It's Like This (9 page)

“I told him he was full of shit,” she tells me, matter-of-factly.

“Oh.” I don’t exactly have a reply.

“I don’t want chemo,” Kya says after a while. “Cole says it sucks.”

“Cole,” Rylan repeats. “Is that his name?”

“Yup.” Another pause, and then, “I’m probably in love with him.”

It’s all I can do to keep from snorting.

“Oh really?” Rylan asks, his voice slightly teasing.

“Yeah,” Kya answers, like it’s no big thing, which, given that she’s seven, it probably isn’t. Except that given the situation, it is. “He said it helps. To have people who love you around. So I figured if I’m going to be around him I should love him.”

“Makes sense,” Rylan nods.

“You love me?” Kya half-orders.

“Oodles!” Rylan answers, pulling her by the armpits over his head in some sort of awkward somersault until she’s sprawled in his lap and he’s holding her tightly.

“And you love….Matilda?” she prompts.

“You bet,” he responds easily.

“Any my mom and dad?” Oh shit. I know where this is going. I shift away so that Rylan’s leg isn’t touching mine anymore.

“Of course,” he replies.

“Annnnnnnnd NILES?” she crows.

And I swear he’s not going to say a word. We’re going to sit together in this horrible silence for the rest of our lives, which won’t be very long, because I intend on drowning both Kya and myself in the beluga tank, stat.

But before I get a chance to hurtle us over the plexi-glass, Rylan’s hand somehow seeks me out, hooking over the top of my thigh, forcing our legs back into contact.

“More than anything,” he tells her. Or…me?

I can’t move, closer or away. Or blink. Or swallow.

And so…I guess what this is, is proof.

I don’t know a single fucking thing about anything.

Finally, after McDonald’s French fries dipped in McDonald’s soft serve and another couple of hours of Kya introducing us to every single person she’s ever met in the hospital, she releases us. We don’t say much on the ride back to the hotel, too exhausted to manipulate sentences.

When we get in the door we both just pass out on the bed. It’s one of those things where for the first five minutes you promise yourself you’ll get up and do something in just a couple of minutes. But when those couple of minutes pass, you still can’t move, so you give yourself permission to just sleep and so I don’t know how long I’ve been asleep when Rylan wakes me up.

I can’t tell if it’s a dream or not at first. Rylan’s straddling me, fingers clamped onto my shoulders, teeth leaving sharp nips up and down my neck. When the pain finally registers as overly real for a dream state, I open my eyes and he grins and latches his mouth onto mine. His kissing seems to give way to tongue fucking almost immediately, tongue stud beating against the roof of my mouth, my teeth.

Without removing his mouth, he unbuttons and yanks off my sweater; his hands then assume their position, digging fiercely into my skin. He rolls his hips, grinding his clothed dick against mine, which willingly responds. He bites at my lips, which are still trying almost pathetically to kiss him back. He manoeuvres his hands again, one twisted in my hair, pulling, the other teasing my nipple alternately soft and hard. He writhes again, and I can’t help it, I pull his hips down into mine, holding him there, needing the presence and the pressure.

He scrapes his uneven nails down my torso. Again. I don’t let go of him. He drags them over me, from shoulders to hip bones, and this time, causing enough pain for me to look down. Tiny lines of blood are starting to form from torn, scratched skin. I drop my hands to my sides, and he looks at me and grins imposingly. He pulls away, long enough to unbuckle my belt and unzip my fly. He yanks at the top of my jeans and boxers and I lift my hips so he can get them down. He pushes them using one foot between my legs low down enough for me to kick them off and then he’s on me again, heedlessly grating his denim-covered cock against my vulnerable one: the strange pull of his movements breaching the line between “yes” and pain. I rut against him, needy, increasing the pressure and the pain.

He shoves my hips back against the mattress—leaving me momentarily and humiliatingly thrusting into the air—then crawls down my legs until he’s crouched over me. His eyes catch mine and he’s making sure I’m watching. A small, desperate noise sounds at the back of my throat. Rylan grins, licks a line up the underside of my dick and swallows it down. I try to thrust upwards but he swats at my hip and I know I’m to just let this happen. He oh-so-slowly withdraws my cock from his throat, his lips releasing my cockhead with a smug popping sound. He then takes his time lapping at my cockhead, running his tongue stud along my frenulum before swallowing me down again.

