Fic -- Donald Strachey Mysteries -- State of Grace

[nyteflyer]

Title:  State of Grace by NyteFlyer

Fandom:  The Donald Strachey Mysteries

Pairing:  Donald/Timmy

Rating/Category:  NC17/slash

Word count:  12,400 in 2 parts

Prompt:  Reaffirmation

Spoilers:  The ones for SttS and IB are so tiny, if you blink you’ll miss them.

Summary:  Donald’s known all along that he’s been living in a state of grace.  Now he finally has official confirmation.

Disclaimer:  Richard Stevenson created them, Ron Oliver interpreted them, Chad Allen and Sebastian Spence brought them to life.  Legal stuff notwithstanding, we all know that Donald and Timmy belong completely and exclusively to each other.  Sometimes I get to be a fly on the wall, though….

Gratuitous groveling/ acknowledgements,/pointing the unwavering finger of blame: 

*I can’t thank nanuk_dain  enough for creating Donald and Timmy’s  Advocate covers for me.  She’s both an artist and a wizard, and she put them together in record time! 

*The front page of  the Albany Times Union I have Timmy reading from on the morning after the vote is the actual one that came out on June 25th of this year.  I thought it would be fun to share the front page here.

*A thousand hugs go to storyfan , for lending her professional expertise via her beta! 

*This story was originally written for smallfandomfest , but it was also the result of a quiet little challenge between storyfan  and me.  We each agreed to write a piece about our boys finally getting to tie the legal knot, with her focusing on the bookverse guys while I covered the same basic ground in movieverse.  Her piece, "Long Time Coming" is completely terrific, so be sure to check it out! 

*In the first sentence, I allow Donald to pilfer and slightly misquote a line from  Animal Farm.  Hopefully George Orwell’s ghost won’t be pissed off enough to seek vengeance.   

Author’s Note:  A year and a half later, and I finally get to write the sequel to “And In the Darkness Bind Them.”  It’s about fucking time.  I reference incidents and/or resuscitate original characters from a few of my other fics past as well, including “Justice,” “Handyman,” and “Send in the Clowns.” 

 

 

 

 



 

Leap!

There is nowhere to fall but into the arms of grace.

 ~~ Marta Davidovich Ockuly

 

 

 

 

Sunday, July 24, 2011

Albany, NY

 

About a year and a half ago, the state of New York decided that while all men are created equal, some are more equal than others. 

 

I guess you could say I was bummed, but not exactly surprised.  My life had pretty much been shaped by the general consensus that I was a second-class citizen and a third-rate human being.  Not that I’m complaining about my life, because I’m not.  I’ve got a home and my own business and Timmy.  Most of all, I’ve got Timmy.  If that doesn’t add up to a life that’s better than most and a helluva lot more than I deserve…Jesus.  I may not be the sharpest knife in the drawer, but I’m smart enough to know a good thing when I’ve got it.  And all you have to do is take one look at Timothy J. Callahan to know that I’ve got it all.  So when Senator Platt’s colleagues nixed the idea of legalizing gay marriage back in ’09, I was a little disappointed and a whole lotta pissed, but I got over it.

 

Timmy was totally fucking devastated.

 

It just about broke my heart, seeing him that down.  Not that I blame him.  He’d worked so goddamned hard to see that stupid bill pass, given more of himself  to promoting it than he had to anything since the Safe Zone project.  When all his efforts went up in smoke, he felt like the machine had broken down, that the system he’d always believed in, the system that he’d poured his sweat and blood, heart and hope into had turned its back on him.  In other words, he did what he’d always said a politician should never do – he took it personally.

 

I’ll never forget that night.  He walked through the door looking as worn out and beaten down as I’d ever seen him, and there I was, stretched out on a blanket in front of the fire like some kind of idiot, a bottle of champagne chilling on one side of me and two dozen roses – red ones mixed with white for the holidays – on the other, and sprigs of mistletoe hanging in every doorway of the house.  I hadn’t heard the outcome of the vote yet – I hadn’t wanted to.  I’d had this crazy idea that if I kept flipping on CNN to check for updates, I’d jinx it somehow, but if I waited for Timmy to get home and tell me himself, the two of us would have something huge to celebrate together. 

