A Little Dream for Friday

A short piece from my anthology Sex Ray Specs for your Friday enjoyment.

DREAM A LITTLE DREAM

Arthur considered suicide. He hummed tonelessly, turning the various options over in his mind as he sought the perfect one. Gas was too uncertain, a gun too messy. As he was mulling the pros and cons of a simple overdose, it came to him.

“What are you thinking so hard about?" His brother's voice burst the bubble of Arthur's near epiphany.

“Why are we doing this? Fishing has got to be the most boring activity on the planet. I doubt there's even any fish in this lake." After deftly parrying Martin's question with one of his own he didn't wait around for the answer, picking up his rod and meandering down the bank.

“Where are you going?” His brother's anxious call prickled the hairs on the back of Arthur's neck. The man had eyes, it should be obvious. Instead of replying he merely shrugged, tilting his head in the direction he was heading. “Well don't go far,” the relentless voice continued. “We need to leave soon.”

He breathed a sigh of relief when he made it far enough around the curve of the lake's edge to be unseen and unheard. The constant, none too secret, surveillance his family and friends had him under left him struggling to breathe. He continued pushing his way through the tangled deadfall that lay just shy of the water until he was certain he hadn't been followed.

Arthur stretched out on a flat rock, pulling out the sketchbook he'd stuffed in his pants and digging in the bottom of his tackle box for a stick of charcoal. For the thousandth time his hand began to trace lines more familiar than his own face.

“You have to stop this.” The tenuous whisper brushed his cheek, a wavering touch like a moth taking flight.

“You know I've tried.” Arthur also knew his words fell on jaded ears. “Just one last time.”

“You keep saying that.” The voice was stronger now, the smudges on the page dancing in sympathy. “You need to let me go.”

His fingers caressed the contours of a sharp cheekbone, translating the velvety nap of the well worked paper into silky flesh. “How can I possibly do that? Without this, I have nothing.”

“I am nothing. You and I both know I'm not real.” The mournful tone was in sharp contrast to the hand rubbing a soothing circle between Arthur's shoulder blades. “I know you're planning something. Are you going to fill me in?”

“No, it isn't important.” It wasn't really a lie. The sensation of his desire made flesh was enough to override his urge for self-destruction. “I just want to enjoy our time together.”

“You need a living, breathing, lover, not some smeary lines on a torn piece of paper.” Shadowed hands slid over Arthur's arms, goose flesh rising in their wake. “This is a fantasy.”

“Mmhmmm,” he hummed idly, turning to capture plump, velvety lips with his own. The kiss was warm and deep, sending electric sparks tumbling down his spine in his own personal fireworks display. The urge to deepen the connection was irresistible, and so their tongues slid against each other, neither willing to yield. Arthur had never before felt such an irresistible yearning, the taste was addictive, overwhelming, and marked him as clearly as the graphite streaks darkening his lips and winding their way across his torso.

His breath caught, time slowing to a crawl as a gossamer hand wrapped around his burgeoning erection. Two rough strokes, hot silk and electricity spiraling up his spine and tearing loose a rough groan. “Oh gods, yes.”

A needy moan escaped his throat when a hard cock pressed urgently against his and that maddening hand returned to wrap around them both. A hot mouth latched onto his nipple as his lover began to stroke, hand squeezing slightly as they thrust together. Their mouths mated, swallowing twin gasps as a thumb swiped through pearly drops of precum. A slick finger pushed through his tight pucker and all coherent thought dissolved into a ragged prayer to a deity Arthur had been certain he didn't believe in.

The slow slide of his lover's cock seemed to go on for ever, impossibly deep, and he wondered if, perhaps, the shadowy figure would disappear inside him completely. After what seemed an eternity it reversed, taunting him with an achingly slow rhythm. No matter how he squirmed and begged, the measured pace never faltered. Each brush to his prostate tightened the hot coil inside of him, and he felt his balls drawing up tighter and tighter, like a spring ready for flight.

