My flight -- which was supposed to be at 10 a.m. -- was delayed three times and ended up with a brand-new plane by the time we actually boarded, which quickly turned my early afternoon arrival home into an evening one. I texted back and forth with Justin a few times, and he seemed fine, though it sometimes took him a while to respond, and the one time I tried to call, he didn’t pick up. Justin had never been much of one for voice calls though -- except for the rare times when we were apart and one or both of us was horny -- so that didn’t surprise me too much, and I tried not to let it worry me. He was texting me back, and he was giving me answers longer than a word or two, so that was a victory.
I wasn’t sure I’d ever been happier to see the New York City skyline than I was right then, despite the fact that it had been my home for more than a decade. But I was eager to see my husband -- to check in with him, to kiss him, and to give him the cookies I’d bought him anyway, even though he’d never told me whether or not he wanted them. Of course, I also knew I needed to figure out the right time to follow Michael’s advice and ask Justin some questions about what was going on. The trouble with that was, after several hours in the airport and on the plane with a lot of time to think, I was more than a little bit afraid of the answer, mostly because I had no idea how to help him. But, I figured the first step was getting him to be honest with me, and from there, maybe we could figure it out together. Assuming I could get him to talk to me.
When I finally found myself opening our front door and pushing over the threshold, though, Justin had thrown me for another unexpected loop.
Dinner was on the table -- Debbie’s lasagna again, and garlic bread that smelled like it was going to rival Vic’s recipe -- with a pair of candles lit alongside the casserole dish, their flames dancing in the dim light of our open living area. Justin was standing in the kitchen, putting the finishing touches on two bowls of salad, sprinkling croutons over the top with his left hand.
“Hey,” he said, looking up at me and smiling as he changed tasks, pouring oil and vinegar into a carafe with some special blend of herbs that he’d mixed up a while ago after reading about it in one of those cooking magazines he subscribed to that sometimes made me wonder if he had some secret desire to become a chef. I had to admit, he’d probably be good at it. “How was your flight?”
I was surprised as hell to find Justin not only in the kitchen, but smiling at me and greeting me like nothing at all was amiss, but the last thing I wanted to do was show that surprise -- though I wasn’t completely sure why. Maybe because I didn’t want Justin to know I’d noticed the difference between what was in front of me at that moment and the Justin I’d been seeing for the past couple of weeks. So instead, I acted like everything was normal -- status quo -- while hoping and praying that it actually was.
I set my suitcase down by the door and moved into the kitchen, rolling up behind Justin and wrapping my arm around his waist.
“The flight was okay,” I said. “But I’m glad to be back here with you.”
Somehow, Justin’s smile seemed to get even larger -- and maybe even a bit coy -- as he poured the dressing over the salads and picked up the bowls to carry them to the table.
“That smells amazing,” I said, inhaling the aroma of the steaming dish of lasagna, which had already filled our kitchen, dining room, and living room. I washed my hands at the sink, then opened a cabinet, pulled down two wine glasses, and nestled them between my thighs for easy transport to the table, where a bottle of wine was waiting. I poured the wine while Justin plated up lasagna and bread for both of us, and we proceeded to have the most normal evening we’d had in weeks.
In fact, it was almost as if the past few weeks hadn’t happened at all. And it was enough to make me believe we’d dodged the bullet -- despite my complete and total inaction -- and to cause me to move on as if everything was just fine. But even when I look back, I don’t see how I could have interpreted it any other way, because Justin seemed absolutely fine. To the point where I almost wondered if I'd been making something out of nothing. If it had been my own insecurities that caused me to read too much into everything.
It was clear that Justin had missed me as much as I’d missed him -- from the lasagna to the expensive wine to the lemon cake he’d picked up at Monetti’s -- and that became even more clear when we finished clearing the table and shifted over to the sofa. Justin started off in his usual position, cuddled up to my side with his feet pulled up onto the cushions, while I stretched out on the chaise lounge, but it didn’t take long before his intentions became clear.
Soon, the soft kisses he’d started planting on the back of my hand and up my arm turned into something much more intense and passionate, as he moved to straddle me, his lips pressed against mine, hard. His tongue pushed into my mouth as his hands wandered over my torso, untucking my shirt before he started to unbutton it slowly, his eyes locked with mine and filled with the lust that I’d been missing more than anything.
In that moment, any lingering thoughts I might have had about confronting Justin were gone -- vaporized -- and replaced with the intense arousal that was quickly overtaking my senses. We hadn't had "real" sex in weeks, in spite of some of my best efforts, because Justin simply hadn't been interested in much more than cuddling and kissing, and he'd rarely been interested in that.
I may have been a changed man -- no longer the Brian Kinney who spent his twenties fucking his way through most of the gay men in Pittsburgh -- but I still enjoyed sex, and going weeks without felt like an eternity, and made me wonder how I'd ever survived the six months after my accident when I hadn't been intimate with anyone at all. Although, I supposed if I really wanted the answer to that question, I needed look no further than my "cure" -- Justin. So, suffice to say that Justin being uninterested in sex was more than a bit unusual, but at the same time, I hadn't wanted to push too hard and risk having him shut me out even more than he already had been.
But all of that was forgotten as I felt my husband's tongue begin to trace the tiniest circles over my earlobe, right before he brushed his teeth across it, biting down ever-so-gently. My back arched involuntarily as the tip of his tongue grazed the side of my neck while he slipped my shirt off of my shoulders and tossed it aside. He paused for a moment to pull my t-shirt over my head before continuing his journey -- nipping and sucking at my collarbones first, then my nipples, pausing there to give my second-most intense erogenous zone some attention, while his hands slid down to the first.
