Some more unexpected ficcage
Title: Pretending in Boston
Author: shoebox_addict
Pairing: Jon/Stephen
Rating: R
Warnings: Mansex, angst, adultery, swearing
Author's Notes: This takes place in a whole different universe from RD, just so you all know. It takes place during the 2004 Democratic National Convention and is not meant to be a backstory fic for RD. This one was really enjoyable for me to write so, I hope that you enjoy it! Comments are appreciated! ^__^
Disclaimer: Any similarity between the fictional version of the person portrayed here and the actual persons is purely coincidental. This is a work of fiction. This is not an attempt to defame the character of said person on the basis of libel, as the work is FICTIONAL (and NOT an intently false statement created with the express purpose of misleading others about the actual character of said person).
Any mention of 'The Daily Show', 'The Colbert Report', 'Viacom', any associated entities, or any copyrighted material pertaining therein is reasonably protected by the Fair Use Rule of the United States Copyright Act of 1976 and is not intended to infringe upon any copyrighted material.
"Pretending in Boston"
Let me set the scene for you. It was 2004, and we were all on the road for the Democratic National Convention. We had been working our asses off and we had only one show left. We were all desperate to just get back to New York. New York was familiar, and the studio there was familiar and we were beginning to get sick of feeling like we were a band on tour.
This whole feeling was not helped at all by the fact that we were staying in a dormitory at Boston University. The beds were narrow, the rooms were drafty, and we were almost constantly awakened in the middle of the night by boisterous college students.
Needless to say, we were not having the best of times.
The uncomfortableness of our accomodations coupled with the feeling of being out of our element made for one grumpy group of correspondents. The close quarters were not helping matters either. Everyone was getting rather sick of one another. I was rooming with Ed Helms, and if I had to listen to him gargle before bed one more time, I think I might commit suicide. I didn't know how I would do it - perhaps something imaginative like hanging myself with a rope constructed from the rough sheets on the beds - but I'd do it.
So, when at last we reached the second to last day of our coverage in Boston, all the correspondents were overjoyed. On our second to last day of coverage, the convention was over. We had one more day to do a show, but the conventions were finished. So we had written all the material, we knew what we were doing the next day. All that was left to do was celebrate.
And celebrate we did.
As soon as we had a completed rough draft of the following night's script, we all piled into the van we'd rented and drove off to a bar to eat, drink, and be merry. Well, mostly drink.
So it was that, liquored up and tired, I sat down next to Jon on a barstool - unsteadily rocking on its uneven feet - and propositioned him.
"Hey," I said.
"Hey," he said back. "What's up?"
"It is so...godddamn late," I muttered into my bottle of beer.
"I know," replied Jon.
"You do realize we have...like...work to do tomorrow."
"Yeah, yeah," said Jon. "I know it."
"You don't seem too eager to tear yourself away from the liquor," I said.
Jon shrugged and took another swig of his beer. "Nope."
"Don't you think you've had enough?"
"Nope."
"When will you have had enough?"
Jon set his bottled down and turned to look at me, a strange look on his face. "Who wants to know?"
"Me," I said, giving him a coy smile.
I had a feeling he knew where this was going. For months - no, years now - we had been meeting in our respective offices, or broom closets, or on the roof of the building (it didn't really matter where) to, frankly, fuck each other senseless. At least, that's what it had begun as. One night after the 2000 elections, we'd found ourselves alone in the office. Jon was upset about the election results and I wasn't exactly ecstatic either. We'd drunk some cheap liquor he had stashed in his office and then...things had transpired.
We'd been trying - valiantly - for months now to avoid making this into some sort of emotional affair. At least, I was. When we'd begun, it was a physical thing...but even at the beginning it wasn't purely physical. We hadn't really discussed it, so I couldn't speak for Jon. But, for me, I'd first been attracted to Jon because of our late night writing sessions and his unbelievable intelligence. Merely spending time with the man had turned me on.
Jon and I had an unspoken pact to keep the word love out of this thing. Neither of us said anything about it or set up anything formal - it was just understood between us. Both of us were married, we had kids, we knew we shouldn't be doing this. But it was rough. There were some nights when I'd lie next to him, tangling my fingers idly in his chest hair as he slept, when the only thing that kept me from saying I love you were thoughts of my kids. It took a hellvua lot of will power.
"Do you, now?" said Jon, returning my coy smile.
"Yup," I said. "I wanna know when you get off so we can go and...celebrate this whole stupid convention being over."
Jon snickered and looked down at his fingers, which were fiddling with the label on his beer bottle. "Stephen...the walls in those dorms are paper thin. There's no way we'd be able to..."
"I don't care," I said, gripping his arm.
"I know you don't," he said, winking at me.
"So, what do you say?"
"Can we get a hotel room?"
"Too expensive," I said. "And besides, how would that look? For us to come back from a hotel tomorrow morning?"
"I guess you're right," he said.
Being on the road for the conventions had added a whole new, strange dimension to what we had been doing. Suddenly we had to be careful about what we did where. Back at the office in New York, we could easily dodge our fellow correspondents and spend late nights in the office. Now we had to be conscious of where we were and who we were with, lest we be found out. It was frightening but...a good kind of frightening that added an element of excitement to our relationship.
"Come on," I said. "Even if someone does hear, won't they just assume it's some horny college student and his girlfriend Tanya?"
Jon raised his eyebrows at me. "Tanya?"
"Yes."
"Have a bad experience with someone named Tanya, did we?"
"I'd rather not reveal that information, thank you very much," I said, smirking.
