Page 38 of Center of Gravity

“That too, huh? I should’ve guessed.”

It took me a second to catch on, breathless and sex-stoned as I was, that he meant the frenum piercing. I didn’t even know if I answered him back because his thumb brushed over the head of my cock, then the bit of steel embedded in it. My legs tensed beneath the touch. He let his mouth hover there, tongue flicking lightly at metal. If I kept watching I was going to come, so I closed my eyes and gritted my teeth.

“Easy,” I said, or hissed. It sounded serpentine because it was hard to make my words function with him all over me, but he got the message.

I opened my eyes again to find him watching me as he slid his hand loosely up and down my shaft. Just enough friction to make me crave more, but not enough to push me over. God, I’d underestimated him. Or else I should have been hooking up beyond my age group long ago. It was that good.

“You good?” His voice was a low drawl, tinged with humor and thick with lust.

I nodded and swallowed.

“Good,” he said, then closed his lips around the head of my cock and I swear to God my toes fucking curled. His tongue made slow, languid passes over me, just this wet rush of sensation that rode up my cock and slithered up my spine, sending showers of sparks through my brain that exited my lungs in lewd spasms of air.

My fist anchored to the sheet to keep me from coming up off the bed and fucking his mouth like a brute. I hoped I’d get the chance to do that sometime, but right then I wanted to savor the sensation of him—the weight of his body, the mussed hair that tickled my thighs, the way his lips looked wrapped around my cock, and the dark, liquid heat of his eyes as he watched me. He took his time teasing me, one hand wrapping over the top of my thigh and spreading across my hips, holding me down like he could gauge how close I was through the tension in my muscles and he wanted to draw me out, keep me dancing on that fine line for his own enjoyment.

He lit little flashfires of pleasure from the base of my cock up my shaft, his mouth making obscene, wet sucking noises that were going to shatter me eventually. I’d been convinced he would be conservative, more business-like and restrained, given his favoritism of the word, and I wouldn’t have minded any of those things. But he wasn’t. Hesowasn’t. He sucked my cock with unselfconscious abandon and an expert touch, driving it deep into his throat until I was moaning half-crazed like it was my first time at the oral rodeo.

I held on as long as I could, until his thumb joined the fray again, sweeping the piercing and his lips followed to pick up the slack with their tantalizing heat. When I tried to urge his head down again, he resisted and pulled away, leaving my hips in the air spearing nothing. It was mind-blowing torment.

I fucking begged, almost whimpering, for him to have mercy on me and finish me off. Finally, he pushed my hand from his head, threaded his fingers through mine and pinned my hand to the bed. Then he gave me the pressure I needed, fisting my cock and roughly milking my shaft with his grip, his mouth, and his tongue, sucking my crown until I knotted up and exploded with a desperate mash of sound that was half wheeze and half primal cry. I flooded his throat with my spunk and he kept going, sucking down every drop until I was empty and stopped shuddering. Then he pulled free.

My body felt as if it had been wrung out, but even then I wanted more. I wanted time to spend examining the details of him up close, acquainting my lips with his throat and his pecs, dragging my fingers through the fine hairs on his chest, but I was noodle limp and he was too fast, sitting up straight as he straddled my thighs and spit into the semen slicked over his palm. I thought I could get hard again just from watching that.

His thighs braced mine and I tugged the top of his pajama pants until he sprang free. He fisted his cock and groaned.

“Let me,” I begged, bracing myself on my elbows. I wanted him, I didn’t care where; my entire body was fair game. He brushed his palm over the layer of cooling sweat on my forehead, sank his fingers deep in my hair, and shook his head. He jerked himself off rough and relentless, gasping shallowly for air until he spattered his load across my chest with a stifled moan.

Curling over me, he let his forehead rest against my shoulder, his ragged exhales mingling with mine. For a second, I thought he was going to collapse on top of me. I would have welcomed feeling his weight. Then his fingers loosened in my hair, released, and he rolled off to the side, smearing his hand through the jizz on my chest. I caught that slick hand in my own, sucking his fingers into my mouth one by one and licking them clean until he groaned and cut his eyes away from mine.

“Fuck.” He sighed, shifting onto his back.

“Next time.”

He aimed a thin smile at the ceiling.

“Stay.” My voice was quiet and my eyelids were already drooping. And then there was only darkness, the ceiling fan above gently stirring humid air, sweat drying on my body and the panting warmth of Rob beside me. I kept thinking, why had it been so fucking difficult to get to this point?