 

Stupid, the mind games I try to play with fate sometimes.  Of course, the second I saw Timmy’s face, I knew the game had been over for hours and that our team had lost.  He kissed me hello like he always did, smelled the flowers and managed a smile we both knew he didn’t mean.  I had another surprise for him, a black velvet box I’d hidden between the cushions on the couch, but I knew giving it to him right then would just rub salt into a wound that was already stinging.  Instead, I just pulled him down beside me and helped him undress, then gave him what both of us knew he needed most, not so much making love to him as soothing  him with a physical lullaby, a reaffirmation that we were what we always had been and always would be, whether the state of New York recognized it or not.  Then I stuck the champagne in the back of the fridge and the flowers in a vase and led him upstairs to bed.

 

He didn’t get up for almost two days. 

 

I wasn’t worried.  Not really.  He hadn’t slept at all the night before the vote – he’d been way too keyed up to even come close to dozing off.  But once the excitement was over and those dickheads in the senate had not just rained on his parade, but also pissed on it,  he did a major crash-and-burn.  Who could blame him?  I stuck close to home, too, napping off and on with him since he always sleeps better if I’m there to share his pillow and hog the covers, forcing a bottle of water down his throat every time he woke up enough to make a bathroom run, and bringing him turkey sandwiches and fruit so he wouldn’t have to trudge up and down those stairs while he was groggy.  It took a lot of sleep and TLC to recharge his batteries, but I’ll tell you what, the second he threw back those covers and his feet hit the floor, Timothy was on fire.

 

My robotic pit bull, with the words “next time” always on his lips.  He’d bounced back just the way I’d known he would, hitting the ground running as he drafted memos and wrote speeches, organized rallies and held fundraisers – all with his boss’ support.  I give Platt a hard way to go sometimes, but I gotta admit, she really had his back on this one.  Knowing how much it meant to him, she gave him as much free reign as she could without compromising her own agenda, letting him devote as much time as possible to promoting marriage equality and the push to end DADT. 

 

It wasn’t like the senator didn’t have a personal stake in all this herself.  Her baby brother, the pretty-boy cellist Tim was such good buddies with, was as out of the closet as you can get and live, and I remember her mentioning that her great-aunt had been in a “Boston marriage” with another old gal for almost half a century.  She couldn’t afford to be seen as a one-issue politician, not if she wanted to hang onto her job and maybe move on to something bigger and better when the time was right.  But that didn’t stop her from endorsing Timmy’s pet projects.  Platt trusted him and knew covering her ass from a P.R. perspective would always be at the top of his priority list.  She was willing to go out on a limb for him – just not so far out she was in danger of falling off. 

 

He was still manning the helm at Safe Zone, of course, and he was still Platt’s one and only right-hand man.  But more and more, he was delegating the small stuff, the stuff that didn’t really need his personal attention, to someone else.  He had to if he wanted enough hours left in a day to eat, sleep, and say hello to me once in a while as we ran past each other, both of us in a hurry to get to wherever we had to be as opposed to where we wanted to be. 

 

Passing the shit assignments on down the line gave Timmy a chance to let the junior staffers stretch their wings.  And although he never said as much, it also gave him a chance to see who was a dead-ender and who was promotion material, who was gonna get left by the wayside and who he could groom to take over his position when he was ready to do a little wing-stretching of his own.  Platt’s no fool, and she knew how Tim’s mind worked almost as well as I did.   The day was gonna come when he decided to run for office himself.  She wanted to make damned sure they were both batting for the same team when he did.

