Land of the Living Ch. 01

Naked, lying flat on his back in the dim room, Jordan Hamel's breath quickened as gentle fingers, slick with lubricant, caressed his nipples. Soon a hand moved down to his erect, leaking cock and began to stroke it.

Jordan gasped as he felt a soft, moist warmth surround the head of his organ. His partner had substituted his expert mouth for the hand. As the man above him, also naked, began to suck him in earnest, he raised his knees and spread his legs. He felt the fingers that had been stroking his cock touch the soft flesh of his asshole. A wave of pleasure rose in him as they slipped inside. In a few moments, unable to hold back against the double assault on his cock and prostate gland, Jordan groaned as he released his pent-up load into his partner's waiting mouth.

His cock was released and the fingers slowly withdrawn. Jordan opened his eyes. The other man was standing by the table, looking down at him, smiling, his cheeks bulging.

"Thanks, Daniel," Jordan said, feeling a little sheepish as always now that it was over.

Daniel turned, picked up a towel and discreetly emptied and wiped his mouth before he replied. "Don't mention it. Seems like you needed that, buddy."

Jordan allowed his gaze to linger on him. With his blond hair, chiseled face and tanned, athletic body, Daniel could have been a model. He had in fact once appeared, minimally clothed, on the cover of the local free gay bar guide. In real life, though, he was an office manager for a big corporation, supplementing his income by giving massages and a little extra service after the regular full-body Swedish treatment. For this, as he had politely made clear after their first session was over, Daniel expected his quoted fee to be supplemented.

"You're a hustler," Jordan had said, as if he hadn't known what was going to happen when he walked into Daniel's apartment.

The blond man had laughed, not bothered at all, as he pulled his tank top back on. "Guess that makes you a john, buddy," he replied.

Abashed, Jordan had tried to apologize. Daniel had patted his cheek. "Forget it. I've been called a lot worse. Want to take a shower? There's a fresh towel in the bathroom."

He went back for several more visits. It was not only that Daniel gave him something that he wasn't getting elsewhere. Jordan liked the muscular masseur and his lack of hypocrisy about what he did. He still felt guilty when he thought of his lover knowing, but the truth was he didn't want to stop. Lee was a brilliant, sweet man, and so kind to him--but any chemistry between them was a thing of the past.

He came back to the present to find Daniel looking down at him quizzically. "Sorry, what?" Jordan said, aware that he had let his thoughts wander.

"I said, ready for your shower?"

Jordan lay back and sighed, gazing at the symmetrical rows on Daniel's stomach, and his still slightly swollen cock. Both cock and shaved balls jutted out proudly, pushed forward by a leather ring.

"Yeah, I guess so. I wish I could just lie here for the rest of the night."

Daniel smiled. "I wouldn't mind, but I've got another client coming in at ten." He picked up his clothes and began to dress.

He hugged Jordan when it was time to leave. "Take care of yourself," Daniel said. Jordan fleetingly wondered how much his apparent affection had to do with the five twenties he had left folded on the coffee table. But surely the warmth in Daniel's eyes wasn't faked.

Lee's car was not in the driveway when he pulled in. Jordan had planned it this way, but still felt relieved that his partner was not back from a reception for a visiting scholar at the University. That gave him time to mess with the new iMac and try and work the bugs out. Doing something for Lee might also assuage the familiar guilt that was eating at him.

He sat, musing, in front of the monitor in their joint office. Lee really had bought this computer for Jordan--the University provided him with one in his office that was more powerful. The home iMac was turning out to be something of a lemon. Despite repeated calls to the helpline, the mysterious crashes and disconnections persisted. It was almost as if the thing were bewitched in some way.

Lee, of course, had been no help at all, beyond being upset that the shiny new machine wasn't working right. He had little interest in computers beyond e-mail and word processing anyway. Any glitch in the works usually stymied him. Thus it was ironic that a few months before, frantically searching for a lost file on the hard drive of their old machine, Lee had accidentally opened a cache of e-mails Jordan had stupidly saved from a man he had met in the local M4M chat room.

The thought of the painful scene that had ensued still made Jordan close his eyes and sigh. He had walked into the house that afternoon to find his partner sitting at the kitchen table, staring into space. When Jordan had asked him what was wrong, Lee had turned toward him. The glassy hurt and anger in his brown eyes had made Jordan recoil. Then they had filled with tears and the older man had begun to sob, his face in his hands, as he watched helplessly.

