Men in Love: M/M Romance Read online

  I became lost, kneeling with my legs ever so slightly spread apart. “Spank me again,” I coached, practically begging for his play. “Don’t be shy, Roarke. I’m all yours.”

  Again, his mouth met my bottom. As licks and laps ensued, I moaned with deep satisfaction and felt him wrap his right hand around my erection. He rolled his hand up and down on my dick, milking it. The action sent me into a spin of satisfaction. Hurriedly, his hand became chaotic motion on my cock, leaving me gasp for air, dizzy in front of him.

  “I like you a little too much, Brody,” he said, after pulling his face away from my bottom.

  I thrust my dick inside his hand, and my ass against his face. After a string of minutes under his care, sent into a state of euphoria, I said, “You’re making me come.”

  “Don’t hold back. Show me what you have, man.”

  And so it was done. I felt a wave of enjoyment flood throughout my torso and between my legs. Vibrations of bliss blew me away, under the photographer’s spell, which I didn’t argue with or object to.

  “Do it, Brody. Put on a show for me.”

  After his comment, white strings of semen blew out of my dick and coated my bed. One burst was followed by the next, leaving me exhausted on my knees and overcome with pleasure. The sticky explosion not only decorated the bed, but it also decorated his palm and fingers, leaving the man thrilled to be my sexual companion, getting me off and…

  I woke from the dream with a gluey dick between my legs. “It was just a dream, Brody,” I said to myself, staring into the dark room. “Roarke isn’t interested in you that way. Whatever happens tomorrow should be professional. You can’t cross that sexual line because you’ll make a fool out of yourself. Even if you like the guy. Even if you’ve fallen in love with him at first sight.”

  My center was covered with ejaculate. Puddles lined my abs and pecs. Perspiration drenched my torso and thighs. Breathless, attempting to calm down, I whispered inside the room, “Roarke has you. And you want him too. It’s more than lust you have for the guy. It’s something more potent. You know it is.”

  *

  Number four: Expect the worst. Guys can be assholes, in and out. Don’t ever think they are Prince Charming, because you’re only letting yourself down. Don’t bother. Keep your expectations low. If the guy just happens to blow you away, remember that with every good side comes a bad.

  Before meeting with Roarke the next morning, I googled his work. Professionally speaking, he had photographed over one thousand bathrooms in the last four years. Oriental. Jungle-themed. Royal. College. Western. All gold. Outdoor. His photographs were stunning, in my opinion. He used light and shadows as vehicles for his observing eye. His colors were rich and refined. He had gone through five major thematic periods in his career: Tidal Wave Blue, Icelandic, Bamboo, and Granite. Shorter periods included marbles, sunflower yellow tiles, and Incan pitchers. No matter what theme he had taken on, sharing it with his clients, architectural firms, the media, and his fans in the art world, Roarke McDixon was always successful, never failing at anything—even landing me.

  His last shoot was in an L.A. magazine called Golden Gate Skyline. The six-page spread depicted an eye-appealing bathroom from the Fritz Manker Estate. The bathroom was to die for, with black marble flooring, bronze hardware, a claw-foot bathtub, and triangular-shaped shower. The massive floor-to-ceiling bathroom windows looked over the Pacific.

  I wanted to get to know Roarke better; the man’s ins and out, everything about him. His soft edges and hard-boiled nature. His emotional likings and dispassionate moments. I wanted to get inside Roarke, beyond his physical appearance and the creation of his bathrooms. Who was behind the stunning bathrooms and their photographed brilliance? What was?

  *

  Number five: Sometimes it’s necessary to play dumb with the guy you want. What do you have to lose, right? Games are important, particularly those that will bring you closer to the guy, and maybe even under him.

  I couldn’t be late if my life depended on it and arrived on time at 1683 Fairbanks Street. The house was massive, just as I expected: Guggenheim-shaped, lots of windows, bamboo, granite, and all in light blue and white. The residence was three floors high and approximately six thousand square feet.

