Clear Water Read online

  “There’s ice cream?” Patrick slurred, thinking that when he woke up, he’d be happy to have some.

  “Uhm-hmm….”

  Patrick’s entire body was completely relaxed, and with one hand, Whiskey pulled up the blanket around their hips so they didn’t get too cold from the breeze that came through the hatches. “I like ice cream,” Patrick managed before he couldn’t talk anymore.

  “I like you,” Whiskey said, and Patrick was sad, because he didn’t have a chance to respond to that before he fell asleep.

  Whiskey

  White Lies in Shadow

  WHISKEY had lied several times that night.

  He’d said he thought the lead actor was hot when really, he thought the guy was average. He said there was no hurry to come when his body had been made of nothing but hurry, and his hands had been shaking so bad he’d been afraid he’d actually hurt Patrick during that first frantic hand job. He’d said he was on his way to falling asleep when, in reality, he had no intention of doing anything but holding Patrick and planning what he was going to do to that wonderfully responsive body to get Patrick to make more awesome let’s-wake-the-neighbors sex sounds.

  And he’d said he liked Patrick when the truth—the whole truth—was that he had fallen very much in love with him at this point, but he didn’t want to say that, because Patrick might bolt.

  That there was the absolute truth, and Whiskey knew Patrick would confirm it, either in word or in deed, if Whiskey brought it up. Which was why Whiskey had chosen the I’m thinking about living here approach. And the way Patrick had jumped on top of that one had made Whiskey’s hand shake on Patrick’s skin, and it had made him gasp in raw passion from just the feeling of Patrick’s body on top of his. Patrick wanted to make this place their home. Whiskey wouldn’t stop him for the world.

  Over the past four weeks, Whiskey had learned the ways of Patrick’s sleeping—it had been necessary if Whiskey wanted to stay unbruised. Whiskey knew that moment between sleeping and waking; he could feel the moment when Patrick went from stone dead weight to peacefully semi-conscious. The moment after that was the moment when Patrick shot out of bed shouting, “It’s my turn to count the frogs!” or “Whiskey wears the deck shoes today!” (They only had one pair between them.)

  When Patrick was on the way down to sleep, there was the twitchy moment when he couldn’t seem to stop talking; then there was the semi-conscious moment after that. The semi-conscious moment here was especially dangerous—that was the time when Patrick might (and he only did it every third night) suddenly kersplang himself right the fuck out of bed. One minute they would be lying there, and Whiskey would be giving his body a stern talking to because it wanted to molest Patrick whether Patrick wanted it or not, and the next, every one of Patrick’s bony limbs would suddenly convulse and shoot out, like a spiny starfish, and if Whiskey hadn’t felt that moment and rolled over with his arms over his head, Patrick would catch him in the jaw with a sharp elbow or in the solar plexus with a fist. (Once, Patrick had caught him in the hardened groin with a knee. It had taken Whiskey more than an hour to get the man to stop saying “I’m sorry!”)

  So Whiskey needed to wait for after that semi-conscious moment and before Patrick sank like a boulder into the black waters of true sleep before he made his move.

  Patrick took a deep breath, sort of a pre-snore deep breath, and Whiskey took his window.

  “Patrick?”

  “Hm?”

  “I’m going to rub your shoulders, okay?”

  “’Kay.”

  “Don’t kill me when I move out from under you, okay?”

  “Mm. Will do.”

  Whiskey took his time. He rubbed medium hard—Patrick was thin, and there was not enough muscle mass to really squish under his long hands. Mostly he just rubbed, enjoyed the feel of skin on skin, and occasionally bent to kiss tiny moles or the smattering of freckles on Patrick’s often-pink shoulders. Patrick moved sinuously under his touch, his hips undulating a little under Whiskey’s straddling legs, and Whiskey thought it might be time to move down.

  His erection slid down the crease of Patrick’s narrow bottom and between his thighs before he knelt at the bottom of the bed and stooped over, kissing down Patrick’s spine. He paused right at the crease of Patrick’s buttocks and spoke again. “Patrick?”

  “Hm?”

  “I’m going to push you up a little here, okay? I’m going to play a little with your privates and lick you a lot. Don’t spaz out and kick me in the face, okay?”