 

The time Timmy devoted to gay rights on the job was just a drop in the bucket compared to the hours he spent drumming up grass-roots support  off the clock.  As often as he could, Timmy dragged me along for the ride.  And yeah, I still did some obligatory kicking and screaming along the way.  I’ve got a rep to maintain, after all, and I wouldn’t want him to think I was going soft after all these years.  But this wasn’t the usual snorefest circuit of stuffy, black-tie events.  These were Tuesday night gatherings in high school gyms, caucuses held in small town civic centers and factory meeting rooms, weekend barbeques and even a ride on a float or two during pride month. 

 

According to Timmy, most politicians who were sympathetic to our cause and even organizations like HRC wasted too much breath preaching to the choir – left-wingers and educated folks who already knew what’s what.  He took a more blue-collar approach, counting on common sense combined with that famous Callahan charm to get his message across. 

 

Over the next few months, it became his mission to convince Joe Blow that your average gay man doesn’t go around fornicating in the cereal aisle at his friendly neighborhood Price Chopper, defiling churches and drowning kittens, or wagging his wienie at little Joey Jr. on the school playground.  Timmy courted truck drivers and plumbers and Wal-Mart cashiers, making them see that the institution of marriage wouldn’t crumble and society wouldn’t end just because guys like us had the same rights as guys like them.  What’s more, he talked them into calling their senators and congressmen and anyone else who’d listen and telling them the same thing. 

 

Hardly a week went by without me seeing my guy on the morning news at least once or twice.  He was always popping up between the pages of the Times Union, and pretty soon he had an Advocate cover of his own to stick in a frame next to mine.  He did talk radio gigs, TV interviews, even a segment on Good Morning America where he butted heads with some fundamentalist stuffed shirt from the DOMA side of the fence.  It got pretty bloody, and Stuffed Shirt came out looking like an idiot, of course.  But there’s no way my Timmy could ever come out looking anything but beautiful.  

 

Every once in a while, bits and pieces of me popped up on the news, too.   The back of my head here, an elbow or shoulder there.  Timmy vaguely referred to me as “my life partner, an independent business owner” during interviews, and he was very careful to keep my face out of camera range so my business wouldn’t go under thanks to overexposure.  Timmy’s face, though?   That gorgeous face of his was quickly becoming the face of the gay rights movement in New York. 

 

It was a long year and a half, with that black velvet box I’d been wanting to give him for so long burning a hole in my pocket the whole time – figuratively speaking, at least.  It was back up in its attic hiding place, getting covered in cobwebs and mouse shit and God knows what else, patiently waiting for the New York state senate to get its head out of its collective ass.  I was waiting, too, but not nearly so patiently. 

 

Timmy wasn’t waiting for shit.  He was out there doing something about it. 

 

When Obama finally signed the DADT appeal, Timmy took it as a good omen.  He and I had a long, hard talk about finances, and we decided it was time for him to request a temporary leave of absence from his job so he could push for the gay marriage bill full time. He was on top of the world and breathing fire, swearing we’d be standing in the city clerk’s office before the year was out, shelling out our forty bucks for a marriage license.

 

As usual, Timmy was right.

 

* * * *

 

When the marriage bill went up for a vote last month, I didn’t buy flowers or champagne, and I sure as hell didn’t booby-trap the doorways with mistletoe.  But I did get that little black box out of hiding, and I carried it around in my pocket for a couple of days as I went about business as usual, rubbing my finger against the soft velvet as I interviewed new clients or BSed with Kenny, chanting Timmy’s mantra in my head.  Next time, next time.  And all the while I was hoping that next time was now. 

 

The news broke late on a Friday night.  I was home alone, bored and surfing the net, when a news byte caught my eye.  In the same instant, my cell phone chirped and a text came through from Timmy. 

 

Have you heard?  33-29!  Come get me!!!  

 

He didn’t have to tell me twice.  I was in a suit and on the road in five minutes flat.  

