Best Gay Erotica 2015 (19 page)

Ming-Na frowned, severe bob swishing around her face. He clicked around as she stood there, waiting to see if she would mention it. Single parenting wasn't helping his chances at making VP before the end of the fiscal year.

“And Jamal?” she asked, after a long silence.

Spencer let out a sigh. “If he wants to drive here from Rehoboth,” he told her, “then yes. But we both know he's too busy with”—he clenched his jaw—“that asshole Ian to see his own damn daughter.”

The name had the effect of switching her right back into business mode. “Send me the final numbers before you leave?” Ming-Na preferred to avoid personal shit at the office. Spencer, on the other hand, would prefer to pretend that Jamal had died in a horrific Amtrak accident. He fluctuated, most days, between seething hatred and moments of blissful ignorance, when he could forget, somehow, the shit-storm that was his marriage. Two years ago, Shauna had turned eight and Jamal thirty-four, which only now, Spencer realized in retrospect, had been the beginning of his early-onset midlife crisis. First he wanted to eat clean, which, okay, Spencer could do that. The three of them would eat dinner together, but the second Shauna was in bed, Jamal wouldn't want to cuddle or watch TV, and he didn't want to hear about Spencer's day or office politics.

No, he'd become engrossed in his phone, giggling during “Scandal,” for fuck's sake. He was paranoid about missing personal training sessions and went to the gym sometimes twice a day. The gym, coincidentally, was where he met Ian, who had washboard abs, capped teeth, a Silver Lexus IS, a condo in Center City and a profound dislike of children under the age of twelve. It was awful, but almost a relief when he left. Shauna had handled it with more maturity than her nine years would suggest and certainly better than her dad, who'd broken down the day he realized he'd been unfriended on Facebook. They'd been seeing a therapist, together and her alone. Jamal always seemed to miss appointments, away in New York, Miami, Provincetown or swanning around with his sugar daddy. He missed soccer games and piano recitals and parent-teacher meetings. Spencer turned in on himself, focusing on being a newly single parent. He took refuge in food, in cheesesteaks dripping grease onto his shoes, frozen custard, deep-dish pizza. And the chunkier he got, the less he cared about looking for sex, because that entailed putting on tight shirts and hitting the clubs, buying guys drinks and paying for hotels out of pocket. He wouldn't fuck in public, and he didn't want to accidentally traumatize Shauna by bringing tricks home. But it had been forever. God, he couldn't even think about it, how long he'd gone without the touch of a hand—apart from his own—and what he wouldn't give to wake up in the early light of cold dawn, Shauna still asleep, hours to go before work, with Jamal's mouth working around his already-stiff cock. The asshole might've been a liar

and a cheat, but he really did give fantastic head.

Ming-Na interrupted this train of thought. “Thanks for stepping in for Jenkins tonight.”

Spencer nodded in the direction of the numbers. “Is he doing any better?”

“His wife says they have him on fluids. We sent a gift basket to the room.”

“You visit?”

Ming-Na shuddered visibly. She gets her flu shot the day it's released and washes her hands sixteen times a day. “No,” she said, “I don't really do hospitals.” Her phone beeped and she arched a perfectly threaded eyebrow in his direction. “Look, if you need to get a sitter for tonight…” Her voice trailed off. Shit, she
had
seen his screen.

The excuse came naturally, at least. “With him gone, it's not so easy to be spontaneous,” he said. “I'll figure something out.”

“Well,” she said as she read from her phone, “here's a lead for you, from my downstairs neighbor, a place called Blue's Sitters. Supposedly they're fantastic, if all the exclamation points in this text are to be believed. He says it's a pool of college kids and they can supposedly step in last-minute. Figure it out, though. The car is coming for you at seven.” Spencer was Googling before she even finished speaking, then found the website and scanned the text.
Courteous, Responsible, Professional, Discreet.
It looked legit. “On it,” he answered, phone already in hand. “I'll take care of it right now.”

The website didn't list rates, but when Spencer called, the receptionist told him that the price was fifteen dollars per hour for every hour before midnight, twenty for each hour afterward. If he needed a sitter to stay the night, that would be a flat hundred. He was expected to include a tip, at his own discretion, for satisfactory services rendered.