"I'll take that as a yes," said Jon. I whacked his arm and he pretended to be greviously injured.
"What have you thought of the conventions so far?" I asked him.
"Are we really gonna talk about work? Now? When we've just finished up the last script for this fucking thing?"
I shrugged. "What else are we going to talk about?"
"I don't know...how much I want you right now?"
I shivered as I felt his foot make the short journey across the floor and found its way to my calf. He rubbed his sneaker over the fabric of my jeans, feeling out the muscles in my leg, and I would have pounced on him right there if we hadn't been in a bar. There was that strange sense of caution again.
I cleared my throat. "You...you want me?"
"Mm-hmm," he said, giving me a sly smile that made me just want to ravage him. I took another sip of my beer to keep myself under control, knowing full well it would only loosen me up further. "I want you so bad that I'd fling you down right here on the bar if there were no repercussions."
"Damn those repercussions," I breathed, fighting down feelings of arousal.
"You're telling me," he said, leaning a little closer to me. I squelched the urge to glance around to see if anyone saw what was going on here. "I just want to rip your shirt off and kiss every inch of you."
I squirmed on the barstool and took deep breaths, eyes darting around nervously now. The bar was mostly empty, it was pretty late at night. Only a few disconsolate drunks remained and most of the other correspondents had returned to the dorms hours earlier.
"What do you think," I said, leaning in close to Jon's ear. "Are the chances of us not being recognized here?"
Jon turned his head to look behind him and to the bar at large. "Well...it's just you, me, and Barney Gumble left so I'd say we were okay."
I snickered. "That's what I thought too. In that case, I'll meet you in the bathroom in five minutes."
Before Jon could respond, I had slid off my barstool and was halfway to the restrooms. I had no doubt they would be unsanitary, but I didn't really care at this point. I was beginning to feel an uncomfortable bulging in my pants and I had a fierce desire to pin Jon up against a metal stall.
Once in the bathroom, I took my sweet time relieving myself and slowly washing my hands. Just as I was rearranging hair that didn't need any rearranging, Jon swung the door open. I saw him in the mirror first, a backwards version of himself. He grinned at me and I grinned right back.
"Does the door have a lock?" I asked him.
He turned to look. "I don't think so."
"Damn," I said.
"Well," he said, loping toward me. "I'd say if we make enough noise...people will stay away."
My breath quickened as he came closer to me. This wasn't how it was supposed to be, I wanted to be the one pressing him into the wall for once. But deep down, I knew that wasn't the way it worked. Jon was always the one in charge. He reached out and pressed my shoulders into the cold metal of the stall behind me.
"You're gorgeous," he said, leaning in close to my face. We were inches apart now and he just paused, denying me any sort of gratification. I swear I trembled in that instant, I was so desperate for contact.
"What are you waiting for?" I said, reaching up to cradle his head from behind.
Jon smiled as though he'd just been biding his time until I asked for it. "Damned if I know."
Then he gave me what I wanted. In one brisk moment, he closed the gap between us and pressed his lips roughly to mine. I couldn't hold back a satisfied little sigh as he slid his tongue in between my teeth. His hands gripped my hips and pulled them towards his own, cause he knew I liked that. We both turned our heads and twisted our bodies in just the right way so that we fit together like two puzzle pieces.
"You've been fan-fucking-tastic all week," said Jon, pulling back from me for a moment.
"Wow," I said. "Well...thanks. You've been great too."
"You've been taunting me," he said, caressing my cheek. "But now...now we get some time together."
"Yeah," I breathed. "I...I know what you mean."
Jon nodded and came crashing toward me again, our lips meeting in increasingly passionate kisses that left me breathless and light-headed. Jon was devouring me each time he came at me and my head kept bouncing lightly off the metal behind me with the force of his advances.
After several minutes that felt like days, Jon pulled away from me, breathing heavily.
"You okay?" I asked him, running my fingertips lightly along his jaw.
"I'm fine," he panted.
Without another word, he dragged me by my shoulders away from the cool metal and began pushing me backward through the bathroom.
"Jon...where are we going?" I said, taking stumbling, quick steps backward as he urged me on.
"Less conspciuous back here," he explained.
I nodded, blindly being led into the large, handicapped stall at the very back of the bathroom. The floor was littered with things I'd rather not think about, perhaps left by other men like us. I pushed those thoughts from my head as forcefully as I could and concentrated on the moment at hand. Jon was kissing me once more, and now there really were no other thoughts in my head except the registering of pressing and soft breaths and the feel of those lips on my own. This was what I fantasized about when I was alone, after a long day of work, and Jon was nowhere to be found.
Jon came at me and I had trouble catching my breath in between kisses. My head swam as he pressed into me, threading his fingers through my hair.
"Fuck, Stephen," he murmured in the quick moments when we separated to take a breath. His murmured words made me crazy with desire and my hips bucked forward suddenly against his thigh. "Let's get you out of these clothes."
"Mm-hmm," I whimpered. my breath hitching as he leaned in and placed his lips on my neck.
"I've always loved these little beauty marks," he murmured against my skin.
"What?" I said. "I've got...what?"
"God, you don't even know they're here," he said, sucking lightly near my Adam's apple and nearly making my knees buckle. "You don't know how these have caused me torment during those damn writing sessions."
"Oh, really?" I said, smiling evilly. "I'll have to wear more open necked shirts."
"You sadist," he muttered, continuing up along my neck. He nuzzled the skin just below my ear with his nose and I couldn't suppress a whimper. I felt him chuckle as I made the sound.
