Violet's Present Page 3

  At nineteen, Joseph could probably come and be ready for action again within minutes. But Matt didn’t want to be greedy, and he knew that somewhere a clock was ticking, waiting to wake him to catch his flight to Oakland. “Okay. But if you want me to fuck you, we’re gonna need something for lube.”

  Ice-blue eyes went very round, either at Matt’s blunt language or at the reality of what was about to happen. But Joseph nodded and dropped to the ground to dig under the blankets again. Matt licked his lips at the round ass bobbing so temptingly right in front of him. When Joseph knelt upright again, he was clutching a squarish tin container. “Bag Balm,” he announced. “I stole it from home to use when I, um….”

  “Flog the bishop?”

  Joseph snorted a laugh. “Yeah. Will it work?”

  Matt had once dated a serious bicyclist who competed in occasional road races. That guy smeared Bag Balm on his ass and nuts before a long ride; he claimed it helped with the chafing. They'd never used the stuff as lube since it was incompatible with condoms, but Matt figured it would do the trick in this situation. He’d never barebacked before, but safe sex wasn’t necessary in a dream. “Sure.”

  He got another of those thousand-watt grins, and then Joseph dropped onto all fours and squeezed his eyes shut. “Okay. You can do me now.”

  “Not so fast, Jojo,” Matt said, squeezing a handful of muscular glute and ignoring the glare resulting from his use of the nickname. “We have a little prep work to do so I don’t hurt you.”

  “Prep?”

  Christ, how little did this kid know? Matt squeezed again, comfortingly this time. “Don’t worry. You’ll like it.”

  And his prophecy turned out to be true, as Matt worked one slick finger into Joseph, then two, then three. Joseph stopped clenching against the intrusion and began fucking himself on Matt’s fingers, his mouth running a constant litany of blasphemy and pleas. But only when Joseph’s smooth skin was covered in sweat and his back arched in pleasure did Matt align his cock against the boy’s hungry hole. “You sure?” he asked, not certain he could stop himself if Joseph said no.

  “Yes! Please!” Joseph nearly sobbed.

  Slowly, almost teasingly, Matt pushed his way in.

  He knew he was in a dream and wondered whether skin against skin with no latex between really felt as good as this did. Joseph’s channel was tight and silky, hot as a furnace. Matt rocked his hips, just a little, watching his cock move in and out of Joseph’s ass until the sight was too much for him and he had to close his eyes. But that didn’t block out the other sensations: the scents of rodents and wood and old oil, the sounds of their bodies moving together and a crow cawing softly nearby, the feeling of smooth skin and hard muscles under his hands.

  “Can I… can I touch myself?” Joseph’s voice was as rough as gravel.

  “You can do whatever you want,” Matt answered. But before Joseph had a chance to shift his position, Matt reached around the narrow waist and took the boy’s stiff cock in his own hand.

  Joseph immediately bucked into his grip, then pushed his hips backward, impaling himself more fully on Matt. And then his arms collapsed so that his head and shoulders were digging into the quilts. Pistoning his hips faster, Matt bent over the tanned back and licked the sweat from the knobby spine.

  Joseph shouted something, but the words were muffled by the blankets. Matt probably couldn’t have processed language just then, anyway—not when Joseph began to shudder beneath him, not when Joseph’s inner muscles spasmed and clenched him even more tightly than before. Matt cried out. He didn’t quite see fireworks, but lights did flash behind his clenched lids as he emptied himself into Joseph.

  Matt slumped over Joseph’s back for a few minutes as they caught their breath, then he withdrew his softened cock and they both collapsed to their sides, facing one another. He couldn’t help a small chuckle at his own expense; he hadn’t had a wet dream since he was fifteen years old, and they had never been this good before. Hell, his fully awake sex had never been this good before.

  “Is something wrong?” Joseph asked. “Was I… was I okay?”

  Matt drew Joseph’s body flush against his. They were both sweaty and sticky, streaked with dirt, smelling of spunk and Bag Balm. “You were incredible. Really.” Matt kissed Joseph’s shoulder. “Goddamn incredible.”

  He couldn’t see Joseph’s face so close to his, but the boy did a self-satisfied little wiggle and mouthed briefly at the center of Matt’s chest. “It was. Thank you. If I’d never known what— Well, thank you.”

