"Hey..." Gray's sleepy voice interrupted them. "Keep it down, will you?"
"Good morning, Gray." Charles kept his voice even. "I've got coffee if you want it."
"Later. Got to sleep. Christ, what time did we get to bed anyway?" Gray's voice died away to a murmur and the bed creaked as he rolled over and tugged the covers over his head.
Charles chuckled softly and turned his attention back to Carl. "Maybe you do get a coffee after
all. I'd prefer it if you got dressed first, though."
He got a baffled glare and then a shrug. "Okay. I dress; we talk."
"If we must."
"Oh, we so fucking must," Carl snapped in what Charles imagined was an attempt at an English
accent.
In jeans and a white T-shirt, Carl looked bulkier and more threatening, but he accepted Gray's
unwanted coffee with a grunt, stirring in another spoonful of sugar without tasting it first.
Charles pulled back the curtains and they sat at the small table, sipping the coffee in silence for a
while.
"You didn't buy it, did you?" Carl eyed him resentfully. "What's the matter? Think I'm not good
Drawing Closer - 86
enough for him?"
"As a friend? You're perfect. As a lover? Do I really have to answer that?"
"We do sleep together."
"I sleep with my cat on occasion. It doesn't mean we're fucking."
Carl choked on a mouthful of coffee and gave him a reproachful look. "Dude."
“Sorry.”
“You can’t blame me for caring. When I saw his ass, I just--"
“Oh…” Charles mentally apologized to Gray. Not indiscreet. Just careless. “I can see how that
must have worried you.”
“Totally.”
God, he was so young. They both were. “You don’t have much experience with, ah, alternative
lifestyles?”
“I don’t get my kicks the way you do, if that’s what you mean!”
“The way
we
do,” Charles corrected him.
"He didn't want that before you came along."
"How do you know?" Charles held Carl's gaze until he got what he wanted -- surrender.
"It's fucking sick."
"You're entitled to your opinion."
"I could tell--" Carl subsided before his threat was voiced. "No. I wouldn't. I just -- this changes shit, you know?"
"No." Charles wasn't backing down on this point. Carl had to
see…
"His sex life -- and certainly mine -- is none of your business. I can't imagine why you think that it is."
"We're close."
"Perhaps you're too close," Charles suggested mildly.
Drawing Closer - 87
"Fuck off."
It was said without heat and Charles smiled. "No."
"You will in the end." Carl jerked his head in the direction of the bedroom. "He's hard to live with; he gets in these moods when the painting's not going well…" He rolled his eyes. "Shit, even I'd agree he needs his fucking ass kicked when he gets like that. You haven't seen him."
"I can handle him." Looking forward to it, in fact.
"You'll be the first, then. Everyone else just bails on him."
"Apart from you."
"Yeah." Carl smiled at him, an easy, confident smile. "I stick around."
"Why?"
"Because it's what I
do
, dude." Carl waved his hand impatiently. "What's your fucking problem with that?"
"I don't have a problem with you being his friend. I do have… issues with you wanting to be his
keeper."
Carl looked as if he was about to refute that, a scowl wiping away his smile, but then he sighed.
"That's how it looks to you?"
"Very much so." Charles wasn't in the mood to be anything but frank. Carl was… a problem, one
he wanted to deal with. He didn't like the way that Carl had homed in on disclosure as a potential
threat; it wasn't one which could get him into any legal trouble but it wouldn't be pleasant to have
his history raked up and his relationship with Gray smeared by gossip and innuendo. Carl would
be sorry, afterwards, no doubt, but the eggs would still be broken, the cat still out of the bag, the
horse -- Charles bit down on his lip before his brain threw out any more clichés.
"You're worried that you'll lose his friendship because there's a part of his life that's off-limits."
"Something like that," Carl murmured, not meeting Charles' eyes. "Because I sure as hell can't see us discussing anything he does with you in bed, you know?"
Charles didn't bother trying to keep the impatience out of his voice. "Why would you? With
anyone he's fucking? You're not teenagers snickering over a bloody skin mag together! It's nothing
to do with you."