Jon pulled away from my neck at last and gave my lips the attention they deserved. He nibbled on my bottom lip and kissed me so expertly I thought I'd melt into a puddle right there in the disgusting bar bathroom.
"I fucking want you," he said, casting his eyes downward to concentrate on the buttons of my shirt. One by one, he undid them and then pulled my shirt off. He made a slightly disgruntled noise when he saw I was wearing an undershirt underneath and he yanked it roughly out of my pants and pulled it over my head.
"I want you too," I sighed. He reached up to smooth down the hair that had been disturbed by my shirt and then began kissing my chest. I gasped as he let his tongue linger on each nipple. He always knew just what to do - a swipe of his tongue here, a nip of his teeth there. Each new ministration made me squirm against the metal of that back stall with no regard for what might be stuck to it.
"Come on," I said, pushing him away from me with every ounce of will power in my body. "Your turn."
Jon let me pull his shirt off and nip at the spot where his neck met his shoulder. Then he directed me back up to his lips where we met again and again. Reluctantly, I let Jon pull away so he could undo my belt and slip my pants down around my ankles. I'd never felt more sleazy and excited all at once. I reached down to undo his pants quickly and he shoved them down himself.
When we came together this time, I felt his erection brush against mine, through the thin fabric of our boxer shorts. That was all that existed between us now. His bare chest pressed against mine and he nuzzled my cheek with his as he thrusted his hips forward. No matter how frantic or passionate our lovemaking was, Jon was always affectionate and gentle with me.
"Oh God, Jon," I moaned as he thrust sharply toward me, driving our hard flesh together. I almost winced, it almost hurt - but the pleasure overrode the pain and I saw stars.
"Fuck," he muttered in a frustrated tone. I was sure that his thoughts mirrored mine so I reached out and pulled his boxers down his legs. He did the same for me and suddenly my bare ass was pressed against the cold metal of the bathroom stall. I shivered at the cold contact and then Jon's hot, throbbing flesh was on mine and we were thrusting our hips toward each other again.
"God...shit...I want you inside me," I choked out.
"Can't," he replied, grinding against my hip bone now. "I'm not lying down on this crappy floor."
"Right," I said. "Point taken."
We didn't say anything more for a while. Nothing needed to be said. This was all about action, it was all about what we were doing to each other. I nipped at his ear and he licked along my clavicle. And again and again we met in the middle, his hard cock pressing against my own, our pre-cum mingling and making a sticky mess between us. Pretty soon, he was thrusting against me so hard that my ass banged into the cold steel behind me and I was wincing and moaning and gasping all at once.
"Okay, fine," he said suddenly. "Can't take it...I need more. Turn around."
We'd never done this standing up before. I hesitantly turned around, my face to the stall now. I hated not being able to see Jon. But then the tip of his arousal was pressing between my cheeks and I could care less about specifics.
"Ready?" he asked me and all I could do was nod, my very molecules were shaking with anticipation.
In one swift movement, Jon thrusted inside of me. I gasped and the moaned, deep in my throat. I clenched around him to make him feel what I was feeling and he let out a strangled scream.
"Holy fuck," he muttered, and his speech was partially muffled because he had his nose pressed into my shoulder.
"Oh, that's it, that's it," I panted as he thrust further inside of me. Suddenly, he hit my prostate and I couldn't hold back a scream. "Fuck, Jon! Do that again."
Jon complied and slammed into me once more. My knees went weak with the rush of pleasure that came from a second hit to my prostate.
"You like that?" he murmured into my good ear. All I could do was whimper in reply as he thrust into me once more, rolling his hips in just that way that made me go insane. I pressed my forehead into the cool metal in front of me and gritted my teeth. Just as I was reaching down to grip my own arousal, Jon's hand snaked around my waist and did it for me.
"Holy shit," I breathed as he stroked me slowly, tantalizingly. I braced myself against the stall, fighting to keep my balance as he worked on me. His thrusts became shallower, teasing me as he gave me pleasure in a different way now.
"Oh...so close," he moaned as he continued thrusting into me. In a matter of minutes, I was spilling out onto his fist and the wall of the bathroom stall. In just a few more thrusts, I felt Jon come in a hot rush inside of me as he murmured my name. It was rarely a scream...most of the time, he whimpered or murmured softly as he came. I found that incredibly endearing.
I felt Jon sagging against me and spun around to gather him in my arms. My own knees were weak as well but Jon had been doing most of the work. His eyes drooped closed for a moment and he just leaned into my chest. I rubbed his back gently and a happy, little smile appeared on his face.
"That was...amazing," he panted into my chest. I patted his graying hair and felt tears forming in my eyes and I didn't know why.
"It was," I agreed. And then, before I could stop myself, the post-coital atmosphere and the alcohol urged me forward. "I...I love you, Jon."
Jon took a few deep breaths and stood on his own. He looked up at me with a strange expression on his face. For a moment, I wondered if he was going to get dressed and leave me alone in that cold, stark bathroom. But instead, he reached up and caressed my cheek. I closed my eyes and leaned into his touch, feeling utterly boneless after what we had done. I opened my eyes as his fingers lingered on the crooked corner of my bad ear. He was smiling sadly at me and I gave him a questioning look, arching my eyebrow in that way that always made him giggle on camera.
"I love everything about you, Stephen," he said, his voice hushed. "I just...even your crooked little ear and those laugh lines around your eyes...I love it all. And I hope you know I mean that when I say it."
