American Goth (21 page)

“Smashing!” Graham said when I walked out, now also wearing a dumb grin I couldn’t turn off and could literally feel tug at the corner of my mouth. “If Fran doesn’t jump on that, Hannah will.”

Yeah. I already knew Hannah was interested. For less than a nanosecond I wondered what one particular someone else would have thought, but I clamped down on that—I couldn’t afford to go there. “It’s not about that,” I said. “It’s—”

“Whatever,” he said waving a hand in negation. “It’s
always
about that in the end.”

Considering the way things were progressing on the stairs just a few short hours later, I mentally gave a brief, grudging admission that he was right.

“Hot,” Fran said, the same heat in her voice with her tongue and teeth on my neck. “It’s fucking hot!”

While Graham had told me I’d like this position, he hadn’t really told me why, and the pressure of Fran’s body against my dick pressed it back against me in a way that sent a lick of fire from my clit up my stomach and down my thighs. It made me lean into her that much more.

God, it was insane, as insane as it had been that time by the front door, only without the fear, without the anxiety and as we ground against each other, held up by the door frame to the room, I tore my mouth from hers just long enough to ask, “Are you sure you want to do this?”

She ran strong, strong hands under my shirt, the skin on skin, the precision of her thumbs rounding hard tips she made harder, driving me as wild as the driving of our bodies, her waist, her hips, a perfect fit in my hands. From the tension I felt growing in my belly to the frantic breath of air we shared, one or both of us was gonna come and soon, and God—we were wearing too many clothes… My hands shook—I didn’t know whether it was nerves or anticipation—as I kicked the door closed behind us and snapped open the button of her jeans.

I wasn’t certain if I knew what I was doing, if I’d like it, if
she’d
like it, if I’d be any good… “I love you a lot, you know,” I whispered against her lips as we fell onto the bed.

“Me, too,” she answered and kissed me with a hunger that matched my own as she pulled me to her. My pants were only halfway down when she hooked her leg over mine and the heat of her body against me, the silk feel of her thighs on my hips as we rocked together with my cock between her pretty pussy lips drove all the doubts out of my head, lost in the swirl and churn of heat and blood and the magic sensation that flowed through me, through
us
, and the desperate, desperate need to—

“Yeah?” I asked her again as I wrapped my hand around my cock. I wanted to, God, I was
dying
to—but I wanted to control this, guide it, make this as good for her as it already was for me, and I didn’t think a blind wild plunge would do that. I was caught as I gazed into her eyes, a smoky amber glow in the streetlight that shone in through the window, suspended with the knowledge that in that moment, she was the whole world, she was the
only
world to me, and struck as I was, I could only stare while I stroked the high angle of her cheek with my thumb.

She caught my face in her hands, then kissed me, her tongue achingly sweet in my mouth as I stroked along her cunt with my head. She was so…beautifully…wet.

“Can I…can I do you later?” she asked gracefully, haltingly, a mix of desire and vulnerability in her voice.

I said what I felt, the only thing I could, in the face of that. “Yes,” I answered as my cock nudged at her entrance. “Yes,” I whispered again as I closed my eyes and pressed my lips to her neck. I felt the frantic flutter of her chest against mine, the same pressured cadence that ran through me as our bodies came together.

“Yes,” she gasped into my ear and she fully embraced me.

*

Work. No one ever, anywhere, had ever described the traditional missionary position as work, but it was. The first time had been pretty easy: we were both so high, so revved, had already been so close to coming from everything else, that it seemed like scant seconds before her hands dug, fucking good and fucking
hard
, into my back as she arched under me, with my lips drinking the sweat from the skin on her throat while the proud jut of her breast, the swollen and contracted point, rolled under my palm.

The pure, primal way she groaned into my ear made me respond with a frantic breathlessness. The need to hear that sound again and again pounded through me, was a bodily pulse that focused through my clit to my cock and drove the thrust to what it was, slick and hot, heavy, fast, and hard.

