9. Theo #2
I breathe. Four in, seven hold, eight out.
“Good boy.”
He lets me breathe. He holds my head back, not hard, just enough to let me see him. He looks down at me. His cock is wet from my mouth. The air on it is cold. I know it's cold because his whole body does a small thing when it hits the cold.
“Again.”
I open my mouth again.
He fucks my throat.
His hand is a fist in my hair. He uses the fist. He moves my head where he wants it.
He takes what he came here to take. My jaw aches.
My throat opens because it has to open. My eyes water.
Spit runs down my chin onto his fist at the base of his cock.
He keeps going. The sounds coming out of him aren't words.
They're low in his chest. They're furious.
“Fuck,” he says. “Fuck, look at you.”
“Open.”
“Wider.”
His thumb presses the hinge of my jaw.
“That's it.”
“That's my good fucking boy.”
I gag on him.
He doesn't slow.
He adjusts my head half an inch and fucks deeper.
My throat closes and opens. My eyes stream.
My hand is flat on his thigh and I'm not tapping.
My hand doesn't want to tap. I'm kneeling on a bad rug with Maddox Creed's cock in the back of my throat and I have never in my twenty years been closer to a thing I wanted.
“Christ,” he says. “Jesus Christ, Theo.”
He's rough. Rough in his hand and his voice and the grip of my hair and the drive of his hips. No part of this is careful. The fact of his not being careful is a thing happening to me that I didn't know could happen to me.
He comes with no warning.
His hand tightens. His hips drive in. His jaw clenches.
His throat works. He says fuck in a voice I'll hear inside my head every time I close my eyes for the next eleven years, and then he's coming down my throat.
The taste is strange. Heat and salt and a thing I don't have a category for.
I swallow because I have to swallow. He's saying fuck, fuck, take it, take it, in a voice that's gone hoarse.
He slows.
He stills.
He pulls out of my mouth slowly.
His thumb is at the corner of my lip. He wipes a line at the edge of my mouth with his thumb. Then he puts the thumb in his own mouth. I watch him taste his own come off his thumb. Something in me that was already falling falls further.
He looks down at me.
He's pulled his shorts back up sometime I didn't notice.
“Stand up, sweetheart.”
I stand.
My legs do a thing I don't like.
He catches my elbow. He holds me steady. He doesn't step back. He's looking at my mouth. He brushes his thumb along my lower lip one more time.
Then he kisses me.
He kisses me like he did at the start, but harder now. His tongue is in my mouth. I know he's tasting himself in my mouth. I know because I'm tasting it too. It should be a thing I don't like. It isn't.
He pulls back.
“Bed,” he says.
He puts me on my back on the queen.
The duvet is under me. The lamp on the table is still on.
He kneels on the bed over me. He undoes my jeans.
He undoes them like a man who's undone many pairs of jeans, which he has.
My head is too busy to be jealous about it.
His hand is at the waistband of my underwear.
He's looking at my face. He's asking me a question without words.
“Yes,” I say.
“Yes.”
His hand is on me.
I make a sound that isn't a small sound this time. A sound I've never heard come out of my own body. The sound of a person who's been touched for the first time.
“Shh,” he says, not unkind. “Shh. I know.”
I grab his wrist.
I didn't mean to. My hand goes to his wrist. I'm not stopping him. I'm holding onto him. He understands. He keeps going.
His hand is slow and then not slow.
His mouth is against my ear.
“Look at this pretty cock,” he says at my ear. “Look at this pretty fucking cock leaking for me, Theo. Nobody's ever touched this. Nobody. Just me.”
I make the sound again.
“Yeah. That's it.”
“You like my hand on you.”
His thumb drags wet across the head of me.
“Say it.”
“I like your hand on me.”
His teeth catch my earlobe.
“Whose is this?”
“What?”
“This cock. Whose?”
His fist squeezes at the base of me.
“Yours.”
“Say it again.”
His hand slides slower over me, harder.
“Yours.”
“Good fucking boy.”
His fist tightens on me.
“I'm going to make you come in about thirty seconds and you're going to thank me for it.”
“Yes.”
His hand speeds up.
“Say thank you now.”
“Thank you.”
His breath is hot against my jaw.
“Thank you, what?”
“Thank you, Maddox.”
His mouth bites down at the muscle where my neck meets my shoulder.
“Louder.”
I say it louder.