  “Believe me, the pleasure was all mine.”

  They laughed together then, quiet sounds like music in the darkness of the shed. Then they subsided into silence, and Joseph squirmed around so Matt was spooned against his backside. God, they fit together so well, like pieces of a puzzle.

  “Do you think you’ll pass through here again?” Joseph whispered after a while.

  Matt’s breath caught in his throat. “I don’t know.”

  “’Cause if you do, and… and I’m not here… maybe you’ll think about me, huh?”

  “Jojo, I’m gonna be thinking about you every day for the rest of my life.”

  As answers went, it wasn’t enough, not for either of them. Matt felt the yawning cavern of loss and emptiness that lay ahead of him, and even though Joseph was a dream, he thought that maybe Joseph felt it too. But that promise was all he could offer, that and the comfort of his arms. At least he knew it was a promise he would keep.

  AFTER Matt returned to Oakland, he tried to concentrate on work. The new assignment was a step up from the usual. Instead of slaving over cartoons to advertise a car dealership or appliance store, Matt had been given the task of creating an animated video to accompany a local band. The Deeper Souls already had a recording contract and a pretty big following in the Bay Area, but they wanted to upload a video to YouTube, hoping to get some national or even international attention. Maybe somebody at Pixar would notice Matt’s drawings; even if they didn’t, the gig paid well, which made his boss happy, and it was a hell of a lot more interesting than making talking refrigerators.

  So Matt took his work home most nights and begged off on drinks with Vanessa or Paul and Enrique or any of his other friends. He was too busy to be lonely, and if the star of his cartoon-in-progress had short black hair and iceberg eyes, who was going to complain?

  It was late in the evening and he was taking a break, considering heating a can of soup, when he was startled by a knock on his door. He didn’t often get visitors and it was too late for salesmen or Jehovah’s Witnesses. He padded to the door and flung it open impatiently, only to discover a smug, handsome, familiar face.

  “Hi,” said Brandon. He wore tight jeans and a tighter tee. A new tattoo was just visible beneath his left sleeve, something involving twining vines.

  “Hi,” Matt answered.

  “Gonna let me in?”

  Matt stepped back and waited for Brandon to enter the apartment. Once inside, Brandon looked around, probably cataloging the few changes since he’d been there eight months before. “Looks like you’re busy.” He waved a hand at the paper-crowded drafting table.

  “Actually, yeah.” Matt crossed his arms over his chest. “What do you want?”

  Brandon glanced at a drawing and shrugged. “I missed you.”

  “Bran—”

  Brandon prowled closer, a half smile on his handsome face. He stopped well within Matt’s personal space and pitched his voice low. “Haven’t you been missing me, baby?” He was wearing a new cologne, something with sandalwood. It made Matt’s nose itch.

  “C’mon, Brandon. We’ve been through this already. What I want—what I need—just isn’t what you want.”

  “Monogamy. You want… what? A mortgage, white picket fence. Maybe adopt a kid—or find some donor one of us can knock up. Or, I don’t know. Buy a kid on fucking craigslist. Is that what you’re looking for?”

  “Maybe. Some of that, anyway.”

&nbs
p; Brandon’s face twisted and he stepped away. “Why? Why do you need all that shit? You had me, baby. We were good together.”

  “Not really.” Matt’s voice was calm, nonjudgmental. “If we were so good together you wouldn’t have been fucking other guys.”

  “That was… nothing! Just fooling around, having a good time. Nothing serious.”

  “That’s the problem, Bran. It was nothing serious.”

  “Look, maybe if we worked at it—”

  “We’d just end up making each other miserable.” Matt sighed. “You’re a great guy, Bran. And really hot. But the two of us don’t match.” He wished he could say the rest of what he was thinking, that he’d felt more passion, more of a connection with the dream of a ghost than he'd ever had with Brandon. But Brandon wouldn’t understand. Heck, Matt wasn't sure even he understood.

  “We don’t have to match, Matt. We’re not a fucking set of dishes. We can just have fun.”

  “But it isn’t fun anymore. Not for me.”

  Brandon looked like he was going to argue some more, so Matt grasped his shoulder and steered him back to the door. “Good luck, Bran. Take care.” He closed and locked the door between them before Brandon could respond.

