In the Blaze of His Hungers (4 page)

“Is that what you’re suggesting I tell my dad? That I’m working for you?”

“You’ll be able to visit almost every day if it’s for work. And summer break’s only a few weeks away. You’ll be waiting to hear from the colleges you’ve applied to, but you won’t have much else to do. It isn’t uncommon for students to save up some money before college.”

Ryan’s mouth opens and closes. “All right,” he admits. “It’s a brilliant cover. FYI, though, your son
’s already guessed I’m banging someone.”

“You’ve known each other
since you were kids. It’d be odd if he didn’t figure that out.”

“What if he figures out
everything
?”

“He won’t. Not as long as you watch what you say.”

“Speaking of, when are you gonna meet him? That’s why you came back here, wasn’t it? To try being a normal father? Not that you’re normal in any way.”

Javier’s eyes go cold. “That isn’t any of your business.”

“Excuse me? Getting screwed by you, here?
And
Pete’s my friend. It so is my business.”

Javier’s hand shoots out to grab Ryan by the wrist. “Don’t. Pretend this is something it isn’t.”

Ryan’s breath speeds up. “And what is this, exactly?”

Javier jerks him forward until Ryan stumbles into him. Javier’s lips move against Ryan’s ear. “It’s about me fucking you, and you taking it.”

“It’s also about you fucking me
up
. Or are we acting like that isn’t happening?” Why is Ryan even saying this? It’ll complicate matters, and that’s the last thing Ryan wants to do. Isn’t it?

“If you want to play the victim, do it somewhere else. You could’ve gone to anyone. You came to me. You came
for
me.” Javier skims his teeth along the line of Ryan’s throat, and Ryan shivers. “But if you want to go, the door’s right there.”

“I’ll go if you let me go.”

Javier doesn’t budge. If anything, his grasp on Ryan’s arm tightens, and that’s when Ryan gets it – he gets that this isn’t just about the fucking for Javier, either. Problem is, Ryan has no idea what it’s about. For either of them.

He’d
thought
it was about the sex. Javier certainly wants it to be about the sex. But, like Ryan’s realizing, it’d be a lot easier for Ryan to visit the gay club with his fake ID and have a meaningless, drunken one-night stand with a random guy than it is for Ryan to cultivate some kind of depraved clandestine sex addiction with his best friend’s dad. And it’d be easier for Javier to get some tail at a downtown bar, presuming that Javier can do women as well as men.

But for whatever reason, they’re choosing each other, dangerous and
ill-advised though it is. Maybe they’re doing it
because
it’s dangerous. Maybe they’re just a pair of adrenaline junkies who should know better. They don’t, obviously.

The nearness of Javier’s body is frying Ryan’s circuits, like it always does. And he seems to be having a similar effect on Javier, because Javier’s pupils are dilated and his grip on Ryan becomes more of a caress, his palm skating up to Ryan’s shoulder and then to his neck, where Javier’s fingers fan out, their touch so feathery that it makes Ryan gasp.

Javier’s kisses, when they come, are also light, almost insubstantial – brief, tantalizing hints of tongue and gently brushing lips. They should be teasing, but they’re not; they’re comforting, even soothing. Their warmth ripples outward, calming Ryan and arousing him at the same time. It’s like Javier’s intoxicating him, paralyzing him with a low-burning poison that’s shutting Ryan’s brain down.

When Javier draws away, Ryan’s mouth is tingling and his eyelids are so heavy he can scarcely keep them open.

“What was that?” Ryan asks, dizzily, because that wasn’t a you’re-nothing-but-my-sex-toy kiss. Ryan isn’t very experienced with kissing, but he can’t imagine kissing a casual lay like that.

“I’m not going to fuck you, today,” Javier says, and Ryan blinks uncomprehendingly.

“Huh…?”

“You’ll be sore.”

“Oh,” says Ryan, because Javier’s talking in a foreign language about not fucking Ryan, and Ryan doesn’t understand that. Even though he
is
sore. His ass feels bruised from the inside – a deep, pulsing bruise – but past the haze of sleepy lust Javier’s put him in, he’s still disappointed at the prospect of not having a dick in him, tonight.

“I’m going to eat you out. And I’m going to make you love it.”

“
Oh
,” Ryan repeats, because that – now, that’s a consolation prize he’s happy to win. They’re still not done talking, but… that can wait. For later.

He lets Javier lead him up to bed, pausing for more of those heady kisses on the way. Ryan loses his shirt on the steps, and his jeans in the upstairs hallway, and his underwear upon entering the bedroom. Javier
runs his hands all over Ryan, like he can’t help himself, like Ryan’s the only thing worth touching in the world. It’s so starkly
different
from how Javier’s ever touched him that Ryan begins to get nervous, but then Javier makes him forget that nervousness with yet another kiss.

