Chapter 10

Chapter Ten

Craig

I was pretty sure I was going to die of blue balls.

Dating Jamie was amazing. Going slow? Meh, not as incredible as I'd envisioned it to be, but it was helping us learn about each other. Which was why, two weeks into our officially slow dating regime, I was jerking off more than I had when I'd been fourteen. Which was a lot.

I wondered if I should contact my financial advisor and have him drop some cash into lube and tissue stock. Given how much of both items I was using, the stock had to be rising steadily. We'd barely even kissed the four times we'd been out. A peck on the cheek and a soft goodbye was all I'd gotten. Which was fine. Good. It was good. The only downside was that I knew what he tasted like, and I yearned for more. And not just taste. I wanted to touch him, smell him, hear him, see him moving on my dick. If I'd never experienced being with him—in him—I wouldn't have known what I was missing. Being able to replay that night of passion made denying myself much more painful. Like giving up cheesy doodles for Lent. I knew the little cheese curls were delicious, and so that long stint of denying myself was twice as rough compared to if I'd not known the glory that were Cheetos.

"Fuck," I groaned then shoved the heel of my hand into the raging boner in my shorts.

Sitting outside the movie theater in my SUV waiting for Jamie to show up for date five, I was not happy with the erection popping to life down yonder. "Chill out." I inhaled and exhaled. My dick didn't follow suit. "Stupid thing." I gave it another shove then tried to bring up some mental images of something disgusting. The only thing I could envision was a shudder-worthy memory of my great Aunt Tippie modeling the bikini she'd worn to catch Uncle Roger's eye back in 1968.

A sharp rap on the window jarred me out of the horrors of Tippie in that crocheted bikini. I blinked at Jamie smiling at me through my window. I smiled back, peeked down at my now flaccid prick, and then exited my SUV.

"You looked a thousand miles away," Jamie said as he leaned in to kiss my cheek. I really wanted to turn my head to meet his lips, but I bussed him back. All friendly and not Grabby McGrabby Hands the way I wanted to.

"Reliving childhood trauma," I confessed as I held out my hand. He threaded his fingers through mine as he glanced at me with mild confusion. The night was a sticky one, rain was being predicted for the area. Sorely needed rain as the woods were dry as tissue paper. Everyone in this state lived in a heightened awareness of how easy a wildfire started. And those nimrods who didn't heed the fire conditions needed a sharp kick in the balls. "Nothing too severe, just an old lady in a skimpy swimsuit."

"Gods, that's quite the trauma." A rolling rumble of thunder moved over the city, and we both glanced skyward. "We'd best get into the theater. I don't want to get my new silk shirt and coat wet."

He did look fantastic. Always so well-dressed and perfectly groomed. Some nights I felt like a schlub next to him. People were probably wondering what this stunningly smart and sexy man was doing with a puck-pushing jock. I wondered that myself almost every day. Then I thanked my lucky stars that Jamie seemed to be into big jocks.

We'd just entered the lobby of a retro theater, recently redone to resemble an old movie palace, when the first raindrops began to fall.

"Just in time," Jamie noted, then tried to offer me money for his ticket. I paid before he could argue too vehemently. "I'm buying the snacks."

"Works for me." I'd not had time to eat since lunch. I'd spent the afternoon at a car dealership, the same one I bought my new car from, shooting a commercial. Then I'd raced to a dyslexia support group over in Glendale where I'd sat with parents, educators, and caregivers of kids with learning disabilities. We'd discussed my journey, the ups and downs of parenting dyslexic kids, and the recent bill giving several million dollars to local schools to enhance their early intervention for children with learning disabilities programs. I'd been scheduled for an hour, but I was there for three with only some terrible coffee to fill my belly.

Ten minutes later, we headed to the theater with our arms loaded. Well, my arms were loaded, Jamie had a diet soda and some gummy bears.

"That might be the largest accumulation of junk food I have ever seen." He chuckled as we found our seats in the back row—far left—and settled in.

"Crispin, the new team dietician, would birth a water buffalo if he saw this." I snickered, placing my jumbo popcorn with extra butter on the thigh closest to Jamie so he could dip into the tub if he so desired. I tore into the first of five candy bars then washed it down with a few sips of my lemon-lime soda.

"So, since we have time to kill, let's pick up our getting-to-know-you game from the last date," he suggested, then popped a red bear into his mouth. I nodded with a mouth full of nougat and caramel. The crash from all of this sugar was going to be epic. "I'll go first. What was the name of your first pet?"

