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out every unfortunate follicle in its path.

Ian had heard that body builders waxed all the hair off their bodies.

They were fucking morons!

"Holy fucking hell!" He bucked up, sending Cal sprawling backward on the floor, and lay back

against the bed again, paralyzed with the pain, his eyes squinting as tight as they could go. When

the burn started to subside, he opened one eye then the other, and was accosted by the

unfortunate sight of his throbbing dick pushed straight out by the constricting elastic butted up

against it. No wonder the pants wouldn't come off. Road block... er, cock block. He sucked so

hard.

Beet red, his entire body thrumming with the heat of embarrassment, Ian curled in on himself

and shimmied the pants the rest of the way off. Wearing just his boxers, he drew his knees up to

his chest. He was
not
whimpering, just... composing himself.

Again, he wished the bed were higher off the ground. Monster under the bed had nothing on the

Go Fish - 31

menace of crushing humiliation.

The blood was pounding so hard in his ears that he didn't even hear Cal moving up beside him,

but then Cal was there, his hand on the small of Ian's back, and Ian... snapped... or something.

You know what they say. You gotta hit rock bottom before things turn around. And right then,

Ian thought he couldn't possibly get any lower. With nothing left to lose, he was damn sure going

to gain
something
from this day of hell.

Ian twisted around, landing himself face to teeth with Cal's gaping zipper. He sucked in a deep

breath, heard Cal gasp with surprise... and went in.

No way he was pussyfooting...err... tiptoeing around the subject anymore. He could do this. He

could. Sure, his stomach was clenching, and he was drenched in nervous sweat. His stomach

could just shut the fuck up. It took him all of two seconds to get Cal's dick out. All of that was

fumbling with denim and cotton, because it took no time at all to find it. Cal was... no slouch.

This would have been the part where Ian admitted to himself he'd never done this before, but he

was way past the point of admitting anything. He did what any man would do when faced with a

challenge. He sucked it up.

And then some. And then some more. And then... he gagged a little, because there was a hell of a

lot more to suck up than he'd counted on. He thought maybe the gagging spoiled the mood, but

Cal's squeak and his hands clenched around Ian's ears said otherwise. Ian didn't really have any

technique, but from his own personal experience, dicks weren't all that choosy. At least,
his

wasn't, ask anyone about his choice in girlfriends. He just minded his teeth and went to town,

relishing the way Cal's fingers tightened in his hair.

Ian gauged his success by the amount of pressure Cal applied and the amount of rasp in every

panting breath. He figured he was doing pretty damn good, too, because, to be honest, it was

starting to hurt a little. Actually, Cal was pulling his hair so hard it reminded him of his long-

haired days when one of the hairdressers on the set of his latest gig had gotten too close with the

dryer and got some sucked into the fan. Ian ignored it, right up until Cal began to make that

strangled "Nnnngghh" sound that Ian knew too well, and came in his mouth.

Um. Strangely enough, Ian hadn't really planned for that circumstance. His throat was raw from

gagging, his eyes watering like whoa, and all he could think was, "It will hurt if I swallow. It will hurt if I swallow. It will hurt if I swallow."

He swallowed. It hurt. But the way Cal petted his neck and caressed his shoulders made it

worthwhile. For that, Ian could even ignore the rumbling in his stomach.

Mostly.

Though it was getting harder to ignore.

Go Fish - 32

He lay there, a little overwhelmed by the whole situation and trying to figure out how to tell Cal

it was okay if he didn't want to, you know, reciprocate, when his phone rang.

For once, it had perfect timing.

He barely managed to lift his head, which weighed at least twenty pounds, he thought, and

groped around on the nightstand for the cell.

He clicked it on, squinted through his watering eyes, and pressed talk. "Hey, Marcy. What's up?"

"Hey, um, Ian. I was just watching the news, and I saw where there's been an outbreak of food

poisoning at that place you got takeout from this afternoon. You didn't, by chance, eat the chili

dog, did you?"

