M/M Romance, rated R
Even the mildest-mannered of men, although seemingly oblivious to verbal slings and arrows, can reach boiling point. One December day it happened that Ray stepped over that fine line between bearable and unbearable derision, leading to a ...
by Rupert Rouge
On the Friday evening before Christmas, six o'clock had already struck before Detective Ray Vecchio and Constable Benton Fraser were finally able to step out of Chicago's 27th District Station into the snow that swirled softly through the golden glow of the streetlights.
"And you know what, Benny?" Ray said, as he unlocked the doors of the Riv. "We still have to stop by the market to get something for dinner. There's not a thing in the house--Ma told the family to finish all the food, so nothing would go bad in the fridge while they're in Florida."
"How long will they be away? Come on, Diefenbaker, get into the back seat, there's a good wolf."
"They're coming back the day after New Year's. I hope they're having a good time. Man, I'm tired! That stakeout last night just wiped me out." Ray stuck the keys into the ignition, then glanced at himself in the rear-view mirror. "I didn't even make it home for a shower and a shave today. I feel like a grunge!"
"I'm sorry you're tired. But at least we have a quiet evening planned."
"Right. Now--what cuisine are you in the mood for?"
"You're the chef, Ray. I'll leave it to you."
At the market Fraser was contemplating a display of cheeses when Ray came up to him. "Hey, Benny, what about pan-fried trout with almonds?"
Fraser nodded at the package in Ray's hand. "May I?" Taking the fish, he held it to his nose and sniffed thoughtfully.
"Oh, no, Fraser, you're not gonna start smelling things--"
"This fish is bad, Ray."
"God!" Ray jerked the package out of Ben's hand. "All right. We'll have steak and potatoes. Come on." Turning on his heel, he led the way over to the meat display. He flung the offending package of rainbow trout back into the fish counter as they passed it.
"But Ray, shouldn't we inform the manager that the fish in that package are--"
"No, we should not! We should get our dinner makings and get outta here."
Ben followed Ray from the meat counter to the produce area, sniffing the air around the assorted fruit and vegetables with interest.
"Idaho potatoes, coming right up." Ray slid two good-sized potatoes into a plastic bag.
"Wait, Ray." Ben took one of the potatoes out again, held it up to his tongue, and licked.
"Oh, gross, Fraser, how do you know where that's been? It coulda been next to something with E. coli bacteria! My God, I can't take you anywhere."
"Ray, these potatoes aren't genuine Idahoes. Idaho potatoes are grown in volcanic soil, which is largely granite and basalt. These potatoes were grown in--"
"I don't care, Fraser! Damn!" Ray looked wildly around the grocery store, crammed with goods and shoppers. "Forget it. We'll have spaghetti puttanesca--it's fast and easy, just like the people who invented it."
"What people, Ray?"
"Prostitutes," Ray said through clenched teeth. "They whip up batches of it between turning tricks."
Charging through the aisles like an irritated bull, Ray grabbed the ingredients they would need and flung them into the basket Fraser carried as he walked behind: onions, herbs, anchovies, garlic, olives, a can of plum tomatoes, spaghetti noodles, a bag of romaine and radicchio, a bottle of San Pellegrino mineral water. He snatched a jar of figs in syrup from the canned fruit aisle, a carton of sour cream from the dairy case, and from the bakery corner collected a loaf of schiacciata, fresh from the oven, and a small paper sack of amaretti.
Outside, as he stowed the groceries in the trunk of the Riv, Ben reflected that once more he had managed to annoy Ray. He hadn't meant to: he seemed to annoy Ray just by being himself. To end the annoyance either he would have to change, or Ray would. The question was, which of them was more capable of change?
* * * * * * * * * *
"Okay, that takes care of the first part." Ray scraped the diced onions off the cutting board into the skillet of sizzling olive oil.
"Benny--can you finish sauteeing these onions while I go upstairs and take a shower?"
"Of course, Ray." Ben reached for the spatula, then paused. "Ray...wouldn't a bath relax you more than a shower? Why don't you try a bath?"
Ray's mouth dropped open. He stared at Ben as if trying to work out whether he was indeed a member of the species homo sapiens or a visitor from some other galaxy. "Benny. No one takes baths, for Chrissake! Men do not take baths, they take showers. I haven't had a bath since the last time Ma gave me one, when I was six."
