Christmas Kitsch (Hol) (MM) (23 page)

“See, it’s like he’s giving his blessing. He’s letting go of me as his little boy. It’s good.”

And before I could ask him what he meant by
that
, Mr. Campbell turned on the Christmas lights, and I almost cried.

It was so beautiful.

It wasn’t perfect, or designed, or Martha Stewart, or even matching, but I knew about Mrs. Campbell’s ornaments, and the ones Oliver had made in the third grade after she’d died, where he’d written “To Mommy” on the back of every one. I knew about the one that showed Oliver and his dad and said, “
Mi Familia
,” and the stocking that they hung every year, where they put letters to Mrs. Campbell and told her about their year.

Just looking at the tree made me happy, made my stomach cold and excited, like Christmas was special, and I was going to be privileged to see it, and Santa was still there, and I’d get something even better than a fish.

I smiled at it and turned and smiled at Oliver, and he pulled me down and kissed me, so soft, so gentle, it wasn’t hardly a kiss at all.

It was more like a prayer.

I had to leave—I did—but for a minute, I almost wanted to cry with how bad I didn’t want to go.

“Here,” Oliver said when I pulled away. “I’d say get your coat on, but you didn’t bring one because you should be smacked is why. I’ll be right back.”

I looked at Mr. Campbell and smiled, my eyes still making a halo around the Christmas lights. “It’s a real nice tree,” I told him, and the words were stupid and meaningless, but he smiled anyway.

“Thanks, Rusty. Don’t forget your wreath.”

I turned to the table. “Oh yeah! I forgot—that’d be a shame,” and when I turned back, Oliver had a jacket and his school backpack, and another backpack. “What’s all that for?” I asked.

He didn’t answer. Instead, he kissed his dad on the cheek. “Can he take the truck tomorrow? I’ll take his car. It steers better.”

Mr. Campbell nodded. “Yeah, sure. In fact, Rusty and I can carpool if you get here early enough in the morning.” He winked at me. “Rusty, I promise to have coffee, okay?”

I gaped at him. “Why’s Oliver coming with—”

“Night, Dad! See you tomorrow,” Oliver called, and dragged me to my car.

“Oh
Christ
, it’s cold out here!” I ran for the car and tried not to slip on the ice that lined the little cement walkway. I opened the door, threw the wreath in the back, and paused to say, “Oliver, get back in the hou—wait?”

Oliver was sitting in the passenger’s seat, shivering. “Start the car, damn it! It’s cold.”

I did what I was told, because, hey, good at following orders, that was me, and then I turned to him in confusion.

“But why are you coming home with me?”

Oliver took a deep breath, and then another one. “Rusty?”

“Yeah?”

“You know I love you, yeah?”

I smiled. It was what had gotten me through the last couple of weeks. “Yeah, Oliver. I love you, too.”

“Good. So when I say this, I want you to take it in the best possible way, okay?”

“O—kay . . .”

“I have never,
ever
bought into the lie that you weren’t smart. But I got to tell you right now, you are trying my patience as the stupidest
pendejo
who
ever
walked the earth.”

“Oliver?”

“I. Want. Sex. Whole sex. With you. My
papi
knows it. My cousins know it. Manny, Gloria, hell, even Jorge and Maria-Athena—they
all
know it. But you? I have to sneak into your car. So drive to your little apartment, we’ll hang up your wreath, and then you and I are going to have a long naked talk about how you can catch a clue, okay?”

My mouth dried out, my skin heated, and my cock stiffened at red-alert speed.

“Okay,” I croaked, staring at him. He’d been gesturing with his quick little hands, and his lips were set mutinously, and his jaw jutted out all stubborn. This was not a fight I wanted to have. Ever. “Okay.”

“Are you going to drive?” he asked, scowling so hard he had a little wrinkle between his eyebrows.

“In a second,” I rasped. “When I won’t wreck the car.”

He nodded and folded his arms. “Take your time. It’s only my virginity.”

My mouth pulled up. “Yeah, Oliver. No big deal, right?”

His hand warmed my thigh through my jeans. “Right,” he said softly. “Not if you mean it, and it’s important. It’s the most natural thing in the world.”

I covered his hand for a moment, and when mine had stopped shaking, I took the car out of park and drove home.

The heat had kicked on, and I was damned grateful. We walked in, and I realized the one benefit of not having any stuff was that the place was tidy. There was a small pile of laundry next to the inflatable mattress, but not enough to make a load to take to the little apartment laundromat, and I’d washed the last dish in the sink before I’d left yesterday morning.

So the apartment was only a little chilly, and Oliver said, “You put the nail in the door. I’m going to go shower.”

I did—the tools were still out on the kitchen counter from when we’d assembled the furniture, and there was a spare tack in the bottom of one of the drawers from the last people who’d lived here. By the time Oliver came out of the shower in a pair of sleep pants and a T-shirt, I’d done my Christmas decorating.

I smiled at it, looking sort of big and busy in my little plain space, and Oliver tilted his head critically. “We will get you more,” he announced. “Your turn to shower.”

I didn’t argue. I hadn’t showered since the day before, and we were going to be
naked
together. I pretty much wanted everything from balls to bunghole to be sparkly and clean. I hadn’t brought any clothes with me into the bathroom, so when I got out, I was wrapped in one of my two towels and using the other one to dry my hair.

Oliver was practically
at
the door to the bathroom, and he grabbed the towel around my waist with insistent little hands.

“Wait, Oliv—”

And then I was naked, in the crappy apartment, with all of the lights on. I resisted the urge to cover my crotch with my hands.

