“
What’s that supposed to mean
?” Zane mocked. “It means quit living your wet dreams through us.” He pointed meaningfully at the bathroom door.
Elliot actually blushed. Zane saw a spot to needle him and possibly defend his own masculinity.
“You should go in there and see if he needs any help,” Zane said.
“Yeah,” Davey said, thrusting his hips. “Get in there and bang him over the sink. Slam him hard!”
“Shhh!” Elliot hissed. “God, you guys are fucking perverts!”
“You know you want to,” Zane said. His voice had gone a bit squeaky from the hip-thrust thing, which, incidentally, had been right against his thigh. “Go ask him if he wants some American culture in him.”
“Oh my God,” Elliot said as he crawled to the edge of the bed and slid off. He made a rude gesture at Davey and headed toward the bathroom door.
“What are you doing!” Davey called. “Are you really going in there?”
Elliot waved a hand distractedly and inclined his head toward the door. Zane laughed.
“What’re you doing El?” Zane asked. “Listening to him piss? You got some scary fetishes.”
“The water is running,” Elliot said, fixing them with a dark look and came back to the bed. “He’s washing his hands.”
“Or maybe he needed a cold shower,” Davey said. “You could go in there and heat it up for him. Shower sex is hot. The water, the tile, the soap all slippery, everything all slick and lubricated…”
Zane subtly shifted more of the blanket into his crotch area.
Elliot stood at the foot of the bed, hands resting on the carved footboard, glowering at them. “You’re so funny,” Elliot said to Davey.
The bathroom door opened, and they all attempted to look innocent. Elliot smiled at Cristiano as he joined him at the foot of the bed.
“So, are we going to breakfast?” Cristiano asked. His cheeks were flushed, his eyes sparkling.
“Yes!” Elliot slapped his hand on the footboard. “Come on, up out of bed! It’s time for food!”
Zane panicked. He looked sideways at Davey.
Davey chuckled and rolled toward Zane, half-burying his face in the pillow. He whispered, “Shit.”
“What?” Zane asked and then swallowed, trying to think of non-sexy things. Kittens, green meadows, sandcastles, his grandmother in a thong eating peanut butter…
“I can’t get up right now,” Davey murmured. “I need a moment.”
Zane did too.
He looked anxiously at Elliot. “We’re coming,” Zane said.
Or we need to be.
“Go get dressed. We’ll meet you downstairs.”
Elliot arched an eyebrow with a smirk. “You’ve got exactly fifteen minutes. Exactly.”
Once they were gone, Zane looked hesitantly at Davey. Davey lifted his face from the pillow and smiled. He seemed unruffled, as always. Davey never got nervous.
“Awkward,” Davey said.
“A little,” Zane agreed.
“Don’t feel awkward on my behalf,” Davey said and shrugged. “It’s flattering.”
“It’s probably from the roughhousing and all that.”
Davey chuckled softly. “It’s not because I’m sexy?”
“I didn’t say that.” Zane looked at him, nervousness turning to anxiety.
“So.” Davey glanced around the bed and then looked back at Zane. “Should we just get up? I mean, we both know the other is sporting wood, so does it really matter? Why don’t we just get up, and I’ll go to my room and get dressed, and you can get dressed, and it’ll go away and that’ll be that?”
The plan sounded reasonable.
“All right,” Zane said and sat up. He glanced at the clock on the bedside table, wondering how fast he could dress if he jerked off first.
Davey sat up and crawled off the bed. Zane kept his gaze averted while he pushed the covers off himself and looked for his slippers over the side of the bed.
Davey surprised him by stepping around in front of him. Zane’s gaze instantly went to the protrusion in the front of Davey’s pajama bottoms. Then he looked up at his face.
Davey smiled faintly and leaned over. He plucked something from the bedside table.
“Took my necklace off when I came in,” Davey said. “Didn’t want it broken.”
Davey turned and walked to the door connecting their rooms, not at all moving like a man sporting an impressive erection. He tossed Zane a glance over his shoulder before slipping through the door.
Zane got off in under three minutes. He had plenty of time to dress.
Chapter 2
Several hours later, Zane sat in Elliot’s chair, sipping from a water bottle and watching his charge get chewed out by the director, as expected. Even under the tent for the actors, the temperature soared, and Zane wished the water were a nice cold beer. Being a personal assistant involved a lot of waiting around, but a good bit of his idle time he spent studying Saul, so he considered the hardship fair trade -- Zane wanted to direct, eventually.