 

I caught up with him on the steps of the capital building, holding court with a swarm of reporters.   He was flushed and breathless, but still in control and looking like he’d just won the lottery.  When he spotted me, he held out his hand, beaming.  I sidled up next to him, tangling my fingers with his and giving him a quick hello kiss in full view of the cameraman from Channel 6. 

 

“In case anyone’s wondering, this is my husband, Donald Strachey,” he said, laughing.  For once, he didn’t give a shit whether or not my face was plastered all over the news and neither did I.  This was his night, the night he’d waited for so long, and I intended to spend every second of it by his side, showing both him and the world how proud I was that he was mine.

 

Timmy was tired, though, and God only knew when he’d eaten last.  He was fading fast.  As soon as I could do it without looking like a total jerk, I eased him away from the fawning masses and led him toward the car.  I held the door for him as he slid into his seat, then sprinted around to my side and cranked up the engine. 

 

“Thank you,” he said, pulling me into another kiss.  “If I’d had to answer one more question about whether I was planning to leave the senator’s staff and run for office myself, I may have been forced to borrow your gun and shoot someone’s camera.  Or at least ask you to shoot it for me, since we both know my history with firearms.”

 

“Are you?” I had to ask

 

“Planning on asking you to shoot something?  I’m not sure.  That annoying woman from ABC—”

 

“That’s not what I’m asking, Timothy.”

 

“I know what you’re asking,” he said, sounding so weary I coulda kicked myself for pressing him.  “I don’t want to think about that right now.  I’m too tired to think about it.  This has been an incredible night, and all I want to do right now is relax and savor the moment.  And the only person I want to savor it with is you, preferably as far away from here as we can get.”

 

“Whatever you want, sweetheart,” I said, rubbing his cheek with the back of my knuckles.  He had a little bit of a five o’clock shadow going on there, reminding me just how long a day he had put in.  I shifted the car into gear and pulled away from the curb.  “Which do you need more, food or sleep?”

 

“I haven’t had anything except very bad coffee since this morning,” he said.  “I’m starving.  Feed me?”

 

I took him to an all-night diner Kenny and I sometimes hit at lunchtime.   Nothing fancy, but the food was good and the prices even better, plus they served the best Reubens in town.  I decided on one with double meat and extra 1000 Island.  Timmy ordered breakfast food – eggs and toast and a bowl of oatmeal laced with brown sugar and topped with a fruit compote the place was famous for. 

 

The diner was more crowded than I’d expected, with several clusters of people in evening attire clinking coffee cups and chattering over their Denver omelets while stray blue-collar types sat alone or with a buddy, plowing through plates of roast beef and gravy or monster sandwiches like mine.  The Friday night theater crowd, with a sprinkling of second-shifters grabbing a bite before heading home to bed.   It was hotter than I expected, too, so I ditched my jacket and loosened my tie, then reached across the table and loosened Timmy’s.  He gave me a look, but he didn’t waste any breath protesting.  As stuffy as it was in there, he probably didn’t have too much breath to waste.

 

I’d planned to take him someplace more upscale – not to mention with better air-conditioning -- but at that hour, our options had been pretty limited.  Besides, we could plan a nice night out sometime in the next week.  My baby was looking paler and more wiped out by the moment, and I’d decided that convenience was worth more at that point than ambiance. I knew a migraine would be just around the corner if I didn’t get his blood sugar up fast.

 

As smart as Timmy is, he can be an idiot sometimes, at least as far as taking care of himself goes.  “I’m all right, honey,” he said, without waiting for me to ask, which just goes to show how not all right he really was.  I hauled myself out of the booth and peeled off his jacket and unbuttoned his collar, then walked to the counter and asked for a large OJ.  I plunked it down in front of him and ordered him to drink, then stood over him to let him know I meant business.  As he sipped it, I dunked a napkin into a water glass and dabbed his face and wrists until some of his color started to come back. 

 

“Better?”

 

“Better,” he said.  He caught my hand and squeezed it, then tugged me down beside him.  When the waitress showed up with more juice and my Molson, she took in the altered seating arrangement and asked in an overly chipper voice if we were expecting more people. 

