It's Not Shakespeare (8 page)

J
AMES
fell asleep on the couch. He would have been mortified if he’d been awake, but as it was, one moment, he was leaning sideways, the better to support Rafael’s weight against his side (because Rafael was a natural snuggler) and the next moment, Rafael was nudging him gently.

“You’re snoring,
papi.
You may want to go lay down now. I’ll stay here on the couch.”

James must have made a hurt sound or a protest, because suddenly Rafael had turned in his arms and was placing a gentle kiss on his mouth.

“We can do that later,” he murmured. “You get some sleep, okay?”

“You can sleep next to me,” James mumbled, and he must have been more tired than he thought, because he actually begged. “Please?”

There was a silence, and James woke up enough to realize that Rafael had already turned off the television and the light, and they were sitting there in the dark, eye to eye. For a moment, he thought he’d blown it, that he’d been too needy, and then he felt the whisper of skin as Rafael’s hand brushed his face.

“You been lonely for a while, hah, Jimmy?”

“Yeah,” he said, sleepy and vulnerable and unable to banter his way out of this. “How’d you know?”

“I get laid plenty, baby. I don’t remember ever being asked just to sleep. There’s different kinds of loneliness, Jimmy. You ready to go to bed now?”

“Yeah.”

He did the usual things. Brushed his teeth, washed his face, put on a pair of sleep shorts and an old T-shirt, and was aware that Rafael followed him into the bathroom to do the same. But after he’d taken Marlowe to the back patio to run outside and have one last go at destroying the lawn (James fought back bravely, but sometimes, the dog’s input/output ratio seemed seriously skewed toward output), he knew that Rafael would be there, in his bed, waiting for him.

He climbed into bed (he’d changed the sheets and everything) and murmured, “If you turn around like the little spoon, I’ll rub your back,” and Rafael widened his eyes and then rolled over on his side.

James lay down next to him and slid his hand under Rafael’s tank top (he’d changed for sleep too) and began to simply palm the smooth skin of Rafael’s back, rubbing from the top of his neck, down his sides, to the waistband of his boxers. Rafael grunted in surprise at first—maybe he’d been expecting a muscle rub—and then let out a satisfied cat-like little sound.

“That’s nice,
papi,
” he murmured. “Maybe now you want to rub the side and the front?”

James did, a simple, sweet, human touch, and Rafael arched into him pleasantly, relaxed and happy. His little noises began to do what sexy noises did, and after Rafael shivered all over and then captured James’s hand against his middle, saying, “That’s good, Jimmy, you can stop now,” he had something to show for it when he pulled that tight lithe body up against his bulkier heavily muscled one.

“Oooh, I like what you got for me,” Rafael mumbled, and James nuzzled the hollow at his neck, feeling sleepy and sated and happy, without even the sex to get him off.

“You’ll like it better in the morning,” he sighed, and Rafael must have been tired too, because James wasn’t sure if he ever replied.

Chapter 4

Got Your Number

J
AMES
woke up because Marlowe climbed into bed (from his little stool) and was currently licking James’s toes. James yawned and stretched and felt his bare body rub against the once-clean sheets sensually. There were a couple of damp spots underneath his bottom, and that alone made him blink, confused. He rolled over then to the empty place next to him to see a note, written on a piece of the scratch pad he kept in the kitchen, and a single yellow/red rose, probably picked from the next door neighbor’s bush.

Jimmy—

You were tired and I had to work, so I called Sophie to come get me. Here’s my cell number,
CALL ME
and I’ll stop by tonight. You can cook for me then.

Rafi

James looked at the note, read it again and again, then rolled over and smelled the pillow where Rafael had slept, closing his eyes because, yes, there it was. Aftershave, Rafael, and sex.

James brought his hands down his chest (hairy in middle age as it hadn’t been in youth) and felt the stickiness on his stomach, on his cock and his testicles, on his hip, and he closed his eyes. He had a confused image of touches in the dark, Rafael’s mouth on his, and the overwhelming need to touch skin to skin.

He’d felt Rafael’s cock in his hand—he could remember it, the veiny texture, the slickness of pre-come on top, the way it throbbed in his palm. He remembered how wonderful it had felt, his joy at
touching
someone else, and the shameless moan he’d given when Rafael had touched him the same way in return.

