Cicatrice
He didn't understand his life, how he'd gotten to this point and why everything was so hard.
Everything was hard, dark, pointless. And no one he loved, loved him in return.
One could only turn it over and over in one's mind for so many solitary nights, before one squirmed towards comfort, the physical sort.
He'd chosen this pale young man -- a student type -- out of all the men in the large dark bar, not because he was alone, or comely, though he was both, but because there was something in his attitude of the same uncertainty Wesley felt himself. That made him approachable.
Wesley had no heart for small talk. He walked up to the boy, who watched him with a steady half-lowered gaze.
"I should very much like to take you home to bed. Would you come with me?"
Maybe the kid really wanted to, or maybe he was just too surprised to refuse.
After the handshake -- he was warm, therefore alive -- after the exchange of names -- he called himself Cory, in a way that showed it wasn't his name at all, said he was a freshman at UCLA -- they were silent in the car, silent going into the dark flat.
In the bedroom, in the light of one low bulb at the bedside, Wesley realized this wasn't going to work. He'd chosen badly. This Cory, who was standing hesitantly by the bed, looking at it as if it was a bed of nails, not looking at him at all -- had never done this before.
Wes needed a fuck, Christ he just needed a fuck, just needed to grapple with someone else, flail and huff and groan and come, come hard, two times, three if he could manage it, and then sleep, dear sweet dreamless solitary sleep. He needed the kind of fuck you get with another man, rough and physical and fast. But a boy who'd never been fucked couldn't take that, or receive it.
Christ. Where were his brains? Why did he pick this . . . child?
Cory pulled his shirt off then -- it was one of those stripey polo shirts, that boys wear, even little boys. His chest was pale and smooth and almost adolescent, the muscles of his arms and pecs seeming as new and tentative as a young girl's budding breasts.
"So -- you a top, or a bottom?" Cory tossed his head as he said it, flicking the hair out of his eyes, and they glittered.
Surprised by the question and the unexpected intensity of that gaze, Wesley didn't answer. Inside, he was curling up. This was wrong. This -- occasional propensity of his, for sex with men, sex without emotion or outcome -- it was just another thing his father would denounce him for if he ever found out.
His father whom he'd shot to death the other day.
Never mind that he hadn't, really.
The Dad-is-only-a-robot thing was only a detail.
"Hey." The kid stepped up to him. "We doing this?"
Now those glittering eyes were right in front of him, and Wesley's perception shifted again. A tiger. The kid was like a tiger, nothing moving but the flick of a tail-tip, all gathered power waiting for its moment.
How -- ?
Cory grasped him by the nape and mashed his mouth against Wes's, too hard, so teeth caught lip.
"Easy -- !"
"Are you gonna fuck me? I thought that's what -- "
"Yes." This might be all right after all, so why was he feeling so strange? Almost . . . spooked. Come to it, he could take him -- in a fight. Would take him -- on the bed. The kid was backing up towards it, toeing his trainers off, dropping his jeans. Nothing on beneath them, and his cock half-erect, jutting out at an angle, deep red against the startling white of thigh and belly.
The sight of it, like a repressed secret, made Wes blush; his own cock stirred. With an awkward start, aware of himself still clothed while the boy stood nude, he shucked his clothes, let them drop anywhere.
The kid raised his chin, his smile at once encouraging and entirely without warmth.
"I won't hurt you," Wes said.
Cory shrugged.
Wesley went to him. Five steps through air like glue. Took the boy's jaw in his hands. Looked into the eyes, because it seemed important, before they did this, that there be a moment of merely human acknowledgement between them. At his touch, Cory stiffened, almost as if he was going to break away. He frowned, suspicious.
Wes had thought to kiss him, but now he didn't. He was losing his optimism again. The deliberation here, not what he'd wanted. Had wanted, by now, to be hot at it with the other fellow, a tangle of limbs and grunts, beyond speech. "How do you want it?"