Davey stood nearby, arms crossed, squinting out into the sunlight. He had to be vigilant lest someone pop a button or lose an accessory.
“When do you think he’s going to come out?” Davey asked.
Zane had the bottle halfway to his mouth and stopped. Davey was referring to Elliot, he assumed.
“Whenever he wants to,” Zane said. “I’ve only known him about a year. We met at a party in Hollywood. He’s a lot less blatant back home.”
“It’s a shame,” Davey said and looked over at Zane. “When you’re in the public eye, you have to be careful what you say and do. It’s much easier for me. Of course, I’ve dated my fair share of women too.”
Zane wedged the bottle into the cup holder in the arm of the chair. “Good for you.”
“In my line of work, they almost expect you to be gay.”
Elliot came storming back to the tent looking disgruntled and stopped to talk to Cristiano, who stood just beneath the edge of the canopy. They looked odd together, Elliot in his costume breeches and waistcoat and Cristiano in jeans and a gauzy white shirt.
“So, you enjoy being a personal servant?” Davey asked.
“I get paid for it!” Zane snapped. “And what I really want to do is direct.” He nodded toward Saul, standing out under the blazing sun talking to the camera crew.
Saul was a tall, broad-shouldered man with an unkempt shock of black hair, a little wild-eyed, full of personality.
“You can’t just dive in and start directing though, not without backing,” Zane said. “You have to take every shit job in the industry, get your face out there, get recognized. I jumped at the chance to come here with Elliot. Getting the opportunity to watch Saul Brennan work is more of an education than I ever got at Columbia.”
“I know how you feel,” Davey said and looked over at Cristiano. “I probably would have done this for free just to work with him.”
Zane decided not to expound on how hard his ‘opportunity’ came: badgering Elliot for weeks on end, filling his voicemail with messages, showing up everywhere he went until he resembled a stalker -- Elliot should have called the police instead of finally hiring him. Zane had wanted the job desperately though, a huge deal for a former film student from a little hick town like Hopkinsville, Kentucky.
“I wonder what it was like to be a gay man in Napoleon’s time?” Davey suddenly asked.
Zane looked at him, baffled. “Horrible, I imagine. Homosexuality in early nineteenth century France, especially in the military, was punishable by death.”
“That would have made it all the more exciting,” Davey said. “Clandestine encounters. Quick, dirty sex.”
“I’m not sure how attractive it would be when the consequence of getting caught was a sword to your neck.”
“Imagine it. Secret lovers, grueling away on the march. One comes to the other’s tent at night, burning up with passion. All he’s been able to think about is touching his lover, tasting him. Being inside him. He’s been denied so long he can barely breathe. But they’re together, at last.”
Zane had learned Davey liked to talk. A lot.
“You should write romance novels,” Zane said. “Maybe if the fashion industry doesn’t work out for you.”
“I bet it’s rough and hot,” Davey rambled on. “Nothing pretty about these two. I bet the top has to stuff a rag in the bottom’s mouth to keep him from waking up the entire camp.”
“Is this mental masturbation for you?”
“I’m just speculating,” Davey said with a smile. “You want me to tell you how you could improvise bondage in a military camp?”
“I have to go see if Elliot needs something to drink,” Zane said and got up.
The long, hot day involved organizing and directing numerous extras, and none of the takes seemed to come off right. To his consternation, every time Zane tried to concentrate on Saul, he found himself stealing a glance at Davey instead. He had no intention of coming to Africa and getting his education usurped by a sex-mad costumer. He needed to ignore him and focus.
In contrast to the day, spirits were high that evening during dinner on the breezy hotel patio with drinks all around.
During dessert, Zane and Davey leaned toward each other, both eyeing Elliot and Cristiano across the table. For twenty minutes their employers had been sitting almost on top of each other, talking quietly and completely ignoring everyone else. The steamy looks were enough to turn the table into a sauna.
“They’re gonna do it tonight,” Davey said near Zane’s shoulder.
“Nah, not tonight,” Zane said. “El doesn’t move that quick.”
“Yes, they are,” Davey said, in a sing-song voice. “They’re gonna fuck.” He put special, lascivious emphasis on the word
fuck
.
