Venetian Masks (13 page)

The dinner they prepared was not fancy. Cleve panfried a couple of steaks and boiled some pasta while Jeff chopped lettuce and veggies for a salad. The little kitchen was crowded with the two of them and Jeff’s drying laundry, and they tended to bump into each other as they worked. But Jeff didn’t mind at all, and Cleve was more relaxed than he’d been all day.

Jeff cleared the brochures and things off the wooden table, and they sat down to eat. Even though the steak was a little burned on the outside and the noodles perhaps a shade too al dente for his taste, it was somehow one of the nicest meals he’d ever had.

“Mind if I hang out with you a while?” Cleve asked when they were done.

“God no.”

Cleve pointed at Jeff’s laptop. “Gonna send ass hat a picture?”

Jeff laughed. With Cleve looking over his shoulder, he uploaded the photos of the two of them making out, chose a couple of the best ones, and attached them to an e-mail addressed to Kyle.

Kyle,

I am in Italy and I’m having a great time. Venice is amazing. And you know what? You’re right. It was all definitely for the best.

Have a nice life,

Jeff

“Is that kind of mean and petty?” Jeff asked.

“Who the fuck cares? I just wish we could see his face when he gets this.”

Jeff hit the Send button.

They ended up on the couch, sort of leaning against each other, watching
CSI
dubbed into Italian. That was nice too. Not that Jeff and Kyle had never watched TV together, but they tended to squabble over the remote and they rarely actually touched each other while they sat. After
CSI
was an Italian-made comedy that was completely incomprehensible to Jeff. Cleve pretended to translate, but his translations were mostly obscene and physically improbable acts that made Jeff snort and giggle like a twelve-year-old.

“Gotta take a leak,” Jeff announced when a commercial for Fiats came on.

“Congratulations.”

Jeff was only in the bathroom for a minute or two. When he came back to the living room and saw what was in Cleve’s hands, he froze in his tracks. Cleve looked up at him with his biggest smirk yet. “Oh, Just Jeff.
The Vicomte’s Kiss
?”

“I… I…. It’s a historical novel.”

Cleve held the Kindle in one hand, cleared his throat, and began reading in an overly dramatic voice: “‘Tristan LeCoeur watched as the shirtless peasant lifted the heavy bags and tossed them onto the wagon as if they weighed nothing at all. Sweat glistened on the man’s broad, hairless chest, and when he bent, his muscular buttocks threatened to tear the fabric of his breeches. Heat gathered in LeCoeur’s loins as’—I’m sure it’s very historically accurate, man.”

Jeff lunged for the e-reader, but he was too slow. Cleve jumped to his feet and scrambled away, waving the Kindle teasingly. “Cleve!” Jeff yelled.

“Hey, hold on a minute. I’m
learning
here. Let’s see…. ‘Heat gathered in LeCoeur’s loins as he watched the man work, but that was nothing compared to the burning desire he saw in blue eyes when the peasant turned to look in his direction. “Sacre bleu!” swore LeCoeur, knowing how his peers would react if he were to openly follow the dictates of his heart. But—’”

Jeff grabbed again, this time barely missing Cleve, who ducked away, laughing. “Give it back!” Jeff demanded.

“And miss finding out whether Tristan LeCoeur followed the dictates of his heart? No way.”

“Asshole.”

“He’s following the dictates of his asshole? I guess that works too.”

This time Jeff was a little faster and Cleve was a little slower, but Jeff’s stocking feet slipped on the slick tile floor, sending him crashing into Cleve. They both fell, Jeff landing on top with a painful crash of elbow and knees. Somehow, Cleve managed to keep the Kindle gripped safely in his hand.

“Give it,” said Jeff, reaching.

But then Cleve did an interesting little wiggle beneath him, and suddenly the vicomte’s adventures seemed a lot less important. Jeff gave up on the tablet and cradled Cleve’s face in his palms instead, then dipped his head for a kiss.

“I bet old Tristan could learn a thing or two from you,” said Cleve a little breathlessly when their lips parted. He’d allowed the Kindle to slide to the floor, but neither of them cared anymore. “Should be
Just Jeff’s Kiss
.”

“I don’t think anyone would buy that book.”

“I would,” Cleve replied earnestly and kissed him back.

The kissing was good. Even better was when Jeff dragged his mouth to Cleve’s neck and finally gave in to the urge he’d been feeling for days: to nibble and lick and suck at the skin there, feeling the corded muscles, the fluttery pulse.

