Lost Princes, chapter 9
Lost Princes
Chapter 9
It was after midnight. Adam had gotten restless, watching Kris sleep, so he’d asked Juanita to look in on him from time to time, and had gone outside for a walk. It was dark, at least as dark as it ever got around there. A cool breeze coming up from the ocean had taken care of the day’s humidity, and the air was actually akin to breathable for once.
Adam walked the streets aimlessly, letting himself drift; still, half an hour later he found himself in a small street under a neon sign that was fast becoming familiar to him. This time there was no open window, no sound of bass-playing. The shop was closed, but upstairs there was light behind the windows. In Tommy’s room and the one next to it.
Quickly, Adam stepped into a house entry on the opposite side of the street, and continued to look up. The curtains were drawn, but sometimes he could make out the shadow of a person moving across the room. Once he was sure he saw Adjani--his pure size gave the man away--and a few times he saw a smaller shadow, but he couldn’t tell if it was Tommy or one of the other two boys. After a while the lights went out, to be replaced by the telltale flicker of a TV running.
Great, Adam thought somewhat uncharitably, I’m having the crisis of my life, and Tommy has a relaxed evening watching some movie. Even so, he couldn’t tear his gaze away from those windows. He stood there for what seemed like hours, until his feet and his neck hurt, and only when finally everything was dark in those rooms, he slowly went home.
Tired and unhappy he lay down at Kris’ side, but their closeness yielded none of the comfort he’d gotten so accustomed to. He kept tossing and turning, and it was nearly morning when he finally fell asleep.
When he awoke, the sun was high in the sky. Kris was still sleeping. Sometime during the night, he had cuddled up close to Adam. He had a surprisingly serene expression on his face that was in stark contrast to his paleness and the dark bruise on his cheek. Very carefully, Adam untangled his limbs from Kris’ and got up for a much needed long shower. Then he made breakfast, remembering how Kris, just one day ago, had done the same for him. For a second he thought about carving little hearts out of something, but he refrained, gritting his teeth.
At some point he caught himself slamming the cutlery on the table, and he stopped for a moment, trying to assess what was the matter with him. To his own amazement, he realized that he was feeling kind of mad. All the desolation from the day before was slowly morphing into a hot burning anger that was hovering right under his skin, ready to explode at any moment. He really shouldn’t talk to Kris like this.
But when the coffeemaker had hit the hissing stage he went over anyway and woke him up. “Kris baby,” he purred into his ear. “Breakfast is ready.”
A slight smile appeared on Kris’ face. Slowly he blinked awake, looking up through half-lidded eyes. Something in Adam’s expression seemed to alert him, though. Open alarm on his face, he scrambled to sit up. “Adam, please-“ he stuttered, and then, when Adam didn’t react at all, “I’m sorry, Adam. Really.”
Adam sat down on the bed. “Sorry for what, Kris? For letting me run into Tommy totally unprepared? For lying to me, again? For leaving me? Or what?”
Kris looked away, shivering. Adam saw that he was gripping the bed sheets with trembling hands. Almost like he did when they made love. Oh, dammit. Suddenly weary again, he stood up. “Why don’t you go and take a shower. We’ll talk after breakfast.”
Not surprisingly, Kris wasn’t able to eat much. Having downed his coffee, he pushed the still half-full bowl of muesli away. He had the demeanor of a man waiting for a death sentence.
Adam huffed. Was he an ogre, or what? “I don’t know why you’re sitting there like that,” he said quietly. “What do you think I’ll do to you? You think I’ll beat you, hurt you in some way?”
Kris shook his head mutely.
“What then? What could I do, except for sending you away? And how bad would that be, huh, when you were so willing to leave me just yesterday?” Adam knew he sounded bitter, but he couldn’t help it. The thought alone still hurt so much.
“I’m sorry,” Kris muttered. “Maybe I shouldn’t have left like that…”
“Damn right, you shouldn’t!” Adam yelled, standing up and beginning to pace. “You should have talked to me! I thought we were in this together? Since when do you make such decisions alone?”
“I thought it was for the best. I thought if I left, you and Tommy could be together,” Kris said quietly.
“And you didn’t think for a minute about asking me,” Adam stated.
Now Kris looked at him, eyes accusatory. “You didn’t talk to me, either. You dreamed about him, nearly every night, yelled his damned name in your sleep, and you never talked! You were so unhappy, Adam! And I, I wasn’t enough for you. So when I stumbled upon Tommy, so close to us, I knew what I had to do.” He looked up, his face pale. “I still think it was the right thing to do. I mean, it was a bit like karma, you know. For all the bad things I did to you, I had now the opportunity to balance it out.”
Adam shook his head. “You can’t make such decisions for me, Kris, no matter what. That’s not how it works.”
“I just wanted you to be happy,” Kris explained patiently, like Adam was a slow child.
“Without you.” Adam had trouble keeping his voice level.
