Devin chuckled, and even though Wren was mortified, he laughed right along with him, just out of relief.
“Great. Thank you so much, Devin.”
“I’m sure I can think of a more proper thank you, but right now I gotta run!” And with that, Devin clicked off.
And with that, a deal with the devil is struck.
Wren set down his phone and stared out at the oppressively hot day.
DEVIN’S APARTMENT
looked as though a set designer for a modern-day
Boys in the Band
had decorated it. It couldn’t have been gayer if it had rainbow-hued hardwood planks installed on the floor, a touch Wren would keep to himself because he was afraid Devin might actually implement it.
Wren set down the duffel bag he had brought and surveyed the small but orderly space. As promised, Devin had left a key with the building manager, and Wren was grateful for the arrangement, glad Devin wasn’t home to greet him. It was nice to have some time alone before Devin’s innuendos, roaming fingers, Listerine-scented tongue, and eight-inch dick began trying to probe him.
It was nice to simply sit for a minute and rest. He plopped down on the couch, noting the neatly stacked copies of the
Advocate
and
Architectural Digest
on the glass-topped coffee table, the framed Herb Ritts and Robert Mapplethorpe posters on the wall, the latter of which were triple X-rated and caused Wren’s heart to beat faster. He took in the leopard print faux-fur rug on the floor, the black leather sofa on which he now reclined, and the sterile-looking stainless, granite, and melamine kitchen beyond a breakfast bar decorated with dolls all tricked out in leather drag.
“There’s no place like home,” Wren said. He allowed himself to lean back into the soft leather cushions for a bit, closing his eyes. The last few days had been so stressful. He let his hand loll along the surface of the leather, and his forefinger caught on something cotton and elastic. He looked over, giving a tug, and extracted a jockstrap, crusty with dried come, just about concealed between the cushions.
“Toto,” Wren said, “I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore.” He stood to go wash his hands, already wondering if he wouldn’t be better off on a park bench along the lakefront or, if it was raining, Lower Wacker Drive.
He dropped the offending athletic supporter in a hamper in the bathroom and thoroughly scrubbed his hands.
What had he gotten himself into?
DEVIN ARRIVED
home about three hours later. During his time away, Wren busied himself online, searching Craigslist not for hot, willing men but for a new job. The prospects were dismal. He could be a front desk person at a hair salon, an “associate” at Sears, or a dog groomer. “
We train!
” He could hand out leaflets and samples in the Loop for a new cereal. He could valet park cars. He could telemarket his little heart out.
So when Devin rolled in the door, all smiles, skinny jeans, and a form-fitting black T-shirt that made him look like he’d just wrapped up a modeling gig for
Details
magazine and suggested they hit the bars for “Horny hour cocktails. You know, to celebrate the coming of my new roomie….” Wren was too defeated to argue.
A big, stiff drink sounded perfect.
Wren stood to give Devin a grateful peck on the cheek, but Devin grabbed him and maneuvered Wren so he could shove his tongue halfway down Wren’s throat. When they finished, both were gasping for breath and Devin was grinning, running a hand over an obvious bulge in his own pants.
Breathlessly he said, “Now
that’s
how you kiss a roomie hello.”
“I’ll have to remember that,” Wren said, still a bit shaken. He didn’t expect things to get off to such a heated start. He and Devin would have to talk, and Wren would need to set some boundaries. But Devin had just come home, and he was being nice enough to let Wren stay with him, so he thought the first thing out of his own mouth should not be a directive to Devin about keeping his hands, tongue, and assorted other bodily parts to himself.
That would just be rude.
Instead he stepped back and a little away from Devin lest Devin try to yank down his pants. “So, you ready to go get that drink? My treat!”
“In a hurry?” Devin flung his Prada messenger bag across the room, where it hit the wall with a thud. “I thought maybe you’d like to fool around a little first. God! I’m so horny.” Devin grinned and licked his lips. His eyes flashed. He rubbed his own crotch again. The man was one big walking libido. “I was thinking about coming home to you all day. Hoping you might be waiting for me—” He winked. “—naked and on your knees.” Devin grabbed Wren’s shoulders and attempted to push him down to the floor.
Trying to keep things light, Wren laughed, extricated himself, and moved nimbly away.