"Why did you do it, Jordy?" Lee had demanded, when he had at last been able to speak coherently. "Haven't I made you happy? Haven't I been good to you?"

How could he begin to explain the inner demons that drove him to do the things he did? There was no way.

Lee didn't throw him out that day, though sometimes Jordan wished that he had. Instead, they had begun the arduous process of rebuilding their shattered relationship. He had promised to give up tricking, and he had. He knew in his heart that he should stop seeing Daniel too, but so far he hadn't been able to do it.

As always, mulling over his situation brought neither new insights nor solutions. Jordan silenced his inner voices as he turned on the computer and waited. At least it was starting up today-occasionally during the few weeks they had tried to use it, it had refused to do even that, the screen remaining dark and silent.

In the aftermath of Lee's discovery of his affair, he had asked his lover whether he wanted to know his account password. Lee had refused.

"You made a promise, Jordy, and I trust you. I'm not going to play detective. I wish I had never found those e-mails," he added, tears welling in his eyes as they had often in those weeks. Jordan hadn't known whether to cry himself or take Lee by the shoulders and shake the nobility out of him. Damn it, why couldn't his partner just scream at him, hit him, treat him like the shit he was? Jordan knew that he never would. That was his punishment.

With one last sigh, he clicked into his e-mail program. Suddenly alert, he sat up.

marcmoss@xxxxxx.xxx. "Back soon."

Anger and, though he tried not to admit it, a little fear rose in Jordan. Who the hell was sending him an e-mail using Marc's name? He punched a key and the body of the message came up onscreen.

Hey Camel: surprised? Long time no see. You may see me sooner than you think. Looking forward, Marco.

Jordan's heart was racing and he realized he was close to tears. If this was a joke, it was a vicious one, and had gotten him good. Whoever had done this must know him well--well enough to know about Marc, and that he had been dead for years; well enough to know Marc's private nickname for him. Whoever had sent this knew how much Jordan still missed the charismatic, cruel, spellbinding man who had been swept away on the tide of the plague, like so many others.

He stared unseeing at the screen as memories came flooding back. It had been one sunny spring afternoon in the park years ago when he first saw the man who had changed his life forever. The stranger had been sitting on a concrete picnic table in the woods, young, dark-haired with a mustache, dressed only in running shorts and sneakers, smoking a cigarette. His gaze was level and direct, his smile flashing as he caught Jordan's eye from a distance.

Intrigued, Jordan cautiously drew nearer. There would be many such men later as dusk fell, most not as desirable as this one. It was unusual and risky for someone to be cruising this early. As he approached, the other man stubbed out his smoke. He leaned back, planted both feet on the bench beneath and let his knees part. His chest and stomach were smooth and tautly muscled, his nipples large and dark. Jordan caught his breath as he saw the head of his cock peeking out of one leg of the skimpy shorts. The man's grin widened--he knew Jordan had seen.

Finally he was directly in front of the man, who still had not moved. Breathless, his heart thudding, Jordan let his eye drop to the cruiser's cock, which had hardened and lengthened impressively, bursting out of the confines of its inadequate covering. Jordan felt an ache in his own crotch, his cock pressing against the front of his jeans.

"So what are you waiting for?" the man on the picnic table demanded.

"Here?" Jordan asked. To his embarrassment, his voice cracked.

The man shrugged, elaborately casual. "Why not?"

"Jesus, man," Jordan said nervously, "it's broad daylight. People are all around."

"Makes it more exciting." The cruiser's hand dropped to his organ and began to stroke it. Jordan gave in. He knelt awkwardly on the bench between the man's legs, bent and took the cock into his mouth. His partner pushed back to give Jordan more room, sighing with pleasure. "Mmm, that's it. Nice."

His response excited Jordan to greater efforts, his fear receding. He sucked harder, nodding his head vigorously up and down on the long, slender shaft, pulling the balls with one hand while letting the other run over the toned body. "Oh yes, that's great. Suck it," he heard the man whisper.