He hung up. No way he was letting this moment be ruined by a chili dog. Really, only half a chili

dog, not even, because he scraped most of the chili off, and...

"Who was that?"

"Uh, no one."

Ian changed the subject by licking his way up Cal's stomach and pushing him down on the floor,

relishing the way he bucked and arched off the cold hardwood, barely touching with the points of

his shoulder blades. Ian had never done this with a guy before, but Cal was solid, a continuous

span of taut muscle, and every touch, every lick, nip, and breath rippled through him like a

telegraph. It wasn't hard to figure out what he liked, not any harder than it was for his own dick

to find the groove of Cal's jutting hip bone.

"Ah!"

Ian thought it was a gasp of pleasure until Cal reached between them and rolled his own jeans

down the rest of the way, the zipper of which had scraped a channel in his flesh.

"Sorry," Ian whispered, barely lifting his head as he snaked his tongue between ribs and teased along the leading edges with his lower teeth, just enough to make Cal wriggle and twist up into

the contact. He was only a little self-conscious when he felt Cal's hand inside the waistband of

his shorts, too busy finding out Cal's nipples were more sensitive than any girl's he'd ever been

with. Lost in the sensation, Ian rutted against Cal's hip, pulling one nipple and then the other into

his mouth just to hear Cal make that little grunting noise deep in his throat.

God, Cal's hands were huge, grabbing Ian's ass and kneading each cheek, first simultaneously

and then alternating. Sweat trickled down between them, and Ian became aware of the stashed

playing card glued to the front of his stomach, just above the hairline, the corners poking and

prodding with every grinding thrust he made.

He was about to move up a little higher, find out what that little divot under Cal's Adam's apple

Go Fish - 33

tasted like, and surreptitiously remove the card from his boxer briefs, when, "Ah!" He jerked

straight up, the elastic of his underwear snapping against his flesh.

He wasn't a prude. He wasn't. He just, somehow, lost track of Cal's hands for a second there, and

one of them, just a finger... at least, if
felt
like a finger went... Well, no one had ever touched him... there before.

Cal looked up at him, agape, chest still heaving, but now he had his hands splayed against the

floor. "I'm sorry, I... I thought we were... I should've gone slower."

"Nooo, n-n-n-nooo," Ian waffled. "We were, I mean, I
think
we were going... uh, there, but I guess..." His stomach rolled, and he clamped his mouth shut.

Cal sat up, nearly dumping Ian off, but caught him with strong hands around his biceps before he

hit the floor. "Look, Ian, we don't have to. There are other things we can do besides
that
. We can start with..."

"Oh, hell no!" Ian's was not some woobie little schoolgirl. He was far from virginal, and he

fucking
liked
sex. This day was not going to end up as awkwardly as it had started. They were

clearing this hurdle once and for all. "We are doing this. Now!"

He lunged forward, knocked Cal back to the floor, and started kissing anything he could get his

mouth on, sucking and biting at collar bone, chin, and lips until Cal was back to gasping and

unable to argue. Nipping up along Cal's jaw bone to his ear, he whispered, "I have everything we

need. Just... how do you want to do it...?" A swirl of tongue around an ear lobe, a tender bite to

Cal's pulse point. The tip of his nose nuzzled into the hair line. "Any way you want." He hoped he sounded more sure of himself than he felt. He swore he'd never been this nervous when he

was a virgin the first time.

He thought he was hiding it pretty well. No way Cal heard the gurgle in his stomach over the

heavy breathing, and if
his...um
...
interest
was flagging a little, he had no intention of letting it continue. Bracing himself on his elbows, he sagged so his forehead rested against Cal's

collarbone and huffed into the little valley between the bulging pecs, hips flexing and grinding.

