Wishing on a Blue Star (48 page)

“I really like your style,” Duncan said as he put his hands on Matthew’s shoulders and steered him back to the desk near the window.  “But that’s not what I wanted to show you.”  Duncan picked up a well-worn, dog-eared paperback from beside the laptop computer and held it out to Matthew.  “This is what I wanted to show you.”

Matthew took the book and studied it.  “It’s my first novel,
Slowly Again.
”

“I know.”  Duncan turned himself around so that he could lean against the mahogany desk and be face-to-face with Matthew.  “Do you believe in fate?”

“I believe in everything.”  Matthew closed the book, but kept it in his hands as he felt Duncan draw him closer.  “I’m a writer.”

“I know that, too.”  Duncan pulled Matthew even closer and wrapped his arms around the slimmed-down waist.  “You’ve made really good progress in the last thirty days.”

“Thank you,” Matthew said as he felt the heat rise in his cheeks.  “I can’t cheat or get away with slacking.”  Matthew leaned against the solid muscles of Duncan’s chest and stole a quick kiss.  “The instructor is always watching me for some reason.”  He watched Duncan’s gaze fall to his lips, could feel the heat of Duncan’s erection through two layers of jeans, and felt his eyes flutter shut when their lips made contact again.

Without letting go of the book, Matthew pressed himself against Duncan’s considerable erection and let his free hand travel over the tense muscles of shoulder, bicep, traps and lats.  The strong, capable hands that had touched him often during the time they’d been seeing each other seemed different to Matthew.  There was something familiar yet new, confident yet hesitant about the way Duncan was holding him, kissing him, petting him.

“I, uh…” 

Matthew heard the sounds and opened his eyes reluctantly, the taste of Duncan still on his lips.  He looked into Duncan’s blue eyes while he waited.

“I wanted to show you that copy because…”  Duncan took the book from Matthew’s hand and held it between them.  After a few seconds, he saw Duncan shrug and look down at the book.  “Well, you saved my life.”

Matthew wasn’t sure if he’d heard the words correctly, or perhaps it was just the order of the words that had him momentarily confused.  “Me?”

“Yes,” Duncan said as a small laugh of disbelief escaped his lips.  “You.”

“How did I save your life?  We only met a couple of weeks ago.”

Without letting go of the book or Matthew, Duncan maneuvered them over to the small plaid love seat that sat under the picture window of the study.  He relinquished his grip on Matthew and the two of them sat facing each other.  “I’ll give you the short version,” Duncan quipped as he opened the book to the first of the many dog-eared pages, the one with the dedication.  “I enlisted when I was sixteen because I was flunking out of school and the Marines seemed my only hope.  It was the early nineties and it was either drugs or the Marines.” 

Matthew wanted to open his mouth and say something, but he kept himself in check while he waited for Duncan to finish his story.  How had he never known about any of this?  How had none of this come up in their conversations before?

“My mother had died and my father was never around.  They’d divorced when I was only five years old and he remarried almost right away.”  Duncan shook his head as if he were trying to get himself back to the version he’d wanted to tell.  “Anyway, I ended up joining the Marines, seeing combat a few times.  I thought I could do it, but I just couldn’t.  I couldn’t kill people.”  Duncan’s grasp on the book seemed to tighten and Matthew was about to explain that Duncan didn’t need to relive all of this just for his sake.  But then Duncan cleared his throat and began again.  “When I got out, I didn’t know what to do, so I got a job as a carpenter.”

Matthew looked around the room, following Duncan’s eyes; it was obvious to Matthew that Duncan took a great deal of pride in his craftsmanship.  He wanted to say something about how beautiful all of the woodwork was, but decided it was best to keep quiet.

“I was happy for a while, took a lot of pride in building beautiful things for other people, but there was something missing.  It took me a long time to figure out what was missing:  I wasn’t building anything that I could hold onto.  Everything I built was for someone else.  I was feeling really lost until one day I was doing some work for this gay couple down the street from where I was living.”  Duncan held up the book.  “I heard one of the men talking about this phenomenal book about a grunt who was wrestling with figuring out he was gay.”  Duncan caressed the cover of the book.  “I never had a problem with being gay, but the way this man talked about the book made me think that there might be something worth reading inside.”