"Okay, okay. It was just a suggestion. I didn't mean to upset you, Ray."
"I'm not upset, dammit. Listen, after the onions, add the plum tomatoes--there's the can over there, already opened--and the olives, okay? I'll start warming the bread in the oven now."
Suiting action to his words, Ray left the kitchen. The almost flower-like fragrance of hot olive oil gave way to the savory smell of fried onions, as Ben stirred them until they turned from white to gold. Sniffing again, Ben decided that the sharp, woodsy scent wafting from the oven came from the rosemary leaves embedded in the surface of the schiacciata. As he added the rest of the ingredients to the puttanesca sauce, he pondered the meaning of Ray's last speech. Ray seemed to imply that only wimps took baths.
His lover seemed to wear his masculinity like a straitjacket. Unable to move freely within its constraints, Ray seemed like a turtle afraid to poke its head outside its protective shell. Ben, on the other hand, saw his masculinity almost as incidental, except for the benefits conferred by having born male. He would have explored the world with equal delight, although not with equal freedom, had he been born a woman.
He was just checking the pan of water to see if it was hot enough to start boiling the pasta when he heard Ray coming back down the stairs, bellowing his own version of a song from "South Pacific":
I'm as horny as antlers in August,
High as a flag on the Fourth of July....
He reappeared in the kitchen, wearing a soft white sweater and gray silk Armani trousers. "I feel a helluva lot better, after that. How do I look?"
Ben looked up from the frying pan and grinned. "Delicious."
"Don't get me started before dinner, Fraser, or all this food will go to waste."
The puttanesca, washed down with San Pellegrino, was spicy, the salad--drizzled with Ray's special dressing--perfect. The schiacciata, aromatic with rosemary and glistening with olive oil, was so succulent they savored every mouthful. After the figs with sour cream, accompanied by amaretti, the two men pushed their chairs back from the table in the dining room, replete.
"Don't bother with the dishes, Benny. I'll do them in the morning."
"All right, but I'll just take them into the kitchen and scrape them."
"Thanks. I'm gonna go into the living room and find some Christmas music."
When Ben joined his lover in the living room, he found him midway in the act of closing the curtains. But Ray was looking out the window at the night. "See that? It's snowing harder. I bet it'll be six inches deep by morning. Good thing you're not going anywhere."
Ben smiled. "Dief's asleep in the kitchen. He yelped when he tasted the leftover puttanesca."
"Yeah, it's probably too spicy for wolves." Ray yawned and stretched. "God, I'm still tired! Come over here, Benny. Let me see what's under that uniform."
Obediently, Ben stepped into Ray's waiting arms. Ray smiled as he imprisoned Ben with one arm and stroked the glossy front of the starched khaki shirt with his free hand. "How long do you reckon it'll take me to undo all these buttons?"
"Ray, I was thinking...wouldn't you like a back rub? That might relax you. And I'd be happy to do it for you."
"Nah, I ain't got time for that. I need what I need and I need it now."
Ben closed his eyes as he felt Ray's warm, smooth face against his own, lips pressing against his, tongue sliding into his mouth. Soon Ray would take off Ben's shirt, and the rest of his clothes, and the tongue would move from the inside of his mouth to trail down his neck to his right nipple. And then it would proceed south, and...yes, it would all be very satisfying, as satisfying as stew for supper on a snowy night. Already his nerve-ends were stirring delightfully at his lover's touch. But sometimes he didn't want just plain stew. He wanted something as spicy as the puttanesca they had just consumed. There were so many senses left unexplored in Ray's world. Why couldn't his lover see that there was more to life than convention allowed?
There were so many things he wanted to say to Ray, and couldn't: although the words formed in his mind, he simply could not utter them. His Presbyterian upbringing, as well as the reserve of his Scots ancestry, combined to keep him from telling Ray that he was the light of his life. Like a pearl, Fraser's inhibitions had formed layer by layer through childhood and youth, until the barrier between his emotions and his voice was so impenetrable that only the emotional equivalent of a volcano could shatter it.
