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“A man is staring at us,” said John.
Arthur stopped with the glass against his lips. Maybe it had been too much to ask after all, that they be able to spend one evening in relative peace. Sat at the bar, he listened to the patrons laughing and arguing around them, trying to form a picture of the space in his mind. John had described it well enough when they came in that he knew the majority of seating was to their right, with plenty of small tables and booths for the seediest sort to nestle into. He finished his sip, far more conservatively than he’d intended for. So much for the pleasant buzz he’d been nursing.
“What’s he doing?” Arthur whispered, trying to move his lips as little as possible so their observer wouldn’t notice him speaking to himself.
“Nothing, at the moment. Just staring.”
“Well, don’t stare back. This isn’t the crowd for that.” Arthur leaned his elbows against the bar, hoping to project an aura of no one fuck with me right now. He had some experience there, after all. “Is he alone?”
“No,” said John, tension creeping into his tone. Arthur had the feeling he was trying to glare the man down, which definitely wasn’t going to help matters, no matter who it was or what their intentions were. “He’s sitting at one of the tables, facing us. Across from him is another man, maybe a few years younger. The younger man is talking…a lot. Gesturing a lot. But the older one is just nodding along…not really listening, because he’s staring at us.”
Arthur strained his ears and thought he caught a few words from the men in question: someone nearby was prattling on about a trip to the South Carolina coast, “We should do that again sometime,” and so forth. There was an enthusiasm in his voice that bordered on desperation, and Arthur felt something twist his stomach in unwelcome familiarity. He doesn’t want to go back to the coast with you, and you know it, he thought with sour sympathy. When he tried to picture the man across from the poor, over-eager fool, the lack of any sound cue left a blank space he was suddenly eager to fill with a face that wasn’t his own.
“What does he look like?” Arthur asked.
“He’s…rather handsome,” John admitted, and Arthur wanted to roll his eyes, because of course he was if his companion was willing to embarrass himself in public over him. At the same time, however, he found his curiosity well-piqued by John applying such a judgment. “In his late forties, probably, or early fifties. He has coarse, dark blonde hair, swept back, mixed with gray. He’s rather tall, and muscular, dressed in a blue-gray suit. His eyes are pale, almost…striking, and there are deep lines around his eyes and mouth. As if he smiles a lot.”
Arthur fit each description into place in his imagination. He had gotten pretty good at it since meeting John: with just a few details, he could draw into his mind’s eye a vivid picture of his new world, and the people—and “people”--that existed in it. Even so, he couldn’t help but be amused by John’s specificity that time. “Is he smiling now?” he asked. “As he’s staring at us?”
“Yes,” said John, and as the image solidified in Arthur’s mind, he felt his heart skip a little. “Faintly. There’s something about it I don’t like.”
“You should have mentioned that first,” Arthur scolded as he picked up his drink again—a strong whiskey that probably wasn’t about to help their focus, but too tempting to forego for long. “Smiling while staring is very different from scowling while staring.”
“I don’t like it,” John insisted, a little growl sneaking into his voice that put a warmth in Arthur’s stomach not unlike the alcohol. “He’s watching us as if he knows us, or as if…” He grumbled. “As if he wants something from us, and he’s just waiting for us to give it to him.”
Oh, Arthur thought, and suddenly he could feel the eyes on him. The scene started to make a lot more sense. Well, we can find out pretty easily. “Watch him closely,” he whispered.
“I am.”
John sounded so determined that it only fueled the playful little spark threatening to glow in Arthur’s belly. With a deep breath Arthur straightened up on the barstool—arched his back in a slow stretch as he raised the whiskey again to his mouth. Curved his feet around the stool legs to make his ass stand out. He tilted his chin up and took a long gulp. What the stranger would make of the invitation while being glared at by the eyes of an Eldritch god, he had no idea, but he felt a stirring of excitement he hadn’t in a long time—maybe not since long before meeting John. He didn’t play games like this often enough anymore.
“He’s narrowing his eyes at us,” John reported, though his conspiratorial tone had twisted slightly with bewilderment, as if he were finally recognizing that the stranger’s intentions may be less than nefarious, though still sinful. “He’s smiling wider than before. He looks downright…smug.” John harrumphed. “Do you know him?”
“No, I doubt it,” said Arthur, though he was starting to wish otherwise. He set his glass back down on the bar. “No tall, handsome blondes in my life these days.”