“God,” Cleve moaned. He worked his hands between their bodies and tried to unbutton someone’s jeans—Jeff wasn’t quite sure whose. But Jeff wanted more than another quick, sweaty grope, so he tore himself away and rose to his feet, making Cleve groan with disappointment.

Jeff bent to give him a hand up. “Bed,” Jeff said gruffly.

“Maybe those romance novels aren’t so bad after all,” said Cleve. “They certainly get you riled up nicely.”

Jeff responded by swatting at his ass, which made Cleve yelp and swat back, and then they were sort of wrestling, and they really wouldn’t have made it to bed if Jeff hadn’t banged a shin on the edge of the coffee table. He wrapped his fingers around Cleve’s wrist and dragged him out of the room, down the short hallway, and into the bedroom.

“Hang on,” Cleve said when they got there. “Be right back.” Jeff watched from the doorway as he darted out of the room and down the hall to the coatrack, where he’d earlier hung his motorcycle jacket. He dug around in the pockets—there were three or four hundred of them, by Jeff’s estimation—before hooting in triumph and holding up a plastic tube and a small square box. He raced back to Jeff’s side before pushing him all the way back against the bed.

“Do you always—” Jeff began.

“No. Stopped at the
farmacia
this morning.” He smiled brightly. “I was feeling optimistic. Sometimes even
I
get lucky.” He tossed the lube and condoms on the bedspread and backed away. Very slowly, teasingly, he began to unbutton his shirt.

Jeff intended to undress too. His hands even made their way to his shirt placket. But he became totally distracted by the clever movements of Cleve’s fingers, by the way the very tip of Cleve’s tongue stuck out between his sensuous lips, by the flecked brown eyes that were hotter than LeCoeur’s peasant’s. When Cleve finally allowed his shirt to fall to the ground, permitting an unobstructed view of his arms and torso, Jeff actually gasped.

Cleve’s pecs were heavy and lightly dusted with dark hair. His nipples were brownish-pink nubs, already contracted into tempting little peaks. Tight abs led Jeff’s eyes to a dark line of hair that traced its way beneath the waist of Cleve’s jeans. All of that would have been plenty to make Jeff’s mouth water. But then there were the tattoos.

The ink covered each arm from the wrist all the way up over the roundness of Cleve’s shoulders. The patterns were mostly abstract, some of them twisting around like a dragon’s tail, some spiraling like something from an Escher print. Wavelike designs reminded Jeff of something Japanese, while the rows of arches looked like Venetian windows. Most of the ink was black, but there were spots of bright color as well: an anatomically correct red heart, an orange flame, a green bird, a blue spider. Jeff couldn’t tell whether the tats had been planned all at once or done in bits and pieces, but the designs blended harmoniously, some of the patterns almost seeming to move across Cleve’s skin.

Jeff didn’t realize he’d moved closer for a better inspection of the art until he discovered Cleve’s arm in his hands. It was warm and smooth, which was slightly jarring—he’d unconsciously expected to be able to feel the ink as well. But when he turned the arm over and stroked the underside of it, he
did
feel something. Some of the tattoos had been done with scars in mind, not so much disguising them as incorporating them, making them part of the whole. One scar was long and slightly depressed; it ran for nearly the length of Cleve’s forearm. The others were raised lines, much smaller and more numerous. They went crossways.

“Cleve?” Jeff asked softly.

At first Cleve didn’t react at all, although his body had stiffened. But then he sighed quietly, gently pulled his arm away, and offered the other. That one had only the crossways scars.

“Arm got busted pretty bad when I was a kid,” Cleve said in a flat, emotionless tone. “Stepdad. And the others…. I guess I was fourteen, fifteen when I did those.”

“Son of a
bitch
.”

“You feeling sorry for me?” They were standing so close that every one of Cleve’s words was a puff of breath against Jeff’s face.

“No. I’m just thinking, the kind of bastards who would do that to their kid…. Fucking monsters.”

Unexpectedly, Cleve gave him an almost shy smile. “Thanks, baby.”

Jeff didn’t quite understand what the gratitude was for. He gave in to another impulse, though, taking Cleve’s hands in his, flipping them over, and pressing his lips to the tender insides of his wrists. “I’m glad you survived them.”

“Me too.”