 

“My husband’s all the company I need tonight…or any other night,” Timmy said, smiling.

 

“Oh,” she said, her voice dropping a notch or two on the chipper scale.  “Ohhhh,” she said again, finally noticing our joined hands.   Then she rearranged the table setting without comment, flashed us her best plasto-professional smile, and scurried off to check on our order.

 

She was back a couple of minutes later with enough food to feed a small army.  I thought it all looked great, but when she set Timmy’s plate in front of him, he eyed the extra rack of bacon he’d specifically asked for them to leave off his order, looking faintly queasy.  Timmy doesn’t do fried and he doesn’t do grease, especially on a rock-bottom-empty stomach at midnight.  I snagged the strips off his plate and stuck them on my Reuben, then took a mammoth bite. 

 

Timmy shuddered delicately.

 

“What?”

 

He grinned and shook his head, then dove into the oatmeal.  I’m not a big fan of the stuff, but as he added cream and stirred it, I smelled cinnamon and all that fruit.  My mouth would’ve started watering if it hadn’t already been crammed full of corned beef.  When Miss Chipper stopped by to check on us, I caved and ordered a bowl for myself as a chaser. 

 

I hadn’t realized how hungry I was.  We ate without talking, me wolfing  my sandwich and fries and washing it down with long pulls on my beer while Timmy sipped his juice and worked his way through the eggs and oatmeal at a more leisurely pace. 

 

“I’m sorry I’m not a more stimulating conversationalist,” he said, spreading sugar-free blackberry jam on his last slice of toast.  “I’ve talked so much today, I’m almost talked out.”

 

I’d bolted my oatmeal and fruit concoction as soon as it arrived, and only a warning glare from Timmy kept me from ordering a second one.  “You’re tired, sweetheart.  As soon you’re finished, I’m taking you home and putting you to bed.”

 

“I feel like such a wet blanket.  We should go dancing or something.  We should go somewhere extravagant and celebrate what happened tonight.”

 

“What, spending the night in bed with me isn’t celebration enough?”

 

“That’s not how I meant it, and you know it.  This is an important night, Donald.  Shouldn’t we be doing something monumental to commemorate the occasion?”

 

“I’m not sure how monumental this is going to be, but I think I know how we can make this a night to remember.”  I fished the velvet box out of my pocket and slid out of the booth, sinking down on one knee.  As he stared at me in horrified fascination, I took his hand and cleared my throat, then announced in a voice pitched to carry, “Timothy Callahan, you are the love of my life and the light of my life, my lifeline and lifemate, the life of my party…”

 

Timmy wasn’t pale anymore.  Oh, hell no.   He was the color of those big, sweet Bing cherries, the kind you can only buy in the summertime.  His mouth opened and closed, but instead of words, only strange spluttering sounds were coming out.

 

“…and my life thread is forever tied to yours.  You are my life, and my reason for living.  My only goal in life is to devote my lifetime to making your life a happy one—”

 

“For the love of God, Donald.  People are watching.”

 

“Only you can make my life complete.”  I opened the box and took out the ring, then slipped it onto his finger.   “Please accept this small token of my affection and do me the honor of sharing a life sentence with me.  Come on, sweetheart,” I said, lowering my voice by several decibels. “Say you’ll re-marry me.  I want to have the pleasure of passing out in the middle of saying my wedding vows just one more time.”

 

His face contorted and somehow turned even redder.  He seemed to be having trouble breathing.  For a fleeting second I thought oh my God, he’s having an aneurysm.  He’s gonna die right here in the diner and it’s all my fault.  Then he sucked in a deep breath and cut loose with something that sounded suspiciously like a guffaw.  I relaxed and sat back on my heels, laughing right along with him. 

 

“The ring’s beautiful, honey.  I love it.  But please get up now.  You just had that suit cleaned and pressed, and who knows when these people bothered to mop the floor last.  Besides, everyone in the place is looking at us.”