A soft moan escaped my barely-parted lips as I closed my eyes and gave myself over to the sensations I was feeling, letting the waves of ecstasy wash over me, bathing me in a feeling that was somehow warm and cold at the same time, but oh-so-pleasurable. Justin was still straddling my legs, and I could clearly see how aroused he was as well, even through his jeans, which made me wish, if only for a brief moment, that I could feel his growing erection pressing against my leg. He continued working his magic on my nipples with a nearly overwhelming combination of licking, sucking, and nibbling, while his fingernails dug into my waist and my hips, adding to the sensation. Justin was an expert in finding ways to bring me the sort of euphoria I’d once thought I would never experience again, fully utilizing all of the areas where I did have sensation to bring my brain to the edge of short-circuiting. Then, just when I thought I might come just from being sucked and caressed, I felt his tongue trace a path across my chest, and his mouth once again found its way to mine.
Our lips locked, and I pressed my palm into the back of the sofa for leverage as I leaned forward, taking control. Our tongues danced around one another, and I found myself savoring the taste that was uniquely Justin -- always a little sweet, and this time flavored with the slightest hint of lemon, left over from the slice of cake we’d enjoyed after dinner. I slid my hands under his shirt, gripping his torso just above his hips, then pushed his shirt upward, allowing our lips to part briefly as I pulled it over his head and tossed it on top of mine, on the other end of the sofa.
As always, I could give as good as I got, and I did -- finding my own path down Justin’s chest with the soft, light kisses that I knew drove him wild, then tracing circles around his nipples with my tongue. Sometimes I missed the nipple ring he’d gotten only a few months after we met, but it had gone missing after what happened at prom, and never returned. As much as I’d teased him about that piercing, I loved the way he reacted when I used my tongue and my teeth to play with it. But I’d never brought it up, because that would mean bringing up the bashing, which was still my most painful memory of our time together, and not something I cared to talk about.
I unbuttoned Justin’s pants and pushed them down over his hips, freeing his erection, then watched as he slid them down the rest of the way and added them to the growing pile of clothing on the other end of our leather sofa. He did the same with mine, and soon we were both completely naked, our hands sliding over each other’s bare skin, my fingers taking in every curve of my partner’s beautiful body as my lips moved against his. I felt his hands come to rest on my shoulders, pushing against me as he pulled away slightly, sucking at my bottom lip as we separated, right before he leaned in close to my ear and whispered, “I want to ride you.”
I watched as he moved his mouth -- that talented mouth, that had clearly learned so much from me, but was at the same time different enough to keep me guessing -- down to my cock. He took me in, using his tongue and his lips to initiate the reflex that would bring me to my own erection. Briefly, I wondered how long we’d be able to go without the help of the silicone cock ring that had become one of the best purchases I’d ever made, but I didn’t have to wonder for long, because my partner had clearly been planning ahead, and had all of the supplies we needed for a night of passion right there in the drawer of our side table. He used the fingers of his left hand to stretch the ring just enough to slide it over my entire length, then handed me the bottle of lube.
After squeezing some out onto my fingers, I started to prepare my partner, savoring the feel of his warmth and tightness around my fingers -- first just one, then two, scissoring them open as Justin moaned into my mouth, his lips locked tightly with mine. When he was ready, I let my fingers slide free, moving them instead to grip his hips as he positioned himself over me and took me in. He kept his hands on my hips, just below my waistline, using his fingers to provide me with physical stimulation, as my mind filled in the rest of what was missing down below. I watched him move over top of me and imagined what I would be feeling, had I been able to feel, letting the memory of those sensations fill my consciousness.
I moved one of my hands to Justin’s cock, sliding my palm back and forth over the shaft, ever-so-slowly -- almost painfully so -- and watched the expression on his face change as the sensations he was experiencing built upon themselves, bringing him closer to his peak. It was a dance we’d all but perfected, both of us working together, in tandem, to give each other exactly what we needed -- what we craved.
A key part of that well-practiced dance was how adeptly we were both able to bring each other to orgasm at the exact same time -- his breathy moans turning into a cry of ecstasy as he came, leaving a pool of warm stickiness across my lower torso, while my own breathing gradually became more and more ragged and heavy. Then, my vision faded out momentarily, and I felt the intense sensation of my own peak -- a wave of bliss so strong that I wanted to ride it out forever, to the edge of time and space. But I couldn’t. I had to come back to earth, and so did he.
Our bodies collapsed back into the sofa cushions, both of us sticky, sweaty, and breathless. The candles still flickered on the dining room table, casting a romantic glow over the room. After a few more minutes just holding each other and sharing soft, tender kisses, Justin slid off my lap, separating my body from his before he gently removed the ring, allowing my body to begin the process of bringing itself back into its normal state. He rose and walked over to the table, extinguishing the candles, before moving toward the hallway, stopping for a moment to look over his shoulder and say, in a sultry tone, “You coming to bed?”
While our sexual escapades for the evening were done, we remained close as we showered together, then retired to our bed, where Justin treated me to a full-body massage that eventually lulled me into a peaceful sleep. A sleep that cast away all of my doubts, fears, and insecurities and replaced them with feelings of gratitude -- gratitude that all seemed to be well, and whatever had been bothering Justin apparently no longer was.
Looking back, I wished I had savored that feeling even more than I did, because as much as I wanted to hold onto that bliss -- that normalcy -- we had another storm to weather.