The phone woke him out of a dead sleep. He started awake at the shrill ring — old phone, black melamine, tough as nails — and dragged the earpiece off the receiver and into bed as the rest of the phone went crashing to the floor. Far from the first time, and wouldn’t be the last.
“Joe.” Billy. Voice husky. Sounds of… yelling, screaming, small crashing sounds.
“Yeah.” He struggled to open his eyes, wake up. It was Billy. Never mind the ludes from a couple hours earlier. He groped with his other hand for the clock, brought it to his face. Plastic, slight hum, glow in the dark tips on the long and short hands. About quarter to four AM. Dark, cold fucking quarter to four.
“You gotta be fuckin’ kiddin’ me,” Joe yawned. “I just went to bed like an hour ago.”
Another crash; shrill female screaming close to the phone. Close to Billy. Too close to Billy.
( Read more... )
Then Billy was back.
“Joe.”
“What.”
“I really need a ride.”
“The fuck are you?”
“Outside the city. Way rich suburbs.”
“Fuck, Billy. What am I supposed to do about it? I don’t even have a fuckin’ car right now.”
“Just do something. Shit’s getting insane here.”
“Dorene?”
“No.”
“Not Dorene?” Joe couldn’t keep up with the girls Billy tried and tossed aside.
“No.”
Joe paused to consider, then mentally shrugged. Sure, it was warm and cozy under the covers. Sure, he’d be risking his own life to get up and try to drive now, after the downers. Not to mention the fact that he had no wheels. But…
It was Billy.
“Call me back in ten minutes.” How long would it take for the reds to take effect, and for him to gulp down some cold coffee or warm beer?
“Hurry it up.”
“Bitch, bitch, bitch…” Joe hung up the phone, swung his legs out of bed into the cold, damp, basement air, and fumbled for the light switch on the chipped porcelain lamp he’d gotten from his cousins when they moved east.
Billy knew the drill, Joe thought, as he fumbled in his jeans pockets for the uppers he was sure he’d stashed there way earlier in the evening. Call me back in ten meant call me back in twenty. By the time Billy called, Joe would’ve made some phone calls of his own. Maybe found some wheels he could borrow (or steal, if there was no answer but he knew the fucker was home).
Fuck, no reds. Where were they? He stood and grabbed his leather jacket off the floor at the foot of the bed. There they were — inside pocket. Fingering three of them out of the pocket, he tossed them back and then looked around for an open beer to swallow them.
No beer. Damn. He dragged on his jeans and last night’s smoky-smelling T-shirt. Shivered because the clothes were cold. Stumbled to the kitchen.
There was some coffee left in the Mr. Coffee. He drank it cold out of the pot to swallow the speeders that were now sticking to the roof of his dry mouth. Pretty soon he’d be all wired; there’d be nothing to do but ride it out.
Joe scratched his balls through the thinning denim of his jeans and slipped back to the bedroom. He found the phone under the bedclothes he’d cast off when he hung up.
First number: Pipe.
No answer. Probably over at John’s anyway or with the latest girlfuck.
Next number: John.
“Johnny.”
“Joe? What’s wrong? It’s four o’clock.”
“John. Need your wheels.”
“They’re not my wheels, they’re my girlfriend’s. And she’s at work.”
“Fuck.” He’d forgotten Johnny’s girl worked night shift at a downtown diner.
“Joe?”
“I need wheels, man.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Billy.”
“Yeah?”
“Got his ass stuck somewhere, gotta go pick him up.”
“He can’t take transit?”
“If he could, he would be. Who’s got wheels at home right now?”
“Joe…”
* * *
There Billy was, standing on the corner by a fat old tree. In front of a big Victorian in this quiet, posh little neighborhood, he looked skinny and cold in his jeans and leather jacket.
Joe pulled up and leaned over to unlock the passenger door.
Billy yanked it open, got in.
Wrapped his arms around himself.
“A Renault?” was all he said for twenty minutes.
Joe said nothing, just smoked, lit another cig off his own, handed it over to Billy. He knew Billy in these moods. These “I dunno what happened, she just went apeshit” moods.