Unable to control himself any longer, Matthew reached out and took hold of Duncan’s strong hand, turning it over and caressing the calluses that dotted the fingers and palm.

“I stayed up all night reading it.”  Duncan let go of a muted snort.  “I had no idea that it would have such graphic sex scenes, but even they were telling me the same thing as the rest of the story.”  Duncan shrugged once and lowered his eyes.  “I spent most of the next couple of weeks reading the book over and over.  There was just something so powerful in your words, something that made me want to be like the soldier in the story.  I wanted to be like him, go after what I wanted like he did.  I’d close my eyes sometimes and see what my life could be like.”

Matthew was struck dumb; he’d never heard Duncan speak like this.  They’d only been seeing each for two weeks or so, but it was still something of a shock to realize how reserved and shy Duncan really was.  He wondered if this was the way all marines were, stoic and strong and silent.  “
Thank you
just doesn’t seem to be enough right now,” Matthew said, laughing, as he reached out for Duncan’s hands.  “That’s the best thing anyone has ever said about my book.”  He leaned across the small space that separated them and placed a long, gentle kiss on Duncan’s lips.  “I think that’s the most you’ve ever told me about yourself.”

“Yeah,” Duncan said with another shrug.  “It’s a Marine thing.”  Duncan leaned forward over the small space that separated them and kissed Matthew, passionately.  Matthew’s eyes fluttered open when he felt the cool air caress his swollen lips.  Duncan brought his hand up slowly to cup Matthew’s jaw.  “We don’t say much, but when we do, we mean it.”  Duncan looked down as he took Matthew’s hand in his.  He kissed the sensitive palm first before placing the hand on his thigh, leaning forward to take Matthew’s swollen lips in a searing kiss.

Matthew’s eyes closed, his body feeling as if it were on fire with the feel and taste of Duncan’s desire for him.  Matthew’s hands seemed to move as if they had a mind of their own, pulling at Duncan’s shirt.  Soon, they were both free of their shirts, the heated skin of Matthew’s torso yearning for the excited and gentle touch of Duncan’s skilled hands.

Matthew didn’t know what Duncan wanted, but he knew what he’d been dreaming of doing to that incredible body since he’d first seen it almost a month ago.  He pushed gently on the broad muscled shoulders until he hovered over the blue eyes filled with want.  Without saying anything, Matthew lowered his lips to Duncan’s, one arm braced beside the handsome face while the other worked efficiently to undo the buttons of their Levi’s.

After a few frantic moments, during which Matthew wondered if he even remembered how to undo a button, he felt Duncan’s hand come up to steady his, their lips still tasting, exploring and claiming.  And as their erections sprang free of the confines of jeans and boxers, Matthew was quite convinced that he would never experience anything quite so exquisite again.  His senses were all on overdrive:  the scent of Duncan’s cologne mixed with something uniquely Duncan; the taste of Duncan’s mouth and skin; the sight of the beautiful blue eyes filled with desire; the sound of his bass voice, purring and encouraging.  And that first touch of skin to skin, that first, seemingly interminable moment, when he could feel the excitement he was causing in this other man’s body.

Free of their clothes, Matthew found himself on his back know, not really knowing when they had changed positions.  Duncan’s muscled thighs were between his, their erections leaking and pressing while the two men found a rhythm.  As Duncan’s mouth moved between his lips and his ears, between tasting and whispering, Matthew felt himself letting go of his final reserves of control.  He took both of their cocks into one of his hands, the rhythm purposeful but unhurried.  He pulled his knees up closer to his own chest, an open invitation to Duncan. 
I’m yours, all yours.  There’ll never be any other for me.

But Duncan did nothing more than he was already doing; he kissed any skin he could reach, explored Matthew’s willing body with his strong hands and whispered words into Matthew’s ear.  They were the words that Matthew had always wanted to hear from someone as kind, as sexy and as attentive as Duncan; the words that sent Matthew over the edge and into a euphoria he’d often written about but never experienced.

