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Six stood on the balcony outside his motel room door just after sundown. Moths flitted around the bare bulb above his head in the same jittery way that Six’s heart was dancing in his chest. He was nervous as hell, not sure whether he’d be more relieved if his guest showed up or of he didn’t.
He went back into the dim light of his room. He paced around a bit, then went back into the bathroom to check his reflection in the smashed mirror. Cupped a hand over his mouth and checked his breath. Not too bad. Nice that Mentats gave that hint of freshness as well as their other benefits. He pulled out the collar of his shirt and dipped his nose, taking another sniff. Not quite as promising, but there was no hot water at the motel today so the bath he’d been hoping for had had to be abandoned in favour of a quick scrub down at the washbasin. With any luck he smelled more manly than ripe.
After a little more pacing, he heard footsteps on the stairs outside. They stopped outside his door. He held his breath to listen. A knock came.
Six breathed out, tried to compose himself, and went to the door. He waited a few more seconds, not wanting to seem too keen, then pulled open the door…
…and stopped short. There was a doctor standing there, but it wasn’t Richards.
“Arcade?”
“I was on my way to visit Daisy, and saw your light on,” Arcade said pleasantly. “Can I come in?”
“Um,” Six said, but Arcade just pushed past him into the room.
Six turned to watch him, racking his brain for a way to get rid of Arcade without giving anything away. Arcade sat down on the edge of the bed facing the window. He picked up the pack of cigarettes Six had tossed there earlier.
“May I?” he asked, already tapping one out into his palm.
“Uh, this isn’t—” Six began, but hit a mental block.
Arcade picked up Benny’s lighter from its place on the nightstand, lit up, then set the lighter back carefully. He looked back at Six. He looked casual enough with his shirt sleeves rolled up and the cigarette in his hand, and yet… there was something off about him. An intensity that put Six on edge.
“Won’t Daisy be waiting for you?” Six asked.
“Don’t worry about it,” Arcade replied. He took a drag on his cigarette and watched Six shrewdly through the smoke. “You’ll never guess who I just met coming into town.”
Six swallowed hard. “Who?”
“Dr Richards,” Arcade said, drawing out each syllable of the name.
Six’s heart sank slowly into a cold pit somewhere in his gut. “Oh?”
“Mm. I can’t imagine what he was doing such a long way from camp, with a bottle of wine under one arm and his least blood-spattered shirt on. Can you?”
They watched each other for a long moment. Six felt his face flush. Arcade had already figured it out, and he was far too shrewd an observer to even bother trying to convince him he was wrong. But talk about terrible fucking timing. Arcade was just about the last person in the Mojave Six would have wanted to find out about his arrangement with Richards. He could kick himself for forgetting about good old Daisy down the hall.
“Where is he?”
“On his way back to Forlorn Hope, I expect. He looked very disappointed when I told him about the sudden onset of fever that had you bedridden at the Lucky 38.”
Six glared in disbelief. “You told him what? Why the hell would you do that?”
Arcade ignored the question. He tilted his head a little to one side. “What were you planning on doing with him?”
“That’s none of your damn business,” Six snapped.
Arcade just looked at him knowingly. “Aren’t you going to sit down?”
Six stayed where he was. “I think you should leave.” The door was still ajar behind him, and he reached out and pulled it open wider. “Who I meet doesn’t concern—”
“On the contrary, I think it absolutely concerns me. Since it means you’ve been telling me a lie.”
“What lie?”
“That you’re not queer.”
Six froze for a moment. It was only when he heard footsteps on the concrete of the motel forecourt that he decided it might be a good idea to close the door after all. Once it was safely sealed, he spoke in a gruff voice. “Who says I am?”
“Seriously?” Arcade’s eyes narrowed. “There’s only one reason you’d arrange a clandestine encounter with the human equivalent of a leech, and it’s not to play chess. After all the flirting you’ve done with me, I’m more than a little offended.”
“I—” Six fixed his stare on the wall. He stubbornly told himself he didn’t owe Arcade an explanation, but the mention of their flirting derailed the command en route from his brain to his mouth. “I don’t know what I am,” he said. “I’m still trying to figure that out.”
“Oh, I see,” Arcade said. “You don’t know what you want, right?”
“No.”
“That’s brahminshit.”
Before Six could form a coherent response, Arcade spoke again.
“I don’t give much credence to this idea that a person can fail to know what he wants. Being confused doesn’t mean you don’t know what you want. Usually it just means you don’t know how to get what you want without losing face.”
“Meaning?”
“I think you know exactly what you want, but you’re struggling to reconcile it with the way you’d like to see yourself.”
“You think I’m ashamed?”
“I don’t know. Are you?”
“No.”
Arcade stared at him. Six decided this must be how plant cells felt when being analysed through Arcade’s microscope.
“Have you fucked him?”
“What the hell—” Six spluttered. “You got no fucking right to ask me that.”
“Have you?”
“No.” Six’s skin prickled with indignation.
“What then? Did you let him suck you off in a shadowy corner of the medical tent?”
