Tallulah Falls, 7/?
anonymous
October 23 2010, 01:40:32 UTC
Kirk’s lips are warm and full and he smells like woodsmoke and expensive cologne. His shoulders, when Leonard shoves them away, are all lean muscle under the soft fabric of his shirt. Everything about him is temptation, including the baffled look he gives Leonard as Leonard scrambles to his feet as if Satan himself had sent Jim Kirk, the same Satan that Leonard doesn’t believe in.
“Jesus!” Leonard half-shouts, terror passing reasonably well for indignation. “What the fuck are you doing? Tell your director he didn’t pay for that.”
“Pay?” Kirk’s still looking up at Leonard like Leonard’s the one who’s behaving irrationally. The fire alarm keeps going on and on in Leonard’s head: He could tell, right from the beginning. Everyone can tell.
“Yeah,” Leonard wheezes, “that little pipsqueak paid me to take you off his hands for the evening. But Jesus, it was just to keep an eye on you. I fed you, I let you sleep in my bed, and now you--” He can’t finish the sentence.
“How much?” Kirk asks with interest.
“Three thousand,” Leonard says, feeling every inch the cheap gigolo he’s swearing that he isn’t.
“Not bad.” Kirk seems mildly impressed. “I’m glad you’re getting something out of this.” A faint afterimage of the Kirk smile is back, and it’s enough to make Leonard genuinely pissed off.
“Apart from the cheap moves, you mean.”
“Len,” Kirk says, using his name for the first time. “You’re the loneliest son of a bitch I’ve ever met.”
“And so, what--you’re going to give me a pity fuck? Is there some Hollywood charity for that?”
“No, but I could get my agent to put out a press release.” When Leonard doesn’t smile, Kirk sighs. “For fuck’s sake at least sit down. It’s making my neck hurt, looking up at you.”
Leonard does, not knowing what else to do, and a second later the hand is back, clasping his own tighter than before. He doesn’t question the logic of accepting consolation from the guy who made the incredibly rude, wrong-headed pass, in his own home, no less, after eating Leonard’s chicken.
He thinks of a dozen things to say, but there’s really nothing to lose, so he says the thing that’s foremost in his mind.
“Is it that obvious?”
“What?” Kirk says. “That you’re lonely and hard up? Probably. That you’re into dudes? I deal professionally in body language, eye contact, so I’m probably not the best person to ask. Do you really care?”
“For God’s sake, of course I do.” Kirk isn’t wrong about the monastic existence. Georgia is a no-fault divorce state, and Jocelyn’s been incredibly generous, letting him see Jo every weekend. But her parents hate Leonard down to the soles of his shoes, and the state and county courts are conservative. Any hint that Leonard might like guys could transform him, through that inimitable Fundamentalist logic, into a pervert who invites goats and choir boys out to his lair deep in the woods and does horrible things with them.
“Is that what broke up your marriage?” Jesus, kid. But it’s undeniably liberating to be able to talk about it with an interested, non-judgmental stranger.
“Basically, yes. I knew, but I guess it wasn’t obvious, at least to my wife. I wanted things--those things--” he points at the photos on the mantel. “I thought I could control it. It was totally my fault. Only one good thing came out of it.”
“That sucks,” Kirk says, tightening his hand on Leonard’s for a second before releasing it. “But it’s tje past. And you don’t have to hide it from me. You don’t have to pretend for me.” He gives Leonard a lopsided grin. “I have one of those travel chess sets in my bag, if you’d rather.”
The offer melts away Leonard’s defenses as easily as if it were the blast-furnace heat of the fire. He’s apparently a genuinely decent, nice guy who just happens to have obscene good looks and an outlandish occupation, and he’s sitting in Leonard’s living room offering to have sex with him and then vanish the next day.
“Jesus!” Leonard half-shouts, terror passing reasonably well for indignation. “What the fuck are you doing? Tell your director he didn’t pay for that.”
“Pay?” Kirk’s still looking up at Leonard like Leonard’s the one who’s behaving irrationally. The fire alarm keeps going on and on in Leonard’s head: He could tell, right from the beginning. Everyone can tell.
“Yeah,” Leonard wheezes, “that little pipsqueak paid me to take you off his hands for the evening. But Jesus, it was just to keep an eye on you. I fed you, I let you sleep in my bed, and now you--” He can’t finish the sentence.
“How much?” Kirk asks with interest.
“Three thousand,” Leonard says, feeling every inch the cheap gigolo he’s swearing that he isn’t.
“Not bad.” Kirk seems mildly impressed. “I’m glad you’re getting something out of this.” A faint afterimage of the Kirk smile is back, and it’s enough to make Leonard genuinely pissed off.
“Apart from the cheap moves, you mean.”
“Len,” Kirk says, using his name for the first time. “You’re the loneliest son of a bitch I’ve ever met.”
“And so, what--you’re going to give me a pity fuck? Is there some Hollywood charity for that?”
“No, but I could get my agent to put out a press release.” When Leonard doesn’t smile, Kirk sighs. “For fuck’s sake at least sit down. It’s making my neck hurt, looking up at you.”
Leonard does, not knowing what else to do, and a second later the hand is back, clasping his own tighter than before. He doesn’t question the logic of accepting consolation from the guy who made the incredibly rude, wrong-headed pass, in his own home, no less, after eating Leonard’s chicken.
He thinks of a dozen things to say, but there’s really nothing to lose, so he says the thing that’s foremost in his mind.
“Is it that obvious?”
“What?” Kirk says. “That you’re lonely and hard up? Probably. That you’re into dudes? I deal professionally in body language, eye contact, so I’m probably not the best person to ask. Do you really care?”
“For God’s sake, of course I do.” Kirk isn’t wrong about the monastic existence. Georgia is a no-fault divorce state, and Jocelyn’s been incredibly generous, letting him see Jo every weekend. But her parents hate Leonard down to the soles of his shoes, and the state and county courts are conservative. Any hint that Leonard might like guys could transform him, through that inimitable Fundamentalist logic, into a pervert who invites goats and choir boys out to his lair deep in the woods and does horrible things with them.
“Is that what broke up your marriage?” Jesus, kid. But it’s undeniably liberating to be able to talk about it with an interested, non-judgmental stranger.
“Basically, yes. I knew, but I guess it wasn’t obvious, at least to my wife. I wanted things--those things--” he points at the photos on the mantel. “I thought I could control it. It was totally my fault. Only one good thing came out of it.”
“That sucks,” Kirk says, tightening his hand on Leonard’s for a second before releasing it. “But it’s tje past. And you don’t have to hide it from me. You don’t have to pretend for me.” He gives Leonard a lopsided grin. “I have one of those travel chess sets in my bag, if you’d rather.”
The offer melts away Leonard’s defenses as easily as if it were the blast-furnace heat of the fire. He’s apparently a genuinely decent, nice guy who just happens to have obscene good looks and an outlandish occupation, and he’s sitting in Leonard’s living room offering to have sex with him and then vanish the next day.
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