"Mm, easy. Her name was Piggles. She was the meanest Guinea pig ever to walk the earth. My sister lived in abject fear of Piggles. To this day she's leery of anything smaller than a cat."

Jamie laughed softly before eating a grape bear. He was so meticulous. One bear at a time, chew politely, swallow, and then pick another bear. I'd probably dump half the box into my pie hole at once. I loved that about him.

"My turn." I washed down candy bar three with more soda. "Do British people get schooling in being fussy?"

"‘Fussy'?" He sat up in a huff, touched his chest, and gave me an icy look. "I am not fussy."

"You eat one bear at a time," I pointed out. He pursed his lips. "And you fold and iron your hankies. Your hair is always on point, and your trousers always have a crease pressed into them. Oh, and you dust off my car seat with that crisp handkerchief before you sit in it. Shall we even mention the waistcoats, which I think are amazing and super-hot? Ergo and to whit, you are an adorable fussbudget."

"I'm not roasting you like a chicken on a spit because you said I was adorable." I winked at him and got a playful eye roll in return. "The reason I dust off your car seat is because they generally have a fine coating of orange Wotsits dust."

"Okay, yeah, that's totally fair, they do."

He waggled a brow, just a bit, and then stole some popcorn from the bucket.

"I will say that your using ergo and to whit has my dick a little hard."

I nearly choked on my bite of candy bar number four. The lights lowered, and then they flickered several times before going off. A moment or two passed with no preview trailers, the only lights in the theater from cellphones and emergency exit signs over the doors.

"Must be the power is out," Jamie said in the dark.

"Do you want to leave or wait and see if it comes back on?" I asked as several people rose and made their way to the lobby. The film was an older one, a classic noir black and white from the forties that Jamie and I both loved. That was one thing we'd discovered about each other now we were talking and not rutting like wild stags. We both love the old detective flicks. Tonight, it was supposed to be The Maltese Falcon so, as you'd expect, the ticket holders were few and far between.

"I'm not in a rush to dash out into a deluge. Let's just see what happens."

So, we sat, talked, and waited with only the subtle light from the exit signs. "Tell me about your first crush," he prompted, then plucked one popped kernel from the tub. He was such a fussy, tidy, sexy man.

"I was four, and I told my father I was going to marry this boy called Julian." I wiped my buttery fingers on a wad of sticky napkins shoved between my thighs. "My parents weren't surprised. I don't recall saying much about Julian other than he had red hair and threw sand at Oscar the Biter."

"Oh dear, a biter. Nothing worse," Jamie replied with humor, then plucked another bite of popcorn from the tub. "Unless you're talking about vampires, then a neck nibble is just fine. What do you think of the new vampire series?"

"Oh, the one with the big guy and the witches, and?—"

"Yeah."

"Jeez, I think I'd be happy to be bitten by any of the men on that show," I replied honestly before taking the final bite of candy bar five, a peanut and caramel delight. "Now, tell me about your first crush."

"Mm, well, her name was Penelope. I was about five or so, and she lived next to us. I think it was more a case of my mum and her mum pushing us together as parents like to do. As if, at five, you want or even care about having a girlfriend or boyfriend. Quite silly all of it, and then there's the assumption that a boy will automatically gravitate to a female. Yes, the chances are higher, but I do think that we need to stop pushing a heteronormative agenda on our children. Were your parents upset that you decided on young Julian as a future spouse?"

"Not really. Dad was incredibly accepting of the queer community. He has a cousin who's a lesbian. And my mom tells me that she suspected I was queer way before Julian entered my life. Seems I lived for RuPaul's Drag Race ."

"I do love drag queens. Did you ever paint your face?"

"All the time. Mom has pictures."

"Mm, interesting. Would you ever consider a dash of eyeliner or some lipstick now?"

I paused in my chewing. He was quite intent on my reply. "If it was something to titillate a special lover, I might be willing to doll up a bit. How do you feel about men in corsets and stockings?"

"I think I look rather sexy in them."

I choked on a kernel. He thumped my back. "We'd best get back on track. Where was I? Oh yes, Penelope. Our garden fences were slotted, and she would pass me biscuits through the slots and ask for a kiss in exchange."

"Did she butter them?"

"The kisses?"

"What? I… no, the biscuits. They're dry if you don't have some butter or jelly on them."

"No, oh gods, you Americans. A cookie. She passed me a cookie through the slot."