“Go fuck youself. We haven’t done anything.” He thought back to the sloppy, fumbling kiss he’d shared with Richards earlier that day, the doctor murmuring pet names against his skin as he’d nuzzled Six’s neck. He probably would have sucked Six off there and then if Six had given him the chance. Even in his enthusiasm, though, Richards had been enough of a gentleman to step back when Six needed him to. Pity Arcade wasn’t being so considerate. “Not that it’d be any of your business,” he added.
“Like I said, I think you’ve made it my business.” The cigarette went back to Arcade’s lips. He watched Six through the thin plume of smoke he exhaled, and said, “I’d really prefer it if you would sit down.”
It was an order dressed up as a polite request. Six felt like telling him again to go to hell, even throwing him bodily from the room, but Arcade was in an uncharacteristically persistent mood and Six didn’t want this to turn into an out-and-out fight. They still had to work together, after all. But he felt nervous, aware that the foundations beneath their relationship had shifted the moment he had opened the motel room door. He sighed impatiently and went over to the couch. He sat down directly opposite Arcade and folded his arms across his chest.
“Why Richards?” Arcade said. He sounded genuinely perplexed. “The man practically started humping your leg the moment you first walked into camp. I thought—I hoped—that it might take more than that to win your affections.”
So this was how Arcade expressed jealousy, Six thought dimly. In some alternate reality he would be feeling pretty flattered right about now. Unfortunately, in this one, he felt plain awkward. And, preposterously enough, guilty, which made him even more indignant.
He scowled at Arcade. “If you’re so upset about it, why didn’t you make a move?”
“I was trying to keep it casual,” Arcade told him. “I’ve been a target for curious straight men more than once, so I’ve learned to look before I leap. You’ve always given me the impression that flirting was all you were ready for. How wrong I was.”
Six’s skin was still burning. He was tongue-tied, and cursed the Mentats for failing to clear his head the way they usually did. Though he doubted any chem could counteract the effects of Arcade watching him like that. “I told you, I don’t know wh—”
“What you want?” Arcade finished for him. “And I already told you, I don’t believe it. Are you attracted to me?”
The question caught Six off guard yet again. “We’re friends, Arcade,” he said with a hint of warning.
“We are, but that’s not what I asked. It’s a simple question, Six. I’m sure you know the answer. Are you attracted to me?”
Six stared back at the man who had been travelling with him, fighting alongside him, even living with him for almost two months. The annoying thing was that Arcade was right, he had flirted. He’d flirted a lot, and told himself at first that it didn’t really mean anything, that he only did it because he knew Arcade was gay and enjoyed engaging in a bit of wordplay. But as the weeks flowed by he grew less certain of his own motivations. Less certain of a lot of things. His sexuality, for example.
“Yes,” he said.
“Are you attracted to him?”
“I—”
“Yes or no.”
“Yes,” Six confessed.
“So you want both of us?”
“No.”
“No?”
Six spitefully felt like telling him he was only interested in Richards, just to see if any hurt would register on Arcade’s face. Maybe then he’d leave. But Six was no longer entirely sure he wanted him to leave. Arcade, even at his most infuriating, did something to him that Dr Richards hadn’t and never would.
“Just you,” he said roughly.
Arcade’s feelings were unreadable behind the impassive mask of his face. The man should play poker. In contrast, under Arcade’s gaze, cool and still as a lake, Six felt utterly naked.
“See how easy it is if I just ask the right question?” Arcade said. “You’re remarkably clear on what you want.” His cigarette had burned down, so he reached over to the nightstand and ground it out in the ashtray. “Even so, you wanted me, but Richards was the one who got to enjoy you. I’m not very happy about that, Six.”
“He didn’t get to—”
“He would’ve, if I hadn’t sent him packing.”
“What do you want from me, Arcade? An apology?” Six tapped his foot. “I’m sorry I was confused? I’m sorry I didn’t want to fuck up our friendship?”
Arcade shook his head. “I don’t want an apology, I just want you to tell me the truth. Do you want to kiss me?”
Six’s foot stopped tapping. He blushed an even darker shade. How ridiculously coy, to be embarrassed by the thought of a kiss. “Arcade—”
“Yes or no. It’s that simple. Either you want to or you don’t.”
Six’s eyes darted to Arcade’s mouth. “Yes.”
Arcade arched an eyebrow. “Do you want me to call you ‘buttercup’?” He gave the word a touch of venom.
“No.”
“Well, that’s something to be grateful for.” Arcade leaned forward, elbows on his knees, his eyes never straying from Six’s for a moment. “Do you want me to touch you?”
Six exhaled roughly and lowered his eyes from that intense gaze. He found himself looking at Arcade’s hands instead. Big, broad, strong hands, but gentle and quick too. Arcade’s question made it impossible for Six not to imagine those hands on his bare skin. He swallowed hard.
“Yeah,” he said.
“Where?”