Course girls went apeshit. ‘Cause they weren’t stupid. Just like Joe wasn’t stupid. Billy was always, always, always going to play around. Nothing serious, nothing major. But he never could keep it in his pants once he figured out how to use it.
Never mind that it was Joe who taught him.
He sighed, cranked the heater up higher, exhaled more smoke into the already smoky interior of the car.
“So,” Billy began.
Joe said nothing.
“So, Joe,” Billy started again, and hesitated.
How did Joe know what Billy was gonna say before he said it?
“Yeah, yeah, you can crash at my place. But you better not get me kicked out again. I got no money, ‘til the next few gigs, and they’re over two months away.”
“Joe.” Just that one word, sad and sorry and a little affectionate.
Joe looked at Billy, really looked at him for the first time since he’d gotten in the car. “Yeah?”
Billy met his gaze, then looked away. “Nothin’.”
“Look Billy, the doctor said to just give it time. Just give it a rest. Down time. No guitar. And it’ll all be okay.”
“Joe, what the fuck!” Billy slammed his fist against the dash board, then winced and stuck his hand into his armpit like it really hurt.
“That’s really gonna help,” Joe said, eyes on the road, but slipping to the right periodically, gauging just how bad Billy was.
He jammed out the butt of his cigarette in the now-overflowing ashtray. Good thing he’d brought two packs. Obviously, Billy had shit on him — no smokes, no money, no nothin’.
And he was more depressed than Joe had ever seen him. This explained all the girl probs, a new girlfuck every weekend — hell, every three days. Hanging out at the record store too much, meeting new chicks: way to escape the negative.
“You’ll be fine, Billy.”
“Joe, what if—”
“You’ll be fine, Billy—”
“Joe—”
Joe wrenched the wheel hard right, pulled over abruptly, rims hitting the kerb. He slammed on the brakes and jammed the car into park so fast that they both jerked forward and back.
“Stop freaking out,” he said, slowly grabbing Billy by the skinny lapels of his leather jacket with all the zippers. “Stop it now,” he enunciated clearly, looking Billy over carefully.
Misery in his cold, blue eyes, mouth a grim line, jaw clenched — this was Billy about as bad as he could ever get. None of the bounce, none of the sly smiles, none of the attitude. Dejection, head to toe, far as Joe could see. Later it would become anger and frustration, and he’d take it out on Joe and Pipe and John. Mostly Joe. But right now Billy was down deep.
“What if I don’t get it back? What if this, this tendonitis or whatever—”
“You do what the doc said, right? Ice? Half hour on, hour off? No guitar? No nothing? No writing? Nothing that overdoes it?” He let go of the lapels and Billy slumped back against the seat.
“Yeah.”
“That’s not what I wanna hear.”
“I said, Yeah.”
“Didn’t sound convincing, Billy.”
“I said, Yeah.”
“Are you really doing it? The ice? The not playing?”
“Yeah.” Pause. Billy shivered, closed his eyes. “No.” Veins at his temple stood out in tiredness.
“Dammit, Billy.” Now it was Joe’s turn to slam his fist on the dash.
“Fuck you, Dick. I’m just the guitarist for the band to you.”
Better than a Jewish mom, Joe thought.
“Listen, you pity party stupid fuck,” he began, “it’s not that. You know, and I know, that you were born to play. And you will. You will have the rest of your short fuckin’ life to play, if you keep pissin’ me off and make me kill you young. But give it a rest. You’ve got time. You’re overdoin’ it, that’s what the doc said. You’re playin’ too much, too long, every day, no rest.”
“But—”
“No buts, Billy. No jamming, no strumming, no nothing. If you want it to come back you gotta lay off for a while. We got over two months ‘til the next gigs. We can—”
“I gotta practice, Joe—”
“Dammit, Billy, you can play our shit in your sleep. Ya don’t need to practice. We all don’t need to practice.”
“That’s what you said when the head of ThinkWank Records came to see us play, and we sucked.”
Jewish mom Billy wasn’t bad enough. There was elephant-memory Billy too.
“That corporate fuck was supposed to come see us play four times and didn’t show. How the fuck was I supposed to—look, that’s not the point. The point is, lay off. You got the rest of your life to play guitar. Right now you need to take it easy, cut it out, give your arm a rest.”