This is what Fiona saw in him
, Ryan thinks, disconnectedly, before Javier makes him forget that, too.

Javier never gets his clothes off, in spite of Ryan’s vaguely complaining noises. He just tilts Ryan backwards onto the bed, careful not to let Ryan fall, and climbs in after him. Ryan’s so out of it he can’t remember which way is up; his lips are sensitive and swollen and his lungs ache. He’s weak with desire, dazed with it, so much so that he can’t (doesn’t want to) resist when Javier urges him onto his belly.

Ryan immediately parts his legs, some natural instinct making him do that, and Javier calls him a “good boy” again, petting him into a state of drowsy compliance. When Javier eventually lies down between Ryan’s spread thighs and holds Ryan’s ass open and
licks
, Ryan’s too far gone to do anything but lie there and twitch, heat sizzling up his nerves and shorting them out.

Javier’s patient with him, licking and licking and licking at him until he’s
readier than ready, until the valley of Ryan’s ass is a mess of cooling saliva, seeping into his hole and dripping down to his balls.

Ryan’s never felt so exposed, back there, the ring of his anus licked raw to the point it’s practically unbearable. And yet that
unbearableness doesn’t give Ryan the strength to cringe away or crawl away. He stays where he is, defenseless, moaning when Javier’s tongue finally breaches him, when it dips into him so delicately, so exquisitely that it makes Ryan shake.

It’s like he’s going into shock, mind going numb and blank.
He’s sweating so much, he can smell himself. Feverish, he twists slowly on the sheets, whining when Javier holds him still by his hips and keeps at it, keeps fucking Ryan with his tongue, deeper and deeper and deeper till Ryan’s sure there isn’t anything about him Javier doesn’t know, that Javier hasn’t learned from his body.

There’s a constant, ragged sound in the background that he soon recognizes as his own voice, slurring words together, saying things that make no sense, asking Javier to stop never stop oh god oh
please
.

When Ryan comes, it punches right through him like a wrecking ball. His vision literally goes black, his eyes rolling back in his head.

Then, silence – filled with nothing but the sawing of his breath in and out of him. An all-encompassing lassitude sweeps over him like morphine, loosening his muscles all at once. He could pass out like this. He probably will pass out like this.

Did Javier even get to come?

The answer to that is revealed a moment later, when Javier turns him over and Ryan goes with it, passive as a doll. Javier has his dick out and is jacking it fast and hard, setting a brutal pace, as if he’s lost every shred of the patience he’d had with Ryan. Ryan watches as Javier comes into his fist and then feeds that come to Ryan, pushing his semen-salty fingers into Ryan’s slack mouth. Ryan drools around them, too tired to suck on them – but Javier doesn’t seem bothered by it, wiping what remains of his come on Ryan’s chest.

Ryan wants to pull Javier on top of him, be sheltered and safe again, but Javier’s breathing like a bellows and looks strangely shook up, like
he
was the one that just got systematically taken apart.

Ryan wants to tell him it’s fine, it’s okay – but he knows it isn’t.

“Hey,” says somebody, jostling him.

“
Hn.” Ryan buries his head under the pillow. “G’way.”

“
Hey
. Kid. Don’t you have to go back?”

Ryan cracks an eye open to see Javier’s face, and promptly shuts it. “
N’pe,” he says. “Dad’s on the 24-hour shift.”

“Again? Is he ever home?”

Ryan would dearly like to point out that Javier hasn’t been at home with his son in
years
, but Ryan needs his sleep even more than he needs to be mean, and also, it’d be sorta ungrateful to taunt a guy who gave him an orgasm like
that
. “G’night,” Ryan says, with what he hopes is sufficient finality, and true enough, Javier doesn’t badger him for the rest of the night.

* * *

Ryan smells the weed before he sees it. For a second, he wonders if Pete’s gotten access to Micky the Pothead’s secret stash – but then he recalls where he is and wakes up all the way. Yeah, that’s Javier all right, silhouetted in the milky early-morning light coming through the curtains, pornographically bare-chested and with a smoking joint in his hand.

“Man,
gotta say, that’s something you have in common with your offspring.”

If Javier’s taken aback by Ryan’s sudden interjection, he gives no sign. “Pete smokes pot?”

“Only on special occasions. Otherwise, he’s too busy being the ideal son.” Ryan can’t hide the bitterness in his tone, because Pete’s self-imposed rules and regulations are all Javier’s fault. Not that having rules about not taking pot is bad per se, but… Pete can’t stand the thought of being a delinquent like his dad. Being
anything
like his dad.

“How good are his grades?”

“Very good. He’s applied for Stanford and there’s no doubt he’ll get in. He qualifies for a scholarship.”

