Between Want and Need To

Between Want and Need To by Kris Dylan

Torquere Press www.torquerepress.com

Copyright ©2006 by Kris Dylan First published in www.torquerepress.com, 2006 NOTICE: This eBook is licensed to the original purchaser only. Duplication or distribution to any person via email, floppy disk, network, print out, or any other means is a violation of International copyright law and subjects the violator to severe fines and/or imprisonment. This notice overrides the Adobe Reader permissions which are erroneous. This eBook cannot be legally lent or given to others. This eBook is displayed using 100% recycled electrons.

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Between Want and Need To by Kris Dylan

Prologue The clock says 5:45 A.M. We're early risers and we're usually up by now, but we hit a few clubs last night. Josh got drunk, and now he's lying on his stomach with his arms curled and tucked under the pillow, sleeping like a baby, naked under the greenish-gray cotton sheets. He looks so cute. I sit against the headboard and watch him for a few minutes, just taking him in, his freckled shoulders, his lean back, his silky red-gold hair falling over his face. The mounds of his ass are plump and tempting under the sheets, and I start to get an erection. It's time for him to wake up anyway, I reason to myself. Sliding over, I grab the corner of the sheet and inch it off him, trying not to wake him, until it falls free and his beautiful curved butt cheeks and long legs are exposed. I position myself on my knees straddling his legs, looking down at the huge scar on his right thigh and hip where the skin grafts took hold. He hides them from most people, but I think they're beautiful. I lightly put my hands on his cheeks. He shifts in his sleep and lets out a little grunt, starting to surface. Grinning, I use my hands to gently spread his ass, exposing his tight pinkish hole. Before he can ease awake, I lean down and start licking the tender skin. "Jesus, fuck!" Josh is instantly awake, uttering his favorite filthy exclamation of shock and pleasure, while my tongue circles his cute butt hole. His taste and his scent overwhelm me. I have no hesitation about doing this now. It's not something I do daily, but when I do, I make sure I do it right. 3

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His hands grip the bed as he whimpers and lifts his ass to my face, spread out under me, writhing on the sheets. I stiffen my tongue into a hard spear and push it in, past the ring of his sphincter that tightens, flexes, and allows me in eagerly. Slowly, I move it in and out, teasing. "Oh God," he breathes. "Don't stop; don't stop." I laugh softly, pulling away long enough to speak. "Good morning." "Fuck, yes, it is," he chokes. "Like it, baby?" "Oh, yeah..." "Want me to make it even better?" He doesn't answer with words, answering instead with just a long, whimpering groan. It's a little game we play. I pretend to make him beg for it; he pretends to love it. Except we're really not pretending. I grab the lube from next to the lamp and warm it with my fingers the way he instructed me the very first time. I don't need the verbal guidance anymore, because I know exactly how hard, how deep, and how fast he wants it. Closing his eyes, he gives himself to me without hesitation. That's his gift, complete and total trust, the one thing he gives me that I value above anything else. When my fingers slide in, there's no resistance. I start with two this time instead of just one, and already he demands more. I could fuck him right now without any more preparation, but I want him to be completely open and ready for it, on the edge. I know the moment, the signal his body sends me, tuned into my own needs. When the time comes, I 4

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do it in one long, smooth stroke, and we both cry out as I bury myself all the way to the hilt, filling him. "Finn." He groans my name, and my heart starts hammering in my chest. I haven't even moved yet. We lie together, completely still, Josh stretched out and pinned under me, legs spread, arms above his head in total surrender. He knows exactly what I need. I wait until I feel his unspoken signal that he's ready, and then I move. "Oh..." He's supposed to be the one on the edge. I pictured a long, deep, slow fuck in which I drove him crazy before I came myself, but as soon as I move, it's all over. Heat floods me and I'm drowning. My body is already doing the fast dance, and I force my hips to stop jerking, throwing my weight completely onto Josh's back, pushing him into the mattress to stop his movements against me. I close my eyes and take in a deep breath, but just being sheathed inside him, I can't stop the pleasure from building. I'm lost. Nothing to do but give in to it. Fast, too fast. As the hot waves grow more intense, I slide my tongue up his freckled back and bite my favorite spot, right where his shoulder curves into his neck. This little move always pushes us both over the edge. I bite harder and harder, sucking at the same time, he lets out a sharp cry of pain and pleasure, and then I explode like a million fireworks with one fuse. "Shit, Josh, I'm sorry," I groan as soon as I can speak, but he kind of laughs into the pillow as his back heaves with his breath. 5

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"Not so tough now, are you sport?" I pull out, wipe with the corner of the sheet in one swift motion, and roll him over to his back. "I couldn't help it, baby; you felt too good," I whisper as I lick his nipples. I'm an ass man, I admit; that and backs, more specifically Josh's back. Something about all those exotic freckles, and the lean way he's cut, makes me wild. That's why I usually fuck him from behind, so I can suck and kiss, nibble and bite his shoulders and his neck, while my chest slides over his sweaty back. Then I lick the sweat off and kiss away the sting of the bites. He grins at me with his ocean blue eyes all glazed. They roll back in his head when I grip his hips to hold him still and curl my tongue around the head of his gorgeous cock, closing my lips around the shaft and sliding down until my gag reflex makes me stop. His hands automatically go above his head to grip the iron headboard. Even when I'm sucking his dick, he knows exactly what I need. All our moves are practiced; none of this is new. But it's so good, novelty is the last thing on my mind. It's been over a year since I moved to L.A. We began in separate apartments to give each other time and space, and then we moved in together about eight months ago. Both of us travel a lot for work. Between our schedules, we often spend only about two weeks a month at home with both of us there at the same time. My friends say it keeps things fresh. Maybe they're right, but I know I can't wait for the time when we can be together every day. If we fight more, as my friends assure me we will, that'll be the price we pay. The only time we 6

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really fight is on the phone when we're in different cities. When we see each other in person, we don't have the time to waste bickering. Besides, there's no point in fighting. We both know Josh always wins. I don't have to control anything except my photo shoots and sex. As long as he lets me have the upper hand in bed, I'm happy to do whatever he wants any other time. I'm like a puppy dog following its master and wiggling its whole body excitedly every time it gets a pat on the head. Our friends think it's hysterical. "Finn," Josh lets out a strangled cry. I drive harder, using my hand, sliding my two first fingers inside his loosened ass, slick with my come, to brush his prostate. "Fuck!" He tightens his grip on the bars of the headboard; he twists under my hands, but he only moves in my comfort level. He knows I can't bear for him to thrust, or to grab me. If I feel like I can handle it, I tell him, but unless I do, he keeps his hands behind him, gripping something and letting me hold him down. Sometimes, I wonder if he resents everything he has to give up for me, if he wants to fuck somebody else who'll let him do all the things I can't. He says he doesn't, and most of the time, unless it's one of my bad days, I believe him. Josh lets out another cry, this time sharper and wordless; his balls draw up tight and I grab his hips and drive him forward, all the way to the back of my throat, so that my eyes water and I have to breathe deeply through my nose. It works; he makes that familiar sound he makes when he comes. He shoots and floods my throat with his thick, sticky 7

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come. I swallow quickly before I gag. A year ago, I couldn't let him come in my mouth. But now, as long as it's on my terms, I can do it. Love and therapy. Between the two of them, they move mountains.

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Between Want and Need To by Kris Dylan

Chapter One Models are such bitches. People not in the industry invariably say it when they're introduced. "It must be great working with so many beautiful women." Yeah, great. Those gorgeous, ethereal, steaming hot women you see in the magazines, gazing at you haughtily from the page, so far out of your league it hurts, are complete and total cunts. If they even know which end of their ass fits in the clothes, you're doing well. They sit in the chairs with the makeup and hair people swarming over them and doing everything but wiping their butts, smoking cigarettes with their pink Hello Kitty cell phones stuck to their ears, whining to their moms or their boyfriends or their agents about what hard work the shoot is, and how there aren't even any decent clubs. The male models are even worse. My friends groan in unison when I get started on this subject. For one thing, they're all young, like really young, no older than twenty-one. And, we all know what nineteen- and twenty-year-old boys think about all the time. The female models at least have the sense to avoid them, so they have no choice but to fuck each other. If they don't have a dick stuck in their mouth, they're doing coke and bickering and bragging about who they fucked last night. Fashion is the lowest form of photography. In grad school, we scorned anyone who dared express an interest in fashion shoots; a ten year old could take pictures of pretty girls in clothes. I had a degree in photojournalism and that's what I always wanted to do, the real stuff, the Pulitzer Prize stuff. 9

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Instead, I was in a motel room in Salton, Montana, the closest thing to a town they had near Glacier National Park, licking my wounds after the first day of a major catalog shoot. I'd gone from Pulitzer hopeful to camera-carrier in the five years since college, thanks to Spencer Schilling's dubious generosity. It started because a writer friend of mine, one who actually sold pieces, got sent by a rather prestigious mag to interview the legendary fashion photographer, Spencer Schilling, for a personality story about his years in the in trenches of the industry. This friend was aware of my dire financial footing and brought me in as the photographer. Intimidating work, taking pictures of the master picture taker himself; but I wasn't nervous, really. To me, he was just a fashion hack who made himself look good by making models look good. Nothing real or gritty about that, so I packed my camera gear and went with my friend Eliza to Schilling's loft studio. He wasn't as old as I'd expected. I thought he'd be a flamboyant older man, but actually, he was only fifty-ish, short, blond, rather introspective, dressed in conservative, very expensive clothes. His studio was muted and costly, his minions silently going about their business while Eliza did the interview. In the background, I did my light meters and my Polaroid proofs. The legend completely ignored me while I took a few candid shots during their discussion, getting a feel for the subject. "You. Ben." On my knees getting a perspective on a window for a potential background, I looked over my shoulder and realized 10

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the legend was standing behind me, watching me with interest. He walked with a cane and a limp. "Actually, it's Finn. Not Ben. Dixon." The legend nodded. "Finn. Interesting name. Tell me what you're doing here, what's your vision for my portraits?" Portraits? I told him my "vision," fully expecting him to shoot down every idea I had and rebuild the whole layout himself, instructing me exactly how to capture him. But, he didn't. He put himself in my hands and later, when Eliza was gone and the Polaroids were spread on his vast desk, which cost more than I'd earned last year, he nodded his head slowly. "I like these, Finn. Tell me about yourself." I did, what little there was to tell. "And is there a Mrs. Dixon? Maybe a little lady who'd like to be?" "That's a little personal, isn't it Mr. Schilling?" "Call me Lee. Does a little cub photo-j like yourself know who I am?" Of course, I did; I wasn't an idiot. I just looked into his steel-gray eyes levelly and said, "Should I?" That made the legend laugh so hard, he wiped a tear out of the corner of his eye. "You know, I'm looking for another assistant. Why don't you come down to my private studio Friday and talk to me about it. Lukas, bring Finn here the address." With a snap of his fingers, I found myself with a card in my hand, and two days later, he hired me. That was two years ago. Lee has never made a serious effort to get me in his bed, even though he has always made it clear the invitation 11

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stands. All of his assistants are young and male, with a certain look; I may fit his cookie-cutter mold, but the most important distinction is that I have never been his yes-man or his ass kisser. When he wants a real answer, he comes to me. My boss and I were not exactly what you'd call friends. I casually met his dates and lovers of both sexes but never let my own personal life into the picture. Really, Lee didn't seem to care about my personal life. All he cared about was when he called my cell phone at three in the morning, I always answered. There was no close family, no wife, no girlfriend, no boyfriend, not even a dog to keep me from jetting off to scout a location or eye fresh meat at a moment's notice, any time he needed me to. That was exactly the way he wanted it. I didn't just do his legwork anymore, though. I started out carrying his equipment, but now, I was actually behind the camera taking his pictures for him. Some days he didn't come to the sets at all, instead directing it all by cell phone. Literally, some days he called it in. For all this, he paid me extremely well. My friends might make fun of me for being in fashion rags, but they were more than happy to help me celebrate my new tax bracket, and at parties, they took me aside and whispered in my ear, could I get them a job. When I could, I did, using my secondhand connections. Seeing my photos, with Spencer Schilling's byline, in all the glossies was not exactly what I wanted to be doing with my career, but any time I suggested I might be looking for something more, Lee upped my salary and sent me on a swimsuit shoot on a tropical island somewhere. 12

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Salton, Montana was hardly a beach in Mexico. Making a pretty girl look good in a bikini on sparkling sand was a breeze; but this was not a no-brain six-page layout for a men's mag. This was something completely different. This was Northern Trading Co.'s fall catalog. The company was in the process of changing their image from dull, outdoorsy clothes to more high-fashion clothes and accessories, and the company execs had decided to shell out major bucks for Spencer Schilling to shoot their newest catalog. As I said, bikini layouts on a beach are easy, but this would be a challenge. The scenery, I'd discovered in my brief location scout today, was unbelievable. I'd never been to Montana. The mountains with their clear lakes and snow-capped peaks, the waterfalls, the endless sky. It was breathtaking. It wasn't just a matter of framing the scenery and putting people in it, wearing the catalog items. This wasn't a nature spread. The objective—and Lee and I had discussed this in his suite last night—was letting the scenery add to the clothes, not overtake them. So, the scenery had to be scaled down and the catalog items had to be featured. Still, that didn't mean I couldn't take my own photos during the off time. It seemed that was going to be about all there was to do in what little off time I had, because there wasn't fuck-all else going on at the resort where we were staying. I'd done shots of tequila with models in every Caribbean hot spot, done all the clubs in New York, Rio, and Europe. In tabloids, I'm sometimes the guy in the picture that no one recognizes, ducking behind the models as they dance on tables. There 13

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weren't any tables to dance on here in Salton, and many of the models on this shoot were underage. That meant the place was swarming with parents and agents; a guy needed to keep a low profile. "Shit, Finn." Lee was always telling me. "Find somebody who isn't a model. Someone with a brain. Models are human coat stands." "That doesn't seem to bother you, does it?" I knew all about him and his little models. There was probably one in his suite right now, even though he was getting to the point, physically, where he couldn't do much with them anymore. Lee had MS. He was pretty stable, but some days you could see him slipping: his hand shook, or he had trouble standing. Or, his vision would blur and he would completely leave the shoot, letting me wrap it up. The legend, despite himself, was realizing he was only human, and that scared him as much as being alone. In the daylight hours, I was hardly ever alone. I could party all night until the sun came up, and there were always a hundred people surrounding me, buying me drinks, wanting to be seen with me, set up a shoot with me, wanting me to discover them. They came up to my loft or I went to theirs. But before I slept, if I was out, I went home. If I was home, I said goodbye as they left, locked the door, and slept alone. Now here, in this hotel room that I'd call home for quite a few weeks, I checked the deadbolt for the last time and stared at the ceiling until dawn. Early morning is my favorite time of day. It must be the light, pale and promising, as well as the silent feeling that no 14

Between Want and Need To by Kris Dylan

one else exists. In my rental car, before anyone else stirred, I drove to the small mountain lake I'd discovered yesterday; my camera was on the seat next to me. I wanted to capture the moment when the sun exploded on the horizon and kissed the still waters. After I shot three entire rolls of film, I put the camera back in the car, went to the very edge of the water, and dipped my fingers. Cool, but not cold. It was early summer, and the warmth of the sun was gradually seeping through the winter chill. It was so still out here. I felt elated ... completely and totally free. The world was empty, just me, the lake, the birds and the trees, and mountains sprawling majestically in front of me. Quickly I looked to the road where my car waited; there were no other vehicles in sight. I stripped off my Tshirt, my jacket, my jeans, boots and socks, and then my underwear. Fucking hell! The water was cold, colder than I'd dreamed it could be when I jumped in. My balls shriveled up, seeking warmth, but after a few minutes of swimming, I started to lose my chill. The water was invigorating as I went under and then floated peacefully on my back, watching the sunrise lighten the sky from gray, to peach, to blue. For the first time in a very long time, I relaxed. "Hey, buddy, if you don't hurry, you'll miss the cattle call." Badly startled, I sank like a stone in the cold water, sputtering while my heart hammered in my chest. When I bobbed up, rubbing the water from my eyes, I saw a man in hiking gear standing at the edge of the water, right next to my clothes, grinning at me. Cute, with short strawberry blond 15

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hair and a dusting of freckles, an open, friendly face with a little reddish goatee. Cute, but definitely not a model. Obviously, he'd been studying me as I swam naked, and he thought I was a model. Slowly, I got out of the water and started drying myself off with my T-shirt, pulling on my boxers with my back to him. Not like he hadn't seen everything already. Over my shoulder, I noticed he was watching my ass in appreciation with his arms crossed. Shit, it was cold. My nipples were as hard as little pebbles. "You on the shoot, too?" "Yeah," he answered behind me. "And there's an eight o'clock round-up this morning, so you better hurry if you don't want to get chewed out. I hear the camera jockey Schilling has running the shoot is a real asshole." "Oh, really?" I asked, wide-eyed as I put my jeans on, playing the role of an empty-headed pretty boy. "Who is he?" "Some jack-off named Dixon. I haven't met him yet." "Mm hmm," I agreed as if I recognized the name. "Yeah, he's a real fucker. What's your name?" "Joshua Kinney." He stuck out his hand and I shook it after zipping my pants. Naked was an odd way to meet someone socially. "I'm on the style team." I nodded, scrutinizing him a minute. Stylist, eh? "I wonder if it's going to get hot," I said brightly, keeping up my deception. "Aren't we starting outerwear today?" "That's what's on the call sheet." His eyes lingered over me again and then he looked into my eyes and smiled quite charmingly. "Maybe I'll see you on one of the sets." 16

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"Oh, you can count on that." I simpered, grinning, as I picked up my boots and went back to the car. I pretended not to hear when he called after me, asking my name. The cattle call, as my little early morning visitor called it, was the official start to the day. That's when all the models reported in. The style team selected the models they wanted to use, and the photo team went over the shooting schedule with the set coordinators, while the models went off to hair and makeup. We had a stable of about thirty models on this one, fifteen each of girls and boys. To make fittings easier, they were all roughly the same physical size, 5'11", 120 for girls, 6'1", 170 for boys; and in keeping with the company's new image, they were all young and fresh-faced. Typical meat. As I followed Lee into the conference room that would serve as our meeting spot each morning, I wasn't impressed with any of the faces. In order to take really good photos, I needed my libido involved. When it was good, photographing someone could be almost as good as fucking them, so when someone turned me on, the resulting photos really showed it; and if they didn't, the photos told that story, too. Usually on a shoot, one or two models will stand out, but this time they all looked pretty much the same to me. Various colorings, but all variations of the same blonde-blue theme. Vacant-eyed, vapid and boring. No one I wanted to fuck or take pictures of in the whole room. Lee had quite the entourage: Lukas, his personal secretary; me, official camera jockey; Austin, the lighting and equipment guru; Jake, another photography assistant; and the one and only female, Gemma, who more or less did 17

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everything else that needed done. Legends always need a lot of people to follow them around and tell them how great they are. "People," Lee announced while Lukas clapped his hands for attention. Stylists, layout and wardrobe people, models all turned around from the cappuccinos and fruit trays to stare. I noticed out of the corner of my eyes the redheaded guy from the lake this morning. He was staring at me with wide eyes, realizing because of my position right behind Spencer Schilling that I wasn't part of the herd, realizing just who I might be. "My vision for this catalog is rugged beauty. This vision demands commitment and total dedication and hard work. To guide you, look to this young man." He grabbed my shoulder with his shaky hand. "Finn Dixon will be doing all the location shoots. His orders are my orders. Now get to work." The room fell into a frenzy of activity, and I headed with Austin and Jake to get the equipment loaded for the shoot we were setting up down on the rustic boat dock this morning, leaving Lee to do what he did best, schmooze and drink champagne while we did the actual work. Through the mob, Gemma was trucking up to me dragging an impeccable middle aged woman, and following in their wake was the redhead from the lake this morning, hanging his head with realization as he met my eyes. "Finn, I want you to meet Lila Moore. She's the head stylist." I shook her hand while Gemma continued. "You two are going to be great friends, I just know it. And, this is one of her stylists. Josh, is it? This is the assistant photographer, Finn Dixon. You'll be working with him a lot." 18

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I turned around and grinned into Josh's sheepish green eyes, shaking his hand firmly for the second time today. "Hi, Josh. I'm the jack-off." Gemma and Lila Moore gave me matching confused looks at that comment, but neither of them said anything, and a moment later Gemma led the older woman off to approach Lee. Josh turned to me, his face flaming. Redheads flush so easily; it was fun to humiliate them. "I'm so embarrassed." "Don't be," I said generously, and I gave him a positively wicked smile. "You're right. I am an asshole." "I just had no idea you'd be so ... young." His blush deepened. "I was expecting an older guy. I just assumed you were a model because you're so..." I didn't expect him to say good-looking. I wasn't ugly, but God, no one could accuse me of being a male model. "I'm twenty-eight." "You don't look it." Flattery was wasted on me. Impatiently I turned away. "Get my shooting schedule and make sure your set is ready when I get there." **** "I hate this project, Lee." Over lunch on the lodge's veranda later, I vented some of my disgust. "Have you seen these models? I'd fall into a boredom-induced coma if I weren't so pissed off. What are the clients thinking, for shit's sake?" 19

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He waved his hand dismissively, knocking back his third glass of chardonnay. "Yes, yes, it's putrid, but that's not our problem. We just take pictures of the damn thing. Besides, it's only the first day." He gave me his most winning smile. "If you don't like the styling, talk to your friend over there." He nodded toward redheaded Josh, across the room eating salad and laughing with some models. "Better yet, why don't you ask him out? He likes you, you know." "Fuck you." I threw down my fork and stalked off, ignoring Lee's laughter. He loved getting me worked up. "It's just a job." He always told me that. I knew that, knew it perfectly well. It wasn't even my name on it; it was Lee's, so the piece of shit really belonged to him and not me. However, I had a hard time being the lead cameraman in a shoot where I hated everything. Lee said I'd get used to it, but I thought he was dead wrong, especially if getting used to it really meant selling out any artistic ideals and personal principles I might still possess. In the dark hallway that led upstairs my room, I sighed wearily and sank against the wall, burying my face in my hands. What was I doing there? After another sleepless night in my hotel bed, the next morning found me back at the lake, naked in the cold water, rolls of film and camera next to my clothes. Before yesterday I'd never skinny-dipped in my entire life; in fact, I'd never been naked outdoors before. But the truth was, now I was addicted. It was amazing. While I swam, my mind went completely blank of all thoughts except the present; underwater I opened my eyes and, even though it stung a bit, the water was so clear I could seemingly see forever. A 20

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thousand pounds of stress sheeted off my skin as I surfaced, pushing my black hair out of my face. This time I wasn't surprised to see Josh Kinney squatting on the riverbank in his hiking clothes, grinning at me across the crystal-smooth surface of the water while the sun inched higher behind him. "You're fucking crazy, you know that?" he called cheerfully. For a moment, I actually forgot how much I hated the world, and I almost smiled. "You should come in, too. The water feels incredible." "No way I'm freezing my balls off in that water." He watched as I treaded water, head, and shoulders bobbing. I was not ready to get out yet. It was warmer in the water than it was out at this point. "What're you doing out here so early?" "Stress relief," I called back. "What about you?" "You know, communing with nature and all that." He sat down on a big rock and crossed his legs. "I love hiking, and it's so nice this time of morning. Also, I thought you might be here again." "Here I am." I went under the water again, leaving him to his communing. I hadn't asked him to come; I wasn't obligated to talk to him just because he showed up. He could leave anytime he liked, but he didn't leave. When I resurfaced, he was holding my camera, pointing it at me, clicking the shutter, taking my picture. "Hey!" I didn't like anyone touching my gear, especially this particular camera, my first. Finally I got out of the water and 21

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grabbed the towel I'd brought this time, drying off with my back to him, just like yesterday. Only this time, now that he knew I was nominally his superior, he didn't watch quite so openly. "I hate having my picture taken," I bitched. "Yes, you'd rather hide behind the camera so no one can glimpse the real you. Have you looked at the proofs from yesterday?" He asked suddenly, before I could ask him what the hell he meant by his statement. "Don't talk about the shoot." I shook my head to make it go away. "This is the only chance I get not to think about it." "Look, Finn. You're not happy. It's obvious you hate my work and I'd like to know why." "It's not you." I heaved a sigh. "You're good at your job, but I'm not going to talk about it now. If you can't stop talking about it, then you need to go." "Fine, but I do need to discuss this with you. Why don't you meet me for dinner tonight and we can talk about what you're so pissed off about." He got up, looking less friendly than before. "I'll meet you in the lobby at eight." Again, I sighed, resigning myself to the inevitable. "Okay." I had looked at the proofs from yesterday's shoot. Hundreds of them, just as dismal as I expected. I'd had another tantrum with Lee in his suite at midnight last night, the proofs spread out around us, pacing and ranting after Lukas and Gemma had gone to their rooms. Lee had just sighed.

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"Then fucking do something about it, Finn. But remember, if we turn in this project and it isn't what the client wants, I don't get paid. And if I don't get paid, I can't pay you." "Not everything's about money," I'd muttered. "Sure it is. If it isn't about money, it's about cock. When was the last time you got laid anyway?" "That, my friend," I grabbed the remains of the wine bottle we'd been sharing and took it with me to the door, "is none of your goddamn business."

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Chapter Two In my room as I lay sleepless in the dark, I thought about his question. Maybe it had been a while. So what? I could get laid anytime I wanted, and I did, often. Lately I just ... hadn't felt like it. It wasn't that I couldn't get an erection. I had one practically every morning, but after I peed, it went away and didn't come back, no matter how many gorgeous, emptyheaded models of either sex tried to make it appear. I didn't think about sex. I didn't fantasize about sex. Even masturbation had lost its fun. Before leaving New York, I'd set up a whole evening with red wine, which always makes me horny, and my favorite porn movie, but before it even got to the interesting part, I was asleep. At night, I tossed and turned, sleepless, riding waves of anxiety and frustration. I wanted something, but I had no idea what it was. It had always been this way with me. There was an emptiness inside me, and no amount of booze, drugs, or mindless sex could make the ache go away. The only thing that ever made it stop was work. Even if I wasn't happy with what I had to work with, I was sure as shit going to do it to the best of my abilities. I didn't need Josh Kinney to tell me most of the people I worked with couldn't stand me. That was a consequence of being a workaholic, and people hate a workaholic, especially one who's in charge of things. Only Gemma really understood me, and when I was about to lose it, she knew exactly the right thing to say that would calm me down. Despite a bumpy start, we were great friends, almost like a brother and sister who bickered but 24

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really loved each other. She was my softer side, filtering my demands to make them less abrupt, letting them go down easier. The second day was just as bad as the first. Not that things weren't going well; on the contrary, for a location shoot, everything was moving like clockwork. Every member of Lila Moore's style team was perfect at their jobs, the hair and makeup people were consummate professionals; even the models behaved themselves. At the end of the day the proofs were sleek and styled and just what the client wanted. Lee was beaming and benevolent. All I could think about was how much I needed a drink, interspersed with fantasies of quitting the fashion business for good. What else would I do, though? Away from Lee's studio, I was a nobody. I didn't even have a portfolio to show; all my photos had been published under his name. He had me trapped, dead to rights, that sly bastard. At about eight-thirty there was a knock at my door; I jumped up from the bed with the sudden realization that I'd forgotten all about meeting Josh for dinner. When I opened the door, he was standing there frowning questioningly, arms crossed, wearing a black suede jacket that set off his red-gold coloring. Photographers notice that kind of detail. "I'm so sorry. If you want to come in, I'll get ready. Five minutes." "If you don't want to go that's fine," he said, but he came in when I stepped back from the door. "No, I'm hungry ... I just forgot." He'd already seen me naked before at the lake, so I didn't have a problem undressing in front of the open closet and 25

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putting on some different clothes, variations on what I always wore, jeans and a black pull-on with boots. In the meantime, he was looking at some of the proofs in a stack on my bed. When I turned around, he was holding the shot he'd taken of me this morning, emerging bare-chested from the cold lake, my eyes still closed and my hands pushing the water out of my face. Droplets splashed from my elbows and chin into the water rippling across its smooth surface. "You look good." I shrugged. "It's the scenery." A spectacular view of the lake and the mountains framed the shot. I didn't tell him he'd taken a really excellent photo. Sometimes people get lucky. Salton, Montana didn't exactly have a booming nightlife, but Josh knew of a good steakhouse. The food was pretty basic, no duck breast in artichoke reduction or anything like that, which was fine with me. He had a salad, while I had barbecued shrimp and three beers before our steaks came. I was so tired of salads. That's all the resort catered to the shoot; models only eat lettuce leaves and drink bottled water, even though most of them are fifteen and look like sticks. Disgusting. Gemma might be a little overweight, but at least she ate food. Josh hadn't said much and neither did I. I was never good at small talk. Without a camera between me and the rest of the world, I was usually pretty uneasy, silent. Instead, I just ate my way through everything on the table. I was so obsessive, sometimes I forgot to eat, and today had been one of those days. I didn't even know how hungry I was until the food was in front of me, and then I couldn't get enough. 26

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Steak, fried onions, garlic mashed potatoes swimming in butter with sautéed mushrooms. "Good thing you're not a model," Josh laughed as he watched me, his eyebrows raised. "Even as skinny as you are, the way you put it away, you'd never make it." "Yeah, I know what I'd have to do," and I pretended to stick my finger down my throat, grinning. "You know," he said after a pause, "that's the first time I've actually seen you really smile. At least, when you weren't being a jerk." I glanced up at him. I'd thought his eyes were green, but now I saw the blue in them, like the waters of Mexico. Quickly I looked away, ignoring the slight increase in my pulse. What was wrong with me? "Well ... don't get used to it." "I won't." He pushed his plate back. "Think we can talk about the shoot now?" "I guess so," I answered wearily. I'd had about eight beers now, including the ones I drank in my room before he showed up, so it was probably time. "I don't have a problem with your work. I already told you that. I just don't like this project, period." "Is it the concepts, the models, the location?" "The location is amazing. But everything else makes me sick." I proceeded to explain to him in careful detail everything I objected to about the project. Unlike Lee, who blew me off, Josh listened closely to everything I said. "Really, the clothes aren't as bad as the concept sketches make them look. Sure, they're mass merchandise, they're certainly not couture, but they're okay." Jesus, did the word 27

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"couture" just come out of my mouth? It sure did, just as sure as I was sitting at this table in Armani jeans. "But whoever outlined this layout approached it like it was a weekly Target sale flier." He laughed and I started to warm up to my subject, telling him how I thought the layouts could be improved and so forth. Everything Lee told me to just forget about, that I'd get used to it. At the end, Josh completely agreed with me. "I've been saying the same things to Lila since we saw the initial sketches, Finn, but we have to do what we're told. I don't have the power to circumvent what the client already approved and neither do you." "No." Hearing my name on his lips gave me an odd feeling in my gut, but I pushed the awareness back. Suddenly the wheels in my brain started to crank, and I looked up with a gleam in my eye. "I don't, but Lee does. They paid him a hell of a lot of money to make this catalog look good, so they should get their money's worth, shouldn't they?" "But will he let you do that?" Josh protested. "I do what I want." He looked at me and saw by my face that this wasn't bragging; this was fact. He grinned. "Well ... what do you have in mind? And what can I do to help?" I started outlining my plan as we had another couple of drinks. When the check came Josh made to pay it but I shook my head and pulled out my Visa platinum card, the one with Spencer Schilling's name on it. "Business expense," I told him breezily as the waitress took it away. "Let the boss pay for it." "He's good to you, isn't he?" 28

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"I guess so, in his own twisted little way." "And are you two..." He made a little motion with his hand. "Absolutely not." I shook my head adamantly so there could be no mistake. Quickly I continued telling him about the plan I was concocting in my head. Tomorrow's shooting schedule was very easy. Lee could get his own ass behind the camera, or have Jake do the work, and Josh thought he could get the others on his team to cover for him on the set. "You said you like hiking, right? Well, tomorrow you and I are going to do a location scout." "What about models? Do you want me to pick them, or is there a certain look you're after?" His questions were very shrewd. Josh was extremely good at what he did. I'd been watching him on the sets, and he was just as detail-obsessed as I am. If I was going to do the shoot I had in mind, I needed a stylist. This wasn't going to be part of the main schedule, under the watchful eyes of the layout people. This was going to be my own concept, but even though a good photographer can style his own shoot if need be, I really preferred not to be bothered by those details if I could help it. I was getting used to being part of a professional team, where everyone plays their own part, instead of having to do everything myself. It was only when I stepped behind camera that I became the ultimate control freak. "Does anyone stand out to you? I know. Bring the book to my room tonight so I can see if anything grabs me. I don't know if I'll find what I'm looking for, but at least that's a start." 29

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When he drove us back to the resort through the gorgeous Montana night, I was a little drunk but incredibly relaxed. The night sky enthralled me. I'd been so busy brooding in my hotel room I hadn't even really looked at it. It was so big, bigger than anything I'd ever seen, bigger than the whole world. Filled with a million stars and a silver moon that looked like something out of a dream. Suddenly it was imperative that I take this time to experience it. "Pull over, Josh." Without asking why, he obeyed; he probably thought I needed to pee because he just sat there in the car for a minute as I got out and walked a few feet away from the road, into a little field, and looked up. "God, it's incredible." He walked up behind me, looking up, and I gave him a quick glance in the silvery moonlight. I breathed deeply, tasting the sweet unpolluted air, filling my whole body. Suddenly I did something really odd: I spread my arms out, gazing up at the sky, and spun around until I was so dizzy everything swam before me. "So many stars. In New York, you can't see the stars, there's too much light pollution." "Yeah," he answered simply. Now he wasn't looking up at the sky anymore, he was looking at me. It surprised me when he was suddenly standing very close, not in my face, but definitely inside my personal comfort zone. I took a quick startled breath and stepped back just as he moved a little bit closer. "We better go, I want to get those head shots from you." 30

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"Okay," he said softly as we headed back to the car. We didn't say anything else until we'd gotten back to the hotel and he told me he'd be up in a few minutes with the photos. In the dark, I closed the door behind me and leaned against it. I didn't consider myself gay. Really, I didn't consider myself anything. I liked girls and guys about equally, it seemed, and that amounted to an equal disinterest. Sex was fine, usually with girls, as long as it was quick and meaningless, and as far as guys went, receiving—not giving— an occasional blowjob was as intimate as I wanted to get. The walls around me were towering, and no one ever glimpsed what was behind them. I wasn't gay, so what I felt for Josh was friendship. Made sense. He was a nice guy, smart, talented, and funny. We were going to work together on this shoot, so we might as well be friends, at least as long as we were in Montana. When he knocked softly, I let him in; I got him a drink from my mini-fridge and flipped on the light. He sat next to me on the bed and I went through the big three ring binder where the stylists kept numbered photos of all the available models. Almost like a mug shot book at the police station, except the talent was a little better. "See anything." "They all look the fucking same to me." "Yeah, you're right." He was quiet a second. I was very aware of his presence, his brilliant aqua eyes gazing at me. "You know, Finn, I'd like to see some of your work. Not what you shoot for Schilling, but some of your own stuff. Do you have any with you?" 31

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"Um, a few." I got up and dug a manila envelope out of one of my camera bags. While he went through the photos, I looked at the model book, but they really did blend into one another, swimming before my eyes. "These are really good," Josh suddenly said. "But you knew that." I shrugged. "You're wasting yourself, Finn." "Don't I know it." "I especially like these." On the bedspread, he laid out some photos I'd taken at Central Park the summer before. Tourist pictures of fountains and the skyline bored me. These were photos of the old men who gathered in the morning to play chess. I'd shot them in black and white, but they starkly captured that early light I loved so much, along with the faces of the subjects. In my photos, I rarely shot the subject's eyes looking directly into the camera. They say the eyes are a window to the soul; but in my opinion, where the eyes were looking told its own story. "Yeah, I like those, too," I said, smiling at them as I remembered the morning I shot them. Josh stacked up the photos and put them back in the envelope. Then he suddenly turned to me very purposefully and looked into my eyes. I knew what was about to happen, but I froze like a deer in the headlights. I didn't even breathe as he leaned in and captured my lips with his mouth. For a second I couldn't think, let alone move. His lips were so soft. The tip of his tongue slipped out and traced the line of my lower lip. I'd never had a kiss like this before, sensual but innocent. Then he drew back to take a breath and a cold sweat surged over me. My hands went up against his chest 32

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and he retreated, surprised as I pushed, shaking my head no. Bright spots of color came into his cheeks and he looked horrified. "Shit," he breathed. "I'm so sorry. Why do I keep making an ass of myself with you? I thought you were gay. I mean, not that you ... Fuck." "I know. Don't worry about it." I did a pretty good job of laughing it off, or at least I tried. "It's not the first time. Just forget it." "I think I'll just go stick my head in the oven now." The blush was receding, and now he was laughing in an embarrassed way, which let me relax enough to joke. Especially because, since we were in the hotel, there was no real oven to be found. "You know nothing gets crisp in a microwave. I'm not upset, okay. Just meet me in the lobby around six tomorrow morning, ready to do some hiking." I got up and he went with me to the door. "Bye." "Finn, I'm really..." "Would you shut up already?" "Okay." He narrowed his eyes slightly and looked at me, but only for a second, and then he thanked me for dinner and left. When he was gone, I locked the door and automatically checked it twice. Then I went into the bathroom and locked the door, retreating into my makeshift darkroom I'd set up in there, mechanically developing the film I'd shot this morning. Developing film was my therapy. I could do it for hours, my brain on autopilot. In the dark, insulated behind the double33

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locked doors, was the only time I really felt safe. And after I came out in the wee hours of the morning, sometimes I was so tired and lightheaded from the developer fumes that for a while, I could sleep.