He would have liked to be able to tell Ray that in a cruel world, his lover's unflagging devotion was the one thing he knew he could count on. And that he, Fraser, recognized that however much Ray might grumble at giving him lifts in the Riv, or walking Dief, or lending him money until payday, he would still go ahead and do whatever Ben wanted, because he loved him. Through the medium of loving touch Ben might have been able to convey these things, but Ray wouldn't let him.
Something had to give. And soon.
* * * * * * * * * * *
"Congratulations, Fraser!" Ray smiled as he spoke into the telephone. "A new apartment, even if it's in the same lousy building, calls for a celebration. Does this one at least have a bathtub?"
On the other end of the telephone line, Fraser chuckled. "Yes. I just cleaned it. Then I'm going to scrub the rest of the place."
"You say it used to be Mrs. Garcia's apartment? Where did she go?"
"She was on a waiting list for subsidized City housing. A three-bedroom house became available, so she and the children have moved into it. Ray, I'd like to have a housewarming. Just the three of us--you, me, and Dief."
"Great, Benny! When?"
"Tomorrow is New Year's Eve. Do you have any other plans?"
"You know I don't, Fraser. What plans would I make that didn't include you?"
"That's fine, then. Can you get off early, Ray?"
"Sure, I can take a half-day and light out of here early. What time do you want me to come over?"
"What about four o'clock? Is that okay with you?"
"Sounds fine. What'll I bring? I know, why don't I bring dinner with me?"
"Thank you, Ray, that's very thoughtful of you, but I'm taking care of everything. Everything," Fraser said. His tone was so definite that Ray was a little puzzled. Was something biting Benny, then?
"Okay, Benny, whatever you say. I'll see you tomorrow then, at four. Later."
"Later, Ray."
The next day, a couple of minutes before four, Ray parked the Riv outside the ramshackle building where Fraser lived. He had spent the whole of the previous evening puzzling over Ben's insistence that he would "take care of everything." What was on his lover's mind? Memories of the dinner at the Vecchio house, overlaid by the passage of ten days, rose into his consciousness...his sniping at Benny in the grocery store, when Benny had sniffed the fish and pronounced it unfit to eat...his rejection of Benny's idea about taking a bath instead of a shower...he shouldn't have been so hard on him. Fraser was sometimes oddly clueless with regard to civilized behavior. Obviously, his isolated upbringing in Run-amok-luk, or wherever, was responsible for Fraser's eccentricities. Nice people did not go around smelling things--although, of course, it would have been even less nice to eat rotten fish--and real men didn't take baths. Or have back rubs.
All the same, he knew he'd hurt Benny's feelings. When Fraser hung his head like that and contemplated his boots, Ray knew that he was upset about something. God! Why did he always speak his mind and then regret it? How could he make it up to Benny? Jeez, it was amazing that Fraser put up with him at all, considering all the barbs he'd flung at him over the last two years. The grumbles that came out of his mouth were at complete variance with the way he really felt.
Which was, frankly, that he worshipped his Mountie. Once he'd seen light pouring through a church window, illuminating the saint depicted by the pattern of the stained glass, and that was how he saw Benny--as the secular equivalent of a saint, surrounded by light.
To him Fraser seemed like a knight of old, un chevalier sans peur et sans reproche. Gentle, but strong; compassionate, but fearless; lovable and loving, but reserved. But how could he tell Benny that--how could he make clear that despite all his grumbling and sarcasm he would go anywhere, dare anything, slay any dragon for his lover?
Just as he reached the top of the stairs, the door to apartment 4K opened and Ben stood in the doorway, smiling at him.
Ray's heart gave a sudden lurch, as it always did when he hadn't seen Fraser for a day or two. He smiled back. Then he noticed that Fraser's gaze had fastened itself on what Ray was carrying.
"I know you said you'd take care of everything, Benny, but I thought some flowers..."
"They're perfect, Ray. Thank you."
Fraser accepted the sheaf of red carnations with a smile that made the dimples appear at the corners of his mouth, and drew Ray inside the apartment with his free hand. Ignoring the flowers, Ray took Ben's face between his hands and kissed him gently.
"Happy New Year, sweet."
"And to you." Fraser returned his kiss, quickly, lightly.
"My God, Benny, what have you done to the place? It looks so different!"