“Hey,” said a voice, deep and velvety, and though Arthur had very little means to judge, he was certain it came from the stranger. “Let’s head upstairs.”
“O-Oh,” stuttered the poor sap across from him. “All right—I mean, yes! Let’s.”
“They’re getting up from the table,” John relayed. Arthur’s heart began to beat a little faster as he listened to their chairs scraping. “The older one is paying for both their drinks.” Arthur could feel John’s hackles rising. “They’re heading this way.”
Arthur held his breath, and suddenly he felt like a chump himself, posed invitingly at the bar like some horny college boy looking for a new daddy. The thought made his cheeks grow hot, and he kept very still as the two men passed behind them.
A hand fell on his shoulder—heavy, broad, and hot. It squeezed, authoritative in a way that incited Arthur’s irritation and tightened his balls at the same time. Fuck, it had been a long time. Arthur rose into the touch, every nerve in his body deliciously electric. Think you can wag your little finger and have me how you want me? he thought, projecting his defiance with every nonverbal cue available to him. We’ll see about that.
The man moved on—he traced the line of Arthur’s jacket playfully across the back of his neck, then down his other shoulder. Then the fingers fell away, and Arthur tilted his head back so that John would be able to glare the man out. He counted the stranger’s footsteps to the exit.
“They’re gone,” said John.
Arthur let out his breath slowly; when he realized how worked up he’d gotten, he could only laugh at himself. “Shit,” he said, grinning boyishly as he gulped down the remainder of his drink. “Well. Apparently, I’ve still got it.”
John sighed heavily. “Now is no time to be thinking with your dick.”
“It’s just some harmless flirting, John.” Even so, Arthur was quick to pull out his wallet to pay for his drink. “I feel a little bad for his friend, but he’ll learn. They always do.”
As he climbed off the stool, John taunted, “You’re not going to wait around? Seems like he’s planning to come back for you when he’s finished.”
The thought sent another flash of heat through Arthur; angry that the man would assume his meek compliance, intrigued at what such a man might have in store for him. The booze in his belly encouraged him to wait; his better sense won out, and he turned toward the exit. “Now, John, don’t be jealous,” he said. “If he could see you, I’m sure he’d find you just as ravishing.”
John scoffed. “Head straight. The door is just ahead.”
They headed out and then up the stairs that led to the motel room they’d rented earlier that evening. It was a warm night, unseasonably so, and so Arthur stripped down to just his trunks and stretched out in bed. It was still hard to believe—a full night’s sleep on a forgiving mattress. He wriggled happily against the clean sheets and settled on his back with a sigh.
It should have been easy to fall straight to sleep. The alcohol spread a pleasant, floaty warmth through his weary limbs, to speak nothing of the fact that they were, for the moment, alone and safe. But as he folded his hands over his stomach, he found himself thinking again about the stranger in the bar, and the heavy, inviting weight of the hand on his shoulder.
“The man downstairs,” he said, willing to brave John’s scorn if it meant getting him to play along at least a little. “What did he look like again?”
“Why?” John grumbled.
Arthur couldn’t help but smirk to himself. He really does sound jealous. “Humor me,” he said, moving his fingers idly against his bare stomach. “It’s not as if we’ll ever see him again, so why not?”
John hummed, unconvinced, but just when Arthur thought he might refuse, he began. “He’s older than you,” he said, and Arthur relaxed deeper into the mattress as he drew a portrait of the man against his blind eyelids. “Dark, blonde hair swept back. Coarse, parted to one side. Strands of gray woven through, that give him an air of distinction. His eyes are pale blue and very bright.” John hesitated; Arthur could have sworn he felt John coiling like a serpent beneath his ribs. “He’s staring at you very intently.”
The use of present tense made Arthur’s skin prickle; once again he could feel the eyes licking him, and it took effort to keep his breath slow and even. “How so?” he prodded.
“He’s looking at you as if you’re a piece of meat,” John carried on, a bite to his voice that maybe he hoped was embarrassment-inducing, but Arthur was too amused by his petulance and too excited by the description itself to find it anything but enticing. “Like a rich man at a banquet held in his honor, and you’re his rightful prize he’s saving for last.”
Arthur licked his lips. We’ll see about that. “What else?”
“His jaw is broad and pronounced,” John continued, and Arthur latched onto a new bit of description he hadn’t heard before. “He’s smiling smugly at you—his mouth is wide, and his lips are very full. I think you’d like them wrapped around your cock.”
