“No. The other part, about the workers being better off.”
He shook his head. “Not really. These shoes cost about seven dollars to produce, package and ship. They're on sale for a hundred and fifty. Somebody's making a bundle and I'm guessing it's not Maria Cortez, and because Courtnei works for minimum wage plus commissions, I doubt it's her either.”
I hadn't really considered Courtnei's wages.
“Do you think she has health insurance?”
“Courtnei? Probably can't afford it.”
“I hate this,” I said.
“Then why are you here?”
“For Maria,” I said.
“Don't you mean Courtnei?” he asked.
I sighed.
“Just yanking your chain,” he said. “Courtnei? I'm going to pass on these.”
“You're not gonna buy them?”
“No.”
I blushed in confusion, unable to figure out if this was a victory. I dropped my eyes, studying my own fair-trade shoes, letting my brown hair fall down in front of my face, screening me from further scrutiny.
“So Ashe, after fighting the good fight all morning, you must be hungry.”
“Are you asking me to lunch?” I asked.
“I'm pretty sure I am.” Fletcher shifted his body into a cool, elegant pose. I watched the way he canted his hips and let his shoulders rise. It was a supremely natural movement, but it
radiated sexiness and surety. I tried to create a quick mental note of it, wondering if I could recreate it onstage.
“Um?” I lost my train of thought somewhere between his hips and his shoulders.
“What would Maria Cortez say to the voice of the people having lunch with a prince of the merchant class?”
“You're not funny,” I said, smiling slightly.
“I have my moments,” he said. “And I'm getting hungry.” His voice dropped into the gutter with that last word, but the inflection was so precise, so polished, that I wondered if I had heard correctly.
“So, lunch?” I said.
“Or something,” he said.
He was standing closer to me suddenly, his warm body radiating the smell of clean sweat and sandalwood, the bulge in his jeans slowly becoming larger and more distinct.
He saw me glancing down at him and licked his lips. Again the gesture was subtle, could easily have been something else, but I saw the look in his eyes and knew he was toying with me. I liked it.
We left the store and cut over to Eighth Avenue, ambling uptown to the door of a little Italian bistro. The staff greeted Fletcher by name, ushering us past a crush of waiting tourists to an intimate table near the piano. The owner brought over a bottle of expensive Chianti and chatted amiably with Fletcher, asking in her throaty, sexy Italian accent about his mother and his sister; asking who I was, where we'd met and if this was a date. She clucked and laughed and winked at me, her wine-red fingernails clicking against the bottle as she poured a tasting portion for Fletcher.
When she was gone, Fletcher raised his glass. “To happy beginnings,” he said. We clicked glasses and I sipped the smooth, dark wine.
Lunch was like a clever, funny romantic comedy montage scored by the tinkling ivory sounds of Arlen, Berlin and Gershwin. I'm sure we talked about all the boring things people find so fascinating when the chemistry is explosive, but I don't really remember any of it. I know we didn't talk about jobs or apartments, but Fletcher insists we traded family histories and coming out stories. I remember arguing over the checkâI proposed we split it; he insisted on payingâand I remember watching him across the table throughout lunch and falling for him: for his pale, glowing skin and his perfect, lilting voice and his laugh, that perfect combination of deep, sexy rumble and high delighted peal. When we finally stood to leave, I didn't want to part from him.
After lunch, we stepped out onto the sidewalk, trying to hang on to the warm cozy feeling of the restaurant despite the honking, shoving crush of rush hour. It was a Monday afternoon; I didn't have to work that night, but I was still unsure of myself so I stood holding my backpack strap in one hand and laughing nervously.
“God, I'd like to have a go at those lips,” he said finally.
“So what's stopping you?”