Fraser laughed. "It is different, Ray."
The gray light outside the windows was rapidly darkening to pewter, but inside the apartment a thousand candles blazed. Or if not quite a thousand, the effect was the same. Ray looked around, eyebrows raised. Cushions on the floor, arranged around a small rug. A compact disc player. A drum, like one of those bongos that musicians played in ethnic restaurants. A small table with bottles and jars arranged neatly on it.
"What's all this, Fraser?"
"It's my surprise. I've arranged something special for you. And Ray..."
Benny fixed him with that hypnotic blue gaze, and Ray felt himself falling under the familiar spell.
"You're to go along with me. I mean it. We're going to do this my way, for a change."
Guilt flooded him. So he'd been right, Benny was upset about his behavior the other night, at the grocery store, and the house. Well, whatever Benny wanted, he'd do it. He owed him that much.
"All right, Benny. Where do we start?"
"In here."
Fraser took his hand, led him to the other side of the room, opened the door. "Take off your clothes, Detective Vecchio, you're going to have a bath."
The bathroom, lit only by strategically placed candles, smelled pleasantly of burning sweetwood. Looking around, Ray discovered that incense was burning in a holder that sat on top of the toilet tank.
"Just hand your clothes to me, Ray. I'll fold them carefully."
Ray laughed. "Anything you say, Benny."
One by one he removed all his clothes and handed them through the open door to Fraser, who folded them and put them on a chair. "Okay, Benny. I'm all yours. What do I do now?"
"You get in the water, Ray. And then I'll adjust the temperature until it's to your liking."
"Aren't you gonna join me?"
"Not now. I'll have a bath later."
Ray stepped into the tub, already filled with warm water that came up as far as his navel.
"Just a little more of the hot, I think, Fraser."
Ben leaned forward, shook a few drops of oil from a small bottle, ran some more hot water into the bathtub.
"What's that, Benny?"
"It's an essential oil, Ray, cypress. It suits you, I think. And the smell of cypress creates a peaceful effect. Now just relax."
Ray slid down into the water. It was actually rather pleasant, soaking in very warm, scented water. He breathed deeply, inhaling the vapor of the incense that was burning in the room. It was making him feel light-headed...he was feeling more and more relaxed, though, just like Benny wanted. The water in the bathtub reflected the flickering candle flames, making him feel almost as if his mind were floating off somewhere. Yeah, this was very peaceful.
When Fraser spoke next, Ray felt he'd been jolted from an-almost trance state.
"Ray--are you ready to be dried off?"
"Yeah, I guess."
With a sploosh and a splat, he got out of the tub, stood on the bath mat. Now Benny was draping a huge towel around him.
"Hey, Benny, this towel is warm! Did you just take out of the dryer?"
"I don't have a dryer. This towel has been warming up on a heated towel rail."
"Don't tell me Dennis is providing heated towel rails."
Fraser chuckled. "No, I rented it."
"M'mmm." Ray stood still while Fraser dried him, inch by inch. God, that warm towel felt good. It smelled good too. "What's this fragrance? I can't place it."
"Lavender. It clears the head. Okay, Ray, put this on."
Ray slipped into the cotton kimono Fraser handed him and followed him out of the bathroom.
"Now, Ray, if you'll just lie down here...."
"Oh, man, what's next?"
"Face down on the bed, Ray, please. You can hang your head over one side, if you want to breathe."
"Thanks, Benny, I do like to breathe. I consider it an essential part of my everyday life. Whaddya doin'? Oh, Benny, not more oil!"
"More oil, Ray."
All the burning candles made the room feel extremely warm: usually, Fraser kept the place like a damned icebox. A few minutes later Ray realized why warmth was necessary, when Fraser removed the kimono. Lying on his stomach, Ray sighed deeply as he felt Ben's oiled hands gliding over his back, kneading the muscles under the taut skin.
"This is the back rub you wanted to give me week before last, isn't it?"
"M'mm h'm."
Fraser's hands continued their work. Up around his neck and ears...now between the shoulders, that tight area that held all the tension of his daily routine at the 27th District Station...now the lower back...now his buttocks and hamstrings...