The joint is crooked and bent and sad, caught between Javier’s fingers, and for an instant it seems that Javier is sad, too, his back slightly hunched and his eyes distant, as if he’s seeing his son leave the home they never got to share.

“You really should see him. Speak to him.”

“
He doesn’t want me to.”

“Yeah, well, he
needs
you to. And you need to, as well.”

“Since when are you my shrink?”

“Since you started smoking pot angstily, like some kinda modern-day Heathcliff.”

“I’ll thank you not to compare me to fictional characters.”

“Holy crap. You’ve read
Wuthering Heights
?”

“Why do I detect a general note of ‘he reads!’ in there?”

“Possibly because it is, um, there. Sorry. It’s not that I think you’re a monosyllabic Neanderthal – ”

Javier snorts.
             

“I just – is this a guitar thing? ’Cause I noticed that guitar in the corner, and if you’re one
of those tough-looking but sentimental amateur singer-songwriters, then the mental image of you reading literary classics will make a whole lot more sense.”

“That guitar is the guitar I bought in high school.” There’s an expression on Javier’s face that Ryan can’t put a name to. “It’s what I used to ask Fiona to marry me.”

Oops. Talk about wandering into a minefield. But it’s a minefield he’d sort of wanted to wander into, isn’t it? It’s the optimal set-up for asking the questions he wants to ask. “Why did you two divorce, by the way?”

Javier is silent for a minute, and Ryan thinks he’s
gonna get rebuffed again, but Javier only gestures at him and says: “Because of this.”

“…
This?
Me?
” Wasn’t Ryan, like, five when they separated? Ryan doesn’t want to calculate the age difference, here. It freaks him out.

“I realized I was gay. I couldn’t pretend not to be, any longer.”

“But – ” Ryan stares at him. “I thought you were bi. Since you, er, got a woman pregnant. And everything.”

“You oughta know that doesn’t necessarily mean anything when it comes to someone’s sexuality.”

“And
you
oughta know that being gay doesn’t automatically absolve you of your responsibilities as a parent.”

“Will you ever stop
sassing me?”

“Do you want me to?”

Javier considers him. “No.”

Ryan’s heart does a pathetic little flip. He clears his throat and ignores it. “So. You were gay. Big deal. Okay, you ended your marriage because of that. But you didn’t have to vanish from Pete’s life. What the hell was that about?”

Javier studies his joint like it contains the answers to the universe. “Things were different, then. It wasn’t as easy to come out as it is now.”

“It still isn’t
easy
.”

“No, but it’s easier.”

“And what does that have to do with Pete?”

“Fiona and I were nineteen when Pete was born. We’d met in high school; we didn’t know anything. Still, we decided to keep the baby, and I was so wrapped up in trying to be straight that I married her. I cared enough about her that I thought… if there was a woman I could bring myself to fall in love with, it was
her. I was wrong.”

Shit. That wasn’t fair to Fiona, at all.
Not that it was fair to Javier, either.

“I tried sticking around for about five years. Saw Pete grow up a
bit. But then I got mixed up in drugs. Drinking. I knew I wanted men, that I didn’t want my own wife, and it was my fault for marrying her, for lying. The lying drove me mad. Drove me to drink. I was turning into my old man – and I hated my old man.”

“Did he, um… why did you hate him?”

“Because he hated me, mostly.”

“He hated his own son?”

“I was never good enough for him, to begin with. Mom left us when I was a kid and he kept seeing her in me, kept hating me for it. And when he caught me making out with a boy from school, once, that was it. The beatings, the punishments… they never ended. Even after I promised never to touch another man again. Part of the reason I got so messed up about being straight was because being gay was too damn painful. That’s what my dad taught me, anyway.”

Ryan felt sick to his stomach. He thought of his own father, who’d hugged him close and told him that he loved Ryan no matter what. “Where’s your dad now?”

Javier’s eyes are barren, desolate. “He’s dead.”

“I’m…”
sorry to hear that? Glad he isn’t around anymore?

“Save it. Not like I was a better father than he was. I was so screwed up that I was turning into a crack addict. Pete didn’t need that crap in his life. So I left. I came out to Fiona and said I was sorry, and left.”

“Why didn’t you stay gone?” Ryan asks.

“Because I always planned to come back. When I was clean again. When I wasn’t liable to do to him what my dad did to me.”

“It took you thirteen years?”

Javier’s smile is mo
re of a contortion, harsh and jagged. “Staying sober – staying clean – isn’t that simple. Before I went into rehab, I thought my life was over. I was destroying myself. I could hardly afford to pay child support. I spent a decade in New York, taking on odd jobs and blowing all my savings on alcohol and cocaine, fucking any guy who looked like he might be interested.”