 

He was right, everyone in the place, customers and staff alike, were frozen in place, staring at us as if they’d just seen the Virgin Mary appear on a taco.  Or in this case, in a bowl of cinnamon oatmeal.  As I glanced around the silent diner, a little girl who seemed to be having a late night out with her grampa broke into a grin and waved.  I waved back.

 

“Donald, get up.”

 

“Nope, not until you say you’ll re-marry me.  I can go on forever, you know.  Life is like a box of chocolates when I’m with you.   I never thought I was the marrying kind, but when I met you, it was like trying my first bowl of Life cereal. He’s not so sure at first, but guess what?  He likes it!  Hey Timmy!”

 

“Don’t make me slap you.”

 

“Say yes, Timmy.  Say yes or I’ll sing.  You know I’ll do it.  Worse, I’ll sing Queen.  Love of my life, you’ve hurt meeeeeeeeeeee.  You’ve broken my hea—”

 

“Enough!  These people are trying to eat,” he said, but he was laughing even harder than before.  “Of course I’m going to marry you again.  I’d marry you a hundred times over if it would keep you from singing.  Now, will you please get up before someone calls the police.”

 

“Now say you love me,” I insisted.  “I don’t want you to say yes just so the cops won’t haul me off because nobody around here appreciates a fine Irish tenor.”

 

“You’re not Irish, I am. And I’m not sure you’re even a tenor.  I don’t think there’s a word for what you are.”

 

 “You’ll think of something.  I have faith in your abilities.  Now say yes for the right reasons, Timmy.  Say you’ll marry me because—”

 

The rest was lost in a kiss, a long, hard, fuck-me-now kiss that instantly turned my knees to water and my dick to stone.  Then Timmy’s arms were around me and he was hauling me back into our booth as the kiss went on and on and the other diners hooted and whistled and broke into applause. 

 

“I’ll marry you again because I love you,” he said softly when he finally let me up for air.  “I’ll marry you because you love me, and because I can’t imagine living a single day of my life without you.  I’ll marry you even if you are insane,” he said, nipping my earlobe. 

 

“Or maybe because I am?”

 

“Quite possibly.”

 

“I’ll get the check,” I said.

 

* * * *

 

We slept until 10:30 the next morning, then lingered in bed an hour more, taking care of a thing or two we’d started but hadn’t had the stamina to finish the night before.  After we’d showered and more or less dressed – meaning I pulled on cut-offs and a wife-beater and Timmy looked like he was ready to spend the afternoon watching a polo match -- we wandered downstairs for coffee and croissants and the last of the late strawberries our next-door neighbors, the Sheridans, had given us from their backyard garden. 

 

I pulled the stem off the fattest berry I could find and stuck it between my teeth, then looked at Timmy, my eyebrows wriggling.  He humored me by biting the berry in half, his lips pressing mine in a kiss about a thousand times sweeter than the fruit.  I groaned in appreciation.

 

“Well, good morning to you, too,” he said.  “Would you like to look at a section of the paper?”

 

“I’d rather look at you.”

 

“You see me all the time,” he said.

 

“Well, exactly.”  I topped off both our mugs and settled on the barstool beside him, happy enough to just sit there swilling my cup of hazelnut blend and watching Timmy flip through the Times Union. His hair was still damp from the shower, and I was close enough to catch undertones of organic shampoo and his aftershave beneath the stronger scents of coffee and newsprint and strawberries.  I closed my eyes and just breathed, blissed out on the familiar smells of Timmy and morning.

 

From the moment I’d heard about the vote, I’d felt like I was living in a state of grace, like I was the luckiest man on earth because I had everything in the world I ever wanted and more, and now the law finally said I had a right to enjoy it.  That I finally had the legal right to mornings like this, mornings that smelled like strawberry kisses and hazelnut coffee and Timmy.  That nobody could catch me with my pants down and take away everything I loved ever again. 