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Chapter Three We were both morning people, and he was waiting for me in the lobby when I showed up late. I'd always been afflicted with being late. Couldn't help it. Somehow, I always lost track of time. This morning Josh seemed to accept that with better grace than last night; he was standing at the check-in desk talking to a clerk, wearing a backpack and his hiking clothes when I walked up. "Morning," he said cheerfully; I managed a nod. The desk clerk had caught my eyes. She was gorgeous. Tall, but not an Amazon. Wavy chocolate brown hair that framed her face, and light green eyes with dark lashes, not a speck of makeup, not that she needed it. Amazing skin. Forgetting all else, I leaned over the desk and put my thumb and finger on her chin, turning her face to view her profile from both angles in the light streaming in from the windows. "How old are you?" I demanded. "Twenty-one," she answered in confusion. "Have you ever modeled?" I continued to look her over while she shook her head no. Her lips were full, naturally coral, but not too prominent. This girl was exactly what I was looking for. Exotic but real, kind of a girl-next-door look, except with knowing eyes. "Do you want to?" "Well, I..." "The pay's good. Here." I took my wallet from my pocket and handed her one of my business cards. I wrote Lee's name on the back of it with a pen from the desk. "Take this down to 35

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the conference room and ask for a girl named Gemma. Tell her I sent you. Come on, Josh, are you ready?" "That was quite a little performance," he told me as we went out to the parking lot and threw our backpacks into his rental car. "Performance?" I didn't know what he was talking about. "Yeah. Great way to pick up chicks, huh? Bet you do that a lot. 'Here's my cell phone number.' Some advice, though. It's more effective if you ask them their name." What the fuck was he saying, and why was he in such a snit? "It was on her name tag," I pointed out. "Allie." "I'm shocked you noticed. Here." He handed me a protein bar out of his jacket pocket and unwrapped one for himself as he drove. We were headed to Glacier National Park, armed with a park map, my Polaroid and my favorite 35mm camera, some binoculars, and a GPS along with cell phones, just in case. I didn't want to find myself lost with no way to get back to my shoot. People died out here, lost in the woods. While Josh drove, I read the map and brochures, explaining to him what I was hoping to find today. I wanted a location that was away from the beaten path. I was envisioning rock formations and a lake. Not vast and soaring, but intimate. Also there were the practicalities: it needed to be accessible by road for the equipment transport, and there needed to be somewhere to stay nearby so we didn't have to come back every morning and set up the shoot from the ground up. Between his driving and my map skills, we didn't exactly find ourselves lost, but we didn't end up in the place we were 36

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expecting either. We ended up on this gravel road, and then at a campsite near a big, clear lake. A sign indicated it was Bowman Lake. No other cars were around, no people, nothing, just a perfectly kept campsite with a handful of tent sites, and neat little cabins next to the clear, shimmering blue water with mountains on the other side. My instincts told me it was time to get out and walk. Leaving the car, we located ourselves on the trail maps and shouldered our backpacks. We walked for about two hours, stopping occasionally for me to take photos of the different views. We had a lot in common. We were both in the same industry, the same profession, and we could have spent the whole day regaling each other with tales of the celebrities we'd worked with, the models, the exotic locales, etc. However, we didn't talk about any of those things. Instead, we talked about things that were important to us, things we were passionate about. Places like this, where we each felt at peace. Josh talked about San Diego, where he was from, about the feeling he got when he was surfing and caught that perfect wave. "Oh, a California boy. I should have known." He was freckled instead of tanned, but he had the surfer look and a little of the accent, even if he didn't use the word "dude." "And where are you from?" "I live in New York, but I was born in Texas." The conversation was fine until we started talking about me, and suddenly I clammed up. Josh noticed but didn't say anything. The day was starting to get hot as the sun beat down on us from the vibrant blue sky; when it was straight 37

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overhead, we stopped along the shores of a small glacier-fed pond surrounded by evergreens. It was so beautiful there. I pulled off my shirt and wiped my sweaty armpits with it, draining my second water bottle. "I brought food." "You know exactly how to get me excited," I teased lightly, and he gave me another one of his looks as he opened his backpack and pulled out peanut butter sandwiches, trail mix, cheese and crackers. A little warm and squashed, maybe, but it tasted delicious when we spread it out on my windbreaker under a tree. After we finished, Josh lay back in the grass, but I jumped up and started stripping, running for the lake. "Come on, chickenshit. Is the surfer boy scared of a little cold water?" I called to him, but he only sat there shaking his head with amusement, watching me as I dove into the lake. God, it was incredible. I swam under the surface, completely insulated from the world, and then floated on my back with my eyes closed. I wanted to stay here forever, naked in this crystal clear water, with the unbelievable sun shining down on me and the snow-capped mountains rising all around. No cares, no stress, just the sounds of the water and the distant birds. Something grabbed me and pulled me down into the water and I was choking, coughing as I found my footing and shot back up, dripping and sputtering. Josh was there in the water, laughing at me, right in my face. "It's cold, but it's not as cold as the Pacific in January." "Fucker, are you trying to kill me?" I gasped, hacking the water out of my lungs. "You're going to die for that." 38

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I launched my whole weight onto him, throwing him back into the water. In doing this, I noticed he was not naked; he was still wearing his boxers. At first, we were playing, but as we fought and struggled under the water, it changed and became a push for control, which was something I didn't give up, ever. We weren't trying to hurt each other, but I had no plans to yield to him, even he was a little bigger and possibly even a little stronger. Nobody was tougher than I was, and I'd spent most of my adult life proving it. Wet, we wrestled, kicked, fought, and splashed, grabbing and pushing, until finally I felt Josh start to give in. His face was pressed into my chest and I had my arm around his neck, grasping for his other arm, holding it hard behind his back, and he gave a half-gasping laugh. "Fuck! Okay, I give!" "Say uncle." This time I really was playing, giving his arm a little upward push. There was no doubt he could have broken my hold if he really wanted to, but I sensed he was humoring me, that maybe he realized I took this a little more seriously than was absolutely necessary. "Uncle, goddamit. Jesus, Finn," he exclaimed as I released him. We looked at each other and started laughing, but my other hand was still resting on his smooth shoulder. The water was chest high and my eyes were drawn down to the exposed, freckled skin I'd never seen before, since he always stayed covered. Around his neck he wore a cord with a single shark tooth dangling from it, suspended by a copper wire. He 39

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felt solid, lean but muscular, well put together. My palm slid over his bicep and I stared at it, fascinated by the way my hand looked with the silver ring I wore on my left middle finger, my darker skin sliding over his gorgeous freckled skin. So exotic, smooth as satin, creamy under the multitude of freckles that picked up the soft reddish gold of his hair. Under his armpit, I noticed a tattoo. It started on his right side and snaked around his ribcage; it was flowing and bold, but not the harsh tribal trash I saw so much of, silvery-bluishgreen instead of black. This was different, a design I didn't really understand but made me think of the ocean. Under the water, it continued down his belly and hip, disappearing into the waist of his boxers. "What is this?" "It's my totem," he answered simply, standing completely still as my finger curiously traced the line over his lean ribs. "Keeps the bad mojo away." "Does it work?" "So far so good. Umm, Finn. What are you doing?" His voice dropped down to a harsh whisper. I hadn't realized I was stroking his other shoulder with my palm. His nipples were hard, and the rhythm of his breath was faster. "It's really interesting work," I said nonchalantly as my hands dropped away and I stepped back, retreating into my role as a professional observer, impartially recording the images I saw. "I'd like to take some pictures of it sometime." He kind of grunted and turned his back on me, flipping in the water and swimming away. As I climbed out of the lake, I realized my touch had made him hard and he was hiding in 40

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the water until he recovered, and the thought made me grin. The picture of innocence, I was sitting on the towel I'd dug out of my pack going over the stack of Polaroids I'd snapped that day when he emerged dripping from the water and came over to gather up his clothes. "Would you put some fucking clothes on?" he said, rolling his eyes. He moved behind me while I smirked. "Why? Don't like what you see?" "I like it well enough. Don't look," he commanded suddenly when I started to turn around to look at him while he took off his wet boxers to pull on his clothes. He stopped. "You don't think I've seen it all before? I've done hundreds of nude shoots, Josh. Not to mention just looking down when I piss. It's no big deal." "Well, it is to me. I'm shy. Don't turn around, I'm serious." There was a warning tone in his voice; I decided not to push it. I obeyed him and kept my eyes on the photos, laying them out in a row before me. My curiosity to see him naked was more artistic than anything else; the human body was beautiful in all its forms, but some people had issues with nudity, especially people who didn't make their living in front of a camera, but rather, behind it. Believe me, I had issues by the truckload, but nudity just didn't happen to be one of them. "So," he said when he was all dressed again, "are we heading back, or keeping on?" I flipped over on my stomach and looked at the photos laid out in the grass. There were a few locations I really liked. I'd marked the bottom of the Polaroids with exactly where the 41

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locations were on the trail map so I wouldn't forget. The many notes I always made comforted me and made me feel in control. I got panicky when I was worried I'd forget something. A little Rain Man thing of mine. "I guess we'll go. I think I've found what I need here." "Hmm." He made that little grunt again and stared down at me, the sun behind him so I couldn't see his face without squinting. When I got up and got dressed, I didn't bother to turn around this time; he'd already seen it all anyway. I didn't have any tattoos to show off, only a barbell through my left nipple that a friend of mine in college talked me into getting. Chicks usually found it very interesting and guys went crazy over it. They also liked my somewhat exotic dark looks, the results of a wild unknown mix of ancestry, the straight black hair and the blue eyes, which I usually kept hidden behind sunglasses. The camera was my way of getting into people's heads, but I had no intention of letting them into mine. "Tell me about this tattoo of yours. Who designed it?" Josh and I had packed everything up and were hiking back along the trail in the hot sun. My shirt was off, but as usual, he was covered. When he didn't answer right away, I nudged him with my shoulder, grinning. I'd discovered in the water that I liked touching him. I wasn't usually one of those real touchy-feely guys who are always grabbing your shoulder or putting their hand on your back or whatever, but Josh was so solid, he was nice to touch, and since we were friends, there were no overt sexual overtones. There was a comfort level between us. The little erection he sported earlier was 42

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probably more a reaction to our scantily clad underwater grope than any real attraction to me. He didn't even watch me get dressed that time. "Actually, I drew it myself." "Really?" I was surprised. "I have a Master's in graphic arts from USC. I got into photo styling kind of by accident." "So what does it mean?" "Well," he hesitated before continuing carefully, choosing what he wanted to reveal. "I started the design when I was in college, recovering from a bad accident I had that left me pretty much immobile for a very long time. I'd always liked art, but when I was laid up, I started to get really into drawing. It was good therapy, gave me something to retreat into when the pain got bad. So, I studied elements of tribal art from around the world and incorporated a lot of images that were used for warding off spirits and protecting your dreams and so forth. When I was completely healed, I went and got the ink." "It must've stung like hell," I commented; I'd done a tattoo photo shoot for a mag once and had taken pictures of people bleeding and suffering through large tattoos. His next comment made me feel pretty thoughtless, though. "It was nothing compared to what I already went through. It felt ... almost good. Like a purging. So, it keeps away bad things and it reminds me to be thankful I'm alive, and to watch my ass." Stopping, I leveled a look into his ocean eyes. "What happened, Josh?" 43

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He paused for a moment before he laughed and brushed by me. "Hey, if you expect me to tell you everything about me, you're going to have to give a little information about yourself, too." "That's fine. You don't have to tell me." I fell back a little and let him walk in front of me. "I thought not," he muttered. "This dark horse persona of yours works perfectly for you, doesn't it, Finn? The man behind the camera, the impartial third eye, observing the rest of us mere mortals while giving nothing of himself. You're a taker, you know that, Finn? You expect people to pour their guts out for you, in front of the camera and everywhere else, but you give nothing in return, because you don't know how to give. You only know how to take." "Wait a minute." Reaching out, I took his arm firmly and he reluctantly swung around to face me. "That's not true, Josh. If we're going to be friends, you need accept there are things about me I don't talk about, lines I don't cross. If you can't, then..." "Is that what we're going to be, friends?" He gave a sharp laugh, his eyes glittering at me. "I hope we are," I answered, shrugging. I couldn't make him, if he didn't want to. "Fine." He turned around and started walking down the trail. "Then do me a favor and keep your goddamn clothes on." On the hike back down to the campground where the car waited, Josh didn't speak, so I kept quiet. I didn't want him mad at me. I liked him a lot as a friend, but even beyond 44

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that, I needed him on this shoot with me. On a professional level, Josh had an instinct for what I wanted that isn't an easy connection to find; I couldn't let it slip away, not with so much at stake. Once we were driving back to the resort, he was talking to me again, making suggestions for some of the shots I wanted to do, sometimes even things I'd already thought of myself but didn't know how to put into words. Actually it was eerie, our connection. I found myself closer to him in just a few days than I got to some people after a year. I usually had problems with people I just met; it took me awhile to trust new people. I'd never been so at ease with someone so fast.

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Chapter Four When I finally hunted down Lee at the shoot on the boat dock, he was plenty pissed off at me, demanding in front of everyone where I was and what I'd been doing all day. I had to take him inside to calm him down and explain it to him. I'd expected a bit of a power struggle, but to my surprise, Lee agreed immediately to let me do my shoot. "Does this mean I won't have to listen to your bitching?" "Yes," I promised. "Then go for it. You take the spare equipment you need, but you can't have Austin and Jake, they have to work on the main shoot. You won't have a light man." "I can do my own lights." "You?" Lee shot me an exaggerated look of surprise, kind of nasty, like he didn't think I remembered how to do lights anymore. He was in fine form today, a real asshole. Being told you're great all the time will do that to a guy, especially when he didn't have me around for a whole day to butt heads with him. "I'm not planning to use any external light sources. Sunlight only." "Oh, that's cute," he answered sarcastically. "And what about when the sun goes behind the clouds, what will you do then? Light a candle?" "Lee, why are you being such a colossal bitch?" I asked, lifting my arm to take his shoulder in my hand. He tilted his head to look up into my eyes, and I could see for the first time how tired he was, how his left arm shook as 46

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he leaned on his cane. "Did you have fun with your little redheaded friend today?" he asked in his best poisonous voice, and suddenly I saw him so clearly; he was acting like a bitch, but what he really felt was sick, scared and abandoned, most particularly by me, his loyal protégé, if not always his friend. "He's styling the shoot for me. We're just friends, Lee. Nothing else." I squeezed his shoulder, a rare gesture of closeness between us. "Yeah, I can see that by the way he keeps looking at you," he snorted. Then the jealousy left his face and he sighed, looking exhausted. "It's okay, Finn. Natural light will be perfect for what you have in mind. Take whatever props and models you want. I know you and Josh will do a great shoot." "Come on, Lee. Let me take you up to your room. You look tired. I'll finish up for the day." Despite the pain and weakness of his MS, Lee never admitted he was tired, never let any of us help him do anything. It truly shocked me when he took the arm I offered, which he usually impatiently brushed away, and leaned on me heavily as we rode the elevator up to his suite. His hand shook, and I took the key and unlocked the door, turning on the light. When I saw him in, I turned to go. He put his hand on my arm and gently drew me to face him, and when I did, he looked up into my face, studying it with his shrewd, appraising eyes. "You're a good kid, Finn." Reaching up, he quickly brushed his fingertips over my jaw, letting out a sigh that was full of 47

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his usual ironic humor. "Ah, to be twenty-eight again. If only for an hour." Reaching for the doorknob, I shot him my best smile. "An hour wouldn't be enough time." Back at the shoot, Jake and Austin were wrapping things up with their usual quiet expertise. I was surprised to see they were using Allie, the desk clerk, today along with the usual crop of blondes, but I was horrified when I saw what the hair and makeup people had done to her. She was unrecognizable as the nymph with gorgeous skin I saw this morning in the hotel lobby, her face stretched tight with a mask of makeup, curly hair tamed into a decorous wave. Ghastly. "Josh." I called to him and waited while he made his way over to where I was standing staring at Allie in horror. I pointed at her. "Make a note for hair and makeup. Leave her hair alone and take half that shit off her face. She looks terrible. Sorry," I said to her aside while Josh nodded and pulled out his voice memo recorder. Later, when we were breaking the shoot up for the day, she found me once she'd come out of wardrobe in her regular clothes, face washed and hair brushed out. She was gorgeous again, and my interest began to return. I bought her drinks in the hotel bar and then took her up to my room; we got naked and I got out my Polaroid. Sometimes the desire to fuck somebody was mixed up in my mind with the desire to take pictures of them. The two things were too closely linked for me to separate. It was her skin that fascinated me, and I turned on every light in the 48

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room to try to recapture the glow it caught from the lobby windows. Allie was beautiful and a natural in front of the camera, the Polaroids would be some of the best in my "private collection," but when I finally put the camera down and slid down over her, the other half of the desire was not there. My dick was limp and sleeping. For a moment I kept thrusting against her, trying to recapture my hard on, but it just wasn't happening. "Fuck." Rolling over onto my back, I sighed heavily. I rubbed my face with my hands. "What's wrong?" her head popped up and she put her hand on my chest, her big eyes concerned. "Was it something I did?" "No," I shook my head, giving her a sheepish smile. "It's me. Long day." "Well, don't worry, it..." "Don't even fucking say it," I interrupted before she could finish telling me it happens to every guy. With another sigh, I slid out of bed to my feet, turning off some of the lights. The goddamn room was lit up like a showboat, leaving nothing, not even my suddenly uninterested cock, to the imagination. "Listen, go home and get some sleep. Wardrobe's at eight and I don't put up with lateness." After she was gone into the night, I turned off all the lights except the dim one by the bed. I laid out the Polaroids on the rumpled sheets and looked them over with detached interest. Yeah, she was hot. A down-to-earth local girl, not just a silly model. Perfect tits, a cute rounded tummy, voluptuous 49

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creamy-white ass. My eyes appreciated all this feminine beauty, but my cock wasn't the least bit impressed. With a sigh of irritation, I gathered the photos and tossed them onto the desk. When I did, a Polaroid in another stack, the one from earlier today, caught my eye. I picked it up and looked at it. It was a view of the lake Josh and I swam in this afternoon. The sun had been over my shoulder when I took it and my shadow was faintly visible in one corner, holding the camera; standing off to the side, partly cut off by the angle, was Josh, all covered up in his jeans and long-sleeved shirt and jacket and backpack, sunglasses covering his eyes. I dropped the photo and got back in bed, turning off the light. I tried to think about Allie, but the images found no purchase in my mind. Instead, I was suddenly thinking about swimming in the cold mountain lake with Josh; my dick woke up from its coma and showed some of the insistence it lacked earlier when it had counted. I was turned on, so I reached down and stroked myself; as the pleasure grew, a picture of Josh appeared unbidden in my mind: tall, tattooed, his smooth, freckled skin, the way my hands felt on him. Wondering what that skin would feel like to my tongue. What it would taste like if I bit it? The image was there, I didn't know why, but I didn't try to force it away. I went with it; I stroked myself faster and harder, and I came. The next day was a blur. In addition to all the day's other responsibilities, I had to get things together for my own shoot that was going to start tomorrow. Gemma did a lot of the organizing, as usual: calling the park, getting a cabin 50

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reserved, rounding up the equipment; and when Josh wasn't doing his own work on the set, he was walking with me while I fired off orders, recording everything on his voice memo. We worked together in perfect unison, it seemed. I'd clashed with a lot of stylists on a lot of different shoots, but after only working with me a couple of days, he knew exactly when to step up and exactly when to back off and let me have my head. He set the stage, but it was my show. Who says photographers have big egos? When it was just us, not working, of course it was different. We spent the entire day together, breakfast, lunch and dinner, drinks afterward, talking and going over the shoot, disagreeing over finer points, hashing things out; and he was definitely not shy about voicing his opinions then. His ideas and instincts were dead on, and I was again amazed at how he seemed to be able to ask exactly the right questions that would bring clarity to whatever I was struggling to focus on. After we had a few drinks in the hotel bar, Josh wanted to get the snaps of yesterday's hike from me so he could number the props to correspond with the location. Up in my room, he picked up last night's Polaroids of Allie I'd carelessly left on the desk. "Looks like you had a good evening," he commented, tossing them down after he glanced at them with something like disgust. "Kind of fast, isn't it? Taking naked pictures on the first date?"

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I shrugged, a little embarrassed. "Just foreplay. And despite the story the pictures tell, we didn't do anything last night." "Oh, really." Obviously, he didn't believe me, so I gave him the condensed version of what happened, ending, of course, when Allie left the room. He seemed almost too amused. "So what was the problem? Were you drunk?" "Well, I didn't think I was," I admitted. "I was probably just worn out from all the hiking and swimming." "Yeah." His turquoise eyes locked on mine and seemed to darken as we stared at each other from a few feet away. Unwanted, the images of last night popped into my head again, after Allie left and it was just me, alone; it was almost like he could see them in my eyes, projected like a loop of film that kept going around endlessly. For a second I was hypnotized; then I shook out of it and nudged him playfully with my shoulder. The contact felt as good as always. "Big day tomorrow. I gotta get some sleep." "Yeah, you do," he said softly as he went to the door.

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Chapter Five The campground at Bowman Lake was deserted. I had moved all my bags, including my makeshift darkroom, into one of the cabins, and Josh was staying in the one next door. Everything about this shoot was the opposite of the one I'd just left. Instead of anxious, disgusted, and pissed off, after the first day, I was thrilled with how things were going. That didn't mean I slept at night, but insomnia was nothing new to me. I probably hadn't slept an uninterrupted eight hours since I was eleven years old. The cabin had a bedroom, and a kitchen/living area as well as a bathroom, so it was much bigger than my tiny room in the hotel. In the cabin I didn't feel as trapped, so I wasn't constantly checking the locks on the doors the way I did in the hotel room. At home in New York, I'd purposely rented an apartment that only had one entrance, and the collection of deadbolts that decorated the door was a source of great amusement to my friends. Every now and then, someone who visited my bedroom would notice the deadbolt on the inside of that door, and they would give me a strange look but not say anything. As usual, I stayed up all night developing film in my bathroom. After sharing some sandwiches in Josh's cabin, we'd separated to go to bed. When I turned my lights off around two-thirty, his windows were dark. Really, I was surprised he'd decided to stay. The models and set assistant, of course, went back to the hotel. They had to get to hair and makeup in the morning, and the two other girls besides Allie 53

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were minors. That meant their moms came along on the shoot as chaperones, so no funny business could happen. As long as they kept their mouths shut, that didn't bother me. I didn't want anything inappropriate happening on my shoot, especially with two underage girls and two good-looking male models barely out of high school. Being out in the middle of this isolated campground with nobody around for miles, except Josh a hundred feet away in the next cabin, made me curiously relaxed. In the morning, I woke up early, before the sun. Even the air smelled promising. I didn't even bother to get dressed as I grabbed a towel and headed for the lake. The water was cold, of course, but by now that didn't even bother me. With the sky and the mountains all around me, what was a little cold water? As I watched the sun start to rise, I heard Josh walking up, wearing a T-shirt and boxers with a towel over his shoulders. "You and these early morning cold swims." I looked over my shoulder at him and smiled as he pulled off his shirt and got in the water, cursing and swearing at the cold, until he ducked under and swam to me, scooping his wet hair back from his face. "Hey," he grinned in the early-morning grayness. There were no words to describe how incredible this was. The sheer beauty of this place, the grandeur of the sunrise, awed us both into silence. There was no one else in the world other than us at this moment, watching the sky lighten, the birds begin to twitter. Both of us sank neck-deep in the water, where it was warmer than the air; we were close, but not 54

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touching, experiencing everything around us with quiet breath. Speaking would have ruined it. When the sun breached the horizon, I turned to him and we shared a breathless smile of amazement that we were lucky enough to see this miracle. His skin was so beautiful in the strange, clear light of dawn. Without conscious thought, I moved so that we were touching, the front of my shoulder brushing his back. In the chilly water, he felt so warm. I wanted to feel him. The compulsion was too strong for me resist anymore. At that moment, I didn't care about anything else. I lifted my hands and touched his skin, sliding my hands up over his shoulder blades. My fingers skimmed his shoulders, his neck, his arms, feeling his lean, corded muscles tense under my touch. I took his shoulders in my hands and I leaned forward and ran my tongue over the freckled curve of his neck and down the crest of his shoulder, licking away the water that clung to him. God. He tasted so good. He let out a little moan and slowly rotated so we were facing each other; and then he closed his eyes, leaned in, and kissed me. For more than just a few seconds, I let him. His tongue slid between my lips and tasted me. My eyes were open, watching him, his thick reddish-blond lashes curling on his cheeks. His hands went to my sides, and then they slid around and cupped my butt cheeks. Very gently, he pulled me against him, and I felt his very hard dick against the top of my thigh. That's when a shudder, colder than any mountain lake, ran through me, and I stepped back, my heart pounding uneasily. He felt it. There was no way he didn't know. I broke away, 55

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and the panic gathered in my chest, making my breath uneven, and Josh moved back to give me space. "Jesus, what did he do to you?" Josh breathed. "Wh ... what?" I stuttered. My eyes were wild. "Who?" "I don't know who. Whoever fucked you up like this." I couldn't answer him with my throat closed with panic; I didn't say a word. I climbed out of the water, threw the towel around my waist, and slammed the door of my cabin behind me, locked it, and wedged a chair under the knob because there was no bolt. My chest rose and fell wildly. It wasn't Josh I was keeping out. I didn't need a psychoanalyst to tell me that. I needed those locks, deadbolts, and chairs as a barrier between me and my past. Josh had his warding symbols to keep him safe from harm and protect his dreams; all I had was the locks on my door.

