The Nothingness of Ben (18 page)

“Travis, don’t be ridiculous. You know I’m not sleeping with anyone else.”

Travis tried to pull his feet away but Ben grabbed them and pounced on top of him to lighten the mood.

“I ain’t ridiculous!” Travis protested as Ben began tickling him.

“Ridiculously hot, maybe.”

“Stop it,” Travis said through his laughter.

“Maybe I should fuck you instead.”

“It’s about time, Hotshot. No way I’m calling someone my
boyfriend
who leaves me for a week with no sex.”

“Ouch.”

“I’m just saying,” he said, imitating one of Ben’s favorite expressions. “You can’t get me addicted to cock and then close the barn door.”

“Well, why don’t we open it back up, then?”

“What about the pot roast?”

“It’s not going anywhere. We’ll have a late dinner with the boys.”

Travis wiggled out from underneath Ben and jumped to his feet. He peeled off his T-shirt as he walked toward the bedroom.

“You coming, Obi-Wan?” he said over his shoulder. “My ass ain’t gonna fuck itself.”

Ben followed him into the bedroom, undressing as he went. In less than a minute, they became intertwined. Travis slipped a condom onto Ben’s stiff cock and lightly coated it with lube. He lifted his legs into the air and pulled Ben down on top of him. He reached under and guided Ben in so that the tip of his dick sat ready to split Travis wide open.

“Look at me,” Travis demanded.

No one told Ben what to do in bed. Nonetheless, he followed orders and locked his gaze on Travis.

“No other man has ever fucked my ass and no other man ever will.”

“I promise you, Travis, I will be worthy and faithful and true.”

And as corny as that sounded, Ben meant it.

He made love to Travis, even though Ben didn’t dare use that word yet. But he wanted to. After a week without sex, Travis didn’t last long and shot them both in the face with his load. Ben licked the come off Travis’s chin and then fed it to him. He reached down and grabbed the condom.

“Don’t stop just ’cause I came,” Travis said.

“I thought we might try something else. Something new.”

Travis lifted up and allowed Ben to withdraw his dick.

“Like what?”

Ben grinned as he removed the condom.

“What’s your favorite number?”

Travis understood immediately.

“You want to sixty-nine?”

“Look, I can’t believe I’m even saying this. I’m the guy that used to think a blow job was a brief stop on the way to the main event, which was always fucking. But now I miss it. You’ve never sucked my dick. Ever. Dan Savage says any model that doesn’t come equipped with oral should be returned to the factory.”

“Who the hell is Dan Savage?”

“That’s not important.”

“So you’re gonna return me to the factory if I don’t give you a blow job?”

“I’m just saying.”

“You’re just saying, eh? Well, let’s give this a try, then.”

Travis slid down until he was staring right at Ben’s hard prick. He took it in his hand and stroked it. He moved his head a little closer and looked up at Ben.

“So you want me to lick it? Like this?”

Travis ran his tongue along the underside of Ben’s shaft, starting at the base and working his way, ever so slowly, up to the tip. He flicked his tongue all around the head, making Ben thrust involuntarily toward Travis’s lips. When he did that, though, Travis pulled back.

“Where did you learn to do that?” asked Ben, panting.

“I watched some gay porn. While you were sick. You like it?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“You want some more?”

“Please.”

Travis teased Ben again with his tongue, running his lips back and forth over Ben’s now throbbing cock, pulling away each time Ben thrust upward. When Ben grabbed the back of Travis’s head and tried to force him down, Travis quickly reacted by catching Ben’s wrists and pinning his arms to his sides. At the point where Travis knew Ben would overpower him, he took the whole of Ben’s cock into his mouth and wrapped his lips around the base. Travis went at it with full-force gusto, unable to completely deep-throat Ben’s eight inches, but the giver of a championship blow job nonetheless. Ben thrust his hips off the bed, keeping rhythm with Travis’s sucking. He reached down to feel Travis’s cock and discovered that it was hard again. Without any prompting, Travis swung around until he straddled Ben in the sixty-nine position, never once taking Ben’s dick out of his mouth. Ben looked up and saw Travis’s cock jutting out above him. He pulled it down and wrapped his lips around it, running his tongue over the head and relishing the taste of precome before taking the whole of it into his mouth.