Ian's heart pounded. Sweat burned in his eyes when hands slid up off his ass and along the dip in

his back, up, up, and up, until Cal's thumbs hooked around Ian's jaw from behind and tilted his

head up. "Hey..." Cal's voice was distant, lost in the pounding of blood in Ian's ears, somewhere miles away behind his closed eyelids, until Cal thrust up once, hard and throbbing, into the soft

spot below Ian's navel and twined their ankles together, spreading Ian's legs until he lost his

leverage. "Hey. Look at me."

Ian did, eyelids fluttering against the weight of sweat clinging to his lashes. When he did, Cal

was there. Cal, the guy his mother used to give the extra cookie to when they came home from

school. The kid who told him what it meant when his pants got too tight for no apparent reason,

and what to do to fix it. The only one who believed he could make it as an actor and gave him a

room in his own house when he wasn't so much making it as taking it. The friend who got him a

Go Fish - 34

meeting with the producer on the show he was a production assistant on when the cocky lead

threw a tantrum and walked off. It was crazy how much Ian owed this guy, how well he knew

him, and how much more he was about to know. Something like doubt crawled up his spine,

because, fuck, what if he messed it up, and he coiled, ready to lurch up and make a run for it.

But Cal knew Ian as well as Ian knew Cal. He thrust up again, one hand reaching between them

and tightening around Ian's cock, his eyes open and soft the whole while, searching Ian's as he

smiled. "God, what you do to me." He pulled Ian down, thumb stroking along his jaw and over

the shell of his ear, until they kissed, both inhaling until their stomachs bumped, trying to draw

each other deeper from the inside out.

One flick of Cal's wrist, and Ian came with a shout, adding some sticky to the slick of sweat

between them. He collapsed into Cal's neck, breathing through the tremors and waiting for his

stomach to stop its clenching roil.

Only it didn't.

Ian's head was just starting to clear, the high-pitched white noise waning away like the tail end of

a cicada song, when something became painfully obvious. He loved Cal, which was awesome,

but that wasn't it. Well, it was, but unfortunately that was not the most urgent thought.

See, that thing he was thinking earlier? About having nothing left to lose? He was wrong. Ian

still had something left to lose. Dinner and... dessert.

He barely managed to roll to the side and jerk his underwear back up before he avoided throwing

up in Cal's lap by throwing up all over their discarded clothing instead.

***

that the nurse discovered the Queen of Hearts glued to the skin inside his boxer briefs, reminding

him that he hadn't even managed to get fully naked before coming like a teenager. She almost

concealed the smirk with a more professional expression when she tucked the card into his

personal effects bag without a word, and then left him with an emesis basin and a call button for

the entirety of the three hours they had to wait while the couple dozen or so other people who

were stupid enough to eat the chili dogs got treated first. After the humiliation of that and, well,

the whole puking thing, the shot of anti-emetic and prescription for a good antidiarrheal were

pretty... anticlimactic.

What the fuck was it with the dramatic pauses? His brother always did say he was a drama queen

when he was sick.

Not that Ian was anywhere near the point of giving a damn by then. He didn't even ask if he

could take the shot in his arm, just rolled over and pulled down his pants, which was a whole lot

easier when he wasn't hard enough to drive nails, and held onto the emesis basin for dear life. He

had no pride left whatsoever.

Go Fish - 35

He had really, really reached rock bottom, and he was determined to just stay there and wallow

for a while.

For the next two days, there were lots of buckets and trips to the bathroom and bottles and bottles

of Pedialyte, because Gatorade just wouldn't cut it, and Ian liked the grape-flavored Pedialyte

better. Through it all there was Cal, bathed in the halo of light from the aquarium. He left it on

twenty-four hours a day to avoid turning on anything harsher while still being able to see when

checking on Ian. Not that there was much checking to do, considering he never really left, no

matter how rank the room got or how many buckets of puke he had to hose out.

Aside from the whole being sick at both ends thing, Ian thought he could get used to the

attention. It was nice to have Cal in his room without the pretense of checking on the fish, air