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Chapter Six A couple of hours later, when the set assistant arrived with the models and everything, I was calmer. I didn't need the Xanax anymore; it might have helped even me out, but I hated being an emotional zombie. Since I'd been about twenty, I'd learned to take myself to a different place mentally instead of relying on chemicals. When the drugs were gone, it was just me alone with myself. If I couldn't face that, then no amount of Xanax was going to bring light to that dark place. "You okay?" Josh asked softly, as we headed to the location that I wanted to shoot in today, in a Jeep driven by one of the park rangers. I didn't look at him, but I nodded my head and smiled slightly to show him I was fine. Everything went really well again that day. I was very happy with the Polaroids I was taking as proofs, but there was an uneasiness in the air. Clouds did occasionally obscure the sun, as Lee predicted, but they lifted quickly; still, I sensed something ominous. The park employee who was driving us, since these were restricted areas, didn't know of any weather warnings, but said spring was an unpredictable time in Glacier, weather-wise. As the day progressed, the clouds got thicker, cutting off my light, and finally we had to pack it in for the afternoon. I let everyone off early. I retreated to my cabin and took a very hot shower that wasn't very long because of the limited supply of hot water. The accommodations of the cabin were sufficient, but very simple, so that staying there wasn't really roughing it, but 57

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didn't exactly have all the comforts of home, either. In fact, there were no pillows or sheets on the bed, or even a blanket, and I never thought to bring any, so I'd spent a rather chilly night huddled under my jacket. When I got out of the shower there was a little torn-off corner of paper on the floor, in front of the door where it had been slid underneath. I picked it up and read Josh's backhanded, architectural printing. Hey, I'm cooking dinner. Come over, signed with a lower case J. Other than a peanut butter sandwich earlier, I hadn't eaten all day. I got busy and forgot. Of course, I didn't have a thing in my cabin to eat, either. It figured that Josh would've thought to bring food. He was so organized and practical; it made him a great stylist, but also a great friend, someone you could really count on. I found myself wishing he lived in New York and not LA, because when this shoot was over, we'd go back to opposite coasts and it was unlikely we'd ever see each other again. He was the kind of person I'd love to hang out with regularly, chat with on the phone about nothing. "Hey." Standing at the little kitchen counter area, he smiled at me when I knocked lightly on his cabin's screen door and came in. It was getting a little chilly outside as it clouded up, and now I was positive it was going to start raining. "Hungry?" "Huh? Oh ... yeah, starved." I'd been standing back, looking at him as he buttered some bread and wrapped it in a piece of foil. I was picturing the way he looked in the early morning light, neck deep in the clear water, smiling at me. 58

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"There's beer in the fridge. Do you like spaghetti?" "I like anything." Taking a deep breath, I got a beer out and opened the bottle, and stood there with my back against the little fridge, watching him stir the pot on the stove. "I ... didn't even think to bring food, or a blanket." "You must've been cold last night. Haven't you ever been camping before?" I shook my head no. "Right. City boy. My parents dragged us camping every year. But listen, there's some blankets with the props, so you won't have to freeze again." He looked at me and smiled again, a warm smile I didn't expect considering the way I'd acted. He was a lot nicer to me than I deserved; suddenly I was shaken with the realization that he was right when he said I was a taker. I planned it that way: get what I needed from people without giving them anything. I'd been like that all my adult life; it's what my life had made me. It had never bothered me before, but suddenly I was filled with shame. I took a few steps toward him and my eyes automatically went to his neck. Under the neckband of his long-sleeved blue T-shirt, I saw his freckled skin, right where I'd licked it this morning. It tasted so good. I had the sudden urge to bite it, right there where his shirt collar pulled back, then lick it with my tongue until the sharpness of my teeth went away. Instead, I just laid my hand on his back, between his shoulder blades. When I touched him, he gave me a surprised look and I swallowed hard. "Josh, what happened earlier, I just want you to know you didn't do anything wrong. It's me. That happens to me every 59

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once in while. I don't know what sets it off, but I freak out. It's stupid and I'm sorry." "It's okay." He spun around so his butt was resting against the sink and he smiled at me, relaxing. "Forget it. Do you know how to make a fire?" I didn't, of course. Lightning could've struck the fireplace and I wouldn't have known how to make it burn, but Josh walked me through it. As he finished cooking the spaghetti, I was on my knees in front of the room's little fireplace. I was starting to realize he pretty much knew how to do everything. Because of his instructions, I soon had a decent enough fire going, and I was absolutely thrilled with what I'd managed to do. I was more gratified by starting a smoky fire in a fireplace than I was when my couture spreads came out in the fall Vogue. After dinner, we split a bottle of Shiraz he had in the fridge. By now it had started to rain and it sounded cozy, pattering against the roof and pelting the windows while we sat on opposite ends of the hard little couch. Josh told me about his family. His parents were old surf hippies with a bit of money, and he used to be so embarrassed when his dad dropped him off at school in a sky-blue VW mini bus. He wanted his dad to cut his hair and drive a Volvo like all the other dads. Of course, now he wouldn't trade that upbringing for anything, and he smiled when he talked about camping on the beach with his parents and his little sister, learning to swim before he could even walk, surfing by grade school. "What about your family, Finn?" he finally said. 60

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I'd known this question was coming. Usually I deflected it, but thanks to his observations, I wanted to share a little, even if it was just a tiny bit. "It was just me and my mom, and I haven't seen or talked to her in about ten years. I lived in foster homes for three years before that and the state made me have visits with her, but since I turned eighteen, I haven't had any contact with her." I shrugged. "Not a very heartwarming story I'm afraid." He was quiet for a minute, looking at the fire. "The other night, when you were doing your little photo shoot in your room," he gave me a faint smile, "I had an interesting conversation with your friend Gemma at the bar." I groaned, "Gemma has a big mouth." "Yes, especially when she's had a few too many drinks. She told me lots of things about you, Finn. Like how in all the time she's known you, you've never had a girlfriend..." "I'm not into relationships lasting more than five minutes." "Like how you never let anyone really get to know you, even after a couple of years. She told me Lee Schilling loves you madly." "Oh, fuck!" I exclaimed disbelievingly. "That's bullshit." So I said, but in my heart of hearts, I knew it really was true, even though I'd been trying to avoid facing it for the last two years. If I admitted it, I might have to do something about it instead of ignoring it. "She says you have some issues, but that you never talk about them. She also told me that occasionally you've been known to get with guys and that maybe our favorite little straight boy isn't as straight as he's led us to believe." 61

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I lifted my head and looked over at him, into his eyes. "You've figured that out for yourself by now, haven't you?" I sounded so brave, but I was terrified. Especially when his eyes narrowed and he stared at me. The stare went on for a very long moment while I fidgeted. "Here's what I think," Josh finally said slowly. "I think there's something really bad in your past. Something so awful that you think you can't tell anyone. When you find yourself getting close to someone, you panic. Am I close at all?" My heart thumped in my chest when I heard his words. Honestly I was scared, wondering how he could've read me like that, how he could have seen what I didn't even like to admit to myself. A cold chill settled over me to hear it stated so simply, so clearly. I may have actually had to answer that question, but right at that moment, a bolt of lightning and a deafening roar of thunder tore through the sky, and just that quick, the electricity flashed and went off. The fire put off enough light that Josh was able to find a few emergency candles stashed in a kitchen drawer along with some matches. The rain was pouring down in sheets now, the wind howling against the doors and windows. The temperature had dropped rapidly since I'd come in and now the fireplace was the only source of warmth. The cabin's small heater was electric, and without the fire, we'd get very cold indeed. "It'll come back on later," Josh said, unconcerned. In the dim light, he studied me. I hoped he wasn't going to continue with his questions, and he didn't. "I need to show you something, Finn." 62

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Suddenly, Josh stood, and I stared in puzzlement as he unzipped his jeans and lowered them to his knees. He grabbed the right leg of the boxers he had on underneath and raised it all the way to his butt cheek, exposing his thigh and hip. His smooth, pale outer thigh was terribly scarred, all the way up to his hip. Shiny, raised scar tissue, puckered and torn in a jagged crescent, shredded and healed over. Hundreds of faint stitch marks traced the skin and other scars, too, clean surgical cuts made by doctors. I let out a gasp as my stomach flipped over on itself. "God," I whispered, unable to stop staring. "Oh, shit." Now, I understood what I had thought was shyness all along, just hang-ups about nudity, why he wouldn't match my nakedness in the water, and why he made me look the other way when he changed clothes. "It was the last day of spring break, freshman year of college," he said softly, letting the material fall back into place. He kicked his jeans off and sat down on the end of the couch, turning toward me slightly with his eyes on the wall. "Ten years ago. I was nineteen. My buds and I wanted to catch some waves before we headed back to school later that day. It was early morning, and there was a storm coming on, so the swells were mountains. My friends decided to pack it in. The surf was getting too wild and none of us had packed to go back to the dorms, but I wanted to ride one last wave. I just had this feeling inside me that there was something coming, something with my name on it. "And it came. I rode it all the way and it was fucking spectacular. That one ride you wait for your whole life, I 63

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found it that morning. When I came to the shelf, I wiped. I was feeling a high I'd never known before. I went to get on my board to paddle it in... "And suddenly I felt something bump me. Something huge. I never saw anything. I just felt this enormous pressure crunch down on my thigh. No pain, just ... pressure, like I was caught in a vise, getting stretched, and pulled under. I don't really remember anything after that, but they said I fought it. I had lacerations all over my arms and hands from fighting back." He pushed up his sleeves and straightened his elbows, showed me more scars on his forearms, his hands, his biceps. Not that bad, but noticeable. The reason he always kept covered in long-sleeved shirts, even in the heat of the sun. I wondered why I hadn't noticed them when we had gone swimming, but decided I'd been too distracted with other things. "My friends were on the shore, watching me on my ride. They said they never saw the dorsal fin; they just saw me go under like I was jerked. When I didn't come up a second later, they knew something was horribly wrong. One of them ran for help and the others came into the surf after me. By then, the shark was gone. They pulled me in and did the best they could to stem the bleeding until the paramedics got there." "Oh, God," was all I could say, in a whisper chilled with horror. Again, he lifted the leg of his boxers and traced the crescent-shaped ring where the teeth had sunk into his flesh. 64

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"They said the bite imprint was consistent with about a twelve-foot great white. Because I struck back, he let me go and swam off. I was lucky he wasn't that hungry." I shuddered, feeling sick. "I woke up in the hospital a few days later with I don't know how many hundred stitches, minus a piece of my leg. I won't bore you with stories about the skin graft surgeries and the rehab." "And you surf now? After that, you got back in?" I whispered in disbelief. "It was very important to me to face that water again. I won't say it was easy, but I had to do it. It's part of me. Like I said ... I really don't remember a whole lot about what happened; but every time I surf, it's in my head. And sometimes at night, when I sleep ... the shark comes." He was silent, staring at the wall again for a just a moment, and so was I. Then suddenly he looked at me and a gentle smile was on his face. "So you see?" he said softly. "We're not so different. We both have scars. Yours are on the inside and mine are on the outside. But everyone has them, Finn." Suddenly, I closed the distance between us. Up on one knee I grabbed the leg of his boxers and pushed it up, staring down at the ruined skin. I needed to see it all. My hand began to reach, then stopped and I looked up at his face, questioning. He nodded. "I usually don't let anyone. But you can," he answered softly. He could see in my eyes how much I needed to touch it. With my finger, I traced the torn part, the bite imprint as 65

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he called it. When I did, I could see the shark ripping into his flesh, the blood pouring into the water, Josh fighting the killing machine off with his bare hands, refusing to die. "Oh, God." It was as if I didn't know how to say anything else. I breathed in deeply as my fingertips went over the shiny scar tissue where the new skin had been grafted to repair the chunk that was bitten off. It was cool, not warm like the rest of his flesh. I needed to see him all. I needed to feel him. I moved off to the side and pulled his shirt over his head, I grabbed his boxers and pulled them down when he lifted his hips. What a story his naked body told. The tattoo on one side, the scar on the other. Yin and yang. I slid one hand up his chest and over his shoulder until my fingers met the necklace he never took off. "This?" Even though it was cracked, the curved tooth was sharp on my thumb. Sharp enough to hurt when I pushed it hard into the skin. "It was embedded in my hip bone," Josh answered casually. "They kept it for study purposes, and I asked for it. My mom and my dad and my sister each have one just like it that came out of my leg. Keeps the sharks away, you know?" "Fuck." I let out a shaky laugh and drew back a little to look at him. He was smiling at me, but when my eyes slid down his belly, I saw he was hard. To be honest, so was I. His eyes were locked on mine as I studied his beautiful, gracefully curving cock, and I did the natural thing. I leaned forward and kissed him. 66

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Chapter Seven This time I was doing the tasting and he was passive. A lot of different emotions were going through my mind. Confusion, yes. Something like fear, yes. Desire, yes. Becoming stronger and stronger was a deep urge to satisfy what I thought of as my artistic hunger, my need to photograph this moment. It sounds stupid, I know. I guess you could liken it to reading a great story and being inspired to write one yourself. Whenever something momentous happened, I reached for my camera; I needed it to put myself fully into the moment. The creative urge is part of some people, and if you don't have that need ingrained in you, you can't understand it. Just when Josh's hands started to move to my back, I pulled away and jumped to my feet. "I'll be back." "Finn, the storm..." It was fucking pouring now, sheets of icy rain just hammering from the sky, so that I couldn't even see my cabin until I was right on it. I threw open the door and the best I could in the dark, I grabbed my camera bag and put my Polaroid in it along with a couple boxes of film. Then, I wrapped it in a plastic garbage bag and ran back out the door. When I burst through the door in a blast of wind and rain, Josh sighed and shook his head. He'd put his boxers back on. While I was gone, he'd gotten some blankets and towels out, props from the shoot, and he came over to where I was dripping and shivering. "Don't suppose you thought to grab any dry clothes." 67

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"Who, me?" I shook my head. "Thinking is your job." "What would you do without me?" he laughed as he helped me take my soaked clothes off and handed me towels. "Come on," he finally whispered when I was dry, pulling me in the direction of the bedroom. "You're freezing." Under the high quality wool blankets he'd dug out, we cuddled, his body warming me. Josh didn't make any moves toward me; somehow, he instinctively knew I had to make the moves myself, and slowly I did. I pushed him over on his stomach, and at last, I did what I'd been thinking of doing since I first saw him in the water. I bit his neck and his shoulders with soft, nipping bites that made him whimper and thrash, I bit him harder and he cried out as I held him down. Then, I licked the little white teeth marks away, exactly as I'd wanted to do earlier. He was on his front with his face buried in a pillow; I was straddling him, my hard cock resting on his ass, my nipples brushing his back. His butt was firm and sexy when I squeezed it, feeling the muscles flex. All that smooth, freckled golden skin. I was discovering I had a thing for backs, especially one so lean and muscled, the shoulder blades sharply defined. I wasn't feeling the cold anymore. In fact, a light sheen of sweat glazed us both. His sides heaved like a panting dog's and his hips jerked involuntarily, thrusting against the mattress. He lifted them so I could pull off his boxers, and I dropped them next to the bed. After I did everything to his back, neck, and shoulders I could do, including sucking a big wet hickey at the base of his neck, I jumped up. 68

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"Where are you going?" It was dark in the room, the only light was one small emergency candle stuck in an empty beer bottle, but my Polaroid had a flash. I looked through the lens and started shooting. At first he protested, but after a minute, it seemed like the loud clicking of the instant shutter and the photos dropping out of the bottom of the camera turned him on as much as it did me. I knelt over him, letting the photos fall onto the bed, and he grinned as he turned over and moved under me, gripping my hips and taking the head of my cock into his mouth. It felt so good, I almost shot instantaneously, but I managed to hold back and kept on shooting photos, taking pictures of him sucking my dick. I was close, so close ... and I really, really wanted some Polaroids of this come shot. My finger clicked repeatedly and the pictures fell until finally, I clicked the shutter and nothing happened, just as the pleasure spiked the highest. "Shit, I'm out of film!" I howled with disappointment, but it was too late. At the same moment I dropped the camera on the bed, Josh increased his speed and moaned around my cock; the vibration shook me to the core and I thrust forward, fucking his mouth, my hands braced against the wall, and then it was all over. I came so hard I thought my head was going to explode, while he swallowed it all in one gulp. I let out my favorite exclamation: "Oh, fuck." Then I swept the Polaroids off onto the floor and dropped down to the bed next to Josh, panting and sweating. After a second, I had the strength to lift my head and I grinned over at him. He smiled 69

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back, but his eyes were glazed and needy; he caught my eye, asking me a silent question, but I looked away, my face flushing. "It's okay, you don't have to," he whispered. Even in this, he was unselfish. "Wait a second." When he made a motion to reach down to touch himself, I stopped him and got the other pack of film. I didn't need light to load my camera. "Okay." "You're a freak. You know that, don't you," he murmured with a smile, but he didn't seem to mind in the slightest as the camera started clicking and the pictures fell onto the sheets like giant, square snowflakes. His shyness didn't last long. Soon enough he was performing for me, for the camera, jerking off while I encouraged him softly, in much the way I did the models on my shoots. "Yeah, like that. More. Yes!" We both let out a loud yell of ecstasy at the same time. His from release, mine from the triumph and the excitement of seeing the semen jet out of his cock and spurt onto his stomach while I captured it on film. As the last picture fell, I caught it between my fingers and held it up, even though the image hadn't come out yet. "This is one for the album, baby." He tried to pretend to be disgruntled, but he couldn't quit grinning as he wiped his stomach off with one of the towels on the floor next to the bed. "I bet you have lots of those albums." I did, tons, but I just said, "A few. Nothing with any shots like this, though." That was the truth. 70

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The electricity took that moment to flash back on. It stayed on a second, sputtered, and then went out again. Well, it didn't really matter, not when we were both so tired anyway. Josh was sure it would be back on in the morning and told me I'd better stay the night. Ordinarily I would've refused and holed myself back up in my own room with the doors locked, but to my own surprise, I agreed. I wasn't in the mood to make that swim again. Besides, my cabin was too damn cold. Instead, we lounged around under the blankets waiting for the Polaroids to develop. When they did, we relived the experience again in living, albeit grainy and badly lit, color. By then, Josh was just as enthusiastic about instant cameras as I was. Still, we were both tired, and he started to doze on the pillow next to me as we curled up in the small bed. Until then, I hadn't really thought about my surroundings. Having him beside me made me relaxed. When he drifted off, I started to stare around me. The window was over us, the door was in the corner of the room closest to my shoulder, and it was open. The closet stuck out and blocked my view of it. I tried to close my eyes, but that door started to loom in my mind, yawning like a cave. Finally, I pulled away from Josh and got up in a sweat. He made a questioning, sleepy sound. "Come back to bed." He stroked the sheet next to him invitingly, in the spot I'd just abandoned. "I can't." I started to pace in the tiny room. "I can't sleep in here, Josh." "Why?" 71

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"The ... the bed's facing the wrong way. I can't see the door." I hated admitting this; it was so stupid, so weak. Yet, I couldn't hide the edge of panic in my voice. Sleepily, he got out of bed. I stared at him; he seemed to be waiting for something. "What?" "Are we moving the bed or not?" That was it, no questions about why, no arguments. I was almost giddy with relief when we got the bed pushed down to the other wall, feet to the door, and when we lay back down, I actually fell asleep in the same bed with another human being, without keeping one eye open all night, or a chair wedged under the doorknob. As I drifted off, I noticed the wind had slacked off, but the rain sounded louder than ever. **** "Fuck me!" From the bed, Josh answered sleepily. "Can't, you're way over there." "No, asshole. Get up and look out the fucking window!" When I woke up, I noticed the rain had stopped and that the electricity was still out. There must've been one hell of a storm in the night, but I had no idea, until I lifted the blinds and looked outside. Josh pulled his boxers on under the covers before getting out of bed. He came over and put his chin on my shoulder, drowsy and blinking, and then his eyes widened in disbelief. "Holy shit!" 72

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It had rained last night, yes, but then it got really, really cold, and all that rain had turned to ice. Then on top of the ice, just to make things all pretty, there was about five inches of snow, with more gently floating to the ground from the gray sky above. The ice on the tree branches and leaves must've been a half-inch thick, and this was the beginning of May. I felt my ship begin to sink. "My shoot is ruined!" I wore a path in the floor, carrying on in a most ridiculous manner. "I can't fucking believe this! This is a disaster!" "It'll be okay, Finn." "How could it be okay? I have a shooting schedule and a budget! Our client is going to shit. Lee's probably having a heart attack as we speak. I need to call him, give me a fucking phone!" Josh let out a sigh while he pulled his shirt on. "God, Finn, I didn't know you were such a drama queen." He handed me his cell phone from the nightstand, but there was no signal. "Shit. Fucking Verizon." I let out a long string of obscenities that would've made the filthiest sailor blush, cursing every wireless tower known to man, the people who built them, and the entire back-woods, hillbilly state of Montana with its shitty coverage. "Where's your phone? Isn't it Sprint?" About to burst with frustration, I pointed out the window toward the other cabin, encased in ice like an ancient fly caught in amber. There was no choice: we had to blaze the trail. Thanks to the props, we had the equipment— snowshoes, boots, even a hatchet to chop the ice off the 73

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door. We looked like Arctic explorers. It wasn't really all that cold, but it was slippery as hell, and Josh caught me as he fell on his ass on the doorstep and instead of steadying himself, we both went down like a ton of bricks. For a second I was pissed, but then I looked at him and we both started cracking up laughing. The signal on my cell phone wasn't terribly strong, but it was enough. There were already three messages from Lee waiting on my voicemail. I spoke to him and got him calmed down the best I could, then told him I had to save my battery, and hung up. Josh called the ranger station. A freak storm like this wasn't that unusual, apparently. Power was out all around the park and the roads were impassable. The ranger ordered us to stay put. We were safe enough in the cabins, even without power, and they had other park visitors to attend to first, those who might be stranded or lost; they'd get the road cleared as soon as they could, but until then, the only thing we could do was sit on our asses and wait. Well, I don't have to explain what this news did to me. Josh sat patiently while I tore around the room ranting and raving. He didn't bother trying to calm me down; he just let me get it out of my system. Finally I did, and I dropped down on the hard sofa, whimpering. "It's not so bad, Finn," Josh proclaimed, and I looked up in disbelief and disgust at his ocean blue eyes. How could he be so cheerful? Who knew how long we'd be stranded here like rats in a cage? 74

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"Could be worse. You and me ... trapped in a snowstorm together ... plenty of instant film ... what's so terrible about that?" He leered at me. I had to smile, although unwillingly. "But what about food?" I pointed out. "We don't have any electricity, everything's going to spoil." "Look outside. The whole world is a refrigerator." He was right. How could I be so dumb? I was starting to cheer up, but I still had to play the doom game. "We can't take showers, there's no hot water. We're going to stink." "That's okay. The smell of sweat makes me hot. Besides, there's always the lake and I know how you love cold swims." "Shit, not that cold. Perhaps most importantly, what about our beer supply?" "If we ration it, and intersperse it with the bottle of whiskey I happen to have, we should be all right. Any more questions?" "I think that about covers it." I felt considerably more cheerful, though not quite up to his level, as I got up and started gathering up some of my camera equipment. I was glad I had a little lighting; even though I hadn't planned on using it, I felt insecure if I didn't at least have something along, just in case. The electricity could come back on at any moment. "Can you carry this?" "Why not just leave it here?" "Because I want to do some real shots of you when the power kicks on. Don't you remember? I want to take some of your tattoo, and maybe even your scars." "I don't know." He clearly didn't like the idea. 75

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"I'll get you good and drunk first and it'll be fine. Promise. Now please don't fall this time and break my equipment, okay? If you do, don't pull me down with you. My ass is killing me." "What about clothes, toothbrush, clean underwear?" "Oh, yeah." Just another example of what a great friend he was, what a stabilizing influence on me. A lot of the time, I was so caught in what I was doing that I forgot those day-to-day details. When Gemma was around, she kept me sorted out, but Josh could calm me a lot faster and a lot better, not to mention having a cute ass. I liked him so much, our friendship was just about perfect, and even cooped up in the cabin all day we didn't get on each others' nerves. In fact, we had a great time, even if it was freezing, dark, and snowing. The snowbank outside the door kept our Pete's Wicked Ale frosty cold. We discovered a deck of Uno cards in a kitchen drawer and started playing in front of the fire; by the time we broke into the whiskey, the stakes for each hand was one piece of clothing. Josh was an Uno master. He let me win a few times to lull me into a false sense of security, but when he was down to his boxers and I was almost fully dressed, he went in for the kill. I hardly knew what had happened when I found myself naked. "You lose," he taunted softly.

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Chapter Eight The agony of defeat was eased considerably when he reached down and gently took my shaft in his hand and stroked it. It was already mostly hard, but now it was at its max. I whimpered, laughing at the same time, slumping over him with my arms draped around his neck. "Shit, man. I'm so drunk..." "Does whiskey get you horny?" "Oh, yeah," I whispered and went for his mouth. Softest lips, sweetest tongue. His spit tasted like heaven. I shoved my tongue into his mouth with a sudden vengeance and he pulled back slightly, drawing a breath. "Bed." We split to the bedroom in record time, taking a candle with us. He pushed me down on the bed and his body was heavy on mine. Aggressively he kissed and bit me all over my neck and my chest, my stomach. His teeth tugged at the barbell in my nipple. I was so drunk I really wasn't thinking about what was happening, I was just running my hands over his silky smooth red hair, my eyes half-closed, my brain on cruise control. Josh was drunk, too drunk to read my signals, and he didn't know my boundaries yet. So, it wasn't his fault. His hips moved against me, pressing his cock into mine through his thin underwear. At the same time, his hands slid down to my thighs. I started to tense, and then his palms went behind my knees and pushed up, pressing my legs to my stomach. 77

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For a second I couldn't breathe; my chest got that all-toofamiliar tingling tightness. I choked, my body freezing into a block of ice. I could barely speak. "No. No." It took only an instant for my sudden panic to penetrate Josh's whiskey-dull brain; immediately he let go of me and pulled away, his eyes wide. "Jesus, are you okay?" My heart was thumping, and not in a good way. I pulled myself up and huddled into a corner of the bed, wrapping my arms around my suddenly trembling body. "Not that," I whispered. "I can't, Josh. Not that." "Okay," he breathed. He approached me very carefully and waited until I lifted my head before he moved next to me and pulled the wool blanket up over us. "What is it, Finn. Talk to me." "I'm okay," I whispered. My pulse was slowing and my breathing was returning to normal as the fight-or-flight reflex left me. My drunkeness was receding even as the whiskey churned around uneasily in my gut. "I'm sorry. I just can't." "I'm the one who's sorry. I shouldn't have pushed. I don't know what's happened to you, but it's okay. We don't have to do that. Not ever." He slid his arm around me and held me like that for a long time, and instead of pulling away I let my weight relax into him, soaking up his warmth. When I felt calm again, I turned my head and looked at him in the candlelight. "Scars." "Yeah." He nodded and smiled tentatively. That explanation, at least, he understood. I studied his profile, and suddenly I smiled. His concern and regret were obvious on his 78

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adorable face. This time, I moved first. I reached for him and kissed him, slow and easy, and he met my kisses but he let me take the lead. Waited until my mouth opened and my tongue slid over his, drawing it out. Slowly, I eased Josh to his back and moved over him. We traded playful kisses, keeping it light after the intensity of a few minutes ago. We'd both gone limp during my panic attack, but now I was regaining my erection, and that woke his up against me. "Do you want to fuck me?" he asked in a whisper, and my whole lower body tightened in reaction, like an explosion in my stomach. His eyes were carefully reading my face and it was obvious what my answer was. "Have you ever topped a guy before?" he said casually, as if we were discussing the weather. When I shook my head no, he raised his eyebrow, teasing me. "Ever do anal with any of those chicks?" "Never." "That's okay. I'll lead you through it, but you're completely in charge, okay? If anything happens and you want to stop, that's fine. You okay with that?" I swallowed and nodded my head. Josh was my friend and I trusted him, more than I'd trusted anyone in a very long time. I needed this so bad. I'd denied how much I needed it for so long. I fought it so hard, but I was tired of hiding and I wanted out. "Okay," I whispered. I needed it, but I was terrified, too, because I knew that once I did this I could no longer tell myself the same lies I'd clung to for so long. Once I did this, 79

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there was no going back. I knew exactly how much I was going to love it. "Hold on just a second." He moved out from under me and dug around in one of the bags on the floor, coming out with a box of condoms and a tube of KY he'd just happened to bring along. "You're quite the optimist, aren't you?" I asked, laughing. It was a relief to break the tension I was feeling. "Never hurts to be prepared." He grinned and dropped down on the bed. "How do you want me?" "What do I look like? A set stylist?" "No, you look like a really sexy photographer who knows exactly how to get what he wants." "Want me to get my hat?" I teased. I had a Kangol hat I usually wore on shoots to keep my hair out of my face, and I knew how much he liked it. I'd caught him looking at me when he thought I was concentrating on something else. "I like the idea of you wearing nothing but that hat ... and me." He moved toward me, but he waited until I reached for him to touch me. His hand came up and brushed over my stubbled cheek; neither of us had felt the need to shave with cold water that morning, and the day's activities of drinking, sweating and not bathing had left me smelling not like a bed of roses. "I stink," I warned him as he started licking my neck. "I know." He closed his eyes, bent his head, and drew a big deep breath of my scent. "Mmm." When he saw me giving 80

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him a weird look, he grinned. "Give it a try. It's really sexy," he assured me. "This is some freaky California thing isn't it?" I said skeptically. Wrinkling my nose, I leaned close to his armpit and cautiously sniffed. "Whoa!" It hit me like a ton of bricks, his smell, unwashed and a little sweaty. It was primal and intimate, and it excited something in me I never knew existed until this second. I suddenly wasn't into the slow and easy thing anymore; I pounced on Josh and attacked him with my mouth, pushing his arms up over his head, holding him down on the bed while he squirmed under me. "You liked it," he breathed. "Oh, yeah. I liked it." In fact I couldn't fucking get enough of it, or of tasting him, licking and biting his smooth, hot skin while his scent filled my brain. I pulled his boxers off him. He was always reluctant to get naked; I could see by the look on his face that he was still squeamish about exposing his scars to my eyes. I didn't think they were ugly at all. I ran my hand over his scarred hip and his thigh and kissed it to let him know I thought it was beautiful, just like everything else about him. That put my face right next to his very hard cock surrounded by silky reddish blonde curls. I studied it intensely, but finally, while Josh waited, frozen to the spot, I gave his belly a little kiss and moved away. "No?" he whispered lightly, keeping some humor in the air. "Not this time." I gave him a little apologetic smile as I kissed him. His hands ran along my back and gently pulled my hips down into his and, with this encouragement, I ground 81

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against him, trapping his cock between us, squeezing my balls in a mind-blowing mixture of pleasure and pain. It didn't take long for me to start moving instinctively, searching out my goal. "Wait, Finn." He breathed my name, panting, his eyes glazed. "The condom. And you can't just shove it in. Not that big thing. You need lube." "Okay." My hands were shaky, but I managed lightningfast dexterity in getting the condom on. The feeling of my dick sliding through my lubed hand made my stomach flip. I put my hand on his hip and pushed, telling him under my breath to turn over, quick. He was breathing just as hard as I was, but still he instructed me on the finer points, looking over his shoulder at me as he settled on his stomach while I kneaded his ass cheeks, impatient, champing at the bit so to speak. "Are you ready now?" "Hell, no. Settle down, kiddo. This ain't a pussy, okay? You have to help me get ready. Get the lube and put it on your fingers, and make sure it isn't cold." Eagerness was one thing, but I obeyed the voice of experience and did exactly what he said. "Now?" I slid my fingers down his crack and he caught his breath. "One finger at a time, baby. It's been a while since I've bottomed; you need to take it slow at first. Yes. Oh!" He let out a little grunt as I slid my finger inside him. The first one easily slid past his tight puckered hole and I wiggled it around curiously. He was right when he said it was nothing like a pussy. Tight and slick with lube, it felt welcoming, not 82

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at all off-putting. Familiar. Not strange and drippy and spongy with all kinds of weird nooks and crannies. Thinking about sliding my cock in there made my excitement so intense, I was trembling all over. "Put another finger in slowly. You're doing good, really, really good." Josh bucked, closing his eyes tightly, as I did what he said then started improvising. What I was doing must've been good because when he spoke again, I could hardly understand him; his voice was so thick and hoarse. "Now, Finn. Do it, but go slow.... Oh, Jesus. Fuck!" He buried his face in the pillow and bit back a sound of what I hoped was pleasure as I moved my hand away and slowly pushed the head of my cock past his hole. "Stop!" He gasped. I was almost past the point of being able to stop, but somehow I did, because I could tell by how tight he was that it was almost too much for him. Panting, I grabbed his shoulder and held on, stretched out over him, supporting myself on one elbow. My hands were braced on his arms, and I stroked them slowly, his sweat-slick skin gliding under mine. I stayed there, sweat beading on my forehead, until he started to relax around me. "Y'okay?" I gasped. "Yeah." He managed a laugh. "You're a lot to handle, you know that?" "So they tell me." It was past time to be cute. When he gave the okay, I started to move, gently at first. It was good ... But then, suddenly, I hit my rhythm and saw stars. God, I'd had my dick in a lot of women, I wasn't going to lie. I'd convinced 83

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myself at the time I liked it, but now I knew I never did, not when I felt like this. Everything I ever felt before was a pale imitation of this moment, even when I was fucking some poor girl doggie style and secretly imagining her ass belonging to her twin brother. I ran my hand over Josh's back. All those freckles, so beautiful. Screwing my eyes shut, I opened my mouth against his shoulder. He tasted wild and salty. His strong, hot scent crashed over my senses in a flood so intense I moaned. Instinctively I bit down into the back of his neck, and when he felt my teeth, he let out a cry of excitement. "Oh, God," I whimpered and he ordered me over his shoulder to do it harder. The encouragement and the increased thrusts pushed me over the edge; without warning, I lost it, spilling into the latex while a million stars exploded through my brain. "Shit, yes." Shifting, he reached for his cock with his hand; my orgasm set him off and he spurted over and over into the mattress, letting out a long, low cry that echoed all through me. I rolled off him onto my back and we lay like that, letting our breath slow. Josh was startled when he finally turned his head to look at me and saw that I was lifting my camera that had been sitting next to the bed. I wanted to capture how he looked right now, still on his front with his face toward me: glazed in sweat, vulnerable, satisifed. After the second picture, he actually smiled, but not at the camera. He was looking past it, through it, directly into me. He was smiling at me as his eyes got heavy and he drifted off to sleep. 84

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Chapter Nine In the morning, I woke up and lay there alone in bed listening to the sound of the shower. I drifted in and out of dreams to the smells of coffee and bacon. It was a good dream. Most of my dreams are bad, always have been, but I learned as a very small child never to scream out. What was the point when no one would come to comfort me? Coffee ... Bacon.... Running water ... Holy shit, the electricity was back on! I jumped out of bed and ran into the bathroom where Josh was taking a shower. My smell had moved from sexy to just plain stinky. The only clean up we'd done was a very brief wash with freezing water. The hot spray was more than I could resist, not to mention the thought of Josh wet and naked and slippery under the water. Grinning, I slid the shower curtain aside on the rings, peeking in at him. "Finn, don't." Instead of welcoming me, Josh quickly grabbed the shower curtain and pulled it back closed. "I'll be out in a second." "What's wrong? You didn't mind being naked last night." I frowned at the vinyl curtain spotted with patches of pink and black mildew. "It was dark last night. And I was drunk." That was just plain stupid. I huffed out of the bathroom. I'd seen the goddamn scars already. What difference did it make if it was dark or broad daylight? But then, when I was eating bacon sandwiches and drinking the hot coffee he'd made, I started to think about it. There were parts of me I 85

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didn't show anyone. Josh had trusted me enough to let me see that part of him, and it might not bother me, but it did bother him. If it had to be in the dark, then I could accept that. How could I not? Of all people, I understood. When he came in, dressed in his pants and long sleeved shirt as always, red hair wet and shiny, I gave him a weary smile. "Guess you're not going to let me do those photos." "You've got fifty pictures of me, kiddo; you don't need anymore." He bent down and kissed my cheek. The vulnerable Josh from last night was gone, and he was back to his confident, in-control self. "Maybe the power coming on means the roads are getting cleared. Let me call the ranger station." When I got out of the shower, Josh informed me that the rangers told him the temperature was climbing, and by evening the ice should be melted enough that we'd be able to chance the drive. I guess I should've been happy. I had to get back to the shoot and catch up on all the work I was missing. Two whole days of forced inactivity would ordinarily have been enough to make me crazy. To my own surprise, I felt disappointed, almost crushed. We were having such a good time. "Back to reality," I sighed sadly. "You know, speaking of which, you've never told me if you have a boyfriend in LA." "I don't. If I did, I wouldn't be playing around on him." "So you're faithful?" I asked, genuinely curious. Back in New York, I knew a lot of gay men. And I mean a lot. To my knowledge, not one of them was completely faithful to their 86

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lover; some of them gave lip service, but as soon as a chance to stray came, they took it. Straight folks, too, for that matter. "Yes, I am. I just broke up with a guy after three years because I found out he wasn't." Suddenly I was greedy for the details of his life outside our idyllic little snowstorm interlude, about to be over. "How did you find out?" "The usual. Mysterious calls on his cell phone, a lot of nights working late. Strange cologne on his clothes. General sneakiness and evasion. I tried to be blind to it, but finally he let himself get caught. Cheaters always want to get caught." "Did you love him?" As for myself, I hated this nameless man. "Yes, I did, and yes, it hurt." Josh gave his little accepting shrug. "But a leopard can't change his spots. I'd caught him cheating once before. I forgave him, but he was bound to do it again. It was my own fault for being so stupid." "So, I'm your rebound?" "No." He reached across the table and put his hand on my just shaved cheek, brushing my lip with his thumb. "You were a surprise." His brilliant aqua eyes stared into mine, and then he leaned close to me. I thought he was going to kiss me, but instead he whispered. "I need to know what you think is so terrible, you can't tell anyone. Why can't you sleep unless you're looking at the door?" I shook my head. "People think they want to know these things about me, but they don't. Trust me." "Finn, it can't be that bad." 87

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"It is." "You know, maybe if you talked about it with someone, it would help you. Obviously, you're in a lot of pain..." "I am not." I got up and started pacing around like a lion in a cage. The weak, watery sun was at last brightening in the sky, and I looked out the window impatiently. The coating of ice on the trees was dripping, melting. "I've got to get out of here," I muttered between my teeth, the beginning of panic gnawing at my chest. I felt trapped. "Sure. Run away. Go back to New York and hide behind your camera. That's what you're best at, isn't it? You know, Finn, I thought you and I were..." He started, and then stopped. I finished for him in a rush. Maybe he was going to say something else; and if he was, I couldn't let him. "Yeah, we're friends, but I told you. I can't do these questions. I don't answer questions, and if you can't stop asking them, then I can't be your friend." I said it, but I expected Josh to back down. I never expected him to do what he did. Standing, Josh went over to the window above the sink and looked out at the melting landscape. "Okay," he said softly. "You're right. You've built walls so high you can't even see out, Finn. I can't be friends with someone who can't let me in. So..." He shrugged helplessly. "I won't ask you anything." I felt all cold inside, my legs were frozen, but after a second or two I was able to move again, and I went about systematically rounding up everything of mine that was in Josh's cabin and piling it by the door. The keys to my rental 88

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car were next door. The snow crunched under my feet when I walked, but the ice was turning to slush and I didn't slip. It was time to go.