Arthur tensed; he wasn’t sure at first if he’d really heard that last part, or if his imagination had truly run away with him. His cock gave an eager twitch either way. “Is that so?” he asked, hoping he’d be able to tell from John’s reaction.
“One of his hands is resting on the table.” John was taunting him now, his voice a peculiar mix of bitter and goading, as if daring Arthur to be aroused. And fuck, was it working. “His fingers are long and thick, calloused from a life of hard work. He’s moving them slightly against the table as if eager to have something beneath them. They look firm, and strong. I bet you’d like to feel that for yourself, wouldn’t you?”
“I did feel for myself,” Arthur replied, fascinated by the thought of stoking John’s jealousy. “He touched me on his way out.”
John cursed under his breath, and Arthur shivered in response, as if he could feel John pacing inside him like an animal. “You were tempted to wait for him, weren’t you?” said John. “To get fucked by him?”
“And?” Arthur challenged in turn. “What if I said I was?”
“What if I said he’s standing in the doorway right now?”
Arthur jolted, immediately breaking out in a sweat as he sat up. He turned toward the door even not being able to see it as his every hair stood on end. His ears clawed for a footstep, a greeting, even just a creak of the door or the floor… What he got was John chuckling with scorn.
“Fuck, John.” Arthur let his breath out in a huff as he collapsed onto his back again. “Don’t do that.” But as John continued to laugh, he couldn’t be mad; he laughed, too, scrubbing the sweat from his forehead. “Christ, you really got me.”
“No, really,” John persisted. Rather than teasing or annoyed now, he lowered his voice to almost a purr. “What if I said he’s standing in the doorway, right now?”
Arthur felt his breath catch again. “He’s leaning against the doorframe in just his white shirt and slacks,” John carried on. “His clothing and hair are rumpled with sweat.” The growl crept into his voice again; Arthur swallowed as fresh arousal flowed down to his groin. “He’s been fucking that kid from the bar—you can smell it on him. But you’re the main course, and he’s here to partake.”
It was much easier to picture than it had any business being; Arthur found himself shifting against the mattress. Thank god he’d be able to blame this on the booze later. “Well,” he breathed, and he licked his lips. “He can’t do it from over there, can he?”
“He’s stepping inside,” John narrated, and Arthur could very nearly hear an echo of footsteps, he was that eager. “His eyes are moving up and down your body hungrily, but he’s not in a rush. He knows you’ve been waiting for him.”
“Uh-huh,” said Arthur, playing along with that angle for now.
“He’s taking off his shirt. His physique is impressive, Arthur—toned, and tanned. He takes very good care of himself. He’s sitting down on the mattress.”
John moved their hand to press into Arthur’s chest; Arthur startled, but he caught himself quickly and relaxed back into the fantasy of it. “He’s leaning over you,” said John, his voice very low, rumbling Arthur’s ears deliciously. “You can feel his breath on your face. It smells like the whiskey—he’s kissing you, and you can taste it.”
Arthur’s lips tingled. He tipped his head back, imagining a wet mouth moving against his own. A thin murmur escaped him as John kept talking. “His lips are as soft and inviting as you expected. He’s kissing you deeply, possessively. And you take it, don’t you, Arthur? You can’t get enough of it.”
Arthur’s own voice lowered to a mutter of denial, but he was distracted by John fingering his nipple. He bit his lip as sparks of pleasure skittered across his skin. Without even really thinking about it he stretched his hand down between his thighs to give his cock a slow squeeze—already he was growing hard, enveloped by John’s stern voice focused so intensely on only him.
“He’s climbing on top of you,” John said—really getting into it by then, his voice rough and eager. “The weight of his body pushes you into the mattress, and you’re trapped now, at his mercy.” Arthur squirmed involuntarily. “He’s taking both your wrists—pinning you—”
“No,” said Arthur.
“He’s—what?”
“No, he’s not.” Arthur gave himself a shake to cast off the impression of a heavy body bearing down on his, which hadn’t been doing his erection any favors anyway. “He tries, but I slip free—I roll him over.”
John snorted in annoyance. “He’s taller, broader, and heavier than you,” he said. “You are not rolling him over.”
“Yes, I am,” Arthur persisted. “When he leans down, I shove his elbow to throw him off balance, and I—” Arthur sat up and then flipped about, onto his knees. He sank back to the mattress in a straddled stance and immediately felt a fresh surge of adrenaline; he imagined a handsome stranger splayed out before him and hummed triumphantly as his cock throbbed.
