Calluses Pt. 08: Hard

He collapsed onto the bed with a heavy, bottomless sigh, his dribbling cock deflating in my hand...and I let it fall with him, let him go...

He'd passed out. For a moment I loomed over his unconscious body, gazing down the dreamy perfection of his shapely ass...and I actually contemplated sliding my cock into that defeated, cum-slick hole one last time...to stir it around in there before he woke up, enjoy it while I had it...but even then, I knew how far over the line such a thing would be...a true violation...which made me wonder if I'd gone over that line already...so I fell onto my back between his splayed legs, hanging my head off the foot of the bed, panting so deeply I saw stars...lazily wiping the cooling gobs of his climax off my brow, my cheeks, my neck and chest...sucking him off my fingers, licking him off my lips, swallowing everything that ended up in my mouth...until I was full of him, satisfied.

The bed shifted after a time...minutes or hours, who could tell...and then he was rising to his feet. I watched him under hooded eyes as he wobbled across the bedroom on slightly bowed legs, his face a dazed, shell-shocked mask. His pale form vanished into the darkness of the bathroom, and I heard the shower running again...

I let myself drift away from the waking world...but then I felt the mattress sink as he sat down next to my legs. He dumped a cold, moist towel on my head, and that was enough to snap me out of it. I forced myself to sit up and cross my stiff, achy legs, facing him. I wiped the spattered remnants of his spunk off my body, slowly composing myself...and then his blistering face came into focus. He was scowling at me as if he were doing everything in his power not to punch me...because if he did, he might not stop.

"I...uh..." I looked away...and realized the sinking, queasy feeling in my gut could very well be guilt. "Was that...are you alright...?"

"That's none of your goddamned business, so you're not gonna ask that stupid fuckin question again."

I gulped, anxious now - because he was seething. The timid, mortified person I'd just fucked was long gone. This was Rusty, the stone-faced grease monkey who freely mingled with violent criminals, a man through and through...

"What you did just now..." He shook his head and sneered, like he hated looking at me. "You knew full fuckin well what you were doin, that's all I'm gonna say about it."

"You could've stopped me," I blurted out, more defensive than I was smart.

He was instantly in my face, foreheads almost touching, smelling each other's sweat all over again - but he was panting, holding himself back, and I knew I'd just come within a cunt-hair of getting my ass beat to a pulp. "I'm not even gonna try and figure out what was goin through your head - or my head - or whose fault what was!" he barked. "You knew what you were doin! I'm not some vanilla little prude, asshole. I know how to play rough - but that wasn't playin. You gotta set boundaries before you - gotta have a fuckin safe word that matters, man. Gotta stop when...when..."

"If you really wanted me to stop, you would've done it in a second." I heard myself say it. I couldn't believe how blunt it was, but I wasn't going to let him lay it all on me. "That was probably the best sex I've had, with anybody - and I could tell it was the same for you, or close enough. I could feel it - and I knew you needed it like that, because - because I needed it like that. And when you told me you never really got it, after...after..." I shrugged, trying not to feel like the piece of shit he was making me out to be. "I knew you weren't gonna let yourself do it, so I did it for you. Because you needed it, but you weren't gonna let yourself have it. You know it's true."

He grimaced...pulled away. "Maybe I did, but..." He sat on the edge of the bed and rubbed his hands over his face, trying to smother the rage boiling inside him. "Man...I just...it don't matter if I'needed' it, or how it made me feel at the end! The only thing that mattered was that I - I wasn't ready for it, okay? And you knew that - or youshould've known that, better than anybody else in the whole fuckin world..." His voice was weak again, wavering...and I finally realized what I'd just done to him. "What just happened just now was fucked, Mike.Fucked. I'm not sayin you're anywhere near as bad as him...but he fucked you up in the head, and you ain't figured out how to - to process it yet, get me?" He was done yelling at me for now, done with threats. He just looked tired. "You just did to me whathe did tous. Get it? You can't just go around doin that to people, like you know better than they do..."