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Chapter Ten "Lee, I've been thinking. It might be best if I head back to New York. This whole thing has turned out to be a disaster for me and..." He cut me off mid-sentence without hesitation. "You can't leave. I need you." The tone of his voice made me look up into his eyes, questioning, thinking of what Gemma had told Josh. Lee read my face. "I need you on this shoot," he clarified quickly. He went from firing off orders to his little pathetic act he put on when it was to his benefit. "The physical work is so demanding, I can't do it without your help. I'm counting on you, Finn." "But what about Jake?" Wearily I made one more effort to wiggle out of his trap. "Jake is talented, but he's still a kid. He doesn't have your experience or your genius." Experience: that meant, getting old. Lee held up some of the developed negatives I'd brought back from the cabin earlier in the day. "This is incredible stuff. The best you've ever done." "But..." "What do I pay you, one-thirty?" He went from stroking my ego to all business, straight to the wallet. "One-twenty-one," I corrected flatly. "But this isn't about..." "Congratulations, you just got a raise to one-thirty-five. And ... Finn, I'm bowing out of this shoot. I'll stay and help you finish, but it's yours now. All of it. I want you to take over 90

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full creative control of the rest of shooting, and I'm giving you sole credit to the client. Anything you need, you've got. I know you hate what we've done so far. Well, here's your chance to go back and re-shoot. You've got six days to finish." "Six days?" What he'd just said barely sank into my brain; I was so stunned. Forget the huge raise. This vast, prestigious project had just been handed to me lock, stock, and barrel on a silver platter. As it dawned on me, my chest tightened with a mixture of elation and panic. "That isn't enough time, there's no way..." "Then quit and go home." That son of a bitch. Our eyes met and we stared each other down like two hardened gunfighters facing each other in the OK Corral. As usual, I was neatly under his thumb. When pity and greed failed to move me, Lee went like a viper for my real weak point, the evil twins of pride and ego. Offering me the one thing I couldn't refuse, then making it almost impossible to finish in the time frame; the ultimate challenge. I could not say no. Was I so stupid that I could really be controlled this easily? "God, I hate you, Lee," I breathed, but I couldn't keep the admiring grin from playing on my lips. It wasn't that I was stupid; he was just a fucking genius. A charming smile and impeccable clothes, glossing over the cutthroat instincts that made him the top fashion photographer on the heap right now, a position he'd kept in his clutches for a decade. 91

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Let's be honest. I was already doing most of the camera work anyway. I had been for the past ten months. If I wanted to, I could finish Lee off, knife him and push him off the throne. He knew it. I knew it. But he also knew I wasn't going to because I didn't want that. That was the reason he wouldn't let me quit. He smiled with a mixture of grim satisfaction and weary triumph. We sat up the rest of the night rearranging the shooting schedule and dividing it up between Jake and me. Jake would be doing all the static shots, the ones with non-moving subjects, and I was basically doing all the model shoots. When Lee finally had to go to bed, I sat on my own bed zipping through the mounds of proofs and sorting them into three piles: keep, marginal, and re-shoot. I didn't have to look at them for more than a second to instinctively know where they belonged. The keeps had one major thing in common: Josh Kinney. His signature styling was obvious in a lot of them. I wanted him on my shoot; I wanted him to do all my styling, even if he didn't want to be my friend anymore. Three days later, I hadn't slept much; I didn't have time. Also, I knew that if I lay down and turned off the lights, I'd start thinking about Josh and I just couldn't afford to do that. Really, it was best we kept things professional between us, I reasoned with myself. It was probably not politic of me, but I had demanded he take over styling all of my model shoots, usurping the position of his boss; and with Lee backing me up, Lila had no choice.

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"It's because you're fucking him isn't it?" Lee asked me privately, smirking, but with a certain glitter in his eye that I couldn't decipher. "No. It's because he's good. And FYI, I'm not fucking him." "Ah, but you did fuck him when you two were conveniently snowed in up in the mountains, didn't you? Don't try to lie to me. I can see it when you look at him." In all truth, I was trying my very best not to look at him. Ever. We still worked together perfectly. That was exactly the same as before we slept together. He still read my mind; we were so tuned in he hardly even asked me what I wanted, and I hardly had to tell him. Words were a waste of time because usually a look, a hesitation, would be enough. He had such an instinct for knowing what I needed; he was so inside my head that—yeah—it was definitely for the best that off the set we completely avoided each other. That was one thing I did not need. Yes, it was for the best. But then, why did I feel so fucking awful? When I would look up and see him talking to some model, or laughing with one of the twinkies on the hair and makeup crew, I shook all over, like I was in the throes of malaria. I told myself over and over, I told Gemma, and anyone else that would listen, that it was exhaustion. There were only three days left on the shoot before we all packed it up and went home. The pressure was enormous, and even though I wasn't overwhelmed, stress has a tendency to heighten your emotions. A horrible desperation was growing and swelling inside me like some sickness, time was running out, slipping down the drain, and all I could do was watch 93

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helplessly each time Josh would look up, catch my eye, and turn away. "Finn, you really need to sleep tonight." Gemma was walking me to my door, helping me carry all the stuff I needed to look through. Her eyes lifted to mine and softened. "You look like shit, sweetheart." I started to protest, but I knew she was right. Denying it was too much effort. "Come on." She eased my key out of my hand, unlocked the door, led me in and turned on the lamp. I protested, but I didn't even have the strength to fight her as she unbuttoned my shirt with the gentle, caring touch of a mother. Someone else's mother, that is, not mine. Punches and slaps were all the touches I'd ever gotten from her. "Time to sleep," she whispered. "Gemma, there's no time...." She didn't answer me, didn't interrupt me, but I didn't have the energy to finish. I didn't even have the energy to stop her as she took off my shoes, unbuttoned my jeans and eased them off, and then guided me over to the bed and pulled the covers down. I vaguely remember her kissing my cheek, and I think my head hit the pillow, and then I was asleep.

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Chapter Eleven When I woke up, the clock read 11:48 and I freaked out, confused and filled with panic because I'd slept half the day. It took me a minute or two to realize that it was close to midnight, not noon, and that I'd only slept a few hours. Sighing with relief, I took a hot shower and slipped on a shirt and boxers, preparing to get some work done. Gemma was right; I did feel better, not as exhausted. But when I settled down on my bed, I couldn't concentrate. I kept looking at the door, getting up, pacing around. The room was closing in on me; I had to get out of there. Up on the next floor was Gemma's room. Her light was on under the door and I heard music; I started to knock, but then I realized the voices I was hearing weren't from the TV. She had someone in her room with her. It was probably that tech guy I'd seen her hanging out with between shoots. I didn't want to intrude, so I walked away quietly. Just down the hall from Gemma's room was Lee's door. I paused. The light was on and I heard the TV, but no other voices, so I knocked lightly. He opened the door, wearing some loose linen pajama thing, and stared at me curiously, eyes roaming my body and then settling on my face. He greeted me and let me in. Unlike the rest of us lowly worker bees, Lee had a suite, complete with separate bedroom. I sat down on the end of his couch while he fixed me a drink at the mini-bar. "What's up?" he asked as he handed me the bourbon and water on ice. 95

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"Couldn't sleep." I downed the drink in one choking gulp, feeling the burn as it went down and curled in my gut. I thought I'd come in and commiserate about the shoot, bitch about how tired I was, receive sage advice from the master and all that. But when he handed me a second drink, I suddenly couldn't hold my head up and I lowered it into my hand and rubbed my eyes. "Jesus, Finn," Lee said softly. He touched my back and my shoulders sagged. "You're so fucked up over this boy, aren't you, baby." A rushing sound filled my ears. "What are you talking about," I muttered. "We're just friends. It's not like we're dating or anything. We just had a ... not even a fight. I'm just exhausted. I've been working like a slave, thanks to you." His hand made slow, soothing circles on my back, right between my shoulder blades. Tension zipped like sparks along my nerve synapses. "Anyone with eyes can see how unhappy you both are, trying to avoid each other." "We became really good friends," I whispered, surprising myself with the admission. "I know." His arm slid over my shoulders and all the sudden, with no warning, I found myself blabbing out the whole story of everything that happened while Josh and I were up at the cabin, how things were going so well until he began to question me and when I couldn't answer, he decided he couldn't be my friend. I repeated several times how I just couldn't understand it. I left out the sex parts, but Lee was no idiot, he saw right through the holes in the tale. It was pretty 96

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obvious. He listened in silence, but at the end, he heaved a sigh. "Findlay," he spoke my hated first name, known to him only because he signed my paychecks, "For someone who's so smart, you can be awfully goddamn stupid sometimes." "Thanks." I started to get up, but he pulled me back down. "There are so many people who care about you," he told me. "You're a wonderful guy and lots of people have tried to get close to you, but you push everyone away. You won't let anyone care about you because you won't let anyone get to know you. Give this boy a chance to know who you are. He wants to know you." I shook my head, helpless to explain. Nobody understood. "I just don't want you to end up like me, Finn." "You? You're the top fashion photographer on the east coast..." "None of that means shit when you don't have anyone to love you." "Love is an illusion," I snarled. "A lie people tell each other to justify the awful things they do." "Maybe sometimes," Lee admitted, although I could tell he didn't want to encourage my cynicism. "I fell in love a few times; I got my heart broken and decided I didn't like the feeling, so I never let anyone close to me again. I thought I didn't need anyone. But now that I know better, it's too late and here I am: alone and sick and way too old to find someone now." This sounded like self-pity, but when I looked up into his eyes, I saw only ironic self-knowledge. Lee always saw things 97

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pretty clearly, which made him such a damn good photographer. I could have protested, said, "Oh, no, it's never too late. You could meet someone to be with," but I didn't because it only would have insulted his intelligence. Lee's mouth curled up at the corners and he reached over and stroked my cheek. "You know," he whispered, "You've only got three days left." "I know, and I miss being his friend." I said, almost to myself. He'd been leaning in close to me, but when I said that, all of a sudden he drew back like touching my skin burned him. "Then get out of here," he ordered in his customary demanding voice. "The person you need to talk to is down the hall."

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Chapter Twelve Before I knew it, I found myself out the door, but I didn't head to Josh's room, I went back to my own. I picked up my cell phone off the table and pushed six. We kept in touch by cell phone on shoots, so he had his own speed dial button. "Hello," Josh didn't seem at all surprised to hear his phone ringing after midnight. "Josh, it's me," but he already knew that; my name showed up on his display because I had my own slot on his phone, too. Still, there was a long silence. "What's up, Finn," he finally said in his quiet, calm voice. A sweat broke out over me and immediately turned cold on my skin. "Listen. Can I come down and talk to you for a few minutes? If it's too late and you're trying to sleep, or if someone's there with you," I started to freak a little. "I'm sorry, it was stupid of me to..." "It's okay," Josh interrupted me softly. "I'm alone, and I'm not in bed. You can talk to me anytime." "Okay. I'll see you in a few minutes." As I quickly cleaned up in the bathroom, I didn't let myself think about what I was doing. If I thought about it, I couldn't go through with it. I pulled some jeans on over my boxers. Josh's room was down the stairs, all the way on the other wing of the lodge. When I finally tapped softly on the door and he opened it, for a second I just stood there staring at him, speechless. 99

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Until that minute, I didn't realize how much I missed him. Sure, I saw him on the set all day, but that was different, that was work. I wouldn't let myself think about it then, because it was business. But now, it came crashing over me in a wave, and everything flooded my mind: the sunrise with the cold lake water all around me, his scars, that sharp surprised sound he made when I bit him, his scent, my body thrown over his, pressing him into the mattress. The light behind him illuminated the gold in his hair and I could see him swallow. Wiping my sweaty hands on my jeans, I followed him into the room and stood frozen to the spot while he closed the door and locked it behind me. "There's something I need to tell you." I crossed my arms and paced around the room like a lion in a cage, while he went over to the mini-fridge and fixed us both a vodka and grapefruit juice. He sat down on the end of the bed and watched as I downed mine quickly. "Well?" "Okay." Taking a deep breath, I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand and set the glass down. There was no way to make it pretty. I stared at the floor, never looking up while I told the story in as few words as possible; and when I finished, there was a long silence as Josh absorbed what I'd just told him. "Your ... your stepfather raped you. Is that what you're saying?" he asked in a voice that tried to be normal but couldn't quite manage I looked up. "I ... I don't know. It's strange, but I really can't remember how it was at first. I think at first I tried to 100

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fight him, but later..." This was the really hard part. "Later I didn't fight." There was another very long silence in which he dropped his eyes and partially turned away. My heart thumped. I was right; all along, I was right, a voice inside my head was saying. All along, I knew that when someone found out the truth, they would never want to talk to me or look at me. I forced myself to move, even though I felt so heavy, my limbs were like lead. I forced myself to look up at Josh. His eyes were closed and he seemed to be having a hard time breathing; he let out a long exhale and swallowed before opening them. "Finn," he said my name sadly. His eyes looked me up and down as if he was seeing me for the first time. There was no revulsion in them, only a kind of weary sorrow. "You couldn't fight him. You were a kid. He would have hurt you if you tried to stop him." "I think he did, at first," I said simply, each word forced out. Cold sweat had broken out all over my body from the effort. My teeth were literally chattering as I bared the darkest part of me that I kept locked away from all eyes. "I think he hurt me and that's why I can't remember when it started. I was afraid of him, Josh. He was a big guy. When I was twelve, he did it and I was too scared to try to stop him. But then..." I took in another deep breath. "Later, I could have stopped him; I was strong enough physically, but ... he told me all these things ... that no one would believe me, that they'd see I was a little queer and I liked it, and they'd laugh at me ... He told me ... that I wanted it." 101

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"And maybe he was right. I could have stopped him, but I didn't. Maybe there was a certain point, that I started to let him." "Jesus fucking Christ." Josh jumped up involuntarily and I noticed that, like mine, his breath was coming fast as if he'd been through some great physical exertion. I took a small step back, but all he did was cross his arms over his chest and gripped his biceps until his knuckles went white. "You didn't let him do anything. He was a sickening child molester. Nothing you did or didn't do made him molest you. My God— don't you see that you were the innocent victim in this?" "But I wasn't." My honesty wasn't coming in bursts now; I felt grim and deliberate. It was like ripping open my own flesh revealing this secret. It dripped out like blood. The secret that, if anyone ever found out, they'd know what a monster I really was; and I felt a dark satisfaction that Josh had asked, so now he would have to hear the answer. He wanted to know me: well, this was me. I looked straight into Josh's eyes. "Josh, I knew what he was doing. I wasn't innocent. Sometimes I even liked it." He stared at me, speechless, and I couldn't help giving a bitter laugh. "How do you like that? You can't cast me in the victim role in this little drama, can you, Josh? It's not a TV movie of the week. He made me do things that you couldn't even dream up in your worst nightmares, and I let him. I liked it. That doesn't fit in with your idea of poor innocent little Finn, does it?" "You're wrong." He stated it with deadly precision. "He took your innocence away from you. He used shame, guilt, 102

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and fear to control you. You're not stupid, goddammit. I know you can see that. That's what child molesters do. He violated your mind, not just your body. That wasn't your fault; you did what you had to. You survived." I shrugged as if I didn't care. In the past, there had been times when I really hadn't cared if I lived or died. "Maybe so. And here I am. Am I making you sick yet? When you think about what we did at the cabin, bet you want to go take a shower, don't you? Get the water really hot and scrub me off?" "Stop it, Finn." What was I doing? Maybe I wanted to make him angry and make him hate me. Make him hate me as much as I hated myself. But, he didn't. Instead of backing away from me, he closed the distance between us. He put his hand under my chin, lifted it, closed his eyes, and kissed my lips ever so lightly, so gently, and I could feel his hand shaking. When his eyes opened, there were tears in them. In all these years, I'd never cried. I couldn't remember the last time I cried about anything; it was some time before my stepfather started to do things to me. Sometimes I thought that part of me was dead, or broken. But when I saw the tears in Josh's eyes, my heart jumped inside my chest, as if it was telling me it was still there, alive. "I'm sorry, Josh. I shouldn't have said those things. That was really terrible of me. I know you only want to help." Reaching up, he touched the side of my cheek, blinking the tears away impatiently. "I wish I could help, but I think you 103

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need a professional, you know? The only thing I can do is be your friend." "So you don't hate me?" I asked in a voice I hardly knew as my own, because it sounded not like me, but like a little boy. "God, no. Never. In fact, I..." He suddenly stopped. "Things add up now. I figured it was something like that, but I never really understood..." "Why I'm so fucked up?" I finished for him with one of my little laughs, only this time it wasn't filled with venom. I went over to the fridge and poured us both another vodka and juice, heavy on the vodka. Then I sank down on the bed, feeling as if I'd just run a marathon. After a minute, he sat down beside me, a careful distance away. I was touched that he was giving me space, but I was tired of fucking around with that. I put down my glass, moved to him, and rested my head against his knee. "When we were in the lake and you said, 'what did he do to you,' I totally freaked out because I felt like you'd seen inside my head," I said with a weary sigh. He didn't answer, but his hand slid down and stroked my hair. "You know I've never told anyone about this before now." "Are you serious? Never? Not your mom, not the social workers?" "No. I told you I was put in foster care when I was fifteen. Well, I didn't tell you that I was the one who called Family Services. See, he had this little boy of his own, my stepbrother, Chad. He started telling me that he was going to do something to Chad. He called it playing a game. And I 104

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couldn't let that happen." Just thinking about it still made me break into a cold sweat. "This is a little fuzzy in my mind, so I can't really tell you everything about it; all I really know is that I called Family Services, and they came to our house and saw how we were living, and by the next day, they'd taken Chad and me into state custody. He had relatives to go to, but I don't have any other family, so into the system I went." I didn't feel any desire to describe the Florida State child welfare system at this point. "Finn, where was your mom? What the hell was going on in that house? Didn't she have any idea what was happening?" "She was drunk most of the time, but she had to know something. There was no way she couldn't have known, and she didn't stop him. I don't know what he did. If he hit Chad and me, I'm sure he did it to her, too. But no matter what it was, how could she have let him do it?" I shrugged; there was no answer to these questions, and a lot of it was lost in the mire of my subconscious anyway, blocked out, repressed, whatever you wanted to call it. "If I ever had a little kid, and I found out someone was doing things to them ... I'd get a gun and I'd blow their fucking head off. But I'll never have kids and that's a good thing, because I'd never want to bring a child into this fucked up world." I looked up at him and smiled sadly, rubbing his thigh. "You don't understand these things, I know. Your life was more or less perfect." "I was lucky." 105

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"Yeah." I sighed and let my hand stay on his leg. "So I was in the system for three years; there were about five different foster homes, some good, some not so good. At least nobody tried to do anything to me. I was lucky that, when I was sixteen, I was put with the Georges. Maggie and Eric were really great; I stayed with them until I went to college. They'd taken all the money from the state and put it in a college fund. I haven't talked to my mom since I turned eighteen and the supervised visits stopped." "Why didn't you tell anyone what he did to you?" I didn't have an answer to give at this point. At least, not one that made any sense. "This man," Josh suddenly said, shifting to lie down on the bed. "You've never said his name." I moved so that we were lying next to each other and I put my head on his chest, listening to the steady, even rhythm of his heartbeat. I knew I hadn't said it. I didn't even like to think about it. It was hard to say it now, but the safety level I felt with him allowed me to do it. "Rick Fairchild. My mom tried to make me call him Dad, but I didn't. I never called him anything. They split sometime after Chad and I got removed." "What about your real dad?" "Don't know who he is." "Have you ever wanted to find out?" "Well, sure. I used to daydream that he was some fabulously rich guy who'd drive up in a limo and take me away from Mom and Rick. He'd let me live with him in his mansion, you know? But my mom never even told me his 106

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name, and for all I know, he doesn't even know about me, because he's sure never tried to contact me the last twentyeight years." Josh sighed sadly. I'd stopped being sad a long time ago; now I just put it all in a box and locked it up tight. Sure, it was all part of me, but it was in the past. The problem is, the past always manages to sneak out of the box and rear its ugly head. "I know I'm fucked up, Josh. I wish I were normal so this would be easier for you. I know I have a million issues about intimacy and sex." "What he did to you wasn't sex, Finn. That was abuse. Sex is when both people are on equal terms and they're both consenting adults. When I hold you and make love to you, that's sex." It took me a second to realize what he'd just said. He'd said the word love. Of course, it didn't mean anything. It was probably just a careless remark, but he seemed to realize it at the exact same time I did, and I couldn't help but notice out of the corner of my eye that his freckled face was getting that familiar red flush. For a moment we were both silent as his words echoed through our minds, then I took a deep breath and went on with the rest of it. "There's something else I need to tell you. When I was about sixteen, after I went to live with the Georges, I started dating this girl, Amber. We always went everywhere with her friend Becky and Becky's boyfriend Rob, because Rob had a car. Well, anyway, Rob and I became really good friends. By then, I'd convinced myself that I liked girls, and I definitely 107

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did not like guys. One night, Rob's parents went away for the weekend and Rob stayed with us, in my room." "There was a lock on my door at the Georges'. I'd never had one before, maybe now you understand my thing about facing the door. Anyway, to make a long story short, Rob and I had sex. I'd been with some girls before, but this was the first time I'd ever done anything voluntarily with a guy. I liked it, and it terrified me, because then I knew that maybe I really did want it, and maybe I really was what he told me I was." "Oh, Finn," he breathed. I didn't look at his eyes because I didn't want to see pity. "Well, that was it. I never even got close to going there with a guy again. From time to time, I let models give me head, but I convinced myself that it didn't mean anything, because I didn't even touch them. Until I met you ... I couldn't do it, because that meant I'd have to admit that I liked it." "Just because you like it now, doesn't mean you liked it then," he said. For a moment, his comment didn't really sink in on me. Like most of Josh's remarks, it really didn't seem that meaningful at first. It must've been that laid-back Southern California attitude of his, the casual delivery, that made me skim over some of the things he said. As I lay there relaxing against his warm body, winding down from the emotional precipice I'd been on, it started to really spread through my mind. I raised my head and looked intently down into his face. 108

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"What did you just say?" Obediently he repeated it. "Just because you like it now, doesn't mean you liked it then." All in a rush, I realized it was true. I was only a kid, with no idea what normal was; there was no way I could have known the difference between normal sex and abuse. My teenaged body had reacted in the only way it knew how, but that didn't mean it was pleasure I felt. I didn't know pleasure from degradation. How could I have known? I'd spent so many years hiding from myself, because I couldn't face how that man had messed me up, when all along, I wasn't the one who was messed up. It wasn't me. He was the monster. It had never been me. It was him, always, always. There I sat on Josh's hotel room bed, bolt upright, while the realization washed over me that it wasn't my fault. I felt confused and giddy, elated, almost nauseous. Half my life was washed away. If I could have cried, I probably would have, but instead, I started laughing hysterically. Josh sat up and gazed at me in concern, he probably thought he'd have to make me a reservation for a nice rubber room somewhere, but eventually he decided by the look on my face that I was okay, just having some kind of breakthrough moment. The way I felt when I looked at him confused me even more, and I grabbed him and kissed him hard, shoving my tongue into his mouth. I didn't want to talk anymore. I just wanted to feel something.

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Chapter Thirteen "You taste incredible," I growled against his lips. So good, so good. I wrapped my arms around his neck and ravaged his mouth with my tongue, tasting everything about him, thrusting my tongue in and out of his mouth, over and over. I couldn't believe how hot I was just from kissing, but it wasn't just the kissing, it was his complete and utter surrender to me, his ability to trust. Pushing him back against the bed, I moved over him; his eyes shifted to the light with a slight frown as I untied his navy blue board shorts, but I shook my head no. There was no need to turn it off, especially not now. There was nothing about him that could repulse me, and now that he knew all my secrets inside and out, I didn't want us to hide from each other anymore. He lifted his hips as I hitched his shorts and underwear in my hands and pulled them off. He turned a little to deflect my eyes from the scars, but I smiled and held my hand out, pulling him up, freeing his shirt to pull it over his head. The intimacy of the moment sent shivers through my spine and something so simple as undressing him almost did me in. "Oh, Josh," I whispered in awe as all that pale gold, freckled, inked skin was exposed to my eyes. He'd showered not long ago and his clean, sweet smell overwhelmed me. "You are so beautiful." "You're sweet, but we both know that isn't true. Apart from the scars, I'm not ugly, but I know guys like me for my mind, not my body." He smiled as he reached up and slid his hands 110

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under the hem of my shirt, lying back on the bed naked in a pool of light. He wasn't being modest; he wasn't trying to fish for flattery. He really believed it. "No, Josh, I'm serious." I caught his hands. Suddenly this was very important to me, that he know how gorgeous he was. "This is my business. I'm an authority." "I bet you say that to all the boys." He grinned. He grabbed my hips and pulled himself up to me, nuzzling my shirt up with his nose and chin and sinking his tongue into my belly button. "I don't say that to any of them." I gasped with pleasure, but I didn't stop him this time. "You know what's so hot about you, Josh? You don't have any idea how hot you are. Those little slut models prance around knowing everyone wants a taste of them, but you ... you've got a kind of unconscious, serene sexiness that nobody can fake." "Hmm." He thought about it a second and laughed, blushing a bit at my words and my sincerity, deciding he liked it. "That's pretty deep, Finn." "I'm a deep kind of guy." "I know." Reaching up, he cupped my ass in his hands and buried his face in my crotch, panting and snuffling at my cock imprisoned in my pants; his hot breath penetrated the layers of cloth and I felt his tongue find the underside of the head, tracing the ridge. "Your mind's not doing that to me," I said with my breath catching. 111

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"You, baby," he whispered. "Everyone on this shoot, I don't care who they are, is hot for you; you don't even know how many people follow you like lovesick puppies. It's your looks, but it's also your aura. The tall, dark and sexy thing, the wounded bad boy thing; you're a mystery, and you know people are always attracted to what they can't have." "You can have it," I assured him, hands on his shoulders. "Mmmm. Lucky, lucky me." He laughed as he slid the button of my jeans free and worked the zipper with the lightest touch. I wanted what was surely next, but I also had to show him how much I desired him and how beautiful he was. With everything I did, I always tried to let him know that the scars didn't matter to me, that they were nothing if not a sign of his survival, and therefore beautiful; but he needed to see it, not just hear it. Words only mean so much; pictures and actions really matter. People can lie with their lips, but their actions always speak the truth. "Stop." Taking his shoulders, I firmly pushed him away from me, back against his elbows on the bed. My heart knocked against my chest with something other than desire, it was not an entirely pleasant feeling, but I was determined not to let anything stop me from doing this for him. I moved off the bed, touched him, and guided him to the edge, pulling him so his feet were on the floor. He was puzzled, but he followed my lead; when I went down to the floor on my knees in front of him, he gave me a questioning stare. "Finn, you don't have to. I know you..." "I want to." 112

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The look on my face must not have gone along with my words; frankly I was scared to death, but I knew he wasn't expecting this, something I hadn't given to anyone voluntarily, only just that once with Rob, a long, long time ago. This was something I wanted to share only with Josh. How could someone be such a perfect friend and the only man I could trust, the only man I wanted to be naked with? Every day for years, parades of hot little male models, tight asses and perfect abs, cheekbones and eyes, none of them could touch Josh. His body was great, his eyes were beautiful, his face was adorable, but it was his soul that lit my darkness like the endless Montana sky filled with a million stars. For a split-second, I closed my eyes and drew a deep breath. When I let it out, I opened my eyes again and slid them down over his whole body, taking in everything about him, but finally focusing on what awaited me between his legs. It was a nice size package, not as huge or as big as what I have, very pretty lying against his belly, stiff and hard, the head turning dark red with blood as a little clear drop formed at the tip and dripped into a little pool on his skin. That made me smile and I leaned forward and took his arms, which were loose at his sides, and gently pushed them up over his head. He seemed to understand, and he lay back against the bedspread completely still, his chest rising and falling as he watched me in the light, locking his arms over his head when I released them. "It's okay," he told me in a soft voice. "I won't move." His assurance let me relax a little. I can't lie and say I wasn't nervous, but Josh knew, with his almost spooky ability 113

