Page 20 of A Long Con

I hoped my words would take my mind off jizzing. “Ah, that’s good.” It felt weird to call him “boy” like I did to Ash, so I didn’t. I sank my fingers deep into his thick hair. “You’re a fucking horny musclehead and you know it. You know you’ve been wanting cock your whole life and mine’s the best. Here.” I hastened to yank down my jeans in time for him to gulp the entire length. “You know I’m hung like a rhino, and you’re the only one who can take all of me into your mouth, to suck me off like a sonofabitch.”

Royal moaned around my prick, and I nearly lost it then. Because he couldn’t hold me by the hips, I was able to throat-fuck him by humping him up against the wall. He was trapped in more ways than one, but his eagerness never waned. He groaned, munched, and twined his tongue around my meat. I would’ve paid anything to see us in a mirror, my hips swiveling, my bare ass clenching as I fucked his mouth.

But then as fate would have it, the front door slammed again. Only this time, the moron was entering, not exiting.

“Dude!” yelled Cloud. “I finished early with my last pool client, so I came to help you. Where are you?”

Not that fucking toolbag again! Cloud’s voice became louder and clearer as he headed directly to my room, like we did in days of yore to smoke weed. But he knew my room was clean! We’d even gotten rid of the cat pee-soaked mattress and replaced it with a double bed, courtesy of Cloud’s mom.

I was forced to withdraw, my giant boner sticking out like a baseball bat, and get down from the footstool. It wasn’t easy stuffing my tool back into my pants and I obviously had to move quick as a bunny to get those cuffs off Royal. He could remove the collar himself, and I headed for the bedroom door.

“Dude!” Cloud repeated. “Why was Pothole just running down the street to his bike? He hauled butt out of here.”

“What?” I said. “Pothole?”

“Yeah, he had this tube thing under one arm, and he leaped onto his Harley—”

My palms jamming against Cloud’s chest, I slammed him against the wall and made a jerky, wild dash for the family room.

The tulip table was empty.

He’d even taken the doohickeys that had held the painting down.

I grabbed handfuls of my hair. “No. No. No. Why, Pothole?”

“Dude, what did he take?”

Royal’s voice was a distant, calming tone. “I’m afraid to ask. He took the painting?”

I spun around to face him. “Apparently so! Cloud said he was running down the street with a tube under his arm!”

“That was like ten minutes ago,” said Cloud. “I was leaf blowing in my mom’s front yard.”

I waved at Royal. “Well, go get him!”

“Cloud said he took off on his bike,” said Royal. “Me running down there won’t help. Besides, Ira’s almost here.”

I’m not kidding, just as he said that, the doorbell rang. I slapped my forehead. “Fuck! What are we gonna tell him?” How could Royal remain so calm? His only sign of nerves was to fork his fingers through his hair.

“I’ll think of something,” he said, striding for the front door so quickly he seemed to levitate.

“Oh well.” Cloud shrugged. “You can always make another painting.”

As I heard Royal murmuring with another guy in the foyer, of course I started to have a brain seizure. Anxiety sometimes did that. It occurred to me I’d never have to relive this exact moment again. That was my brain’s attempt to assuage me. Here’s another moment, and it’s already gone. Cloud moved a foot away, so that’s finished now. The brain calculates the benefit of one moment and its death. The ground revolved below me as though I stood at the very North Pole. I reached out for the first stable thing which turned out to be the sleeve of Cloud’s Baja hoodie.

“Brain fart?” he asked.

I don’t think I answered him. A tubby bald guy was in my family room, Royal displaying him for my approval. Every piece of each step I took toward him was another extinct moment in time I’d never get back. The suddenness of each release and repose made me want to puke.

“This is Berkeley Moynihan,” Royal was saying.

When I shook Ira’s clammy hand, it brought me back to reality. Our touch seemed to go on forever, and I pulled back abruptly, as though we’d just had sex. Why was Ira frowning? My scrambled brain must be imagining it.

Royal said, “I told Mr. Hogshead that your assistant accidentally took the painting away. But I verified that I’d seen it with my own eyes, how gorgeous it is, how full of depth and emotion.”

“I have no doubt that it is,” boomed Mr. Hogshead, “when Sterling McCarthy paints it.”

Royal and I froze in our shoes, both for different reasons.