After a minute, Travis came up momentarily for air. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. So that’s what a blow job’s supposed to feel like?”

And then he went back down on Ben’s prick. They rolled over onto their sides, and Ben took Travis all the way down to the base. Ben encouraged Travis to fuck the back of his throat, something that caused Travis to buck wildly. Ben could feel his own orgasm rising when Travis started to work him with both his hand and mouth. Without a sound or warning, Ben felt his mouth begin to fill with the bittersweet taste of Travis’s come, sending him over the orgasm cliff. As he started to sense Ben’s release, Travis pushed down as far as he could onto his cock so Ben literally shot down Travis’s throat. Finally, Travis pulled off so that the last spurts landed across his lips and cheek.

“Good golly,” he panted. “That was the hottest thing I’ve ever done.”

Ben slowly let Travis’s cock slide out of his mouth.

“Seriously?”

“Seriously,” Travis answered, still catching his breath. “Fucking hits a deep spot, don’t get me wrong. But that was hotter than a billy goat with a blowtorch. I love your come. I love tasting it. I love feeling it splatter on my face. You don’t get that with a woman.”

“You’re really getting into this whole gay-sex thing, aren’t you?”

“Damn if I ain’t. I love that you have a dick. I never been into guys, but it’s one of my favorite things about you. I never want to go back.”

Ben flipped around and kissed him. Abandoning all logic, his heart took over and nothing could stop it.

“Then don’t. Say you’ll move with me to New York.”

“You know I have to visit first,” Travis insisted.

“No. Say it now. Tell me you’ll come with me now, before you see it. Have faith in me, Travis. Have faith in us.”

“That ain’t fair.”

“I know!” Ben said, giddy with laughter. “Life’s not fair. I’m asking you to take a leap of faith with me. Tell me that you’re permanent. Please. Tell me that you’re not going to disappear for a hundred years. Now, before we go.”

“Whoa there, Trigger, slow down. First, a hundred years? What’s that all about? And second, where’s this coming from? You’re the one who said we should be cautious. Wait to use the B word, remember?”

“I know. But everything amazing in my life has been the result of
not
being cautious. What I really wanted you to say is that you’re a part of my life no matter what.”

Travis shook his head stubbornly. “Nu-uh. I ain’t gonna say
nothing
’til you say something else first.”

“I love you,” Ben blurted out. “I have been in love with you since Valentine’s Day, probably even before that. I believe you are my present and my future—and for some reason that I can’t explain, even my past. I know I can do great things if you’re with me, Travis. I want to call you my boyfriend. I’m ready to make you the happiest man in the state of Texas, if you’ll just let me. So please tell me. Now. Before we go.”

Travis looked overwhelmed, but he lifted up his head and kissed Ben softly. “Okay. Yes. I’ll move to New York with you.”

T
HE
next morning, Ben registered for the Texas Bar Exam.

Chapter 14

D
URING
the three weeks running up to spring break, the Austin weather warmed up and the Walsh brothers, plus Travis, began to spend their weekend afternoons at Barton Springs. A naturally fed pool, the Springs had a consistent temperature of sixty-eight degrees year-round. Too cold for March, but a dip in the summer could keep a person cool in the Texas heat for almost an hour. Barton Springs also served as a kind of town square, a gathering place of grassy slopes where people could meet and catch up. Quentin generally went off with his buddies or his girlfriend, Dakota, a waifish lass with blond hair and the severe cheekbones of a supermodel.

“It’s pretty cool what you guys are doing,” she said one day, talking to Ben and Travis. “Taking care of everybody, I mean.”

“Thanks, Dakota,” Ben replied, deciding right there and then that he would take the direct approach when it came to this parenting thing. “Did Quentin tell you about our no pregnancies policy?”

“Jesus,” Quentin complained.

Dakota laughed. “You don’t have anything to worry about, Mr. Walsh. Your moving away kind of put the brakes on things.”

“Oh,” Ben replied. “Sorry about that.”