  Patrick tensed for a minute, and Whiskey thought, Oh shit, it’s all over!

  And then Patrick mumbled, “Whatever. Feels good.”

  You have no idea. Whiskey stuck his tongue out then and pulled those skinny, pale butt cheeks apart and traced the obvious path. Patrick had bathed—well—but he was still a little sweaty, and his body smelled like their sex from before, and that turned Whiskey on unbelievably.

  He licked carefully, listening to Patrick start to make mm-mm-yummy noises, and then started to lick a little harder.

  “Mm… Whiskey?”

  “Does it feel good?”

  “God, yeah.”

  “Then go with it.”

  “M’okay.”

  Whiskey smiled and sucked on his thumb, letting the air hit Patrick’s orifice for a second. Patrick shuddered and, hopefully, woke up a little.

  “’Kay, I’m going to rub that a little more and suck on your balls until you can’t stand it. Is that a plan?”

  “Whu—oh, God!”

  Patrick’s body tightened completely for a moment, and Whiskey held his breath. Oh please, oh please, oh please, don’t kill me. Whiskey kept rubbing and softening up Patrick’s opening, then sucked a testicle very, very carefully into his mouth.

  Patrick buried his face into the pillow and groaned from so deeply in the pit of his stomach that his balls vibrated in Whiskey’s mouth. And then he did something so totally un-Patrick like Whiskey knew he was on the right track.

  He stayed absolutely still.

  Whiskey got to the multitasking part of sex then. He sucked gently on Patrick’s testicles while he reached under Patrick’s stomach carefully and grabbed his cock. Patrick groaned loudly, and Whiskey kept up massaging his asshole until Patrick’s whole body started bucking.

  Whiskey pulled his mouth away but kept up with the thumb in the one place and the fist in the other, and Patrick started pleading.

  “Oh, God… God, Whiskey… please… I need… I need… I need… oh, fuck!”

  “What do you need, baby?” Whiskey panted, trying not to grind his own erection up against the edge of the bed. “Come on… you tell me. Tell me what it is and I’ll do it, and I’ll do it right, and nothing’s gonna feel better than what I can do to you, okay?”

  “Okay,” Patrick whimpered. “Okay. Then… God, I… Oh. My. God!”

  Whiskey had changed his thumb for his finger and had found the walnut-sized nerve bundle in Patrick’s body that, Whiskey would guess, no one had ever bothered hitting before.

  “What do you want?”

  “Do that again!”

  “You want to know an easy way for me to do that?”

  “Ohgod ohgod ohgod ohgod….”

  Whiskey chuckled and rubbed that spot hard one more time. “You want I should do something for you, Patrick?”

  “Oh, Jesus! Whiskeeeeeeyyy!”

  “Yeah?”

  “Oh, geez, would you just fuck me!”

  “Hand me a condom and some lube, baby, and I’m so there.”

  Patrick’s hands were shaking so badly he could hardly grab them, but he got them eventually and made the hand-off, then got up on his hands and knees, but Whiskey wasn’t having that.

  “Turn around,” he commanded, and his voice was rough and urgent and his hands were shaking as he rolled the rubber down his own cock.

  Patrick did, squinting in confusion, and Whiskey reached up above his head for a pillow, which he jammed under Patrick’s
hips.

  “I’m going to look at you,” he muttered. Everything he’d heard Patrick say that morning had haunted him—all of the shitty ways Patrick had been convinced he was a shitty lay. Whiskey didn’t even care about coming—not this time. He just wanted to see Patrick’s face to make sure he got it right.

  “What?”

  Whiskey frowned in concentration as he dumped a massive amount of lubricant on the condom and then positioned himself very carefully at Patrick’s stretched entrance. “This is going to burn for a minute,” he cautioned. “It is—but once you’re used to me there, I’ll start moving.”

  Patrick’s squint intensified. “I’ve done this before,” he said, sounding hurt.

  “Not the way I do it,” Whiskey muttered, and then he started pushing very slowly in.

  Patrick’s head was thrown back into the pillows, and his long neck was arched. A lover’s flush spread along his throat and his bare chest and up into his cheeks, and his eyes were closed tightly as he willed himself to accept Whiskey’s invasion.