  When Matt was in college, he and a couple friends had gone hiking. Miles from anywhere, Matt had fallen off a rock and dislocated his shoulder. Luckily, one of his pals was training to be a nurse; the guy had taken a close look at Matt, who was in agony, decided that Matt was going into shock, and shifted the joint back into place. Now Matt stood in his cluttered little living room and smiled to himself, because he felt exactly as he had on that hiking trail: a rush of terrible pain followed by immediate relief. Maybe a little ache afterward, but not much. He and Brandon really were over, and Matt wasn’t just okay with that, he was happy. He didn’t know when or if he’d ever find the man he was looking for—if he’d ever fall in love with someone who wasn’t a dream—but he didn’t feel the desperate need he once had. He could be patient.

  Aunt Violet’s photo album was conspicuous among the art books and graphic novels on his bookshelf. Matt stared at the leather spine for a few minutes, considered taking the book down and opening it to his favorite page. But in the end he headed for the kitchen and that can of noodle soup instead.

  A BELLYFUL of warm soup made Matt sleepy enough that he decided to call it a night. He shut down his computer and got ready for bed, yawning widely the entire time. He was asleep minutes after his head the pillow.

  The small village he was walking through must once have been full of life, with a market in a small square, maybe a fountain, where old men sat on benches and argued while children shouted and kicked at balls. Now it was nothing but rubble, the broken stones of the houses shining in the moonlight like bleached bones.

  Matt was wearing a faded green uniform. The fabric was stiff with dried sweat and dirt, and his boots were heavy on chafed feet. His footsteps should have echoed loudly, but they seemed muffled, as if this place begrudged any signs of life.

  He turned the corner to find a man leaning up against the ruins of a church, smoking a cigarette. Most of the church’s walls were intact and so was part of the roof, although the steeple and stained-glass windows had been destroyed. The man was wearing a uniform similar to Matt’s, but his face was shadowed by his round helmet. Matt stopped several yards away.

  “Sarge’ll have my balls if he finds out I fell asleep on duty,” the man said in a familiar deep voice.

  “But it’s my dream,” Matt responded. “Not yours.” He came a few steps closer, then paused.

  “Nah. You wouldn’t dream of this shithole. You’re sitting pretty in California, eating oranges off the trees. Having cocktails with Rita Hayworth and Cary Grant.”

  “I dream of you all the time, Jojo.” He did. Although only once before had the dream been this vivid.

  “Nobody calls me that anymore. Only Violent, when she writes me letters.” Joseph pushed his helmet farther back on his head, allowing Matt to see the white flash of his smile.

  “I thought you didn’t like that name.”

  “Don’t. ’Cept when it’s you saying it.”

  Joseph dropped the cigarette and ground it out with his boot heel. Then he unbuckled his helmet and bent to set it on the cobbles next to him; he carefully placed his rifle beside it. When he stood again, Matt finally had a clear view of his face. Joseph looked much older, even though not more than a year or so could have passed. New lines had settled in around his mouth, and his eyes had gone flat and reflective, like a sheet of ice over a lake. His hair had grown, too, so now it was almost as long as Matt’s. But it was greasy and dirty, pressed oddly from the helmet. Joseph’s face was dirty, too, showing grime where a tan had once been. It must have been a long time since he’d had the opportunity to bathe, Matt thought.

  “I think about you,” Joseph said quietly. “That morning in Uncle Andy’s shed. Think about it all the time, ’specially when things are… bad….” His voice drifted away.

  Matt swallowed. He didn’t want to know what kinds of bad Joseph had been through. “It was a good morning. The best,” he said.

  “Yeah. I ain’t…. The other fellas, they find girls sometimes. Tried it once—didn’t take. I guess there’s boys, too, when you know where to look, but I ain’t been looking. Wouldn’t be… as sweet.”

  Closing the last few feet between them, Matt put his hand on Joseph’s shoulder. “How’ve you been, Jojo?”

  But Joseph just narrowed his eyes. “Stupid goddamn dream. I know you can’t really wear that uniform.”