He grinned and blushed. He took a half step back and then, realizing what he'd done, stepped closer to me. We could almost pretend that the rush of people along the sidewalk was forcing us together. I could feel the heat of his body, smell his cologne. He laughed again and I leaned forward, planting a kiss on his beautiful, full lips, surprising us both. He leaned into the kiss, but softly, melting in my direction rather than taking a step. The kiss lasted an instant, but when I pulled back and opened my eyes I could see the heat in his.
“Oh, fuck it,” he said, grabbing my elbow and yanking me into the flow of pedestrian traffic. He glanced over his shoulder
and pulled me down the next street, heading back toward Times Square.
“Where are we going?”
“Someplace private.” He looked over my shoulder again, pulled me across the street between a pair of tour buses, through a group of Asian tourists and into a Starbucks, then out the back door of the Starbucks and into the lobby of a hotel. We caught an elevator and he pressed the UP button, taking my hand in his and kissing my knuckles. The older straight couple with whom we shared the elevator seemed unfazed. I stepped closer to him, drawing his scent deep into my lungs. The elevator chimed and he pulled me through the door with him. I trailed along behind him through a conference center teeming with people in expesive suits.
“I take it you've been here before?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he said.
“Um, where are we going?”
He looked over his shoulder with that dazzling grin of his. “Play with me, baby,” he said. And he pulled me down a short corridor into a secluded restroom.
Three urinals faced three fully enclosed cubicles.
“Wait a minute.” I stopped in my tracks.
“What?”
“A bathroom?” I said. “Really?”
“It's secluded.”
“It's a bathroom.”
“It's clean and the door goes all the way to the floor.”
I stood watching him. He didn't grow impatient; he just stared at me hungrily and waited. I could see the bulge in his jeans shifting as blood rushed to his growing erection.
“C'mon,” he said. “You're a rebel, Ashe.”
“I'm a rebel?”
“Voice of the people, scourge of corporate America.”
“You dragged me in here to make fun of me?” I laughed nervously.
“I dragged you in here to ravage you away from the prying eyes of the city.”
I reached out and slid my palm along the length of his erection, feeling the heat beneath the tight denim. My own cock leapt to attention.
“So, do you come here often?” I asked.
“Ugh. You're killin' me,” he said. “Get in here. C'mon, before somebody comes in. Come kiss me.”
He opened the door and tugged me into the cubicle.
“What are we going to tell our grandchildren?” I asked as he closed and locked the door behind us.
“We'll tell them it started with a shoe.”
“There's always a shoe,” I said, turning to face him.
“And a charming prince,” he said.
I blushed.
He lifted my backpack off my shoulder, hung it on the hook behind me and pulled me roughly against him. Our chests touched for the first time and I realized his body was hard and perfect beneath the flawless white cotton. I pushed closer, trying to make as much contact as possible and we kissed, not the soft, public kiss we'd shared on Eighth Avenue, but a full, insistent kiss that felt like an erotic eating contest.
His hands fumbled with my belt buckle and then my jeans and in an instant his long cool fingers were sliding along the length of my cock. He pushed my jeans down past my hips and held my cock in his hands, thumbing the slit to harvest a tiny pearl of precum. He raised his hand, looking intently at the viscous liquid and then smearing it across my lips. I shivered and he laughed that gentle, sexy laugh.
I pulled him close for another kiss, my cock sliding
insistently against the front of his jeans. I unbuttoned his Oxford and pushed his T-shirt up, revealing planes of lightly furred muscles. We were kissing and rubbing our erections against each other, laughing, breathing heavy and making a lot of noise when there was a loud knock on the cubicle door.
We froze. His face went pale.
Another knock: five loud raps and then silence.
“Occupied,” I said.
Fletcher stifled a snort of laughter.
“No shit, kid. This is hotel security. Get the fuck outta here or I'm calling the police. You got thirty seconds to beat it.” I held my breath and listened to his footsteps as he walked across the tile floor and stepped through the door onto the carpet beyond.
“
Shit!
” My heart was trying to pound its way through my rib cage. My whole body jumped to life, the adrenaline spike so intense I felt like the Six Million Dollar Man. I was ready to outrun anyone.