11

Rob

Ishouldn’t have been lying in the bed with Alex, watching him sleep. I had planned to go back to my Savannah apartment at the end of the workday, spend the night, and return to Nook Island the following morning. But as soon as I’d walked through the door of my apartment that afternoon and smelled the stale air that I’d been expecting, I’d known I wouldn’t stay. Everything was tidy, there were no dishes in the sink, nothing out of place. But it was as if I’d walked into a void, and the corresponding emptiness inside me made me hesitate as I closed the door.

I’d stood at the foot of my bed, scanning the pictures on the nightstand, trying to reposition myself in my own life and struggling. My knee had brushed against the bedspread and I’d examined the pale stripes, wondering when I’d picked it out, or if I’d picked it out at all. Had someone else done it for me? An old boyfriend before Sean? Maybe even my mom?

I’d roamed the small living area like an archaeologist, scouting tables and walls for artifacts of myself left behind. Scented candles, the remote control on the coffee table, a couple of navy throw pillows. The couch was a light tan that would have horrified Alex, and I guess I’d picked up a few things from him because I’d noticed the golden beige of the walls was all wrong for the furniture. Everything was wrong. I’d sniffed at the candle and cringed at the cloying artificial sweetness of cinnamon spice. Was I living in the wrong life and for how long? Had I slipped into it over the course of weeks? Months? Or was it years?

Breathing hard, I’d started to get that clenched feeling in my chest, as if I couldn’t inhale enough air, and tried to calm myself. It wasn’t years. I was still myself, albeit a bit tender in parts, and I’d reminded myself I was still going through the grieving process, that I couldn’t expect to just snap out of it and be fine after everything that had happened over the past year. But the tight fist in my chest had remained, spreading chilly fingers around my throat.

I’d had my first panic attack at sixteen when I’d gotten caught with my pants around my ankles and my classmate, Gene Destrado, jerking me off in the garage. My mom had put her hand to her chest first and then it had started flapping around as she’d covered her eyes like the sight of us was a bad smell she could fan away.

I’d buttoned up fast, kicked Gene out, and had found her crying in the kitchen. I wasn’t sure whether or not I was supposed to apologize, so I did. She’d kept saying, over and over, “It’s not that, Rob. Oh God.” Until I’d decided it was best to leave her alone. I’d been ashamed and felt helpless and wrong for being caught, for who I was, like I’d been issued the wrong parts or the wrong skin or the wrong brain. We weren’t a religious family, but Ellen Degeneres hadn’t come out yet and there was still this vague but damning societal undercurrent that liking the same sex was wrong with a capital W.

Later, my mom had come into my bedroom where I’d sat on the edge of the bed gulping air that raced away faster than I could catch it. She’d had trouble meeting my eyes, but her hand had been steady on my knee as she’d squeezed. “Deep breaths, baby, deep breaths,” she’d said. We must have sat there like that for a half hour before my chest expanded and remembered how to function. Then she’d told me, “It’s not wrong Rob, and don’t let anyone tell you it is. But it’s a hard lifestyle, honey.” It was love and sorrow in one confusing little package, and I was a lot more careful after that until I’d hit college and no one cared as much.

I’d dropped onto the couch in my apartment and taken deep breaths until I steadied, looking at the walls, at the few pieces of art hanging there that I’d picked out haphazardly or had taken from my parents’ house. At that moment, everything I owned had seemed like nothing more than a byproduct of trying to move up the corporate ladder, or things to check off—apartment, wardrobe, furniture, 401K—on a list of successes with the ultimate goal being partnership. I had no clue what was supposed to come after the partnership. Would I then decide it was okay to live, okay to put more time into something like considering a piece of art or buying a chair because I actually liked it? I’d thought I was blowing things out of proportion a little, too. I didn’t mind my furniture all that much and it was okay to not be that invested in the aesthetics if it wasn’t important to me. And I did have a bit of a social life and hobbies, I was just in some state of…imbalance. I didn’t think I was going to get my thoughts sorted by staying in the apartment. So I’d picked up my bag and returned to Nook Island, knowing damn well I was just applying a bandage to a larger problem. But at least I’d be able to breathe.

So I’d had no fucking business opening the door to Alex that night. No fucking business standing in front of him in the kitchen thinking about the way his mouth would feel on mine while he vibrated with life and summer night heat.