  Roarke’s Fusion sat in front of the place. Of course the man had a budget for a Jag, but he was environmentally cautious, which I respected about him. I parked my GMC truck by his car, climbed out, and made my way into the weirdly shaped mansion. “Hello?” I called out in the library-like foyer, but nobody answered.

  The ceiling was too high, and there were too many books, most of which I believed were fakes. I walked out of the foyer and studied marble tile and Russian crystal everywhere, from floor to the high ceiling. The dining room could have easily sat twenty-four people. To the right of the dining room was a smoking room with a bar. All the walls were decorated with Van Goghs under glass, none of which were originals, of course: The Orchard, The Zouve, The Chair and Pipe, Road with Cypresses, Old Man in Grief, and The Meadow.

  Thus far, Roarke was unaccounted for, so I decided to follow a spiral staircase to the second floor, which was comprised of massive bedrooms, a study, a private library, and four bathrooms. “Hello?” I called out again. “Roarke, are you here?”

  Roarke was nearby, though. I heard a shower running and the familiar sound of a camera clicking. Flashes of bright-white light illuminated the hallway I was in, outside the bathroom where I believed Roarke was located. I walked down the hallway, passed two bedrooms the size of the Pentagon, and came to the third bedroom. When I walked inside, Roarke said, “Good morning, Mr. Neilson. You’re right on time.”

  We shook hands and eyed each other up and down. Then he said, “I had the craziest dream about you last night.”

  “What kind of dream?” I asked.

  He had a stainless-steel thermos and passed me a Styrofoam cup of coffee. As I took it, I looked around the exquisite bathroom for the first time. Bright yellows were mixed with gold and white, and it looked somewhat French with a Louis XIV settee, mirrors all around, and white marble flooring with swirls of gold. A spray of water streamed out of an elaborately designed S-shaped showerhead. I knew the water’s temperature was warm, but not scalding, since the bathroom was steamy. Frankly, the room looked somewhat feminine and expensive. Anyone with taste would have gone mad over it.

  “Never mind. We can maybe get into my dream later.”

  I studied the bathroom and asked, “Who owns this place?”

  “Melinda Moretell.”

  “The Melinda Moretell?” She was one of Hollywood’s highest-paid actresses and shot movies with only A-list actors like George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, and Bradley Cooper.

  “She’s the one. This is the smallest property she owns. She has a few around the United States.”

  I thought I was dreaming until Roarke asked, “Can you please run down to my Fusion and get the Quora.”

  I didn’t know a Quora from a collie, and he knew it. “The lens. It’s shaped like an oval.”

  I bolted to the Fusion in the front lot, zoomed back to his side, and passed him the oversized lens. He pointed to a black leather case and asked for a shutter release.

  “A what?” I was bombing miserably. Shame on me for saying I was someone I wasn’t. Damn.

  He chuckled, though, playing my game. “You know nothing about photography, do you, Brody?”

  “Listen, I thought I could help you. It’s a little more complex than what I imagined.” I sounded defensive but didn’t mean to.

  “Not to worry. Your company alone is enough to make me have a great day. I have this funny feeling we’re going to spend some quality time together, for maybe a long time.”

  I felt flattered by his comment, warm and fuzzy. Being liked by a guy was one of the best feelings, even if it was a professional relationship.

  He grabbed the shutter whatever it was from his equipment box and said, “Brody, I want to try something diff
erent today during this shoot.”

  “What kind of something?” I sounded naïve and ridiculous, like someone who was twelve years old instead of someone in his late twenties.

  “How would you feel about letting me take a few pictures of you in the shower?”

  *

  Number six: Step out of your comfort zone for a change. Guys like this. Become unexpected. Get a little wild. Roar.

  So what did I do? Something that wasn’t in my job description. I stripped down to boxer-briefs in front of Roarke, showed off my chest, thighs, and my cotton-covered ass. It was sort of a slow striptease act for his pleasure and mine. Then I climbed into the shower and posed under the warm spray, grinned from ear to ear, flexed my muscles, and rolled my hands up and down my chest.

  Roarke clicked, clicked, and clicked his digital camera. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you’ve done this before.”

