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  Ethan didn’t really expect to get an answer to that question. It was rhetorical, but Brian said, “Yes.” He leaned in closer to Ethan and said, “You got no responses.”

  Ethan felt a twinge. Was he really so hopeless? Proudly, he lifted his chin and said, “Yes. I got no responses. None. I looked at my competition and could see why. Most of them were twenty years younger, a lot more buff, and had faces that not only a mother could love, but that everyone else could too. So I despaired. And—you need to believe me—I didn’t really set out to deceive anyone. I just wanted to try a little experiment, so I left all my personal details the same and replaced my picture with a picture of the handsomest man I could find. And do you know what happened?”

  Brian smiled. “Yes.”

  “You do?”

  “Yes. You got a gajillion responses. Probably more than you could handle.”

  Ethan allowed himself a short burst of laughter. “It was nuts! I couldn’t keep up with the tide.” He glanced down at the table and then back up at Brian. “But then your message came along, and I thought you were really hot.” Again, Ethan felt himself redden. “But I loved so much more what you were all about, all the interests we shared and the personality that came across in your messages.”

  Brian nodded.

  “I kept telling myself I should just end things, but I was enjoying writing to you so much. I was really happy to have finally met someone I could connect with, you know?”

  “I do.”

  “So it was hard for me to pull away. And when you pulled away, I was crushed, to be quite honest. I figured something was up, but I never put two and two together until I saw you here today.”

  Ethan stared down at the table. “I suppose forgiveness, or even understanding, is out of the question.”

  “No.” Brian leaned back and took a sip of his coffee. “I do understand. I didn’t take it as far as you did, but I had the same experience. When I posted the picture of me as I am sitting here before you, I got very little response. And then I started to wish these online hookup deals had been around when I was younger and much hotter. And like you, I thought I’d try posting one of my older and really good pictures, to see what would happen. And like you, I got a ton of responses, but yours was the only one I really felt a connection with, a real meeting of the minds, if you don’t mind the cliché.”

  “Oh, I don’t mind it at all.” Ethan allowed himself a wary smile. “So where does this leave us?” Ethan felt his mouth getting dry but was reluctant to even make the tiniest move to pick up his cup. With his little experiment, he had constructed a fragile house of cards and knew how easily everything could collapse. It didn’t help that Brian didn’t jump in right away with a response. Instead the blond man stared into the traffic, as if maybe a response was written on a bumper sticker of a passing car. He’s probably thinking that you’re a nice enough sort, Ethan, but how does he let you down gently? He’s searching for the right words. Searching because he’s a good man, the same man who came across in his messages. What a loss! And a sense of despair washed over him.

  Not only was Brian as sweet and kind as he might have imagined, he really wasn’t bad looking either. Sure, he could stand to lose a few pounds, and his hair didn’t have the luster or thickness it had in the photograph he had posted, but there was an aura of manliness about him that Ethan found not only appealing but downright alluring. The way his faded jeans clung to his thick thighs was not exactly chopped liver either, as his mother might have once said—but probably not about a man’s thighs. In the midst of all this turmoil and despair, Ethan found himself wondering what was under Brian’s denim. His legs were crossed and forced the rise of faded denim upward, into what gay boys referred to as a basket. Ethan snorted to himself and thought Basket, hell. It’s more like a cornucopia.

  “What are you grinning about?”

  Ethan tore his eyes away from Brian’s crotch, chastising himself for being so shallow, and felt a burning blush rise to his cheeks again. After all this, was he really so different from the gay men he accused of being so superficial, interested only in the physical trappings of other men? Here Brian was trying to have an earnest heart-to-heart with him, and he was practically salivating over what he had between his legs.