"Benny, this feels wonderful." It was so wonderful, in fact, that he was in serious danger of drifting off to sleep. Why had he turned his lover down when Benny offered him a back rub? If he'd had any idea how great it was, he'd have agreed like a shot.
Stroke, caress, massage, and knead. The deep massage gave way to lighter and lighter touches until Ray heard his lover say, "Okay, Ray. Time to turn over."
"You gonna do the front now?" he asked, looking up into Ben's amused eyes. "I'm ready. Soooh ready!" He sat up, reaching for Ben, but his lover adroitly evaded his grip.
"Not yet. We have something to do first."
God, now what? The massage had first relaxed him, then made him hard. All he could think of was grabbing Fraser and kissing the bejasus out of him, and then proceeding to other things.
"Put the kimono back on, please, and sit here on the floor with me."
Ray did as he was told. When he was sitting cross-legged on the floor on the small rug, facing Fraser, Ben held up a black silk scarf.
"If you don't mind, I want to bandage your eyes with this. Just for a few minutes."
Ray looked hard at his lover, but Ben's face was, as usual, free of guile. "Okay, but not more than a few minutes. I'm serious."
"I know you are."
Ben leaned forward and tied the scarf over his eyes. Ray waited patiently, since there was nothing else he could do. He could hear Benny moving around the room--for such a big man, he walked as lightly as a dancer--and then he heard music, some kind of New Age-y stuff with harps in it.
"Did you buy a compact disc player? You, Fraser?"
"No. Turnbull lent it to me, in exchange for tutoring him so he could pass his French exam."
"Oh. Excuse me for asking a stupid question, but why did Turnbull want to pass a French exam?"
"Bilingual RCMP officers get higher pay, Ray. Now--I'm going to hold something under your nose and I want you to smell it and tell me what it is. Okay?"
What kind of madness was Fraser engaging in? Why, of all the people in the world, had he picked a lunatic for a lover? And a Canadian lunatic, at that. "Okay, Fraser. Have at it."
"What's this?"
Obediently, Ray inhaled. "It's...I don't know."
"Lick it."
"Christ, Benny!" he protested, but he licked. "Apple pie."
He heard Fraser chuckle. "Close. That was a cinnamon stick. Now, smell this."
"That's....'mmm, vanilla. Nice."
After he identified crushed dried rosemary as "home" and ground roast coffee as "work," Ray was encouraged to put out his hands.
"Feel this, Ray. What is it?"
"Your hair," Ray said, laughing. "You can't fool me, Benny. I know what your hair feels like."
"Right. And this?"
"That's Dief, you idiot. I can hear him snuffling. Go back to sleep, Dief."
"One more. What's this?"
"Rain! No...it smells like lemons. What are you doing, Fraser, giving me another bath?"
"Just spritzing you a bit, that's all. You can take the blindfold off, now."
Ray yanked the scarf off and blinked, trying to adjust to the world of sight again. Then he gasped. Fraser was sitting opposite him, barechested, wearing a piece of red silk, sarong-fashion, around the lower half of his body. Fraser sprayed his own hands with the mist from the spritz bottle, then dried them with a towel. Turning away slightly, he reached for the drum behind him,lifted it and placed it between himself and Ray.
"Now, Ray, I want to you to pay close attention, because you're going to do this after I show you how."
The drum was a primitive-looking affair, an hourglass shape carved of shining brown wood. The drumskin stretched tightly over the top, held in place by leather thongs that criss-crossed down the sides to the other end.
"Where did you get that, Fraser? Did you tutor Turnbull so he could pass his exam in Swahili?"
"No, Ray, I borrowed it from Gugulami, my Nigerian neighbor. She's an Orisha priestess. I looked after her children one Saturday evening when she had to conduct a ritual, and she was most grateful. Now, look: just as in knitting there are two stitches, purl and plain, so in drumming there are two sounds--dhoum and tec. This is dhoum."
Fraser leaned forward and struck the drumskin with the flat of his right hand. The drum responded with a deep, mellow note.
"And this is tec."
Fraser struck the drumskin with the edge of his left hand, causing the drumskin to release a sweet, sharp-edged sound.
"Benny--whyinell are you telling me this?"
"Because in a few minutes it's going to be the most important thing in your life, Ray. Now, you try it. I want you to feel the dhoum and the tec."