“It’s, uhm, usually bigger than that,” I mumbled.

Oliver stood on his tiptoes and kissed me senseless, kissed me until the shyness went away, kissed me until I clawed the back of his shirt up so I could touch his bare skin. There was no room for embarrassment in this kiss, no room for being afraid. There was just our mouths and our hands and the rasp of his clothes against my chest and my thighs and my groin.

His hands—quick hands, like darting fish—were all over me. My biceps, my shoulders, my waist, my hips. He had long thumbs, and they grazed that line between my thigh and my groin and I shook all over, washed hot and needy with that one touch. I pulled away, panting, and said, “Lights off.”

He narrowed his eyes. “I’ll turn
some
of them off. I’m not doing this in the dark.”

I pulled back. “I’m not the boogeyman!”

He laughed and swatted my hip, and I really
did
cover up my crotch now.

“No, but you’re beautiful and I want to see you. Jesus, Rusty—is it you or is it all white people?”

I blinked. My girlfriends had all done it in the dark, too. “I don’t know,” I said, but then I remembered—
this
time, I’d get to see him too! “I’m getting under the covers, you do what you got to do.”

You have to be careful getting on an air mattress, even one of the totally sturdy kinds that could survive a trip down the Amazon river, like this one. I slid in carefully, burrowing under the different comforters and the quilt, and shivered for a minute while Oliver turned off the living room light and the bathroom light and the overhead light in the bedroom. One of the things in my boxes had been my old lamp from when I was a kid. It was on the floor next to the bed, and Oliver had turned it on while I’d been in the shower.

He left it on now, as he stripped to naked in front of me, as quick as he could. He was in such a hurry, he almost fell over getting his pajama pants off, and since he was taking off his pants
and
his boxers, it was pretty funny to watch him struggle while his semi was flapping in the breeze. He smirked at me and then finally got his boxers off. I was still giggling when he glared at me and did something that shut me up right quick.

He touched himself.

Took that half-flapping wiener in hand, squeezed it until he gasped, and stroked it from the base to the tip, until it wasn’t a wiener anymore, it was a fully erect cock.

It was still cold—Oliver’s brown skin was a landscape of gooseflesh—but underneath the covers, I started to sweat.

I was stunningly, achingly hard.

He opened his eyes and shivered, then took off his shirt and rasped his short-cut, clean nails across his almost purple nipples.

“Nngh . . .”

“Where’s the lube I gave you?” he demanded, his voice hoarse.

I fumbled under my pillow for it. I hadn’t even had time to jerk off, but that didn’t mean I hadn’t wanted to.

He looked me square in the eye. “We’re going to use that sometime tonight. You keep it ready and decide who you want to stretch me out, you or me.”

My brain shorted out. I just lay there, sweating, cock aching, and watching him slide under the covers with me, wondering why he was the one getting done and I was gonna be the one doing him.

I opened my mouth to ask him, and he kissed me, and now we were both naked, and I was
shaking
with the need to touch all of him with my whole body.

Oh God. Everywhere. My hands smoothed over his arms, which were defined and not noodle-y, but still slender. His ribs corrugated under my palms, and my hands were so big I dreamed about using them to hold him and keep him safe and warm, blanketing his body with my big hands.

He kissed me harder, and I rolled so he was under me, and then I just . . . mauled him, I guess. I kissed his neck, his jaw, the little dent between his collar bones. And Oliver? He moaned a lot and flapped his hands, and I think that was okay. I wouldn’t have known what to do if he touched me. I needed him like crazy. I probably would have come with the first touch of his hand on my ass.

But he’d never done this before, and maybe that’s why I was going to . . . oh God . . . the thought made my cock drool, and I was afraid I’d come if I even said the word.

“Oliver,” I gasped, thinking we might have to wait for the part where we would need lube, or even need to worry about who was doing whom. “Here . . . I’m gonna suck on you—play with me back.”

My head was at his stomach by this time, and I scooted around, ignoring the squeaks from the mattress, until he could grab me in his fist.

“Nngh . . . oh God . . . slower!” Because I needed time to look at him. He was average, I guess. I know I’m a little bigger than average, but he was perfect, circumcised and straight and veiny and just . . . perfect. I wanted to feel him in my mouth, and I shielded my teeth and pulled him in.

Oh wow. He was bigger in my mouth, against my palate, against my throat, and he made a noise, no words and no vowels, and his grip on my cock tightened and he stroked, clumsy but hard. I sucked harder. I had to, and he stroked again, faster. Oh man. Everything was tingling, and everything felt so good! I wanted it to last longer, but his cock in my mouth was starting to spurt, and I raised my head and lowered it, and took the bottom part in my fist, and he made that noise again and stroked me faster.

He spurted a little more, and I squeezed his base, and then he squirted a lot, and I was hungry for him, so hungry, that swallowing it down was easier than I thought it’d be, and he flailed around on my cock, and although it wasn’t perfect, feeling him come down my throat, oh, damn, I was right . . . right . . .

“Mmmffff!” He spewed like his balls were made of jizz right when I shot off in his hand, against his shoulder, and both of us lay clenched around each other, shaking, spasming, until I was sure I could swallow it all.

I barely managed to pull myself up to put my head on the pillow next to Oliver. Oliver reached his arm out and pulled my head into his slender chest and I went, mashing my nose against his cum-smeared pectoral in an effort to breathe him in and still my own shaking. God. Sex and love and touch and safe and . . . and
Oliver
.