“Yes, of course,” Kris said, becoming agitated. “Because, well, I would take you no matter what-I’d do anything to be with you--but do you think for a minute that Tommy would want to share you with his father’s old fuck toy? Huh? And if you had to decide, why would you choose me over him? I thought it’d be just as well if I left directly.” He stood up now, too, and walked over to the window, standing there with his back to Adam.
Adam followed him and with a quick grip turned him around, pressing his back against the window sill. “Goddammit, Kris! How can you say you’d do anything to be with me, when what you did was run away and leave me? Who says I was going to choose between you, anyway? You got to let me make my own damn decisions!” He took a deep breath, barely refraining from shaking the smaller man. Kris was evading his glance, but Adam could see the tears welling up in his eyes.
More quietly, he asked, “Tell me, Kris, do you love me?”
Kris looked away. “You know I do.”
“And do I love you?”
Shocked, Kris eyes flew to Adam’s. His mouth worked, but no sound came out. Adam waited. Kris swallowed. It looked painful. Finally he whispered, “You do?”
“Damn right I do,” growled Adam and lowered his mouth to Kris’, claiming it in a harsh, brutal kiss. After a moment’s hesitation, Kris opened up to him, welcoming Adam’s invading tongue with the hunger of a starving man. Adam could feel him hardening against his leg, a hot, burning length, and he couldn’t help the growl that escaped his throat. Kris mewled back, pushing hard against Adam, at the same time reaching for Adam’s own hard-on, rubbing it through the fabric of his jeans.
Panting harshly, Adam pulled away, just in the nick of time. A second more and he would have come right into his pants, and he didn’t want that. “Take this to our bed?” he suggested, his voice breathless and rough.
Kris nodded dazedly. “Yeah, let’s.”
They stumbled over to the bedroom, getting rid of their clothes on the way. Adam pushed Kris down toward the bed; he flopped down on the mattress bonelessly, eyes glazed and legs spread wide apart. Adam settled between them, reaching for the bottle of lube. Methodically he went through the process of prepping Kris, eager to be inside of him. But Kris didn’t need a lot of preparation, not this time; it was as if he was sucking Adam’s fingers in, and his hard-on was already leaking copiously.
“You’re so hot like this, baby,” Adam gasped, “so hungry for my cock. Can’t wait, huh?”
He pushed a pillow under Kris, and the other man pulled his legs up and apart, completely offering himself up to Adam. “Please, Adam, please. Need you. Give it to me, baby!”
Biting his lips, Adam complied. He was going to go slow, even if it killed him, and he was so damned close already just from seeing Kris like this. When Kris tried to push up at him, he pulled back, shaking his head. “No, baby. You stay put. You’re gonna take it how I give it to you.”
“Bastard,” whispered Kris, eyes dark with desire.
Adam smirked, before slowly sinking into him to the last inch, making Kris wail when he bottomed out. Kris’ ass was a tight pulsing glove around him, and he had to pause a moment to get accustomed to so much tight heat, or it would have been over way too fast. Because damn, he wanted Kris to remember this for a long time!
Watching his lover closely, he pulled almost completely out, only to push back into him with one mighty thrust.
“Adam,” Kris yelled, “oh my God, do that again!”
More than satisfied with that reaction, Adam complied and began to drive into Kris, not fast, but hard and unrelentingly, watching his lover come apart under him. Kris’ skin was flushed all over, his mouth opened wide in a soundless scream, his hands clawing the bed sheets in a death grip.
Adam changed the angle slightly, and suddenly Kris was shouting out with every thrust. “Oh God, Adam. Yes! Harder! Oh God, please, more!” His body was glistening with sweat, and his hair clung to his face in dark tangled strands.
“You’re mine, Kris Allen!” Adam growled, punctuating each word with a fierce thrust. “Aren’t you?”
“Yes, oh my God. I’m yours, Adam, please-“ Kris whined, eyes nearly crossing from the intensity of it.
Adam continued nailing him hard. “As long as you love me you don’t leave me! Right?”
“Oh God, yes,” Kris gasped.
Adam narrowed his eyes.
“I mean, no,” Kris amended, “I won’t leave you. I promise! Uh, yes, like that, come on, just a little harder…”
Still not quite satisfied, Adam leaned down to fasten his lips at Kris’ neck, right where he had left his mark only two days ago. He latched onto it, sucking hard, making Kris shudder and wail under him, and then Adam felt the first spurts of hot come against his belly, and Kris’s hole clenching crazily around him. With a few ragged jabs he reached his own completion, still sucking on the salty skin of Kris’ neck.
Huffing and worn out, they clang to each other afterward. Tentatively, Kris put a hand against his neck, giving a little moan as he found the tender spot there. Adam watched him intently. “You’re mine, Kris,” he repeated, eyes fastened to Kris’. “And you’ll stay with me. When you don’t love me anymore, then you can go.”
Kris shuddered when he heard these words. “That will never happen. I’ll love you always. But…”
“No,” Adam interrupted, “no buts! Not now! For now, it is enough that we are okay, you and I. Everything else we can take care of later. We’ll do it like Indiana Jones-we’ll make it up as we go along.”