  “Never,” I replied, and pulled the rim of my underwear down, showing off part of my right thigh and wet ass, which he didn’t complain about.

  “Take them off, but only if you want.”

  I didn’t, and wouldn’t…at least for a few weeks. Truth told, I fell for Roarke hard that day, head over heels for the man, and didn’t want to come across as easy. I kept my underwear on during the bathroom shoot and for five more dates after that first photography gig. Thereafter, he ended up taking me on more shoots, and I teased him with my body, showing him a little more of my private parts each time, soaping my chest down with lather, sporting my bottom for him once, and making myself semi-hard for him, playing with my dick through my cotton underwear.

  I admit, I treated our dates like a game, and maybe I shouldn’t have. I should have taken him and his career a little more serious. I knew he didn’t take men to his photography gigs on a regular basis, and he made me feel special because he did like to take me. Frankly, if I wanted the guy to like me more, and for keeps, I had to get serious.

  But he enjoyed our game as much as I did. I knew that. And maybe he knew that, too, because he called me up last Saturday afternoon and said, “Brody, I need you.” His voice wavered with nervousness.

  It was nice to be needed by a man. What gay guy didn’t want that? “Where and when?”

  “247 Mossdale Street. Two o’clock this afternoon.”

  “I’ll be there. Count on it.”

  Before I ended our cell phone conversation, he hurriedly asked, “Do you have any lime green underwear?”

  I chuckled, grinning from ear to ear. “I do.”

  “Wear those this afternoon. Can you do that?”

  I could and would, excited to see him again.

  *

  And then it happened, in West Hollywood, inside an artist’s bathroom. A professional job between us had turned into an unprofessional job. To tell you the truth, I can’t even remember what the bathroom looked like because Roarke kissed me and things got out of hand. He turned on the shower and stripped me, and then I stripped him, and we ended up under the spray together.

  Once in the shower, we started kissing under the spray. The kissing we shared with each other was intense, potent, and passionate, the kind of kissing maybe only lovers shared, investing their lives, minds, and hearts into each other.

  And while we kissed, he grabbed the bar of soap from the tiled shelf and rolled it up and over my back, then down my back and against my ass. By then I was as hard as granite, ready for whatever else was going to happen between us, which I had a funny feeling was going to be very exciting. Afterward, he pulled away from me ever so slightly and rolled the bar up and down my chest, over my swollen pecs and nipples, having the time of his life, judging by the adorable grin smeared over his handsome face. He decided to soap up one of my thighs, then the other, and said, “Rinse off. I have something planned for you.”

  On his knees with his palms clamped to my hips, he sucked me. He moved his head to and fro, causing euphoria to shift throughout my entire body. He slurped and sucked and banged his face off my center, moaned a few times, and pleasured the both of us for the next few minutes inside the shower.

  When did he spin me and spread my cheeks with his fingers? I couldn’t recall, although I wasn’t complaining. He started tonguing my rear in slow and smooth strokes, causing me to become dizzy.

  Roarke lodged his dick inside my ass. His latex-covered cock jostled me with its gliding. He fucked slowly, fervent and unstoppable. He clasped my hips, and I felt his touch through bone, flesh, and muscles.

  “Jesus, Roarke,” I said, “you mean business.”

  His business included relentless, smooth humping inside my rear, huffing and puffing behind me. He dug his fingertips into my hips, and he pressed me against the shower wall, arching my back and sliding my chest against the warm tiles. I felt him drive his cock inside me again and again, and he kept whispering my name while licking and kissing my back, busy with his labor.

  He eventually came after his continuous and gentle thrusts to my bottom. Roarke pulled out of me, lost the latex in the shower, and doused my spine with his load, murmuring as he came. His warm ejaculate clung to my skin, but it rinsed away when he carefully reached for my right shoulder, spun me around, and whispered, “Let me make you come.”

  I wasn’t disappointed by his right-hand action on my dick. He worked my cock up and down with his fist, squeezing my prick in his tight grip. In doing so, he locked eyes with me and coached, “Come, man. Don’t be shy. I want to watch you blow your load.” And he kissed me, pressing his lips against mine, caught up in our naked act in the shower.

