julian laughs oddly, in a slightly forced way, and gives me a curious look. Has he heard stories? I’m sure he’s heard all about my parents from Karen; she’s never been shy of complaining about them to me, of course.

“Yeah,” he says. “Only for about five minutes, though. Karen wanted to keep me away from them, I think.”

I wince. I know Dad’s stance on…I don’t even want to think about the word he uses for gay men. Let’s just call him traditional and leave it at that. I need another drink.

“He probably figured we’re in a club-club.”

“Like dancing?”

“Like leather chairs, cigars, and geopolitics,” I say.

He dragged me to a few places like that before I started my naval career, to meet Important Men who talk about things they have no control over, feeling significant as they slug cognac and pretend to know anything about economics or social policy. I didn’t mind the cognac, but the conversation was interminable, and old. I think they fancied themselves some kind of explorer’s club from the nineteenth century but they just looked absurd trying to pull it off.

Surely, they’d never think of their kids partaking in the sleaze that permeates this city. It’s just good old family fun. They have a way of seeing only what they want to see.

Suddenly I’m maudlin. At least it killed my unwanted hard-on for my sister’s BFF. I have to remind myself, if he was a woman, I wouldn’t go for it either. It would be considered rude, and a little predatory.

Predatory. Julian reminds me of some kind of exotic cat, both predator and prey animal, every movement languid and seductive in a casual, unknowing way, his sardonic smile unaware of how he captures my fantasies.

Ugh, another week of this and I can go back to my life.

Looks like the next stop on our journey is a casino crawl. The shuttle stops on the Strip and it begins—a slow-rolling tide of bros in popped collars flowing from casino floor to casino floor, starting with the Luxor near the airport, the one with the big pyramid.

I follow them inside. Julian is clearly nervous. It’s Trevor, the little weasel, that notices first. He crowds the whole group around a craps table, edging in around an old man in a fishing hat who leans over the rail and ignores the world around him as he mechanically places bets and watches the dice roll. He doesn’t even react when the leaders of this drunken excursion proclaim the occasion and barrage Alex with back-slaps and applause from the dealers.

Julian edges into the end of the table and doesn’t even bother pulling out his wallet. It hits me that he probably doesn’t have enough to play. It doesn’t matter, there’s so much activity that he can just watch, probably as bored as I am. I don’t bother with any chips, either.

The dice work their way around. The table is having rotten luck but to hear the cheering from this group, you’d think every roll is a seven-come-eleven. The croupier offers Julian the dice, and when he waves them away, the whole crowd jeers him. The wall of boos hits like a wave and the fine hairs at the base of my neck rise as my back tenses. Fuckers are getting off on embarrassing him. Trevor and Jordan lead the catcalls, but Alex has joined in too, the prick.

I throw down a sheaf of hundreds in front of Julian and direct the dealer to slide the chips to him.

“I’ll stake you,” I say. “Don’t lose too much.”

“I have no idea how this game works,” he says, his voice almost pleading, nearly drowned by the cheering.

“Just do as I say and roll the dice when I tell you too,” I murmur in his ear.

He goes erect—I mean, he stands up straight—and nods. I tell him where to put his first bet. Mollified, the stickman taps the table, indicating for him to throw. He grabs the dice and tosses them.

Briefly: Setting the many side bets aside for now, the game of craps is simple. Roll the dice. If they come up seven or eleven, you win your side bet. If you roll any number but two, three, or twelve, the objective then becomes to roll that number again, without rolling a seven first.

Julian’s first roll is a seven. Winners all around, except for the sour old man in the fishing hat who bet the wrong way, meaning he placed a bet for Julian to roll a craps number.

His second is a seven, too. The pit boss—the guy who sits in the middle of the table—side-eyes him, but it’s for show, not his money. Julian’s third roll is a six- four and two.

I lean over and whisper—shout—in his ear.

“You have to roll a six again before a seven. Listen. Grab four green chips,” I don’t tell him that’s $200, “toss it to the stickman, and yell ‘hard six.’”

He does as ordered.

For the first time tonight, I smile.

After all the bets are down, the stickman sends the dice back. Julian picks them up and throws them. I lean over his shoulder, watching. For one pulse-pounding second, I think he did it—one of the dice turns over with three pips, but the other, five. An eight. I breathe a sigh of relief. If it’d come up four, making for seven, he’d lose all the money he bet.