“No, they aren’t,” Zane said.
Davey leaned over, whispering close to Zane’s ear. “Hot, sweaty fucking all night long, on every piece of furniture in the room. On the floor, too.”
“Have you ever sought counseling for your sexual addiction?”
Davey sat up and looked Zane in the eye. “A hundred bucks says they do.”
Zane snorted. “How are we gonna know if they do?”
“We’ll ask Elliot tomorrow morning. Even if he won’t tell us, we’ll know if he’s lying by the way he denies it.”
Zane rolled his eyes. “Aren’t you ever ashamed of yourself?”
“How do you know they don’t have the same bet on us?”
“Why would they?”
Davey just smirked.
After dinner, everyone said their goodbyes, and Davey shot Zane a smug look when Elliot and Cristiano left together. Then he tugged Zane by the sleeve.
“C’mon,” Davey said “Let’s go for a walk.”
They did, taking their drinks along. Night had begun to fall, and the first stars glittered over the rolling water. They walked to the empty, quiet end of the patio and stopped. They leaned on the railing, shoulders touching, gazing out at the sea.
“How come you haven’t kissed me yet?” Davey asked.
Zane tried to sound startled but failed mostly when he asked, “What makes you think I want to?”
“Don’t you?”
“I…might.”
They were silent for a while. Zane finished off his drink.
“Do I make you nervous?” Davey asked, looking at him. Davey still had a half-full glass of red wine. A few strands of hair fluttered around his cheeks, tugged by the wind.
“You make me…” Zane tried to find something non-incriminating, “uncomfortable. You’re very gregarious.”
“And?” Davey arched an eyebrow.
“And what?”
“And what else am I?”
Zane frowned, tracing his fingertips over the rim of his glass. “You’re -- bold,” he said. “And mouthy. And a pervert.”
“Any good adjectives in there?” Davey propped an elbow on the railing, chin on his hand, smiling.
Zane looked away at the water, then sideways at him. “You’re funny. And -- confident.”
“And sexy? Enough to give you a boner?”
Zane winced. “I’m not really into guys, despite how it may seem.”
“Oh, bullshit,” Davey said. “You don’t have to play Mr. Straight and Narrow with me. Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone. I’m mouthy, but I can keep a secret.”
“Did I mention pushy? You’re very pushy.”
“Some people need to be pushed.”
Zane didn’t like being pushed; he’d been pushed too much when he was younger, but he had a feeling life around Davey would continue to be a shoving match, no matter what.
“I suppose Elliot told you I mess around with a lot of starlets,” Zane said.
“Is that what I am?” Davey bumped his hip against Zane’s and winked. “A starlet?”
“No. And it’s not true, anyway.”
“Of course not.”
They were silent for a while again, and then Zane sighed.
“Kissing -- leads to other things,” Zane said.
“Like?”
“Like what Elliot and Cristiano are probably doing right now.”
Davey smirked and stepped away from the railing. Zane stepped away too, so they were facing each other. Davey looked him in the eye.
“As I was saying,” Davey said, moving in closer, “I can keep a secret.”
“For real?” Zane swallowed.
“For real, for real,” Davey whispered.
Davey’s lips were as soft as they looked. But he kissed hard, which Zane liked, and used his tongue, which Zane liked even more. His body felt warm in the chill off the water.
“We’ve been marching all day,” Davey murmured against his chin. His lips left wet spots which cooled quickly. “Have you been burning for me?”
He slid his hands down Zane’s sides, making Zane aware of his ribs, aware of his hipbones where Davey’s hands settled and squeezed.
“Couldn’t wait to get you alone,” Zane breathed back.
Getting to Zane’s room seemed to take forever, despite the hotel only having one floor and his room being in close proximity to the patio. Shortly after making it to their destination, Davey straddled him on the bed, everything but their shoes still on.
“Did you jerk off this morning after I left?” Davey asked and gazed down at him, a little smile playing on his lips.
“Maybe,” Zane answered. He could still be cool. Even with Davey’s weight across his hips, pressing down on his growing erection.
“You did.” Davey tugged Zane’s shirt up and slid his fingers along his skin. “What were you thinking about?”
“I’m not telling.” Zane watched him. Davey’s hair fell around his face, loose and wild from the wind.
“C’mon, I’ll tell you what I was thinking about.”