As he felt his body come down from the most powerful climax he’d ever experienced, Matthew opened his eyes to see that Duncan’s were closed.  Matthew felt Duncan’s heat on his belly seconds later and then felt the cool air lick at his sensitive skin moments after that.  Matthew might have panicked, but he heard the water running and just knew that Duncan was the kind of lover who would be getting something to clean them.

He felt the warm washcloth and looked up at the handsome face; Duncan was smiling at him.  It was the kind of smile that Matthew knew was on his own face as well.

When Duncan had finished wiping Matthew’s belly and chest, he sat down on the loveseat and cleared his throat.  “I know it may seem sudden, but…I love you, Matthew.”

For the first time in as long as he could remember, Matthew wasn’t the first to say it.  Nor did Matthew convince himself that he believed them; he didn’t have to.  Everything Matthew needed to know about Duncan was right there behind those blue eyes.  “I love you, too, Duncan.”  Without really knowing why, Matthew found himself unable to suppress a giggle.

“What’s funny?”  Duncan asked as he stretched his long body beside Matthew’s.

“Me…You…This.”  Matthew shook his head, worried momentarily that he had hurt Duncan’s feelings.  Matthew shook his head in disbelief, remembering the notebook he had purchased to do some writing.  He’d hoped to figure out how his life had gone so far from what he thought it should be.  He picked up the book from the coffee table.  “Who would have ever thought that this book would lead us both to what we wanted?”  Matthew squeezed Duncan’s hand.  “And your program?”  Matthew let go of a one-note laugh and shook his head, again.  “You promised a different me in 90 days, and you managed to do it only thirty.”

“I am good, huh?”  Duncan offered a wink.  “There’s a quote that I read a long time ago.”  Duncan cleared his throat.  “The message was that the difficult times in life can be endured as long as we realize that our lives hold purpose…that we have a cause to pursue or a goal to achieve…or a person to love.”

“Did I write that?”  Matthew said, his tone teasing.  “I
am
good.”

Duncan’s booming bass laughter filled the small study.  “I don’t know if you did or not, but you’re definitely the reason my life has purpose…Well, one of the most important reasons
anyway.”

“Good enough for me,” Matthew said and stole another kiss.  “Now,” he said after a few moments.  He stood up and held out his hand.  He watched Duncan raise himself off the love seat, Matthew trying to achieve the simultaneous look of pending mischief and wonton lust.  As he led Duncan to the stairs
—
and the bedroom
—
he wrapped his arm around the trim waist.  “I remember you telling me something about an unfulfilled fantasy?”

Friday, August 13, 2010

Needs Must

I don’t get out much anymore. That’s a given. Sometimes it is because I am too tired to drive, sometimes the drugs dont work, and sometimes they work too well.

Occasionally though, someone comes to my rescue. :)

After two weeks of hell which eventually saw several significant changes in my situation, the set decorator I worked with for more than ten years as a leadman dropped by for a visit, and time stood still for a day.

More than a hundred years ago, the planners of a tiny town in Oregon decided to build a natural masonry dam which would power a paper mill. The project collapsed some ten years later due to floods and erosion, and a hundred years after that became our playground.

Although it is small, the area is deemed a state park and like so many other parks in Oregon, are free to visit.

Sean and I drove roughly a half hour on a warm, windless day and talked. And talked. And laughed, and skirted around unpleasantries, and generally caught up with each other until we arrived to a parking lot just off the main highway.

As we descended a long metal stairway down to an observation point, me slowly and he patiently, I found myself gripped-- no, seized-- by a pang so sharp my breath caught.

“I may never see this place again.”

Never mind that I live only half an hour away. In my sometimes condition, it might as well be a million miles away.

Never mind that any one of a dozen people would bring me if I asked, and even perhaps enjoy the experience. It had taken me nearly thirty years to finally stop long enough to look at the ruins of a tiny park I had driven past easily dozens of times before.