He’s going way too long and slow and deep for this stage in the proceedings. His fingers tease and coax at my sac and I swear, the combination of so much shit happening and so long without sex and whatever the fuck he’s playing at almost makes me grip the hotel bed cover with desperation.

Of course he knows what he’s doing to me, how close he’s getting me, but knowing he’s not giving me what I need to go over. The look in his eyes as he relinquishes my dick from his mouth tells me he’s not done with me. He sits back on my shins, jerking me lazily with his hand, too loose and too slow to do anything but frustrate the hell out of me.

“Hand,” he says, and the whole speaking thing takes me so off-guard that I don’t immediately get what he wants. He slaps my flank sharply, simultaneously making me jump and spiking my arousal and then he just grabs at my hand and closes it over his—the one working my dick. I squeeze his fist, trying to make him jack me harder, but he resists. “Stay,” he murmurs, and slides his hand out from under mine, then squeezes my hand to tighten around my dick. He watches me for a moment, eyes glinting in the fluorescent light streaming through the cheap curtains, then climbs off me, and leans against the dresser facing the bed.

I panic, hand flying off my dick, incredibly aware of how clothed he is and naked I am. I go to pull the covers over me, or something stupid, but Rylan’s voice cuts me off.

“I didn’t say stop.” His voice is teasing and dangerous and makes my dick jump with want.

I sit up, nervous somehow, and lean tentatively against the headboard. My cock is throbbing with need, either oblivious or hypersensitive to my humiliation, and Rylan’s just there, watching me, waiting. But I
can’t
. When it’s him touching me, I can forget; I can get lost in the physical-ness of everything, but…this. For fuck’s sakes, why is he just
watching
me?

He walks back over, standing beside the bed.

“Let me show you,” he reproaches me and then reaches out. My whole body blushes intensely. I feel embarrassed, dirty, stupid. He wrenches my thighs wide open and wraps one of my hands around my dick, the other he forces upwards to grip the top of the headboard. He tweaks my nipples with a calculated air of forbearance, like he’s humouring me somehow. It makes my skin burn with shame and my guts squirm with arousal. “Good. Now, go.” And he leaves, giving me a moment to collect myself, before reaching the dresser and turning back to face me.

I take a steadying breath. And slowly, move my hand up the length of my cock.

“Is that how you like it?” he…either teases or jeers, I can’t quite tell which. “Slow and stupid?”

I grit my teeth and shake my head.

“Then show me,” he demands.

I tighten my grip and close my eyes and let my head fall back against the wood panel behind me. This is quasi-foreign territory: I’ve never been super comfortable with masturbation—feels wrong, or like cheating or something. But knowing this is for him makes me want this: my body wants this, my cock wants this, so I find myself getting lost in it, finding my standard grip, and rhythm: upwards with quick, short, hard jerks. And I’m mounting, definitely building and it feels so fucking good, knowing he is there, watching me, knowing that I’m being good for him, knowing that he can twist my shame and want in on each other—

“Eyes on me,” Rylan orders.

My eyelids fly open to look at him, and when I see him, I realize that he’s jerking himself off to the sight of me and I realize that even if he’s only going slowly, it still means that I….arouse him. That I turn him on like he turns me on, and even if I always knew that, I just somehow didn’t
know
that and….Holy shit—that sudden knowledge makes a cry rise in my throat and my hand tighten and my hips thrust and I come, hard and sudden and loud.

He smiles while I pant, come splattered over my hand and abdomen. He gives me maybe a minute to recuperate. And then, “Stand up.”

I follow his instructions almost without thinking, wiping the come off on the bedspread before balancing on shaky legs, dick slowly deflating between my thighs.

“Come here,” he directs. I walk unsteadily over to him until I’m standing before him. He runs a finger down one of the scratch marks he’s made on my chest. He leans in and kisses me. And it’s long and slow, and his fist grips one of my wrists making me feel somehow in his possession. “You’re so goddamn sexy, Niles,” he whispers. I don’t know how to reply. He never does this. Never says anything, except his teasing JCrew comments, about the way I look. So I don’t really know how to react. He doesn’t seem to mind, just kisses me for a bit longer, taking his time, running his tongue over my bottom lip before withdrawing.