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to get inside my head, what I needed him to do. A shudder ran through him as I lightly ran my hand down over his smooth chest, trailing my finger down over his belly button, where a light arrow of red-blond hair started and widened into the curly mass around his cock. My finger went into the little puddle he'd dripped and I spread it into his skin. Leaning forward, I lightly touched his slit with my tongue, tasting the salty flavor of the sticky drops; he shivered when I brought my hand up and ran it over his shaft. I felt it kick against my palm but he was true to his word and he didn't move. I needed to take this at my own speed; I couldn't put it my mouth and wrap my lips around it, not yet, but I did explore every bit of him with my tongue, lightly following with my hand. Not exactly a world class blow job, I realized guiltily. "Sorry," I whispered. "I really wish you'd stop fucking saying that," he breathed. His thighs were shaking and his face was flushed; aroused, but not nearly stimulated enough to come. It was, I realized, nothing more than one long tease for him, and it was probably getting on his nerves, letting me control the situation completely only to have me act like a fifteen-yearold cheerleader on her first car date. I wanted to do better. With one hand, I pressed down on his groin right above the base of his cock, holding him steady; I needed that extra assurance he wouldn't move. The other one I used to stroke him, picking up a rhythm, licking the end of his shaft with my tongue. My saliva and his dripping juice gave me enough lubrication for a fairly decent handjob, and I was encouraged by the increase in his breath, the little moan that escaped his 114

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lips. I took my other hand away and wet my finger with my mouth then I slowly brought it down to circle his tight hole. Going rigid, he fought not to jump. Instead, he tilted his hips to allow me better access; slowly I started to ease my finger into his tiny, impossibly tight puckered hole. Without lube, I was conscious that I could hurt him and I definitely didn't want that. He surprised me by pushing himself downward, not a thrust, just a little motion that took my whole finger inside his ass all at once; once it was there, I took the hint and started to move it the way he'd liked so much the other night. That made all the difference in the world, and now Josh was actively holding back, letting me stay in control. I felt his excitement grow, felt his balls start to get tight, and I paused, drawing back. I was embarrassed and scared all at once; embarrassed that I couldn't go through with it, but scared of what would happen if I did. I couldn't deal with the thought of him coming in my mouth, not now. Just the thought of being that close, even if it wasn't in my mouth, when he shot, made me a little panicky. Just another scar among many... "Josh, I can't ... you know—make you finish." "It's okay, just get a condom out of the drawer." Panting, he tried to keep his voice calm and soothing but there was an edge of urgency there. "Hurry." There was a lovely stupid moment where I fumbled to strip my clothes off and looked in all the wrong drawers for the condoms before Josh pointed to the top one, right next to the bed, the most obvious place; he was snickering, but he didn't laugh for long. As I got the lube warmed up the way he'd 115

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taught me, he slid up on the bed and started to turn over, but I stopped him. "Not that way." Gently I pushed him to his back. I loved him in that face-down position—I wanted to fuck him like that until the cows came home—but not this time. This time I wanted to see his eyes; I wanted to taste his kisses; I wanted to see that red flush wash over his face and his neck while I moved inside him. It astonished me how Josh gave himself so quickly and smoothly, drawing his knees up against his chest without a second's hesitation about submitting or being dominated as I slid between his thighs. There was no moment of holding back. He didn't even seem to think about it. Maybe it was like that with all normal people, the ones who didn't have issues, who didn't break into a cold sweat at the thought of having someone on them and they might not be able to move. Wonderingly, I watched him while I slid two fingers inside his tight, smooth passage, I watched how his jaw dropped open, and he wiggled around to push himself down onto me, sinking my fingers deeper. I jumped back when I saw a slight frown cross his face but he opened his eyes and laughed breathlessly when he saw me looking worried. "Am I hurting you or...?" "Would you stop teasing and fuck me already." He smiled, but I could see in his eyes that he was deadly serious; there was no way I could disobey a suggestion like that. Quickly I did as he said, watching his eyes roll back as I slid inside him, and he didn't want it slow and easy; his hands 116

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on the small of my back guided me deeper and harder. So tight, so perfect. I breathed reverently, "You feel so good..." "So do you," he answered, hoarse and choked. After that, we said some more things, but they were mostly unintelligible grunts and moans, little one-word commands or exclamations of unbearable pleasure. Josh's legs slipped around my waist and held me tight, urging me forward while letting me control the depth of my penetration and the speed of my thrusts. He gripped my shaft with his tight sphincter, making me crazy. I'd thought he was closer to the end than I was, with everything I did to him before we started, but to my surprise, after about a minute I felt intense electric waves shoot through me and that familiar urgent tightness flooded my groin. My hips started to jerk uncontrollably, I fought to stop, but it was too late, I was already past the point of no return. Before I completely lost it, I gathered just enough control to pull back slightly so I could get my hand between us. It was shaking, but I managed to get it around his smooth cock. The juices that leaked from him and slid between us made it so hot and slippery. I felt it twitch hard in my hand as I started my rhythm again. I let out a cry of amazement at how incredible this felt. Orgasm shot through me like lightning, so fast I hardly knew what was happening. I wanted Josh to be there with me so I backed off and stroked him harder with my hand while I was still pulsing inside him with the aftershocks. I was starting to think that he was going to last all night, when all the sudden 117

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his back arched and went rigid, and in my hand his cock spewed between our sweaty bodies. He tightened around me and as he came, his opening clamped down on my cock in spasms. I felt drenched all over, drowning in sweat and come and his scent washing over me. With a sigh of release, I collapsed on top of him; he wrapped his arm around my neck and brought my mouth down to his, and we shared a long, intense kiss. After he released me, I pulled out slowly and we both started giggling, breathless and amazed, a little hysterical from the intense emotional and sexual highs we'd just experienced. Then I ditched the condom and dropped down next to him. I couldn't believe the clock said 3 A.M., it was almost time to get up, but the bed felt so good... "You staying?" He yawned, pushing my sweat-damp hair back off my face. "I've got so much work to do, I need to..." I was too tired to finish. "Stay here and sleep, you've got a couple of hours." Josh got up and went into the bathroom to wash up. I was almost asleep when he started wiping the come off my chest and my dick with a warm, wet washcloth. It felt good and I tried to thank him, but I couldn't make myself form words; the last thing I was aware of before I slept was turning over and cuddling against him like I did it every night of my life, my head on his shoulder, my arm over his chest.

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Chapter Fourteen "Hey, wake up." Only just a few minutes seemed to have passed before Josh was gently nudging me from sleep, but the red numbers on the bedside clock now read 5:10. "Time to get up, Finn." "It can't be." I whimpered. "Come on." Josh pressed up close to me and ran his hands over my bare chest, brushing my nipples; I groaned, protesting the wake-up call but not the method. "You need to get up. That jack-off photographer changed the call time from eight to six, and you know what an asshole he is when people are late." I grinned sleepily, still refusing to open my eyes, but I let him roll me off him onto my side. "If you give him a blow job, he might not fire you." "I'll have to give him one just to be on the safe side, then," Josh teased, but we both just smiled because we knew it would have to wait. We needed to get up. I knew it, but still I lay there facing him on the pillow, reluctant to break the closeness we'd discovered last night. It was a fragile thing I was afraid couldn't survive the bright light of day. Darkness was one thing, but things were different in the daylight. I didn't have regrets, but I still couldn't believe what I'd done, the things I told him. Not every detail, no. There were details that I kept buried even from myself, things he didn't want to know, but it was enough. More than anyone else in the world ever knew about me. Suddenly I was overwhelmed and I grabbed him 119

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and wrapped my arms around him, burying my face in his neck. "Josh, thank you," I muttered. "For what?" He stroked my neck, running his hand through my hair. "For last night. For everything." "I didn't do anything, baby. That was all you." His voice was hoarse with something I couldn't name. Easing me back, he looked into my eyes and smiled. "Thank you for finally trusting me." As I kissed him, ignoring both our morning breath, my cock started to wake up, but we just didn't have time, not now. Josh noticed my condition and grinned, promising me we'd get to that later. Despite the shock to my system, when I forced myself out of bed I realized I didn't feel the complete physical exhaustion that had dragged me down the previous night when Gemma took me upstairs and made me sleep. Stretching, I pulled on my clothes, sans underpants, while Josh turned the water on in the shower. To be honest I felt invigorated. For the first time since the mountains, I actually felt excited to get started on the day's shoot. Today, we'd finish all the new material, and tomorrow we'd start the re-shoots. I would've loved a few more days, but now, with renewed energy, I actually felt like I could do this. "I need to go up to my room and change and get a few things. I'll meet you downstairs at six." It might've been my imagination, but I thought I saw a dark look pass over Josh's expressive features. It made me 120

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smile to myself, but I didn't have time to deal with it just now. That boy couldn't hide anything he was thinking; his face was like a billboard that broadcasted every emotion that passed through his mind in ten-foot letters. He thought I wanted to meet him downstairs because I didn't want my boss, all my co-workers, all the models, and everyone else in the world to see us strolling in after having obviously spent the night together. Not true. But while I took a quick shower in my room, I had to admit to myself it wasn't entirely untrue, either. He'd been openly gay since college, so it was easy for him, but this was all new to me. Besides, it wasn't as if he was my boyfriend or anything, just like I'd explained to Lee last night. We were just good friends ... friends with benefits. With just three days of shooting left, it started to be fun again. As much as I might bitch and moan about doing fashion, I love my job. It wasn't brain surgery and it should be a good time. Lee developed a rapport with the models from behind the camera, laughing and joking with them, coaxing a good performance out of them. My approach was different. All these little Blaines and Annikas and Dylans were just a bunch of kids, and even though I wasn't exactly old, twenty-eight is ancient to a seventeen-year-old, so instead of being the buddy, I took a more commanding approach. Not intimidating, but more stern, so they had to work harder to gain my approval. However sometimes this backfired on me, because when things weren't going well, I lost my patience and just plain got pissed off at them, and then we had a bunch of rebellious teens on our hands, ganging up on the teacher. Allie, the only 121

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one who wasn't a professional model, was the easiest to work with and I'd been using her in almost every shoot. Things went exceptionally smoothly that day. Josh brought his iPod and programmed it to stream some music we both liked; the models complained and clamored for the latest pop crap, so along with the crew, all about the same age as Josh and me, we felt it necessary to educate them on good music. "God, I feel so fucking old." I gave up. These kids knew of Nirvana only because of "that guy who blew off his head." "Reminds me of my uncle always trying to convince me that Kansas and Journey were the two best bands ever created," Josh snickered. "Here, eat this." He handed me a chicken salad croissant, a Diet Coke, and some chips he'd liberated from the catering table. I didn't fail to notice the smirking glances people were trading, when they thought I wasn't looking, as I scarfed down my sandwich with Josh standing over me to make sure I finished it. Well, to hell with them. When I was finished eating, and Josh reached down and wiped something off the corner of my lip with his thumb, the choked-back laughter suddenly erupted into gales of giggles. I glared around at the crew; but really, I didn't care. Let them laugh. Laugh they did, but it was mostly the friendly type of snickering. When Lee came down to the set mid-afternoon, I saw Gemma whispering to him in a corner. They were both glancing my way and grinning, but I just ignored them. Lee looked mighty proud of himself, and I guess, in a way, he had reason, because if he hadn't sent me to Josh's room last night, I most certainly wouldn't have gone on my own. I 122

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sighed. That man was just too damned smart for his own good. The shoot went on until darkness descended and cut off all vestiges of natural lighting. Everyone was tired as we broke things down, but we were all keyed up, not exhausted to the point of dropping. I can't say the stress was completely gone, but instead of drowning in it, I was allowing it to be more of a motivation than a burden. The only thing that had really changed was that, instead of feeling miserable every time I caught a glimpse of Josh, I felt relaxed and comforted by his presence. After we finished for the night around ten, and while everyone else headed to the bar, Josh and I slipped upstairs to my room. While I got us a couple of beers out of my mini fridge, he called up the kitchen and ordered room service. "Want cheese on your burger?" "Yes, and fried onions. And fries. Cheese fries," I called over my shoulder. Smiling, he added the cheese fries onto the order and hung up, sitting back on the bed with some pillows against the wall. He looked so cute, I leaned over and kissed him and then sat down next to him with the pile of proofs from the day. While we waited for the food, we went through them, and then started on the re-shoot pile, discussing what I wanted to do differently tomorrow. It was work, but with him there, it was more fun than it was stressful. "Damn," I exclaimed as I looked over some particularly great shots from the morning. "I wish you lived in New York so I could use you on all my shoots." 123

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There was an almost imperceptible silence; I hadn't meant to say that aloud, and I definitely didn't realize how it would sound. Josh laughed slightly to break the sudden tension. "Can't, there's no good surfing." Suddenly, it occurred to me that neither one of us talked about the little fact we lived on opposite coasts; that we'd be going back there in a couple days was a topic that did not come up. I hadn't been deliberately avoiding the subject myself. A question nagged at the back of my mind for a second and I turned to study Josh's eyes more deeply. Right at that particular moment, there was a knock at the door and he jumped up to get the food. The little awkward moment passed. We flipped on the TV and watched reruns of Seinfeld while we ate and shared a sixpack on the bed; we laughed and talked; we cuddled a little. I put my head on his shoulder and thought about how much I liked his smell. It wasn't cologne, it was just ... him. Turning his head, he smiled at me and we kissed. It was just a light, tentative kiss at first. I think we were both still a little shy regarding everything that happened in his room last night and I especially had to adjust to this new level of intimacy—the fact that he knew things about me that I'd never imagined telling anyone else. It was scary, but at the same time it was good; he knew me now, and maybe he could accept that part of me, the same way I accepted the damaged part of him. He drew back from the kiss as it started to deepen. "Listen, do you want me to stay the night, because I need to go downstairs and get some stuff." "Oh, yeah," I nodded eagerly. 124

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While he was gone, I picked up all the food containers and threw them away, fluffed up the pillows and pulled the covers back, stacked the photos up on the table and turned off the extraneous lights, leaving on only one lamp by the bed. Lighting was very important. Then I went into the bathroom and used a thin hotel washcloth to make sure I was clean all over. I started to wash the smell of the day's sweat from my armpits but then I grinned and thought the better of it. Hey, it turned him on; and it was still early, only after ten. We had the entire night ahead of us. A few minutes later, Josh tapped on the door and let himself in. I was reclining on the bed in a deliberately silly seductive pose, buck-naked. He laughed, but he didn't waste any time dropping his stuff, pulling off his clothes, and jumping into bed with me. We had so much fun together. It didn't matter if we were playing Uno, working on the set, or fucking ... although fucking was definitely the best. When I was with him, drowning in all that smooth, golden skin, I wanted it to last forever, and yet I couldn't wait to get to the finish; then I wished we'd gone slower because it was over too fast. I groaned with a strange mix of satisfaction and longing as I pulled out of him, my tongue still buried in his mouth. "Mmm..." He closed his eyes, his body relaxing into the pillows. "More," I squirmed impatiently between his legs. "Now?" He raised an eyebrow at me skeptically. "You're not up for another round yet, kiddo." 125

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"I hate it when you call me that," I said. Secretly, I liked it. I made a valiant effort to get another erection, licking his nipples, and nibbling on his neck, but it was just too soon. Sighing, I had to admit he was right and finally I rolled off him, shucking the condom into the trashcan strategically placed next to the bed. We shared a quiet, easy going vibe while we both lounged on the bed, too lazy to clean up. I pitied the poor maid who had to change these sheets tomorrow; they were a disgrace. Josh let out a long, contented groan as he stretched. "You know what's funny? I never really liked bottoming before." "Really?" I half sat up. "I don't want you to do something you don't like." "I like it with you." He put his hand on the side of my jaw and smiled at me with his gorgeous eyes. "With some guys, it's an ego thing, but you're so sweet and innocent, it's like my first time all over again." "Sweet and innocent?" I snorted in disbelief. "Yes, even if you do think you're hard and jaded. I know better. And that's one of the reasons I love having you inside me." I thought about that statement for a second, then I shuddered, scooting up and letting him wrap his arms around me. "How do you do it?" "Do what?" He was starting to get drowsy. "Give up control like that." The idea made me uneasy, but at the same time, Josh's hands stroking my back made me feel very safe. 126

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"I don't feel like I do," he shrugged, and I was again amazed at how casual he was about the whole thing. "You're not forcing me to do anything I don't want to do; and we both know I could stop you if I wanted to. I let you fuck me because I love it. It gets me off. And I trust you not to do anything that doesn't feel good." He opened his eyes and flashed me a brief smile. "You're too innocent." That was the second time he'd said that, and if he really thought that was true, he was wrong about me. There was no one who had more firsthand knowledge of the most awful, depraved ways someone could hurt and humiliate another person. The thought of doing those things made me physically ill. That was the thing that scared me about bottoming, to use his gay lingo. How could you know if the person you trusted wouldn't—while your back was turned and you were helpless—suddenly become a monster? "I don't know if I ever want to do that," I whispered, pressing my face into his shoulder to ward off the chill that ran through me. "Sometimes it's not a want, it's a need. You may surprise yourself, Finn. One day you might meet a guy who makes you forget the difference between want and need to. And when you trust somebody like that, you can do lots of things you didn't think you could." He shrugged and suddenly jumped up, pulling me to my feet. "Let's go take a hot shower." The big, deep, oval whirlpool tub with a massaging showerhead was a huge improvement over the cramped and mildewy shower stall in the cabin at Bowman Lake. In close 127

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quarters with Josh's wet, naked, slippery body, I quickly recovered myself. "Hey, I'm up for another round now." "I see that." His eyes flicked down at my now-erect cock, and he smiled slowly, but he groaned. "But we'd have to get out ... dry off ... then we'd get all messy and have to get back in and take another shower..." "There's a simple solution, we just stay in this one." Gently, I pushed him back against the shiny white hotel tiles, braced my hands on either side of his head, and captured his mouth in a very hot kiss. I ran my tongue down his neck and bit his shoulder. Despite his half-hearted protests, he was getting an erection, too, so I pushed my advantage, so to speak, and slid one hand down his wet stomach. Josh held his breath; and I knew exactly what he thought I was reaching for, but instead I put my hand on his hip and turned him around so he was facing the tiles. The water poured over us in a hot, dizzying spray while I pressed my body against the length of his wet and shining skin, my dick sliding into the crack of his ass. "Finn, you've got to stop," he breathed. "We don't have any condoms in here." I sighed in mock disappointment, "I guess we'll have to come up with something else to do." "Now, wait a minute. I dragged you in here for a reason, so get to it." "I've been trying, but you won't let me." I let out a wicked laugh and Josh spun around and grinned at me with the water streaming down his shoulders and 128

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plastering his hair. "I'm talking about washing, so here's the soap." "Hmmm, maybe this won't be so bad," I decided as I turned him around and lathered up my hands, running them over his freckled back and the round, pale cheeks of his ass. From behind, I soaped him everywhere very slowly, stroking his skin and licking his neck, until we were both panting like dogs. I needed to have him right now; I locked my arm around his waist and I started to push my fingers inside him, but he sucked in a gasp and shook his head. "Don't. The soap burns, baby." "Sorry." I held him and let the water rinse the soap away, and in the meantime Josh turned around, the water letting him slip easily from my grip, and picked up the soap I'd set on the side. He smiled very wide. "You're pretty dirty yourself, you know." Somehow, I found myself with my back against the tiles, holding on to the handicap bar attached to the wall, while Josh soaped me very thoroughly. When he sank down to his knees to run his soapy hands down my thighs and over my ass, my own knees started to buckle, and he laughed softly. "Don't fall, I don't want to end up in the emergency room. Shower sex is so fun, but it's so damn dangerous." "You love danger," I reminded him, reaching out and touching the shark tooth hanging around his neck. "I must, because you're pretty risky. I hope you know CPR; I may go into cardiac arrest if you fuck me like that again." 129

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His hands suddenly tightened on my thighs and I let out a yell and threw my head back as his hot mouth slid down over my cock; I felt his tongue curl under the head and rhythmically start licking that little flared edge where, he'd found, I was super-sensitive. I don't know who had the room next door but I hoped they weren't in the bathroom at that moment, because if they were they certainly got an earful as I gasped and moaned and whimpered his name over and over. I didn't dare let go of the handicap bar, because I surely would've fallen; this was fucking incredible. I wanted it to go on forever, it felt so good.

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Chapter Fifteen My eyes closed tight and I drowned in the sensations of his mouth, the hot water pouring over me, and the slow, steady waves of electricity that were building up inside me. I managed to open my eyes and glance down. The visual of Josh, on his knees in front of me, sucking my cock with long, slow strokes, the water spraying his skin, made my knees weak again and I bucked against him. "Oh," I whispered helplessly. Soon, it was going to be soon. Only dimly was I aware of what his fingers were doing. All I knew was that he was stroking my balls and it felt incredible. When his finger slid down below my balls and pressed the spot right in front of my asshole, I gasped; I felt so good I didn't mind, I was just about to come, and even though it was strange, it almost pushed me over the edge. His finger very slowly moved just an inch more and brushed my asshole. Not probing or pushing, just sliding over it. All the sudden I caught my breath, and it wasn't in a good way. I didn't lose my erection, but my stomach was suddenly tight and my panting breath was now much more erratic while my heart thumped in my neck. "Josh, stop." My voice sounded sharp, and it jarred us both out of our sexual haze. "It's okay," he whispered as he withdrew the finger just a little. My hand shook as I reached out and touched his wet hair for reassurance. Slower this time, he steadily ran his tongue up and down my shaft while his hand gently resumed 131

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fondling my balls. Then his finger slowly slid back and brushed my perineum again, not even my ass this time, and I jumped again, skittish now. "Don't be scared, Finn," he said in his low, hypnotic whisper. "I'll never do anything you don't want me to do. But I promise you, if you relax and just trust me, it'll feel so good." I gasped for air, gripping the bar for dear life. "I want to, but..." "I know," he soothed. He looked up at me and his eyes were hot and glazed. "What if I used my tongue? We'll get out of here and you can ride me, like before, you can sit on my face. I want to lick you, Finn. I want to taste you so bad. If it's not good for you, we'll stop. I promise." Desperate arousal battled with fear in my mind. I glanced down at him and saw that he meant his hoarse words; the fact that he wanted me so much made me hot enough that the arousal finally won out. Swallowing, I gave a nod and he turned off the water and led me, dripping wet, out of the shower into the hot, steamy bathroom. Pulling me against him, he pressed his back to the door while we made out. A towel hook protruded dangerously right next to his shoulder. I felt him recede a little, letting me take over. We stayed in my comfort zone the whole time and eventually we ended up on the bathroom floor, Josh lying on a fluffy bathmat, me on my knees over his face with my hands braced against the wall. Still I was uneasy, but he took care of that soon enough. God, he gave incredible head. Detached, I wondered where he learned it then decided I didn't really want to know the 132

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backstory on that. He could almost take it all the way—no easy task considering its length—and he did unbelievable things with his tongue. Throwing back my head, I whimpered in pleasure. Discomfort from my knees on the hard floor was at the back of my mind, but it wasn't pressing enough to make me stop. A fucking earthquake couldn't have made me stop. Josh's tongue was doing enough pressing that everything else left my mind completely. His hands tightly held my ass cheeks and slowly eased them apart as they relaxed on their own, while his tongue slid down my shaft and went over my balls. I let out a little cry of surprise when he sucked them into his mouth and rolled them on his tongue, and when he chuckled, I felt it all through me like electricity. Now I was history. My chest hit the wall as I rode his face; I'd never been in this place before, it was like white-hot liquid claiming my whole body, it felt so incredible when his tongue swirled around my hole, then it stiffened and very, very gently slid past the tight ring of my ass. I practically screamed, but I didn't care anymore, nothing else mattered but the pleasure his tongue was giving me. First it was his tongue, then all the sudden it was his finger and I felt so fucking good I forgot to freak out. I almost blacked out, and then suddenly with no warning I came. It was so intense I actually did scream. I realized I was screaming a word, and it was, "Yeah! Yeah!" The finger withdrew from my ass. There was nothing but pleasure when it went in, but when it came out I did feel some discomfort and a residual panic. Josh pulled back and I 133

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moved off him, relieving the pressure on my aching knees. He sat up and grinned, wiping the cum off his face where it had splattered. There was some dripping down the wall as well. I sure hoped the hotel paid their maids decent money... "I think he liked it." Withdrawing, I leaned back against the wall and locked my arms around my knees. Suddenly I felt cold. My asshole wasn't exactly sore, but it was ... sensitive. I was very aware of it, and my heart was pounding again. "What's wrong?" I glanced up, embarrassed. "I just feel ... dirty." He nodded thoughtfully. "Dirty because you liked it?" "I guess so," I mumbled. How could he understand? At the time, it felt unbelievable. Now, afterward, when it was all done, I couldn't help thinking about the times something had been shoved in my ass without my consent; the searing pain and humiliation, and then later, alone in the dark hurting and staring at the wall, the shame and layer of filth that no amount of scrubbing could wash away. It wasn't like that now, but the memory of that feeling still lurked in the back of mind, a ghost I could not ignore. "I wasn't sure you could handle it, but you did great. I..." Josh started to say something, but then it was like he caught himself and he stopped. "You know, Finn," he said in completely different voice, "after we fly out of here, the training wheels come off. You'll be on your own, and I'll tell you, most guys won't waste their time with someone who won't give head; so if you want to practice you'd better do it now." 134

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I looked up in amazement. "Practice?" "Yeah, that's what this is about, isn't it?" "What?" I said stupidly. I couldn't fathom the sudden bitter tone of his voice. So at odds with his near pleading from earlier, when he was on his knees looking up at me and telling me how much he wanted to lick my ass. "Sure. You're just coming out of the closet and here I am, nice and safe and experienced, to show you the ropes. It's a good opportunity for you get comfortable before you get thrown out in the jungle with all the tigers." The bitter edge had been replaced with nonchalance, except for a strange, hard gleam in his eyes. I'd seen it before. It was when we were hiking back from the lake and I told him if we were going to be friends, then he couldn't question me. "Well," I said quietly after I'd thought about it for a moment in silence, "I don't see it that way." "Probably not deliberately," Josh allowed somewhat grudgingly, then he gave me a smile that appeared somewhat forced. "I'm not angry, Finn. It's a good thing for you, kind of a safety net." "Training wheels?" I repeated his cynical comment from a moment ago. "I just want to be sure you know, I'm not using you. I consider you my friend, Josh." A friend who knew practically everything about me. "I know you do, and what better person to help you through your issues than a good friend, right?" Now, there was a definite edge of something approaching sarcasm in his voice, and it confused me, but he gave me no 135

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chance to question it any further, because just then he reached over and grabbed me and stuck his tongue in my mouth. He hadn't gotten off yet, I reminded myself. The tiles right next to the toilet wasn't a very romantic spot for making out, and a moment later I pushed him back and got up. "Come on, the shower's one thing, but this is ridiculous." The rumpled bed sheets felt so good on my knees, so much better than the cold, hard bathroom floor, as I kissed and licked and nibbled my way down his neck and over his chest and belly. He was right. I needed to do this. I needed to get comfortable with it. I had to think about later, when I might want to find a man. Nobody would want me if I couldn't or wouldn't give head. More importantly, I wanted to do it to him; I wanted to make him feel as good as he did me. I had to take it slowly, and there were a few times I had to completely stop for a few seconds to compose myself and let the bad images of the past fade out of my mind's eye. Images of times when I'd been held down and forced to do this, making it impossible for me to let Josh touch me while I did this. Then I looked up at him, lying back completely passive, and saw his adorable face and the way he smiled at me encouragingly through his haze of sex, the way his hands were shaking as they twisted through the sheets, and I could relax. Still, I had limitations. I still couldn't make myself slide my lips down over it and push it to the back of my throat; my hands pressed his hips into the bed so he couldn't thrust forward, even though I knew he wouldn't anyway. Slowly, I wrapped my hand around the shaft. I took the head into my 136

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mouth and explored the texture; it was so soft and so hard all at once, like the flesh of a juicy plum. I pushed my tongue into the slit curiously. Josh tensed and gasped, but I didn't pull away. I wasn't finished with him yet. Taking a deep breath, I carefully fitted my lips around the head and used my tongue the way he had on me earlier, flicking the ridge of the crown, the little flare on the underside. Nice so far, very nice. "Oh, God," he whispered, gulping sharp little breaths. "Am I doing okay?" I asked with sudden vulnerability. "Does it feel good?" "Oh, yeah. You're doing fucking great." His laugh had a stressed-out edge. When my hands caught the back of his thighs, he pushed his knees up without any prompting from me, eagerly baring his ass to my eyes. I'd fucked it, but I'd never really looked at it up close. It seemed amazing that this tiny little hole could stretch enough to accommodate me, but it did, and it was so fucking tight and sweet, I actually started to feel the stirrings of another erection in the base of my stomach. "What are you going to do?" Josh gasped, fidgeting on the bed. "I'm not telling." I smirked even though he couldn't see me. Curious, I used my hands to press his thighs apart even more so he was completely spread, while I watched the way the little hole opened. This was completely new to me. No baggage here, good bad or indifferent, other than the squeamishness of trying this for the first time; Josh seemed to enjoy it when he did it to me, and I'd washed him very well in the shower, so what the 137

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hell. Tentatively I licked the tight puckered hole. His reaction was intense and immediate; he went rigid and he ground his hips downward into the bed instead of forward into my face the way I knew he wanted to. "Holy shit," he yelped. I smiled; I could do this. I gave him a few more teasing licks before I slid my finger into his ass and resumed what I was doing before, stroking the shaft with the other hand while I carefully, and not very skillfully, suckled on the head on his cock, which was now getting purplish with need. I felt him squirm, but I was concentrating so I didn't bother looking up to see what he was doing, until I heard the familiar, sudden sound of my Polaroid snapping a picture. "You're going to pay for that," I breathed in disbelief while he rolled around in breathless laughter. Soon enough, I had him squirming for a different reason, then begging, then crying out my name as my hand pumped his cock hard and fast and my fingers fucked his ass, until he shot thick, sticky cum out all over his smooth stomach. "Bastard," he breathed, but he was grinning and panting all at once, his face all red and shiny with sweat. "You fucking deserved it, and if I wasn't so damned tired I'd screw you into the middle of next week." The erection I'd tried to get earlier had failed me. I was done. Stick a fork in me. Now I rolled over onto the other pillow next to him and grabbed the Polaroid film from where it fell on the bed, holding it up to see the image. It suddenly occurred to me that I'd made him come. I stared up at the ceiling in wonder; when it happened, I hadn't even thought to move away. My 138

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God. In my chest, my heart started to pound with a sudden wild freedom. The hole I was in was deep, but daylight was peeking in... "Finn, taste it." His voice was suddenly low and hoarse and I looked at his eyes, directing my gaze down at his stomach, where his come pooled. My mouth went dry, but he nodded his head to encourage me, and slowly I moved down his chest. My eyes focused on a drop of come glistening on his ribcage. I could do this. Nobody was holding my head, making me swallow, choking me. This was my decision. I shrugged and stuck out my tongue, licking the little drop. To my surprise, it tasted good; thick and salty, but also somehow sweet. Josh let out a very happy sound, and slowly, I licked and sucked it off his delicious skin. I didn't even wait for the picture to develop. My head was so heavy, I dropped it on his chest and let his heartbeat lull me to sleep.

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Chapter Sixteen Violently, I jolt from sleep. Nothing but achingly cold water surrounding me, choppy and bottomless. The waves are taller than my head and I can't see anything, nothing but endless black water and gray sky. Dark shapes swirl around me, it's only a matter of time before they're on me ... something massive bumps me, pulls me under... Opening my eyes in the dark, I sucked in deep breaths and tried to stop shaking. My heart hammered in my chest. I must've cried out right before I woke up, because Josh immediately rolled over. "Hey ... you okay?" he asked in a thick, sleepy whisper, wrapping his arms around me. "Bad dream?" "Sharks," I mumbled, half-coherent. My face, my back, my hair were soaked in cold sweat, and I was just now fully becoming aware that it was only a dream, not real. Relief was a physical sensation that crowded my throat and made it hard to talk. "They ... the sharks ... all around and..." "Hey, that's my nightmare, not yours," Josh whispered, drawing my body against his so my head rested over his heart. His hand stroked my back and my body convulsed in little tremors as it relaxed by degrees under his gentle touch. In the dark, he whispered to me while I let myself drift back toward sleep, and I thought dimly this must be what happened to normal kids when they screamed in the night and their parents came to chase the bad dreams away. "They can't get you, Finn. I won't let anything hurt you..." 140

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We'd wrapped the shoot the night before. The models had all been rounded up and sent home yesterday afternoon. All that was left were a few prop shots and interior stuff. The last retakes were finished around eleven o'clock; and then there was a crew party in the bar afterward that Lee insisted we make an appearance at. It was around two in the morning when Josh and I hit the bed. There was no 6 A.M. call time this morning and we had every intention of sleeping late, but my internal clock woke me at five-thirty anyway. Sitting up, I looked over at Josh sleeping on his stomach with his arms tucked under his pillow, his breathing slow and steady. We tended to fall asleep holding each other, and then he usually rolled over and kicked the covers off while I burrowed under them in a ball. When we shared a bed, I slept so well. Maybe it was because we wore each other out, I thought with a grin. Fact was, I liked being with him and I dreaded the adjustment of sleeping alone again. The insomnia that always plagued me would return, along with the battery of anxiety that prevented me from sleeping most nights for as long as I could remember, except for the brief period in foster care when they made me take drugs that turned me into a zombie. His eyes opened a little and he gave me a drowsy smile that made my heart flip. "Hi," he said sleepily. "Stay just like that." I grabbed for my Nikon 35mm, but by the time I had the camera ready, the moment was gone and I put it down, disappointed. 141

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"Finn, if you still want to," Josh said softly, "I've decided you can do those photos of me you were talking about." "Are you sure?" I asked, but my mind was already planning it out. "I'm sure." "Then get up; we've got about an hour of good light left and we need to get to the lake." Bolting out of bed, I pulled on the nearest clothes and put on my hat in lieu of doing anything with my hair. I really needed to cut that shit off. Brushing my teeth could also wait. Josh wanted to take a shower, but I wouldn't let him. "What do you want, hair and makeup? Come on, help me carry this gear." "But what clothes should I wear?" he protested. "What you've got on." I smirked, and his eyes widened in realization because he was still naked. If we'd planned this out last night and gotten up early, we could've gone up to Bowman Lake, but it was too far. Planning was overrated anyway; sometimes the best photos were spontaneous products of the moment. The hour after sunrise and the hour before sunset were the golden moments, the kind of perfect light that made every photo better, and I try to shoot during that window when possible. My window was rapidly closing. Every traffic law in Montana was broken as I tore out of the hotel parking lot toward the lake on the resort property where I'd skinny dipped that first morning. Also, now that I thought about it, it was the first time I'd met Josh.