He remembered that their kiss had started out a brush of lips in the dark, and how it had exploded. He wasn’t sure who had needed whom more—he
knew
he’d needed Rafael, but Rafael’s mouth had been open and begging, and James had
needed
to fill that need as much as he’d needed to be touched. His shirt had been dragged off roughly—he thought he remembered ripping—and Rafael’s tank top was still wadded up in a ball at the headboard. James grabbed it with one hand and held it to his nose, smelling the sweat and the wind and Rafael’s skin all over again. His other hand stroked along the ridges of his hardening cock.

They had kicked off each other’s shorts; he remembered that, because it had been funny: their feet had wrestled and danced until the fabric was shoved off the foot of the bed (and Marlowe with it, he seemed to remember) and then their legs had tangled and their cocks had been in each other’s hands.

There had been no finesse or planning, no seduction, and no top or bottom. It had just been
want… need… yes, yes, yesyesyesyesyesyes…. Oh, Christ, I’m gonna…

Come.

They’d arched and grunted and orgasmed—James had a bite mark on his shoulder because Rafael had lost control and bit him when they’d peaked. The edge of pain, the desperation, knowing Rafael was pumping into James’s touch—that was what had done it for James, almost as much as Rafael’s rough grip on his cock.

James wrapped his hand around it now—hard, thick, decently long—and squeezed, but he couldn’t replicate the feeling. Rafael had calluses from hard work, and strong, bony fingers. Just thinking about that made James moan, and he arched his hips a little, glad that Marlowe had taken the hint and hopped out of bed when James had started moving.

He smelled Rafael’s shirt some more, remembered their urgency and the feeling of hairy man legs tangled with his own, remembered Rafael whispering roughly,
That’s it, harder, Christ, you’re good, Jimmy, oh, God, keep stroking, faster…. Yesssssss….

James’s own hand started squeezing harder, his balls throbbed, and he left the shirt draped over his face as he moved his other hand down to cup them and rub. His cock started spurting pre-come of its own, and he used that to lubricate the head, rubbing it in with his thumb, and still… he needed… needed…. Oh God, Rafael had needed him, and their touch had been so
good,
and that kiss had gone on for
ever,
and Rafael’s teeth, bruising his skin, had… had….

He thrust his hips forward and grunted, spilling hot into his hand, and let his hips fall back into the mattress, still twitching.

Oh God. He’d made love again, with an actual man. And Rafael had wanted him, and it had been furtive and quiet, fumbling in the dark, far from perfect, and
wonderful.

Here is my number. Call me!

Of course he would.

H
E
SPENT
the morning quietly: showering, doing laundry, grading papers, surfing his laptop (not for porn—not this morning anyway), and called Rafael around noon.

“Eh, Jimmy, how you doin’?”

James blushed. “How’d you know it was me?”

“’Cause I was hopin’ it was you. So, like I said, how you doin’?”

“I’m, uhm, wondering what you wanted for dinner?”

“What about omelets, like you planned?”

“There’s uhm, other things I can cook.” Suddenly he got a bolt of confidence. “Try me.”

Rafael’s chuckle was low and evil, and James flushed hot and cold all over. “That was the plan. I’ll let you do it. You want wine or some shit like that?”

“I like wine,” James told him shyly. “Your choice.”

There was a soft silence on the other end of the line, and James could hear the clatter of the garage behind Rafael’s soft breathing.

“You got any idea what you’re doin’ to me, Jimmy?” Rafael asked quietly after a minute, and James’s tingle of excitement became intense enough to be unbearable.

“Yeah,” James muttered, thinking about all of the trusting he’d been unable to do for so very long.

“Well you be careful, okay? You may think you have all the answers ’cause you’re old, but I used to think there was happy-ever-after, ’kay?”

James closed his eyes. “So did I.”

“Well, let’s keep thinking that, right?”

“Right. I’ll see you tonight.”

They rang off after that, but James was left in the quiet of his own home, scratching Marlowe on the spot behind his tail that sent him straight into ecstasy.

“He’s right, isn’t he Marlowe? I’m not too old for a happy-ever-after, am I?”

He took Marlowe’s happy panting for “
I
don’t think so,” and tried to put the troubled stirrings of his conscience back where his libido used to live.