In spite of myself, I felt my eyes welling up with even more tears. Part of this must have been due to the amount of alcohol we had both consumed. Certainly most of it was that we had both just had mind-blowing orgasms. And I was wont to believe this was where Jon's endearment had come from. But I pretended that it had nothing to do with it. I pretended we were just two men who didn't have wives or families, only love for each other. It was another fantasy I enjoyed indulging in and one that I always felt guilty for later on.
"Same goes for me," I mumbled. "I mean...everything about you...I love. I think I especially love your hair. I don't care that it's gray, honestly, I don't. God..it makes you look so sexy."
Jon smiled. I wondered if he was enjoying this strange moment of quietness as much as I was. I'd invited him back here expecting a wham-bam-thank you ma'am situation and, honestly, I'd been fine with that. But now that we were here, standing so close in the last stall of the bathroom and whispering soft endearments to each other, I wanted more. Suddenly I wanted to take him to a restaurant with nice tablecloths and candles.
"I always feel so comfortable with you, Stephen," he whispered, clearly intent on continuing this line of action. "I mean...you put me at ease. I don't know why. I don't know how. I just know that...I like to be near you."
"Oh...Jon," I said. And this time I had to concentrate really hard to keep the tears in my eyes instead of letting them spill onto my cheeks. This was getting to be too much emotional involvement, this was dangerous. "Don't say things like that."
"Why not?"
"Because...you know we can't...I mean...we have other..."
I didn't have to finish any of those thoughts because I knew they were the same thoughts that Jon had every time he found himself pressing me against a wall.
"I know," he said. "But I want to say these things. I've always wanted to say them."
"And what makes now the time to say them?" I asked.
Jon sighed and gave a little shrug of his shoulders. Now he looked like he was fighting back tears as well. "We're away from home. Things feel different."
I nodded and he nodded back and then we met in the middle for a rough kiss, each of us trying to forget the guilt we left behind in the city.
"Hey," he said, giving me a mock stern look. "When did this become a sap fest?"
"Damned if I know."
I smirked because it was the same phrase he'd used earlier. I reached down and grasped his love handles affectionately.
"Ugh, no," he said. "Don't...I'm so gross."
"Shut the hell up," I said. "I love every inch of you. Even your pudgy little stomach."
Jon scrunched up his face in disgust but had to chuckle as I tickled his sides. "All right, all right! If you don't mind me loving your ear, then I guess I won't mind you loving my...love handles."
"Good," I said.
"Hey, Stephen?"
"Yeah?"
He hesitated a moment, looking me straight in the eye. I could see tears in his own eyes and I felt a single, solitary tear slide down my face.
"I love you too."
With those four words, I let out a small sob and wrapped my arms around Jon. He pressed his face into my bare chest and hugged me around my middle. I knew why we were crying. We were realizing what we could never have but wanted so dearly. We knew we could never truly be together. As long as we lived, this would be nothing more than an affair. That realization was so sobering on so many levels. I knew I was cheating on my wife, I knew I'd never fully have Jon as my own, I knew what this would to do to my kids if ever it was found out.
This is precisely why we'd had that unspoken pact to not say things like this. To not lavish each other with endearments and I love yous. To not get emotionally invested. Somehow, though, I knew that ship had already sailed ages ago. But tonight our defenses were weak. We knew that our time out of town was running out, we were drunk, and - like it or not - we were, in fact, in love.
"God, it feels so good to say it," murmured Jon, hugging me even tighter.
"Really?" I knew that I'd been struggling not to let those words slip out for almost a year now but it had never seemed like Jon wanted to say them.
Jon nodded against my chest. "Yeah. This isn't just fucking...no matter how hard I tried to tell myself it was."
I shook my head and wiped my eyes. "No, it was never just fucking."
"You're right," said Jon. He chuckled bitterly and nuzzled further into my chest. "We did a pretty damn good job of pretending, though, didn't we?"
"We tried," I said. "But, Jon...you know we can't."
"Of course not."
"I mean...this is wrong. We're cheating."
"I know, I know."
For a few moments, neither of us said anything. I rubbed Jon's back gently and he pressed soft kisses to my bare chest. For a moment, we just forget that we were in a dirty bathroom stall. We forgot the repsonsibilities we had. We forget everything we had in New York City. In this moment, we only had each other and that was enough - even if it was only pretend.
Jon sniffed loudly and sighed, pulling back from me at last. "We should get back to the dorms."
I nodded, slightly shaken by the change of subject. I took it to mean that Jon didn't want to talk about this anymore. Silently, we got dressed once more and stepped out of the stall. We both paused a moment to fix our very tousled hair and we caught each other's eye in the mirror. Jon gave me a sly little smile and I returned it, unsure of what it meant.
I headed toward the door but Jon caught my hand with his and held me there. He laced his fingers with mine and held on tightly for one brief moment. He raised our joined hands to his lips and kissed my knuckles tenderly. Such an outpouring of emotion from such a usually stoic man sent my heart fluttering madly. I smiled sadly at him and he nodded.
"I'll see you tomorrow," I said, and I hated how weak my voice sounded.
"Always," he said. I know he was alluding to the fact that we'd always see other the next day, we'd always be working together, we'd always be friends. But, instead, I imagined he was professing his undying love and saying we could always be together.
That night, emotions came unwrapped for the first time in years. That night, we finally gave voice to what we had been feeling inside for so long. And at the same time, we knew that this was an indulgence. It was a moment of lax control. After this night, we had to reign in those feelings once more and shut our mouths tightly again.