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"I don't know about nude photos," he told me in between clutching the armrest in terror and squeezing his eyes closed to block out my driving. "It's okay, it's just you and me out here," I reassured him. "Nobody's going to see you but me, and I already know what you look like. And what you like." He smiled briefly at my joke, but I could see an uneasy flush spreading over his cheeks. "But what about the pictures?" he asked. It was easy to see how he hated being uncomfortable with this. He wanted to be fine with nudity, but he couldn't help it. I could've turned on the charm and used my professional instincts to put him at ease the way I had so many shy models in the past, but I didn't. He was no model, getting paid a load of money only to look good. Easing onto the brake, I pulled over on the side of the road and shifted into park. I turned to face him and looked him in the eyes. "Here's what's going to happen. I'll develop them and print them. Then I'll send you a set and you can decide from there if you want anyone else to see them. If not, I won't even put them in any of my portfolios, but either way, I'll never sell them or let anybody print them. This is something between you and me, and if you want to keep it private, that's perfectly fine with me." Staring into my eyes, he relaxed. He knew I was telling the truth. I had never lied to him and I wasn't going to start now. If he trusted me with everything else, how could he not trust me with this? From the very first, we'd constantly challenged each other's safety zones. So many barriers had already 143

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fallen and this was just one more, the latest in a long list of issues to work out. When we got to the lake, I switched personalities. Josh joked around about how I changed when I was working. I may be a coward in my personal life, but when I step behind a camera, I know exactly what I want and how to get it from someone. As I went about setting up and cursing the climbing sun and framing shots, Josh smiled, but he obeyed me completely. Just the way he always did on sets, offering suggestions but never encroaching on my territory. However, instead of just ordering him around like a professional model with the brain of a doorknob, I took a minute to explain what I wanted from this shoot and how I planned to do it. "Okay, now take your clothes off." There's definitely something intimidating about the impersonal eye of the camera. I sensed his uneasiness as he undressed on the edge of the lake; it was touching to see him trying to relax for me. At first, I directed him into the water. The partial cover it offered would help him get more comfortable. One of the most important aspects of getting good pictures is capturing interaction between people; the little glances, the smiles that happen when people connect. When you're shooting one subject, you have to make the connection yourself, in lieu of another model or whomever. That's why I always felt more comfortable behind a camera, because then it was easy for me to connect, something I usually don't naturally do. But, Josh and I already had the chemistry, already had the connection. Only his selfconsciousness stood in the way. 144

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"Okay, now do something for me." I bent my knees on the edge of the water and sat back on my heels, dropping the camera. Best if he saw my face as much as possible. "Pretend the lens is my eyes. Look past it at me. Can you do that?" Somehow, that one simple request always throws the switch. Josh had heard me use it a dozen times, but he managed to do it. He pushed aside his inhibitions about being naked, his reluctance to be the focus of too much attention, and started opening up. In the cargo pockets of my pants, I had rolls of film, both color and black and white. I shot a test roll while we got relaxed, then got ready with one camera for each type of film. When I'm not out for a specific shot, I don't try to control my camera work too rigidly; I just go with what feels right. As the sun climbed and the light lost its golden, hazy quality, black and white film felt the best. I liked the colors in his tattoos, but I found myself more drawn to the contrast between his smooth skin and the shiny scar tissue. Black and white film is superb for capturing nuances of texture and contrast. While I clicked the shutter I talked to him a lot, keeping my direction minimal, and I thought after a while he actually forgot about the camera entirely, but when I asked him to get out, he rose from the water with an erection. The camera turned him on after all, the same way it did when I used my Polaroid in bed. I smiled slightly but I didn't want to embarrass him, so all I did was direct him over to the big rock he'd sat on when he watched me swimming. On my knees among the hard stones, I moved closer, clicking fast. I had to stop and change the film and he laughed, watching. 145

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"You don't even look when you do that." "This fucking kills my knees," I complained briefly, but really I hardly felt it. A little discomfort is the price one pays to get the perfect photo. I was close now, right in his face. I reached out my hand and pushed his arm up over his head to snap the place where his tattoo started on his ribcage. "If you were getting paid, this would be sexual harassment," I joked. Touching a model was very much forbidden. "Finn, put the camera down." The sudden low, demanding tone of his voice startled me enough that I did it without thinking, and I looked up at his eyes. They were dark with lust, and he reached out and put his hand on my neck, drawing me toward him. I hesitated, reluctant to stop my shooting, but ... Oh, what the fuck. The golden moment was gone anyway. Our lips met and he gently drew me closer so I was kneeling in front him, between his legs, as we kissed, and he was slowly pulling me in with his arms around my neck so I could feel his cock against my stomach. His hand slid down over my shoulder, down my back, and squeezed my ass while his lips and tongue worked at mine. He was so gentle that I found I was letting him lead, letting him ease me forward. "Wait." I breathed, opening my eyes. The look on his face was an indescribable mixture of desire, longing, and sadness. I felt it, too. It was like a lead weight on my chest, but I couldn't let myself show it like he did, and if I hadn't lifted the camera, I wouldn't have even seen it. It was only through the lens that I saw so clearly. I snapped the first shot, then a second, and then kept on until he stopped me. It was his 146

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face, his eyes, the little smile on the edge of his lips as he looked past the camera at me, straight into my soul, the way only he could. Reaching out, he took the camera from my hands, turned it around, and pointed it at me. He knew exactly how to use it. I panicked. "No, Josh, not now." "Yes, now." I didn't want this, I hated having my picture taken and I especially didn't want photos of this moment, capturing what I was trying so hard to hide, but I couldn't shut down on him, not when he opened up to me so completely. I forced myself to let him click the shutter, another and another, before I turned my face away, putting up my hand. We were both raw inside. This couldn't go on. "That's enough."

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Chapter Seventeen By unspoken consent, we pulled apart and he went to get his clothes on while I packed up the camera gear. When we got back in the car, we could hardly look at each other. We were both thinking about the same thing, the conversation that lay between us like a physical presence. It had been just before the crew party Lee made us attend last night, even though we wanted to spend our last night together in the room. Josh had helped me pack some equipment while we had a few beers. "So what's next?" Josh had asked rather suddenly. "Well ... when we get back to New York, Lee and I have a meeting with the catalog designers to present the work. The company bigwigs will be there, and I'm nervous, because the photos are nothing like what their designers specified. If they don't like it, we're screwed." "But it'll be Lee's ass, not yours, right? It's his shoot." "Yes and no. A hit to his career won't matter to him. He'll still be in demand as a photographer no matter what. But, he wants to hand me the credit. This is my first big project, and if I fail at it, it's not going to look good on my resume." That was an understatement. The fucking Titanic is what it would be. "Surely Lee won't hang you out to dry," Josh had soothed me. "He wouldn't have handed it over to you if he didn't think you could do it. He really likes you, and I know he wants to help you." "We'll see about that." 148

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Honestly, I had no idea what Lee would do if these people didn't like the photos. There would be no second chance here. He'd staked the whole shebang on me and my vision. I didn't know if he would take credit for a failure just the same as a success, or just let me hang myself. He was gambling big on me; while I appreciated the confidence, it scared the shit out of me. I knew the photos were good. Some of them were even great, but that didn't mean a thing if they weren't what the clients wanted. Josh had set down his beer and perched on the edge of the bed, turning to look at me on the floor going through my gear, making sure I had every piece I'd brought with me. I checked it off a list when I located it. Anal, maybe, but some of this shit was costly enough, I didn't like having to replace it because I left it in some hotel. "You know, Finn, I was asking what's next with you and me." "Oh," I'd said. Despite my blank remark, I knew exactly where he'd been heading, and that's why I started babbling my head off about work. I took a quick breath. "So, here's the deal," I'd begun abruptly. "A big shoot like this is like being stranded on a desert island. For two weeks, you're in a bubble, thinking about only one thing, with the same people day after day. I've seen it before. People get so close so fast, it's like the relationship is on fast forward. What would normally progress over a period of weeks is compressed into days. And then, suddenly the shoot is over and you're going back home. Suddenly you're not with that person every day anymore." I had paused and had eyed Josh, 149

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but he'd just stared at me. "You're going back to LA and I'm going back to New York. We'll be on opposite sides of the country, but with cell phones and the internet, nowadays that's not such a big deal, right? We'll still be friends. We won't see each other every day, but when I come to LA on shoots, we can get together, can't we?" Josh had been silent and his eyes had dropped slightly away from mine. My heart had started to pound in my chest. What the hell did he want me to say? "I really like you, Josh, and I wish you lived downstairs from me, but the fact is you don't. We've just been through a really intense experience together. It's made us really close; but once we both get back to our own lives, we'll start to lose some of that feeling because it isn't a part of our daily life." "Are you saying this isn't real?" he'd asked bluntly. I'd felt cold all over, the same way I'd felt at the cabin when he told me he couldn't be my friend. I knew what I was saying was true. I'd seen it a dozen times with other people, how they couldn't live without each other on shoots, and then quickly drifted apart afterward after swearing they'd stay close. I couldn't let what I might personally want distract me from that harsh reality. Besides, how could I know after just a few days what I wanted? Not in this situation, out of context of my regular life. We couldn't stay in our little fantasy world any longer. I needed to get away from this bubble and get back to my apartment in New York, where I could lock my deadbolts.

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"Of course not. Of course, we're close. I'm just saying, we could never translate that completely to the outside world. Our lives are just too different." There was that stare again; Josh studied my eyes for so long, I began to squirm and almost started babbling again before he interrupted me. "I see," he'd said carefully. "It sounds like you've rehearsed this speech, so it must be what you want. Or at least what you think you want." I had started to protest and, once again, he wouldn't let me. "You need to follow your own agenda, right? Hey, that's fine. We can chat on Messenger and stuff whenever, and when you breeze into town, I'll just drop everything I'm doing and rush right over to your hotel room. Convenient for you, a nice piece of ass when you're on the west coast, what, a few times a year? Okay. Great. Sounds cool. Just so you know, though. You're not going to find very many people who will treat you with kid gloves the way I do. You're still in the infant stage when it comes to being gay. There's a lot you don't know, and it's not just the sex stuff. When you get home you'd better find a good psychologist, because I've handed out all the free therapy I'm giving." I remember staring at him in amazement. I don't know what I had been expecting from Josh, but it hadn't been this cold, quiet sarcasm. "Josh," I'd whispered. I had come close to the bed and tried to lay my hand on his arm, but he'd shaken it off. "I can't understand why you're so angry. We've gotten to be such good friends, and I mean we both knew all along that..." 151

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"Yeah, I guess we did. I've known from the beginning that this is nothing but a little practice run for you, so you can work all your issues out with me before you go hook up with some model." He'd suddenly stopped. When he had spoken again, his voice was weary instead of bitter. "It was my own fault. I was stupid enough to think it was something else to you." I'd opened my mouth to protest what he was saying, but instead, I shut up and opened my eyes. With every instinct for nuance I possessed, I had searched his face, trying to see everything in it. When I did, I had seen he was lying, to me and maybe to himself. The words from his lips didn't match what his eyes told me. What his mouth said was cold and angry, but his eyes were hurt. There was nothing I could say to make the hurt go away. Things had to be this way. I did the only thing I knew to do ... I kissed his mouth. After a second's stony reluctance, he opened his lips to mine. So, here we were. The sex last night had been good, but I felt his withdrawal, his little refusals, not quite a perfect fit together. In light of that, I couldn't believe he'd agreed to let me photograph him after all. It was incredibly generous of him, but he had surprised me more than a few times with his willingness to give. I refused to let our friendship dwindle. I wouldn't, no matter what. We'd just have to move on into something different, more distant, but probably still a better friendship than most others I'd had over the years. Now, if I could just force back the empty feeling that hollowed my gut when I thought about not touching him. 152

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This wasn't what I'd expected. Instead of starting the car, I stared through the windshield at the lake, the sun starting to burn in the clear arch of the endless blue sky. I guess I thought that since we were both guys, we'd just go our separate ways without any second thoughts. I'd always done that before. That's what guys always do. "See you later, babe," a kiss on the cheek, and then breeze into town and expect the person to be there waiting whenever it was convenient. Maybe Josh was right; I really did have a lot to learn. We were due at the airport in a matter of hours. Gripping the steering wheel in unbearable frustration, I turned my head, stared at him. "This isn't how I want to leave it with you," I said in a voice that was harsher than I'd intended. Once again, I didn't know what kind of reaction to expect from him. I just waited, while he sat there staring straight ahead, his shoulders tense. Seconds ticked on and we waited each other out, until finally, I had to do something. It occurred to me in a suddenly lucid moment that was probably his plan, to force me into action by sheer stubbornness. When it came to passive-aggression, he was good. Slamming the door, I walked around to his side, opened the door, and pulled him out by the hand. He looked startled at my determination, but he followed me when I led him around to the rear of the rental car, took him by the shoulders, and pushed him back against the trunk. There was a thud when his ass hit the car. "What're you doing?" He sounded amused as my fingers worked his fly. "Giving you a little something to remember me by." 153

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"Believe me, there's no way I'll forget about you, Finn." He let out a little sound of surprise when I grabbed his hips and pushed him up and back, so his partially bare ass was halfsitting on the trunk, shorts bunched around his thighs. "This might not be such a good idea, babe, somebody could drive up..." "They won't." Common sense made him hesitate, but once again, his words were belied by his body; even while he protested, his cock leapt for my touch, springing eagerly against his belly. Gently, I pushed his hands backwards so he was propped on them against the car's back windshield, and he sat back while I went down on him. I still needed to be in total control, but I was getting more and more confident. Each time, I could do a little better, take a little more of his shaft into my mouth, and my necessary slowness only made Josh more and more crazy. Every single time we'd been together before, it'd been in some tiny little room with the door locked. His room, my room, the bedroom at the cabin. Being outside with Josh like this, with the warm hazy sunlight, the blue sky and the mountains and the birds, and the warm, sweet-smelling spring breeze, was something I wanted to remember about this Montana trip for the rest of my life. "Finn ... that's so fucking good." Josh's head was thrown back and he was moaning softly, rocking his hips slightly back and forth against the car even as he tried not to move. This time, I wasn't holding him down; my hands were braced on either side of him against the trunk of the car. I smiled at his reaction as I caressed his shaft with my tongue. God, his dick was stunning, the prettiest one I'd ever seen on anybody in 154

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all my years of photography. I was feeling so safe that I slid my hands back onto his. I lifted one of his hands and put it on my shoulder. Josh let out a little breath because I'd never let him touch me while I sucked his cock before, and he knew what a step it was for me. Nobody else would know. Only Josh. The thought struck me suddenly and I felt my stomach sink at the realization. No one else knew me so well. He didn't grab my head and press me forward, even though I knew he wanted to. His hand slid under the short sleeve of my shirt and started stroking my bicep in slow, erotic circles; restlessly it moved up to my shoulder and traced the muscles just under the skin. His slick juices flowed freely, making him slide easily through my mouth and my hand when I wrapped it around his rod and slowly began to jack it up and down. "Jesus!" Josh let out a low exclamation before his body went rigid, and I felt his hand push my shoulder warningly. "I'm gonna—" His voice had a wild note to it. "Oh, God! God, I love ... Oh, fuck!" he cried out, right as he bucked up uncontrollably. I moved aside just in time for his thick fluid to spurt out and gush all over my hand. There was that word again—it almost occurred to me to notice distantly—but I quickly passed it off as orgasm-induced hysteria. Reaching down, I wiped the semen on his shorts and looked up to see him grinning at me as he fanned himself, panting. "Shit, you better be ready for that CPR, 'cause I'm about to have the big one." "I think you just did," I observed, and we both snickered. "Next time, I might even let you come in my mouth," I said 155

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without thinking. Then I cringed, because that next time was in serious doubt. "The next person you're with owes me a thank you note," he retorted sarcastically, and we both half smiled to keep from showing how much that stung. Sliding off the trunk, Josh pulled his pants up at the same time he stepped toward me, capturing my lips with his. "I like this communing with nature thing," he whispered as his arms slid around my neck. I let him gently push me back and turn me around, my back against the rear door of the car, and I tilted my head back to the cloudless blue sky as he slid his lips down my neck, nibbling lightly while his hands went down my back and squeezed my ass. "I love your tight little ass," he murmured in my ear, sending shivers through me when he nipped at the outside edge of it. "I love looking into your baby-blue eyes when you're fucking me." His hands worked my jeans and wiggled them down around my hips. I closed my eyes when I felt him sink to his knees, hot breath against my belly. "And I really, really love this big, beautiful cock." "It's not that big," I mumbled as he nuzzled the fine black pubic hair that drifted in a line up to my belly button against my untanned skin. "It is, believe me, and if it was any bigger, you wouldn't get near my ass with it," Josh quipped as he wrapped his hand around it eagerly. My eyes shot all the way back in my head and a low moan escaped my throat as he demonstrated his oral talents. According to him, he gave his first blowjob at the age of 156

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fourteen, to his sixteen-year-old cousin—a deep dark secret no one in the Kinney family could ever know. When I pointed out that qualified as abuse, he said technically that was true, but it was voluntary. Anyway, he had lots of experience at it and he was very, very skilled. I tried to get him to tell me how many men he'd been with, but he wouldn't give me the number. "Numbers are meaningless," he'd insisted. "More than twenty but less than a hundred," was all he'd admit. That was quite a range, and finally I decided I was better off not pondering it any further. With a sigh, I leaned my head back against the roof of the car while I ran my hand through his hair. It felt like strands of silk slipping through my fingers. He was going slow. I knew he was drawing it out to make it last, but it was so good, I had to force myself to relax and enjoy it instead of racing to finish. I liked to think I'd feel this with him again. If I were being honest, I knew this could very well be the last time. When I did come to L.A., he'd probably be dating someone, and we'd all go out for a drink or something and I'd feel uncomfortable and leave quickly. It felt too good for me to lie back too long. The long, slow strokes of his hot mouth and the suction of his lips and the flicking of his tongue drove me slowly to the point of no return, until finally I couldn't take it anymore. Grabbing his neck, I brought his head forward and held it. I couldn't let him do that to me, but he didn't seem to mind; in fact, judging by the way he moaned and opened his throat to take me deeper, he liked it. 157

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He gripped my left hip with his hand and drove me forward in a hard rhythm, letting me fuck his mouth, sinking my cock to the base while he gently stroked my balls. His eyes were closed, but they opened wide when he felt the way my body tightened, and I made a little urgent sound. He knew all my signals now. I struggled to keep my eyes open, to keep our gazes locked as I burst forth into his mouth. God, it was beautiful, looking down into his ocean blue eyes, watching him swallow, feeling his tongue swirl around the still-pulsing head of my dick to catch every drop. As my knees went weak, I fell back against the car and let out a long, low groan of satisfaction. "Baby." His whisper had that strange unreadable note to it as he rose to his feet, caught me in his arms as I reeled and kissed me. I opened my mouth and searched out his tongue, tasting my come. We held each other for a long, rather desperate moment under the endless blue Montana sky. "When's your flight?" I whispered. "Four-fifty mountain time. Yours?" "Two-twenty. Want to ride to the airport with us? You can walk me to the gate and say goodbye." I smiled weakly because at the Glacier International Airport there was no gate, only a door onto the runway. "I don't do the heartfelt goodbye thing," Josh said with a cynical shrug. Pulling away, he straightened his clothes and then lifted my wrist to glance at my watch. "We need to go." "Yeah, I know."

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On the way back, my driving was much more restrained, and Josh relaxed his instinctive death grip on the armrest, staring out the window as we sat in silence. "It's so beautiful here. I'd love to come back," I said thoughtfully, not really even meaning to speak it aloud. "Yeah, it's been quite an experience," he said softly. There was something I wanted to tell him and I took a deep breath in preparation. "Josh, I want to ... I'm not very good with these little speeches, unless I rehearse them," I admitted with a fleeting smile. "But I want to tell you thanks, you've really been a great friend, and ... you've really helped me a lot." "I already told you, it was you, not me." He turned his face from the window and looked at me whimsically while I drove. "You know, Finn, I wasn't just being sarcastic about the therapy thing. I had to go through it when I was in rehab, and it really helped me get past my fears. I think therapy was the only reason I was able to get back into the water again." "I still can't believe you did," I whispered. I felt anxious thinking about it, and it didn't even happen to me. "I can't let fear hold me back from what I love," he said simply. Even as dense as I was, I was able to get a small inkling of how profound a statement that was instead of passing it over the way I usually did with his wisdom, at least until later. Josh was pretty fucking smart, for a California boy. A surfer boy with a master's degree in design, a seemingly perfect family, a perfect job, hiding scars every bit as bad as what I 159

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had. He was just lucky they hadn't penetrated more deeply, past his skin and into his soul. "I think you've got a lot of things to work out, and therapy is a big help. There are people that specialize in adult abuse victims, you should try to find one; and you've obviously got some issues about being gay, too." "Maybe a few," I admitted reluctantly. "We all do, dude." I grinned a big, goofy grin. "I can't believe after all this time, you finally, finally said the word 'dude.'"

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Chapter Eighteen Back at the hotel, the photo team was all getting packed and ready. Of course, they were looking for me frantically because the New York contingent wouldn't fit in only one car, and I was driving up in the other one. "Where have you been?" Lee bitched, casting his eyes at Josh with a trace of lingering bitterness, even though he'd accepted things by now. "Just taking a few pictures." Last night, I'd packed all my camera equipment and I only had a few clothes to throw into my last suitcase among all the cords and cables. I went down to Josh's room and helped him pack so he could come to the airport with us. At first, he protested he didn't want to, but I used my powers of persuasion and talked him into it. I'd already figured out Josh found it very hard to say no to me, and I'm not above using whatever means necessary to get what I want. "You don't play fair," he grumbled as he went over the room, looking for anything we'd missed. "Oh, I know." I smirked from the bed. In one car, Lukas drove Jake and Lee, and in my rental car, Josh and I sat in the back with Gemma and Austin in the front. The presence of the other two didn't account for our silence; there just didn't seem to be that much left to say. We looked out the window at the spectacular scenery, and without being too obvious, under the curious glances of the other two, Josh slid his hand over to mine. Nobody had ever held my hand before. I was surprised for a second, but then I 161

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looked over at him, smiled, and wrapped my fingers in his. All the while, Gemma was watching in the rear view mirror at the wheel and I saw her smile. Austin, who liked to talk a lot, was chattering to Gemma about how great it would be to camp in Glacier, and Josh spoke for the first time. "Finn, you and I should meet up out here sometime this summer. I could take you camping for the first time and teach you how to really rough it." "Finn's idea of roughing it is dial-up instead of a highspeed Internet connection," Gemma said, and I had to laugh, because she was dead on. "Just think about it, though. You'll love it. Cooking over a campfire, washing in streams, sleeping under the stars..." "On the cold hard ground," I added. "Doing lots of other things under the stars," Austin winked. He grinned at us over his shoulder, and Josh and I laughed, embarrassed. We didn't say anything else, but I decided I didn't fucking care what anyone else thought anymore; I scooted closer to him on the back seat and put my head against his shoulder, closing my eyes as I memorized the way he smelled. Flying isn't my favorite thing in the world, but I do so much of it, I've managed to put the discomfort I always felt behind me, and I just switch my brain off into some parallel universe. I had developed a remarkable ability to do that whenever I needed to. At least, the so-called Glacier International Airport—international because of one flight to Canada—was nothing like LaGuardia or JFK, there were no hours-long lines to stand in for check-in and searches. In fact, 162

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it seemed only one flight was leaving out of this place at a time. It looked more like the waiting room at a doctor's clinic than it did an airport. I thought it was just adorable, touchingly utilitarian, almost innocent. That is, cute until one looked off to the side and saw the armed guard and the well-trained, wary German shepherd at the ready. We all passed through the metal detector after check-in and luggage search. I set the goddamn thing off every time because I never, ever remembered to take the barbell out of my nipple and drop it in the tray. Sighing wearily, I let them search me. Why is it always me? Never any of the others. Maybe they all looked too wholesome, when I knew for a fact what sluts Jake and Lukas were, and Austin was as hetero as they get, with a long line of women awaiting him in New York. While Lee herded the rest of the crew off to the grouped chairs, probably to give some kind of speech, Josh and I wandered to the corner and sat down on the edge of the big window looking out onto the single runway. A big fake plant shielded us from the eyes of the others who kept trying to look like they weren't glancing over here to see what we were doing. Nosy jerks. "So," I said. My plane was sitting out on the tarmac, some fucking puddle jumper that would fly us to Great Falls, where we would get into a real jet for the flight to New York. I watched the baggage handlers load equipment into the belly of the plane and tried not to grimace when they handled it none too gently. 163

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Josh reached into his pocket and withdrew something. It was his shark tooth necklace he'd had to take off to go through the metal detector. "Here, take this." "I can't, Josh, you need that," I protested as he put it around my neck. "I think you need it more than I do right now," he whispered with a smile. "Wear it till the next time I see you, then you can give it back to me. It'll keep the sharks away." Part of me wanted to protest again, but I just put my hand over it and looked up at him. He looked away, out the window, before he spoke again. "And be careful, okay. Always, always wear a condom, and if they won't wear one too, run. Don't believe anything a guy tells you about his sexual history even if he has signed documents. Okay?" I rolled my eyes with fond irritation. "You can be such a nag." "Yeah, well, I just don't want anything to happen to you. There's a lot of..." "Josh," I interrupted, "I'm well acquainted with the ways of the world." The boarding call came over the loudspeaker, announcing the flight number. While the others behind us got up and gathered up their carry-ons, I reached out and touched Josh's cheek with my fingertips. We stared into each other's eyes for a moment that seemed to go on for eternity, the air writhing with things we were determined not to stay aloud. "They're playing your song." He cleared his throat and nodded upward as the loudspeaker kept announcing. I started 164

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to speak and he stopped me gruffly. "Hey, no goodbyes, okay?" "How about 'see you later'?" Josh nodded and I leaned over and brushed a kiss over his lips. I didn't care who saw me. Getting up, I tried to ignore the sick feeling in my stomach. "I'll call you," I said softly. "Sure," he nodded again. "I know you will, at first." "I will. And, I'll e-mail you. I'll be sending you those photos soon, too." "Okay." Josh was trying to smile, and then suddenly all this emotion just became too much for me to stand and I turned and walked away toward the door, looking back once to see him meet my eyes and lift his hand in a wave. Dropping into the cramped seat next to Austin, I drew my legs up, leaned my head against the window, and stared out. On to Great Falls and then through the whole airport rigmarole again, to end up on a real airplane flying to New York as the sun sank behind us, turning the tops of the clouds a blazing pinkishorange. In the next seat, Gemma had given up on talking to me and sat back listening to her headphones. I was having a vodka and grapefruit juice, thinking about everything that awaited me—my dark, empty apartment; piles of mail; a machine full of messages; friends I had to call and catch up with; a work and travel schedule to look at; meetings with the catalogue design team and company bigwigs. Sighing in complete and total exhaustion, I rubbed my face with my hands. With the deep breath I took, I noticed a distinctive 165

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scent. It was on my hands. I breathed in again and recognized what the scent was; it was Josh's come I'd wiped on his shorts. It was all over my right palm, strongest between my fingers. "What're you doing?" Gemma asked softly, giving me a weird look. Quickly I dropped my hands. It never even crossed my mind that she'd be looking at me; I was so lost in my own thoughts. "Nothing." She stared at me like she knew exactly what I was up to and what I smelled. Shit, it was pretty obvious. I waited for her to start smirking and giving me a hard time, but instead, she reached over and patted my shoulder comfortingly. "You're going to miss him, aren't you," she said. I opened my mouth to start giving her my spiel about how this wasn't goodbye, we were still going to be friends, we were going to get together when I was in town, blah, blah, blah, but I just felt too tired. Instead, I heaved a sigh, shut up, and nodded my head in such a pathetic manner. She reached over and hugged me.