“Damn. I could sure use that drink. Where were you thinking, Dev? Roscoe’s? Sidetrack?”
Devin raised his eyebrows. “How ’bout the Brig?”
“Isn’t it a little early for a leather bar?”
“Ah, they get guys in on their way home from work, just like anyplace else along the strip. And they don’t go all Nazi on your ass if you fuck around in the men’s room.”
Wren wasn’t sure about that, especially on a Tuesday afternoon, but he wouldn’t put it past Devin to test the limits. Nevertheless, getting Devin out the door was advancing him one more step away from molesting Wren.
He liked Devin well enough and liked having sex with him. It was, after all, the basis of their relationship, but Wren had hoped now that they were going to be roommates, they could explore other aspects of their relationship, arcane areas like, oh, eating and what’s on TV.
“Is that what you’re gonna wear?” Devin nodded to Wren’s Levi’s and Big Chicks T-shirt. “I can loan you a harness or some chaps.”
“Dev, it’s six thirty. No one’s going to be wearing leather.”
“Well, I am. Fuck ’em if they’re too big of sissies to gear up. Fuck you too.” Devin wiggled his eyebrows, Groucho Marx style. “Later.”
He disappeared into his bedroom, and when he came back out he was wearing a skintight black mesh tank, leather jeans, and combat boots. He stumbled around a bit in the dim apartment, possibly because he had also donned a pair of mirrored aviator sunglasses.
“You look hot, man.”
“Thanks. You sure I can’t lend you something?”
“Maybe later.” Wren’s comment was not a compliment. It was near one hundred degrees outside. Devin would roast his nuts off in those leather jeans. “Let’s go.”
Horny hour, as Devin described it, was right. Once they had their bottles of Bud Light, all Devin did was critique and rate every guy who came into the bar. It didn’t matter if he was young, old, fat, thin, or looked like Chicago’s answer to Ryan Gosling—or Rush Limbaugh—Devin had an opinion. And that opinion usually revolved around the size of the man’s basket or how his jeans gripped his ass.
Devin flirted with almost everyone, and Wren was actually surprised to see many of the guys taken aback by Devin, who seemed a bit too desperate for his own good. Hot as Devin was, with his muscles and perfectly chiseled and bewhiskered face, there was something about desperation that was a turn-off, even for some of the guys Wren would have assumed weren’t even in Devin’s league, physically speaking.
Wren assumed most of the clientele in the Brig that early evening just wanted to have a drink and weren’t there to cruise. Devin did return from the men’s room once boasting about groping a “nine-incher,” but Wren wasn’t sure if that was true.
When Devin’s siren song of lust was not quite being returned in kind, he turned his attentions back to Wren, flinging innuendos, come-ons, and flat-out propositions at him as if he thought the more he tossed them Wren’s way, the likelier he would be to get lucky. Given half—no, make that a quarter—of a chance, Wren was certain Devin would have been happy to fuck Wren in the bathroom stall. Or right at the bar, for that matter.
And then go out looking for more.
The man needed to see a professional. He needed a twelve-step group.
Wren didn’t drink as much as he had intended, partly because he wanted to keep on his toes to ward off rape and partly because the constant barrage of suggestive words and touches were wearing him down and ruining his mood, making him feel he had no idea just how large his error had been in throwing in his lot with Devin.
Wren felt like he was just a thing, a receptacle, and that Devin couldn’t care less about Wren the person. He was simply Wren the ass, Wren the cock, Wren the mouth, Wren the balls.
It made him feel small and dirty, as though he wasn’t worthy of simple human respect.
He had thought he’d treat Devin to dinner tonight, but now that seemed out, partly because of Devin’s male whore attire and partly because Wren didn’t know if the man had any appetite, other than libidinous.
Wren just wanted to go back to the apartment and find a comforter under which he could hide until morning.
“You want another beer?” Devin asked. “Don’t answer. You’re getting one. You need to loosen up.”
Wren watched Devin swagger to the bar, gaze roaming over the clientele, desperately trying to engage someone in eye contact.
Maybe, Wren thought, another drink would help him escape the feeling of being prey.
Whatever. Wren knew he had a long night ahead.