“What are you doing?” Fletcher asked.
“What?”
“You're making that sound,” he said, “and moving in slow motion or whatever?”
“Bionics,” I said. “
Duh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh.”
He rolled his eyes. “Well, come on, Steve Austin, let's get out of here.”
When we pushed through the restroom door there was nobody in sight, but when we fast-walked through the hotel lobby, a trio of guys in burgundy jackets and matching Blue-tooths appeared out of nowhere and started following us. Fletcher grabbed my hand, pulling me out onto the street and hailing a cab. He shoved me inside and dove in after me. We were halfway down the block and the three security guards were still standing in the street watching us.
“Where do you live?” he asked.
I hesitated. I lived in a tiny one-bedroom apartment with a roommate. I looked down at his perfect hands jutting from perfectly ironed, spotless white cuffs, and I froze, embarrassed and undecided about what to do next.
“What's the matter?” he asked. He touched my cheek. “It's okay.”
I shook my head, changing the subject. “That was intense.”
“Yeah, I guess so. Sorry. I never thought⦔ His voice trailed off.
He slid close to me and kissed me gently on the lips, his fingers gliding along my thigh and gently kneading the life back into my cock.
I gave the driver the cross streets.
My roommate, Bayani, was gone when we got to the apartment, so I dragged Fletcher into the tiny bedroom and locked the door behind us. He looked around, reading the titles of the books lined up on the shelves, scanning the posters and flyers that cluttered the walls on my half of the room.
“Street theater, political causes, boycotts, âFight Corporate Domination,' and this⦔ He pointed to a poster for the Disney production of
Cinderella
at the New Amsterdam.
“It's Rogers and Hammerstein,” I said.
“Big Broadway is big business,” he said.
“I should boycott art because it's corporately produced?”
He pointed to a bumper sticker tacked up over my desk. “You're boycotting NBC because it's owned by a defense contractor.”
“Disney isn't a defense contractor.”
There was an awkward moment of silence. He looked at me and winked. “It's okay. I'm just learning about you,” he said. “And playing with you a little.”
“Come play over here,” I whispered.
“I'm almost done here,” he said.
I dropped my backpack on the floor, kicked off my shoes and sat on my bed watching him.
“I love that you're so passionate about what you believe,” he said. “These political causes and the incident in the shoe store; I like that a lot.”
“Thanks?”
He turned around to face me. “I've never really been very politically active. I leave that to my father, or the family attorneys, you know; I never get too involved in anything.”
“Not in anything at all?”
He smiled again. “Well, some things warrant involvement.”
“So come get involved,” I said. “
Now!
”
He chuckled, kicked off his shoes and stood at the edge of the bed looking at me.
“Sorry about the hotel thing,” he said. “That was stupid.”
“Nah. It's okay, Iâ”
“C'mere.” He didn't wait for me to respond, he just pulled me over to the edge of the bed and started yanking my shirt up over my head. He stripped me out of my clothes and then slowly, his eyes never leaving mine, took off his own clothes. He was gym-toned and perfect, his chest and legs covered in dark, closely manicured fur. His body tapered from broad, muscular shoulders to ribs and rippling abs in a perfect
V-
shape.
I pulled him on top of me and we rolled around for a while, kissing and exploring each other. His cock was long and straight with an intimidatingly large head that left streaks of shimmery precum on my legs, my stomach and my cheeks. The heady saltiness of his skin made me want to take a bite out of him.
He rolled on top of me, spreading my arms above my head and pinning me to the mattress. “Don't move,” he whispered,
sliding his tongue inside my ear and sending a shiver down the length of my body. A dimpled landscape of goose bumps appeared across my arms and legs.
He kissed and licked his way down the side of my face and neck, and then wandered toward my left armpit. When his tongue touched the delicate skin under my arm, my body jerked involuntarily.