The kid hesitated, and became human again. "On my back?"
Like a girl? That's what he'd say, the old man. You take it on your back, son? Like a girl? Is that what you wish you were? It's not what I wanted you to be.
"That'll do." Wes opened a bedstand drawer, drew out a condom. Bottle of lube he tossed onto the bed. Wrong, wrong, this was going wrong. They should have stumbled into the room groping and kissing, should've sunk to the bed mauling each other, struggling with clothes, grabbing at cocks, grappling and tugging.
He wasn't hard, and not sure if he would ever be, tonight.
Cory was still looking up into his face. Then his hand came up, fingers grazing Wes's jaw, neck. "What's that?" A thumb coasting over the ragged scar at the base of his beardline.
"Nothing." Wes shrugged away. "Lie down."
"Did you do that to yourself? Or did someone do it to you?"
Heat rose through him, angry, indignant. "I said: it's nothing."
Cory's hand slid around to hold his head. He mouthed the scar, traced the tough raised skin with his tongue. Wes was too startled to react. The kid's cock was poking hard into his thigh now, leaving a swipe of wet. He lipped the broken line of the scar, and his other hand went down suddenly to grasp Wes's cock.
Stop. Stop this. Wanted to shove him off, clap a hand over the scar, shove him out, get drunk like he had every night for the last week. Gorgeous blotto oblivion.
The kid yanked at Wes's cock like he was uprooting a weed, sloppily dragging the foreskin up and back, letting it brush against his own belly with each tug, and the wet tip of his own prodded Wes like a finger, demanding attention.
Then he shoved Wes down onto the bed, climbed over him, and plucked the condom from his fingers. He had a strange smile, his mouth small and the lips curiously red in his pale face, the same hue, nearly, as his cock. He didn't look naive now, not with that predator's grin, that unflinching gaze. Hair in his eyes, and none on his chest or legs. Strange boy-man, thrusting his cock before Wesley's face as he tore open the packet. Wes caught the rosy tip in his mouth, and for a moment the boy was still, straddling his chest, watching with lowered eyes and an enigmatic grin. Then he pulled back. Wes watched him stroke himself with a luxurious tilt of the hand, show off, before he rolled the condom on.
No words.
Hand in the middle of his chest, shoving him flat. The little smile devilish, all-knowing now. "I'm gonna fuck you, guy," Cory said, showing his tongue between his teeth.
Wes hesitated for a moment, then drew up his legs. Eyes fixed on the ceiling, he felt the absurdity of this -- of his pose, splayed like a frog for dissection -- of opening his flat, his body, to this strange young man, who could so easily --
Handful of slick against his arse, finger prodding the hole. And then the boy was there again, against Wes's neck, teeth tasting the cicatrice, tongue laving it. The kid grunted, shoved a finger in, pulled out, shoved two. Pain. Wes gripped his own knees, so as not to flail out, shove him off. Forced himself to breathe. Fingers withdrawing. Too fast. Back again, three. Wes gasped. "Wait a bit -- !"
"Thought you'd done this before." Kid kissed him then, a kiss like a bite, and flexed his fingers at the same time, a rippling invasion that made Wes shout.
Then he was getting fucked, his heels in the small of the kid's back, the kid's face buried in his neck, sucking on the scar like it was something else, a sex that would swell and spend into his mouth. Wes heard himself grunt with each bouncing thrust as the kid did push-ups on his body.
He was hard, but he didn't touch himself. Spread his fingers in Cory's hair, tried to guide him off the neck, even though the sensation of his sucking there was making Wes's balls high and tight and hot, making him shudder all over even more than the dicking did, though it was a good deep dicking that caught him inside just right. But the kid wouldn't budge; he hung on with his teeth, so for one confused moment Wes thought he'd brought home a monster, and his mind flipped images at him like cards spinning on a Rolodex, every pathetic wank fantasy he'd ever had about Angel. Angel shoving him up against a wall, fangs deep in his throat, cock tearing him up heavy and sweet, killing him heavy and sweet.