THREE HOURS
later the pair staggered home, Devin grabbing at Wren’s ass and crotch and Wren slapping his hands away. “Cut it out, fucker!” Wren would holler, causing heads in the street to turn.
But Devin would just keep it up with the molestation, laughing. He thought—and quite wrongly too—that this was a game and that Wren was just playing hard to get.
The truth of the matter was, Wren was growing increasingly alarmed and repelled by Devin’s behavior. Finally, after Devin tried to pull him into an alley where he assured Wren, “It’s safe to fuck there,” Wren lost it.
He stopped in the middle of Halsted, arms across his chest. Steam should have been rising from his collar. He was furious and doubted very much Devin could see it in his face, especially since his gaze seldom went above crotch level. “Quit it,” Wren said between clenched teeth. “Just. Quit.” He grabbed Devin by the shoulders, wanting to shake him but instead forcing him with the power of his gaze to meet his eyes.
Devin was drunk half off his ass but not so far gone not to notice the anger in Wren’s voice. “Oh, honey,” he whined. “Don’t be mad.”
“You have to stop this. I’m grateful for a place to crash, but that doesn’t mean I become part of your personal property.” He let go of Devin’s shoulders and continued south on Halsted without bothering to see if Devin followed.
From behind him, Devin said, “I thought you liked fucking around with me. It’s what we do, man. It’s
who we are
.”
Wren said over his shoulder, “That was before. When we hooked up, it was for sex. But I thought if we were living together, we might do something else besides, you know? Like, don’t you want supper? Isn’t
The Voice
on tonight?”
Devin hurried so he stood in front of Wren, blocking his path. What he said next surprised Wren.
“Look, I’m sorry. I guess I just thought having you staying with me would be a nonstop sex-a-thon. I guess I was wrong.”
Well, will wonders never cease? Perhaps a brain does actually function in that upper head of his after all.
“Thank you. I’m not saying I never want to fool around, but there is more to life than sex, you know.”
“There is?” Devin asked, and if he was kidding, his face didn’t reveal it.
Wren ignored the question. “I’m thinking of heading over to that Thai place on Broadway to get some pad thai.” He was about to say “You want to come?” but changed it to “Would you like to join me?”
“Nah. You got me too horned up, dude. I’m going to check out Hydrate, see if I can find a hot boy to fuck.”
Wren shook his head and walked away without another word.
IT WAS
late. That’s all Wren knew. He wasn’t sure what time it was, but the near silence outside, the quality of dim light in the room, and some sort of internal time clock all told him it was the middle of the night.
At first he wasn’t sure what had pulled him from slumber’s embrace. The usual suspects for something awakening him were conspicuously absent—there was no urge to pee, no remnants of nightmare chasing around the edges of his conscious mind. Outside there was no distant wail of a siren.
He turned on Devin’s couch, away from the back of it, and gave a little gasp. A figure was standing over him, little more than a shadow. As his eyes better adjusted to the darkness, Wren recognized Devin, who stood, barely illuminated by the scant sodium vapor streetlight coming in through miniblind slats.
“Dev?” he croaked out in the dark room.
“Yeah, man. You look hot, sleeping like that.”
Wren sighed, yanking the sheet up over himself. “Honest to God, Dev.”
It was then he noticed the regular up and down pumping, Devin’s hand on his dick.
Creepy! The guy is beating off while he watches me sleep?
Wren felt a peculiar—or perhaps it wasn’t so peculiar—sense of violation. “Cut it out,” he whimpered.
“Look at my dick, man. Look how hard you make it, even when you’re asleep. You drive me nuts, Wren.”
Devin moved his dick so it was positioned right over Wren’s face, still pumping away. At one time Wren had considered the dick a thing of beauty, worthy of casting in a porno, but right now he just wanted to slap it away. Hard. He would too, if he didn’t think Devin would get a thrill out of it.
“You wanna suck it?”
“No. I want to sleep, man. Get the fuck back in bed.”
“Can’t. Too fuckin’ horned up.” Devin pumped harder, flexing his knees so the dick lowered down, closer to Wren’s face.
“The bathhouse is a few blocks over,” Wren said tonelessly. “I believe it’s open twenty-four hours. You’ll find someone there, even now. What time is it, anyway?”