Ray tried it. The sounds pleased him. He tried it again.
"Very good, Ray."
Fraser reached over to the compact disc player, removed the first disc, dropped another into position. Drum sounds, of a considerably more professional nature than the ones Ray was making, filled the air.
"And now..."
Fraser moved over to where Ray was sitting and began unfolding what Ray had thought was a cushion. It proved to be Fraser's bedroll, tied up. Fraser untied it, spread it out on the floor, then pushed Ray gently down on to it. He untied the sash from the kimono Ray was wearing, poured more oil on his hands, and shifted his position until his head was over Ray's cock.
Ray lay still, watching.
"Look, Ray. This is dhoum." Benny took Ray's cockhead into his mouth, rolling his tongue over it slowly, oh, so slowly. Then he released it.
"And this is tec." Benny slid one well-oiled finger into Ray, then drew it out again. His expression was one of barely controlled amusement. "We're going to make some music now, Ray, I'm going to play you like that drum over there."
Ray gasped, throwing his head back against the softness of the bedroll as he listened to the throbbing rhythm of the drum sounds on the compact disc, feeling Benny's hot mouth on his cock, and Ben's finger inside him, moving in time with the music. At first the suck-and-stroke pattern was slow and light, a dhoum/tec-tec, dhoum/tec-tec rhythm; then as the drumming grew faster and louder, dhoum/tecky-tec, dhoum/tecky-TEC, Ben sucked harder, and stroked deeper, until at last Ray, writhing wildly, screamed "Ah, Bennny.....!" and exploded in hot, wet delight.
"Aahhhh...."
"'Mmmm..."
"Benny....after all this time you can still surprise me."
"What about you, Ray? Can you surprise me?"
"Yep." Ray sat up and grinned at Benny, lying beside him. "Come on, Benny, I'm going to give you a bath. You need it, buddy."
* * * * * * * * * *
"Benny...let's use the bed, okay? You want me to feel things, trust me--I felt the floor through that bedroll. Too much."
"Fine. Would you find another disc to put on the player? I've got a few things to do in the bathroom."
Fraser, still swathed in the warm towel Ray had wrapped around him a few minutes earlier, disappeared into the bathroom while Ray sorted through the record collection. Despite their lovemaking half an hour ago, his body was still tingling pleasantly and he was already beginning to entertain ideas as to how he wanted to spend the immediate future: damn, didn't Fraser have any fucking music? Even "Bolero," cliche though it was by now, would serve.
No, it was a choice between something Celtic and the drums again. He wasn't sure he was up to more drums, just yet. All right, he'd put the haunt-my-castle-till-I-hurt stuff on. It was better than nothing.
Ben came out of the bathroom, wearing the red silk sarong again. Ray reached for him, but Fraser gently fended him off.
"I know what you want, love--I want it too, but we have a couple of exercises to do first."
Ray laughed. "What now, Fraser? God, I never figured you for such inventiveness."
"For this one we sit on the bed, facing each other."
After they had arranged themselves--Ray sitting cross-legged like a tailor, Fraser sitting sideways--Fraser placed his hands on either side of Ray's face.
"This is called soul gazing. We look into each other's eyes for a long time, until all the pretenses fall away and we see each other as we really are."
The music, with its pipes, flutes, and subdued drumbeats, filled the air with its sweet, plaintive notes and Ray found a second to congratulate himself that, after all, the Gaelic ghoulie stuff hadn't been such a bad choice.
Ray looked into Fraser's eyes, saw Ben's gaze locking with his own, seeming to penetrate his very soul. It was almost mystical; he could feel the beating of his heart, the rhythm of his breathing: almost, he could feel the very flow of the blood through his veins. He could not move his eyes away from Ben's. So this, then, was what perfect communion was like: this melting of one soul into another...
Fraser was the first to break the silence. "Your eyes are green flecked with gold, like a sun-dappled forest. Like the northwoods in summer...remember the North, Ray?"
Did he remember! How could he forget the plane crash, or Fraser's temporary disabilities that left him unable to see or to walk? How could he forget the dangers they'd faced and their final triumph over their adversary, there in the northwoods?