At the business dinner that night, the food keeps coming, sauces in delicate swirls on white china. Each course brings a new wine pairing, each more perfectly matched then the last. It's the kind of meal that has Spencer turning over each component in his head long after they've drunk the last of their grappa. He's waved off the offer of a ride home because he has to stop at the ATM and flags a cab right after, only half-listening to the driver's predictions for the playoffs—
What
was in that sauce for the scallops, was it vanilla
bean?
—and that's where his mind is when he walks in his front door.

The babysitter, Josh, intercepts him in the kitchen, when he's barely had a chance to set his keys down or get his coat off. “Hey, Mr. Bryant. How was dinner? You didn't text so I assume it went well.”

He shrugs out of his peacoat. “Good. Really good. Sorry about that. Is Shauna asleep?”

“She was in bed right at nine.”
Well, that's a miracle. He must have worked some magic to make that happen.
A booze headache is starting to creep in around the edges of his pleasant buzz, though. He plots out his moves: pay the kid and hustle him out the door, run upstairs to check on Shauna and take off the suit he's had on since seven that morning, down three Aleve, turn on Fallon and then fall asleep on his couch.

“Homework?” he asks, going over to the sink for water. The filter's broken on the door dispenser. Hydration is the key to avoiding hangovers, after all. He takes a swallow.

“She had some math, which I helped with, and after that she read
The Graveyard Book
while I cooked dinner. We watched some TV and I let her read again until lights out.” Even more incredible. He'll have to hang on to this kid's number. Shauna won't relax enough to read all night around just anyone. It's a very good sign.

“You could have ordered takeout,” Spencer says. He'd told him as much when he'd left them for the evening, Shauna sullen at being abandoned.

Josh smiles. “I didn't mind,” he says, running a coy fingertip along the marble countertop. “You have a nice kitchen. It was fun to play around in. I made mac and cheese. You're out of Gruyère now, by the way.”

Spencer grunts and makes a mental note to add it to the grocery list. Or not. Probably he should cut out cheese if he wants to lose any weight. He drinks some more water and then pulls out his wallet to count out the sixty bucks he owes the kid.

“There's more in the fridge,” Josh adds, blue eyes blinking up at him. “If you need anything.”

“Okay,” he says, slowly, “thanks.” He furrows his brow. What the hell is the tipping protocol for babysitters? Ten percent? Fifteen? In his relief at booking someone, he forgot to find out. In any case, he doesn't have anything smaller than a twenty, and it would be rude to ask Josh to make change.

Spencer pauses midcount, and as he does, Josh draws his full lower lip between his teeth and worries it there. When he releases it a moment later, pinker than ever and slick with spit, it disconcerts him. Oh, what the hell. Shauna clearly liked him, his dinner has been expensed, and the kid could in all likelihood use the money. The four twenties are dry between Spencer's fingers as he holds them out for Josh to take.

Josh moves his hand away, though, to touch the back of his own neck as he tilts his head. He looks confused at the offer of money, as if payment for services rendered wasn't part of the arrangement from the outset. God, did he leave his kid with a weirdo? It's hard to tell, given that he hasn't said much beyond the status report on Shauna's reading habits and offering Spencer some leftover pasta. He glances at the bills in his hand, crisp, straight from the cash machine, so new you can almost feel the ink squeak. With a curt, “here,” he waves them in Josh's direction. The kid's eyelashes flutter and he lowers his gaze back down to the black leather wallet in Spencer's hand, obviously packed with more money from the ATM. What kind of racket is this kid running? Twenty bucks is plenty. Aside from a couple of ratty ones, a coat-check receipt from the restaurant, and ticket stubs from the showing of
Tangled
he and Shauna had gone to last Sunday, he's not sure what else to offer.

Spencer's brow furrows in confusion. “Thank you for your help,” he repeats. “I appreciate you taking care of her.” He waits with his hand extended, impatient for Josh to take the hint, that the twenty bucks extra is all that's coming his way. When did kids get so goddamn greedy? Josh steps a bit closer and, instead of taking the money from Spencer's hand, lays his own hand atop it. What the hell? Spencer has to be drunk or delusional, because the only other alternative is that the babysitter is trying to seduce him. Which, it turns out, is exactly what he's trying to do.

His young voice is pointed when he speaks again. “Mr. Bryant,” Josh says, “it was no trouble at all to take care of your daughter, she was great. But,” he sucked in a breath through his teeth and then quirked his lips in a smile, “if you want, I can take care of you, too. It would be my pleasure to take care of you.”