  Whiskey used that expression and the way Patrick panted in response to Whiskey’s long stroke to gauge whether he should keep going… keep going… keep going…. Oh, God, oh God, Patrick’s body was so tight. Whiskey was so afraid of fucking this up, but at the same time, oh, God did it feel a-fucking-mazing right there in Patrick’s body.

  Patrick started to wiggle and scoot his ass down on Whiskey’s cock, muttering, “Faster, Whiskey. It’s killing me so slow!” and Whiskey sped up when suddenly, pop! His crown slid inside, followed by the whole rest of his cock, because he couldn’t help it, his hips just thrust inside. Patrick made that low shuddering groan again, and this time, buried so tightly in his body, Whiskey could feel it in his balls.

  He stopped for a minute, sweating and breathless, and Patrick started to scoot again. His eyes popped open, sky blue and full of pleading. “Faster,” he groaned. “Faster… God, faster!”

  Whiskey couldn’t have refused him if he’d wanted to, and his hips started snapping back and forth, and Patrick whimpered again, and Whiskey remembered he was decent at this and started to aim.

  He knew he’d hit the right spot when Patrick came off the bed, so he aimed there again and again and again and again and again—

  “Oh God, Whiskey, don’t fucking stop!”

  “Grab your cock, then, baby, and don’t fucking stop!”

  Patrick wrapped his hand around his own member, and Whiskey would have liked to take notes to see how he wanted to be touched, but his eyes were rolling into the back of his head by then. “Stroke, dammit!” he urged, and Patrick’s cries got, if anything, louder. God, Whiskey loved a vocal lover, one who was transparent and needing and grateful for Whiskey’s touch. Nothing made him feel more like he was home than sliding into someone’s body when it was begging for possession.

  Patrick stroked hard and fast and begged some more until he threw his head back again and his hips flinched up and Whiskey met him in the middle. The first spurt of come out of Patrick’s cock was a godsend, because it was Whiskey’s permission to come himself, and he did, spilling into the condom with a huge sense of pride.

  He collapsed onto Patrick at the same time he slid out, and Patrick wrapped all of his gangly limbs around Whiskey’s trembling body.

  “Good?” Whiskey asked after a couple of moments. He’d buried his face in Patrick’s shoulder and was pleased to feel Patrick’s hand in his hair, stroking, clenching, just generally there to comfort.

  “Awesome,” Patrick breathed. “Not squinky at all.”

  Whiskey chuckled a little and considered his job well done. “Excellent. You up for some ice cream?”

  Patrick’s hand stopped, and he pulled back. “Do we have some? Really?”

  “Yeah. Fly Bait got it when she went to town.”

  Patrick’s smile was beautiful and pure. “Oh, baby, bring me a spoon!”

  “Maybe we can clean up first?”

  That smile turned sly. “Well, yeah. Because, you know, that way we could do it again later.”

  Whiskey nodded soberly. “Yeah. But this time it’s your turn to top.”

  Patrick’s eyes got big and his mouth shut, and he stayed like that for the next couple of minutes as Whiskey washed them both off and then gave Patrick a clean pair of boxers to put on. They ended up back in bed, passing a half-gallon of chocolate chip mint ice cream back and forth between them, talking softly.

  Whiskey got up and put the ice cream back, thinking that he’d go back to find Patrick in bed, but when he turned around, Patrick was heading up to the deck.

  “Where you going?”

  “It’s been a really beautiful night,” Patrick said soberly. “I want to thank someone for it, and when I see the stars, I just feel closer, that’s all.”

  Whiskey stopped cold. Oh sweet Jebus—thank someone? Thank God? Yeah, Whiskey knew about the guy. Scientists believed in him too. In college, Whiskey had been pretty sure that the perfect symmetry of cells and chemicals and food chains and physics had all been proof that the Big Guy existed. Then his parents had become victims of ice and physics and someone else’s interaction with alcohol, and Whiskey’s belief had faded. It hadn’t disappeared dramatically—there had been no fist-to-the-heavens moment, no from this moment forward, there is no God! But he’d stopped looking at the way the world was put together and thinking that must be proof that there was.

  He watched as Patrick pattered outside, disappearing into the ink void deckside on the boat, and thought, Oh, God. Patrick. Patrick is proof that you are there. You could have let him just sink into the black river alone, but you gave him me, and then you gave me him.