Billy slumped down farther in the seat. “He was not a corporate fuck,” he muttered.
Joe put the car in drive, lit another smoke, and said nothing more. This was that rare appearance of the inconsolable Bill Boisy, not Billy Tallent. Joe knew that boy—knew him like he knew Joey Mulgrew—and knew there was no point talking.
After a while, driving from one side of Vancouver to the other, Joe said, “It’ll get better if you give it time.”
“What if two months isn’t enough time?”
“Keep breaking the doctor’s orders, it won’t be.”
“Even if I do—”
“Shut the fuck up, Billy. And listen to me. You’re the guitarist. Ya need six months off? You got it. A year? You got it.”
“You can’t replace me.”
“We won’t. We just won’t play.”
“We can’t afford not to.”
“We can’t afford you fucking up your arm worse so you can never play again. And neither can you.”
Billy went silent. Turned away. Looked out the window.
Joe pulled up down the street from his apartment. Place to ditch the car, but the cops would probably figure it was him anyway: Joe Dick: Usual Suspect. But these days the upswing in crime meant the cops had little time to waste on punks like him who just moved durable consumer goods from one place to another, and left ‘em in good shape, though reeking of cigarettes. Joe’s thefts never wound up in chop shops.
“We’re here,” Joe said flatly.
“Can’t even jack off,” Billy mumbled, his forehead against the passenger window glass. “Hurts like a bitch. I can’t finish before my arm hurts so bad I gotta stop.”
A warm twinge hit Joe in his belly, but he said nothing.
He ripped the twisted wires apart under the steering column and the engine died. Joe got out of the car, then, and shut the door without slamming it, for once. The steam of his exhalation made clouds in front of him until Billy dragged himself out of the car.
Billy slammed the door, hard. And loudly. A dog started barking.
Joe looked at the sky above him for patience, drew a deep breath, and then exhaled, taking another drag off his smoke.
“Hungry?” he asked.
“No,” Billy mumbled.
Good, Joe thought, because there’s nothing in the fridge, anyway.
“Come on,” he said, turning to trudge down the street, not even looking back at Billy. He’d follow.
Soon they were at Joe’s basement apartment. The dog finally stopped barking.
The best way to get Billy closer to you was to push him away. And that took every ounce of control Joe had, sometimes. Much more than he had, lotta times. It would help if he remembered this point, in his most fiery moments of anger and lust, but he usually didn’t. Only when Billy really was down and out, only when it wasn’t about Joe, did Joe remember how to get to Billy… for Billy’s own good.
Joe turned on the chipped porcelain lamp.
“Chesterfield. Blanket.” He gestured at the worn sofa, and grabbed a blanket off his bed and threw it at the listless Billy.
The look of shock was almost priceless.
“Chesterfield?” Billy said, mouth open, brows narrowing.
“I’m gonna be awake for a while,” Joe said dryly. “I hadda take some uppers to straighten up and come get your ass. You wanna get some sleep, take the chesterfield.”
Billy turned away, kicked off his mostly unlaced combat boots and threw himself petulantly on the couch.
Joe dropped his jacket on the floor, toed off his battered boots, and lay down. He had two stashes in the bedside table: Heavy Metal magazine and porn. He opened the drawer without looking, grabbed a magazine at random, and brought it to his face while opening it simultaneously.
Blue skinned alien chicks with eight breasts having sex. All right.
“It’s fucking cold down here,” Billy mumbled from the chesterfield.
“I don’t control the heat.” Joe didn’t look away from the magazine, knowing that not to would further piss off poor Billy.
“Too bright in here.”
Joe ignored that.
Finally Billy said,
“Lemme have a porn mag.”
“No. If you can’t play guitar with that hand, you better not jack off with it, either.”
“The doctor didn’t say that.”
“He said not to do anything that aggravates it. Jacking off was implied. If you don’t look at the porn, you won’t want to.”
“I always want to,” Billy grumbled.
“Christ, you’re a whiny fuck. Whaddaya want, Billiam?”