“I roll you onto your back,” he finished smugly.
John fell quiet for a moment, which Arthur also considered a victory. He could very nearly hear John gulp before he regained his wits. “I… He stares up at you, surprised,” he said, and it wasn’t until then that Arthur realized his mistake. “Congratulations—you’ve caught him off guard. But he’s not done with you, yet.” John pushed at the waistband of Arthur’s underwear. “He wants you bare.”
“I oblige him,” Arthur retorted, and he pushed up on his knees again so that John could drag his last piece of clothing off. Once fully naked, Arthur took up his cock again and began to stroke; he liked this better, the night air cooling the sweat off his back, his body on display. “Well?” he goaded. “Does he like what he sees?”
“Yes,” John breathed, and Arthur tightened his grip. “He’s looking you up and down again, and he…he’s biting his lip.” John prodded at Arthur’s chin with two fingers. “He wants you to suck this.”
Again Arthur obliged—parted his lips and let John’s fingers sink into his mouth. He lavished them with his tongue, more for his own eventual sake, but he had to admit, John’s breathy groans of appreciation threw switches in his brain he didn’t know had ever been there. He sucked hard, rocking into his own fist, lust and disbelief at constant war in his booze-addled brain. He hadn’t been this hard in months.
“He rolls his hips against yours,” said John huskily. “You can feel his naked cock rubbing up against you—hard, and hot, and already dripping for you. It’s—”
Arthur tugged the fingers out of his mouth. “Pants?”
“Ah… fuck.” John growled and shoved his hand forward again; Arthur just barely managed not to gag or bite him. “He’s not fucking wearing pants anymore, all right? Because you can feel his cock rubbing up against your asshole, and you’re going to take it.”
Arthur smirked around John’s fingers—just getting under John’s skin when he was in control was enough to rev his engine on a good day. He gave them another few good swallows—enjoying the throaty murmur they elicited—and then pulled John free again. “I can feel it,” he purred as he reached their arm behind them. He didn’t want John to get too frustrated or discouraged, after all. “Mmn, I feel it, John.”
John hissed, and his fingers wormed eagerly between Arthur’s ass cheeks. “It’s one of the biggest I’ve ever seen,” he said, still somewhat heated as if trying to put Arthur in his place. He kneaded the tips against Arthur’s asshole; Arthur arched and stretched to give John more freedom to move. “And he expects you to take every inch.”
“Oh, I will,” Arthur promised, smacking his lips hungrily. “Let’s have it, then.”
“You slide down onto his cock,” said John, and he pressed their middle finger up inside him. Arthur hummed, welcoming the intrusion. “It’s thick, and hard, and he draws you down onto it like you belong here. He fills you up.”
“Yes…” Arthur slowed the strokes to his cock, wanting to focus more for the moment on John’s insistent fingering. It was so easy to let his imagination multiply the girth of that one finger as it plied his hole, stretching and plunging. He swayed back and forth, building a steady rhythm. “Oh, fuck, that’s good. Keep talking.”
John shoved in deeper. “He’s breathing hard now,” he said, and he sounded breathless himself. “Arching up into you. The muscles along his abdomen are slick with sweat, flexing beautifully with each thrust. He can’t take his eyes off you, Arthur. His hands are tight on your hips, and I’m sp—” John caught himself, groaning quietly—Arthur quivered. “He’s speeding up—fucking you faster, deeper. He’s licking his lips like he can’t wait for you to come for me.”
“I…” Arthur began, and his breath tangled in a throaty murmur of pleasure as the tips of John’s pumping finger struck him just right in that moment. “I fuck you harder,” Arthur shot back, missing his own slip somewhere in between the heavenly shudders. He went back to stroking his cock in earnest, thumbing the weeping slit. “I could ride your cock all night.”
“Could you?” John prodded a second finger against Arthur’s hole. “I shove my second cock in you, Arthur.”
Arthur flinched. “Your—what?”
Arthur’s rhythm stuttered, but then John did shove another finger into him; Arthur pressed his lips thin against a whimper of confused arousal. “You can feel your hole stretching around me,” John carried on, his voice rough and bestial, sending more delightful shivers up and down Arthur’s prickling skin. “You’re so crammed full of me you can taste me in your fucking throat. You think some brawny human can fuck you like I can? You’re going to come so hard you get your god damn eyes back!”