“So you went from denying you were gay to being
a rabid man-eater?”

Javier nods, putting out his joint and tossing it into
the a nearby trashcan. “From one extreme to the other.”

It’s upsetting, hearing about this alternate version of Javier, this broken addict hooked on narcotics and sex. Javier isn’t like that now, is he? Ryan doesn’t think so, but what does Ryan know?
Javier’s still into pot. What if he’s also into the other things? All Ryan has to go by is Javier’s word. And he doesn’t know Javier well enough to trust in his word.

As if he can divine the contents of Ryan’s thoughts, Javier says: “You can check the house if you like.
Search every nook and cranny. There isn’t a single bottle of booze anywhere. There isn’t any crack, either.”

“What about the pot?”

“It’s under control.”

“Is it?”

Javier looks at him steadily. “You tell me. Do I seem unbalanced to you?”

“That doesn’t mean squat, and you know it. Plus,
there’s me.”

“What about you?”

“Sleeping with me is risk-taking behavior. I bet it wasn’t part of your plan for coming back to your hometown. Didn’t expect to end up fucking a firefighter’s barely-legal son, did you? Let alone your son’s best friend. And now, you can’t stop.”

Javier keeps looking at him.

“Um.” Ryan is abruptly aware of his nakedness beneath the thin sheet draped over him. Javier could tug it away and put his mouth to Ryan’s skin and Ryan would cease caring about anything. Just like that. Maybe Javier isn’t the only addict, here. “Aren’t you… aren’t you going to deny that?”

“Deny what? That I didn’t expect to find you, or that I can’t let you go?”

Oh
. That wasn’t an admission Ryan was prepared to hear. He blushes hotter than a goddamn light-bulb, but soldiers on, because he has to. “You… you said not to pretend this was something it wasn’t.”

“
I’ve had enough of pretending. I did plenty of that when I was younger, and it ruined me.”

“That doesn’t make it okay to… to… imprint on me, or whatever it is you’re doing. Why does it even have to be me? Haven’t you slept with other guys in this dinky town? Why
can’t it be one of them?”

“I haven’t slept with anyone else since I arrived.”

“You – ” Ryan gawks at him. “I don’t believe that.”

Javier hitches a shoulder. “Then don’t.”

“It’s been three
months
since you came here. Almost four.”

“I didn’t meet anyone that caught my fancy.”

“Until me.”

“Until you.”

“But, the lube – ”

“I do masturbate,” Javier says, wryly.

“I should be staying away from you,” Ryan huffs. “You’re bad news. You’ve just
told
me you’re bad news. Addicts relapse all the time. And I don’t wanna be the new substance in your substance addiction.”

“Is that what you think you are?”

“Isn’t that what I am?”

“You’re still talking like a shrink.”

“
Do
you have a shrink? Because you should.”

Javier bursts out laughing – and it’s a surprisingly warm laug
h, startling Ryan with how good it sounds, how right.

“Well?” Ryan insists, stubbornly. “Do you?”

With a final chuckle, Javier says: “Yeah. I do. A Dr. Martel.”

“Whoa. No kidding. Linda Martel? She’s the same shrink that
takes care of the fire department. Dad’s seen her for a few sessions. Not that he’s ever stopped complaining about it.”

“Is it a case of ‘real men don’t need therapy’?”

“Nah, he’s great with sharing his feelings, and all that. He’s only weird about paying someone to listen to those feelings.”

“Isn’t it the fire department that pays for it, though?”

“It’s the principle of the thing.”

“I suppose that makes me an unprincipled man.”

“Believe me, it isn’t seeing a therapist that makes you unprincipled. It’s what you’re doing with me.”

“What am I doing with you?”

And Ryan’s blush is back. “Making me… expect things. From you.”

“Maybe you should expect things.”

“Maybe I should run away screaming.”

“Why don’t you?”

“Because I’m a moron. Apparently.”

“You aren’t.” Javier frowns. “I won’t tell Martel about you.”

“Are you shitting me? You
should
tell her about me. About – about us. If there is an us. Even if there isn’t an us. That’s the point of having a doctor to spill your troubles to –
you spill your troubles to them
. Otherwise, she won’t know what’s going on in your life, and she won’t be able to keep you from slipping back into your old habits.”

“I meant I won’t tell her about you, specifically. I can tell her I’m seeing a young man, but not tell her who you are. Remember, she also sees your father. What if she has a conflict of conscience and blabs to him?”

The very notion of Dad knowing that Ryan’s having sex with someone
else’s
dad – let alone a hopefully-ex-addict – is skin-crawling. “You do that. And for heaven’s sake, stay away from stuff that makes you compulsive.”

“I won’t stay away from you.”

Damn it.

Ryan doesn’t
want
Javier to stay away from him. That’s the problem.