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Chapter Nineteen L.A. wasn't a city I spent much time in. When I did come to the West Coast, once or twice a year on shoots, for Town & Country or some other east coast mag doing a California story, I usually stayed in my hotel room the whole time. There was this one taco stand I liked to eat at, but I hate driving in traffic, and in L.A. the highways are nothing but a giant parking lot. I thought I had everything in my life figured out and ready to go in one direction, but suddenly I veered into a major detour. Here I was, pacing around a hotel room in L.A., my heart pounding in my chest like a fucking jackhammer, so hard I could actually hear it in my ears. Maybe it wasn't a detour. Things were headed this way anyway and I was just too stupid to see it. About two months ago, the truth finally shot through me. Like the brightest flashbulb ever invented, a thousand of them popping all at once, it nearly blinded me when it exploded in my brain. **** The shoot was over and I was packing up my equipment in the empty studio. It had been a long and shitty day. I was tired. I was starving because I skipped lunch. I was mad at Lee for making me do this shoot in the first place; I hadn't wanted to, I kept telling him to give it to Jake, but he refused. Lee sensed my growing impatience with my job, and the more I pulled away, the more he tried to hang on, perhaps not realizing it only pushed me away more. I was 167

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kind of a hot property now, and I didn't have to put up with his crap if I didn't want to anymore, but I couldn't hate him for it; that was just his pit-bull personality, tyranny born of insecurity. Besides, it wasn't just work. I was tired of shooting fashion, something I'd never really liked, but it was the same emptiness and restless boredom I'd always felt, the same dissatisfaction with my life, that I'd thought would be gone now. When I got back from Montana, I was so sure that everything would be all right. I'd finally faced the truth about myself, and the truth shall set you free, right? With that hurdle crossed, it would all be easy from now on. Coming out as gay to my friends was the first thing on my list. We'd all gone to grad school for journalism at NYU together and we still got together every week. It was when we were at my friend Erica's loft, meeting to go out, that I dropped what I thought was going to be a huge bombshell. My rehearsed little speech about how I've been hiding this for a long time and now I want to get it out in the open, I hoped they wouldn't be too shocked—I'm still the same person I always was, but I'm gay. There was a silence in the room, but then, to my bewilderment, a small chorus of titters began and then broke into a full-fledged roar. Reactions ranged from a hug from Erica to a booming, "Hallelujah, he's finally seen the light," bellowed by her boyfriend Mitchell. "Are you saying you guys suspected?" I asked, confused. My friend Daniel, the heretofore only gay one in the bunch, patted my hand. "Honey, we've been waiting for years to see 168

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when you'd finally admit it. So, who is he?" he asked, sitting back. "Who's who?" I growled. "When someone comes out of the closet at the age of twenty-eight, there's always a 'who,'" Danny insisted. Was I so transparent, or had everyone around me suddenly turned into the fucking psychic friends network? When I got them convinced there was no guy, just a friend I hung out with on a shoot and spent a lot of time talking things over with, they immediately started trying to fix me up on dates with their roommate's gay brother or whatever. I thought straight dating was a horror, but gay dating was revolting enough to make me think I should've stayed in the damned closet. None of the guys my friends knew interested me. Mentally I compared them all to Josh—so calm, laid-back, funny, accepting—and they all seemed shallow or neurotic, or they had extensive collections of first-edition Star Wars action figures in the original packaging. Shit, I thought I had issues. Some of them made me seem normal. Besides, there was something nagging at me the whole time. It started out as a twitch in my brain; the kind of sinking feeling you get when you know you've forgotten something, but you just can't figure out what. Like a name on the tip of my tongue, it would pop up at odd moments, only to disappear when I fought to bring it into focus. It bothered and perplexed me enough that I found myself home alone at night, just like before. The only difference was, I had discovered exactly how much gay porn was available on the 169

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Internet and I renewed my lagging friendship with my right hand. Sitting back on my knees, I sighed and rolled my tense neck. What a tedious shoot. It was for some boring clothing ad spread, featuring androgynous, much too pretty boys with hollow cheeks, slim hips, and hairless chests. Probably waxed. All models waxed, even their crotches. It bothered me, to be honest, all that unnaturally smooth shiny flesh, looking almost sickeningly pubescent. The thought positively gave me the willies, if I let myself dwell on it. I'm not into bears or anything, but it's nice to see a little hair so you at least can tell you're with an adult and not a kid. My mind free-associated to Josh's lean flat stomach and the arrow of silky reddish-blond hair that trailed down it. His hair was so soft. I could almost feel the short strands slipping through my fingers. My heart gave a little flip and I decided to e-mail him tonight when I got home. It'd been several days since we'd chatted online. He was doing some magazine shoot in L.A. right now and had attached a couple of pics he took with his new digital camera. I smiled when I thought about it. "Need some help with that?" A low, husky male voice from behind startled me wildly and I spun around, heart pounding, to see one of the models from the shoot today lounging back against the wall next to the door. They all matched, like a team of sleek horses. I didn't remember his name. Actually, I probably hadn't bothered to learn it in the first place, but I did recognize him as the only one who'd stood out to me today. Young, of course; slouchy and bored like they all were, sharp hipbones 170

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above the low-rise pants, lank hair, chiseled face, lips. Nothing unusual about him except the eyes: steel gray and knowing, looking at me now through the gloom with slight amusement. The camera adored the way his eyes peeked through his long black lashes, and the dark hair that fell on his cheek, the way those eyes caught mine, lazily seductive. "Shit, you scared me. I didn't know anyone was still here." I zipped up my bag as a footstep or two approached behind me. "I waited for you," he said matter-of-factly. Turning fully, I faced him as he closed the distance between us in a few steps. I didn't know his name; I didn't want to. I caught his shoulders and established the way things were going to go right away, a persona I knew he'd understand, "strict top." Thank God Josh had explained all this stuff to me in Montana or I would've been lost, a babe in the woods. A flash of gratitude went through me. Right then, a very hot mouth was working its way down my neck, brushing my skin with baby-fine stubble, and nimble fingers worked my belt as I backed us up to the very expensive couch the prop department was picking up in the morning. My cock jumped at the feeling of the tight, round ass cheeks I squeezed in my hands. "Hey," I thought to whisper, "how old are you?" "Twenty-one." He didn't look it, but I don't usually check ID as long as they were legal. Gently I pushed him down to the couch and smiled. He grabbed the waist of my low-slung jeans and pulled me down over him, so I was on my knees facing him, 171

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straddling his waist. I leaned forward with my hands braced against the back of the couch and closed my eyes while languid fingers found my cock and expertly stroked and squeezed it. When I felt myself being drawn forward toward his hot breath, I stopped and drew back. "Wait, babe." I dismounted his lap to rummage in my leather camera bag, coming up with a couple of tealpackaged condoms. "Have rubbers, will travel," I quipped. "For a blowjob?" he seemed disgruntled. "They taste awful..." I shrugged and resumed my position, ripping the envelope. "These are minty fresh. Just think of it as brushing your teeth." This kid really knew how to give head, I observed rather clinically as I looked down and watched him sucking me for all he was worth. His mouth was open wide, lips clasped around my thick shaft, his eyes closed. His hand slid from my hip and over my ass, going straight for my hole. I went rigid and stopped moving, my ass cheeks clenching together like a door slamming, halting his wandering fingers. "Please don't," I said evenly. I was in a place where I didn't have to freak out, where the panic didn't choke me, where I could just state what I needed him to do. "Cool, no problem." With a shrug he backed down and picked up where he'd left off. He was so good that even though my heart wasn't exactly in it, my cock was liking it just fine and I was getting very close when I stopped him completely and took over. 172

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Seconds later, the hipster jeans were down, his butt was in the air, his face was buried in the couch, and my dick was buried in his ass. It was good, and by good I mean great, but to be honest I wasn't that inspired. I felt detached, more curious than totally lost in the fuck. With lightning speed my mind ticked off all the ways it felt different than being with Josh, a well-worn thought pattern since I'd gotten back from Montana. It was natural, I told myself. He was my first, so of course I'd always compare every man to him. It was as if I was walking toward something that was hidden behind a door. Something was building in my subconscious, something that was a lot more earthshaking than the orgasm building in my crotch. All I had to do was open the door. Under me the kid was now stroking himself; he seemed to like it when I pushed his shirt up under his armpits, tightened my arm around his neck while my other arm wrapped around his hips, and pinned him roughly to the couch with my weight. His gym-sculpted back was a wonder. My tongue traced the hard planes of muscle and the little valleys where sweat collected on his skin. As the tight muscles of his asshole contracted around me in rhythm to my thrusts, I concentrated on his back, spread out before me with his wrists cuffed in my grip, and once again I had a flash of Josh, his smooth freckled skin, the scars he tried to hide. I remembered my teeth digging delicately into his deliciously salty shoulder, right where it curved into his neck. Anger suddenly shot through me. Here I am screwing this beautiful model, who could've been sculpted out of marble, 173

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and all I could fucking think about was Josh. Damn him. Why wouldn't he stay out my head? My frustration caused me to punch forward in a hard, deep thrust into the kid's tight ass; he let out a low moan, and the convulsions of his orgasm drove me to the edge and I suddenly erupted like a volcano, letting out a cry of disoriented surprise as I let loose into the condom. Immediately I sank back, my knees protesting their punishment from the hard floor, and I collapsed with my back against the couch, my cock pulsing limply as I stripped off the used condom. Gasping for breath, the model flipped over and pulled his pants up, dropping down on the cushions with his chest heaving like a runner's. I didn't look at him. I think I forgot he was there. In that instant, the door opened, the flashbulbs popped, the darkness in my brain was swept away. I stared straight ahead, amazed. In that instant, I realized something. I felt just as empty and alone as ever, because I was doing exactly the same thing I did before I admitted to myself that I was gay: nameless sex with no intimacy, no connection. Nothing had changed. I felt empty and alone because that wasn't enough for me anymore. It wasn't enough because of Josh. The realization stunned me. I was in love with Josh. I'd loved him in Montana. If I hadn't been so stupid, I would've realized it when I woke from my nightmare—his nightmare—and he was there, holding me in his arms whispering he'd never let anything hurt me. 174

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That was what had been nagging at me. That was the idea in the back of my brain I couldn't quite grasp. That's why I wasn't interested in any other man, not even the gorgeous piece of meat next to me this moment that I'd just nailed. Josh. I loved him; I wanted him and only him. "Jesus Christ," I exclaimed softly. The kid on the couch started to say something, but I jumped up, grabbed my equipment, and got my ass out of there as fast as I could, buckling my belt as I caught a cab on the street outside, to the amusement of the driver. That certainly made me an asshole, but I didn't care, not right now. I had to get home. When I got there I picked up the phone; I had a strong need to call someone, one of my friends, and tell them what I'd just realized, but when Gemma wasn't home I set the phone down. Fuck, if they knew years before I did that I was gay, they probably already knew I loved Josh, and I couldn't deal with their smugness right now. With shaking hands, I pulled the box off my bookshelf where I'd stashed the stack of Polaroids Josh and I took in Montana. I flipped through the sex pictures, my heart pounding with shock and arousal; at the very bottom were a set of prints from the last day, at the lake. Frantically, I dug out the ones I was looking for: the close-up shots, the last ones, before he made me put the camera down. I looked into his eyes in the black and white film and, for the first time, I saw the truth. Josh loved me. It was plainly written there in his face, his eyes looking up at me from the picture, the way he'd looked through the lens into my soul, telling me what he couldn't 175

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speak aloud. He couldn't speak it aloud because he knew that I wasn't ready to hear it, that my denial and panic wouldn't let me hear it. He wouldn't say goodbye to me at the airport for the same reason. "Goodbye" would've meant "I love you" so he said nothing. For the first time I could remember, I wished I could cry. Instead I just stared down at the photos, and almost of its own accord my hand brought forth the three snaps Josh took of me that morning and set them down on the table next to the ones of his face. My eyes looked exactly the same way his did—burning with longing and hunger, and huge with fear. God, how could I be so stupid. The question warred in my brain with another question that came up from the dark place I buried it. How could anyone love me? Maybe I was not a monster. Maybe the things that were done to me didn't make me disgusting, the way I used to think, the way I'd been made to think. However, I knew I was still shot from the inside out. My outsides were fine; the photos proved me exotically sexy and there were a million guys like the kid from the shoot who'd be perfectly willing to do whatever I wanted, but was there anything left inside me that could make anyone, especially someone as wonderful as Josh, want to love me? Before I really understood what I was doing, I grabbed my cell phone and pushed six. It took a second or two for the call to go through and I nearly reconsidered and hung up, but by that time, it was ringing and it would've shown up on his caller ID anyway, so I was stuck. I had no idea what I was 176

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going to say to him, and I started to sweat with relief as the phone rang over and over without being answered. Just as I was about to hang up, it clicked. "Hello?" He sounded breathless. "Hey, Josh." I swallowed hard and tried to relax and smile so that would show through in my voice. "Are you busy? I can call back another time..." "No, I just couldn't find the phone. What's going on?" It was nine o'clock here, which made it six in L.A. We talked for a long time. It didn't matter to me what we said or what we talked about, I was hungry just for the sound of his voice as he chatted about work and what he was doing. I was mostly quiet, listening; I just wanted to feel some sort of connection to him. I knew I wasn't contributing to this conversation. I needed to hang up and let him get on with his plans for the evening, so I softly told him I had to go. After hanging up, I went over to the window, turned the light off, and looked out over the lights of the city. I'd seen the things people did for love. As my friends fell victim to it one by one, I watched as they gave up who they were for their lovers; first to go was nights out with friends, and then the next thing you knew, it was parts of their own identities. That was just a best-case example. I'd spent my whole life trying to forget these pictures, but now they crowded back into my head: my mom on the kitchen floor, curled up in to a ball with her hands protecting her face, the shouting, the blood, the moans of helpless pain, the dull thud of some guy's heavy boots kicking her over and over. As she asked, "Why? Why?" All in the name of love. 177

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Every relationship wasn't abusive; I knew that. Every now and then, someone I knew would be really happy with their lover. Still, most of them were fucking miserable, tied to unhappy relationships with a million threads, just waiting for the moment when something came along and blew it to smithereens like a grenade. I swore it would never happen to me. How the high and mighty do fall. My heart pounded when I thought wonderingly of Josh. I'd insisted we were just friends so adamantly, I'd actually had myself convinced of it. Friends with benefits was something nice and safe, no commitments, no prison cell to get locked up in. But now, I saw my cynicism for what it was; break it down and there was nothing but fear. Just as Lee said, I never let anyone really know me. I'd let some of my walls down for Josh and he hadn't drawn back in horror. He didn't despise me for being a sickening monster, but I was still afraid. Of course, it had something to do with my childhood; I mean, doesn't everything? My mother loved the bottle more than me. Instead of protecting me from her own husband, a predator she'd brought through the door herself, she withdrew into her wine and whiskey, blinding herself to the truth. That's what love and trust had brought me; before I was even old enough to understand what the words meant, they brought me nothing but suffering and betrayal. How could I not be afraid? ****

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I didn't realize all this, looking out the window at the lights of New York, that first night I faced up to the truth about what I really felt for Josh, but here in the hotel room in L.A., I had some idea. That was almost two months ago. The only thing I knew for sure that night was that I was terrified, and as I stood there with my hands shaking, Josh's own words came back to me. "I couldn't let fear hold me back from what I love." Just like a lot of other times, the wisdom in his words took hold of my mind, and I found myself picturing him in the water with the shark again. He claimed he didn't know what he was doing, but his will to survive was so strong he fought instinctively, even through the blood and gore, and now he put it out of his mind enough to go back into the ocean every chance he got. If it had been me, the shark would've killed me, because I would have been, too paralyzed with fear to even move. Fear had paralyzed me for a long time. It was a gaping black hole and I was buried in it so deep I could barely see daylight. I loved Josh for his strength and his courage, and if I wanted a chance for him to love me in return, I had to pull myself out of it. I couldn't wait for someone to throw me a line. I could bitch about my empty life and how much I hated my job for all eternity, or I could stop whining and do something about it. So, I started digging.

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Chapter Twenty It took me two months, but I'd finally gotten on that plane to L.A. I thought about calling Josh before I left, but in the end, here I was and he didn't know I was in town. The fear was still there, but I understood it better, and I recognized it for what it was, the reasons for it. I was still afraid of being shunned for what had happened to me, but that was only one fear. Josh knew about that already and he accepted it. Because of my past, I was scared to give my trust; I was afraid of having it turned against me into betrayal. I had to try. I'd come all this way and I couldn't let myself chicken out now. I felt a little sick as I pulled up a map to his address off the Internet and went to my rental car. It was around five o'clock Pacific time, I was still on Eastern, but it was still early. I knew he usually went out on Friday nights with his own group of friends, but with any luck, Josh would just be getting home from work and wouldn't be gone yet. I tried not to concentrate on where I was headed, because if I did, the panic was almost unbearable. Instead, I just looked around and tried not to get lost, thinking about my day, about the business meeting I had this afternoon and what might come of it, anything but what I was going to say when Josh and I were face to face. Soon enough, I was standing in front of the building Josh lived in, staring at the door. I lifted my hand to knock hard before the "what ifs" swirling through my head convinced me to turn tail and run. What if he's gone, what if he doesn't 180

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want to see me, what if he's seeing someone now and didn't tell me... When the door opened it wasn't Josh standing there. It was a shorter, stocky guy, arms heavily tattooed in that tribal style I disliked. His soft blond buzz cut and various facial piercings couldn't quite toughen his boyishly cute face. He was dressed in a black mesh shirt and leather pants. "Hi," he said questioningly, looking me up and down with his brown eyes. "Uh," I tried not to act like a stammering idiot. "Is Josh around?" "Sure, c'mon in." He let me in and I stood there in the living room with my heart pounding while he disappeared down a hallway. Very nice apartment, tan leather furniture with cheetah-print pillows and a big dark rug covering the hardwood floor. Art hung on the chestnut walls and large oldfashioned windows let in the brilliant light of the California afternoon. I heard a voice from the hallway, "Joshua, there's somebody here to see you." A pause and then the response, "Somebody you might want to talk to." Reappearing alone, he gave me a friendly smile at odds with his forbidding bodily adornment. "He'll be right out. Want to sit down?" "I'm fine," I answered, and he shrugged and dropped down to the couch, gazing at me with curious amusement while I wore a path in the floor. Jesus, was he Josh's boyfriend? My mind turned somersaults. If he was, I was about to make an unbelievable fool out of myself. I prayed Josh would be kind and not let me suffer long... 181

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"Finn?" Hearing my name, I spun around. When I saw Josh, my heart lurched in my chest; but then a tingle spread all through me as my stunned eyes took him in. I was used to seeing him in a working environment, nothing but jeans and long-sleeved Gap T-shirts and Columbia windbreakers. I'd never seen him look like this before. His red-gold hair was slicked back and spiky with gel. He had on low-rise camouflage pants that left very little to the imagination, exposing a slight strip of creamy skin between the top of his black leather belt and the bottom of his tight, long-sleeved black shirt that hugged every line of his lean arms and torso. However, what made my groin tighten, was the studded leather collar he wore around his neck and the matching studded wristbands above both hands. The studs were a double row of silver pyramids, the dog-collar kind of studs. The sight distracted me and turned me on so much I could hardly breathe. "Um ... hi Josh." I managed a weak smile and tried to concentrate on his face. My stomach began to sink, as I realized that instead of thrilled, he mainly looked shocked. After a horrifying moment, though, he relaxed and smiled, coming toward me, and I closed my eyes as he put his arms around me and brushed his lips over my cheek. "God, I can't believe it. What're you doing here?" he was asking as I breathed in his smell. I didn't want him to notice how badly I was shaking, so I pulled away and tried to play it cool. 182

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"I was in L.A. on business," I explained softly. My eyes went from Josh to his friend on the couch, watching the events with his bright, curious eyes. "You're going out, aren't you?" "I'm sorry. I haven't even introduced you," Josh was saying. "Finn, this is my good friend Anthony McGill. Anthony, this is Finn Dixon." "I recognized him from the pictures, even with clothes on." He looked me over, nodded his head appraisingly. "I've heard a lot about you, Finn." Blushing furiously, I remembered I'd let Josh pick out some of the Polaroids, but I was trying as hard as I could not to look like an idiot. All I wanted to do at this point was flee. "Listen ... I shouldn't've just shown up like this ... I'm gonna go. I'll call you tomorrow." "Oh, no." Josh blocked my escape route to the door. "You're here, and you're not running away. We were just going out for something to eat. Then we're meeting some friends and hitting some clubs. You'll just have to come with us." I started to shake my head, no. For one thing I wasn't dressed anything like them—I wouldn't have fit in; for another, I definitely wasn't up to a night of partying with a bunch of people I didn't know, who obviously knew all about me and would be busy judging me. At that point, Anthony suddenly jumped up and shoved his feet into boots that were kicked under the oak coffee table. "Listen, Joshua. I think I'll just toddle on myself, so you and Finn can talk. I'll explain to everybody what came up." 183

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Relief washed over me, making my knees weak. I watched as Josh nodded and they hugged, kissing one another briefly next to the mouth; then Anthony turned and shook my hand in his firm wiry grip. "Nice to finally meet you, Finn. Josh, call me." Putting a hard emphasis on the last two words, he disappeared out the door. I took a deep breath, staring in the direction where he'd just been. "I hope I didn't get you in trouble with your boyfriend." "Oh, don't worry about Anthony; he's not my boyfriend. We've been friends a long time. It's fine." I could hear the grin in Josh's voice as he sat down on the couch. "How come you didn't let me know you were coming to LA?" "I'm sorry," I said softly. "I should've called, but I wanted to surprise you." Slowly I turned around and faced him at last. I tried for a smile. "I thought I'd just breeze into town and you'd drop everything and come running." He laughed to hear himself quoted and patted the couch next to him. "Are you doing a shoot this weekend?" I hadn't kept Josh informed of everything that was going on in my life. It wasn't that I was deliberately keeping him in the dark, but I wanted to make sure of exactly where I was headed before I let him know my direction, what I was planning. I gave a little shrug, sitting down next to him. "No, just a meeting." I gave the name of a major, glossy music monthly. "I talked to the editors today. I might do some work for them." "Really? Here in L.A.? When will you find out?" His eyes burned into mine. 184

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"Probably pretty soon." I shrugged again vaguely. I didn't tell him I'd been freelancing for their East Coast office for about six weeks now; a staff position had come up out here and I'd told my editor I'd like to be considered. The meeting today was just a formality. All I had to do was give the word. I'd asked for the weekend to decide. "And what does Lee think about this?" "Well ... I don't work for Lee anymore. I quit doing fashion, except a little freelance to pay my bills. It's a change I've wanted to make for quite awhile. After the catalogue came out, I had a lot of offers from Vogue and Elle and some of the others, but I decided to take the opportunity to do freelance instead." Josh sat back, astounded. "I can't believe you haven't said anything to me about any of this." My eyes went from him to the neat stack of magazines on the coffee table; there was the Northern Trading Company's fall catalog, with Allie's big-eyed face staring up at me. I picked it up and toyed with it, flipping the pages back and forth with my thumb. "I wanted to wait until it was more official." Shaking his head in disbelief, Josh stared at the book in my hands. "It's amazing, Finn. Better than I ever thought it would be." "Yeah," I nodded simply. "It's made my career. Hers, too." I held up a charming headshot of Allie, the hotel clerk from Montana, who now had a lucrative modeling contract with a big agency in New York. I smiled in his direction. "And yours." Unlike me, Josh was forthcoming about what he'd been up to 185

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this summer, telling me all about work and upcoming projects in our e-mails, so I knew how well he was doing. He was very much in demand as a stylist since the catalog came out and his unique skills were discovered by the right people. "I'll be going to Cape Cod in a month or so to do the spring shoot, are you going?" "They asked me, but I turned it down. I can't commit to something that big right now." "Aw," he let out a disappointed sound. "It won't be the same. I'll have to break in another photographer." Now he was grinning and I laughed, pretending to pout while we both thought of the ways he'd broken me in. "You'd better not." There was an odd, extended silence until finally Josh got up gracefully and went toward the kitchen, just visible through an arched doorway. I'd been trying not to look at him too much, the dog collar and wristbands made it difficult for me to concentrate, and I didn't want to start thinking about sex right now. This wasn't about sex; but as he walked away, I couldn't help watching hungrily, and felt my body react to its long denied need for him. His closeness almost overwhelmed me. "Want a drink?" he called. "No thanks," I answered. "Actually, I don't drink anymore." There was a pop of a bottle opener and he reappeared with a bottle of Heineken, eyes round with disbelief. "Are you kidding me?" he asked. "What brought that on?" "I took your advice," I said softly. "I started going to therapy. And one of the things I've worked out is alcohol isn't 186

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a good thing for me, especially when you consider my mom's drinking problem." This was also a new thing for me, learned in therapy: dropping personal information without being questioned. Something normal people did without thinking much about it, just casually sharing in conversational give-and-take. It didn't go unnoticed by Josh. His eyes widened, but he kept quiet and let me keep talking. "I might have a glass of wine or something at a party, but no more than that. And I feel a lot better. I've never been out of control, but I like myself better when I'm not drinking. I need to start liking myself a lot more, so every little bit helps." "Wow," Josh sat back amazed, staring at me, seeing for the first time how I'd changed in three months. "That's ... I mean, it's great that you realized that. I'm so glad you followed through with what I said." "Well ... It hasn't exactly been easy." That was the understatement of the year. "Also ... I saw my mom about a month ago. I had to go to Orlando for an ad shoot, and while I was there, I drove to Fort Pierce. I was born in Texas, but I grew up there," I added. "Bet you didn't know that." I knew he didn't; he actually knew very little about my past because I'd told him next to nothing. "It was a real shit-hole of a place then, and it still is. Anyway, my therapist and I decided it would be a good idea for me to talk to her about ... about Rick." I said the name almost without flinching. My therapist said I was the most motivated patient she'd ever had. I really 187

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wanted to get these issues behind me. My motivation was sitting right across from me, his ocean blue eyes staring at me, waiting for me to continue. "What happened?" There were many things we needed to talk about. I'd come a long way to talk to him about all these things; I'd thought about everything I needed to touch on, but I hadn't rehearsed any of it. This had to come naturally. "Nothing much. She got all weepy when I told her about the abuse, and started apologizing and blaming herself. I had to be honest with her; I told her she was partially to blame, and I haven't forgiven her, but I'm working on it. She lives in this little rat-hole apartment not far from where we used to live before I went into state custody. She says she's gotten sober, but I'm not sure I believe her." "Are you going to stay in contact with her?" Josh asked. "She wants me to, but I haven't decided." I gave a shrug. He saw right through my cynical indifference, the same way he always did. Maybe it was the way my hands were shaking; but he knew exactly how much all this was costing me. In a second, he was hugging me, and I almost let myself go in his embrace. I wanted his touch so badly, I wanted to lose myself in his taste and drown in his kisses; but gently I put my hands on his chest and drew back, inhaling deeply to clear my head of the instantaneous wave of desire that washed over me. "Josh ... listen," I whispered. I closed my eyes. "I need to tell you..." 188

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"Not another one of your confessions," he joked gently. I opened my eyes and tried to focus directly on his face. It was very difficult not to look away. "Josh, I was a total fucking idiot in Montana," I said in a rush. Amazingly, my voice was steady now that it was all coming out. "I was so scared of what I felt that I did the only thing I knew how to do. I ran away, just like you said. I went back to New York and hid." "You came all the way to L.A. to tell me that?" A sad little smile played around the corners of his lips, but didn't touch his eyes. "I told you that three months ago." "I know. You were right. You always are. I came to L.A. because," I swallowed hard and made myself look at him. "Josh, I love you. I loved you then, but I was too scared to see it. I don't know how you feel about me, but one thing I do know is I have to be honest with you and make things right, at least for me. You've ... Josh, I'm not good at these speeches, but I want a chance to love you."

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Chapter Twenty One Time stopped. For eternity, neither of us moved or even breathed. Of course, I wanted him to fall into my arms, tell me he'd dreamed of this moment, and we'd live happily ever after, but this was something known as reality. In the real world, the astonishment in his face shifted into something approaching anger, and he leapt up from the couch and started ranging the room like a lean caged panther. The physical desire I felt was almost squashed by the terror that froze me to the spot. "You know, my friends have been telling me from the beginning that I was wasting my time and I needed to give up on you," he said in a hard cynical voice. "They told me you were never going to wake up and smell the cat food." I did catch the reference to an old song and it made me smile, the way we understood each other so instinctively. "Anthony too?" I asked, remembering the way he looked at me. Surprised and amused at the same time, maybe even smug. "Actually, he was your only ally. He told me you just needed time to realize how you felt. He thought you were dense, but not completely beyond hope." "He was right," I whispered. "I guess I owe him a thank you note." "I guess so." Our eyes met; we were both thinking of the moment on the shore of the lake, the last day in Montana, when he said that to me. 190

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"I figured you'd go back to New York and start fucking all the models you could," he said bluntly. "To be honest, that's what I thought, too." Since we were being blunt ... "And I tried; but every time I did, it was you I was thinking of." For a second, Josh's stern expression faltered, but he kept up his pacing, not ready to relent yet. "You've kept me waiting for three months. For three months, you've shut me out of things that've gone on in your life. I can't just pick up where we left off like nothing ever happened, and this bicoastal thing isn't promising. Cyber-sex doesn't give me the same warm feeling as real sex, you know?" "Well..." I said slowly, "What if it wasn't bi-coastal?" He spun around. "What?" "This meeting I had today wasn't for freelance work, Josh. It's not a temporary gig. It's a staff position, which means I'd relocate to L.A. and work on their West Coast edition." I didn't want him to start panicking, so I rushed to fill him in. "You might think this is moving really fast, but that's not true. I don't plan on just breezing into town and moving in with you. We're both going to be traveling, and I'm going to get my own place so we can move at the speed that feels right for us. That is, if this is something you even want. If I've waited too long, I understand. If you say the word, I'll go back to New York and forget about it, but I had to tell you how I feel." This was the moment that would make or break me. With my heart hammering, I looked up at him and our eyes met, and this time, the anger faded out of his face and he almost smiled as he searched my eyes. 191

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"Maybe I'm an idiot," he said softly, "but I'm not willing to give up on you. This is not unconditional, Finn. There are a lot of things we need to work out." "I know." Suddenly, my need for him became too much for me to fight. I'd happily negotiate all night, but not now. I went over to him. I slid my arms around his waist and pulled him to me, burying my face in his shoulder. Oh, God, his smell made me weak. How did I live without this for three whole months? He held back for a second, but then his arms went around my neck and his head tilted to catch my lips, I buried my tongue in his mouth like a starving man seeking sustenance and he met me with just as much hunger. My cock was rock-hard already, demandingly pressing against the top of his thigh, and I groaned when I pulled his hips against me so he could feel it. Waves of pleasure shot through me like lightning. "Josh, where's your bed? Because I've got this problem..." "Flying three thousand miles for a piece of ass, now that's devotion." He laughed his familiar chuckle in my ear, and I almost creamed in my pants right then and there. "I'd go to the fucking ends of the earth for this, baby," I whispered. Down the hall, in his bedroom, the afternoon was fading to evening in a blaze of golden light that made me wish I had a camera with me when I watched him peel off his tight shirt and reveal all that naked glory I'd been dreaming of for the last three months. He started to unbuckle the dog collar, but I stopped him. 192

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"Leave it on," I whispered, and when he paused and gave me a questioning look, I blushed, but stuck to it. "They make me really hot." "Hmm, I didn't know you were into leather," he teased as he unbuckled his belt. "Only on you." Grabbing him, I gently pulled his belt off, and when I unbuttoned his hipster pants, I noticed he wasn't wearing underwear. I raised my eyebrows. "Just where were you and Anthony going tonight anyway?" I teased in return. Josh's bed was one of those solid-core Scandinavian mattresses that don't have springs. It was quite low to the ground, so that I could support myself on it with my knees on the floor, but not taking the full brunt of my weight. Stripping, I threw myself over him. I'd waited so long for this; I wanted nothing between us. As usual, the urge to get to the good stuff almost outweighed the desire to savor the experience. It's almost like a really good book you read too fast, and then when you finally get to the end, you wish you could've read it forever. Josh and I weren't on borrowed time anymore. We didn't have to pack as much pleasure into every moment as we could. Now that we had as much time as we needed, I forced myself not to hurry. Gently, I pushed him over onto his belly, pushing his arms straight up over his head. This strong but vulnerable position was powerfully sexy to me, and especially so with the black, studded bands buckled around his wrists and neck against his creamy freckled skin. He let out a sigh as I nibbled his ear, my chest pressed against his back. My nipples brushed his 193

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skin as I moved to his neck and tasted it, licking around the collar. I wanted to taste every inch of him. My hands held his wrists gently against the firm mattress as my lips and my teeth and my tongue sampled his arms and his shoulders, tracing the scars that marked him, the valley between his shoulder blades that deepened as he flexed under me, his sensitive armpits. To my slight disappointment, he must have just showered, because he smelled more of soap and cologne than the natural smell I loved. As my cock nudged between his thighs, I felt him start to get damp with sweat. Little moans came from his throat and he squirmed back and forth, but to come into contact with more of me, not to get away. "Oh, Josh." I whispered his name as I released his wrists and slid my fingertips over his lean ribs. My tongue wandered over the small of his back into the little hollow at the base of his spine, right where it curved into his sweet ass cheeks. He jumped when I spread them with my hands and slowly, lightly nuzzled down his butt crack, lingering just a moment on his tight little hole that seemed to open for me of its own accord. Aware that he was tense and expectant, I released his cheeks. I wanted to slide my cock into that tight welcoming hole, but not now. He made a little sound of disappointment but drew his breath again when I continued my journey down his legs. Tenderly I traced the huge cruel scar with my fingertips and kissed it around the edge, where I knew he still had feeling, and worked my way down to the back of his knee. This was an undiscovered hot spot; my tongue made him jump and kick, letting out a moan in the back of his 194

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throat. His legs were lightly covered with soft reddish-blonde hair. When I sucked his toes into my mouth he stiffened and tried to twist away, but I grabbed his ankles and held them, and soon enough he was writhing with surprised excitement, moaning and panting continuously. "Nobody's ever done that," Josh breathed when I released his foot and started up the other leg. "Hmm," I agreed. Working my way up the other side, I reached his other ear and nibbled it, whispering. "Turn over." "Fuck me." His voice was harsh and ragged. His hips moved, offering his ass, and my God, it was tempting. My cock felt like a fucking railroad spike waiting to be driven in. "No, not yet. I want to taste you." I pushed on his shoulder until he moved to his back, letting me straddle his thighs. He reached for my cock, but I shook my head and moved so my knees were gently pinning his wrists at his sides. The dull studs dug into my flesh, but I found that the bite was a bit of a strange turn-on. My poor knees, the abuse they took for the demands of my dick. I wasn't pinning him hard, he could've gotten away if he wanted to, but he stayed where he was as I licked his neck and sucked his nipples and traced his tattoo with my tongue and locked my mouth over his sexy belly button. With my tongue thrusting in and out fiercely, he was caught between laughing hysterically and groaning with excitement as he bucked under me, and finally I let him go and draped my arms over his thighs, sliding off the low bed onto my knees. "Here." He tossed me a pillow, lifting his head to look at me. He looked so gorgeous, spread out on his back on the 195

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bed, the golden light bronzing his skin, making his red-gold hair blaze with an unearthly light. For a second, I caught my breath in awe. No model could compare to his real, imperfect sexiness. "Are you sure about this?" "Oh, yeah." I tucked the pillow under me and sighed with relief as my knees were cushioned from the hard floor. We both knew what I was planning, and I was determined to take it all the way to the finish this time. Josh lifted his arms, stretching them above his head so his fingers caught at the windowsill behind him. More than anything, I wanted to be normal for him. I didn't want Josh to feel like he was with some sort of emotional cripple who couldn't return what he gave. He deserved better than a one-sided sexual relationship. He deserved everything. It was easier than I thought. The months apart made me want him so much, I wasn't even really thinking about what I was doing, I was just concentrating on his response. I always considered blowjobs to be fairly impersonal. Until I was with Josh, I'd never dreamed they could be so intimate. With my lips wrapped around his shaft, I looked up at his face and his head lifted so he could see me. Our eyes met. I watched his eyes roll back as he let out a low, deep, sexy groan. It was so beautiful. "Mmm, wait." Josh whispered and I pulled away. "What's wrong?" I still doubted myself enough to be insecure. 196

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"Nothing. Come up here." He patted the spot next to him and I pulled off my knees and moved up, lying down next to him so he could kiss me, tasting his juices on my tongue. He gave me a smile, then he sat up and turned around so we were in a side-by-side 69. This was something we hadn't tried yet, and it was mindblowing. The only problem was, he was so good, I was having a hard time concentrating on what I was doing to him. I was so turned on I forgot to go slow. In our upside-down position, my cock was sliding right down to the back of his throat, deeper than it had ever been before, while I had my hand wrapped around the base of his shaft, to keep from gagging on it. Without any warning my orgasm hit me, and while I reeled from it, still trying to keep my own rhythm going on his cock, Josh let out a muffled cry, his body went rigid, and his hot, salty semen spurted into my mouth. Breathe, breathe. Closing my eyes, I pretended it was cough medicine that I had to swallow. After one initial blast a few more smaller spurts filled my mouth too full and leaked out down my chin while I held the majority on the back of my tongue. It tasted good, but the thick sticky texture was new to me; my eyes watered while I had a little upchuck moment, but I managed to get it down in one big gulp. "Oh, God, shit," Josh was panting, laughing hysterically as he reversed positions to watch me in my quest to take it like a man. He wiped my chin with his hand and leaned down to give me a deep, open-mouthed, come-flavored kiss, his tongue probing my mouth to taste himself everywhere. 197

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"Jesus, babe," he whispered, wrapping me in his arms. "I never thought you'd do it." "I'm full of surprises." Content, I buried my face under his arm and breathed in the scent of the sweat he'd worked up. There must be something to that pheromone thing, because sometimes in New York, if I caught that smell on someone, I couldn't stop thinking about Josh and usually ended up so I turned on I had no choice but to jerk off. "You're not fucking kidding." We were quiet for a moment, then he asked, "You hungry?" "After that protein shake?" "That was just an appetizer," he snickered. "Seriously, I need some carbs. Do you like Thai food?" "I like anything you feed me." Grinning, I licked the lingering salty flavor of his come off my lips.

