Author's website: http://unhinged.kixxster.org

Disclaimer: Not mine, never will be, but it seems a shame to let them just sit around and gather dust when they can be doing something more interesting.

Author's Notes: This was written for the DS Flashfiction Masturbation Challenge, which involved masturbation in any form.

Story Notes:

Al Fresco
By MR

My grandmother used to be fond of saying that the devil was in the details. It was one of several dozen quaint and, even then, antiquated phrases she fell back on when faced with any of a multitude of problems. From grandsons who neglected their lessons in favor of going hunting with Quinn to townspeople who didn't return the books she lent them on time (in several cases, didn't return them at all, simply moving away under cover of darkness, taking her prized copy of Whitman's "Leaves of Grass" with them).

"Benton." She would say to me, fixing with eyes that I truly believed, at least till a certain age, could see through walls, "The devil is in the details."

I confess I was well into my early teens before I finally figured out exactly what she meant. It wasn't the big things in life that tripped us up, it was the small things; the niggling little things that we hardly ever give a second thought to. It only takes one tiny boulder dislodged from its accustomed spot to start an avalanche.

The analogy occurred to me one day during Ray and my's customary lunch routine. All right, not truly customary, since some days he can't get away for lunch due to his caseload, while other days I have to take a later or earlier lunch than usual and allow the Inspector and Turnbull to go in my place. But I'd be willing to say that, at least three days out of a five-day workweek, we manage to engage in what Ray laughingly refers to as "Going Al Fresco."

I don't even remember how it was that we fell into this routine. Like so many things with Ray, I believe it was simply something that happened and then kept happening over and over again.

"You're thinkin'." Ray whispers in my ear, voice all sandpaper and velvet. "Must not be doin' it right, if you can think." And he works my zipper all the way down and slides his hand into my boxers, easy as you please. I have to bury my face in his neck to keep from crying aloud, so I give him a particularly vicious love bit while I'm there. He just chuckles. "Like that, do ya?"

Ray is a talker. I don't know why it came as such a surprise that he talks so freely and...vividly...during sex. Perhaps because my own style of masturbation is more visual than auditory; i.e., I close my eyes and think of whatever excites me. Ray does this as well, but apparently his brain and his mouth are closely connected. This, I hasten to say, is /not/ a bad thing.

He gives a twist of his hand, forcing a moan out of me. This pleases him; he gives one of his wicked chuckles and shifts forward a bit, giving freer access to his jeans.

I will confess the first time we did this was not a sterling success. We'd been partners for well over a year, and while we both knew we were working towards something more, something deeper, it in no way prepared me for the day Ray walked into my office during lunch hour, kicked the door shut, hauled me away from my desk, plastered me against the nearest wall, and proceeded to jack me off within an inch of my life.

Jacking off. I must confess to liking the phrase. Jacking off, jerking off, beating off...so many colorful ways to cover an activity that was, for a large portion of my life, simply a stop-gap measure against loneliness and my inability to connect with others.

And even as I'm thinking this, my hands are sliding into Ray's jeans, through the fly of his boxers, touching him, holding him, and still, after all this time, marveling at the differences between us; the angle and lack of foreskin, the texture of his pubic hair, the way he fits my palm so perfectly-almost more perfectly than I ever fit myself. Considering how his hand feels on me, fingers so long and agile, the way they curl and grasp and move.

"Gettin' into it now, are ya?" And he gives one of his breathless throaty chuckles that makes me want to stay here forever, never let go, and just spend all of eternity poised on this moment; the very pinnacle of no return.

FIN

End Al Fresco by MR: psykaos42@yahoo.com

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