God that turned me on…the body-to-body so close, the ardent press…to know Fran was coming with my dick inside her, to know she came
because
of it…that I
could
make her come with my cock…and as my abs contracted with the effort of building to that final release, all I could think of was the way her cunt would suck on my fingers when she came and I knew she’d milk my dick the same way.

She meant so much to me.

We held each other close, and I stroked the hair away from her face, off her forehead, then lay soft kisses on her brow, on her cheeks as she nestled her lips into my neck.

“You okay, Frankie?” I asked finally as the blood tide receded and she pulled the quilt over us. Somewhere in the middle we’d managed to get my pants the rest of the way off.

“Mm-hmm,” she answered, trailing silky fingertips along my spine. “You?”

“Great,” I told her and kissed her softly. I shifted carefully, not wanting to hurt her or cause discomfort.

“Stay,” she asked, and she held my hip for emphasis.

“You sure?”

She kissed me in answer and as the kiss deepened, her mouth once again sweet and warm and so, so soft around my tongue, the comfort of our contact changed, evolved, from easy glide to crawling need. Once hadn’t been enough for either of us—what with finding the right angle and staying there, to making sure there were no accidental exits—this was about making certain that
this
time was even better for her than the last.

When her ankles locked behind mine, we’d found the right groove, the rhythm and stroke that worked for both of us, wrapping into a sync that made me reach and hold her tighter even as I moved on her, in her. And as the thought flitted through my head that this was something I could do forever, for the first time since I’d phoned the States in the summer, Nina’s face floated through my mind and I felt a twin-touch of sorrow stab at my chest.

Forever was not something that could ever be, not on any level, not for me. Nina was a world, an ocean, and six feet of dirt away, and while I loved my Frankie, loved her unreservedly and in ways I hadn’t known it was possible to love anyone, I didn’t love her that way, nor she me.

And besides, even if I’d had, or wanted to, for her own safety and, beyond that, for the betterment, the enrichment of her own life, she would leave at the beginning of January, right after New Year’s Day. She would leave just after the holidays and I would be alone again. I tightened my arms around her, kissed her desperately.

“Easy, lover,” she whispered, “you’re okay, I’m right here, right here with you.”

The beautiful grasp she held on my shoulders eased and she pressed one hand against my chest while the other trailed down, grabbed my ass, and held me firmly.

“Look at me, Sam,” she asked as her fingers played against the charm I wore and pushed it against my skin. “Sammer…she’s right here.” She touched her own chest, right above her heart. “Right here, and between us? Between you and me?”

Her palm pressed back against my sternum, while the fingers that held my ass eased under the strap that ran so tight, pressed and swirled in ways that made my breath catch again, because it pulled my cock even harder against me, because I wanted her inside me.

“We can touch her.” The words were an almost airless sigh as she filled me and I knew, knew this was okay, knew that as we sank in and against each other, I had never before loved my Frankie more than I did at that moment. This, between us, it was all we had, everything we could give, and we gave each other all of it. For a moment, just before I came with my cock buried inside my best friend while she teased and pleased and played me with urgent strokes in my cunt and the frantically choked declaration that she was coming, the thought ran through my head that maybe, just maybe, we were something more than friends too.

And he who Love touches walks not in darkness.

—Plato

The next morning, and the mornings that followed, I woke up feeling strong, loose in my limbs, with a sense of true joy I hadn’t felt since I was a kid pedaling like mad down the street.

There were days I snuggled in with Fran, content to wait until the last minute before we had to run downstairs and work on matters of the intellect with Elizabeth, while on others, I’d join Uncle Cort in the kitchen and work—on breakfast.

I didn’t feel the need to walk around with a dick on all the time to complete my disguise, as it were. Besides the fact that it really just made me too sensitive and distracted me from everything, I didn’t need to. Maybe it was cutting my hair and maybe there’d been a slight shift in body language, or maybe it was simply in the way I thought about myself, but whatever it was, it was enough.

