Chapter 3 – Chapter 3

"Can you come in?" It came out as almost a plea. Troy had pulled up to the front of a substantial-looking old, wooden house, although one that needed attention. None of the leaves had been raked in the yard yet and a shutter was hanging askew on a window on the second story. He hesitated in answering. He felt he'd been in a marathon as he drove across town, into the countryside, and to the Civil War battle town of Port Republic, where two branches of the Shenandoah River met. Grimes had spoken the entire time about his wife Penny, what a saint she was, and how much of a loss she was to him. The man was throwing out conflicting—and, it seemed, conflicted—vibes. The kiss at Hammond's house had been genuine—needy—and Hammond had good as said that he and Grimes had been fuck buddies before Grimes met his wife.

But he'd repeatedly said he was sorry he'd kissed Troy. Was all of this talk about his perfect wife a barrier he was raising against Troy thinking he would now be interested in another man sexually? Troy was ready to move on but it certainly didn't seem like this guy was.

"Please," Grimes repeated, "do come in. It was good for me to talk about this. I've had it bottled up inside. And it's good that you listened. I'd like to return the favor, if you want to talk about Aaron." He touched Troy's arm as Troy gripped the wheel of the car with both hands, but immediately drew his fingers away as if Troy's arm was hot or he thought better of the gesture.

There was a pause, in which each man focused on the breathing of the other. "OK, for a few minutes," Troy answered. Who was he kidding? He'd stay long enough for Grimes to fuck him, if the guy could decide he was up to it. He knew that. He just didn't know if Grimes realized that yet. Something had happened between them. A surge of electric want had gone through them both in that kiss and in the shared observance of three men fucking that neither had pulled themselves away from immediately. A fuck was what they both needed. Troy wouldn't have said yes to coming in if he wasn't hoping for a fuck. There was something about this guy—he was special—if he could just decide what he wanted.

They walked up onto the front porch, close to each other, but not touching—purposely, Troy wondered, confused by the mixed signals. Grimes had trouble opening the front door—first because he seemed to be trembling too much to get the key in the slot and then because the door stuck a bit and he had to apply force to open it.

"It's stuck like this for a couple of weeks," Grimes said. "It must be the weather."

"I think it's more a loose hinge," Troy said, reaching up to touch the upper hinge. "I could fix that for you, I'm sure."

"You could?" Grimes asked, moving his hand up to cover Troy's, and looking down into the young man's face. They exchanged looks of raw need, but then Grimes looked and moved away and swung the door open. Once inside, though, and the door shut, Troy pulled Grimes around and close, reached up and cupped the back of the head of the older man, and pulled his face down to where their eyes met again. "Kiss me," he murmured. "I know you want to."

Without seeking agreement, Troy pulled Gideon's face down to his and took his lips in a tentative kiss. A growl came up from deep in Gideon's chest and he grabbed Troy by the waist and lifted and slammed the back of the smaller man against the wall by the door. He took over the kiss, hungrily pushing Troy's lips open with his and giving him tongue. Troy moaned.

When they came out of the kiss, Gideon's body relaxed and he set Troy's feet back down on the floor. He started to say something, a look in his eyes that Troy didn't want to see, but the student raised the fingers of a hand to Gideon's lips, and said, "Don't. Don't say you're sorry. Don't say it again. Don't be sorry for something we both want—that we both need."

Gideon gave him a wan smile and took a step away from him. "I'll go put the coffee on and then I want to listen to you talk of your life and circumstance. I've said enough tonight."

"Better that you turn the heat up," Troy said. "It's colder than a witch's tit in here."

"If I only knew where the thermostat was," Gideon said, showing that wan smile again. "It was something that Penny—"

"Shhh," Troy countered. "It's right here, on the wall beside my head. But I don't think that's the problem. Have you turned the system on yet for the season?"

"Turned the system on? That would have been something Penny would have done. And she—"

"Where's your heater?"

"In the basement . . . I think."

"You think? Jesus, you need a handyman here."

They both tensed and their eyes met. It was Troy who broke the awkwardness. He stripped off his coat and said, "I'll go exploring, starting with the basement. If the system's working at all, I'll get it turned on for you."

It took a while. The basement of the old house, which Gideon said had been standing here while a Civil War battle was being fought around it, was a rat's warren. No one had been down here and tidied up for some time. He eventually found the heating system, turned it on, and waited until it kicked in, which it did. When he came upstairs into the kitchen, the first thing he saw was a sink full of dirty dishes. The second thing was Gideon, standing over by a perking coffee pot. He had changed—stripped down. He was wearing a knee-length silk robe. And nothing else. His sash was loosely bound around his waist. It was open down to his navel, showing good muscle tone—excellent for a man his age—and a matting of salt-and-pepper hair that curled around his nipples and descended in a thin line to the sash. The lower part of the robe flared enough for Troy to see a trimmed bush and a jutting cock. The man was hung and was aroused.