Carl ran his finger up the side of his coffee, catching a drip and smearing it against the side of the
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cup, giving it all of his attention as Charles waited. "He's not fucking you, though, is he?" he said finally.
"Of course, he is--" Charles ran his hands over his face, his eyes closed, needing a moment when he couldn't see Carl's stubborn, closed expression. "Now you've got me doing what I just said
you shouldn't."
"Huh." Carl looked just a little smug. "I'm a persuasive guy."
"He fucks me." Carl blinked and Charles forced himself to continue. "Look, I mean it. I'm telling you the literal truth."
"Didn't think it worked that way."
"Oh, this is impossible," Charles muttered. "Carl? That way? There
is
no 'that way'. There's just the two of us doing--"
"Don't wanna know."
"Fine." Frustrated, Charles took a gulp of cooling coffee. "Then don't make arrogant, ill-informed assumptions."
"Hey!"
"What?" Charles shot back.
"Look, you're the one into the freaky shit, not me."
Impossible not to laugh. "Carl, trust me, I'm -- what we do is just so--" He took a deep breath.
"We're playing. It could be far more than that but I lost touch with that world a long time ago and there are… reasons why I'm not inclined to go back. If anything, Gray's more likely to be the one
pushing my limits in time."
"Playing." The word hung between them. "He's got
bruises
."
"He's not collared. He's not marked. He's not under any control of mine when we're not…
playing -- which is why it
is
play," Charles argued.
Carl flushed. "He's not what? Oh, God. Oh, God, tell me you're making all that up."
"
No
." God, this was profoundly irritating. "This -- it's something I like. It turns me on. When I was younger, it was something I was into, yes -- but it's not my life. I know people -- friends --
for whom it is. 24/7. Every decision made for them, total control given and received. That's too
much for me." He glanced over at the bedroom. "And it wouldn't suit Gray."
Drawing Closer - 89
"No shit." Carl swallowed. "You know--"
Charles stood up. "This conversation is over. I've told you more than I wanted to -- more than
you had a right to expect. Now, you can accept that Gray's still Gray and your best friend or you
can continue to act out like a spoiled kid and risk losing him."
"You think he'd choose you over me if I pushed him on it?" Carl demanded, his chair scraping
over the floor as he got to his feet.
"You know him better than I do; you tell me."
Carl shook his head. "Man, right now? I wouldn't like to say. Too close to call."
"I'm flattered," Charles said seriously. "And impressed by your honesty."
Carl grinned. "You think it'd be you, don't you?"
Charles grinned back, all teeth. "Oh, yes."
The punch to his shoulder was meant to be friendly, he was sure of it.
It still left a bruise.
Somehow, he thought that would please Carl quite a bit.
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"Carl's shut up about us." Gray stretched out lazily, kicking at a pillow that had somehow
migrated to the bottom of the bed and eying Charles, who was still fully dressed and sitting
beside him when he should've been busy getting undressed, in Gray's opinion. "What did you do
to him yesterday?"
"Nothing."
Charles' bed was getting to be his favorite place to fuck, Gray decided. Wide, firm -- oh, who was
he kidding? It was the way Charles could tie him to it that he loved. And if he was lucky -- if he
begged--
One of Charles' eyebrows lifted when Gray gave an involuntary shiver. "Hmm?"
"Nothing."
"Didn't I just say that?" Charles asked, a smile crinkling the corners of his eyes. Gray couldn't get that crease of skin captured on paper no matter how many times he tried; too fleeting. "If I
elaborate and tell you that I just had a chat with Carl and convinced him that I'm not the monster
of depravity he seemed to think I was, will you tell me why you gave that delightful little shiver
just then?"
Gray closed his eyes, feeling his face heat. "I -- you know I hate doing that. Talking about it.
What's to say?"