Yes. That was the night things got truly complicated.
Author: shoebox_addict
Pairing: Jon/Stephen
Rating: R
Warnings: Mansex, angst, adultery, swearing
Author's Notes: This takes place in a whole different universe from RD, just so you all know. It takes place during the 2004 Democratic National Convention and is not meant to be a backstory fic for RD. This one was really enjoyable for me to write so, I hope that you enjoy it! Comments are appreciated! ^__^
Disclaimer: Any similarity between the fictional version of the person portrayed here and the actual persons is purely coincidental. This is a work of fiction. This is not an attempt to defame the character of said person on the basis of libel, as the work is FICTIONAL (and NOT an intently false statement created with the express purpose of misleading others about the actual character of said person).
Any mention of 'The Daily Show', 'The Colbert Report', 'Viacom', any associated entities, or any copyrighted material pertaining therein is reasonably protected by the Fair Use Rule of the United States Copyright Act of 1976 and is not intended to infringe upon any copyrighted material.
"Pretending in Boston"
Let me set the scene for you. It was 2004, and we were all on the road for the Democratic National Convention. We had been working our asses off and we had only one show left. We were all desperate to just get back to New York. New York was familiar, and the studio there was familiar and we were beginning to get sick of feeling like we were a band on tour.
This whole feeling was not helped at all by the fact that we were staying in a dormitory at Boston University. The beds were narrow, the rooms were drafty, and we were almost constantly awakened in the middle of the night by boisterous college students.
Needless to say, we were not having the best of times.
The uncomfortableness of our accomodations coupled with the feeling of being out of our element made for one grumpy group of correspondents. The close quarters were not helping matters either. Everyone was getting rather sick of one another. I was rooming with Ed Helms, and if I had to listen to him gargle before bed one more time, I think I might commit suicide. I didn't know how I would do it - perhaps something imaginative like hanging myself with a rope constructed from the rough sheets on the beds - but I'd do it.
So, when at last we reached the second to last day of our coverage in Boston, all the correspondents were overjoyed. On our second to last day of coverage, the convention was over. We had one more day to do a show, but the conventions were finished. So we had written all the material, we knew what we were doing the next day. All that was left to do was celebrate.
And celebrate we did.
As soon as we had a completed rough draft of the following night's script, we all piled into the van we'd rented and drove off to a bar to eat, drink, and be merry. Well, mostly drink.
So it was that, liquored up and tired, I sat down next to Jon on a barstool - unsteadily rocking on its uneven feet - and propositioned him.
"Hey," I said.
"Hey," he said back. "What's up?"
"It is so...godddamn late," I muttered into my bottle of beer.
"I know," replied Jon.
"You do realize we have...like...work to do tomorrow."
"Yeah, yeah," said Jon. "I know it."
"You don't seem too eager to tear yourself away from the liquor," I said.
Jon shrugged and took another swig of his beer. "Nope."
"Don't you think you've had enough?"
"Nope."
"When will you have had enough?"
Jon set his bottled down and turned to look at me, a strange look on his face. "Who wants to know?"
"Me," I said, giving him a coy smile.
I had a feeling he knew where this was going. For months - no, years now - we had been meeting in our respective offices, or broom closets, or on the roof of the building (it didn't really matter where) to, frankly, fuck each other senseless. At least, that's what it had begun as. One night after the 2000 elections, we'd found ourselves alone in the office. Jon was upset about the election results and I wasn't exactly ecstatic either. We'd drunk some cheap liquor he had stashed in his office and then...things had transpired.
We'd been trying - valiantly - for months now to avoid making this into some sort of emotional affair. At least, I was. When we'd begun, it was a physical thing...but even at the beginning it wasn't purely physical. We hadn't really discussed it, so I couldn't speak for Jon. But, for me, I'd first been attracted to Jon because of our late night writing sessions and his unbelievable intelligence. Merely spending time with the man had turned me on.
Jon and I had an unspoken pact to keep the word love out of this thing. Neither of us said anything about it or set up anything formal - it was just understood between us. Both of us were married, we had kids, we knew we shouldn't be doing this. But it was rough. There were some nights when I'd lie next to him, tangling my fingers idly in his chest hair as he slept, when the only thing that kept me from saying I love you were thoughts of my kids. It took a hellvua lot of will power.
"Do you, now?" said Jon, returning my coy smile.
"Yup," I said. "I wanna know when you get off so we can go and...celebrate this whole stupid convention being over."
Jon snickered and looked down at his fingers, which were fiddling with the label on his beer bottle. "Stephen...the walls in those dorms are paper thin. There's no way we'd be able to..."
"I don't care," I said, gripping his arm.
"I know you don't," he said, winking at me.
"So, what do you say?"
"Can we get a hotel room?"
"Too expensive," I said. "And besides, how would that look? For us to come back from a hotel tomorrow morning?"
"I guess you're right," he said.
Being on the road for the conventions had added a whole new, strange dimension to what we had been doing. Suddenly we had to be careful about what we did where. Back at the office in New York, we could easily dodge our fellow correspondents and spend late nights in the office. Now we had to be conscious of where we were and who we were with, lest we be found out. It was frightening but...a good kind of frightening that added an element of excitement to our relationship.
"Come on," I said. "Even if someone does hear, won't they just assume it's some horny college student and his girlfriend Tanya?"
Jon raised his eyebrows at me. "Tanya?"
"Yes."
"Have a bad experience with someone named Tanya, did we?"
"I'd rather not reveal that information, thank you very much," I said, smirking.