Confused again by the mixed signals, Troy mumbled, "I got the heater started," and walked straight to the sink, searched in the cabinet beneath and found dish detergent, and started filling the sink with soapy water.

"I heard," Gideon said in a low, hoarse voice. "But I don't think we need any extra heat for a while."

He came in close behind Troy, who turned the water off and braced himself on arms stretched out to the side, hands gripping the edges of the counter. He moaned and turned his head to Gideon's possessing kiss. As they kissed, Gideon stripped Troy all the way down, unbuttoning his shirt and pulling it off the young man's back, unbuckling and unzipping his trousers and slipping those and Troy's briefs to the floor. Troy stepped out of them as Gideon's hand cupped and weighed and measured Troy's balls and engorging cock with a hand.

"Nice," he murmured. "You have a beautiful body. So smooth, like marble."

Gideon took Troy's lips into another kiss. When he released them, he buried his face in the hollow of Troy's throat and repeated the compliment. "You're so nice, so young and beautiful. It's been so long. Can I? Will you let me? I need this so bad."

"Yes, oh yes," Troy murmured. He felt the insistence of the man at the small of his back and then lower, between his thighs. He squeezed his thighs on the long, thick shaft, and Gideon was dry humping him, similarly to, but more arousingly than Brad had done earlier, the side of the cock rubbing back and forth on Troy's hole. Troy felt himself blossoming open.

Heavy breathing took over anything they might have said. There was nothing to be said, really, and Gideon required no instruction or further permission. He was dominating Troy now—just as Aaron had dominated Troy. In matters of sex, Aaron had always dominated. That's how Troy had wanted it then. That's how Troy wanted it now.

He didn't want Gideon to ask for permission for anything again. He wanted Gideon to take whatever he wanted.

Gideon knelt behind him and grasped his hips, digging his thumbs into Troy's butt cheeks and spreading them open. With a moan, Troy widened his stance and Gideon buried his face in Troy's crack and ate out his ass. It was all smooth, deliberate . . . effective.

Gideon came back up close behind Troy and Troy saw, out of the corner of his eye, the split condom packet—Trojan Magnum Ribbed—flutter to the countertop. Grasping Troy's hips again, Gideon lifted the young man's feet off the floor. He was being lowered on the cock, which penetrated, penetrated, penetrated him, as Gideon wrapped an arm around his waist, Troy arched his torso back and grasped the back of Gideon's head in both his hands. He opened his mouth in a big O and blew bubbles, shuddered, panted hard, and came close to hyperventilating as the thick cock relentlessly invaded up his channel into the soft, vulnerable core of him, stretching him in its progress. The muscles of his passage walls began to ripple over the corkscrew effect of the ribbed condom sheathing a throbbing, steel-hard conquering weapon.

The cock in deep, and Troy fully vanquished, quivering and moaning, Gideon snaked his free hand around, grasped Troy's cock and balls, and began to stroke him off in the same slow, slightly off-beat rhythm of the deep fuck.

After a few minutes, Gideon pulled Troy away from the sink, laid him down on his side on the kitchen table, and slung Troy's right leg up his torso. Troy's left leg was hung over the back of a chair pulled up to the table. His left hand was clutching the edge of the table, holding him steady under the hard, long, quickening thrusts of Gideon's cock. He was squeezing Gideon's right bicep with his right hand. Gideon was stroking him off with his left hand. Gideon was taking him hard, deep, and vigorously, the rapidity of the thrusts increasing, becoming more frenzied, more demanding. It was all Gideon now, taking the younger man fully, mercilessly, and Troy loved it this way. No mixed signals or indecision now.

"Come for me," Gideon growled as he felt Troy tense up, and Troy responded as demanded. Then it was Gideon's turn to ejaculate, which he did in the condom deep inside Troy's ass.

Afterward, they sat next to each other on a leather sofa in the living room, coffee finally served. Gideon was in his silk robe, flared open, hiding nothing, half hard. Troy was just in his briefs. Gideon put his coffee cup down—Troy hadn't lifted his from the coffee table yet—and leaned over into Troy for a kiss, during which he ran his hand over Troy's chest, paying attention to the young man's taut nipples.

"I am sorry, if—" Gideon said, coming out of the kiss.

Once more Troy put his fingers to the man's mouth, and said, "No more 'sorry,' I told you. All sorrow and guilt are banished here. Neither one of us is sorry. There is no guilt in seizing what we want, no loved ones to betray." Then, "Are you going to fuck me again now?" he asked, "because you certainly can. I want you to."

"Eventually, I hope . . . if you want," Gideon answered. "It will take time, though. I'm an old man."

"You don't fuck like an old man. You don't feel like an old man." He had his hand encasing Gideon's long cock. The man was half hard and hardening more at Troy's touch. But Gideon pulled away and settled back in the sofa. Troy continued slow-stroking his shaft.

"I spilled my gut to you about my departed wife. Tell me about your Aaron."

"What is there to tell?" Troy said. "He was good to me—in all ways. He was good to me sexually like you just were."