"Got it," I snapped, and he finally stopped talking. It was obvious he'd struck a nerve, driven it home. I'd crossed my arms over my chest, huddled over on the bed. I didn't want to be naked in front of him anymore, shriveled up and disgusting...because I knew he was right, and there was nothing left to say about it, except...

"I'm...sorry."

He sighed, and the last bit of fight went out of him. "Well...I don't know if that even matters right now," he muttered, pushing himself to his feet. "I just got my brains fucked right out of my goddamned head...still don't know how I feel about that...maybe I'll tell you when I get out of the shower...if my ass don't still feel like somebody drove a goddamned mac truck through it." His knees looked like they might wobble right out from under him as he all but limped back into the steamy darkness of the bathroom, leaving the door cracked behind him...and then I was alone.

"You've got some darkness in you, boy..."

A spike of fear shot up my spine - and everything else scattered to the wind, unimportant for now. I'd been so fuck-drunk on Russell I hadn't kept my wits about me, hadn't kept watch - hadn't remembered the danger I was in, even here and now. I grabbed my discarded clothes from the hall as I staggered out into the living room, covered up again with my t-shirt and my boxers. I turned off the few remaining lights, letting my eyes adjust before I parted the blinds, peering out into the night...

Russell emerged from the shower moments later, pulling a fresh shirt over his head, but I barely registered him. "You should hop in the...hey, why'd you turn off all the lights? What're you doing, man?"

"I was just..." I shook it off, let the blinds snap back into place. "I was just checking. To see if he was out there. I didn't actually think he'd followed me here - I made sure, on the way up - but I let myself get...there's always a chance, you know? I almost forgot to check, that's all - gotta do it every night, stay sharp - you know?"

He switched a lamp on as I turned away from the window...and he was shaken. Crushed. "You tellin me you check to see if...if he's after you? Every night?"

"Sure...mornings too. I mean...he'll always be after me, won't he?" I couldn't figure out how this was this news to him, wondered if he was still hazy from getting fucked. "I actually did find him out there, once before - thought I told you that. About a month after...after my, uh...weekend with him. He didn't know I had a lot more than just his laptop. I got into his phone while he was passed out - got the info on his whole family. Dad, brothers, son, church, you name it. I knew he'd rather die than risk all that...said so himself, pretty much...so I told him I'd tell every one of those people about all the shitty things he'd done to those guys, videos and all, so he knew I meant it...and I haven't seen him since."

Russell's face might have blanched a little, but I didn't notice. "A month after...so when did that happen? Back around the beginning of February, or...?"

"Yeah, exactly - but it doesn't matter. I can't just assume he's really going to leave me alone, you know? He'll always be out there. I mean...I busted his face in, and stole his...his trophies, and threatened him, and..." I remembered the Chief's massive, powerful form trussed up in that blue climbing rope, whispering one desperate little word as I forced my fingers into him, just enough to make him want to...

"He told me I'm a dead man. His words, and he meant it. I...you've got to take something like that seriously, that's all. Can't afford not to. Can't let myself get soft." I was shaking just putting words to it, no matter how hard I was trying to shrug it off, anything to keep Russell from seeing how truly terrified I still was...but I'd already told him that, hadn't I? Just a few short hours ago, though it seemed like a century had passed...

"Jesus Christ," he whispered, barely there. He was silent for another long moment...and then he came to me, and I tried not to wince when he put his hands on my shoulders - but he was searching me with his eyes, like there was something he really didn't want to say. "You go on and take a good hot shower, okay? I'm gonna...I'm gonna get us a night cap. Okay?"

"Sure." I was happy to drop the subject, happy he wasn't pissed at me anymore...not that it excused anything I'd done. I was pretty sure he was going to ask me to leave tomorrow morning, and I certainly wouldn't blame him. At least things had gone as well as they had, even if I'd screwed it up in the end...like I always did...

He gave me a fresh shirt and boxers when I got out of the bathroom. They were a bit too large, but they were warm and comfy, and they smelled like him. I was finally beginning to relax...but he had a cup of water in his hand, and two little pills in the other. "What's that?" I asked, eyeing the pills.

"Xanax. I'd give you more, but we've been drinking..."

"I don't really need one. I'm about to pass out, really."