 

Paper rustled, and Timmy’s shoulder bumped mine.  “It’s definitely the story of the hour,” he said, holding up the front page so I could see it. 





“Historic vote for vows.  Honestly, who writes these things?”

 

“Who cares?  All I see are bald heads and mohawks.  Where’s a picture of you?”  I commandeered the paper and turned the page.  There we were, right in the middle of page 3, laying what looked like a huge liplock on each other right in front of the capitol building.   “You’re beautiful as always,” I said, “but my hair doesn’t look so great.  If I’d known we were getting our pictures done, I would’ve taken time to mousse.”

 

Timmy has to be awake a few hours before his sense of humor clicks in for the day.  “Local Gay Leader Celebrates Victory with Husband-to-Be.  Honestly.  Has this…this…rag…been bought out by the National Enquirer?  I’m afraid to read anymore.  For all we know, a shot of you proposing in the middle of that diner will be the highlight of page 5.”  He folded the paper and tossed it into the recycle bin.  “We need to go to the grocery sometime today, but that can wait until evening, I suppose.  Besides creating photo-ops for the tabloids, what would you like to do this afternoon?”

 

“You,” I said, turning him so he was facing me and spreading his legs so I could gently press my knee against his crotch.  “Only you.”

 

The look of irritation left his eyes.  In its place, something infinitely more pleasant was kindling.  “You already did me.” 

 

“Hey, that DOMA guy called us practicing homosexuals, remember?  So we better keep practicing if we ever want to get it right.”

 

“You always get it right,” he said.  Even after all our years together, his smile was still soft and sweet and a little bit shy when we talked about our sex life.  It wasn’t that he was shy when it came to actually having sex, because he was anything but bashful between the sheets.   But there was still something about him that was…not innocent, I don’t guess.  Fresh.  That was it.  There was something still fresh and weirdly pure about him, something that made every time between us feel like the millionth time and the first time, all at once.  It always hit me like a double shot of Maker’s Mark, made me want to hold him forever, made me want to take him to bed and make love to him as tenderly as I knew how and not stop for hours and hours.  It made me want to rip his clothes off and beg him to fuck me senseless right there on the kitchen floor.

 

I slid off my stool and wedged my hips between his thighs.  His arms circled my waist, pulling me in as close as I could get, my hands slipping under his shirt, my face buried in that soft, damp hair.  He shifted some, pulled back enough to take off his glasses and fold them before placing them on the counter.  Then he pulled my wife-beater over my head and tasted my nipples, first one and then the other, before working his way down to my belly. 

 

Still perched on his barstool, he braced his hands against my hips and bent over so he could reach that most ridiculously sensitive part of me. He lingered for what felt like days but could have been hours or minutes or seconds, licking warm, wet spirals on my stomach, flicking his tongue in my navel and kissing it, sucking on it, pressing his face his deep into my belly. 

 

Timmy knows me, knows me better than I know myself sometimes, and he always knows exactly what I like.  When he slid his hand beneath my waistband and tugged gently on my happy trail, I threw back my head, gasping, sure I was gonna lose it right then and there. 

 

My cock was rock hard and aching, pressing painfully against the inside of my fly because I’d been too lazy to hunt for boxers and had gone commando that day.   I fumbled with my belt, desperate for relief and release, but Timmy brushed my hands away and unbuckled it for me, then shucked my cutoffs and tossed them to the floor beside my shirt.  I reached for his belt as well, but he caught my hands and kissed the palm of each one before settling them firmly against either side of his waist. 

 

“Let me,” he said, those cornflower blue eyes locked on mine, full to overflowing with love and light.  “Relax for a change.  Let go.  Let me.”  He pulled me tight against him, swallowing me in a brief bear hug.  One of his hands found my ass, the fingers of the other combed through my hair.  He slid farther forward on the stool so our crotches pressed firmly together and rocked me against him as he bathed my face and neck in warm, wet kisses.  “Baby,” he murmured.  “My sweet baby.”

