Mob Men Ch. 05

TW: violence

The only date Alex and I ever had was going to a concert, about two months after we started hanging out. He probably didn't think it was a date, and I only thought about it afterwards, but we did all the date stuff. I left a cookout and told my cousins not to come along. We were both freshly showered; I was wearing cologne. Alex and I grabbed some food near the venue, and then strolled over to watch the band, him yapping the whole way while I smoked.

The place was packed; the bandleader was a local who had gotten kinda big. I didn't know his music, but one of Alex's brothers had gone to school with him. At the time I was thinking more about how close Alex and I were standing in public. The crowded room was a good excuse to let our arms touch.

Just into the second half of the concert, Alex bent toward me. "I think your family found you," he shouted over the music. I looked up at him and he jerked his head at the entrance.

I followed his gaze to see two of my cousins at the door, squinting into the dim room. I held up a middle finger so they could find me easier. Alex laughed.

"Why do I never see your fucking family?" I asked Alex sourly, half watching one cousin elbow the other as he spotted me.

He shrugged, swigging his beer. "I gotta be more suspicious, I guess."

"You can either meet more of my family right now, or we can get outta here," I told him as quietly as I could. My cousins were about halfway through the crowd. Pop probably sent them after me, because they look annoyed.

"Let's give them something to chase," Alex replied, a big grin on his handsome face. He pulled me out a side door with a smokers patio. We hopped the short fence before the bouncer could yell at us, and jogged down the street until we found an easy place to duck into. It was a sports bar, and I didn't give a shit about the hockey everyone's watching, but I had so much fun acting like a Looney Tunes character for the last ten minutes that my skin was buzzing. I tugged Alex into a corner where we could keep an eye on the door.

Alex looked down at me, and I looked up at him, and we laughed. Genuinely dumb fun.

"You know, Mario," Alex said, "If you're still wanting to, you know, fulfill the mission here, we should brace ourselves to run a lot."

The adrenaline in my veins was giving me a weird energy, because what I said out loud was. "You want to go fucking scurrying around like a rat instead of getting your dick wet? Forget about it."

Alex's eyebrows raised, and he gave me this slow, smiley nod. "It's like that, huh?"

We started hooking up more after that.

***

"Drop me off," I say.

Alex looks at me. "You sure?"

"Yeah."

He seems like he's about to say something in protest, so I add, "Just do it, okay?"

Alex gives me a funny look. "You don't think they've figured it out yet?"

"I'll find out."

He drives me home in silence. I stare out the window, trying not to think about much. Alex turns to me when he pulls up in front of my house, but I get out of the car. As usual, there are four or five people sitting on the porch. There are my cousins, there's the guy my uncle keeps around, there's my other uncle; mostly the people in charge of keeping track of me. If they're all here, then sometime in the last week I bet my phone got one of those ghost apps installed when I wasn't looking. Can't believe I didn't think to watch out for that.

Looking at the men on my parents' porch, I throw a hand up in greeting. Nobody waves back. My pulse speeds up like I got caught doing something wrong. I didn't. We haven't been doing anything wrong. Alex isn't bad for me. He isn't bad to me. All I got caught doing was thinking I was a clever little shit, one step ahead of everybody.

I walk around to Alex's side and tap on the window.

He rolls it down with, "Mario, don't do something stupid."

Is he shitting me? "We're already doing something stupid." I lean in and kiss him, not briefly, then cross the street and hop up the steps. One of my cousins stands up. I walk past him into the house.

"You gay, Mario?" he asks loudly, following me down the hall.

I shrug.

An uncle pops his head around the corner. "Was that one of the Ivanov fuckwads?"

My body tingles in a way that tells me we're about to start fighting. "His name is Alex."

I'm pretty sure I hear another cousin mutter, "I told you so." Now I know who was watching me.

My father shows up, bristling menacingly from over my uncle's shoulder. I don't have to turn around to know that I'm surrounded. There's no backing out now. "What the fuck are you doing with that asshole?" Pop asks.

I stare him right in the face. "He's fucking me."

Pop must have expected that answer, because no sooner had I gotten the words out than he breaks my nose. Like sharks, at the first drop of blood on the wood floor my family sets in on me.

***

Alex was damn proud of himself when he got me to come with him. To give him some credit, he had been working at it for a while. Every time he fucked me he'd ask all these questions about angles and sensations, and he'd try different things to stimulate me. It was weird. Things like licking my armpits, or playing with my feet, or spanking me. It was as though he'd determined that I had a yet-unknown fetish. Maybe my fetish was just getting a real dick shoved up my ass. Or maybe my fetish was him.

Still, that day there was something a little different. It was partly the way his cockhead hit my prostate. Maybe being on my back put me more at ease. Maybe I liked watching Alex's hand on my pole, seeing his thumb come up to cover the head on the upstroke. Whatever it was, I watched all of his muscles tighten right when I began to come. He clenched his teeth and groaned, a bass to my frantic, "Oh, shit, oh, fuck, don't stop, fuck, fuck!"

That moment during climax when everything just turns into protons and neutrons and white noise, I looked into Alex's eyes and felt my heart pounding. It beat. I came. It beat. Alex shook. My heart beat. And Alex was there with me, inside me, over me.

Then he collapsed on top of me, his exhausted breathing loud in my ear. "Oh my fucking god," he puffed. "I feel like I just graduated from the school of mediocre sex partners."

I chuckled and wrapped my arms around him, holding him gently. "You are officially the best fuck I've ever had," I said.

"Really?" Alex turned his head to look at me.

"Really."

"Really really?"

I smiled at him. My chest was filled with light, and I was almost too overwhelmed with all the things I couldn't put into words to speak. "Yeah, really really."

Alex tried to plant a kiss on my lips, but we were still breathing too hard. We ended up giving each other a raspberry, which cause us both to burst into laughter. Oh, no, I thought as I watched Alex flop onto his back, chortling. I'm fucking falling in love with him.

***

"You filthy fucking cocksucker," my father yells, swinging wildly at my torso.

I think I might be crying, but it's like every new blow has to cut through the storm of pain that thunders already through my body. I struggle to my feet again. It's getting harder to do. I spit blood on the floor and raise my arms in time to fend off one blow before Pop knocks me down again.

"You like getting fucked?" my cousin asks, "like getting a cock fucking shoved up your ass like a bitch? Fucking faggot." He points the toe of his boot at my kidney and kicks.

I think some of my teeth are loose, and I briefly wonder what I would look like if most of my teeth were punched out. I'd probably give amazing head, at least. Just before I black out Juliana screams, and then something cracks like a melon.

***