In his mind’s eye, Arcade dragged his hands over Six’s body, down his chest, over his hips; he ran both palms up Six’s naked thighs, working their way towards his cock… He had to fight the urge to grind his hips upward into that phantom touch. It felt dangerous to be so openly invited to fantasise about something he’d been trying hard for the last few weeks not to.
“Everywhere,” he said.
“Mm. Do you want me to suck your cock?”
“Ngh,” Six said, unable to keep his pelvis from jerking upward. The sound of Arcade’s voice shaping such a lewd proposition was as much of a turn-on as the mental image of his lips wrapping around Six’s dick, his wet tongue lapping against him…
“That’s not a permissable answer,” Arcade chided, the corner of his mouth turning up in amusement.
Six’s cock was stiffening fast, his clothes—even his skin—feeling too hot and too tight. “Yes, goddammit.”
“Do you want me to undress you?”
Six writhed. “Can we please stop talking about all this and start doing?”
“Not yet,” Arcade replied sharply. “Now answer me. Yes or no.”
“Yes! Fucking yes. I want you to strip me bare.”
“Good boy.” Arcade leaned forward a little more. His eyes gleamed behind his glasses; he was enjoying every moment of this. Six both loved and loathed him for it.
“Do you want me to be rough with you?” Arcade asked in a voice that was perfectly soft and gentle.
“Yes.”
“Hold you down? Tie you up?”
“Yes.”
“Squeeze your throat?” Arcade purred. “Pull your hair? Bite you?”
Six didn’t trust himself to speak, afraid of how needy his voice would come out. He felt intoxicated. He nodded.
“I want to hear it. I want to hear you say yes.”
“Yes,” he breathed. Heart pounding.
“Do you want to fuck me?”
The words sent another hefty jolt to Six’s dick. “God yes.”
“Do you want me to fuck you?”
Suddenly Six’s arousal was pierced by a spike of anxiety. His mind screeched to a halt. That was what scared him, wasn’t it? He’d certainly planned on steering Dr Richards away from any such expectations. Everything else was easy; he knew he wanted hands or a mouth on his cock—god, especially hands or mouth as beautiful as Arcade’s—or to sheath himself inside a tight, willing place… But being penetrated was unknown territory, and it made him so much more vulnerable. He didn’t know how it felt, either physically or emotionally, to be laid open and entered in that way. It frightened him.
Arcade didn’t miss a thing. “It’s all right if you don’t,” he said. “I’ll accept whatever you say, whether it’s a yes or no.”
This interrogation was a kind of penetration in itself. With no more than his voice and his ceaseless gaze, Arcade had dragged Six far outside his comfort zone and laid him bare. And Six was responding to it more powerfully than anything he could remember. He closed his eyes.
“Yes,” he said.
Arcade didn’t reply for a moment. Perhaps he hadn’t expected that answer.
“Come here.” His voice was still steady, but there was more heat in it now, and more colour in his skin.
Six didn’t need telling twice. He got up on legs he could barely feel and closed the distance between the couch and the bed, ready to climb right into Arcade’s lap if the other man let him.
Arcade didn’t let him. He placed a firm hand on Six’s stomach and said, “Stop there.” His thumb brushed back and forth over the rough fabric of Six’s shirt.
Six wanted desperately to touch Arcade in return, to kiss his gorgeous mouth open and grind their bodies together, but he had the feeling Arcade wouldn’t allow it; that the less patient Six became, the more Arcade would enjoy drawing this out. So he stood obediently still.
“Before I fuck you, how should I get you ready for me?” Arcade said softly. His other hand ran up Six’s thigh. “Do you want me to open you up with my fingers? With my tongue?” He saw the way Six’s eyelids fluttered closed at that, and added in a low voice, “Do you want me to eat you out?”
“Fuck. Yes,” came the choked reply.
Arcade reached for Six’s face. His warm palm felt like heaven against Six’s cheek.
“Do you want me to come inside you?” He dragged his thumb across Six’s mouth, tugging on his plush lower lip. “Or maybe on you.”
“In me,” Six whispered. “Let me feel it inside me.”
Arcade got to his feet slowly, letting his body brush against Six’s as he stood. He put his mouth close to Six’s ear.
“Oh, I am going to make such a beautiful mess of you,” he murmured. He stroked his fingers down Six’s face once more and then stepped away. “Just as soon as I get back from dinner with Aunt Daisy and the McBrides.”
Six’s brain was so addled with lust that it took several seconds for the words to sink in. A couple more for his mouth to start working.
“Wait, what?”
Arcade was already at the door. “I shouldn’t be more than a couple of hours. Two and a half, tops. Depends on how many games of caravan Dusty ropes me into.”
“You have got to be fucking kidding me—”
Six somehow got himself moving in time to wedge himself in the now open doorway. Arcade took him by the shoulders, moved him aside and pressed him into the wall with force so perfectly measured it felt as gentle as it was insistent.
“Don’t go anywhere,” he said. He gave Six a look that was pure wickedness, then leaned in and said very clearly, “We have quite a list to get through.”
Then he was out the door and gone, leaving Six all alone with his raging hard-on and the moths fluttering around the lights.