  He met Brian’s brown-eyed stare. “Sorry. I was letting my mind wander. Must be the stress of the situation.” The thought that he had nothing to lose emboldened him, and he reached across the table and let his hand rest on top of Brian’s. The touch was electric. He could feel every coarse hair and the surprisingly silken smoothness of his skin. “Look, I really am sorry for what I did. And even more sorry for the mess I’ve made of things. What I did was wrong. What you did was maybe not absolutely right, but at least the pic you posted was of you and not someone else. Heck, it wasn’t that much different than lying about your age. And that’s not such a terrible crime. Not these days. Not in this world.” Ethan took a sip of his coffee, even though he didn’t want it, but figured it was a small way to bide his time. He feared this tenuous connection would end soon, with forgiveness or not, and Brian would walk out of his life forever.

  But there were words that needed to be spoken, and whatever they would lead to, Ethan would say them. “So, is there any chance you might want to explore this a little further? Based, of course, not on what I look like in reality but on the fact that we have so much in common and seemed to have a real connection when we were writing.”

  Brian pulled a piece of lint from his jeans, drawing Ethan’s gaze downward once again. He forced himself to look back up. Brian was staring at him, his head cocked.

  “I think you’re cute.”

  Ethan couldn’t hold it back, and he hated himself for it. He tittered like a girl. “Oh God!” he exclaimed, flustered. “I wasn’t fishing.”

  “I know. But if you’re worried I’m going to walk away because you’re not the guy in the picture, you’re wrong.” Brian took a sip of his own coffee, and Ethan could see his hand was trembling ever so slightly as he raised the cup. “The guy in that photograph—where the hell did you get that, anyway?—that guy was, I have to admit, a little intimidating. Before I knew what you really looked like, I was afraid of meeting him in person. I was pretty sure he’d take one look at me and run screaming in the opposite direction.”

  “Oh, now….”

  Brian held up his hand. “No, no. I’m not fishing for compliments here either. That guy could have his pick of the litter, and as much as we seemed to hit it off on paper, I’m not entirely convinced I would be his first choice. Not me. Not the man you see sitting here before you today.”

  “I think you’re cute too. And I think there could be something here.”

  Brian didn’t say anything for a long time. The sound of the passing traffic seemed to grow louder in Ethan’s ears. Behind him, to the west on Roscoe, a truck’s horn was blaring, most likely at a double-parked car on the one-way street. “Look, I understand….” Ethan bit his lip, unwilling to go on but knowing he had to. “I understand if you want to walk away. I know what I did was wrong, and I can see how that might make it hard to trust me. And trust, I know, is so important. To start off—”

  Brian was grinning. “Will you quit being so damn earnest? I wasn’t thinking about walking away. I was thinking about how I could tactfully ask you over to my place.” Brian’s grin became decidedly more wicked as he caught Ethan’s gaze. “I live just a couple of blocks away, on the Inner Drive.”

  If the sidewalk had dropped out from under him, Ethan would not have been more surprised. This was not the direction he’d thought things would go. Now, even though he knew the offer might have been completely innocent and that it would involve nothing more than maybe more coffee and conversation, he couldn’t help but wonder about the freshness of the underwear he had chosen to put on. Thank God he had gone with the Calvin Klein black boxer briefs! Just in case, he hoped he had attended to all parts of his anatomy with equal vigor while in the shower.

&n
bsp; Oh, will you stop it! The man said nothing about sex! He’s just inviting you over because—yes! yes! yes!—he wants to get to know you a little better in a more intimate setting. And then Ethan’s mind took a darker turn. Or maybe he just wants to get you alone for other reasons, reasons having nothing to do with sex… or sex of the kind that gets its thrill from torture, mutilation, and bloody murder. Ethan let out a helpless nervous laugh. You’re being ridiculous, Ethan.

  Ethan realized he hadn’t spoken, absorbed in his own giddy thoughts, when Brian said, “Of course, if you’d rather not—”

  “No! No! I would love to stop by, see where you live. Let’s go!” And Ethan stood suddenly, overturning the table and drenching Brian with two half-full—or should that be half-empty?—cups of Starbucks finest. “Oh God! I’m so sorry!” Ethan groped around the table for a napkin or two that hadn’t been snatched away by the wind and leaned forward to daub at Brian’s chest, which was covered now in tepid coffee. He couldn’t help but notice how smooth the chest was… and how hard, in spite of the bit of a pot belly the man had just below. The nipples stood up under his fingers like the eraser tips of number two Ticonderoga pencils. Ethan found his face burning, his dick hardening, and his hands not wanting to stop moving in dabbing circles across Brian’s chest.