At that moment something hit the top of the table near them with a loud thump. Jordan started with fright. Visions of being set upon by gay bashers coursed through his mind as he leaped up, before he saw that the object, now on the ground nearby, was harmless--a softball.

"Jumpy, aren't you?" The anonymous man looked at the ball. "There's a ball field over there," he said. "Someone must have hit a home run--or a foul."

"We'd better get out of here," Jordan said, beginning to walk away, "They're going to come looking for that thing."

The other man waggled his eyebrows mischievously. "Think they'd want to join in?"

"C'mon!" Jordan hissed urgently. He could hear rustling nearby and voices approaching.

"I think it fell over there," someone said.

"Okay, okay." The man in the shorts leaped gracefully off the picnic table and came toward him just as a man and a boy, probably father and son, entered the clearing, the boy with a baseball glove. Fortunately they were behind him, so they couldn't see his still stiff cock pushing out of the shorts.

"You always live this dangerously?" Jordan said as they retreated into the woods.

"You call that dangerous?" his companion grinned. "Got my juices flowing. I've got an idea. Follow me."

They walked across the drive that wound through the park, into deeper woods. After what seemed a long time to Jordan they arrived at another clearing. A stone cabin stood before them.

"What is this place?" Jordan asked.

"Girl Scout weekend campsite. I kid you not." The man walked toward the house, then led him around to the side. Jordan saw that the cabin had been built on an incline and steps led downhill to the back, which was one story lower than the front. At the bottom they turned and found themselves on a stone porch, shaded and cool, on which stood another concrete picnic table. The woods began immediately behind the house, keeping any sun from penetrating their hiding place.

"We're safe here," the man said. He closed in on Jordan, grasping his hips. There was tobacco, and perhaps another substance, on his breath. "Fucking hot," the man said, as he pressed his mouth to Jordan's, backing him against the wall of the house. They kissed, tongues tangling, Jordan's hand feverishly sliding underneath the other's shorts. The dark man undid the buttons on his fly and knelt, peeling down his jeans and taking him quickly down his throat. Jordan closed his eyes, feeling cool air on his bare skin, the mouth sucking him making a hot tunnel in the middle.

The man stood. The urgent pressure of his hands forced Jordan to turn. Over his shoulder he saw his partner pull out a foil packet from a small pocket in the lining of his shorts. The stranger caught Jordan's eye and winked. "Prelubed and pre-pared," he said. Quickly he sheathed his long cock and pushed Jordan against the wall.

In a moment he cried out in pain as the cock pushed roughly into him, the condom not quite slick enough for comfort, but the hurt soon passed. He wanted to stroke his own cock but the other man grasped both his arms and raised them, spread-eagling him against the damp concrete, holding him pinned and helpless as he fucked him with sharp staccato strokes.

"Please," Jordan said.

"No."

Jordan closed his eyes and surrendered. Usually he enjoyed being fucked only if he could jerk off and end it quickly, but the man taking him had other ideas. He varied the pace and depth of his movements, bending his knees, grinding his hips, continually touching new places inside Jordan, finally arriving at an angle that sent sparks of pleasure shooting through him with each thrust. He began to moan quietly as a strange warmth began to build inside him, then a throbbing. He looked down and saw the fluid dribbling from his cock--he had cum without touching himself. The sight sent him into gasping ecstasy. He barely heard the grunting behind him that signaled his partner's climax.

At last his partner pulled out and let go. Jordan turned, breathing hard, still reeling from the intensity of his release. The man was pulling off his rubber. He tossed it into the woods and pulled his shorts up, then smiled, the mischief emerging again. He looked like a little boy who had pulled off a particularly clever prank and gotten away with it.

"What's your name, partner in crime?" he asked.

Jordan said his name. "Mine's Marc," the man offered, extending his hand. And that was how he had met Marc Moss.

Even Jordan was surprised sometimes how clear his memories of Marc remained: the good times, the long talks about Marc's work, the excitement when his novel was accepted for publication, the rave review in the Advocate. The spur of the moment jaunts to out-of-the way places--Marc had loved the outdoors. And of course, the hot, fevered sex, in all the usual places and in some he never would have thought of.