"Oh, a cookie." He reached over the tub to rub his fingers on the napkins held between my thighs. The back of his fingers slid over my leg. It was like grabbing hold of an electric fence if that fence was hooked on a direct line to your balls. One soft touch. Massive jolt of lust. I gasped and jerked, spilling some popcorn on the floor. "Damn, ticklish. Sorry. Cookies, right, cookies for kisses."

Jamie sat there like a statue, his gaze locked on me as I stuttered on about trading cookies for kisses.

"We could have been doing that. Penelope was quite clever now that I think on it," he said, his hand settling on my thigh.

"I don't have any cookies," I blurted then winced at my dumb reply. It was hard to think with all my blood now pooled in my groin. My dick throbbed. If the tub had been a few inches to the right, my cock would have knocked it to the floor.

"Popcorn for kisses."

"Oh, yeah, popcorn for kisses. We should have been. That Penelope was quite the budding businesswoman. How many cookies did you swap?"

"About a dozen. Got a terrible stomach ache and a lecture about kissing people through the garden fence." He moved his hand, thank God, and lifted a single kernel from the tub, his fingers glistening in the dim light. I watched, spellbound, as he placed it on his tongue and then pulled it into his mouth. The way he chewed was hot. "Now, since I got a treat, you get a kiss."

"Okay," I said brilliantly.

Words were too hard to untangle right now. On good days—with no sensual Brit leaning over an armrest with a cup of soda resting in it—my head had fits with vocabulary. With his lips pressed to mine, there was no way I was cooking up anything witty to say. Which was totally fine with me. I had better things to do with my tongue than articulate. It was put to much better use sliding between his buttery, salty, plush lips. I placed my hand on the back of his neck, massaging the nape, as his tongue met and then knotted with mine. The kiss was wet, sloppy, and hot. He made these delightful little sounds of pleasure that took me right back to our night of lust and how bossy of a bottom he had been. I wanted to peel him out of his pretty clothes, throw his glasses aside, and plow his ass like a newly worked alfalfa field.

An unexpected burst of sound and light filled the theater. We parted guiltily, both of us panting softly. The film choked a few times, skipping right to the scene of San Francisco then a close-up of a window overlooking the city, SPADE AND ARCHER painted on the glass.

"Much as I love Bogart I'd rather look at your face," I whispered my confession. He reached up to stroke my cheek. A few people returned and took their seats.

"We'll return to kissing later," he confided before letting his head come to rest on my shoulder.

Later was good. Not as good as right now but given we had to share the musty theater with five other people I'd have to settle for later. I sat back to drink in Sam Spade rolling a smoke as Effie informed him about a knockout dame in the outer office.

The next hour and forty minutes raced by. Even though I knew the movie inside and out, it never lost its appeal to me, and to Jamie, it seemed, as he was smiling throughout the screening. When Sam walked off holding the Falcon after uttering that famous line about the stuff that dreams are made of, the seven of us in the theater applauded loudly. The lights slowly rose in brightness.

"How great is that movie?" I asked Jamie as we gathered up our trash and headed for the lobby. "I can watch that a thousand times."

"Same here. Oh hell." He sighed while I dumped the empty tub filled with candy wrappers into a large garbage can beside the snack shop. "It's still raining."

I turned to look out of the glass doors. The dark streets were puddled, the steady pitter-patter of rain hitting the puddles and making them dance.

"We can make a dash for it," I offered as the other moviegoers ran out into the deluge with coats or arms over their heads.

"Right. Let's do that then." He peeled off his waistcoat, balled it tightly, and then tucked it under his arm like a football. "On the count of three. One, two?—"

I bolted out of the door on two. I heard Jamie call me a wanker as I ran outside, the rain soaking me in no time. Jamie splashed after me, catching up when I skidded to a halt to wrap him in my arms.

"Oof! What the bloody hell are you doing?" He laughed out loud, his glasses dotted with rain, his hair flat to his head.

"We're doing the more kissing thing now," I said then captured his mouth. He sighed into the kiss, opening for me, his free hand clutching at my sodden shirt. We stood there under a flickering streetlight making out as if it were a clear night. We only broke apart when a low rumble of thunder rolled over us. I drew back, just an inch, and cupped his wet cheek. "I think we should do lots more dating and kissing."

"I so agree. Shall we stroll to the cars?"

"Yes." He took my arm, and we sashayed to our rides, sniggering madly, as the heavens rained down. Anyone passing by may have heard us humming "Singing in the Rain" amid the snorts and giggles of two men falling deeply into feelings for each other.