“Are you asking me, or is this another tit for tat?”
I could see his wheels whirring, trying to come up with the answer that would play me best. Would he beg? Offer himself? Try and seduce me again? Was anything he said real? Never mind. Those were all irrelevant. What was relevant was that Peter Dyachenko had me at a smile.
“I’ll pay you back,” he pledged with a face so steeped in earnestness, I almost believed him.
“How? Don’t answer that.” Whoring himself out if I had to guess. If I was jealous of Darryl’s hand, the idea of Peter being with anyone else was a physical weight on my chest, crushing the air from my lungs.
But I had no right. Zero right. Nada. Nil. Neither the justification, nor a reason to be possessive. Of all the feelings I had for Peter—lust, warmth, protectiveness, anger, frustration—jealousy was the most confounding. And it had to go.
“You’re a dickhead with a badge, prettyboy,” Darryl snarled. “He—” Peter’s hand cut him off with a gentle squeeze.
“It doesn’t matter how. I’ll sign whatever papers you need.”
The sickest part of me—the one that had worried about Peter’s HIV status, the one that said I had a right to his body because of what he put me through; the rotten, evil section of my soul that said Peter was mine—that was the portion of my mind that slithered up to my ear and hissed the venomously seductive, ‘Imagine the ways he could pay it back’. “Okay,” I said, ignoring the devil inside, “For starters, how about you stop lying to me.”
Dave continued his quiet watchfulness, but the shake of his head was reproach enough. He thought I was an idiot. He wasn’t wrong.
“Hear that, Rabbit? He wants the whole truth. How’s this for truth, prettyboy. Peter doesn’t even like boys.”
“This is like the Desperate Houseboys of Denver,” my best friend quipped, looking from my stunned face to Peter’s guilty head drop, to Darryl’s satisfied smirk. Dave got up and went into the kitchen. I vowed that if I heard corn popping, I was going to bludgeon him with my fireplace poker.
“He has a pair of come-stained pants in the bedroom that argue for the prosecution,” I said flippantly. I wasn’t buying Darryl’s taunts, but Peter wasn’t offering any rebuttal. If he wasn’t at least bisexual, then I felt completely used.
“Darryl, would you stop, please?” I knew that pleading look in Peter’s eye. He needed for Darryl not to alienate his golden goose.
“Why? So he can treat you like a whore? He calls you one often enough. Can’t you see how he’ll want to get paid?” He gripped Peter’s arm, pulling him to the front door. I got up to stop them—or shut the door behind them. “Come on. We’ll get the money some other way. Cai wouldn’t want you to take it from him.”
I couldn’t argue with Darryl’s logic. Or fault it. He was doing what someone who truly cared about Peter would do: stop letting him sacrifice everything for Cai. I sighed and considered committing myself to a sanitarium. “You don’t have to pay me back. Get your clothes on, and we’ll go.”
Peter’s lips hinted at a smile. Darryl dropped his hand, releasing Peter who stood by the entryway. Darryl was still dubious, and his thin shoulders held the stiffness of self-righteousness, but he appeared less angry.
With relief, I propped my ass on the back of the sofa as Peter headed to the guest room. Instead of passing, he stopped in front of me and cupped my jaw. My lips parted before he leaned in for the kiss. I fisted the edges of his shirt, yanking him closer, until his hips were warm under my hands, until the twinge of pain from my tilted position faded under the softness of his mouth, until I forgot all my objections and reasoning.
He pressed into me with an arch of his hips, supporting my neck with both hands as he controlled my mouth with his. Peter liked control, and who was I to complain when it felt like this? I had no breath, each exhale stolen by his teeth or tongue. Whether it was that lack of oxygen, or just the dizzying feel and smell of him, my heart sped up. He eased back just enough to suck in my bottom lip briefly before pulling away. My mouth chased after him.
With a quiet, “Thank you,” Peter left me there, stupefied, shivering, and desperate.
And that asshole Dave looked on while sharing a bag of popcorn with Darryl.
My Ass is A No Fly Zone
After both Peter and I changed into more appropriate ‘court clothes’—which for him meant less holey jeans and a tucked in button-down shirt—the three of us piled into Arturo, leaving Dave to man the house. Or, as he said upon our leaving, “Gonna watch ESPN without a wife and four kids drowning out the game and changing the channel to Nickelodeon.”