The dice come back. He throws them.

Eleven. Cheers as the one-roll betters collect their winnings; betting eleven pays fifteen-to-one odds.

He rolls another eleven, and the cheers get louder. Craps has its own esoteric language; somebody yells, “Hey yo, back to back.” “Yo” is the name for eleven.

Another roll. Twelve this time. A few Come betters—there’s a spot on the table called the “Come Line,” and, of course, the “Don’t Come Line,” and it gets complicated—grumble at their loss.

Again. Three.

Again. Five.

Again. Eight.

My nerves begin creeping up. The more he rolls, the more chances he has to roll a seven and lose, seven being the easiest number to roll. Six and eight are the second easiest, though, with equal chances.

Julian, shaking, must realize this, too. There’s a building tension around the table.

His next roll bounces right out of the table.

“Say same dice,” I bark in his ear.

He jumps and bumps into my side and repeats the command. After another member of the bachelor party finds it on the floor, the dealers inspect the die and they come back to him.

My eyes linger on his delicate features. His prominent Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows. He glances at me, feeling the pressure. There’s a small fortune on the table and it’s all riding on his next roll.

Swaying a little, he picks up the dice and tosses them, just hard enough to bounce against the far end of the table and roll back.

God damn it, the one die turns over on three pips. The other fucking stands up on its corner and spins in a circle before it falls. For a heart-clenching moment I expect that four to come up.

It’s another three pips. Hard six. Winner.

The stickman taps his pole in front of Julian and announces his winnings, to be paid by the dealer next to him.

“Eighteen hundred,” he says.

Julian almost collapses as he picks up over two thousand dollars off the table from his hard six and the winnings and odds on his line bet. It’s still his turn until he “sevens” out.

His next roll isn’t as fortuitous as the first. He rolls a five, then an eight, then a seven, to disappointed sighs.

“Hand the dealer all your chips and say, ‘Color.’”

He blinks. “What? Why?”

“They’ll change your chips for bigger denominations and we can go cash them in.”

After his winnings have been color checked, I count out what I originally gave him and hand him back the rest.

He holds the chips, confused. “Aren’t these yours?”

“You rolled,” I say. “Cashier’s over here.”

Away from the table, the inside of the casino is cooler. Julian sways on his feet as we wait for the cage. I don’t know if it’s from booze or the heady rush of winning at a game of chance. Once he’s changed the chips, he stares at the cash like it’s not real before he hastily stuffs it in his wallet. I, more casually, tuck mine back into my money clip.

“Bleh,” he mutters, heading for the table.

I grab his arm and flinch. The booze and the casino atmosphere are getting to me. I shouldn’t have touched him like that.

He turns around and looks at me.

“Let’s have a seat for a minute, huh?”

“Yeah,” he says.

I guide him to an empty roulette table and we take a pair of chairs, watching the bachelor party piss away their gambling budgets in a storm of cheers and calls for booze. Watching the casino employees and judging their reactions leaves me pretty sure that the party is cheering everything, even if they’re losing. Someone yells “winner winner chicken dinner” and everyone who’s paid to be there rolls their eyes in annoyance.

That phrase is probably drilled into their fucking skulls by now.

Julian yawns and clutches his head.

“You alright?”

“Fine,” he mutters. “Little bit of a headache.”

“If you’d drink real man’s liquor you might not have that problem. I’d hate to be you in the morning.”

He gives me a weary look. I flag a passing cocktail waitress. She has a small supply of bottled water, little half-pints, and hands him one. He drinks it like a thirsty man who’s just crawled from hot sands onto the soft grasses of an oasis and sits back.

“I’ve already gotten a cotton mouth,” he mumbles.

My gaze travels to his lips, caressing them with phantom fingers. Soft lips. The haze of stubble on his chin only makes him more intriguing, somehow. Leaning back, I almost rest an arm on his chair. My hand wants to sink into his hair, feel silky softness curling about my fingers. He stretches, arms back over his head, and I wonder how his skin tastes. Is there hair on his chest? Is it shaved? Naturally smooth?

Then comes the heady, disoriented feeling I get whenever I look too closely at another man, thinking about his body. His dick. He’s got more of a bulge than I thought at first, or maybe he’s at half-mast, too.