And then, rafting down the river on an afternoon of perfect happiness... looking down at Ben, stretched out on the raft, as Ray propelled them along with a pole; and realizing, in one shocked, freeze-frame second, that whereas a day earlier he'd carried Ben across his shoulder, he now carried him in his heart.
"Ray...you're looking into my eyes. What do you see?"
"I see heaven, Benny." The words came in a whisper. "Blue heaven."
In the next second he felt Fraser's mouth come down on his for a long kiss. Afterwards, Ben twisted around so that he was now lying on the bed, with Ray looking down at him. Ben yanked off the sarong, dropping it on the floor.
"It's time for the taste test, Ray. You have to kiss me from head to toe and tell me what I taste like. If you pass..."
"If I pass, what's my reward?"
Ben's mouth curved into a smile that made Ray fling himself down on the long, beautiful body beneath him and start doing his homework.
"I can't identify this taste on your forehead, Benny."
"Sandalwood, Ray."
"Oho! And your chin tastes like...h'm, sweet, little bit of an almond taste..."
"Amaretto."
"I'm surprised at you, Fraser. I thought you never touched liquor."
"I didn't, Ray. It touched me."
"And this is..." Ray licked the hollow of Benny's throat with his tongue. "H'm...lemon?"
"Right."
"M'mm." Ray sucked Benny's right nipple, then the left one. "Sweet. Sticky. Maple syrup?"
"Well, they are Canadian nipples, you know."
"Mint on your navel, Fraser? What's that supposed to mean?"
"It's supposed to make my navel more powerful, Ray."
Ray snorted. This was getting ridiculous. "Oh, now we get to the good part." Tentatively, he ran a tongue over, under, and around the tip of Ben's cock. "Yum...what is this? Oh, I know! It's vanilla, isn't it?"
Ben's voice was now a gasp. "It's a known aphro--aphrodisiac--AHHH!"
No doubt about it--the vanilla enhanced Benny's natural taste, although Ray considered him sweet enough anyway. Ray was enjoying himself, but cautiously. He didn't want Benny too excited yet, because he was planning a different site to set off the next explosion. Unfolding himself swiftly, he reached across the hot bare skin of Benny's chest to find what he needed in the drawer of the nightstand next to the bed. Then, as the flutes and harps of the Celtic music rose to a crescendo, he prepared himself to mount his Mountie for a hard, wild ride.
* * * * * * * * * *
Raising himself on one elbow to stare dreamily at his lover, Ray suddenly experienced a moment of feeling tinglingly, utterly alive in every muscle, every pore. Every cell in his body seemed to be leaping with joy.
"You were right and I was wrong, Benny."
Ben's eyes fluttered half-way open, causing Ray's heart to turn somersaults. God in heaven, was there a more exciting man in the world than a sleepy, sated Fraser, blue eyes hazy with sexual satisfaction, cheeks still flushed from their lovemaking? "Ray, I have no idea what you're talking about."
"Yes, you do, Benny. This whole evening you've been making me regret that I was such a shit to you the night you were over at my house for dinner. All that stuff I said to you about smelling and tasting being disgusting, and real men only taking showers...I'm sorry. I know I hurt your feelings and it's been bugging me ever since. Can you forgive me?"
"Of course I can. In fact, I already have. And now, what do you say to something to eat? Are you hungry?"
"You betcha. Should we order out?"
"No. Give me a couple of minutes, I've got something in the kitchen."
Fraser swung his long legs out of bed and padded through the room into the small kitchen. He returned with a tray, which he set down on the nightstand.
"Camomile tea, Ray." Fraser passed him a mug.
"Thanks."
"And salmon sandwiches."
Even this odd combination seemed endearing, because it was so very like Benny: the man absolutely lacked imagination when it came to food. But then, he more than compensated for it in other areas.
"Benny...thanks for asking me to your housewarming."
"And thank you for coming, Ray. How many times did you come, by the way?"
"Two, so far."
"Come again?"
"I'd be delighted, Benny. Give Dief the rest of that sandwich and come here."
The End
This story is written for the private entertainment of fans. No infringement of any copyrights held by list producers, production company, or any others, is intended. This story is not published for profit and the author does not give permission for this story to be reproduced for profit. The author makes no claims on the characters or their portrayal by the creation of this story. Comments welcome at RupertR@hotmail.com.