"I'll take that as a yes," said Jon. I whacked his arm and he pretended to be greviously injured.
"What have you thought of the conventions so far?" I asked him.
"Are we really gonna talk about work? Now? When we've just finished up the last script for this fucking thing?"
I shrugged. "What else are we going to talk about?"
"I don't know...how much I want you right now?"
I shivered as I felt his foot make the short journey across the floor and found its way to my calf. He rubbed his sneaker over the fabric of my jeans, feeling out the muscles in my leg, and I would have pounced on him right there if we hadn't been in a bar. There was that strange sense of caution again.
I cleared my throat. "You...you want me?"
"Mm-hmm," he said, giving me a sly smile that made me just want to ravage him. I took another sip of my beer to keep myself under control, knowing full well it would only loosen me up further. "I want you so bad that I'd fling you down right here on the bar if there were no repercussions."
"Damn those repercussions," I breathed, fighting down feelings of arousal.
"You're telling me," he said, leaning a little closer to me. I squelched the urge to glance around to see if anyone saw what was going on here. "I just want to rip your shirt off and kiss every inch of you."
I squirmed on the barstool and took deep breaths, eyes darting around nervously now. The bar was mostly empty, it was pretty late at night. Only a few disconsolate drunks remained and most of the other correspondents had returned to the dorms hours earlier.
"What do you think," I said, leaning in close to Jon's ear. "Are the chances of us not being recognized here?"
Jon turned his head to look behind him and to the bar at large. "Well...it's just you, me, and Barney Gumble left so I'd say we were okay."
I snickered. "That's what I thought too. In that case, I'll meet you in the bathroom in five minutes."
Before Jon could respond, I had slid off my barstool and was halfway to the restrooms. I had no doubt they would be unsanitary, but I didn't really care at this point. I was beginning to feel an uncomfortable bulging in my pants and I had a fierce desire to pin Jon up against a metal stall.
Once in the bathroom, I took my sweet time relieving myself and slowly washing my hands. Just as I was rearranging hair that didn't need any rearranging, Jon swung the door open. I saw him in the mirror first, a backwards version of himself. He grinned at me and I grinned right back.
"Does the door have a lock?" I asked him.
He turned to look. "I don't think so."
"Damn," I said.
"Well," he said, loping toward me. "I'd say if we make enough noise...people will stay away."
My breath quickened as he came closer to me. This wasn't how it was supposed to be, I wanted to be the one pressing him into the wall for once. But deep down, I knew that wasn't the way it worked. Jon was always the one in charge. He reached out and pressed my shoulders into the cold metal of the stall behind me.
"You're gorgeous," he said, leaning in close to my face. We were inches apart now and he just paused, denying me any sort of gratification. I swear I trembled in that instant, I was so desperate for contact.
"What are you waiting for?" I said, reaching up to cradle his head from behind.
Jon smiled as though he'd just been biding his time until I asked for it. "Damned if I know."
Then he gave me what I wanted. In one brisk moment, he closed the gap between us and pressed his lips roughly to mine. I couldn't hold back a satisfied little sigh as he slid his tongue in between my teeth. His hands gripped my hips and pulled them towards his own, cause he knew I liked that. We both turned our heads and twisted our bodies in just the right way so that we fit together like two puzzle pieces.
"You've been fan-fucking-tastic all week," said Jon, pulling back from me for a moment.
"Wow," I said. "Well...thanks. You've been great too."
"You've been taunting me," he said, caressing my cheek. "But now...now we get some time together."
"Yeah," I breathed. "I...I know what you mean."
Jon nodded and came crashing toward me again, our lips meeting in increasingly passionate kisses that left me breathless and light-headed. Jon was devouring me each time he came at me and my head kept bouncing lightly off the metal behind me with the force of his advances.
After several minutes that felt like days, Jon pulled away from me, breathing heavily.
"You okay?" I asked him, running my fingertips lightly along his jaw.
"I'm fine," he panted.
Without another word, he dragged me by my shoulders away from the cool metal and began pushing me backward through the bathroom.
"Jon...where are we going?" I said, taking stumbling, quick steps backward as he urged me on.
"Less conspciuous back here," he explained.
I nodded, blindly being led into the large, handicapped stall at the very back of the bathroom. The floor was littered with things I'd rather not think about, perhaps left by other men like us. I pushed those thoughts from my head as forcefully as I could and concentrated on the moment at hand. Jon was kissing me once more, and now there really were no other thoughts in my head except the registering of pressing and soft breaths and the feel of those lips on my own. This was what I fantasized about when I was alone, after a long day of work, and Jon was nowhere to be found.
Jon came at me and I had trouble catching my breath in between kisses. My head swam as he pressed into me, threading his fingers through my hair.
"Fuck, Stephen," he murmured in the quick moments when we separated to take a breath. His murmured words made me crazy with desire and my hips bucked forward suddenly against his thigh. "Let's get you out of these clothes."
"Mm-hmm," I whimpered. my breath hitching as he leaned in and placed his lips on my neck.
"I've always loved these little beauty marks," he murmured against my skin.
"What?" I said. "I've got...what?"
"God, you don't even know they're here," he said, sucking lightly near my Adam's apple and nearly making my knees buckle. "You don't know how these have caused me torment during those damn writing sessions."
"Oh, really?" I said, smiling evilly. "I'll have to wear more open necked shirts."
"You sadist," he muttered, continuing up along my neck. He nuzzled the skin just below my ear with his nose and I couldn't suppress a whimper. I felt him chuckle as I made the sound.