 

“Want you,” I said, moaning.  I captured his mouth with my own and kissed him thoroughly, then pulled his bottom lip into my mouth and sucked it in slow, gentle, pulsing waves, giving him something to moan about, too.  His tongue explored the inside of my mouth, tangling with my tongue, teasing it, teasing me. I rubbed my crotch harder against his, getting frantic.  “Want you,” I said again, pleading this time.  “Want you.  Need you.  Oh, sweetheart, please.  I need you now.”

 

“You’ve got me, honey,” he said, his breath hot puffs against the side of my neck as he nuzzled there, bit me gently.  “You always have and you always will.”  Then he pushed our dishes aside and helped me scramble on top of the breakfast bar, facing him with my knees spread wide, my feet braced on top of his thighs.  His mouth was on my cock before I knew what hit me, drawing me in impossibly deep, pulling and sucking as I went crazy and tried to hump his face, holding onto only the most bare-bones level of control because I didn’t want to hurt him, not for anything in the world. 

 

Timmy’s hands seemed to be everywhere – rubbing my chest and my belly, stroking the hypersensitive skin on my sides, fondling my ass and my balls.  I was swollen to a point just this side of pain, and I could tell from the growing pressure in my balls that I was about to come, and come hard.  But Timmy, the bastard, picked that instant to pull off, clamping his hand around the base of my erection like a living cock ring.

 

“Not yet, he said.  “Almost, but not just yet.” 

 

Leisurely as you please, he reached for the coffee pot with his free hand and poured himself another cup, then drank a good half of it while I sat there squirming in a combination of misery and anticipation.  He took a final drink and held it in his mouth for several seconds before swallowing, then gobbled me whole, releasing his hold on my cock as his mouth slid home.  The heat of that mouth enveloping my cock sent me over the edge, and I screamed, I know I must have screamed, because I felt my balls suddenly pull tight like a rubber band stretched to the breaking point, then everything inside me snapped, just fucking snapped, giving me a release that was both one of the sweetest and most wrenching I’d ever known.  

 

When I came back to my senses, I was sprawled across the breakfast bar, my legs dangling on either side of Timmy, who was calmly kissing his way across my lower belly again. 

 

“Hello, handsome,” he said, looking up when he felt me stir.  “Did you have a nice nap?”

 

“Jesus.”  I rubbed the back of my hand across my eyelids, wiping away moisture there, then slowly sat up, every muscle and joint in my body giving me hell every inch of the way.   “How long was I out?”

 

“Just a few minutes.”  He brushed croissant crumbs off my elbow, then gathered them in his palm and carefully brushed them into the sink.  “You looked like you needed the sleep.”

 

“I needed to stay awake and finish what I started,” I said.  “I’m sorry I conked out on you.  Let’s go back upstairs, okay?  You took such good care of me, and now I want to take care of you.”

 

“I’m fine,” he said.  “Really.  We probably should go upstairs, though.  We could both stand another shower, and…” he hesitated, looking sheepish.  “And I’m going to be needing a fresh pair of pants.”

 

“You came already?  How did I miss it?  Unless you waited til I was out and…”  I pumped the air with my hand.

 

He rolled his eyes, but I could tell he was trying not to laugh.  “Hardly.  It happened at roughly the same time for me as it did for you, somewhere between the point where you started screaming and the moment you passed out and almost fell off the counter.”

 

“But I didn’t even touch you,” I said.

 

“You didn’t need to.”

 

I felt a surge of something stronger than sexual desire for him at that moment, something stronger than love, even.  “You liked watching me come that much?”

 

“I like watching you do anything.”  He touched my face lightly, tracing my jawline with those long, perfectly manicured fingers.  “Afterward, I nearly drifted off, too, but I thought one of us should probably stay awake in case the police showed up on our doorstep.  Considering all the noise you were making, I’m sure the neighbors thought I was killing you.”

State of Grace -- Part Two