Spencer's mouth falls open at the forthright offer and he's equally taken aback when Josh rises up on his toes to kiss him. It's a gentle kiss, full of intent and a hint of trepidation, and before his eyes slide shut, he sees Josh slip the four bills into the back pocket of his jeans. He lets himself be pulled into the kiss for a long moment, briefly forgetful of how wrong it is to be kissing a boy half his age and whom he may have
inadvertently
just paid for sex.

Even as their tongues tangle together, Josh rubs his hands along Spencer's arms, sliding them under his suit jacket to clutch at his back. When Spencer draws away, Josh lets out a pitiful little moan. His lips are kiss-swollen and even redder than before, and Spencer only spares a moment to imagine what those lips could do, but that instant is more than enough to get him good and hard.

Josh smiles slyly, palm caressing down the front of Spencer's pants. “
Mmm
,” he hums, appreciatively. “Let me take care of this for you, too, Mr. Bryant. If you don't mind.” Spencer means to protest, he really does, but the strokes are firm and relentless through the fabric, and he wants to know how that mouth will feel, even if only for a second. Josh sinks gracefully to his knees and with practiced hands undoes the other man's belt. He leans in, pressing wet, open-mouthed kisses along the ridge of Spencer's cock, the wool growing wet with his saliva. When Josh finally gets the pants open, the wetness clings to Spencer's bare skin, and even the warm air of the kitchen feels cool against the heat of his erection.

Cars honk outside, his refrigerator hums in the background, as does the television, turned to a nature channel that Shauna likes and that Josh must have left on to amuse himself after tucking her in. Yet these sounds are nothing in comparison to the thudding of his pulse in his own ears. He can, in fact, practically hear all the blood in his body rushing to fill his prick. His stomach aches with the need to put his cock into that sweet, pink mouth. Fuzzily, he knows that he's probably breaking at least a dozen different laws, but Josh is legal and Shauna's asleep and what does it matter, it's only money, they're both adults and it's been
so fucking long
. Right now, Spencer would give Josh every dollar in his wallet to get that mouth on him.

“Ah,” he gasps, body rocking forward to chase sensation, but Josh's hands fly up to catch him and press firmly against his hip bones. They hold him still. He glances up, making sure that Spencer's still watching. Jesus, of course he is. He couldn't look away, even if the stove caught on fire or the ceiling caved in. Mesmerized, Spencer's hand fumbles for the counter to steady himself. Josh chuckles, eyes slipping closed as he puffs out warm breaths along Spencer's length, nuzzling his smooth face along the taut skin of Spencer's cock. Helplessly, Spencer watches as Josh teases him to full hardness. His pants slip farther down his thighs and Josh slides one hand up to cup his ass.

“Do this a lot, do you?” Spencer manages to ask, his voice creaky in his throat. Josh's dirty smirk is answer enough, right before he leans in and flicks his tongue along the crown of Spencer's cock. The ease which with he does it makes Spencer's head spin, the casual way he's sucking off a stranger for a handful of twenties.

Josh seems fully aware of the effect he's having, though he refuses to answer the question he's been asked. Instead, he says, “Been a while, Mr. Bryant?” from between Spencer's legs, lapping delicately at the skin of his inner thighs, and then before Spencer can even answer, with the rehearsed version of
My ex is a fucker and parenting doesn't leave time for party and play but for the love of god put your mouth on me now,
before he can choke out a single word beyond “Well,” Josh has swallowed him halfway down in one smooth, practiced movement.

“Oh fuck,” Spencer manages. His knees wobble as Josh bobs his head and takes him still deeper, one slow inch at a time. It's exquisite, the perfect combination of heat and achingly slow suction. And just when he can't take it a second more, Josh stops teasing and sucks in earnest, in hard, thorough pulls that leave his cock glistening wet and his legs unsteady. The guilt, which he has to feel somewhere beneath this pleasure, the guilt should dampen the sensations. But it barely mutes them at all, because Josh is absolutely skilled at this. He hums around Spencer's cock, fingers tracing gentle patterns around the sensitive skin of his asshole before sliding up and down the backs of his legs. The movements never stop, even as he swallows Spencer to the root and stays there, his cock pushing past the soft palate and into the rigid channel of his throat. He eases up off it like a pro, too, breaths coming fast through his nose, and he uses his hand to stroke Spencer off while he recovers.