"I need to know what you like doing." Charles made it sound reasonable, as if twenty minutes
spent discussing just why Gray preferred being fucked from behind to on his back was a
conversation everyone had. And Gray wasn't sure Charles was done with that topic. He'd been
thinking about it, off and on, and if -- when -- Charles asked him again, he'd have a better answer
than the flip ones that had got him punished by a gently closing door as Charles sent him on his
way, frustrated, resentful and still half-hard.
"If I don't tell you, what will you do to me?" And he'd only just gotten here, only just stripped, so if Charles tried to kick him out he'd handcuff himself to the fucking bed and swallow the
key…
"Nothing," Charles said, with a smile that got wider as Gray glared at him.
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"You know, that hurts you, too," he pointed out. "Or don't you want me?"
"I do, and it does, yes. But I'm considerably more patient than you and I'm used to waiting for
what I want."
Charles leaned closer, giving him a kiss that left Gray's mouth hungry for more, chasing after
another kiss he didn't get because Charles had stood up and gone to lounge in the leather armchair
in the corner.
The one with the wide seat, big enough for two people to share if one was straddling the other's
lap; the one with the back marked up by Gray's fingernails scrabbling frantically for a grip as
Charles drove into him with a merciless precision of rhythm, unvaried and maddeningly slow.
That chair.
Seeing Charles sitting in it, one leg thrown over the other, the soft, loose sweater he was wearing
hinting at the strength of the body under it, no more, was like staring at candy in a store when he
was a kid who'd spent all his allowance.
"Can I--" Gray swallowed, thinking about how to say it, knowing Charles wouldn't give him hell for stammering over it, but wanting to get it right, wanting to be perfect for him, the way he had
been in class, rehearsing questions and answers in his head, polishing them apple-bright. "Can I
tell you over there? Sitting with you?"
Charles blinked, looking a little disconcerted. Gray liked that. He liked Charles knowing what to
do; it made him feel… safe. Charles had never once hurt him past what he'd intended to do or
Gray had asked for. Never left accidental marks on him, not once. All deliberate. All placed
carefully, none lasting more than a few days, not really. Soft, surface stuff.
Yeah, he liked Charles being experienced -- but it didn't mean he didn't get a kick out of surprising
the man from time to time.
"Of course," Charles said finally. He crooked his finger. "Come here, Gray."
The jolt of arousal from
that
meant that Gray couldn't go anywhere for a long three seconds and when he did, he had to pay Charles back, just had to.
Holding Charles' gaze, he rolled and turned until he was kneeling on the bed facing Charles. He
crawled to the foot of the bed, slid off it to the floor and kept on crawling, head up, watching
Charles' expression. Payback. Charles looked close to the way he did just before he came, mouth
tight, breathing audible, eyes narrowed, hot as hell, all focused and about to come undone.
"Oh, you…" Charles murmured. Gray waited at Charles' feet, on his hands and knees still, and
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felt the urge to play it for laughs, nudge Charles' leg and meow, maybe, fade. He was shivering
again, shaking, trembling, not visibly, not so much, just inside. "Stop it," Charles told him, his hand stroking Gray's hair, playing with it, pushing it back. "It's all right."
"This is scaring me," Gray whispered. "Wanting to do this--"
"You don't have to."
"Yeah, but I
want
to."
He felt the fine tremors solidify into a single jerk, like the one he got sometimes just as he was
falling asleep, and then his body relaxed, warmth flooding it.
"I'm kneeling…"
"Yes…"
He let his head drop away from Charles' hand, breathing slow and deep, and waiting for Charles'
hand to slip under his chin and bring his head up again. Charles didn't touch him. Gray focused on
what he could see without moving: the thick, dark green carpet, the wooden leg of the chair, and
Charles' foot, in a black sock, inside out for some reason, the inner seam showing. That small,
prosaic detail made it all seem real but the steady throb of blood in his stiffening cock belonged to
his fantasies.
"I'm on my knees, Charles--" Drowning here. He could hear the panic in his voice, but he'd done this to himself, hadn't he? His bright idea to crawl, and now his legs didn't work and he was dizzy
and so fucking turned on, and why wasn't Charles
doing
something?