Billy just jerked his chin in the direction of Joe and Joe’s bed.
Joe shrugged and turned his eyes back to the multi-breasted alien chicks. Except he didn’t see them, wasn’t paying any attention to them at all.
He sensed Billy. Sensed his mood, his moves. Felt Billy get up before he did it, knew he’d drag the blanket on the floor like a little boy. Like he always did.
Felt the mattress sag to his left when Billy sat down. Then Billy turned his spiky head away from Joe, literally giving him the cold shoulder.
Joe could wait.
* * *
“Let me see,” Billy whispered. He rolled over onto his back and slid closer to Joe.
“Fine,” Joe replied. He moved closer to Billy and they lay on the bed. Their heads touched at the spikiest points of their hair as they read Joe’s Heavy Metal. Joe’s foot kept jiggling, courtesy of the reds still in his system.
“Turn the page,” Billy said after a couple minutes.
“I’m not done reading it yet.”
“Slow reader, eh, Joe?”
“Fuck you. I take my time; I get a good look at the pictures.”
There it was, and this was all he ever wanted sometimes. Small, quiet moments with Billy— just to lie in bed, sharing a comic like they had all those years ago. Before the band. Before everything that came later. Even if, right now, the uppers were still a jittery feeling in his limbs, it was like it used to be for a moment.
Billy grinned at him when Joe looked over. Grinned the way he had at fifteen when they’d lay on the floor reading Joe’s comic books (or his dad’s porn), and Joe had felt that warmth, that twinge. Not just in his groin, where he felt it so often with Billy and for Billy… in his chest. That feeling that maybe they had something with each other that neither could ever have with anyone else.
Few ever saw these moments. Even on tour. Touring was a lot of punk attitude. Joe’s preferred mode for public life.
Billy slid closer.
Said the one word Joe knew he would say to make it all even better.
Whispered it.
“Joey.”
The magazine landed flat on Joe’s chest with a smack.
He slid it quickly off his chest and swept it into the open drawer in the bedside table. Leaned away briefly to twist up and over, and turn off the light.
Then he burrowed under the covers Billy had brought from the chesterfield.Peeled layers back, peeled clothes open: his own jeans, Billy’s jacket (fucker still had it on). His mouth watered in the few seconds before his hand made its way up from Billy’s zipper to his chin, to turn his mouth towards Joe’s for a wet, rough kiss.
His hand slid from Billy’s chin, slid down Billy’s chest, then slipped under his Clash T-shirt.
With girls Joe was rough. He took what he wanted, did whatever he could get away with.
But with Billy, Joe had finesse.
He pulled back from the lips under his, the tongue that had begun to dart into his mouth. He stroked his fingers round Billy’s navel, occasionally stroked farther down the happy trail.
“Joey—”
“Yeah…”
“C’mon.”
“You c’mon.” Joe pushed the T-shirt all the way up, bent his face down and sucked in one nipple. Billy arched under him.
“C’mon.”
“You still got your clothes on,” Joe murmured, the vibration of his voice against Billy’s chest.
“So?”
“So let’s…”Joe half sat up, pushed and prodded Billy to get him out of the leather. He pulled Billy’s T-shirt over his head, shoved his jeans down to mid-thigh. A sticky spot grew where Billy’s erect cockhead tented the briefs up.
“Joe…”
“Yeah,” Joe breathed.
It wasn’t a question. It wasn’t a statement.
It was a benediction, a prayer, a mantra.
Up on his knees, he took Billy’s jeans all the way off, but left the briefs on.
Took off his own clothes, except for his thin, holey boxers.
Joe swept his eyes across the expanse of Billy, from tufted spikes, past the hard cock poking up the briefs, to Billy’s thin, muscular thighs. He felt the twin twinges again, the one at the root of his cock… and the one in his chest.
He lay down on Billy and took his eager mouth roughly. Ground their cocks together, thrusting down at Billy as he thrust up at Joe.
Joe slid his mouth down Billy’s jaw to his jugular and bit him lightly there. Then he slid down farther to first one nipple and then the other. Slid down farther to lick around Billy’s navel.