"I've gotta tell you something first, okay? Come on..."

He led me back to the bed. He'd changed the sheets and quilts, replaced the stench of sex with dryer sheets. We sat beside each other, and he was close to me again. He was still pushing the Xanax on me, so I finally took it, washed it down...even though I was starting to feel nervous, for some reason.

He put the empty cup on the nightstand, took a weary breath. "I don't really...I don't know how to say this - but I want you to know, I meant to say it a lot earlier. Okay? It's why I drove you back here, why I brought out the tequila in the first place...tried to work up to it a couple times, but I just...I guess I just wasn't quick enough, and then we got to talkin, and...you know...all that. Point is I'm gonna tell you something now, and it's gonna be...it might be hard for you to hear."

"Maybe you can just say it." A ball of ice was growing in my gut.

He looked me right in the eyes, gray and stormy and hard. "The Chief's dead, Mike. He's dead."

The room went quiet, all the sound sinking down into the floor...the dirt below...

"Are you messing with me?"

He shook his head, watching me like a hawk. "I can show you the article - obituary. Meter's my home town, and I...I've been keeping tabs on him for years, ever since he...since my weekend with him." He had it pulled up on his phone...a glowing gut punch of pictures and words...and the name Pruitt was in the headline, and it really was an obituary. There was his face, plain as day, staring back at me. It was handsome in the photo, but very stern...no emotion...just a direct glare above the straight grim line of his lips...the same photo I'd seen on his ID, the one I'd snuck a peek at that first night...while he was sleeping...

"How?" I asked, soft and faint, trying to believe it. "It just...just says he died in his home, in...middle of February? That was just a week or two after I saw him that last...time."

He nodded mutely...and he got that look again, like he didn't want to say it.

"Tell me. Whatever it is, just tell me. I can take it."

"He killed himself, Mike. Shot himself. I didn't know why, until..." He caught the words in his throat, but he'd said plenty.

"So you think he..." It wasn't just the room sinking now. I was sinking along with it. "Because of me. He couldn't stand knowing I was out there with all that dirt on him, ready to ruin his life. Is that what you think happened?" My voice was getting sharper. Angrier.

"We don't have to get that far into it right now..."

"Why the fuck not, huh? We should've gotten into it hours ago, right? But I guess you still thought you were gonna be the one dipping his fucking wick at that point - right? Were you just gonna wait until we'd fucked a few more times, or what? I mean, I totally get where you're coming from - it's a real mood killer, knowing he blew his own brains out because of me...so how am I supposed to feel about that? Huh? You've been telling me how I'm supposed to feel about every goddamned thing this whole night - but now you've got nothing to say? How the fuck am I supposed to feel?" The world was blurring up again, but not in a good way. His face looked so sad, and I hated it. "Tell me how I'm supposed to feelright now, since you know so fucking much-!"

I didn't realize I'd hit him until I felt the scruff of his jaw against the skin of my knuckles, scratchy like sandpaper - and his eyes flashed, and his fist clamped down on my wrist like iron, and I remembered how strong he was. "That's the last time you fuckin hit me, understand?" he rumbled, and his voice was like iron as well.

I understood. I didn't really want to hit him, anyway. "Fuck him, if he did," I went on, as if nothing had happened. He was still holding my wrist away from his face, hard enough to bruise. "Fuck him, right? He was a rapist piece of shit..." The lump in my throat was nearly choking me, and my face felt too tight. "I killed him, didn't I?" I asked, and my voice finally cracked.

The anger drained out of his face. "Nah, man..." He lowered my limp arm to the bed, let it go. "He killed himself, and that's that. Just one more thing he did all on his own, that you don't need to go blaming yourself for..."

The pills were kicking in by then, along with everything else, and suddenly my brain was just ready to...stop. Call it quits. I think I was crying again, ugly-crying...probably was...but I was far beyond caring about anything so trivial. I do remember the pained look on Russell's face, still sitting so close to me. He hesitated...and then he was wrapping his arms around me, and they were strong...pulling me in...and he was strong all over, solid and warm...holding me...and I don't remember much of anything after that.