The two of us sit in silence and watch the idiots cheer and jump up and down over losing their money. Fishing Hat Man glances from side to side as if he’s questioning his life choices but keeps playing with the smirk of a man who’s betting the wrong way and the craps keep coming. Judging by his stack of chips, the others are losing money hand over fist.

Eventually they get tired of it. Craps is the only game that accommodates a big crowd. Some of them head off to the blackjack tables, others to roulette. I lead Julian around and explain the games to him.

This is Vegas. Most casinos elsewhere no longer play baccarat, but they have it here. I start humming the James Bond theme and lead Julian to the table.

“What’s this?”

I explain the rules of Baccarat—which basically amount to a coin toss against the house but using a point system on cards instead of a coin. When you really think hard about the game, it’s kind of dumb. The older version from when Ian Fleming was writing his secret agent stories involved some actual skill, like a poker game against the house, but it’s changed since then. The odds were too good. It’s still the best game in the house.

I sit down, cash in, and Julian stands behind me, leaning on my chair. Leaning over my head to watch, he rises on his toes and crosses his legs while standing. Glancing over my shoulder, I wish I was behind him so I could get a look at his ass, nice and flexed while he does that.

This has been going on all night and it’s only getting worse. I want him. I need a drink. Thankfully, the cocktail waitresses abide. Fitting the occasion, I order a Vesper, and then a vodka martini when the waitress doesn’t know what a Vesper is. Philistines.

Julian gets closer. I can feel him behind my head. I tilt back just a bit, and suddenly I’m touching his chin. He doesn’t move for a moment, but then blinks and pulls away. I can see him in the mirror behind the table.

I play a few hands, win some, lose some, and gradually my focus fades. I’m tired, I’m buzzed, and Julian’s presence is like tingling fingers dancing over my skin. When I stand up, the dealer stares straight at my crotch. I’m erect.

Julian follows as I head for the cashier to exchange my chips. He keeps looking at me.

Gradually it dawns on me that we’ve lost the others. Fuck.

“Where is everybody?” he says.

“Damned if I know,” I say. “Let’s look around.”

Half an hour into the search, it occurs to me that they left without us. The fucks.

I snarl, gritting my teeth as my fists clench.

“They fucking left us behind,” I snap.

“Shit,” Julian mutters. “Did anybody tell you where they were going next?”

I shake my head. “I know as much as you do. They probably planned on this. We were dragging them down. I swear if that little shit fucks around on my sister—”

Julian rests a comforting hand on my arm. “Easy, easy, big guy. I’m not best buds with Alex but he’s a standup guy. He’s not going to do anything stupid.”

“I don’t know,” I growl. “The stupid strip club was already walking the line. He’s getting married.”

Walking with me for the exit, Julian muses, “I know, right? I get the joke of ‘freedom’ and all but some guys take it a little too seriously. If getting married is something you need to get drunk to commit to, maybe you ought to reconsider it, don’t you think?”

I nod. “Yeah. I think.”

“So, what do we do?”

“Work our way back to the hotel, I guess,” I say. “Fuck it, I’m rich. I’ll get us a limo.”

Julian checks his phone. “Nobody will be back for hours. We can always go do something else.”

There’s a delectable lilt to his voice, and a subtle heat in his glance, as if he’s testing the waters. Whether it’s lust or a gambling high or liquid courage, he’s throwing down the gauntlet.

I look over at him. “Good point. You’re more interesting than I thought. I have an idea. Let’s go downtown.”

“Downtown?”

“Freemont. The real hardcore casinos. This bullshit is all tourist traps. Kids casinos.”

I motion to the clothing boutiques inside the lobby. “I hate playing games in a fuckin’ mall.”

Taking his arm in my hand, I guide him over to the concierge’s desk and bark orders for a limousine. When I flash my black card—made of a thin layer of stainless steel, not plastic—the woman at the desk jumps to do as I say.

I’m a bit of an asshole, but I have fun with it.

Not ten minutes later, there’s a limo out front for us. I slip the driver a tip and tell him to take us downtown. This is no junior prom limo. Inside is lush and plush, like sinking into a big recliner. Julian climbs in after me and flops down next to me, a little woozy.

His head taps my shoulder as he starts to lean over, only to jerk back like he’d touched a hot stove.

“Sorry,” he mutters.

“It’s okay,” I say, yawning.