He grasped the edges of Billy’s waistband, and ever so slowly drew Billy’s briefs down and pushed them to his knees. The hot, hard cock nudged Joe’s neck as his tongue swept near Billy’s navel. He felt the damp stickiness of the head behind his ear as he moved his mouth.
Then Joe finally sucked the velvet head in slowly and wetly across his teeth. When he heard the sharp intake of breath he’d been seeking — Billy liked it just this side of rough — Joe got down to work.
Billy was not hard to suck off. Not too big, and not too small either. Joe had figured out, as he’d pushed them both farther over the years, that Billy’s cock was the perfect size for ass-fucking. And actually, Joe was almost the same size. Maybe a bit shorter, but a bit more girth.
But the only fucking was Billy fucking Joe. He’d never let Joe fuck him.
So Joe worked Billy like a pro, sucked up and down, slower, then faster, pulling up and back for occasional tongue twirls around the head. Billy gripped Joe’s shoulders, tighter and tighter. Finally he reflexively gripped Joe’s head, fingers slipping through the unruly Mohawk, palms resting hotly on naked, sweaty scalp.
“Joey—”
And here it comes, thought Joe, just as those hot palms pushed his face up and off. Billy swiftly sat up and tumbled Joe onto his back. Wiry strong fucker. He ripped Joe’s boxers down, tore his own briefs the rest of the way down and off, then roughly shoved Joe over onto his stomach by the shoulder.
Joe let him.
Then Billy was on him, rubbing his slippery cock all over Joe’s ass. Joe sighed, figuring it might as well be his own spit slicking him up for Billy. Better his own than none, like when Billy occasionally threw him up against a wall.
“Get up,” Billy whispered, sitting back on his haunches between Joe’s legs.
Joe got up on all fours, head hanging down. Waiting.
Took Billy a minute to position himself. Joe steeled himself. It had been a while. Maybe a month, six weeks, eight. Billy had been occupied with girls.
Girls who never let him do this.
Finally Joe felt Billy there, the cockhead at his ass, ready to enter.
“More spit,” he growled to Billy, just in case.
Billy pulled his sweet warmth back, spit in his hand, slicked himself up, then spit on Joe’s ass. Joe felt Billy breathing hard all down his back, huffs of horniness and need.
Then Billy repositioned himself, and Joe felt the heat between them, the cold around them in the basement. Billy thrust the head in. Joe winced, more out of habit than actual pain. They’d done this too often for it to be that painful anymore.
He felt Billy’s hands on his hips, and knew what was coming — drew in a deep breath, preparing.
Billy thrust all the rest of the way in up to the hilt. He felt big and Joe felt full up and it was just like every time and it was like no other time.
After only a few rough, long, in-out strokes, Joe moaned and pressed his forehead against his bicep. His hands fisted around the bed clothes.
The thrusting stopped. One hand slipped off Joe’s hip.
“What?” Joe whispered, already panting. He looked back at Billy.
“Can’t hold your hip,” Billy replied tersely, breathing heavily. “Hurts.”
Joe paused. Then he put a hand behind them both, on Billy’s ass to keep Billy inside. He slid down flat onto his stomach, bringing Billy, still in him.
“I can’t…”
“Use your good elbow,” Joe murmured.
“No leverage—”
“Here,” Joe whispered and dragged a pillow down to shove it roughly under his pelvis. He bunched it up and took a moment to rearrange his leaking cock over and around the lump. And Billy was still inside him, still connected to him. God he loved Billiam for these moments.
Then Joe lay back down flat on the bed, Billy still joined to him, and pulled Billy’s bad arm up under his armpit.
“Lean on this elbow. Use the other hand if you need to,” Joe whispered. He tugged Billy’s hand under his chest to place the open palm against the twinge in his chest.
“No leverage,” Billy whispered.
“Just get to it, ya whiny fuck.”
Billy began shallow thrusts, and Joe relaxed into it. He felt Billy’s bad hand against his chest, palm slipping from sweat. Felt the wiry heat and motion behind him. Felt twinges in his heart and ass and cock, darker and more twisted and somehow better and worse with Billy holding him, holding them together, instead of detached doggie style.