"Your relationship. Were you yin and yang like I said Penny and I were. Were you different people, with different interests, but fit together perfectly when joined?"

"When you fucked me in the kitchen, I felt like we were one, synchronized machine, yes. And that's the way it was with Aaron and me too."

"Yes, but in other aspects of your relationship. I'm a drone. There's one thing I do well. I write well—and profitably. And I think I teach well—about writing, about nothing else. I'm technically clueless, and I don't keep schedules. That was all Penny. But she enjoyed it and she was content with me the way I am. Did you and Aaron fit like that—yin and yang, completing a perfect circle?"

"Yes," Troy answered after a bit of thought, "that was Aaron and me too, except we were reversed. Aaron was great with clothes and with clothes buying, but he was messy as hell about everything else and all thumbs with anything involving handyman work. I did that for him. I even came to his house and did it for him and his family without his wife knowing he was fucking me—until he unexpectedly died and tried to leave stuff to me."

"It's rare for couples to meld like that," Gideon said.

"Yes, I think you're right. And what about you and Avril Hammond? Was he right—that you two were a couple before you married your wife? Did you and Hammond fit together like that?"

"Alas, no. Yes, we were lovers, but it was volatile, and we switched back and forth on what we wanted and needed, never being on the same page at once. I think that's why I escaped so radically—why I went with a woman, with Penny. I wanted stability and monogamy and Avril was sleeping around. And then when I married Penny and was initially interested in going with them both, Avril demanded sole possession. By the time he came around to sharing me with Penny, I no longer wanted to be shared—by then it was just Penny. And has been until just now. I can't tell you how happy you've made me tonight. I struggled with it but I'm so happy I gave in. I hope you are too."

"Yes, I am. I think I wanted it before you did. That worries me. You keep trying to say you're sorry. Are you sorry you've done it with me? Not quite sure still, or what?"

Gideon laughed, which hit Troy wrong. The young man took his hand off Gideon's now-rock hard cock, and leaned away from him into the corner of the sofa, turning his back slightly to the sofa arm.

"No, don't mistake the laugh," Gideon said. "It wasn't that I didn't want you. I wanted you when we were talking at dinner. It's because of Hammond. He gave me the impression that he was throwing the two of us together, and I didn't want it to be that easy for him. I didn't want to fall into something just because he had pity on me and was throwing me a bone. It was the sort of thing he'd done when we were together to show his dominance when I wanted to dominate in a relationship. But maybe you didn't get the impression from the Thanksgiving dinner—that it was all set up to get us together."

It was Troy's turn to laugh. "No, that's exactly what I thought he was doing—that he was pitying me and trying to set me up with another sugar daddy."

"Cheeky of him, but I still worry about Avril," Gideon said. "I think he's chosen wrong this time. I think he now wants permanence and a life mate. I don't think that Brad Baylor is going to give that to him. You saw what Brad was doing at the party—fucking that rent-boy Hammond had brought in. I don't see Baylor being faithful to Avril. Do you?"

"No, I don't," Troy agreed, looking away so that Gideon didn't see Troy's own contribution to Brad's betrayal of Hammond in his face. His hand went back to Gideon's cock, finding it in full erection. "I think we've talked enough for now, though," he murmured. "You seem to be ready again."

"Yes, I'm ready again," Gideon answered in a low, hoarse voice. He twisted toward Troy in the sofa, turning Troy too so that his back was fully pressed to the sofa arm. He grasped Troy's legs after stripping off his briefs, and bent them and pressed them up into Troy's chest, Troy's knees going into his armpits. At the same time, he spread Troy's thighs and lowered his face to Troy's crotch. Troy grasped the wavy hair at the back of Gideon's head, arched his back, and moaned, as Gideon prepared the young man for mounting again with his mouth working Troy's cock, balls, and hole.

He rose up and crouched over Troy, teasing the young man's hole with his cock head and deep kissing Troy on the mouth. He was taking his time preparing Troy, just as he had in the kitchen, and he was putting the young man into high heat. Troy broke away from the kiss and cried out, "Fuck me. Fuck me now. Put it in me. Pound me!"

The cock head was pressing at his hole, and Troy was willing his muscles down there to grasp it and pull it inside. He didn't care that it was unsheathed. He didn't care if Gideon barebacked him. He wanted the cock inside him, and he wanted it now.

Once again, out of the corner of his eye, he saw the slit Trojan Magnum packet hit the coffee table top, and he gave a great sigh as the cock sank inside him, this time meeting little resistance on its journey into the quick of him. Gideon was holding him close from above, completely controlling and dominating him, rocking him back and forth against the arm of the sofa. Troy grasped the man's shoulder blades with his hands, dug his nails into the flesh, and cried out, "Yes, yes. Fuck me to heaven!"

Gideon moved a strong hand around to the V where Troy's tailbone descended to between his butt cheeks and gave Troy's lower back a strong pull, impaling the young man's passage in one swift movement on the cock to the soft core of his gut. Troy cried out in pain-passion-pleasure and Gideon commenced pumping him deep.