A ghostly hand wrapped loosely around his erection, the light teasing strokes matching the pace of the tongue ruthlessly mapping his mouth. Even now, Arthur spared a moment for his obsession, deciding that forgetting to breathe due to pleasure might, indeed, be the best way to die.

A hard thrust to his prostate pushed him over the edge, molten lightning surging up from his balls as the world greyed out around him. When his eyes fluttered open they met with the heart-stopping sight of his lover daintily licking the seed from his chest.

“Arthur, it's time to go.” His brother's strident call broke through the spell he was under.

“Five more minutes. I'll meet you at the car.” Another whirlwind of kisses and then he was stumbling back through the brush, marks of his transgression starkly dappling pale flesh.

He watched the judgment settle on Martin's normally placid features, yet shrugged it off. The meddling concerns of his so-called loved ones were of no regard in this. “What?”

The tense silence blanketing the car lifted only slightly. “You could at least pretend.” The accusation was unexpected and Arthur considered it carefully before answering.

“I could. Would that make it better?”

“Better is relative. At least no one could accuse me of complicity.” His brother was making the face again, cheeks puffed out, brows drawn low, and forehead furrowed. It was his serious face, the one that always telegraphed bad news. “Mom wants to have you committed.”

“That isn't so easy.” Arthur's glib reply did nothing to ease the tension and he wasn't surprised when the car glided to a stop on the shoulder.

He didn't resist the hand cupping his cheek, turning to regard the once mirror of Martin's features. “I want to be on your side, you know I do. But I'm worried about you.”

“I'll be fine,” he soothed. “I'm not hurting anyone. I know it can't go on forever. I'm just not ready to stop yet. Soon, I promise.”

“You swear?”

“Cross my heart.” Sharp eyes searched for the lie behind his words, but their inherent sincerity must have been convincing. The car slid back into traffic, and Arthur slid back into his contemplation of the perfect death.

The next few weeks were filled with stolen moments and the search for epiphany. His friends stopped meeting his gaze, eyes skittering past the bruised tones of his skin to rest on the nothingness behind him. Their discomfort only fueled his frantic quest to either hold on to what he had, or find a permanent solution to his situation.

Even his lover pressured him, waiting until he lay limp and boneless, still panting from his release. “You can't continue on like this.”

“You sound like you don't want to be here.” Arthur's hurt leaked into the words.

“I should say that.” A surprisingly strong hand kneaded the muscles of his neck, and Arthur turned away, forcing his limbs to stop trembling. “I should . . . but I can't. I've come to care for you.”

The reluctant response, and the brilliant smile it wrung from the usually somber Arthur, touched off another round of heated kisses. Hands roamed over all the skin they could reach, painting new marks of possession across creamy flesh.

Ironically, when he was most lost in the embrace of his shadow lover, he was closest to the answer he so desperately sought. Recognition simmered in the dark corners of his mind, pushed into hiding by the intoxication of one more perfect kiss.

When it hit him Arthur almost rejected the idea. Too trite, too pat, too sappily sweet. But it called to him, whispering in the long dark hours of the night, and piercing through the drone of disapproval that blanketed his waking hours.

“What have you done?” The gossamer whisper almost went unnoticed.

“I'm going to join you.” Arthur's confession released the tight knot of lingering tension inside him. “I've been planning it for a long time.”

“There is no me without you.” The aching sadness in his phantom lover's voice had him searching the familiar features, hoping he had misinterpreted. “I will miss you.”

Their last kiss. Arthur was torn between laughing and crying, his shoulders shaking, the taste of blood on his lips. He wanted to apologize but plump lips covered his, the taste of blood growing stronger. Too late, he realized their stolen kisses weren't enough, would never be enough. He couldn't remember what his lover tasted like, so he cried harder.

“I'm tired,” Arthur's eyelids drooped, fluttering in time with the beats of his heart.

“Then sleep.” The husky whisper was infinitely gentle, shadow hands clutching him tightly. “Just close your eyes and rest.”

“Kiss me again?” His eyes closed, the lids giving up the battle to stay open, stress and pain softening away.

“Dream of me. I'll kiss you when you wake.”