The shallow fucking deepened. Joe spread his thighs farther apart, arched his lower back a little. The piercing rushes of Billy moving in and out of him made Joe shiver. Gooseflesh pricked over the muscles on his shoulders.
“Joe—”
Heavy breaths tickled his ear. Billy’s bad hand slipped out from under Joe, for the last couple minutes of harder and deeper. He held himself up over Joe; went all out in mindless animalistic pursuit of orgasm, hyperventilating and grunting.
Billy came, hard, on an in-thrust, and moaned roughly. Joe could tell Billy was drawing out the pleasure on shallower thrusts, and it heightened his own arousal. To be used roughly for Billy’s pleasure was deeply exciting, even if the uppers blunted it. Joe felt this only with Billy; doubted he would ever feel this way with anyone else.
Billy’s forearm shook, quivering, probably in pain; he still held himself up as he shivered through the last orgasmic thrusts into Joe.
To feel he was the lock, and Billy his only key, provoked a fierce – and intolerable – tenderness in Joe. It twisted together his need to crush Billy in a hug with his desire to punch Billy for taking such a long, cool time to come back to him. To this.
Joe drew Billy’s bad arm gently under him again. Billy collapsed on him, their sweat-slick bodies finally skin to skin again.
Billy’s arms slid around Joe while they both tried to catch their breath. It made Joe swallow hard. So much was never said. But he felt it, he knew it was there.
Billy stayed on him longer this time than maybe ever before. They both panted.
Joe felt Billy’s cock shrink inside him until it slipped out. His own cock was swollen and aching. Sometimes he came from Billy in his ass, but sometimes he didn’t. This was one of those times. Reds didn’t help. Too jittery. But, damn, everything felt so good.
Billy slid off him and to the side. Suddenly the cold basement air on Joe’s sweat-wet back was too much. He yanked the pillow out from under his cock and rolled onto his back. He half sat up, grabbing the sheet and blanket and pulling them over both himself and Billy.
“Fuck,” Billy said, catching his breath and yawning.
“Yeah.” Joe replied.
He leaned over to the bedside table, found the cigarettes, lit one, passed it to Billy without comment. Joe lit another, took a deep hit, and closed his eyes, suddenly very tired. He was wired, knew he’d never really sleep, but suddenly felt exhausted. Which was funny, because he hadn’t done much work, fucking-wise.
“Here,” Billy said, and reached down under the covers to stroke Joe’s still half-hard cock.
“Not with your strumming hand,” Joe said, eyes closed.
“It’s not,” Billy whispered.
“That explains why it sucks,” Joe chuckled, and Billy chuckled too.
But then Billy moved down under the sheet and blanket, careful to keep Joe covered, not exposed to the cool air. Joe felt the tickle of breath on his cock and the sudden suction and wetness of Billy’s hot little mouth. Joe inhaled sharply, almost dropping cigarette ash on the bed. Stretched and twisted slightly to stub out the cigarette in the ashtray on the floor.
Billy knew what he was doing. Joe tried not to think about how many times they’d done stuff like this. How many years, how many “that’s over, we’re not doing that anymore” gaps there’d been when Billy the boytoy went off and played with the girls.
Yet it always came back to this. Because who else would come get Billy in the dark near dawn, way the fuck in the middle of nowhere? Who else would be the Great Wall of It’s Over to girls when they couldn’t get it through their heads — or, more likely, when cowardly Billy hadn’t even told them it was over, he just stopped calling? Who else would hassle and harass Billy into taking care of the tendonitis before it got worse? Who would force him to obey doctors’ orders?
Joe, Joe, and Joe. Everyone else was too laissez-faire to bother. He’d get Billy to ice it before he left that afternoon.
But forget that for now. Billy’s sweet mouth tightly sucked him, with long, excruciating, slow up and down strokes. Joe held the blanket and sheet up to watch, then got tired of holding it. He was warm again, so he ripped them off and exposed Billy’s bobbing head. Billy sped up the sucking.
Joe lay back and propped his hands behind his head. He watched his cock flash in and out of Billy’s tight lips. Watched the hollows of Billy’s cheeks expand and deflate with cock, motion, and accumulated saliva. Saw the concentration in the wrinkle between Billy’s tightly shut eyes.