Jon pulled away from my neck at last and gave my lips the attention they deserved. He nibbled on my bottom lip and kissed me so expertly I thought I'd melt into a puddle right there in the disgusting bar bathroom.
"I fucking want you," he said, casting his eyes downward to concentrate on the buttons of my shirt. One by one, he undid them and then pulled my shirt off. He made a slightly disgruntled noise when he saw I was wearing an undershirt underneath and he yanked it roughly out of my pants and pulled it over my head.
"I want you too," I sighed. He reached up to smooth down the hair that had been disturbed by my shirt and then began kissing my chest. I gasped as he let his tongue linger on each nipple. He always knew just what to do - a swipe of his tongue here, a nip of his teeth there. Each new ministration made me squirm against the metal of that back stall with no regard for what might be stuck to it.
"Come on," I said, pushing him away from me with every ounce of will power in my body. "Your turn."
Jon let me pull his shirt off and nip at the spot where his neck met his shoulder. Then he directed me back up to his lips where we met again and again. Reluctantly, I let Jon pull away so he could undo my belt and slip my pants down around my ankles. I'd never felt more sleazy and excited all at once. I reached down to undo his pants quickly and he shoved them down himself.
When we came together this time, I felt his erection brush against mine, through the thin fabric of our boxer shorts. That was all that existed between us now. His bare chest pressed against mine and he nuzzled my cheek with his as he thrusted his hips forward. No matter how frantic or passionate our lovemaking was, Jon was always affectionate and gentle with me.
"Oh God, Jon," I moaned as he thrust sharply toward me, driving our hard flesh together. I almost winced, it almost hurt - but the pleasure overrode the pain and I saw stars.
"Fuck," he muttered in a frustrated tone. I was sure that his thoughts mirrored mine so I reached out and pulled his boxers down his legs. He did the same for me and suddenly my bare ass was pressed against the cold metal of the bathroom stall. I shivered at the cold contact and then Jon's hot, throbbing flesh was on mine and we were thrusting our hips toward each other again.
"God...shit...I want you inside me," I choked out.
"Can't," he replied, grinding against my hip bone now. "I'm not lying down on this crappy floor."
"Right," I said. "Point taken."
We didn't say anything more for a while. Nothing needed to be said. This was all about action, it was all about what we were doing to each other. I nipped at his ear and he licked along my clavicle. And again and again we met in the middle, his hard cock pressing against my own, our pre-cum mingling and making a sticky mess between us. Pretty soon, he was thrusting against me so hard that my ass banged into the cold steel behind me and I was wincing and moaning and gasping all at once.
"Okay, fine," he said suddenly. "Can't take it...I need more. Turn around."
We'd never done this standing up before. I hesitantly turned around, my face to the stall now. I hated not being able to see Jon. But then the tip of his arousal was pressing between my cheeks and I could care less about specifics.
"Ready?" he asked me and all I could do was nod, my very molecules were shaking with anticipation.
In one swift movement, Jon thrusted inside of me. I gasped and the moaned, deep in my throat. I clenched around him to make him feel what I was feeling and he let out a strangled scream.
"Holy fuck," he muttered, and his speech was partially muffled because he had his nose pressed into my shoulder.
"Oh, that's it, that's it," I panted as he thrust further inside of me. Suddenly, he hit my prostate and I couldn't hold back a scream. "Fuck, Jon! Do that again."
Jon complied and slammed into me once more. My knees went weak with the rush of pleasure that came from a second hit to my prostate.
"You like that?" he murmured into my good ear. All I could do was whimper in reply as he thrust into me once more, rolling his hips in just that way that made me go insane. I pressed my forehead into the cool metal in front of me and gritted my teeth. Just as I was reaching down to grip my own arousal, Jon's hand snaked around my waist and did it for me.
"Holy shit," I breathed as he stroked me slowly, tantalizingly. I braced myself against the stall, fighting to keep my balance as he worked on me. His thrusts became shallower, teasing me as he gave me pleasure in a different way now.
"Oh...so close," he moaned as he continued thrusting into me. In a matter of minutes, I was spilling out onto his fist and the wall of the bathroom stall. In just a few more thrusts, I felt Jon come in a hot rush inside of me as he murmured my name. It was rarely a scream...most of the time, he whimpered or murmured softly as he came. I found that incredibly endearing.
I felt Jon sagging against me and spun around to gather him in my arms. My own knees were weak as well but Jon had been doing most of the work. His eyes drooped closed for a moment and he just leaned into my chest. I rubbed his back gently and a happy, little smile appeared on his face.
"That was...amazing," he panted into my chest. I patted his graying hair and felt tears forming in my eyes and I didn't know why.
"It was," I agreed. And then, before I could stop myself, the post-coital atmosphere and the alcohol urged me forward. "I...I love you, Jon."
Jon took a few deep breaths and stood on his own. He looked up at me with a strange expression on his face. For a moment, I wondered if he was going to get dressed and leave me alone in that cold, stark bathroom. But instead, he reached up and caressed my cheek. I closed my eyes and leaned into his touch, feeling utterly boneless after what we had done. I opened my eyes as his fingers lingered on the crooked corner of my bad ear. He was smiling sadly at me and I gave him a questioning look, arching my eyebrow in that way that always made him giggle on camera.
"I love everything about you, Stephen," he said, his voice hushed. "I just...even your crooked little ear and those laugh lines around your eyes...I love it all. And I hope you know I mean that when I say it."