The kid wasn't heavy enough, wasn't monster enough, or at all, but oh God oh God oh God Wes shot, cum splattering on his belly, and the kid seized up a second later, shaking on him, then collapsing like he'd fallen from space. Wet skin on wet skin, and Wes let his legs drop, muscles sore and shot, brought his arms around the slender smooth back. Traced the sweat-slick spine down to the rich curve of the ass. Cory panted into his neck.
He raised his head, and Wes grabbed his hair in the back and dragged him into a kiss before he could say anything. A proper kiss, a seal on the transaction. His boy's mouth felt like a girl's, his face nearly smooth, impossibly young. For a second Wes let himself think of what it would feel like to kiss Fred, who would be smooth and small and lie on him just as lightly as this boy did. Shit. He started to sit up. Obligingly, Cory rolled off, attended to the condom. Wes averted his eyes. Rubbed them, blinking. Any justice, kid would turn into a nice finger of single malt now.
Which was an unworthy thought. But then weren't they all?
Hand there again on his neck. Tracing the scar with fascination. Respect. Wes shrugged him off, but Cory rested his pointy little chin on Wes's shoulder, and whispered.
"How'd you get it? You try to off yourself?"
Wes turned his head. "No."
"It's fuckin' sexy." A pause, while he touched it again, until Wes grabbed his wrist, yanked it off.
"I think you should go now."
"You're sexy." Hand plucking at him now, at his biceps, at a nipple. Strange touches, not arousing. Evaluative. "You could still fuck me. It's not late."
Wes rose. "What do you want?"
"What do I want?"
"I said it's time for you to go."
He went into the bathroom. When he emerged, wearing his robe, the kid was sprawled on the center of the bed, legs akimbo, stroking himself.
God. His balls were like two apricots. Suddenly there were tears in Wes's eyes, he couldn't think why. He turned away.
Cory sat up. "I don't want to leave."
"I don't know."
"What?"
"I don't know why I have this scar."
Bewilderment filled the room. Wes's heart hurt, a pain that ran down his left arm, made his hand throb. Christ Almighty, I am lost.
The kid's voice, quiet. "How can you not know, mister?"
Had he forgotten his name? It went with all the not-knowing that filled Wes up and made the days like lead. Not knowing love, not knowing himself, not knowing the people he worked with every day, or quite what it was they were working towards.
Something bad happened to me.
The boy was on his feet now, looking wary. His pretty prick jutted out of the dark patch of hair, but he bent for his jeans. Unbearable that he should go so soon. Wes went to him, encircled his shoulders, drew him up. Kissed him, his own lips moist, tears trickling from his eyes. A sob escaped him as the boy put his arms around him.
"I don't know what happened to me."
Cory kissed him, swallowing Wes's next sob, one hand yanking the robe undone, so when he pressed himself against Wes, they were skin to skin. He looked at him, worry and question in the grey eyes. "You okay?"
Wes thought, He's so young, nothing's happened to him yet, he's different from me because he doesn't even know that he doesn't know. A child. Lucky child.
"Perfectly all right. This -- " He fingered the scar himself, "this was long ago." Then the uncertainty turned around again. "What's it to you?"
Cory dropped his gaze. "It's . . . just thought it was hot, is all."
"Why?"
He exhaled a hunh of a laugh. "Dunno. Looks tough. Like . . . like a real man is."
The pain came again, a constriction in Wes's chest, and with it something hot and dark that bloomed in his mind, ungraspable, a sense of déjà vu so strong and certain it pulled a gasp from his lips, and yet it wasn't anything he could grasp. He palmed the boy's face, felt its smooth contours. He didn't know this boy. He didn't know this boy.
He didn't know his life anymore. Didn't know himself. That was the infernal trouble of the thing.