“J-John—” Arthur’s retort was swallowed in a moan he hadn’t meant to let free. He could feel it—John pressing every more insistently inside him, instinct for the body they shared guiding him to just the perfect spot. Arthur gasped and whimpered as John’s animalistic rumblings groped their way through him as effectively as the thrusting from his digits. “Fuck, John, I—”
“I roll you onto your back,” John snarled.
That tone drove Arthur a little mad, and he gained enough composure back to retort, “The fuck you do.” He stretched his shoulders. “I’m not—”
“I put you on your back.”
The foot they shared pivoted and then shoved hard against the mattress; unprepared, Arthur lost his balance. John’s hand slipped free as they rolled, and Arthur had to make a grab for the sheets to keep from tumbling off the bed entirely. As he struggled to resituate himself, he felt John’s hand crawl back down their body. “All three now,” John spat as he squirmed three fingers into Arthur’s quivering hole. “And you take them. This is what you wanted all along anyway—for me to be inside you, prying you open, so full you can barely stand it.”
Arthur panted, all out of pride; he drew his knees up wide and close as John fucked him with what felt like their whole damn hand. Their body burned red-hot and he fisted his cock in quick, jerky pulls, eager for the ecstasy John was promising. “You absolute prick…!” he hissed, even as his pulse hammered and his head fell back—mouth slack as he gulped for air.
“Yes, Arthur,” John continued to taunt, the superiority now dripping from him. “You feel me, don’t you? It’s me you’re bound to.” His breath heaved against Arthur’s ears—he could feel its wet heat against his neck, could taste slick flesh all over his skin. “You’re mine, and you’ll take what I give you, over and over, until I’m through with you…!”
“Fuck!” Arthur wheezed, shaking and enraptured. John’s voice thundering through his lusting frame twisted something feral inside him, and pleasure so deep it was instinct surged down into the tips of every sparking nerve: he came, ropes of stringy come gushing over his palm as his insides flexed and tightened against John’s still moving fingers. He moaned helplessly in the grip of a spine-rattling orgasm that left him breathless, boneless—just a weak mass of melty flesh and panting whimpers. And fuck, he was so mad that John had been right, his blackened sight rolled over red and white as he rode out wave after wave of impossible euphoria.
John slipped his hand free. He was panting, too, and beneath the layers of sleepy aftershocks, Arthur felt something…floaty, as if John were rousing himself from some trance. They both were quiet for a while, catching their breath and a little in awe of each other.
“Fuck, John,” Arthur said at last.
“Fuck,” John agreed. “I, ah... I got carried away.”
“I’ll say.” Arthur chuckled, and then with a groan he rolled the little space left to stand from the bed. “I think after that, we could use a shower.”
“Agreed,” said John, and they let the topic drop for the night, content to ponder the encounter separately until Arthur fell asleep.
Come morning, they dressed, collected their few items, and headed down to the front desk. Arthur was still a little sore from John’s vigor, but he hid it pretty well, as far as he was concerned, as he made his way down the stairs. When he reached the front office, however, John called him to a halt.
“It’s him,” he said, tone wary, and Arthur felt goosebumps rise along his arms. “He’s checking out.”
“So are we,” Arthur whispered, and with a deep breath he crossed to the desk.
“He’s staring at us again,” John reported as the motel clerk accepted their key. “Not even trying to hide it. Smiling again, but…there’s something sharper about it now. Predatory.”
“Moving on?” said the stranger.
Arthur gathered himself up. “Yes, actually, I am,” he said.
The stranger hummed. “He’s cocked his head to the side,” said John irritably. “I think your accent took him by surprise. He looks…hungry.”
“I looked for you last night,” the stranger admitted, and Arthur couldn’t help the warmth that put in his belly. It had been so long since he’d been able to think of himself as desirable like that… “Next time you’re in town, maybe.”
“Maybe,” said Arthur, and he stepped away from the desk. He could taste John’s jealousy, bitter at the back of his throat, and this time he had no desire to toy with it. He flashed the stranger a dry smile that said Maybe not and then turned, allowing John to guide him out onto the street.
“You know,” said John once they were moving down the sidewalk, “you could have fucked him if you wanted to. It’s not as if I would interfere.”
“I know,” said Arthur, and he picked up his pace, letting the morning air spur him forward. “But I don’t want to. I’m all right.”
“All right,” said John, and he felt lighter, too, as they continued on.