Julian is staring at my crotch. For good reason. I’m hard as a rock. I trace my eyes down his body and find him aroused too, a nice bulge in his khaki shorts. The limo is absolutely crawling. I reach over and flick the button, raising the glass partition that obscures us from the driver.

Julian laughs quietly to himself.

“What?” I say.

“I was just thinking I’m glad we don’t have a black light to shine in here. I bet this limo has seen some shit.”

I laugh. “Like what?”

“I don’t know,” he says. “Haven’t you ever been tempted to stand up in the sunroof of a limo?”

“And look like an idiot? I’d probably get us pulled over.”

“Just stand up and yell ‘I’m king of the world.’ I dare you.”

I reach over and open the sunroof. Baking Las Vegas air, that wonderful dry heat, comes blasting in like I’d opened the door to a furnace. Shakily, I stand up, rising through the opening.

It loses some of its effect when we’re not moving. I glance down, ready to motion for Julian to stand next to me.

Except he’s not. He’s sitting on the floor of the limo. He looks up at me with his big eyes and licks his lips. I plant my hands on the roof and stare at him. The moment builds, a silent pressure at the back of my skull. My dick is fucking throbbing. Playfully, Julian flips a single finger along the outline of my cock.

A shudder ripples through my entire body. He starts stroking me through my jeans.

“Stop it,” I blurt. “I’m going to cream my fucking pants.”

“Wouldn’t want that to happen,” he says, staring at my throbbing dick. “I wonder what would happen if I did this.”

I almost stop him. My whole body is tingling, like I’m standing in a cold wind even though it’s ninety-five degrees outside. Julian undoes my belt, loosens my pants and I gasp in shock as his cool fingers wrap around my shaft. He tugs and my dick comes loose, springing in his face. My balls fall out, dangling in front of him. He stares, wide-eyed.

“Holy fucking shit,” he mutters.

This can’t be happening. It can’t be real.

It is. The world slows and I devour every second of this, savoring it. The feeling of his hand wrapped around my shaft. The air on my cock and balls. His hot breath before his lips make contact. They close lightly around the head and he presses forward, stroking me with those soft, pillowy lips, enveloping me. A hot urge, almost pain, tightens in my balls and legs and ripples into his mouth. I groan, then look around and realize I’m surrounded by people. If I sit down, he might stop.

Jesus Christ he’s blowing me, and he’s fucking good. No one has ever had this kind of skill with my dick. His mouth feels amazing, warm and hot, and his tongue strokes over my shaft. As he bobs his head, he takes me deeper, deeper, I hear him cough, he struggles…

Holy hell, his tongue is tickling my balls. They tighten up and I instinctively grab his head and keep my cock buried in his throat. When I look down and let go, he pulls back, my shaft still caught between his lips, and stares up at me, cheeks hollowed from sucking.

I’m in heaven. My legs are starting to buckle.

I sink back into the seat, dropping out of the sunroof. Julian crawls between my legs and goes back to work. I like it better this way. I stare, slack-jawed, like this is happening to someone else, crying out when the pleasure he gives ripples through my body. I let out a long, ungodly sound, half moan and half something else I don’t even have words for, as I grasp his head in my hands. His hair tickles my fingers while I work my hips as he pumps his head.

I can’t take very much of this. I’m going to explode. I moan something that sounds like a warning, and he ignores it. Somehow, he manages to smile with a mouthful of cock as I give him a mouthful of cum, exploding in the wet heat of his sucking lips. He plunges me down his throat and strokes more out with the muscles of his neck as he swallows, then draws back.

When he finally lets go and my cock sags in front of him, he grins. He hasn’t spilled a single drop.

I hike my pants up, staring at him. He kneels patiently in front of me, hands resting on his thighs, an excited look on his gorgeous face as he gazes at me, grinning.

“You have no idea how long I’ve wanted to do that,” he says.

I jerk forward. He yelps as I grab him and pull him on top of me. My hands fumble, then I have his pants open. I throw him on his back, push his knees apart, and grab his cock. I’m not used to this. I don’t leap on it with the same eagerness he did when he took mine. He slouches in the seat and stares down at me.

Gingerly holding his shaft—he’s bigger than I expected; skinny guys always seem to have the biggest dicks—I stare at it. I always thought this would feel submissive, but I have the power here. I’ve got him in my hands, as it were. What would it feel like to suck him off?

Let’s find out.