But then Billy reached up on autopilot to jack Joe off while sucking the head. Joe snapped a hand out to grab Billy’s wrist like a viper striking.
“Wha—?” Billy let Joe’s cock flop out of his mouth and smack against his stomach. His eyes got very big as they met Joe’s, blue and blue, ice and ice.
“Not with that hand,” Joe barked, louder than he’d meant to. “Give it a rest,” he said more softly, and let Billy’s wrist slide slowly out of his grasp. “I’m probably not gonna come, anyway. Too many uppers.” He propped both hands behind his head again, shrugged, then smiled wickedly. “But you can keep trying.”
“Fuck. Er,” Billy enunciated clearly. But he closed his eyes, a secret smile on his face, and went down on Joe again.
After a few frustrating near-gasms, when Joe involuntarily furrowed his fingers through Billy’s spikes, it became languid, pointless sucking. Joe was wired and tired and never going to come. Billy stretched out almost perpendicular to Joe’s pelvis, the two of them making a slanted T on the rumpled bed.
If Billy moved his ass just a little closer, they’d be close enough for 69. But he was getting sleepy. He finally lay his cheek down on the happy trail between Joe’s cock and navel, Joe’s still-half-stiff cock tucked behind his head.
Billy looked at Joe with those crystal clear eyes, looking at Joe, looking through Joe.
Joe was never the first to look away. Let Billy see whatever he saw. Joe slowly reached out, as he almost never did — rarely could — and stroked Billy’s shoulder. The spikes of Billy’s hair were smashed flat now, mostly, thanks to Joe’s occasional grasping of Billy by the head.
It was full daylight now, though you’d never know it from the dim and dappled light coming into the basement. Joe stroked down Billy’s back to his slim hips, his buttocks. Billy turned his head the other way, lay his other cheek on Joe’s stomach, facing down towards Joe’s deflated cock and legs.
It was a kind of permission. As much as Joe was ever likely to get. He stroked the slender buttocks, ran his fingers lightly through the furrow. Billy bucked his ass up a bit, like a cat seeking a caress.
Teasing bitch. He’d never actually give it up to Joe. Never let Joe’s cock to close to his ass. Yet.
There’d been plenty of denim on denim, Billy up against a wall or bent over a table or bed, Joe grinding his hardness against Billy’s slim, clothed ass.
Joe was surprised Billy let him do this much, now. But then, Billy owed him for having stolen wheels and driven way crosstown and beyond. Just to get his ass from some psychotic rich girl’s house.
Billy slid his arms around Joe’s thigh and slid his cheek down into the crease between Joe’s pelvis and thigh. Joe felt the slow breathing ripple through his leg hair and sighed inwardly.
“I hear a beat,” Billy said quietly.
“Femoral artery. Way to kill a guy quick.” Joe’d fucked a medical illustration major for a while. She was full of interesting anatomical facts.
He delved deeper between Billy’s slowly spreading thighs and caressed Billy’s balls from behind and between his legs.
“One of these days,” Billy sighed sleepily, “we’re gonna make it big and get the hell outta here.”
Joe felt the vibration of Billy’s voice in his thigh. His deflated cock twitched. He felt the familiar twinges, at the root of him, and in his chest. He said nothing for a moment, just continued caressing Billy’s balls, stroking them, tugging gently, fingering the loose skin between them.
“Whaddaya talkin’ about. Here’s great,” Joe finally murmured.
“Here sucks,” Billy whispered. “This sucks.”
Joe paused in response and with his hands. Billy lay quietly, expectantly, but tightened his arms around Joe’s thigh.
“This sucks? Or the tendonitis and not playing sucks?” Joe finally asked, and stroked Billy’s balls again.
“Tendonitis, dink,” came the faintly amused reply. “God, you’re such a bitch sometimes.”
Backstage, in front of Pipe and John, he might have punched Billy for that.
But here, now, wired and tired yet smiling, Joe admitted to himself that he was like a chick — like a bitch — for Billy.
Joe said nothing, but changed his caress. He stroked two fingers over Billy’s tight little hole.
