Thirty Ben
thirty
Ben
You need to get that?” Ben asked.
“No,” Arya groaned, covering his face with a throw pillow.
They were curled up on Arya’s couch, splitting a to-go burger and frites Ben had picked up from Aspire after his show.
Aspire had amazing burgers, thick patties topped with pickled red onions and sharp cheddar and juicy tomato and a gleaming fried egg that ran all over once Ben cut it in half to split it.
Arya was in a pair of booty shorts that showed off his long legs and another one of his seemingly endless supply of old Lions raglans; Ben had changed into thin lounge pants that showed off the swish in his dick and one of those white tank tops Arya liked so much.
He’d taken to leaving a couple sets of comfy clothes at Arya’s, just like Arya left some at his place.
They were getting positively domestic.
Ben reached for another fry, but Arya’s phone started buzzing anew.
“You sure?” Ben asked. “They seem persistent.”
“My mom’s Iranian,” Arya sighed. “Of course she’s persistent.”
He laid his head back against the couch, exposing the elegant curve of his neck, and sighed. Ben wanted to plant kisses all along his jawline, but not now, with his mouth covered in ketchup.
Arya finally picked up his phone and answered.
“Allo? Maman?” Arya listened for a second and then started speaking a whole other language.
Somehow, though they’d been dating for months—real or not—Ben hadn’t realized Arya spoke Persian. (It was Persian, wasn’t it?)
Damn if that wasn’t the sexiest thing Ben had ever heard.
His man had a talented mouth in more ways than one.
Arya’s voice lowered; he talked faster, his brows furrowing. He got cut off a time or two, raised his voice, repeated (as best Ben could tell) what he was saying.
And then he hung up.
“Sorry. I need to call my dad.”
Ben nodded.
Arya pinched the bridge of his nose and put his phone back to his ear.
“Allo, Baba?”
If Ben’s hands hadn’t been covered in burger juice and fry salt, he would’ve reached over and massaged Arya’s shoulders again. That had become his favorite thing to do to Arya. Well, favorite thing that wasn’t sex. Or kissing.
He really, really liked kissing Arya.
Ben stuffed more fries into his mouth as he waited.
He’d never seen someone’s soul leave their body, but he was pretty sure he was witnessing it in real time.
“Okay. Okay,” Arya said in English, but then he switched back to Persian for a quick goodbye. “Fuck.”
Arya tossed his phone onto the coffee table, narrowly missing his wineglass. “Shit.”
He rubbed his head, took a long drag of his wine—a juicy red blend from Sonoma—and closed his eyes. He looked… exhausted. Defeated.
Ben hated seeing him like that. Arya was supposed to be full of energy. Constant motion. Like one of those inflatable tube men.
Now he just looked like a deflated balloon.
“You wanna talk about it?”
“No,” Arya muttered. But that lasted all of two seconds. “My mom was freaking out because she thinks my dad went to go look for a prostitute and doesn’t know it’s illegal here.”
Ben’s eyes widened.
“But my dad just went out driving, because he was convinced my mom had invited Parviz, her long-term booty call, over for a, well, booty call, and didn’t want to be home for that.”
“I don’t know if I’m supposed to laugh,” Ben admitted.
Arya did laugh, but it was a brittle thing, humorless.
“This is what I grew up with,” he muttered. “This is what I thought love looked like.”
He bit his lip, then reached for his burger.
Ben knew Arya well enough by now to hear what he wasn’t saying:
I don’t know how two people are supposed to be together.
Ben’s heart cracked open. Soft, sad strains of clarinet swirled in his chest.
“I’m sorry,” Ben said. “That fucking sucks.”
“Yeah.” Arya sipped his wine again. “Sorry. Talk about a buzzkill.”
“You didn’t kill the buzz.” He leaned in and kissed Arya, softly, gently, as if Arya were a frightened mouse ready to bolt. “Thanks for telling me.”
Arya softened against him. “Thanks for listening.”
“That’s what boyfriends do.”
“Is it?”
Ben kissed Arya again. “It is.”
Arya relaxed as Ben kissed from his lips, down to his chin, along his jawline, and then latched on to the divot in his collarbone.
He groaned, a rumbling note of pleasure that buzzed against Ben’s lips. “What else do boyfriends do?”
Ben laughed and slid his hand under the hem of Arya’s raglan, walking his fingers up the warm skin, tickling the sparse hairs, climbing up to circle the nub of Arya’s left nipple.
“Oooh, that’s good,” Arya said. He hummed with delight and slipped a thumb beneath the strap of Ben’s tank top, caressing Ben’s pec and shoulder. “God, I fucking love these on you.”
“I know.” Ben smirked and flicked Arya’s nipple. “Why do you think I keep so many here?”