  He also found himself losing his balance. With a gasp and what he knew was a goofy grin plastered wide across his features, he went down on one knee. It was almost like he was proposing, except that his hard and sudden contact with the concrete caused him to wince in pain. He stood hurriedly and forced his hands to his sides. His knee was throbbing, and when he looked down, he saw his pants had ripped and the skin beneath it was red and crusted with street grime and blood. “Oh shit.”

  Brian, Ethan could tell, was trying mightily not to laugh. A smile, a giggle, a guffaw, all struggled beneath features Ethan was certain he was fighting to keep composed, to appear concerned. He could tell from the intense way Brian furrowed his eyebrows.

  “I guess this negates the ‘yes’ I was going to give you in answer to your invitation.”

  “Why?”

  “For starters, this is going to get infected if I don’t get home and get it cleaned up right away. Second, I’m completely embarrassed.”

  “Ah, what’s to be embarrassed about? You think you’re the first person who ever slipped and fell? Hey, every day I litigate for people who fall down.” Brian caught Ethan’s eye. “Yes, I’m an attorney. What’d you think? I deliver posies for a living?”

  That had been exactly what Ethan had thought. He supposed there was a lot he still needed to find out about Brian. He just wished he hadn’t made such a graceless first impression. “I did think that. And why wouldn’t I? All the evidence seemed to point that way.” Ethan smiled and put a protective hand over his knee.

  “Point taken. Now let’s you and me slip into the Starbucks here and at least get a little soap and water on that knee before we head over to my place.”

  And Brian, coffee-stained shirt and all, led him inside the café.

  “SO LET’S get some hydrogen peroxide on that knee.” Brian started walking away from him, presumably toward the bathroom whose door yawned open just off the living room. Ethan was comfortably ensconced in a distressed leather chair facing a bank of windows that looked out on Lake Michigan, which appeared almost aqua from the dying rays of the sun going down opposite its shoreline. Brian paused at the doorway to the bathroom. “I’m not trying to seduce you or anything, but it might be easier if you slipped out of those jeans. They’re no good to you anymore anyway, unless you’re the heavy-metal type that traffics in ripped jeans.”

  Brian didn’t wait for a response, and Ethan wondered what he should do. This was moving awfully fast. But he said he wasn’t trying to seduce him, right? Ethan didn’t know whether to be comforted or disappointed.

  He stood and struggled out of his pants, almost toppling over again when one ankle got caught up in bunched denim. He sat back down. The chair’s leather felt both cold and sticky against his bare thighs. He giggled as he wondered if he should just strip off the shorts and shirt too and be sitting here buck naked when Brian returned. Wouldn’t that be a pretty sight? Hernia surgery scar and all?

  He leaned back, closed his eyes, and wondered when he had lost control of his own destiny. If someone had told him that morning he would be ending his afternoon in a strange man’s apartment with his pants off, he would have told that person they were nuts and would have asked them if he was also going to win the Illinois State Lottery.

  He didn’t open his eyes as he heard Brian close a drawer in the bathroom and click off the light switch. Whatever was going to happen seemed somehow easier if he kept his eyes shut.

  He heard the creak of Brian’s knees and felt the warmth of his presence as he knelt between his spread legs. Oh for God’s sake, this is becoming like some porno movie! Hadn’t he seen this scene reenacted at least a few times in the odd strokefests he had permitted himself over the years?

  “Comfy?” Brian asked. Did it seem as though his breath was coming a little quicker? Don’t flatter yourself, Ethan!

  The hydrogen peroxide bottle sloshed as he imagined Brian upending it. Ethan felt a cool, damp cloth applied to his knee. And felt himself growing hard. Damn it, not now! Why is someone swabbing my knee getting me excited? The harder Ethan tried not to get aroused, the harder he got. He could just imagine the pup tent he was pitching in his boxer briefs.