Billy sighed, pushing his ass back against Joe’s hand in that slutty way. It killed Joe sometimes.
“Just fingers, Joe,” was all Billy said.
Joe wanted to say all the things he would’ve said to convince a girl or a hooker to do something kinky or not on the menu. You could throw money or drugs at them to bolster the persuasion. But none of that worked with Billy.
Joe could wait. Times like this stored up in his brain. He wanted to say, You’re killin’ me, all slutty and needy and come-get-me-I’m-stranded last-minute bullshit. You put me off, and put me off, and it won’t be forever.
But he was tired, even if he knew sleep wouldn’t come 'til noon or later. He wasn’t in the mood to fight or argue.
He was just enough in that no-man’s-land between frustrated and satisfied to push it a little farther. Who knew the next time Billy would let him do this. There’d be more blowjobs and handjobs and groping and humping and grinding—there was always that, after Billy got over himself and got tired of girls. But it wasn’t often Billy let Joe touch him like this.
For right now, Joe would bide his time and not take a mile when Billy was giving inches like they were free. As if he did it all the time. Which he definitely did not. Joe would take the inches given now, and spin them later into leverage for the miles and miles Billy would owe him by then.
Sometimes when Billy was sleepy and post-horny, like now, he let Joe really push things. Before the back-tracking he inevitably did later, as if none of it had happened, as if it would never happen again.
As if.
Joe drew his hand up and licked his first two fingers, then slipped them back between Billy’s slim buttocks and stroked them over Billy’s tight little hole. He felt it twitch and relax a little.
Joe never pressed Billy publicly. Only privately, when it was angry and lusty and mean and dirty, times when it was nothing like now. Times when Joe’s fingers clenched bruising tight around Billy’s biceps, and his other hand was in Billy’s pants, clutching his cock. Then with teeth in the neck flesh below and behind the blond spikes, and his erection ground against Billy’s clothed ass, Joe growled a monologue low in Billy’s ear, designed to both excite and enrage.
Times like that, he didn’t care how he got under Billy’s skin. He just wanted in.
For now Joe kept stroking, moved his hand down to tug Billy’s balls, then back up to tickle the tight little hole.
But those times, unseen and unheard by everyone else, Joe never let Billy forget how far it got the last time. How much farther it went each time. How good it felt. How Billy loved it. How much his cocktease moves made Joe think Billy deserved to get what was coming to him. How one of these days. . .
He could be this Joe, the patient, soothing Joe he was now. . . if Billy only let him. Billy used to, years back – more then than now. But this wasn’t kid stuff anymore. Wasn’t just two teenage boys jacking off to Joe’s dad’s porn. Now, the gaps between their times together lengthened… yet each encounter was more intense than the last.
Felt like a toreador and a bull sometimes, warily circling each other. Joe didn’t know whether he was the bullfighter or the bull. He just knew he saw red more often, felt stabbed, and wanted to stab Billy. Even as each intensifying, infrequent rendezvous came to mean more and more to him, Joe felt Billy slipping away. Imagined the bull, tired and bloody and moving slowly, froth dripping from its weary muzzle. Waiting for the killing stroke.
Billy moaned faintly. Joe felt the ring of muscle twitch under his touch, noted the throb of Billy’s taint as his cock hardened slightly.
“Don’t get any ideas,” Billy warned, defiantly jutting his chin up in the air from where it rested on Joe’s thigh.
You mixed-message little motherfucker, Joe thought. The balls on you to say that, when I’m doing this. What else would I be thinking. . . ?
But then Billy moaned again, and tucked his cheek back down to Joe’s leg. He tightened his arms around Joe’s thigh, spread his skinny legs farther apart, and bucked his ass up a little higher for more Joe-touch.
“More spit,” Billy whispered, his breath tickling the hair on Joe’s leg.
In Joe’s chest, the twinge twisted and burned. He swallowed hard, throat tightening.
Then he worked his cheeks for more saliva.
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ds_snippets amnesty challenge, but for reasons that don't need exploring at this juncture, that didn't happen. So... bummer. So... they're here instead. Made possible by ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
akamine_chan, who graciously beta-ed. 