Arya leaned in close, planted his lips on Ben’s weak spot, but he inhaled deeply, too. “They always smell like you,” he murmured into Ben’s skin. “Makes it feel like you’re here with me, even when you’re not.”
Ben’s dick, thickening in his pants, gave a sharp flex.
For someone who claimed not to know much about being a boyfriend, about being romantic, Arya was doing pretty amazing.
He wanted to gather up Arya’s heart and cradle it, keep it warm and safe in his hands, shelter it like a candle from the breeze.
Arya arched away, making Ben lose contact with his nipple, then planted his mouth on Ben’s armpit.
His warm, slick tongue darted out to taste Ben’s skin.
Ben let out a soft, wild sort of laugh. No one had ever played with his pits before.
He hadn’t realized how sensitive he was.
Not ticklish, exactly, but the sensation was shocking. Intense.
“Fucking hot,” Ben muttered. His head rolled back. He closed his eyes.
“Mmm,” Arya said, coming up for air. “I love when you do that.”
“What?”
“When I make you feel good, and your eyes kind of flutter behind your slutty little glasses.”
“Slutty little glasses?”
“It’s a compliment.” Arya draped himself across Ben’s chest to get to his other armpit. The rasp of Arya’s tongue against his skin gave him a whole-body shiver. “I love your slutty little glasses.”
Ben hummed in satisfaction. His cock was fully hard now, pulsing and leaking at Arya’s tender ministrations. He relaxed into the couch as Arya got off him and slid to the floor to yank Ben’s pants off.
Ben’s dick sprang free, slinging a ribbon of precum across his tank top.
Arya pressed his palm into the base of his cock, hard, and sort of rocked it upward.
Ben’s foreskin slid over his head. His breath hitched.
Then Arya shifted his hand, the heel of his palm pressing into Ben’s balls, and his head emerged from its sheath again.
He hissed at the pleasure building like heavy bass notes in his taint.
Arya looked at Ben, eyes shining. “You’re so fucking beautiful I can barely stand it.”
Ben’s dick flexed hard. Damn it, didn’t Arya know how he sounded when he said things like that? He pressed against Ben’s cock again; Ben arched up into the pressure.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Hm?”
“Since we’re boyfriends and all. You don’t have to answer, but… any particular reason you’re a side?”
“What do you mean?” The question came out raspy.
Ben swallowed. This conversation never went well.
Okay, sure. Fine, sure. But never well. People didn’t get that he just…
didn’t like ass play. And Arya loved sex.
He’d made that abundantly clear. Was he going to be disappointed?
Would he act fine with it but turn out like Justin—saying it was okay but growing to resent Ben?
Ben’s heart began a slow, creeping glissando toward the region of his stomach as Arya cocked his head.
“Well, I once hooked up with a guy who didn’t bottom because he had IBS, but didn’t top because he felt bad asking someone to do something he wouldn’t.
” Arya shrugged. “And then there was a guy who’d been…
” Arya shook his head, his expression turning stormy.
“Let’s just say he had a bad experience at a club and was healing from some trauma, and not doing anal was helping him heal from that.
And one time there was a guy who just… didn’t like butt stuff, period.
” He smiled wistfully. “He gave the most amazing head, though. Like, I’m surprised he didn’t suck my spine out my dickhole. ”
Ben couldn’t help it. He started cracking up, deep belly laughs that drove his dick up into Arya’s palm.
When Ben calmed down, Arya reached up for a kiss. “The point is… whatever your reason, it’s okay. I just wanted to check in and make sure you’re not denying yourself anything because you’re worried about what I think. Okay?”
Ben bit his lip. Arya kept surprising him.
His heart rate picked up, back toward andante.
“I guess I’m more like the guy who’s just not into butt stuff.”
“Oh really? I’ll need to protect my spine then.” Arya gave him a shit-eating grin. He rubbed circles around Ben’s frenulum with his thumb. “I’ll need it for later.”
Ben huffed. “You sure it doesn’t bother you?”
“Positive.” Arya’s hand stilled on Ben’s cock; it throbbed a few times, leaking precum, and settled down against Ben’s stomach. His tank top had a quarter-sized wet spot at this point. “I like you. I don’t care what kind of sex we have.”
Ben rested a hand on Arya’s head, caressed him behind the ear, held his cheek; Arya turned and sucked on Ben’s thumb. Ben felt it behind his balls.
“I like you, too,” he grunted out.
“You know what else I like?” Arya said, letting go of Ben’s thumb. “This dick.”
Arya ground the heel of his hand against the base of Ben’s cock again. Ben arched up from the couch. “Fuck…”
“One last question.”
Ben fell back to the cushions. “Shoot.”
“Not yet, mister.”
Ben rolled his eyes.
“What about toys?”
“What about them?”
“Like, you don’t do anal, but what about toys? Prostate massagers or butt plugs?”