“If I'm so much torture to you, I won't trouble you anymore with luncheon dates.”
His mother glanced at him, briefly wounded. Then she threw down her money on the table, turned on her heel, and left.
It was a Friday, and Laurie had planned to spend the afternoon at the St. Paul studio painting so it would be ready when the carpenters started the next week, but he was full of residual anger from lunch, and it was hard to focus. He thrust the roller angrily back and forth over the surface of the walls, running over the conversation with his mother in his head, getting furious all over again.
Delusion
. She was the one with delusions, full of idiot ideas of who Laurie should be, of how he should behave, of who he should be attracted to. Never mind that he was more excited about this project than he'd ever been about anything else he'd done. Never mind that everyone else kept telling him how happy he looked. Never mind that Annette had kissed him and told him he was “such a good boy” when he'd told her his plan over her tuna casserole. Never mind that his mother would have fixated on the fact that he'd been eating tuna casserole.
Never mind that Ed's father had promised to help him sort out the dodgy water heater and the hole in the ceiling at his studio and had started calling him “son.” Never mind that Laurie's own father hadn't promised him anything, hadn't even said anything to Laurie in the past four months that hadn't been “pass the salt” or “where has your mother gone off to?”
Never mind that neither of them had so much as asked when they were going to meet Ed, that they were apparently just waiting for him to fade away.
Jaw set against his building fury, Laurie turned around to dip his roller in the tray again, only to find it was dry. He'd used up that gallon the last time he'd filled it, so he sorted through the others on the floor, looking for the second gallon of that color. When he couldn't find it, he frowned and searched again. Then went out to the trunk of his car, thinking he must not have brought it in, but it wasn't there either. He sifted through the remaining gallons again, sure he must just not be seeing it, because he
knew
he'd bought two of Perfect Peach, and then remembered, as he saw the two gallons of Right White, that he'd changed his mind, and Perfect Peach was the trim, and Right White was supposed to be for the main walls. Which meant he'd just spent an hour and a half painting half the room the wrong color.
He stared down at the empty paint can in his hand and at the roller in the other. He stared at them for a long time.
And then with a rage that came out of nowhere, sweeping up over him like a Minnesota wind, he cried out, turned, and threw the can and then the roller at the wall. He stared after them for a second, panting, and then he cried out again, tossing the paint tray too, and the newspaper underneath it, and then the paint-can opener and the stir stick and the unused brush, and then he ran around the room, kicking them all, swearing and shouting and then, finally, falling into a heap in the middle of it all.
After a few moments, a quiet voice said from the door, “Bad day?”
Ed stood against the closed front door. Laurie hadn't even heard it open, but Ed was leaning against it, hands in the pockets of his dress pants, his shirtsleeves rolled up, his tie pulled loose and top button undone to give his neck some breathing room.
Laurie fixated briefly on neckwear. “You weren't wearing a tie when I left this morning,” he observed, trying to keep his voice level and calm, as if he hadn't just been pitching little better than an adolescent tantrum.
“Had a meeting with mucky-mucks this afternoon. Didn't put it on until lunch but haven't taken it off yet.” He pushed off the door and came forward slowly, carefully, hands still tucked away. He looked tired, but his eyes were a little brighter than usual, making him look more like himself than he had lately. Ed nodded at the mess. “Need some help cleaning up?”
Laurie sighed, looking out at the carnage he'd wrought. “I suppose I've done all the damage I can for one day.” He glanced at Ed's nice clothes. “I don't want to get you full of paint.”
“I could help you naked,” Ed said, deadpan.
Unable to help himself, Laurie smiled. “That'd be fine, but with no shades yet on the windows, I think we'd get arrested.”
Ed winked as he undid his tie. “Well, they're not my best clothes or my favorites. If they get ruined, they get ruined.” He tossed the tie over a folding chair and reached for a wad of newspaper in front of him on the floor. “So, I got a story for you. Do you remember when I told you about the guy in marketing who we all think is an ass? Well, he's been gone all week, and we just found out what he's been up to.”
As they cleaned up Laurie's mess, Ed kept talking, telling a story right out of the
National Enquirer
about secret mistresses and Brazilian vacations and highly unethical use of the corporate credit card. By the time the story was winding down, the paint was cleaned up, and Laurie was feeling much less like a jagged piece of glass.
“He's fired, of course. Which I wish meant better job security for the rest of us, but it's the wrong department. More layoffs are coming, a few before Christmas, a few after.” He grimaced, then shook his head and smiled at Laurie gently. “Feeling better?”
Laurie nodded, letting out a breath. “Yes. Sorry. My mother. She just wound me up a bit is all.”
Ed glanced out across the room, searching for something. “Do you have a music player here still?”
“In the back. I just never put it on today. Why?”
Ed winked but said nothing else, just disappeared into the storeroom, returning with the player. After plugging it into the wall, he cued up a song. As he approached Laurie, the opening notes to Streisand's “My Melancholy Baby” began to echo through the room. Ed held up his arms in an open dancing embrace and smiled a crooked, slightly shy smile.
“Dance with me?”
Laurie's heart melted more than a little, but the roughed-up parts of him had to push back anyway. “Am I your melancholy baby?”
Ed shrugged. “There wasn't one on there about a really pissed-off and stressed-out baby, so I did the best I could.”
“You don't like Barbra,” Laurie pointed out.
“You do.” Ed motioned to him with his hand. “Come on, babe. You need to dance.”
Laurie did, he acknowledged, and stepped forward tentatively into Ed's arms. “What are we dancing?”
Ed's smile faded a little. “Well, I've been trying to figure that out. I was gonna say the waltz, but it's the wrong beat, isn't it.” He wrinkled his nose. “Rumba?”
Then Laurie did smile. “Slow foxtrot,” he suggested.
Ed already knew the dance, but of course Laurie had to give him the correct carriage and fuss over turns. Mostly, however, they simply danced.
“You're not trying to make it easy on poor injured me, are you?”
Laurie let Ed spin him out for a turn before he returned to the embrace. “I'm in the mood for simple. Besides, done correctly, it's a very romantic dance. Very soft and open.”
Ed's fingers kneaded gently at Laurie's side. “Are you feeling soft and open, Laurie?”
Yes, Laurie thought but said nothing. He felt as if he were floating across the floor. Ed held him in a perfect frame, strong and sure and smooth, making Laurie feel totally safe, and eventually he gave in and shut his eyes, surrendering to the feeling.
“Do they have any competitions for just men to dance?” Ed asked, his voice gentle.
Laurie shook his head, keeping his eyes closed. “No. I mean, they do, but those—” He caught himself and tried to redirect, but there wasn't any way. “It's not the same as an opposite-sex competition. It felt like the Special Olympics, to be honest.” As soon as he said that, he felt the political incorrectness of that wrapping around him. He opened his eyes and stared at Ed's chest. “It hardly matters. Ballroom dancing isn't the same as the sort of dancing I did professionally anyway. Performance ballroom is a bit more polished, but really, it will never be true art.” He realized Ed was looking at him oddly, and he blushed. “What?”
“You're such a snob, Laur,” he said but with a smile, and when Laurie started to sputter, he silenced him with a kiss. “I'd dance with you anywhere. For anything.” He drew him in a little closer than was correct for form and nuzzled the side of Laurie's head with his cheek. “You're so good, though. You look so beautiful when we dance.”
“I like the part of the follower,” Laurie confessed. He shut his eyes again and let the dance and the music and the strength of Ed's arms overtake him. “With the right partner, it's like I'm anchored, and I can do anything.”
Ed drew him in a little closer still. When his lips brushed against Laurie's ear, they sent electricity through his body, but the words burrowed right into his soul.
“I want to be your right partner, Laurie.”
The words penetrated Laurie, making him feel weak in such a good way, and he softened a little further.
Ed nuzzled him again. “Am I being too sappy?” he asked lightly, but Laurie knew he wasn't teasing.
Laurie forced some words to the surface. “No. I'm just...overwhelmed.” He gave in and broke the form, resting his head against Ed's shoulder as the dance became more of a high school dance sway, a pair of lovers using music as an excuse to embrace. Laurie nuzzled lightly against Ed. He opened his eyes and stared at the thick cords of Ed's neck, then reached up to run his fingers gently over the invisible injury. “How is it tonight?'
“Hurts a little,” Ed confessed. “But nothing serious.” His hands skimmed over Laurie's back. “Linnet said I should try hydrotherapy.”
There was an odd note of wariness to Ed's voice that Laurie didn't understand. “You mean like PT but in water? Is it bad?”
“No. Supposed to be really good, actually.” Ed's hands kept skimming. “Except I'm going to have to leave work half an hour early every day to get there, whenever I go. Their hours are only during the day. Once I get established, I can go anywhere, but for now I'd have to get to the clinic to see the therapist.” Ed sighed and rested his lips on the top of Laurie's head before he spoke again. “Part of me wants to just quit work and get it over with. Except I don't know what the fuck I'm going to do without a job.” He sighed and lifted his head. “Sorry. This is not the mood I was going for.”
Laurie wanted to reassure him that he would help him, no matter what happened, wanted to explain to him how very much money he'd made when he'd toured professionally, how he had money of his own from his grandparents. He wanted to promise Ed that it would all be okay, that he'd make sure it was. But even if he thought Ed would welcome that sort of declaration—which he couldn't say for sure he would—Laurie couldn't say, either, that this was the moment for that. So he said nothing, just lifted his head and kissed Ed gently on the lips, then kissed him again, lingering. Ed tipped his head down and opened his mouth to kiss him back, and Laurie welcomed him inside, tasting the familiar soft spice of him as, from far away, Barbra sang on.
Ed brushed a kiss against Laurie's ear. “I want to make love to you.” He nuzzled again, this time nipping gently at Laurie's earlobe. “I want to be inside you, Laurie.”
Laurie went still. The song had ended, and “Just in Time” was beginning to play, but he could barely hear it for the blood that began to pound inside him. His hand slid up Ed's shoulder to his neck and stroked it gently. “You're—ready, are you?”
“Did a test run in the shower the other day. Okay then and nothing after. Probably we should stay off the trapeze, but I think we're good for the basics.” This time Ed's lips ran down the length of Laurie's ear. “Are you ready?”
Barbra's voice climbed to the top of a phrase, sending a shiver down Laurie's spine. Or perhaps it was Ed's breath against his skin. Or the thought of Ed being inside of him.
“Yes,” he whispered and shivered again.
Ed kissed his jaw and squeezed his hand against Laurie's waist. “Let's go home.”
“Yes,” Laurie said.
Ten minutes later Ed was pressing him into the mattress of his bed.
He had grown accustomed to Ed's penchant for licking and sucking and biting, but tonight as Ed stripped him bare and tongued his way down Laurie's chest, every touch felt especially charged. His belly danced and quivered as Ed kissed his way across it, and he gasped when Ed sucked hard against the inside of this thigh. When Ed took Laurie in his mouth, taking him down to the root, for a moment Laurie thought he would come there on the spot. But then Ed lifted his head, moved to the bed stand, and opened a drawer. When he came back to the bed, he arranged Laurie's feet flat on the mattress before lying down beside him. He held Laurie's gaze with his own, his eyes darkening as Laurie quivered when a cool, lube-slick finger pressed against him.
Ed bent down and brushed a kiss across Laurie's lips as his finger nudged carefully inside. “I'm going to put my cock inside you, Laurie,” he whispered. His finger twisted gently. “That still okay?”
Laurie nodded, blushing, which only made him feel that much more self-conscious and a little ridiculous. He wasn't a virgin, but damned if he didn't feel like one. He felt so vulnerable, so exposed, like Ed's probing finger could reach all the way to his soul.
Ed liked this too, Laurie could tell. All his self-doubt, all his worry of moments ago was gone as he looked down at Laurie with heavy-lidded, loving possession.
Mine
, his eyes said, and as he pushed a second finger inside Laurie, he felt his body surrendering in answer.
Yes. Yours.
“You feel so good,” Ed said, his voice gravel-deep with passion. “So hot and tight, Laurie.” He bent and kissed Laurie's nipple, and when Laurie arched up toward him, he nipped at it too, making Laurie cry out. His tongue swirled around the taut bud as his fingers began to fuck Laurie slowly down below. “You make me ache, baby. I want to be so dirty with you. I want to make you blush and gasp and do things you wouldn't do, except with me. I love watching you come undone. I want to come undone inside you, Laurie. I wish I could come all over your insides so you'd carry me with you, so you'd feel me as I slid out of you.”