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Chapter Twenty Two After getting dressed, we went out to this little hole-in-thewall Thai place down the street from him, far from the trendy places down near Hollywood where people lined up for glimpses of Cameron and Brad and Jen. While we devoured pad Thai noodles, eggplant curry, spring rolls, and squid, he asked me to spend the weekend with him, and afterward we ran down to the hotel to get my stuff. In Montana, mostly Josh talked and I listened, but now I was ready to talk, to share my life with him. Not all of it was bad. I spent my school years working fiercely to get out of the vicious cycle my mother's drinking had trapped me in, and ended up going to NYU on a full academic scholarship; I loved the city, and New York was my favorite place in the world. September 11 only made that love deeper and more fierce. "Do you think you can be happy out here, if you feel that way about New York?" Josh asked thoughtfully. I shrugged and answered honestly, even though it wasn't easy. "If you're here." He tried to hide it, but I saw the dazed smile shoot across his features. Back at his place, I was starting to yawn a little. The clock said nine, but it felt like midnight to me. The last two nights of not sleeping, pacing around my apartment in a frenzy of uncertainty, were catching up all at once. "Are you tired? We can go bed," Josh was ever the concerned host. 199

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"I just got here and I haven't seen you in three months," I protested, stifling another yawn. "I don't want to go to sleep yet." "I didn't say anything about sleeping. Come on." "Oh, now I see the motive behind your hospitality." With a wicked grin, he took my hand and pulled me to my feet, leading me to the bedroom. I wasn't tired anymore, not now. Eagerly, I pulled off his clothes then stood still while he returned the favor. Once again, I stopped him from taking off the bracelets and the collar. At dinner, I'd almost gone across the table and jumped him a few times. "Hey, if it gets you off..." He shrugged, grinning. "Oh, it does." Grabbing him, I pushed him against the pillow and attacked his mouth, but he pushed me back, laughing softly as he sat up. "Uh-uh, now it's my turn." Josh's arms went around my naked back and he guided me back against the bed. I'd made it clear to him at Glacier I didn't like that feeling of being trapped and I never let him put his weight on me, but after all these months, I wanted to feel all of him. When he slid to his side I locked my arms around him and pulled him up over me, his thigh between mine, supporting himself with his elbows on either side of me. I whimpered, as he subjected me to the same treatment I'd given him earlier. He knew all my weaknesses, and his tongue was merciless as it rolled around the bar through my nipple, teasing the nipple to a hard nub, then sharp teeth tugging on it nearly sent me through the ceiling. He toyed with his shark tooth necklace I still wore, that I hadn't taken 200

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off since that day at the Glacier International Airport. My hands slid down over his shoulders and caught his lower back, pulling him down to grind hard against my hips, feeling his cock digging into my hipbone right next to my own. The mixture of pleasure and pain made me weak; when I recovered from the sudden jolt, I fiercely used my leg to flip him to his back. "Finn, relax," Josh breathed, resisting me with strength he'd never shown before. Even though he was bigger, he always let me have the upper hand. But this time, he refused to give in to me, and I lay back in surprise as I realized he really was stronger than I was. Not an entirely pleasant thought. Lifting his head, he smiled at me with his gorgeous aquamarine eyes. "Take it easy, babe. Let me do this." It wasn't easy to let him take control. At first, I was nervous. For a long time I used drugs and alcohol to relax; now I didn't have that crutch anymore, so it had to be all me. Josh sensed it, and he went very slowly, his lips and fingers moving over my belly, down my legs and up the inside of my thighs. He didn't turn me over because he knew I didn't like that position. When he got to my cock, rock hard and straining to feel his touch, he didn't touch; instead he slid his hands under my butt cheeks and looked up at me. "You okay?" "Uh-huh." I was more than okay. When he went down on me with his incredibly talented mouth, I was in fucking heaven. Letting out a moan, I pressed my hands to his shoulders, stroking the nape of his neck, running my hands over his silky hair. He moved so slowly I couldn't build, and I 201

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gently increased the pressure on the back of his neck while I bucked my hips slightly, letting him know I was ready to take it further. "Patience, baby." He released me. My cock slid out of his wet mouth and hit my stomach; I groaned in frustration, but then let out a wild gasp of surprise as his tongue slid over my balls and down to my hole, while his hand slowly stroked me. When he felt how I was shaking all over, he paused, but he must've seen that I was enjoying it because he returned, this time more slowly, licking around it while his teeth gently nipped at the skin, and then his tongue caressed the little spot below my balls. I whimpered and squirmed, but I didn't cry out. Not even when his tongue dipped into my hole. I felt him moan when his tongue slid past the tight ring of my ass and moved quickly in and out in time to his hand jerking my shaft. God, it felt good. An overwhelming need was growing inside me, but I couldn't articulate it. I squirmed with a mixture of unbearable pleasure and deep, wordless frustration. His finger joined his tongue in its quest to pleasure my ass. I think I almost fainted for a second. I pushed myself down on him, burying his finger deeper inside me, frantic to fill that void. He added a second finger and I felt a momentary discomfort, but no familiar feeling of panic. "Josh," I whispered urgently, squirming against him while his fingers stroked my tight passage. "I ... I want..." "What is it, Finn, what do you need?" he breathed harshly. "I don't know," I wailed helplessly, wound with frustration. 202

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"I think I do know." All the sudden he moved off me to the side and his eyes locked down onto mine. When he withdrew his fingers, I felt hollow and aching. "But you need to ask for it." Now I knew what he was talking about; the realization washed over me that he was exactly right. The emptiness inside me cried out for him to fill it, to fill me up with his cock, to slide in and out of me until I felt him in every part of me. But still, I tried to deny it. I shook my head from side to side. "Josh, not..." "This is only about you and me," he said in a low voice. "Nobody else is here. The past is gone. You've denied this need for a long time because you were afraid, but you don't have to be afraid with me." "But I..." I protested, my insides tied in knots. He picked up my hand and kissed my thumb. "I love you." Then he kissed each of my fingers in turn, repeating his words of love after each one. At the end, he held my hand up in his. "See that? Five fingers. One for each time I almost said "I love you" and didn't. This isn't about one of us being in control. You never have to give up control to let me in you." My eyes opened and in the light of his beside lamp, I saw the truth in Josh's eyes. Nobody had ever loved me enough to make me believe that until now. "It's okay," he whispered. "We don't have to do it, ever. But if you want it, tell me." The emptiness was consuming me. Fiercely I grabbed him and tried to pull him into me, desperate to tell him with my body what I couldn't put into words. 203

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"Finn, you have to say it," Josh said with sudden harshness. "I can't be wrong about this. If you need it, you have to say it." I writhed with my need. He was asking too much, couldn't he see it? "Do you want me to fuck you? Say it," he whispered, but I couldn't ask for it. Helplessly, I looked up into his eyes, and his face was filled with so much tenderness as he gazed down at me. "I'll help you," he whispered. His generosity overwhelmed me. "Just say it after me. Fuck me, Josh." With the words handed to me, naming the ache in my gut, I echoed him in a whisper so soft, he leaned forward to hear it. "Fuck me, Josh." I swallowed so hard, I almost couldn't breathe. My eyes searched his out for understanding as I whispered again. He knew all the ways I was damaged and he loved me anyway. "But ... not from behind." Suddenly, he swept me aside and moved back against the wall so he was leaning against it, putting a pillow behind his back. He drew his knees up, his cock pointing upward, hard, straight, and beautiful against his lower belly. "We'll try it like this, with you on top. It's not the easiest position for your first time, but you need the control. Get the condoms and lube out of that top drawer." Relief flooded me as he gave specific instructions. Somehow, he sensed my need for guidance right now, just as much as my need for control. If he knew those two things about me, he had a great understanding of me as a person, and not just sexually, because those two conflicting needs were the foundation of my whole self. Something else I 204

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learned in therapy: the two terms to best describe me. Insecure and Control Freak. My hands shook as I tore the condom wrapper, more with the realization of how much I loved him than any kind of nervousness or fear. I concentrated on slicking him lightly with the lube and rolling the condom down over his shaft before I squeezed a huge blob over the head and stroked it slowly up and down with my hand. The tube was almost full. That was good, because we were going to need a lot. "Baby," Josh caught my chin lightly and made me look into his eyes. "You control this, in every way. You always will. You know that, right?" It was difficult, but I nodded. Then Josh apparently decided something, because he pushed back from the wall and lay down against the bed with his head on the pillow. Then he reached for me. I knew what he was doing and I let him guide me over his face with my knees on either side of his head. My nervousness faded as I felt his tongue dart between my cheeks, talented and eager. I leaned my forehead against the windowpane, my hands on either side of the sash, looking down at the top of his head between my thighs. His eyes were just visible and when he saw me looking, he smiled. Tentatively, his hands caressed my cheeks, waiting for them to unclench, and then his fingers slowly slipped into the crack a little more each time. He went very slowly, not hurrying or pushing. Bit by bit, my tension slipped away and my arousal grew. I jumped and my sphincter tightened when his finger slid 205

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inside, but it wasn't really from pain. There was a little lube on his fingers somehow, which made it easier. I knew I was so, so tight right now. When I put my own fingers up there experimentally, I opened, so I knew I wasn't damaged in that way, I could take it. It was my inhibitions making me rigid. But as much as I tried, I couldn't talk myself out of them; in fact, that seemed to be making me more self-conscious and tight. "Ohhh." I felt Josh give a little moan of appreciation. The man loved his work. The little vibration sent me into a spasm of excitement and I loosened up a little more, letting him slide in another finger. Now he was stroking very, very slowly, just fractions of an inch at a time. Friction spread through me in tingles of pleasure. When I moaned and shifted Josh added a third finger. This time it did hurt just a little, but only for a second as he stopped moving and let me get used to having it there. When the pain stopped and I breathed that I was okay, he moved his fingers in and out a little deeper, very slowly fucking me, licking around at my balls while he did. It felt so strange, but so good. Then he hit something inside me and I let out a gasp, and the tight muscles of my ass yielded completely. Quickly, Josh pulled himself back up so he was sitting against the wall. I closed my eyes as he got into position. I felt his slick, condom-covered head brush against me and I waited for him to start, but he didn't. Instead he pulled me forward and started kissing me, sliding his tongue past my lips. The same skills he showed during blowjobs translated 206

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into kissing; his kisses could send me into orbit. We did that for quite a while until we both were riding waves of desire. As he directed my hand around to his cock so I could guide it inside me, I closed my eyes. I wasn't sure I could do this. I almost gave way to panic as I felt the thick head nudge my hole. Pain was the only thing I knew from this. It was going to hurt; I was going to freak out; I was going to forget I was with Josh and I loved him; I was more scared of what it would do to him than how I'd feel if I panicked. "Josh," I whispered frantically. He was immediately alarmed. "What if it hurts?" "The head is the worst part, but once you're past that, I'm no thicker than three fingers. You can do this," he promised me. "Just relax, and it helps if you bear down. If it hurts, we'll stop. I'll hold you up, but go as slow as you need to." His logic made my fear seem silly. He told me once I was a taker, and if I wanted him to love me, I had to give. I wanted to give Josh everything. No, I didn't want to. I needed to, and my need for him pushed away my fear. If I couldn't trust him, I could never let him love me, and I'd live the rest of my life regretting it.

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Chapter Twenty Three "Hey, you okay?" Opening my eyes, I smiled at him. I wanted to do this for him. "Yeah, I'm fine." "Go slow," he warned. He never pushed. Other than supporting me with his arms around my back, he didn't move at all. I did it all; I had to. Our eyes locked as I slowly started to move down. As the head penetrated me, it burned and I bit my lip, wincing. "Are you okay?" Josh immediately asked. "Does it hurt? You need to stop?" "I'm okay." The look of alarm on his face was so adorable; I kissed him. He was right, as usual; now that the head was in, it burned slightly, but it didn't hurt anywhere near what I was expecting. When I finally realized it didn't hurt, I felt myself open up; as I opened emotionally, I opened physically, and pleasure slowly tingled inside me. His tongue and his fingers had awakened it. Now his cock was starting to fulfill the promise. Suddenly, while we were kissing hungrily, I realized that he was all the way in; that his balls were against my ass and my cock was pressed into his stomach between us as we moved. It was done and there was none of the pain I'd been so scared of. Pulling back, I looked at him with my eyes so surprised; he laughed with relief and slid his hands over my ass cheeks. All I felt was a deep, indescribable fullness. The part of him that penetrated me filled me all the way to the top, filling the void, 208

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calming the emptiness. When I made another sound, it was wondering; and then I moved. When his fingers brushed my prostate it felt good, but that was only a tease, a taste of what this was like. The pleasure knocked me back and I looked down at Josh with a wild, confused look on my face as I moved up and down and felt his cock start to slide in me. "Josh," I struggled to form coherent words, "I didn't know it was ... oh!" "Yeah, oh," he echoed with a smile. Up till now, Josh had been as cool as a cucumber, focused only on remaining still and not hurting me, but now when I looked at him, I saw his face start to flush and need start to glaze over his eyes. I grabbed him and he gently reached down and started stroking my cock between us as I rocked slightly; he let out a little groan as he lost himself in the feeling. Instead of out of control, I felt powerful, because he needed me so much. When you find the thing Josh and I had, you lose nothing by giving yourself. "I didn't know it was like this," I whispered wonderingly. "Finn, you feel so good." Slowly, we moved back and forth, and I loved the feeling, but I needed more. I needed to feel him in me, all the way in me, until he was part of me. I needed him to pound my inhibitions into dust, until the empty feeling went away. Suddenly, I pulled all the way off him; he stared in confusion as I moved onto my back and held my arms up to him. "Are you sure?" Even though he was panting with need, he hesitated. 209

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For once in my life I wasn't afraid of giving it all, everything I had. None of that mattered now. "I need you. Please." Without hesitation, I breathed words I never thought myself capable of saying. I lifted my knees as he quickly scooted over me. This might not ever happen again. I might never feel this safe and this open, but it didn't matter, because right now I needed to feel his weight on top of me, fucking me hard the way I'd fucked him so many times. As he slid into me I was whispering with so much joy and wonder, "Yes, yes." Still he was holding back, moving slowly, but fiercely I whispered in his ear what I couldn't put into words earlier without his help. My legs slid around his waist. "Fuck me, Josh. Do it hard, baby." My words made him moan. Quickly, he picked up speed and found his rhythm. His cock thrust deeply into me all the way to the top, and then gave a little extra shunt at the end so I felt it in my throat. Over and over, he filled me. A cold shiver shot through my crotch and snaked up my back before it seized my brain and my eyes opened so wide, searching his out, pulling him down to fill my mouth with his tongue. His thrusts went wild and jerky and I could feel his heart pounding and his body quiver. The sound of his surprised, strangled cry was so beautiful to me. I pulled him tight against me, burying him all the way to the hilt as he came, so that I could feel him pulsing inside me. Something strange happened to me. Without even touching myself, I suddenly came with his cock still hard and 210

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throbbing in my ass, filling me physically and emotionally, giving me everything I needed and wanted. "God, oh, God," Josh was muttering under his breath, his sweaty face buried in my neck. He sounded muffled, "I better check to make sure my dick didn't melt." "Too late to call the paramedics, my life just flashed before my eyes," I answered with a weak laugh. "Mine too." Pulling back, he brushed his lips over mine. "I can't believe what just happened. I think I died." "I thought so, too, because I was sure it'd be a cold day in hell before anybody ever did that to me," I commented dryly. "You're a brave man, Josh Kinney." "Not as brave as you. And believe me ... if we did die, this is heaven." **** When I woke up and glimpsed the clock, I couldn't believe I'd slept this late. I never, ever slept until ten o'clock. However, Josh's firm Swedish bed was surprisingly comfortable and I found one of his pillows to be just perfect, not too hard and not too fluffy, so that I almost regretted opening my eyes. Then I lay there for a long time burrowed under the covers. Josh was already up, I was alone, but I could smell coffee coming from the kitchen and I heard the faint sounds of him moving about the front of the apartment, and that made me smile. We talked for a long time last night after our near-death orgasms. I thought about it as I breathed in his pillow, 211

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inundated with his scent. Amazing how easy it is to talk to someone after they'd just fucked your brains out. "It's not something I want to do all the time," I had to admit. "I couldn't do it with anybody else." "Good," he'd answered smugly. "And, hey, whenever you feel that need, just tell me. I'll be glad to help you with your problem." Finally, I had to piss so bad I couldn't stay in bed any longer. After I took care of that and brushed my teeth, I grabbed my boxers from the tangle of clothes next to Josh's bed, pulled them on, and padded out into the hallway. The phone was ringing and Josh answered it as I found him in the kitchen. "Hi, Mom. Um, actually, something came up and I'm not driving down today after all." He looked up and smiled at me. "Oh, a friend of mine breezed into town unexpectedly." While I watched, he went over to the stove and turned over the bacon he was frying in a skillet. A fabulous smell of something baking in the oven wafted through the apartment. God, he was so beautiful. My heart knocked in my chest as I watched him move around the kitchen; he was only wearing a pair of knit boxer briefs that showed off his adorable ass and the distinct bulge of his crotch. I watched the light from the big window at the end of the room play over his golden tattooed skin, his freckles, his lean chest and arms flexing as he reached up to pull plates down from a cabinet. "Listen, Mom. I gotta go," he said patiently. "I'm trying to cook breakfast. Bacon and cinnamon rolls." He rolled his eyes. "If I do have company, he'll be passed out from 212

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starvation before you let me off this phone, Mother dear. Jesus. Yes, he has a name; it's Finn. I don't know..." Voice filled with irritation, he let the receiver drop and looked over his shoulder at me apologetically. "She wants to know what Finn is short for." "Findlay," I admitted, making a face. "There, are you happy now?" he demanded into the phone. The petulant frown on his face was so cute. I could no longer resist him; I came up behind him, slid my hands over his ribs, and planted a kiss on the back of his neck. He sighed involuntarily. "Mmm. Nothing, Mom. I gotta go. My rolls are burning." This time he didn't wait for her to answer before he slammed the receiver down. I was nuzzling his neck while I wrapped my arms around him and rubbed his flat belly with my hands. He smelled so good; I could stay like this forever. "Morning, sleepy head." He leaned his head back against my shoulder and hugged my arms against his chest. "Why'd you let me sleep this late?" I sighed with contentment. "I figured you'd still be a little jet-lagged. Here, let me get you some coffee." He directed me over to the table in the dining area that opened off from the galley kitchen. His apartment was older, cozy, and extremely neat. One of the warnings he gave me last night was that he was a notorious neat freak; I laughed and told him that I sometimes scrubbed kitchen floors at three in the morning, so we were even. "You hungry?" Josh asked as he brought me a plate with bacon, sliced strawberries, and fresh cinnamon rolls and set it 213

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down in front of me, then came back with another one and sat down in the other chair. "This looks great." I stared down at the plate in amazement as I started to chow down. No one had ever cooked me breakfast before. "You know this means you're going to have to do all the cooking, right? Because, I don't know how to cook. God, these are good, Josh." Glaze from a cinnamon roll dripped off my chin. "Hey, take it easy, they're from a can," he laughed. "You don't have to cook. You just keeping on doing what you do best and I won't complain." "And what's that?" I smirked. "Ask me again tonight and I'll be sure and tell you." Across the table, we grinned at each other a little shyly. Last night was something new. We both loved it, but it would take a little time to adjust. That was something else we talked about last night, time. We both needed time to let this newfound love grow into a strong and solid relationship. That didn't happen in a weekend, but we were both committed to trying, and for right now, that was enough. "After we eat, if you're not too tired, maybe we can go to the beach," Josh was saying. "I told my sister we'd meet her there. Fiona and I were supposed to go to our folks' for the weekend, and I imagine she'll be wanting to check you out. I've told her about you." "That sounds lovely," I answered with minimal sarcasm. Really, it was more nervousness. I knew how close Josh was to his little sister. Talking about relationship stuff in bed after 214

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mind-blowing sex was one thing, but meeting his family was the real deal. "It'll be fun. It might be a little crowded, but you can bring your camera stuff and take pictures while Fiona and I do some surfing. That is if you want to go." I nodded my head. Wherever he wanted to go was more than okay with me. "By the way." I reached up and took the shark tooth necklace off, holding it out to him. "Here, I better give this back to you." "Did it help?" he asked softly, looking deep into my eyes. "Yeah," I answered, and I felt a little flutter in my chest. He didn't have to say those three little words for me to know how he felt. If I'd admitted it to myself months ago, I would've seen it. It was right there in his eyes when he looked at me. "Then keep it. If I'm going to teach you to surf, you're going to need it." Laughing at my look of wide-eyed protest, he grabbed my hand and pulled me to my feet, immediately ordering me into helping him get everything together to go to the beach. I might have just been staying for the weekend this time, but I wasn't a guest. This was home.

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Epilogue Josh lifts his head and grins at me, his face flushed and damp with sweat, as I move up and kiss him, sharing his taste with him. "Jesus. What brought that on?" "You complaining?" I ask. I put my head on his shoulder and breathe the sharp, clean smell of his sweat. Another thing he's taught me, how sexy that smell is. "Never." Rolling over, I close my eyes. I'm sleepy now. However, Josh jumps out of bed, jerking away my pillow as I try to hold onto it. "Get up, you lazy ass, we're missing the best waves." I groan and grab for his pillow, only to have it snatched away too. After morning sex, Josh is energized and fully charged, while I'm ready to cuddle and sleep for another few hours. But as I said, he always wins. A few more token protests later, I heave out of bed, throw on some shorts and go find him getting his surfboard and wetsuit out of the front closet. It's Saturday morning and time to do our weekend thing. While he gets all the beach gear, I get my camera stuff together. Josh finally convinced me to try digital. I resisted, but now I see the possibilities and I'm hooked. However, I still bring my Polaroid. There's nobody else on the beach this time of morning. Josh hits the waves while I drag everything out of the Explorer and take it down to our customary spot in the sand. Blanket, towels, bags of breakfast we bought on the way over, two large lattes, the LA Times. He's been trying to teach me to surf. I have a board and everything, but I'm only to 216

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boogie boarding with the kids right now, and I only do that to please him. Surfing is his thing. I prefer to watch. I can't help but worry about him a little as he paddles out into the swells on his bright yellow board. Early morning is when the sharks are most active, swimming closer to shore to feed. This beach isn't known for many shark sightings, but it was in the early morning hours eleven years ago that the great white took a chunk of his thigh. He tells me not to worry. He says he still thinks about it, but he refuses to let fear rob him of what he loves. Those words stick with me. Those words made me decide to move out here a year ago, when I realized that he was the bravest and strongest person I knew, and that I was in love with him. Fear paralyzed me for a long time, but Josh helped me see my way out of the hole I was buried in, and I can't let him down. The early morning light is still pale and uneven, wavering before the sun fully takes hold. This is my favorite time to take photos, but for once, instead of grabbing my camera, I just sit back on the blanket with the wind ruffling my hair from behind, looking out over the surf, watching Josh, a figure in the waves. He manages to catch a swell, rides it a minute or two, and then wipes out, flipping head over heels. I laugh; he can't stay on his board this morning. If he doesn't catch a perfect wave, it's okay with him, though; he just loves trying. Just like with everything, he's content to wait until it feels right. Kicking off my sandals, I pull off my shirt and walk down to the surf. I feel its energy as I get closer and I know why Josh loves its power and its uncertainty, its wild salty smell. I 217

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reach up and flick the shark tooth I wear around my neck, the one the doctors took out of Josh's hipbone. Keeps the sharks away, he told me when he gave it to me. So far, it's always worked. When I need to feel brave, I think about it, and about him and how he fought the shark off with his bare hands while he bled into the water. Where the waves crash into the shore, I shed my shorts and let the foam wash over me. Skinny-dipping is an obsession of mine, especially in the early morning. I love being naked outside. Josh won't go to the clothing-optional beaches with me, but I can sometimes talk our friend Anthony into it, as long as I get him drunk. Closing my eyes, I let the power of the waves push and pull me and flip me over like a cork. The gulls start to come in, filling the air with their cries. They can be a nuisance, especially when people feed them and they come in droves, but they're usually busy feeding this time of morning and don't pay much attention to people. However, they sometimes will eat your food if you leave it out where they can get it. I'm about to go check on our bags of breakfast when I see Josh paddle up on his board, grinning at me, looking so cute in his short wetsuit. He slides off and comes close, kissing me in the waves. He doesn't hang around long, though, just a kiss and then he's gone again to wait for that perfect wave, at least, until it's time to eat. I go ahead and get out, picking up my shorts and walking naked to the blanket, where I flop down on my stomach and stretch out. The sand is still cool under me. 218

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"Hey, stud, nice ass, turn over so we can see the rest," a female voice calls out, and two dogs suddenly rush me, panting and barking like mad, licking my face while I guard the food. Petey and Zef belong to Josh's sister Fiona, mutts rescued from the pound. Petey only has one ear. Soon enough they get tired of me and run off to bark at the waves as they crash on the beach. Meanwhile, Fiona and her boyfriend Gabe saunter up and throw down their stuff, flopping down on the blanket. I'm not modest, but when I sit up, I pull a towel over my lap, for Gabe's sake. He's a surf bum who makes a ton of money at some Internet company. Anybody who dates Fiona has to be tolerant of gays, because she's joined at the hip with her big brother. They share the same fair, freckled complexion, but Fiona takes after her mom, with strawberry blonde hair instead of red, and a knockout body in bikini and board shorts. She leans over and kisses my cheek. "Hey, baby," she greets me and reaches for the towel. "Well, let's see it." "Why do chicks always want what they can't have," Gabe complains. "Not that, asshole," Fiona snaps while I laugh at his joke. Gabe's funny. He hands me a cappuccino from Starbuck's. "Finn got his tattoo done this week and I haven't gotten to see it yet." I let her pull off the towel and turn to my side so she can see my right thigh. The shark is more of an outline, kind of a shadow under the swirls of turquoise water that shimmer with the illusion of sunlight. I wanted a great white but Josh ended 219

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up doing a mako instead. They look sleek instead of fierce; he decided it fit me better. It's not huge, only about eight inches, starting just under my hip and curving slightly as it traces my thigh. Fiona touches it with her finger and she and Gabe lean close, staring in amazement. They ask about the colors and I tell them briefly about when we brought the sketch in to Rudy, the big fat Taiwanese artist. He loved the sketch and wanted to buy some sheets of what he called "flash art" from Josh to hang on his walls for tourists. "Do you want this water blue?" Rudy had asked me as the needle buzzed over my skin. I struggled to describe the color, but words failed me. I'm much better at showing than telling; that's what being a photographer is all about. Instead, I went out to the waiting room and brought Josh back to the tattoo studio. "His eyes," I said simply. "That's the color I want." "This is incredible," Fiona and Gabe are saying over and over. "Thanks," Josh walks up with his board under his arm, dripping. I wiggle into my shorts and stand up, then unzip the back of his wetsuit and peel it off him. "I really love it," his sister tells him. "I want you to do one for me next. Mom's going to kill you both, though. She hates tattoos. Why do you want to mutilate yourself like that," she does a perfect imitation of their mom's voice that always kills us. "Mom will bitch, but secretly she'll love it," Josh proclaims, dropping to the blanket and grabbing the remaining Starbuck's cup while I get him a towel. "She'll chew me out, 220

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but she won't say anything to Finn, because he's her favorite." "I can't help it if she thinks I'm special," I shrug modestly. He smiles at me over his shoulder. "She's right." When I first met Josh's parents last fall, on a visit to their house in San Diego, I was terrified to the point of panic. I just knew they were going to hate me. They didn't; they accepted me completely, even welcomed me into the family. Now, they were like the parents I never had. Good ones, that is. Once I knew them, it was easy to see why Josh is so wonderful. I remember telling him how lucky he was. "It's easy when you have great parents," he shrugged. "But when you have a terrible start in life, like you did, it's an accomplishment to turn out as well as you." I didn't really agree with him at the time, because I wasn't far enough in therapy to see that I'm a decent person and worthy of his love and his parents' acceptance. But I do now, at least most of the time. "I'm starved," he announces. "Where's my food?" "Jesus, Joshua." His sister catches a glimpse of the back of his neck and reaches out to touch the big red hickey/bite mark I put there this morning. "Did Dracula climb in your window last night?" "It wasn't Dracula." He turns and smirks at me. "I'm lucky that blood isn't what this particular vampire likes to suck." The straight folks pause in shock for a second, then they crack up laughing.

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"Shut up and eat your taco, jack off." I give him a jab with my elbow, handing him some food from the bag. I can't help grinning, even though I try to hide it. "This is pork. I want fish," he protests. "Here, trade." I hand him my taco and take his. "And the vampire may have bit you, but don't forget you were the one who got the big stake hammered through you." This rather rare piece of wit coming from me makes everyone roar with laughter, even Josh, but he leans over and whispers loud enough for everyone to hear, "Just wait till tonight." My cheeks turn a little red, but I give him a grin. I might let him. I don't bottom often. I have to be feeling very relaxed and very secure, because it's still not an easy thing for me to do, giving up that control, opening myself physically and emotionally, even to Josh, the one person I love the most. I've never done it with anyone else since I became an adult, never on anything approaching a consensual basis until Josh. For my entire adult life I denied my sexual feelings for men, the very thought made me sick, that maybe I really did like it. But when I first met Josh, when I told him about the abuse, the first time I'd ever admitted it to anyone, he said another thing that stuck in my mind. "Just because you like it now, doesn't mean you liked it then." And, I realized he was right. It might have been that one sentence that motivated me to get into therapy and start getting my life together. It hasn't been easy, but I've never regretted it. Not when the rewards are so great. 222

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"I can't believe you eat that for breakfast, that's disgusting," Fiona is saying about our tacos. Josh shoots back that their Egg McMuffins are worse. Gabe wonders where we found tacos so early in the morning, and while Josh tells him about the all-night taqueria down our street, I move behind him and start rubbing his shoulders with high-SPF sunblock to keep his fair skin from burning. It makes me laugh. When the kids are here playing on the beach, every hour I go to the edge of the water with all the mothers calling their kids in to reapply the waterproof sunscreen. We trade tips on the best brands (Bullfrog, by the way). Josh fidgets and complains impatiently, just like the kids, when I make him come out of the water for fifteen minutes while the lotion sinks in. Then all the mothers and I give juice boxes and chewy granola bars as bribes back at our blankets. The sun rides higher in the sky. It starts to bake the sand to its full heat. I've lost my New York pallor and now the Italian part of my ancestry is more apparent. I'll never be the quintessential surfer boy like Josh or Gabe, but that doesn't matter. I'm happy just hanging out on the beach, playing with Petey and Zef, taking pictures of the kids building sandcastles, and waiting for Josh to come in out of the waves.

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