  “You could still get out of wearing yours. If you told them—”

  “Ain’t gonna tell anybody.” He laughed hollowly and turned slightly away. “Betty Halvorsen got married a few months back. Guess she got tired of waiting for me.”

  “I’d wait for you.”

  When Joseph didn’t react, Matt pulled him closer and nuzzled the crook of his neck. He smelled like smoke. “God, I miss you,” Matt said. “You’re not even real and I miss you so much.”

  “Hey! You’re the figment, mister.” Despite his bit of bluster, Joseph melted against Matt’s body. Joseph felt more frail than he had in the shed. Vulnerable.

  But he was strong enough to pull away slightly and then jerk his head toward the battered church door. “Seventeen grunts in there, snoring away. If I’m lucky enough to be having this dream, I don’t want to dream about waking them up. C’mere.” He grabbed Matt’s hand, and Matt allowed himself to be towed away, down the broken street, around a corner, and into what had once been a narrow street between shops. Now the street was choked with debris, but Joseph picked his way through despite the darkness; he either had better night vision than Matt or had more experience finding his way through wreckage. He led them to a small clear spot. “Guess we’ll be okay here, for a few minutes, at least. Then I gotta wake up. Wouldn’t wanna be snoozing if Jerry dropped in for a visit.”

  Maybe he was going to say more, but Matt didn’t let him. Instead, he swooped in for a tobacco-flavored kiss. Joseph’s lips were as soft as ever, as deliciously giving when Matt nibbled at them.

  “Fuck!” Joseph gasped when their lips parted. “You don’t know how bad it is with all these other guys around all the time. Can’t even jerk off in peace. Only place I have to myself is in my head.”

  Matt nuzzled at him again, thinking that solitude wasn’t so great all the time, either, not when body and soul pined for someone you couldn’t have.

  “I know why I’m dreaming about you tonight,” Joseph said a little breathlessly.

  “Why?”

  “I got a letter from Violent the other day. She writes me pretty often, which is really nice. I mean, sometimes it kinda hurts when I’m sitting here and reading about all the normal stuff going on so far away, but it’s a good hurt, you know?”

  “You’re homesick.”

  “God, yes. But it’s also good to know that… whatever’s happening here, back home Mom’s
winning a ribbon at the fair for her corn relish and my niece Annie is getting over the chicken pox and… all that stuff. Makes me feel that what… what I’m doing here, that it’s worth it. That there’s a reason.”

  “It reminds you that you’re helping keep them safe,” Matt said, and Joseph nodded against his shoulder. Matt squeezed him tight and remembered what Aunt Violet had told him about wartime. “They’re thinking about you, you know. Every damn day.”

  Joseph nodded again and sniffed a little. “I’m not gonna fucking cry in my sleep.” He sniffed again and tilted his head, his face close enough that even in the dark Matt could see the shine of his eyes. “Anyway, this last letter from Violent, it was kinda weird.”

  “Weird?”

  “Yeah. She said she’d been real sick, but she wasn’t anymore. Maybe she was still kinda weak ’cause her handwriting was all shaky and wobbly, like an old lady’s.”

  A shiver ran up Matt’s spine. He remembered that handwriting, how it sent him good wishes every year on his birthday—accompanied by a ten-dollar bill and, when he got older, newspaper clippings about safe-sex practices.

  But Joseph was continuing to talk about his letter. “And she said some weird stuff too. That everyone back home loves me and everyone’s thinking about me—just like you said—and that I’m brave and… shit like that. And she also wrote… she said she had a special present for me. Told me she’d given this present to me once before and would again, and that if I concentrated real hard right… right when things get really, really bad, I could have it one last time. Don’t know what the hell she means. Maybe she had a fever.”

  Matt felt a little light-headed, which was strange. He’d never felt dizzy in a dream before. He tried to keep his voice even. “She wants you to be happy.”

  “She always has. I think… sometimes I think she knows that I’m… you know. Not normal. She ain’t never said anything about it, but she'd give me these looks sometimes….” Joseph sighed. “Anyway, she might’ve been out of her mind when she wrote that letter, but I’m gonna remember what she said. And if I get…. Oh, fuck. I’ve seen so many guys hurt bad, dying. When it’s my turn, I’m gonna remember Violent’s promise and I’m gonna remember you, and that’s gonna make it all right.”