“Put your hands behind your head,” he directs me, his voice quiet.

I do so, slightly apprehensive. He grabs me by the wrists and walks me over to the table. He pulls one of the chairs out of the way, and bends me over, kicking my feet wide, spreading me. He turns my head so all I can see is the wall a foot or so away, or, if I look up, the corner of the hotel writing paper. Suddenly his hands are gone and I want to look around the room, to know what he’s doing, but I also know I shouldn’t.

“I’m gonna fuck you, soon, Nigh. Would you like that?”

I thought I was coming down, but the dark timbre of his voice makes it clear that that’s not happening. Instead my cock twitches with interest and I find myself nodding minutely, cheek sticking slightly to the table top. I hear the sound of a zipper being pulled, some rustling of clothing. He pulls the chair over closer.

“Knee up on that. Brace yourself.” Instinctively I do as I’m told, shoving my ass out towards him, shamelessly.

I feel something smooth and warm and big brush against the bottom of my ass crack. I know it’s his cock head and it feels so good nestled up against my balls. He drags it along my crack, painstakingly slowly. He stops when he gets to my asshole and for one terror-stricken moment I’m afraid he’s going to try and shove it in. I gasp and try to turn towards him, but he just holds my head against the table and chuckles.

“Relax, sugar. I’m gonna take good care of you.”

I hear the pop of a lube cap and then his fingertip is there, teasing the outside of my asshole. He flickers it back and forth but doesn’t go in, not until I hitch my hips backwards, desperate for more.

“Oh, I see,” he chides. “You want me
in
side.”

I might growl. Just a little bit.

His finger pulses forward and I bear down a bit, opening for him. I still remember when being penetrated felt weird, unnatural. Originally it had been the dirty realization, the, “Oh my God. I’m being fucked right now,” that would get me off, but now it’s the fucking itself. He eases his finger in, coating me with lube. I do still love the mental aspect of it—the knowing that he’s opening me to take his cock, to bring him pleasure. He coaxes his finger in and out of me until I’m ready for another. I live for the burning-stretching feeling that only lasts a few moments as he increases the diameter.

“Hungry little hole, aren’t you?” he murmurs and I fucking do not understand why we’ve never included dirty talk (or any talk) in our sex before, because it is the actual best thing.

Three fingers and I’m silently begging for his cock. He’s careful, as he always is, not to overdo the prep—it’s like he knows without me ever telling him that I want the tight discomfort that comes when I’m just shy of ready. Soon, and yet somehow not soon enough, his cock head touches my hole. I try to cant back onto it, but he slaps my ass—hard and makes a “tch”ing noise.

“I decide when you get my cock, not you,” he scolds.

God. His stupid perfect mouth and his stupid perfect words. My cock searches the air desperately for something to rub up against but is disappointed. And, in that moment, Rylan enters me fully. I grunt with the force of him—it was too hard and too fast and too much to feel good and for those very reasons it
does
feel good. His cock feels bigger than I know it actually is, but maybe this time even more so, maybe because I haven’t had him for so long. With one hand he grips my wrists which are still clasped behind my head, aching with their obedient stillness, and with the other his fingers bite into my hip. And then, finally, blessedly, he fucks me.

He pulls his cock almost all the way out of me before slamming back in. He likes it slow and long on the way out, and quick on the way in, at least to begin with. The back of my mind mumbles something about condoms but I shut it down, too far gone to give a shit because all I know is that when he’s out I feel too empty and when he’s in I feel too full and I guess that makes sense, because with Rylan I never have a sense of equilibrium.

He bites into my shoulder blade, and then shifts his hand to clutch aggressively at my ass, and here I am, splayed and open, bent over a table, being fucked, forcefully and I want it so much I can’t stand it. I crave it and him inside me, and it’s a craving that can’t be sated even with him pounding my ass into a hotel table, it just makes me want him more: deeper, fiercer. I want him to fuck me within an inch of my life, want him to come, to soak me with his cum, want to know that I did that, I made him come. I tighten slightly around him and he groans, and it’s that groan that I love the most, the knowledge that I have that ability, that I get to hear that, and…maybe no one else does.