R
AFAEL
arrived at seven, looking freshly showered and dressed up, the same way he had the night before.

He carried with him flowers (yellow daisies and red carnations) and a bottle of white wine. James looked at the flowers with parted lips and soft eyes.

“I do okay?”

“Nobody has ever brought me flowers,” he said, feeling silly. It was the truth. Not in college, not in adulthood. Austen had expected them, and so had most of his other dates, come to think about it. James had enjoyed bringing them, showering men with flowers and nice dinners—it seemed to be expected of him.

No one had ever thought to bring him flowers in return.

Certainly no one had ever thought to bring them first.

“So,” Rafael said uncertainly, “that’s good, right?”

James nodded and turned away quickly. “That’s amazing,” he said. “Here, let me put these in a vase.”

Rafael watched him as he put the flowers in a vase and then on the table, and put the wine in the refrigerator. The table was already set—placemats, nice silverware, wine glasses and everything, but dinner was still cooking.

“What are we eating?” he asked curiously, and James managed a smile.

“Pasta Santa Fe—I made the pesto sauce fresh, mixed it with the pecans and cubed chicken, and put the noodles on right before you got here.”

Rafael grinned. “This is a first for me, you know. Man, sometimes, I think I’m lucky to get In-N-Out and a movie.”

James looked at him—God, he was still so pretty, but James was starting to see the vulnerability there too. “Why?” he asked quietly. “You’re… uhm… well… I wouldn’t kick you out of bed, right?”

Rafael leered. “No you wouldn’t—and you didn’t.” He turned thoughtful then. “I don’t know. I guess I just like to date guys who play.” He looked away quickly then, and James thought with a shock that he would never have to worry about Rafael lying to him—because he’d just told his first whopper, and he was really bad at it.

“The pasta’s about ready,” James said. “I, uhm….” He couldn’t even finish what he was saying. Disappointment rose in his throat like bile.

“What?” Rafael blocked his body as he went to move around the kitchen.

“Pasta,” James mumbled. “I’ve got to—”

“Your face—you got all sad. What happened?”

“You lied.” James wasn’t even able to keep that in his chest. For five years he’d managed to hold on to his suspicions about Austen—he’d swallowed them and told himself that he had it great, because he had a nice man who waited for him at home and didn’t have an all-consuming job and who wanted the same things he did. But he couldn’t hold onto this now—not for Rafael. Maybe he was weaker now. Or maybe he just knew where swallowing suspicion could lead you.

Rafael sighed and turned to sit by the little counter that separated the kitchen from the tiny dining room. “Yeah, I lied. But it’s not what you think.”

“It’s not what it looks like,” James quoted to himself. “Well, it is what it looks like, but it’s not what you think!”

Rafael rolled his eyes. “You know, I may not be a child of the eighties, Jimmy, but everybody’s got cable. No, I’m not banging someone else on the side—and I may be easy sometimes, but I’m not easy a lot. That’s not the problem.”

“Yeah?” James asked. He couldn’t exactly look up because he actually
was
trying to dump pasta in the colander without getting scalded, but maybe his voice conveyed his complete and total skepticism.

“Yeah,” Rafael snapped. “No—you see, it’s my family.”

“You said your mother ‘doesn’t believe in gay’.”

He managed to look up and saw that Rafael’s eyebrows were raised way up. “You
were
paying attention—I’m impressed. But yeah. See, that’s the thing. Guys, they get serious, they want to come meet the parents, they want to hold hands, be a couple—they want to be ‘public’. But see, that’s not how my family works. We go in there, go ‘public’, and my moms, she’ll start crying, my pops, he’ll be a complete and total asshole, and a week, maybe two, the same guy that thinks he wants to run off and get married, now he’s like, ‘Oh
hell
no—I can’t deal with that!’ But it’s not like I want ‘gay’ to be my dirty little secret, either!”

James looked at him carefully and started tossing the noodles with the broth and the pesto. “So, you’ve got a solution?”

Rafael shrugged. “Yeah—longest relationship I ever had, it worked fine. Introduced the guy to my family, said, ‘This is my roommate, Curtis,’ and you know what? Moms loved him, Pops wanted to talk cars, Curtis got to play with my little sister—it was all roses. It was good. Curtis got to be in my life, there was no hiding—but it was like, you know….”