Somehow, Kris had neither the energy nor the desire to disagree with that.
~~~~~
“Ouch! Not quite so hard!” Tommy’s customer complained, when Tommy dug into his back a little bit too fiercely.
“Sorry,” the prince said contritely. He just couldn’t focus on his work today. Today? Make that this week! His thoughts kept wandering back to Adam. He’d been determined not to call him for a while, had not taken his calls, either, figuring they both needed a bit of a time-out, but he couldn’t stop thinking about him and that inevitably led to violence against innocent people. Which was not good. Usually Tommy was the one clients immediately warmed up to, now they got up from the massage table feeling more tense than before.
The slightly chubby middle-aged man lying prostrate on the table in front of him was one of his best customers and a very good tipper. He absolutely didn’t deserve the rough treatment. Okay, the come-stained wipes he was prone to leaving in the wastebasket of the changing room gave Tommy a bit of the creeps, but still. It was not his ass Tommy wanted to kick into next week. How dare that bastard-
“Ouch, Tommy! What’s the matter with you today?”
It was useless. Sighing, Tommy sat down in the rattan chair that stood in a corner of the cubicle. “I’m sorry,” he repeated. “Maybe you should come back another time. I’m no good today. I’ll give you a free treatment next time, and a phial of bath-oil to take home, okay?”
“Sure.” Mr. Vansen, if that was his real name, sat up, draping the towel over his groin a few seconds too late. Involuntarily, Tommy’s eyes wandered to his cock, and of course, Vansen caught him at it. Probably had intended for that to happen.
“Sorry,” Tommy said yet again, feeling uncomfortable. What a bitch of a day!
Vansen smiled a little. “Relax. I’m not gonna jump you. Just thought I’d give it a try.” He shrugged, completely unashamed. “You’re very cute, you know. But I can see you’re not interested. Shame, though.”
Tommy gave a short laugh. “You won’t believe it, but I actually was saving myself for someone special.” He couldn’t quite keep the bitterness out of his voice.
Vansen looked at him, an expression of sympathy on his open face. “So what happened? Didn’t work out?”
Tommy huffed. “He’s with somebody else. It’s not even really his fault. Fuck, it’s complicated.”
Vansen nodded. “Seems that way. You want to talk about it? Sometimes that helps.”
Surprisingly, Tommy felt like that was just what he might need. He nodded at Vansen, adding, “But not here. Let’s go over to the café at the corner. It’s lunch time anyway, and I didn’t have breakfast today.”
When they were settled at one of the rickety tables in a quiet corner, a bowl of steaming lentil soup in front of them, Tommy told him what had occurred, only leaving out some details that were too personal to relate. Vansen was a sympathetic listener and Tommy found it easy to open up to him. When he was done, his heart was a whole lot lighter than it had been before. He leaned back. “So, now you know the sorry tale. It’s pretty fucked up, isn’t it?”
Vansen regarded him for a moment. Then he said: “I wouldn’t call it fucked-up, you know. Complicated, yes. And I don’t think it’s beyond saving, actually, because you all care so much for each other. Love is a rare thing. It shouldn’t be let go to waste.” He smiled wistfully, almost regretfully, before adding, “Too much pride or resentment will make you end up a lonely old man who gets his jollies from his weekly massage.”
“You’re not that old,” Tommy said, before he could stop himself. “I mean, God, I’m sorry! This is clearly not my day!”
Vansen smiled. “No harm done. And you’re right, I’m not that old. Though in the gay community everyone beyond thirty is considered ancient. So let’s just say that while I’m not too old, I’m too much of a coward to try again.” Now he was the one sighing a bit, and Tommy couldn’t help feeling sorry for him.
“You know what,” he said, “there’s that club in WeHo, it’s called Pasha; and every second Friday there’s a Club Night for people over thirty. I like to go there to do some dancing, because it is none of the classic scene hunts, and people tend to be more real there. My colleagues usually go there, too. Why don’t you come with us?”
Vansen barked out a laugh. “Me? Go to a club? People will think I’ve lost my mind. I’m not club material.”
“I told you, it’s not like that. You’re a really nice guy. Why not give it a try?”
At first, Vansen looked dubious, but when Tommy insisted he seemed to reconsider. After a bit of back and forth they agreed that they would meet at the shop Friday in a week for a night on the town.
Back at the shop Tommy told Adjani what had happened. The big man lifted his eyebrows when the prince mentioned going clubbing with a customer. “Are you sure that’s wise?” he asked. “He may expect to get his treatments for free if you go out on a date with him.”
“It’s not a date!” Tommy protested. “He’s going with all of us! He’s a nice guy, really, only a bit older.” He hesitated for effect, before adding, ”Actually around your own age, I think.” Adjani cuffed him in the neck for that, and in the end Tommy had managed to survive another day without calling Adam.