“Let me hear you when you come. All of it. I don't care who in this building hears. Do you understand me?”
I let him hear me.
I let him hear me because he asked. Because I've been being quiet for twenty years in my father's house and I'm done. Because the sounds want out of my mouth like a thing that's been locked in a room too long.
I come.
Under a minute. On the first hand that's been on me. In his fist with his mouth against my ear. He's saying good, good, good, good, in a voice that's the last voice I'll ever hear about this thing. My back comes off the duvet. My mouth opens. The sound I make isn't a word.
I come a long time.
When I stop, he stills his hand on me. He doesn't let go. He just stills.
His mouth is on my temple.
“Hi,” he says quietly.
“Hi.”
“You okay?”
My breath is still in pieces.
“I don't know yet.”
“Okay.”
His arm tightens under my shoulders.
“I think I am.”
“Take your time.”
He stays still. His hand is on me. His other arm is under my shoulders. My eyes are closed. His mouth is on my temple. I'm not crying.
I'm not crying because if I start here, I won't stop. I don't have time to cry tonight.
He moves.
He gets up. He goes to the bathroom. Water runs. He comes back with a warm washcloth.
He cleans me up.
He cleans me up and doesn't make it a thing. He wipes my belly. He wipes my hand. He tosses the washcloth toward the bathroom in the general direction of the floor. He does up my jeans for me. He puts a hand on my knee.
“Stay there a second.”
“Okay.”
He goes to the nightstand. He takes the unopened pack of cigarettes. He unwraps the cellophane. He taps one out into his hand. He opens the window a crack. He lights the cigarette with a lighter that's been in the drawer longer than any cigarette has.
He smokes.
One cigarette by the window with his arm on the sill and his head a little tilted. He's shirtless. He was shirtless before I noticed. There's a tattoo on his ribs I haven't been in a position to examine until now. A single line of script. I can't read it from the bed.
He looks over at me.
“Water?” he says.
“Please.”
He goes to the little fridge. He brings me a bottle of water. He unscrews the cap. He hands it to me. I drink it sitting up.
He sits on the edge of the bed.
He smokes. He looks at me. He doesn't touch me. He's giving me something. A distance that isn't a rejection. I understand it without being told.
“Okay?”
“Yes.”
He exhales smoke out the window.
“Couple of things.”
“Okay.”
The cigarette glows at the tip.
“That was good.”
“Yes.”
He looks at me sideways.
“I mean for you.”
“I know.”
Ash drops from the tip of his cigarette into the tray.
“Was it?”
“Yes.”
“Say more than yes.”
I put the water bottle on the nightstand.
“It was good. It was.” I stop. I look at the wall. “I didn't know my body did that.”
He nods slow.
“Yeah.”
“Is it like that every time?”
“No.”
His jaw works around the cigarette.
“Oh.”
“Not for most people.”
“Oh.”
He taps ash into the ashtray on the sill.
“Your dad…”
“What about him?”
His mouth pulls at one corner.
“He's going to know something.”
“He isn't.”
The lamp buzzes a second and steadies.
“Theo.”
“He isn't. I won't let him.”
He taps the ash again.
“Your mouth is going to tell on you every time you look at me on the ice for a week.”
“Then I won't look at you on the ice for a week.”
He smiles.
Not wide. A corner of his mouth. A private smile I'll think about in bed for a month.
“Good boy.”
“Don't call me that when we talk about my father.”
“Noted.”
He puts the cigarette out. He turns around on the bed. He looks at me. He puts one hand on my ankle and leaves it there.
“This was the thing,” he says. “The thing I've been telling myself I needed to do to put it down. I told myself for a week that if I did the thing, I could put it down.”
“Can you?”
He looks at me a long time.
“I don't know yet.”
“Oh.”
His thumb rubs a circle on my ankle.
“I'll tell you when I know.”
“Okay.”
His hand settles warmer on my ankle.
“And you…”
“What about me.”
His face goes serious.
“You have a choice to make.”
“I know.”
His thumb finds my anklebone.
“You have to go home.”
“I know.”
His hand on my ankle tightens a fraction.
“You have to walk into your father's apartment and pretend nothing has changed.”
“I know.”
“And I'm going to text you again.”
My breath stops.
“Okay,” I say.
“Is that a yes?”
“Yes.”
His hand flexes on my ankle.
“Good boy.”
I let him call me good boy when it isn't about my father.