  Our chests and mouths locked together, he moaned while he slowly jacked me off. Together we moved like peach-colored silk against the bed’s surface. His hand stayed busy on my cock, working it slow motion, tightening and loosening its grip during every upward and downward motion. And then he pulled his face away from mine and whispered, “Come for me, Brody. Don’t hold it in.”

  I listened, locked to his face again, and grunted. I thrust my cock inside his fist, felt elation buzz throughout my pelvic area, and released a load of thick semen on his hand and between our chests. A half dozen moans exited my mouth as I came.

  Roarke said, “That’s my guy. Blow it all out.”

  We kissed again and again as I emptied my body of ejaculate. The load was a thick and gluey mass, which clung between us, sealing our bodies together. Sometime during that moment I think I whispered to him, “I love you.” Maybe not. I can’t remember. But, nevertheless, that’s how I felt.

  *

  Number seven: Let him know you’re crazy about him. It’s a great start to any relationship. Tell him what you’ve just shared with him wasn’t just sex between adult men. There was something more to it than that. Something almost unexplainable, real, and live. Magic between men who have a mutual interest in each other. Let him also know the two of you have a future together as boyfriends and lovers, make a good couple, and can be inseparable, locked together by your hearts.

  We rinsed off together under the shower’s warm spray, and he held me in his strong, muscular arms. His chest of wet red hair rubbed against my bare one as he kissed me. When he pulled away from me, he asked, “Does it sound crazy of me to admit that I really like you?”

  “Spring is here. It’s all about falling in love, isn’t it?”

  “Is that what you call it?”

  “It is what it is,” I replied, kissed him again, and knew that we would spend the next thirty, maybe even forty years together, coupled.

  The Essentials

  Vinton Rafe McCabe

  The Rains of Ranchipur is on TCM.

  Garth eats tuna fish on brown rice cakes and watches, enthralled. On the wide, flat plain of the television set, everything is in jewel tones, most especially Lana Turner, a ’50s rich American woman visiting India.

  When the rains at last come, Richard Burton attempts to part the flood with the rumblings of his vocal cords, like Moses at the Red Sea. He plays the part of a native, his face
having been slathered with Light Egyptian by Max Factor. His eyes glow a sullen blue.

  Garth mouths Burton’s lines. Repeats along with him out loud, his voice tethered to a thick mock-Welsh accent. “Quiet. Quiet now,” Garth echoes when Burton saves Lana Turner from the shiny cobra. Then he slaps her to combat her hysteria. And the music swells as he purrs at her and she sobs in his arms. Later, the floodwaters rise and release, smashing everything in their path. This is accompanied by an earthquake, in CinemaScope.

  Garth lies across the long, low couch, throw pillows stacked all around him, a vicuna throw on his lap. He puts Ugged feet up on the coffee table, balances the plate that, until just now, held the tuna crackers on his stomach.

  Jonathan walks through the room, glances at the TV.

  “Quick,” says Garth, “what movie?”

  Jonathan stops a moment and squints at the screen. “Rains of Ranchipur.”

  “Which version?”

  “1952. The original one with Myrna Loy is better.”

  Garth nods. “The Rains Came, 1936.”

  “Everything with Myrna Loy is better.”

  Jonathan turns his attention from the screen. He continues his cross behind the couch, touching the top of Garth’s head as he leans down across Garth’s body and lifts the plate from his stomach. He walks into the kitchen beyond, taking the plate with him.

  *

  Their dog, Blind Kevin, is curled up on his little red bed next to the couch. Blind Kevin raises his head and turns it side to side as the men speak, scanning space to locate the source of the sounds.

  It is a weekend afternoon.

  Earlier, there were bagels and cream cheese, scrambled eggs, strong coffee, and the New York Times on each of their iPads. As they ate, sunlight filtered through the dusty leaves of the potted tree that stood between the south-facing windows. Garth Pandora-ed light jazz on his iPad.