  Next he felt Brian apply a Band-Aid to his knee. Brian’s touch was firm and sure… and Ethan thought he could get used to the touch of this man. It spoke its own language of caring and confidence. And that language was bringing Ethan’s poor penis nearly to the bursting point. He shifted so the rogue member could continue its upward trajectory more freely.

  “Feel better?” Brian asked, giving Ethan’s knee a little pat.

  “Oh yes,” Brian whispered, his voice hoarse.

  Now that his knee was disinfected and bandaged, he wondered what would happen next. Brian had gone quiet, and it made him want to open his eyes. But something held him back, something he couldn’t quite define, not yet.

  When Brian placed a hand on each thigh and kneaded both with alternating gentle, then rough, pressure, Ethan bit his lip to keep from crying out.

  “That’s right,” Brian whispered. “Just stay relaxed. I like a man who lets me make the decisions.”

  As Brian continued to knead his thighs, Ethan wondered what he should do. Don’t wonder, just do, just let nature takes its course. He reached down to touch Brian’s hair, which was paradoxically soft and coarse, then reached farther to touch his shoulders, which he was delighted to find bare, a broad expanse of satiny skin. Well, of course he took his shirt off, silly. You doused it with coffee. You should probably offer to have it dry-cleaned.

  Then all logical thought went out of Ethan’s head like the air being let out of a balloon. Brian pulled aside the elastic waistband of Ethan’s briefs and lowered his mouth onto his cock. The warmth and wetness surrounding him almost made him come immediately, but some vestige of rational thought rushed back in, chastising him to wait, to at least give himself—and Brian—a chance to enjoy these electric sensations a while longer.

  And electric was exactly the right word for the feelings Brian’s mouth was inspiring in him. The man was a virtuoso! He used alternating sucking, tongue swirling, and gentle nipping to bring Ethan to the very point of release, then would pull back and lave his balls and let the pressure subside just a bit. Then he would start all over again, beginning by licking his way up from the root to the crown. Crown! What a gloriously perfect word. Ethan squirmed.

  “You know,” Ethan said to the air above him, “this is doing wonders for my knee. It’s hardly throbbing at all anymore.”

  Brian took his mouth off Ethan’s dick long enough to growl, “But I can tell it’s making something else throb.”

  Ethan let a little laugh escape that dissolved into a moan
as Brian swallowed him all the way down to the root, the muscles in Brian’s throat contracting to deliver the most delirious squeezing sensations.

  “Oh God, much more of that and it will be all over.”

  That made Brian pull away. Finally Ethan opened his eyes and looked down. Brian was naked, his own member jutting upward from a nest of dirty-blond curls, his face flushed, and his lips fetchingly moist. “I have waited too long and through too many emails to have this be over so quickly.” He slapped Ethan’s thigh, then reached up and gave his cock a hard squeeze, almost painful but—not. Brian leaned back on his haunches and gestured with his head. “Come on. Let’s check out my bedroom.”

  Wordlessly, Ethan followed Brian into the bedroom, noticing how his ass bounced up and down and rode high on his thighs, jutting out like a shelf beneath his spine. The cheeks were wonderfully contrasted by a tan line that made them appear even whiter and creamier than they might have without the difference in hues.

  Pinch me! Pinch me! This has got to be a dream! Ethan grinned like a little boy who had just discovered the candy store had been left unlocked after closing.

  Brian’s bedroom was stark, with a black leather-framed platform bed, chrome-and-glass tables, framed Helmut Newton prints on the walls, and a bank of windows facing south, toward downtown Chicago. It was almost breathtaking but paled in comparison to the other view: Brian flopping onto his back on the bed, erection pointing skyward. A bead of precum stood poised at the tip of his dick, just ready to roll down its thick veiny shaft.

  Ethan no longer responded to rational thought. Instinct took over as he climbed aboard the bed and began crawling toward Brian, nestling himself between his parted and hairy thighs. He started to lower his head when he felt himself being held back… by his ears.