Travis leaned over to kiss his boyfriend. “Mr. Walsh.”

“You like this whole PDA thing, don’t you?”

“I’m getting used to it.”

“I’m going to hurl,” Quentin said.

Travis spent a lot of his time tossing a football or playing catch with Cade. Ben and Jason, on the other hand, preferred to lie out and soak up the springtime sun or sit under one of the large oak trees and read. Afterward, they often headed to Huts for burgers and onion rings.

“One of these things is not like the others.”

Their waitress, a colorful woman with bright orange hair and pancake makeup, surveyed the Atwood-Walsh clan, trying to figure out how Travis fit in. She looked at him and whispered, “The milkman didn’t have red hair, did he?”

“I’m the boyfriend,” Travis explained.

“Well,” she replied, winking at Ben. “Aren’t you the lucky one, then.”

One day, Ben walked over to Travis’s shop and surprised him with some doughnuts, which he’d made himself from scratch. Travis’s boss and the three other mechanics stopped their work to come over and meet him. Travis beamed as he introduced them. Darrell Cook, the boss, who couldn’t have weighed more than 140 pounds wet, shook Ben’s hand. With his square jaw, buzz cut, and USMC tattoo, Ben could tell that no one gave Darrell any crap. The mechanics—Ed, Topher, and Royce—each shook Ben’s hand as well and tried the doughnuts.

“Damn,” Royce said. “That’s better than Krispy Kreme.”

“I’m not really that domestic,” Ben explained. “I just have a lot of free time on my hands.” He looked around at the cars and trucks hoisted into the air.
Every night
, he thought,
Travis comes home from this place, the setting of erotic fantasies and classic guy-on-guy porn, his muscles sore and butt aching to be fucked
. He did a man’s work. Ben thanked himself for wearing baggy pants that easily hid the thickening of his cock.

“So you’re the one taking Red away to New York,” Darrell said. “He’s my best monkey. You couldn’t have taken one of these bozos?” He motioned to the three other mechanics, all of whom were eminently bangable.

“Thanks a lot,” Topher said with his mouth full.

Ben laughed and looked at Travis, who continued to grin.
I make him happy
, he thought. “I would if I could, Mr. Cook. But Travis came with a strict no-return policy, so I’m afraid I’m stuck with him wherever I go.”

“Well,” said Darrell as he popped a doughnut into his mouth, “it was worth a shot. But really, I wish you both the best of luck. God knows no one deserves it more than Red.”

Ben could have stayed in that idyllic zone for longer, but soon they only had days until their trip. The more they talked about it at dinner, the more excited everyone got, even Quentin, who’d set up a schedule with Stephanie to go around the city and do napkin drawings from inside famous restaurants. Travis bought tickets to a Knicks game at Madison Square Garden for himself and Cade, and Colin had lined up tours of several prep schools for Jason, who continued to express his boundless enthusiasm for New York and its many possibilities.

W
HEN
the Saturday of their flight arrived, things seemed to start off smoothly. They got to the airport without incident, but when they arrived in Newark, they hit their first snag. All the checked bags came through except Jason’s. They waited for two hours only to be told that it would not be coming in until after midnight. The airline rep apologized and assured them that it would be delivered as soon as it arrived. They made their way into the city and over to the Upper East Side. Colin’s parents lived in a four-story brownstone on
Sixty-Eighth Street. They had more than enough bedrooms for everyone. Colin’s seventeen-year-old sister, Catherine, came home from boarding school for her spring break and took an instant liking to Quentin.

At dinner that evening, the brothers had less to say than usual. The opulent and tastefully decorated Mead house, with its art on every wall, dwarfed their home in Austin. Two years ago, it was given a featured spread in
Architectural Digest
. Ben, of course, had visited many times, but he remembered how the place had intimidated him the first time too. Mr. Mead, a boisterous man who skipped the law in favor of a fortune in real estate, doted on the Walsh boys like grandchildren. He took a special shine to Cade and asked him about college football and if he thought the Longhorns would be ready to take another national championship next season. Colin arrived late and sat next to Jason for dessert, talking with him in hushed tones.