Chapter 2: Chapter 2
“Jesus.” A grunt and Mr. Hesitant’s tip was against Nathan, a gasp—his, theirs, Nathan didn’t know—and hips rolled, pushing. The latex was slippery, and Mr. Hesitant took it easy on Nathan. The film of slick and the caution were enough, but Nathan stared at the concrete floor and made a horrible noise of pain behind pressed lips. It had nothing to do with what Mr. Hesitant was doing to his ass and everything to do with what Nathan’s craving for destruction was doing to his mind.
“All right?” Mr. Hesitant panted.
Nathan snapped a sharp nod. He shifted, adjusted, accepted at a high price, and a hand steadied and smoothed over his lower back to rest on his side.
“Shit, tight.” Mr. Hesitant’s forehead dug between Nathan’s shoulder blades.
The music changed, and a riff of dissonance rendered it nearly impossible to hear Mr. Hesitant at all. Nathan thought the stranger said something else, and murky voices deep within Nathan wanted to make the douche stop speaking and start slamming, but the length inside Nathan finally sank, and the shadowy desires scattered.
“Oooh, fuck off and fuck me.” Nathan must have said that louder than he thought, because someone on the other side of the stall cackled.
“Go to hell,” Nathan said, too quietly for anyone to hear, and then nothing mattered because the guy started to give Nathan what he craved, and Nathan didn’t give a shit about anything but getting off with another man’s cock inside him.
Fingers dug into Nathan’s flesh. “Oooh, yeah,” the man moaned, angling and making Nathan want to let go of the noises he held trapped in his throat. Nathan turned his head and bit into his own arm, muffling breath and need, and he reached to palm his dick and stroke. He couldn’t help the shudder, and Mr. Hesitant rubbed Nathan’s flank, touching and teasing. It made Nathan wantmore than he could, so he grunted and pitched himself backward, meeting the strokes and making them both gasp. Nathan wanted it over, wanted it to last forever, wanted for once not to be such a contra-fucking-diction.
“Harder,” Nathan ordered, voice so rough it sounded like he’d been crying. He hated and burned at the same time, but Mr. Hesitant obeyed. With a sigh of relief, Nathan stroked himself faster, and on it went: gasping, cursing, holding air, letting it go, bodies meeting one another. Urinals flushed, the music changed pulse, and Nathan’s breathing hitched.
“Fuck,” choked the man behind, inside, against him, and Nathan wanted to kill Mr. Hesitant for getting off so easy and so fast. Like this was a piece of cake, a normal night. For a second, Nathan saw himself from the stranger’s point of view: Nathan’s broad back, wet blond hair, straining form. To the other man, Nathan was a sweet offer in a dirty room after a quick round on the dance floor. Simple. So damned simple.
Then there were lips on Nathan’s neck, dampening the painful longing and fueling the greedy kind. Teeth bit his earlobe, and the stranger put a hand over Nathan’s on his cock. Mr. Not-So-Hesitant-Now slapped Nathan away, and Nathan whimpered when his flesh registered a stranger’s touch and rhythm, helping the light at the end of the tunnel burn brighter.
“Damn, man.”
Nathan almost turned around, but he stopped the impulse. “Shut up,” he wheezed.
“You’re so fuckin’ hot.”
“I said…” Nathan moaned.
The strokes sped up. “Come on.”
“Pleaseshut the fuckup,” Nathan begged, the words cutting like glass shards in his heart. Self-hate swelled, aimed for Nathan’s underbelly, and threatened to overtake him, but then his dick trumped his brain again, and his eyes squeezed shut.
“Yeah,” the man whispered when Nathan sprayed the wall. The softened cock slid out of Nathan’s body, and Nathan’s legs trembled. They breathed together, frantic and otherworldly. A stall door banged, a high-pitched voice bitched about the price of shots, and in a flash-fire second, Nathan wanted to be home, in bed, with someone he knew and could hold. The ache scorched, the truth incinerating the last shreds of Nathan’s buzz, and then, thank God, Nathan crash-landed on charred, metaphysical earth. Time sped up to match Nathan’s racing heart, and he licked his lips
“Get out,” Nathan said, forehead pressed against the bend of his elbow.
“I—”
“Get. Out,” Nathan repeated but with more volume.
“Whatever, man.”
Nathan held it together until the door smacked into his side, and he slammed it shut and locked it. Turning and holding up his jeans, Nathan barely managed to catch the back of the commode before he threw up his guts, most of the vomit making it into the bowl.
“Fucking mix.” Nathan spat. He stood hunched and blinking at his own mess, the sequence of events that got him here blurring by his eyes. Standing in his shitty apartment, staring down the temptation of another silent Saturday night and all be damned, but it hadn’t even been Nathan’s conscious choice to grab his gym bag and throw in some clothes. Pulling open the sock drawer, lifting the false bottom, and snatching up the plastic baggie full of pills he’d sworn a thousand times never to use again, Nathan was out of body, checked out, thank you much, and then he was driving west on I-40, heading out of Knoxville, Tennessee and aiming for Nashville. It was no New York, but it was bigger and easier to become a random guy checking into a Holiday Inn Express. Another sucker looking for a high, Nathan broke open pills and snorted lines off the granite bathroom countertops. Under the flickering fluorescent, Nathan’s blue eyes had been demon-clawed with red.
Gifts
-- Gift
received Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone