Not Less Than Everything
Chapter 4
by
Rex Luscus
DISCLAIMER: All poetry belongs to the estate of T.S. Eliot. Wolverine, Nightcrawler and the X-Men belong to Marvel Enterprises, Inc. Duh.
ARCHIVING: Just ask.
NOTES: A big, sloppy thank you to Lorelei and Dark Hedgehog for all their help with this monster. I'm serious when I say it wouldn't have happened without you. You guys are the shit. < G >
Oh, and thanks to Graham Greene. I think this story is some sort of homage to him, though I didn't realize that as I was writing it.
Why Kurt undid me like he did, I'll never know. Lord knows I've been in love before, and I've loved and lost before, too. Hell, I've never had a love affair that *didn't* ended in death or desolation. But always before, even when the end hurt like a bitch, at least it had made a little bit of sense. After Mariko died, I cursed the universe up and down, but you can only shake your fist at death for so long. I knew what I had to do: move on, learn to forget - at least a little.
Even with Jean, there'd been a difference. Oh, Jean - I've lost her more times than I can recall, and I'll be goddamned if it didn't break my heart each and every time. But even the toughest time of all - when I finally had to admit that there was another man she was always going to love more than me - resolved itself in my heart after a while. She didn't love me - never had, and never would. End of story.
Jean, Mariko, Silver Fox - I never stopped loving any of them, ever. But I kept going. There wasn't anything else to do.
But with Kurt, there was no clear path. Far as I could reckon, he still loved me, and I sure still loved him. I hadn't treated him wrong, and things had never gotten cold between us - tense maybe, awkward, but never cold. So what happened? He left me for God, that's what.
And what the hell was God, anyway? Just some superstitious nonsense - all well and good when it was just a hobby that took up Kurt's Sunday mornings, but as something that he'd choose over me? That's where I stopped understanding. It was ridiculous, it was stupid. There was no reason for it, no reason I ought to accept it.
And that's what kept me from letting go - knowing how pointless it was, knowing that it *should* be different. Being a veteran of lost love myself, it was that much more of an outrage, because here was a loss that didn't have to be. All that stood between me and Kurt was some silly superstition; how could that flimsy little thing keep us apart? It wasn't fair, and it wasn't right. Again and again, I threw myself against that paper-thin barrier; the damn thing was stronger than it looked. But I kept trying; guess I never could take a hint.
~~~
Ever since the first morning I woke up in bed with him, I'd been dreading the time when we'd have to go to work together - when we'd find out, ready or not, just how big the gap *was* between lover and friend when it came to a fight. Of course, worrying about him was nothing new. Compared to most of the other X-Men, Kurt was like a snail out of its shell - no healing factor, no major offensive powers, just the ability to get out of the way real quick. Plus he had a reckless streak - he'd grown up a lot since he first started with the X-Men, but occasionally he still tried something stupid. One of those stunts almost killed him in the Morlock tunnels, and I spent six months blaming myself for it. It was a secret fear of mine that one day he'd try to be a hero and I wouldn't be fast enough to pick up where his luck ran out.
So how much worse would it be, now that we were as intimate as two people could get? The thought of losing him ate at my confidence; I knew it would take extra resolve to force down that irrational protectiveness I'd feel for his body, so newly precious to me, and focus on doing my job.
The time came when we joined Cyclops and Rogue on a trip to North Dakota to take care of an anti-mutant militia. Nothing serious - we were outnumbered twenty to one, but they were just ordinary guys with guns, and we were more than ready for them. That's the funny thing about guns, though - when you're a superpowered mutant, it's easy to get cocky about human weapons. Hell, me and Rogue could take bullets to the chest and not even break our stride. But if you're not invulnerable, all the mutant powers in the world can't save you if you don't see the guy's finger on the trigger. And that's nearly what happened to Kurt.
Our plan was to disarm and scatter them, then let the federal marshalls clean up afterward. Kurt had easily neutralized thirty men or so, but as usual, he was going for speed over caution, and one 'port brought him straight to the business end of a .44. I saw the hammer drop just as Kurt's eyes went wide; I didn't have time to shout.
The signature cloud of pink vapor appeared in two halves, like it had been sliced with a knife; my heart dropped into my stomach and I waited one of the longer seconds of my life to see if the shot had hit him.
He reappeared about a hundred yards away, behind cover, and as I ran toward him, I could see he was on his knees, doubled over. I felt my flesh go cold and I ran faster.
When I got to him, he was gasping for breath and shaking like a leaf, but there was no blood. Later on, we concluded that the bullet must have coincided with his teleport in a funny way so that he felt some but not all of its impact; he'd been "dimensionally grazed," as Hank later put it. That was Kurt's luck for you - as if all his close shaves weren't enough, he had to go and invent a way for an even closer one.
That didn't mean he got away without a scratch. The effect of that shot was like a mule's kick to the solar plexus. The wind had been knocked clean out of him; lucky for us that it had happened just as things were wrapping up. Of course, by the time we regrouped with Summers and Rogue, he could stand and walk on his own, and once we were back in Westchester he was already protesting Hank's orders for a full checkover.
I sat in the medlab for the whole thing, still worried that Hank might find massive internal bleeding or some hidden horror like that - and I stayed on the edge of my seat until Hank announced a clean bill of health. As soon as Kurt and I were out in the corridor, I wrapped my arm around him and buried my face in his neck.
"Yer gonna be the death of me, darlin'," I murmured, kissing him below his ear.
"Logan, it was nothing. Just a hard punch to the gut. Stop fussing."
I chuckled. "I'm not fussing."
"You are. And you're making me feel like a child."
I lifted my head from his shoulder and looked at him. He wasn't kidding, I realized. That note of real bitterness in his voice sounded in the pit of my stomach, and my arm around him stiffened.
"Look," I said, snapping out of my recent tenderness, "I was just worried about ya! In case you hadn't noticed, I'm nuts about you." I watched with satisfaction as his face fell a bit. "And anyway," I muttered, looking away from him, "maybe I wouldn't *have* to worry so goddamn much if you didn't always get yerself in these scrapes in the first place!"
I waited for him to defend himself - it was the kind of jab I gave him all the time, but the rules for that and everything else seemed to be changing. Instead of matching my challenge, though, he sighed contritely and said, "I know. I'm sorry. You were only being ... my friend."
"Yeah. Well." I puffed a little, happy with the victory. "Just be more careful next time, okay?"
He nodded, eyes fixed on the floor. I leaned into his neck again and kissed him a little more urgently, letting my hand slip down his back to rest low on his hip. "Whadd'ya say we spend the night makin' it up to each other?"
"I don't know," he said through another tired sigh. "I'm a little worn out after today."
"Oh, c'mon." I nuzzled the side of his face. "Almost lost you today. Need to hold you, make sure you're real ..."
"I'm just a little shaken up, Logan ... I just want to sleep."
"Then sleep with *me*."
"Logan ..." He pulled gently away from me. "I'm sorry." He gave me a wan, guilty smile. "I'd just rather be alone." After leaning in for a light kiss on the lips, he turned and headed for the stairs.
I stood still, watching him disappear up the steps. I was numb - wasn't sure if it was the numbness you feel right after being slapped, or just ... nothing. Could I even say what had happened? One moment, I was relieved to be holding him safe and sound, and the next, he was gone. Dazed, I wandered up the stairs after him, suddenly worn out as well, wanting nothing except for my body to be horizontal, and my head to be empty.
Searing spots of sunlight shone between the curtains. I kicked the covers off my legs and groaned, slipping my hand past the elastic of my shorts, knowing vaguely that I ought to be disgusted with myself. I closed my eyes and remembered how the hairless skin of his nipple felt under my lips and a rush of heat at my groin made my back arch - my hand closed reflexively around my cock as more details of his body crowded into my head.
One night away from him and I was on fire. And without him there, I could have him however I wanted him. I jerked my cock hard, imagining it was him between my legs, crouching at my knees, giving me just what I wanted. I was fucking his mouth with long, slow strokes, hands knotted in his silky hair, holding him, controlling him, maybe even forcing him a little. Then I was holding him tighter, grinding his face into my crotch, jamming my cock down his throat, too hard, too fast *not* to be hurting him.
Afterwards, I lay sprawled on my back, sticky, ashamed. What had he been doing that whole time, while I'd been using him in my head like some whore? Sleeping? Reading the paper? Praying? That last one almost made me laugh, horrified with myself. I remembered that, a split-second after I came, I'd had a sudden vision of his nude body, lying crushed and bloody in the dust somewhere in North Dakota. It was enough to make a man never touch himself again.
I didn't see much of him that day. It was hard to say whether he was avoiding me, or whether I was avoiding him, but it worked out the same. When our paths did cross, I couldn't look him in the eye. He seemed a bit cool toward me, but maybe that was my guilt talking. Or maybe he was just preoccupied, still troubled over what had happened the day before.
I was itching to get out of the house, but the force of unresolved conflict kept me tied to it - like a ghost, I thought unhappily. Stuck there, haunting the halls, not even blessed with the presence of the person trapping me there.
This wasn't life. This wasn't the way things ought to be between two people who cared about each other - and Kurt had been a friend and a brother long before he'd been a lover. Nothing like this would ever have happened then, before this strange force had infected and electrified our bond. I knew I was being an idiot, letting my dick get in the way of thinking clearly - and if I didn't get a grip, I was going to lose him. As a lover *and* a friend.
For the first time that day, I actively sought him out. I found him and Kitty slumped against the wall in an upstairs hallway, talking and laughing together quietly. I went straight up to them and hauled Kurt to his feet.
"Logan!" He glanced apprehensively between me and Kitty. "What's going on?"
"We have to go to Harry's, Elf."
"Why? Is Harry being attacked by supervillains? Or is he giving it away on the house?"
"Because we haven't gone to Harry's - me an' you together - in almost four months, and that's an outrage."
"I need to do some reading, anyway," said Kitty, sticking her head between us. "Have fun, guys." She made for the wall and vanished into it.
Finally alone together, we glanced at each other anxiously. "I suppose we *could* use a night out together, the way we *used* to ..." he said.
"Yeah. We've been cooped up too long. Let's get some fresh air."
"Turn the flamin' thing off," I growled, rocking back in my chair impatiently.
"Logan, please ... I just want to have a quiet, pleasant night out for once, no trouble, no fights ..."
"Hey, Harry!"
Harry looked up without stopping his rag's slow circles on the bar counter.
"Can he turn it off?"
Harry shrugged and looked back down. "Son can do whatever he wants - just as long as you two are financially responsible for whatever happens next."
"You hear that, Logan?" said Kurt, somewhere between amused and annoyed. "We're both broke. And the professor has put his foot down on financing bar brawls from now on, remember?"
"What makes you think there'll be a brawl?" I grinned. "There's barely anyone in here. C'mon - you get us two more beers and I'll set up the rack, all right?"
I caught sight of his helpless glare as I turned toward the pool table.
Nobody was playing, of course - it was friggin' Wednesday night in Westchester - and I had the balls racked and two cues rustled up by the time Kurt came over with the beers.
"You haven't turned it off yet," I said, handing him a cue.
He muttered something unintelligible, and reached into his jeans pocket. Then the unremarkable, WASPy-looking kid wavered and blinked out to reveal a piece of shadow in a man's shape.
"Much better," I purred, looking him up and down.
He hesitantly picked up his beer, glancing nervously from side to side. I saw over his shoulder as a drunk at the bar did a double take at Kurt, then went back to his drink. The few scattered people in the place, mostly toward the front, hadn't even noticed Kurt, engrossed in their quiet chatter.
I smiled at him. "See? Not so bad, huh? Now - you break."
Still nervous, he picked up his cue and bent to aim his shot. I stood back, a little behind him, appraising his graceful figure as his long limbs extended themselves to bring him closer to the table.
His first shot sank two balls, and then he proceeded to make three more good shots before missing. I took up my cue and got down to business.
By eleven-thirty, we were two games for two, and I was beating him in the fifth. We were both pretty rusty - probably 'cause the only thing we did anymore was screw - and it felt good just to be around him like this, talking shit and drinking - and with the game set squarely between us to keep our hands off each other.
I smelled her before I saw her, and she lingered casually at the edge of my awareness long before she spoke. I had just sunk the eight ball with an elegant bank shot when I heard her voice at my elbow, deep and appreciative:
"So, I figure you boys must be mutants."
I could practically feel Kurt bristle all the way across the table, but I turned and saw the woman smiling, her lopsided smile a half-apology for the fighting words she could have meant.
She wasn't young; but she wasn't old, either - her smell had that ambiguous, layered quality that my own smell has, the smell of experience. She held herself like someone looking for a fight, too, but her body was soft in all the right places - round, heavy breasts filling out a pleated blouse, wide hips stretching taut the well-worn denim. Her throat and chest, bared for inspection, were smooth and golden; her hair, bleached a little too much at the tips, smelled like hay and honey. Teeth glinted as her smile widened slightly; she saw how my eyes were wandering.
And it hit me, in a lush moment of clarity, how long it had been since I'd touched or even really looked at a woman. I was engrossed by every little fluid movement her body made, how the absence of angles in her woman's body made movement quieter somehow, more continuous.
"Yeah," I said, my voice a little husky, "we're mutants. What's it to you, darlin'?"
"Oh, I don't care," she said, suddenly stepping back and away. She grabbed a pool cue that was leaning against the wall and slowly came back over to me. "I've just always wondered if being a mutant made someone good at pool."
I glanced over at Kurt, whose glared back at me stone-faced, then turned back to her and shrugged. "We do all right," I said. "Maybe you'd like to find out for yerself."
She nodded, her full lips still curved in that slightly crooked smile. "Which one of you should I try out first?"
"Well, I'm the winner from the last round," I offered quickly. "Think I can give you a run for yer money."
"We'll see." She put down the cue and began setting up the rack. I watched her move, amazed at how free of lines she was, how everything she did was just the shifting and flowing of shape. She didn't so much wear her clothes as animate them, and every time she bent over the table, a strip of flesh shone golden between the top of her low-slung jeans and the bottom of her blouse, soft and suggestive. When she was done, I came back to myself only just in time to start the game, sorry to leave that feminine dream behind.
The woman was good - surprisingly good. "Where'd you learn these tricks, darlin'?" I teased her as I reclaimed the table, after she had finally missed a shot.
"Playing in bars just like these. Darlin'." A sharp puff of breath was the sound of her laugh as my shot went slightly wide.
She bent to plan her next shot and I ventured another glance over at Kurt. By now he was even further back from the action, sitting on a stool with his arms folded, stiff and uncomfortable-looking. I saw how his eyes followed the woman in the same way mine had, though, and his face was confused, almost forlorn. I knew with certainty that if our eyes happened to meet, I would get a cold, accusing glare, so I was careful to only look at him for so long.
Her shot was risky, and too much force made the cue ball go wild. The ricochet sent it straight into a corner pocket.
"Well," I purred, "that's game, I guess."
She frowned. "Not fair, mister. This was supposed to be a test for *you*, not me."
"What can I say?" I directed a wolfish grin at her. "You didn't set the bar high enough."
"Hmmm. Well." Her green-gold eyes narrowed and a crease appeared on her brow. "Maybe," she said, her smile suddenly widening, "I should give your friend a try, then. Maybe you were just warming him up before."
Kurt blinked and quickly unfolded his arms. "Uh, I - no, thank you." I permitted myself a chuckle as his carefully-maintained aloofness slipped a little at her sudden attention.
"Oh, come on," she said, sidling over to him. "I know you've got it. Win or lose, honey, your drink's on me. How 'bout that?"
He gave me a helpless look and I winked at him. "Okay," he said, turning to her with a hesitant but genuine smile, "let's go."
The woman - name of Sammy, she informed us - beat Kurt squarely after a long, close game. She bought him not one but two beers, pressed up close against him to give him pointers on his shots, and generally made him forget little by little that he was supposed to be jealous. The longer the game went on, the clearer it became that Sammy was quite the little pool hustler - maybe she'd even have beaten me if she'd been giving it her all.
"So how'd you get so good?" I asked from my stool as Sammy knocked the eight ball neatly into a corner pocket.
"Well," she said, straightening up, "you hang around in places like these for most of your life, you're bound to pick up a skill or two."
"Or two, huh? What's the other one?"
She stepped up behind Kurt to run her hands over his shoulders and down his bare arms - but her languid smile was all for me. Kurt stiffened a bit in surprise, unsure about how to react - and about why she was making eyes at me when *he* was the one she was touching. I looked past his confused expression and smiled back at her. "I see. Well, that's real interesting, darlin'."
She continued to stroke Kurt's arms, and by now he was looking down at the floor, embarrassed. I suddenly had a vision of the two of them together, naked, making love - and making love to me. Warmth crept up my body as I saw her pliant, pale flesh against his hard, velvety limbs - and Jesus, what I wouldn't have given to be crushed between them, unable to make up my mind which kind of beauty was better.
Sammy had moved so that she was right between me and Kurt, her roving touch searching out both of us. "I don't suppose you boys would be interested in coming back with me for a nightcap when this place closes, would you?"
I grinned in spite of myself, idiotically. Then I remembered Kurt, and found him looking straight at me. I gave him a small nod. He returned it with a sharp shake of his head, his eyes icy and narrowed. I scowled at him.
"Well," I heard myself say, "I don't know about Kurt here, but I'm sure up for it."
Kurt continued to lock his gaze with mine. He looked like he was imagining my slow and painful dismemberment.
Whatever guilt I felt about that was drowned out by my anger. The way I saw it, this woman had just offered us a chance to make things right between us - I couldn't put my finger on *why* fucking both of them would have solved things in my mind, but I was sure that it would have. But Kurt, as usual, had decided not to see things my way. I wondered, when he'd told me months ago on that first night that I didn't have to worry, and that I'd always have him, whether he'd ever imagined a scenario like this. Where was he now, when I was so sure of things and all I needed was his blessing?
"Sure you don't wanna come, honey?" Sammy brushed her fingers over Kurt's arm in a final attempt, clearly disappointed by his aloofness.
"No, thank you," he said, his voice chilly. "I'm a little ... tired."
I hated him for being like this. I was already so turned on by the thought of screwing both of them that I wasn't sure Sammy alone was going to do it for me tonight, alluring though she was. But I wasn't going to beg him for it. I had a feeling she'd find a way to make me forget him for a little while.
"Okay, Elf," I said, fishing my keys out of my pocket and tossing them to him. "You can take the bike back. Just be careful with it."
The look of utter betrayal he gave me almost made me falter. But I steeled myself; we'd made our offer, it had been fair, and he'd rejected it. If he felt humiliated, it was his own damn fault, and I wasn't going to let him manipulate me with guilt over something he'd brought on himself. If he wanted to go home alone tonight instead of being with me, well, that was fine.
"See ya tomorrow, Elf," I said, slipping my hand around Sammy's waist and guiding her toward the door. I didn't dare look back at him as we left.
It turned out Sammy didn't have too much trouble helping me get over my disappointment. She was a talented lady, that Sammy. We drove back to her apartment in her '79 Chevy truck, her with both hands on the wheel and me with one hand in her pants and another up her blouse. We stumbled up the steps and through her door like some awkward, four-legged animal, and the second the latch clicked shut I had her shirt off and her jeans down to her knees. My hand fumbling in the hot space between her thighs found her panties soaked through, and my mouth dampened the well-worn lace of her bra as it searched for the shape of her nipple. I scrambled to get rid of my jeans while my fingers worked their way around her panties to find the slippery folds of her pussy, and not a second too soon I sank my cock inside, pressing her back hard against the door. After a few clumsy thrusts, the world upended itself and suddenly she was on top, riding me hard and freeing those beautiful tits from her bra with one hand while the other knotted itself firmly in a clump of my chest hair. I clamped my hands over her breasts and stared at them there, big and rough and dark against her skin.
I came soon, and hard, and then we did it again. We worked our way from one room to another, ending up eventually in her bedroom, fucking shamelessly against the frame of a big bay window.
Afterwards, I lay on my back on her unmade bed, drifting near sleep, while she sat beside me, rolling a joint.
"It's too bad your friend couldn't join us." There was the sound of a flint catching as she lit the joint. "Could've been interesting."
"Wasn't I interesting enough for ya, darlin'?" I rumbled without opening my eyes.
"Oh, no offense, honey. I could tell you wanted him to come, too."
I paused, not wanting to talk about him with the girl who was supposed to be keeping my mind off him. "Just didn't want there to be bad blood, is all," I said at last.
"Is he your boyfriend?"
My eyes opened. "What?"
She handed me the joint. "Oh, don't play dumb. I could tell by the way you were looking at him all night."
I exhaled my hit irritably. There were always those women who thought one little fuck was enough to make all your business public record. "So now you're the expert on me, huh?"
"Well, is it true or not? You guys doin' it?"
"Yeah." I glared at her, strangely relieved to have confessed it - she was the first one to know, I realized. "Stop lookin' so pleased with yerself."
She shrugged innocently and took back the joint. She was leaning up against the headboard, legs folded in front of her indian-style, still completely naked. "I just hope I didn't get in the middle of anything," she said.
I gave a dry laugh. "Oh, you got in the middle of something all right. You knew it while you were doin' it."
"Okay, maybe. But I hope I didn't screw anything up for you."
"That's awful kind of you."
She turned to me with a scowl. "You know, you really got a helluva chip on your shoulder, mister," she said. "Were you using me to make him jealous or something?"
"'Coure not. He probably thinks so, though."
"And you're not gonna correct him. Amounts to the same thing, doesn't it?"
I growled at her, showing my teeth. "This yer idea of pillow talk?"
"Okay, okay," she said, waving the joint. "It's none of my business anyhow. But listen" - she passed the joint back to me - "you should probably get back to him, and I can't get to sleep with someone else in the bed."
I turned to her with a surprised grin. "You kickin' me out?"
She shrugged. "Or you could take the couch, your choice."
I took a huge drag off the joint, burning it down to the paper, held it, then released it in a long sigh. She was right; I was worrying about him, about *this*, whatever it was. And I was hovering here with her, stuck between fear of waiting much longer to go to him and dread of what would happen when I did. "Okay," I said, "I'll get going, then."
She smiled wanly. "Didn't think it'd take much to talk you into it."
"Hey, no hard feelings, baby ..."
"Go on. He's waiting for you."
I sighed, swinging my legs off the bed. "That's what I'm afraid of ..."
I had barely got the mansion's big oak door shut behind me when I caught his scent. I looked toward the stairs, and sure enough, two yellow eyes glowed in the murk about halfway up.
I still smelled like her, even to someone without my nose. I reeked of sex. And I was about to have a conversation I didn't want to have. So I gritted my teeth and started up the steps, toward him.
"What are you doing still up?" I asked quietly, stopping a step below him.
The floating eyes shifted, flicked away. "You ... got a call from Japan. It sounded urgent. I thought you'd want to call them back before it got too late."
"So you stayed up to tell me that?"
The eyes bobbed in a nod.
"Well shit, you coulda left me a note."
"Yes, I suppose you're right. How silly of me. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to bed."
He rose and turned to go up the stairs. On reflex, I reached out and grabbed him by the arm, dragging him back down the steps and spinning him around. For a long second, we stared at each other. I didn't want to be here. I didn't want to talk, to explain to him what I couldn't even explain to myself. But here we were. Without a word, I crushed our mouths together, ignoring his struggling. The sweet taste of his mouth shot straight to my groin; my cock was already pressing into his thigh.
He kept on struggling, though - hard. Much as I wanted him, I didn't want to hurt him, so after a while I let him push me away. I met his eyes calmly as he leaned against the wall, panting, staring at me like a cornered animal - he knew that I'd already won whatever argument we were going to have. He was still here, after all, and if he'd had any chance of resisting me, he'd have 'ported away the second I touched him.
"You still taste like her," he muttered.
"Yeah? Well I should - I fucked her." My cruelty surprised even me. "Wanna make something of it?"
I liked this - liked being able to hurt him with a tossed-off remark. For the first time since North Dakota, I felt good again - a chilly kind of good, but I wasn't saying no to it.
"What the hell is wrong with you, Logan?" Kurt spat, his voice rising.
"Quiet, misfit - you want the whole team down here listening to our little lovers' quarrel?"
The corners of his eyes and his mouth were tight. "I don't understand why you're acting like this," he said, softer.
"Me?" I barked a joyless laugh. *Because you've got me crawling on my hands and knees, you bastard!* I wanted to snarl at him; *because the thought of losing you scares me to death, yet I want to kill you with my bare hands if you so much as begin to push me away! Because you're my whole fucking life, and I hate you for it!*
Of course, I said none of that. "Why am *I* acting like this?" I huffed, my voice cracking undignifiedly. "*You* may as well've told me to go fuck myself yesterday!"
"I did?!" He stared, incredulous. "When?"
"Look," I said, "I did what I did 'cause I wanted to. Lookin' back, maybe it wasn't such a great idea. I'm sorry. Happy?"
His mouth was a thin, straight line. "You really expect me to be?"
"I don't expect you to be anything." I pulled away, letting him slump against the wall. "So are we gonna keep jawin' like this or can we get on with things?"
His eyes fell, defeat in his expression. I moved in on him again, slipping my hand over his throat, thumb stroking his chin. He didn't pull away. I leaned in and kissed him, parting his unresisting lips with my tongue. After a moment, his body relaxed and his arms crept around me.
In a flash, I'd gathered him in my arms and pressed him up against the wall, forcing my thigh between his legs. He was already hard - I was darkly pleased at how easy it had been to get him from angry to aroused. He moaned hoarsely as my mouth slid down his neck, teeth nipping at the corded muscles. I moved both hands to his ass and squeezed, hungry for the familiar shapes and textures of his body. One had slipped down the back of his pants to find flesh and the other cupped his crotch, squeezing, stroking. He was gasping like I was hurting him, his thick fingers digging into my ass, thighs parting to let me get at him.
I paused for a second. "'Port us up?"
He nodded, and after a sickening jolt, we were in my room. We'd barely landed before I was getting rid of his pants, moving us stumbling to the bed. We collapsed on it still entangled; clothes disappeared piecemeal; I found myself with my face in his crotch, breathing in the overwhelming, musky scent of him, reassuring me finally that this was really him. I sucked the head of his cock hungrily for a moment, tongue gliding on the layer of slippery fluid, then licked his shaft and balls all over, needing that salty, human taste to tell me "here, now." I lifted his knees over my shoulders so I could bury my face between his legs. His thighs parted even further, the cords of his groin muscles standing out, his hips moving in little impatient circles. My tongue found the thin, hairless skin behind his balls, and then the tight pucker further down, and swirled around the tiny, tight folds of delicate skin, instinctively bearing toward the center.
I held his cock in my hand and stroked the slick head with my thumb as my tongue probed his asshole, forcing itself a bit at a time past the hard ring of muscle. I knew exactly what I wanted to do - I wanted to make him come with my hands and my mouth, then fuck him and make him come again, and again. I sucked on my fingers and thrust them inside him without preparation, making his whole body jerk before relaxing gradually as I moved them in and out. A scrape of my finger against his prostate and his body arched again, a rough cry tearing out of him - normally he'd care if anyone heard us, but he was beyond the ability to control that now. I took his cock in my mouth again and sucked him hard and fast, fingering his prostate in a complementary rhythm - and within seconds he was coming, crying and gasping my name - Jesus, I'd never heard anything quite so erotic as my own name said like that.
He was still gasping as I sat up and spit into my hand, then lubed my own erection with saliva and come. His had barely flagged - oh, to be young again, I thought as I lifted his legs and spread him wide. My wet fingers quickly found his hole again, and I wasted no time in replacing fingers with cock and sinking into him, driving straight down with all my weight. He groaned and arched, and I felt his muscles stop me - my fingers up there were one thing, but my cock was a different story. Taking a deep breath, I hoisted his knee over my shoulder and then leaned forward, pressing the other knee into the mattress. "Relax," I hissed in a tight whisper. "Or I'll make ya."
He forced out a breathy chuckle. "Try me."
"You asked for it." I pulled out of him nearly all the way, then drove down again, this time sinking in to the hilt.
The noise he made was raw and ragged, utterly animal. It went straight to my balls, and my head felt light as the rest of my blood drained southward. I drew up my hips and began to fuck him slowly, each stroke tearing an inhuman sound from his throat; his neck arched convulsively and his mouth fell open, fangs exposed, eyes clenched shut, like he was terrified of his own pleasure. I could barely hold back; I wanted to hurt him, wanted to pound him and break him in half - and I wanted him to love it, to beg me for it. "I'm gonna fuck yer brains out, misfit," I muttered, sliding out of him and thrusting home again.
"Oh Gott ... do it, Logan ... fuck me - ungh!"
I slammed into him hard enough to make his teeth chatter. My whole weight was bearing down against his split legs, one thrown over my shoulder and one pinned to the bed next to his head. There wasn't another man or woman I knew that I could twist into this position - that was part of the fun of sex with Kurt. There were other fun things about him, too - I jumped a bit as his tail slid up between my ass cheeks, the muscular tip tickling my own asshole while I pounded into his.
As the tail worked its way inside me, I realized he was talking softly - mumbling, eyes shut, probably not even knowing he was doing it. It was German, and I got the idea pretty easily - he hissed the words between clenched teeth, gutteral and feral, urging me to fuck him harder, to take him roughly, savagely. Of course, he could have been reciting a recipe for sauerkraut for all I knew, but anything would have sounded dirty in that tone of voice. I picked up the pace, thrusting faster, trying to touch him deeper, my body running on its own by now. Kurt too was jerking involuntarily against me, his talking incoherent, punctuated by gasps. Then the stream of words screeched to a halt as his insides tightened around me like a stretched coil, holding my cock in a long, hot second that dissolved into pulsing - my sex expending itself inside him, trying to go deeper even to the very end.
We lay together afterward, him blissfully spent and happy at my side, playing idly with the hair on my chest. Even as I felt sleep blurring the edges of my senses, I wondered morosely if his good mood now would make him forget he'd been mad at me not an hour ago.
Later, I watched him putting his clothes on, not really seeing him, unsure of what I was feeling. Then, it occurred to me -
"Why are you getting dressed?"
"Oh - I was going to go get us some beer from the fridge - wouldn't want to run into anyone the way I was, would I?"
"Beer?"
"Ja, sure - you don't want one?"
I stared at him, innocently asking me if I wanted a beer, and just didn't understand. Hadn't he gotten the memo? We weren't beer buddies anymore. We didn't do those comfy guy things we used to do together - the events of tonight had proven that beyond a doubt. The days of innocent friendship were gone for good. And didn't he think that was weird? Obviously not, since he was heading downstairs to get us beer.
And then I realized I must be going crazy. So friendship as we'd known it was over - what did I expect him to do? Brood over that loss like I was doing? He was getting on with life like I always say a guy should do - never mind the worrying, just do what has to be done. So what the hell was happening to me, that *I* wasn't the one cheerfully jumping out of bed to get the beer?
He kept an uneasy eye on me as he finished dressing, then left - without repeating the question I hadn't answered. And just as casual as could be, like a bit of paper blowing by on the sidewalk, the thought that maybe I loved him blew through my mind - and the word "love" had a strange, echoey feel to it in my head, like it was vibrating with a forgotten feeling.
My stomach lurched and I thought about that innocent look he'd had just before he left. And I knew at that moment that I'd lose him. I lose everybody I fall in love with, sooner or later.
"Quick now, here, now, always-
A condition of complete simplicity
(Costing not less than everything)..."
Little Gidding, [254 - 256]
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