It was all too easy to remember, too, how things had gone sour. Jordan, naive and in love, had been shocked and hurt to discover that Marc had no intention of being faithful to him. He had ignored the evidence as long as he could, trying not to wonder about the frequent hangups when he answered the phone in their apartment, or reacting with feigned casualness when concerned friends told him that they had seen Marc in some bar or another with a man they didn't recognize. Finally one day he had snapped when he came home from the University to find his supposed lover in the bed they shared, happily fucking a strange man--a homeless transient whom Marc had picked up in the park.

Marc had been coolly indifferent when Jordan had packed up that evening and left. "People who live with me live by my rules," was all he had to say.

That must have been one reason why Marc's final illness and decline were marked by so much anger. The plague had been cruel to Marc Moss, taking his life only after stripping him of the few things he cared about: sex, his looks, his independence and finally, his brilliant mind. In the end, the only one who had stood by him had been Jordan, whom he had treated with such contempt. How Marc must have hated that.

In the aftermath of Marc's death Jordan had been unable to concentrate on his studies. Getting a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature was worse than meaningless. He had taken a leave from the program, and when the money ran low, a job as a waiter at Nat's, a low-key, cozy, but very good and expensive restaurant. Dressed in white shirt, tie and black slacks, he had lost himself in the nightly physical labor, the mindless grind of memorizing the daily special board, and describing ingredients and wine lists as if he knew what he was talking about. After the bitter tantrums and verbal abuse of Marc's last months, dealing with snippy customers was nothing, and he quickly became a popular server. Maybe this is my calling, he thought gloomily.

Lee had come into the restaurant alone one Friday evening: a handsome man with salt and pepper hair and beard, tall body beginning to thicken. Jordan had been harassed and busy that night, and irritated that the manager had assigned him yet another table. Single customers usually didn't tip well, since they weren't trying to impress dates. Jordan remembered liking the man's deep, cultured voice from the start, though.

After clearing the main course he had brought coffee. It was then that he noticed that his customer was reading a book whose cover was all too familiar. It was Marc's book, the one that was going to make him the most famous gay writer in America. Jordan's breath caught in his throat and he stood still. Noticing that his waiter was still standing by his table, the diner looked up inquiringly, closing the book. On the back cover was a black-and-white photo of his dead lover, eyes flashing challenge as they so often had in life. Jordan was overcome, and it was moments before he could speak.

"I'm sorry," he finally managed. "It's just that--I know him."

"Marc Moss?" his customer said. "He's really talented, judging from this."

"He was."

"Was?"

"Yes. He died."

"Oh--I'm so sorry. So he was a friend of yours?"

"More than a friend." He was saying more than he intended, responding to the stranger's sympathy.

"I see."

Later, when Jordan brought his credit card back to the table, the man addressed him. "You know," he said, clearing his throat, "I hope you won't think this is too strange--I've never done this before." He offered him a business card. "I'd love to talk to you more about your friend."

Jordan had taken the card hesitantly, glancing at it. "Dr. Lee Hartman, Professor of English and Creative Writing," it said, with phone, fax and e-mail neatly arrayed at the bottom.

Hartman continued, "He was a wonderful talent--I'm devastated to hear that he's gone. I teach over at the University, so maybe I know what I'm talking about. I hope you'll give me a call sometime."

"Sure, thanks," Jordan said. He had not intended to follow through. Yet something about Hartman's dignified manner, his deep, soothing voice, and his sympathy had stayed with him. They met for coffee the next week and talked late into the evening.

"So you took care of him when he got sick," Lee said.

Jordan nodded. "I had to. He didn't get along with his family. They basically abandoned him."

"Must have been hard."

"Yes, it was." Just how hard, Jordan had told no one. With his uncontrollable sexual energy it was no wonder that Marc had caught the virus. Its relentless ravaging of his body and soul had been unbearable to watch. It must have invaded his brain toward the end--he had to believe that was the cause of his inexplicable, vicious rages.

One day in the hospice Marc had lit into him about bringing the wrong cigarettes. "I told you I've switched brands!" he shouted. "You're so fucking useless."

"Okay," he had said wearily, hoping to head off another full-scale outburst.

"Can't do anything, can you. Can't finish your degree, can't write your way out of a paper bag--"

Jordan's lip began to tremble. "That's not fair." It was as if Marc were on some sort of scorched-earth mission, trying to destroy everything good that they had before he left.