Cleve pulled his hands away and then used them to push Jeff back a few feet. Keeping his gaze locked on Jeff’s, he unfastened his own jeans and pushed them down along with his underwear. He stepped gracefully out of the clothing, leaving himself dressed only in a pair of white socks. His cock was already hard, his thigh muscles broad, his legs covered in dark hairs.

“Is this gonna be a solo show?” he asked, reaching to lightly stroke his thick shaft.

Jeff lost the ability to speak. Somehow he managed to get out of his own clothes—very quickly and probably tearing them in the process, but who the fuck cared?—and he threw them into the corner of the room. He stood there, as naked as Cleve. More naked, because Jeff had peeled off his socks. And the weight of Cleve’s avid scrutiny made a flush spread over Jeff’s chest and neck and cheeks.

“Fucking beautiful,” Cleve groaned. He hadn’t stopped the motion of his hand, and as Jeff watched, a single bead of clear fluid appeared at the reddened tip of Cleve’s cock.

Jeff was not used to this kind of thing. Before Kyle, most of his sex had been quick fucks in dorms or back rooms, the kind where only the minimum amount of clothing was shifted. And with Kyle, well, the lights had been out, the blankets pulled up. They hadn’t looked at each other, hadn’t seen. Hell, maybe that had been their problem all along.

Cleve was more perfect than any of the pieces of art Jeff had seen in Museo Correr, and far more valuable.

They moved together, hands brushing lightly against shoulders and sides and flanks, resting briefly on hips before moving to asses. Jeff rubbed his thumbs against Cleve’s nipples, pinched them lightly. Cleve made a long, low sound and drove him back to the bed, toppling him backward, and then straddled him.

For a long time after that, they teased each other. They licked and stroked, but never quite long enough, never exactly where the other man really wanted it. They writhed, begged inarticulately, knocked all the pillows off the bed. Jeff’s vision only focused as he lay supine on the mattress, Cleve’s knees on either side of Jeff’s shoulders, Cleve’s magnificent ass poised just over his face. The dusky little hole was already slick with saliva, its muscles loose and ready, but still Jeff took his time, watching with fascination as his fingers worked in and out of Cleve’s body. Cleve shuddered and swore when Jeff brushed against his sensitive bundle of nerves, and, too quickly for Jeff to stop him, he twisted around, scooted down, and impaled himself on Jeff’s condom-cloaked cock.

“Sh-shit!” said Jeff. “So… God, you’re so
good
!” And Cleve was, rising and falling above him, every line of his body taut, one ripe lip caught between sharp teeth. Jeff allowed his left hand to wander over Cleve’s chest and belly while he used his right to form a tight sheath around Cleve’s cock. And Cleve’s gaze never left Jeff’s face, not for one moment, not even when Cleve jerked and cried out and spurted into Jeff’s hand.

Jeff’s movements became uncoordinated after that. Cleve was still riding him when he came, and Jeff shouted so loudly all of Venice must have heard.

Somehow they separated from each other, then discarded the rubber and pulled the pillows back onto the bed. They lay with limbs entwined, too enervated to move. Jeff buried his nose in Cleve’s hair, which somehow remained untousled. “Will you stay tonight? Please?” Jeff whispered.

After a long silence, Cleve whispered back. “Yeah.”

T
HE
dream began peacefully enough. Jeff was in the backyard of his Sacramento house, digging a hole so he could have his own Grand Canal. He was using an ordinary shovel. His hands hurt and sweat poured down his face, but he was working hard because if he had a canal, he could become a gondolier, and then he’d be able to afford his mortgage. His only real concern as he worked away was mosquito abatement. He was going to need some sort of mosquito permit from the city.

But as he tossed another shovelful of dirt to the side and looked down, he realized he had uncovered a corpse. There was nothing left of the body but bones, but he could recognize the person’s identity anyway from the clothes he wore, which were in perfect condition. “Kyle,” he said in his dream. “So that’s what happened to you.” After considering the matter for a few minutes, he decided he wasn’t sad. “It’s all for the best anyway.” He dragged the body out of the hole and tossed it onto the dirt pile, then continued digging.

He’d worked only a few more minutes when he unearthed another body. But this one sat up and smiled at him. “Thanks, man,” said Cleve, shaking the dirt from his perfect hair. He was naked and had no tattoos at all. He held up his arms so Jeff could see the undersides, and as Jeff watched, bloody slices and gashes healed and disappeared.