In spite of myself, I felt my eyes welling up with even more tears. Part of this must have been due to the amount of alcohol we had both consumed. Certainly most of it was that we had both just had mind-blowing orgasms. And I was wont to believe this was where Jon's endearment had come from. But I pretended that it had nothing to do with it. I pretended we were just two men who didn't have wives or families, only love for each other. It was another fantasy I enjoyed indulging in and one that I always felt guilty for later on.
"Same goes for me," I mumbled. "I mean...everything about you...I love. I think I especially love your hair. I don't care that it's gray, honestly, I don't. God..it makes you look so sexy."
Jon smiled. I wondered if he was enjoying this strange moment of quietness as much as I was. I'd invited him back here expecting a wham-bam-thank you ma'am situation and, honestly, I'd been fine with that. But now that we were here, standing so close in the last stall of the bathroom and whispering soft endearments to each other, I wanted more. Suddenly I wanted to take him to a restaurant with nice tablecloths and candles.
"I always feel so comfortable with you, Stephen," he whispered, clearly intent on continuing this line of action. "I mean...you put me at ease. I don't know why. I don't know how. I just know that...I like to be near you."
"Oh...Jon," I said. And this time I had to concentrate really hard to keep the tears in my eyes instead of letting them spill onto my cheeks. This was getting to be too much emotional involvement, this was dangerous. "Don't say things like that."
"Why not?"
"Because...you know we can't...I mean...we have other..."
I didn't have to finish any of those thoughts because I knew they were the same thoughts that Jon had every time he found himself pressing me against a wall.
"I know," he said. "But I want to say these things. I've always wanted to say them."
"And what makes now the time to say them?" I asked.
Jon sighed and gave a little shrug of his shoulders. Now he looked like he was fighting back tears as well. "We're away from home. Things feel different."
I nodded and he nodded back and then we met in the middle for a rough kiss, each of us trying to forget the guilt we left behind in the city.
"Hey," he said, giving me a mock stern look. "When did this become a sap fest?"
"Damned if I know."
I smirked because it was the same phrase he'd used earlier. I reached down and grasped his love handles affectionately.
"Ugh, no," he said. "Don't...I'm so gross."
"Shut the hell up," I said. "I love every inch of you. Even your pudgy little stomach."
Jon scrunched up his face in disgust but had to chuckle as I tickled his sides. "All right, all right! If you don't mind me loving your ear, then I guess I won't mind you loving my...love handles."
"Good," I said.
"Hey, Stephen?"
"Yeah?"
He hesitated a moment, looking me straight in the eye. I could see tears in his own eyes and I felt a single, solitary tear slide down my face.
"I love you too."
With those four words, I let out a small sob and wrapped my arms around Jon. He pressed his face into my bare chest and hugged me around my middle. I knew why we were crying. We were realizing what we could never have but wanted so dearly. We knew we could never truly be together. As long as we lived, this would be nothing more than an affair. That realization was so sobering on so many levels. I knew I was cheating on my wife, I knew I'd never fully have Jon as my own, I knew what this would to do to my kids if ever it was found out.
This is precisely why we'd had that unspoken pact to not say things like this. To not lavish each other with endearments and I love yous. To not get emotionally invested. Somehow, though, I knew that ship had already sailed ages ago. But tonight our defenses were weak. We knew that our time out of town was running out, we were drunk, and - like it or not - we were, in fact, in love.
"God, it feels so good to say it," murmured Jon, hugging me even tighter.
"Really?" I knew that I'd been struggling not to let those words slip out for almost a year now but it had never seemed like Jon wanted to say them.
Jon nodded against my chest. "Yeah. This isn't just fucking...no matter how hard I tried to tell myself it was."
I shook my head and wiped my eyes. "No, it was never just fucking."
"You're right," said Jon. He chuckled bitterly and nuzzled further into my chest. "We did a pretty damn good job of pretending, though, didn't we?"
"We tried," I said. "But, Jon...you know we can't."
"Of course not."
"I mean...this is wrong. We're cheating."
"I know, I know."
For a few moments, neither of us said anything. I rubbed Jon's back gently and he pressed soft kisses to my bare chest. For a moment, we just forget that we were in a dirty bathroom stall. We forgot the repsonsibilities we had. We forget everything we had in New York City. In this moment, we only had each other and that was enough - even if it was only pretend.
Jon sniffed loudly and sighed, pulling back from me at last. "We should get back to the dorms."
I nodded, slightly shaken by the change of subject. I took it to mean that Jon didn't want to talk about this anymore. Silently, we got dressed once more and stepped out of the stall. We both paused a moment to fix our very tousled hair and we caught each other's eye in the mirror. Jon gave me a sly little smile and I returned it, unsure of what it meant.
I headed toward the door but Jon caught my hand with his and held me there. He laced his fingers with mine and held on tightly for one brief moment. He raised our joined hands to his lips and kissed my knuckles tenderly. Such an outpouring of emotion from such a usually stoic man sent my heart fluttering madly. I smiled sadly at him and he nodded.
"I'll see you tomorrow," I said, and I hated how weak my voice sounded.
"Always," he said. I know he was alluding to the fact that we'd always see other the next day, we'd always be working together, we'd always be friends. But, instead, I imagined he was professing his undying love and saying we could always be together.
That night, emotions came unwrapped for the first time in years. That night, we finally gave voice to what we had been feeling inside for so long. And at the same time, we knew that this was an indulgence. It was a moment of lax control. After this night, we had to reign in those feelings once more and shut our mouths tightly again.
Yes. That was the night things got truly complicated.