  Whiskey swallowed and followed Patrick up the steps.

  The moon was fully visible overhead, misty and gold and far away, with a silver halo that helped light up the cloudy sky. Across the horizon, the stars had come out, a clear belt of crisp black against the mystery of the murky, muggy clouds, and the black water of the river at night turned every light to impressionism and twisted light. The rushes on the other side of the river were thrown into black relief on that bed of twisted light, leaving the entire world, their entire world, a masterwork in shades of black and white and gray.

  Patrick was leaning over the rail, simply looking. It was one of the few times Whiskey had ever looked at him and thought that he was still. He came up behind his funny, complicated lover, the one who was kind and who had yearned so exquisitely for love that maybe even God had heard him, and wrapped his arms around Patrick’s middle and held him tight.

  “Thanking God?” he whispered hoarsely.

  “Yeah.”

  “Me too.”

  Patrick turned in his arms. “Really?”

  “Swear!”

  Patrick’s smile was sweet. “So you’re grateful for me?”

  “Every breath.”

  Whiskey was starting to treasure the feel of Patrick’s face resting in the hollow of his shoulder. “I’m so glad. I don’t know if anyone’s ever been grateful for me.”

  Whiskey’s eyes burned with the force of how much he felt this. “I told you,” he whispered. “You’ve been hanging out with the wrong people.”

  Patrick nodded against him. “I know better now,” he murmured. “I won’t fall for any of that shit again.”

  Whiskey held him tighter and closed his eyes against the beauty of the night. Patrick there, in his arms—that really was all that heaven would allow.

  THE weekend went so damned fast.

  They had small chores to do: some telemetry recording, taking care of the frogs, shopping, and laundry. They’d had to wait until nearly noon the next day before taking off for their dock, the deserted little dock off of the deserted stretch of land that was so lonely it felt like they really were the only two people on the planet, but eventually they made it. After that, they spent much of the rest of the weekend either swimming or in bed.

  To be fair, it was hot enough that they had to spend a lot of it sw
imming. Whiskey got to stroke the sunblock on Patrick’s ultra-fair skin this time, so that was nice. Patrick was just as responsive with sunblock as he was with sex. He moved his shoulders and wiggled his hips and shrugged into Whiskey’s hands with all of the happiness he showed in Whiskey’s bed. It made Whiskey’s heart beat large and loud in his throat to know he was comfortable. In spite of the wonderful—spectacular—places they’d gone in bed that weekend, he hadn’t felt in fear of his life once after that initial, sleepy/sensual moment where Whiskey had tried so hard to show Patrick that sex did not have to be squinky.

  But Sunday evening, after they’d puttered back to the dock, they had nothing to do but wait for Fly Bait in the cooling pink twilight. They spent the time sitting on the back of the houseboat, their legs dangling over the side a foot or two from the water, and holding hands.

  Whiskey was fascinated by Patrick’s hands. They were long and spidery, like his body, all pointy joints and awkward length, but they liked to touch things. Patrick spent a thoughtful, quiet time letting his hand walk gracefully from Whiskey’s thighs to his hips to his shoulders before Whiskey captured it, kissed the center, and put it back in his lap. They spoke occasionally—emotional shorthand, almost like the science shorthand that Whiskey used with Fly Bait.

  “Mmm… pretty.” Patrick’s lake-blue eyes were fixed on the horizon.

  “Sunset?”

  “Yeah. Pink, orange, purple, black. Can’t find shirts that color.”

  “Not in stores men shop.”

  “Sue me. I’m gay.”

  “Would rather fuck you ’cause you’re gay.” Normally, Whiskey’s inappropriate sense of humor would be shot down here—he was much aware.

  Patrick’s throaty “Hawm-hawm-hawm!” rang out over the quiet, slow-flowing river, and Whiskey had to wonder how Fly Bait’s louder laughter had scared him so badly. They both sounded very much alike.

  Suddenly Patrick shifted, rested his head on Whiskey’s shoulder. “Are we going to have sex again, now that Fly Bait’s back?”

  Whiskey nuzzled that hair—it only got more streaked with white-blond in the summer sun, and curlier as well—and smiled. “Oh hell yeah.”