Things were different, at least with Uncle Cort. He lifted my traveling restrictions enough that I was once again allowed to wander about the neighborhood freely, and he didn’t wait too long to let me know it.

“Hey, why don’t you and Fran take today and tonight off—get out for a bit, go and do something fun?”

I turned from the skillet on the stove to stare at him, surprised. It had been well impressed upon me, and Fran as well, how important progressing my training had been—where did fun fit in with that?

“Watch, kid,” he said, nodding at the stove, and I quickly returned my attention to the task before me. This was the first time he’d trusted me solo with his secret mix and I didn’t want to muff it up.

He came to peer over my shoulder and roughed up my hair. “Doing good,” he said, approval obvious in his voice. “You can finish that, then seriously, it’s been a stressful few days—you need a break. Why don’t you guys get out of here after breakfast, okay?”

“Sure,” I agreed. A break sounded good to me, and there were a bunch of spots neither Fran nor I had gone to yet. I thought maybe we could do something extra-weird and touristy like visit the Tower of London.

He carried a tray with the rest of breakfast in his hands. “Stop by the shop before you go, will you?” he said, then left for the dining room.

When Fran came downstairs and entered, she greeted everyone with the usual good morning.

“Hey, Frankie.” I smiled up at her as she neared.

“Hey, Sammer.” She leaned over and kissed me, a kiss I returned with genuine affection, before she sat. It wasn’t until I caught the smile Elizabeth cast upon us, or the warm spark from Uncle Cort, that I realized anything different had happened.

“This is something I’ve been thinking about for a bit,” he said as Fran and I walked into the shop. A set of athames glittered on the counter, while artifacts were hung carefully from the walls. We followed him to the back, through the boxes of raw materials and past his workbench the light shimmered on through watery glass, and Fran gave my hand a quick squeeze.

There was a door for the back room—it led out to a small courtyard that could be reached from an alleyway from the sidewalk. We kept it gated, and I never went there, but out to the yard was where we headed. I felt the excitement jump from Fran’s skin as Cort waved us out the door.

“Been on my mind,” he said as he gathered us around a black-cloth-covered pile on the center of the cement. “Seems a shame your car’s in storage back in the States and you can’t drive around. A young”— he hesitated —“person needs a little freedom, needs to get around, so…” He fished into his pocket and tossed something to me. I caught it reflexively.

“This is for you.”

A key, it was a key that winked from my hand in the early morning light, and Fran grinned at me as I palmed it.

“Go ahead—what are you waiting for?” he asked, and gave me one end of the black tarp.

I’d always been the sort of person who carefully unwrapped things—I untied ribbons, delicately slit tape, unfolded corners only to fold paper back with perfect precision. It was odd, I supposed, but I suspected it was part of what made me a musician, part of what made me enjoy other things I cared about as well, the savoring of discovery, the collection of clues and hints until all was revealed.

This was no different, and I could hear Fran sigh impatiently—that made me smile to myself, because I knew she was equally meticulous—as I gathered the corners and walked forward, uncovering a chrome metal basket that jutted out with a small luggage holder that held a thick tire. I uncovered the rear wheel and its side compartments, excitement and disbelief warring in my throat. One black helmet, then another, perched on two leather seats, and by the time I’d uncovered the handlebars, the front leg shield with mounted glove box, the perfectly restored dial indicators, and the front tire, I was speechless, the canvas knotted in my hands as I stared at the onyx and chrome shine.

“Sixty-six Vespa,” Cort said. “It’s got—”

I knew what a Vespa was; I loved old cars and old bikes. “By Piaggio,” I almost whispered. “This…is a VBC Super 150.” I handed him the canvas as he smiled widely, then popped the key I’d squeezed in my hand into the ignition. I’d missed that: the sound, the pop in the lock, the unmistakable click, the resistance of the key against my fingertips and my palm as it snugged in and hit home.