Game of the Season Read online

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  Torquere Press

  www.torquerepress.com

  Copyright ©2007 by Willa Okati

  First published in torquerepress.com, 2007

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  NOTICE: This work is copyrighted. It is licensed only for use by the original purchaser. Making copies of this work or distributing it to any unauthorized person by any means, including without limit email, floppy disk, file transfer, paper print out, or any other method constitutes a violation of International copyright law and subjects the violator to severe fines or imprisonment.

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  Pa-Rum-Pa-Pum-Pum:

  "A Grateful Dead album?"

  "That's what Seth said he wanted to find under the tree this year.” Clay flipped through a rack of CDs featuring Little Boy Blue covers. He picked one up and frowned. “Since when did Precious Moments figurines come anatomically correct?"

  "You're kidding me.” Anthony snatched the CD.

  "Gotcha."

  Toni dealt Clay a filthy look and thwapped him on the arm with the CD case. “Grateful Dead. I didn't know Seth liked...” He flapped his hand. “What are they, classic rock?"

  "Close enough, Skater Boi.” Clay just said no to the lurid emo-punk album by Deathclaw Owl whoever and walked away. He stuffed his hands deep in the pockets of his jacket, or, to be precise, Seth's jacket. He'd accidentally-on-purpose plucked the wrong coat off the rack when he'd snuck out in the wee small hours last night so that even if he had to work the graveyard shift at the radio station, he could still smell Seth's cologne and natural musk. When he glanced out of the booth, he could see Seth's jacket and remember how amazingly lucky he'd gotten.

  Toni giggled, snapping Clay out of his reverie. His dainty little friend was smirking at him. “You big sap.” He patted Clay's hand. “You have it so bad for him, don't you?"

  "Yep,” Clay agreed. He inhaled the smell of Seth ingrained deep in the denim of the jacket, worn soft and broken in just right. Seth must have had this jacket since high school and the days when Jordache was like, so trendy. “So I have to get him exactly the right present, you know? First Christmas season together and all that."

  "And we're suddenly celebrating Christmas because ... oh, wait, I know.” Anthony clapped his forehead with feigned surprise. “You're cock-whipped.” He looked briefly contemplative. “I've tried that before. It's not as much fun as it sounds."

  Clay chose not to ask. Yet. Maybe after he'd had a shot or three of bourbon. Better to focus on the immediate insult. “Say that with a smile, pretty boy."

  Anthony batted his ridiculously long lashes. Honestly, Toni was not only as dimpled and sweet-lipped as a girl, he camped it up to act exactly like one half the time. Witness the “i” instead of the “y” in his nickname.

  "Cock-whipped.” Clay kept his voice low, mindful of the pre-teens milling around them, sorting through the latest Linkin Park and Daughtry. “You're insinuating I am no longer the man in my relationship."

  "If the leash and collar fit...” Anthony pursed his lips. “I don't see any Grateful Dead in here. Maybe they're sold out?"

  "No way. They can't be.” Although damned if Clay could find any himself.

  Anthony studied his manicure. “You might want to try looking in the oldies,” he suggested diffidently. “Music stores file things in esoteric order sometimes."

  "Jerry Garcia is dead, but his music lives on, and he will never be included in the oldies section."

  "Cherry Garcia. Mmmm.” Anthony purred. “I think I'm going to go see if the mall's Cold Stone Creamery is open. Will you be all right here?"

  "Oh, no. No way you're leaving me here.” Clay shivered. “There are so many kids in this place I think I might start developing zits if I don't have the counterbalance of a good, adult male friend to keep me steady."

  "Sweetie, any counterbalance that involves me is going to end up making one of us develop breasts."

  "Possibly, but better tits than zits."

  "I'd argue that point. Okay, fine.” Anthony gave in with reasonably good grace. “Barring the notion that Grateful Dead is in the same section as The Who, Cream, and Jim Croce, we're shi—smack out of luck. So what now?"

  "We find another store, I guess. Seth really wants this new Greatest Hits collection and I know it exists because we have a copy at the station."

  Did they ever have a copy at the station? Seth had drawn out a blow job until Clay had sworn he'd play one song every hour on the hour during his stints on the air as a DJ. Clay thought that if he heard Uncle John's Band one more time, he'd dig Garcia up and kill him all over again.

  Still, what his main man wanted, his main man got, come hell or high water. Whatever that meant.

  "What about those?” Clay followed Anthony's pointing finger to see three locked glass cases at the back of the store, guarded jealously by a skinny punk with a snap-brim fedora shading his eyes. “Vinyl. It's pretty decent odds you'll find something from the Dead."

  "Vinyl.” Clay weighed the relative merits between classicism and convenience. Either way he'd end up subjected to stoner rock twenty-four-seven. He wouldn't be able to load these in his iPod, but Seth might like a classic record even better than the new collection. “Okay, let's check it out."

  He led the way to the back of the store, where for a moment he feared Mr. Fedora would throw himself protectively over the case. “Do you have any—"

  "No.” A muscle twitched in Fedora's left cheek.

  Anthony's eyebrow lifted. Clay knew he was laughing on the inside, damn him. “What about—"

  "No."

  Clay gritted his teeth. “So maybe you've got some—"

  "No!” Fedora looked stricken, near the point of tears. “Please go away."

  "Oooh-kay.” Clay rounded on his heel and headed for the checkout and the bored teen manning the station. He'd have bet money she had a padded bra on under her skintight cropped T to go with her belly ring and a seriously scary manicure, each nail well over an inch long. She kept turning her hand from palm to back, flicking one finger at a time. The classic stance common to all high school wage slaves who didn't really give a damn about anything except punching the time clock and earning enough money to illegally buy beer and pot on the weekends.

  She had acne, too, and didn't know how to cover it up with the right shade of foundation for her skin tone.

  "I've been hanging around you too long,” Clay muttered.

  Anthony smirked at him. “Here, let me do the talking.” He cozied up to the counter and did his best impersonation of a young Elvis, which looked more or less alarming on cute little Toni. “Excuse me, miss, but do you know you have a psychopath lurking in the vinyl display collection?"

  The teenager's name tag read “BRITTANY". She blew a huge grape-scented purple bubble at Anthony and said nothing.

  Clay gave up. “We're looking for Grateful Dead CDs. The new collection. If you have them."

  "Oldies section.” Brittany popped her gum. “But we don't have any left."

  Pa-Rum-Pa-Pum-Pum:

  "Seth, darling, I won't hear of it. You've always come home for Christmas.” Seth listened to the unmistakable sound of Great-Aunt Eugenia exhaling a plume of what he knew would be menthol-scented smoke. The old lady smoked worse than a clogged-up chimney. “We'll see you on Christmas morning and that's final."

  Seth stuck to his guns. “I can't. I'm sorry, but I have plans."

  "Plans that don't include your family?"

  If Seth had been there in person, he might have quailed before the diamondback rattler stare his Great-Aunt had down to an art. “I've already committed to what I'm doing here in town."

  "What could possibly be so important as to keep you away from the family celebrations?” Grea
t-Aunt Eugenia demanded imperiously, managing to neatly insinuate distinct tones of noblesse oblige. “Have you been assigned holiday duties?"

  She never directly referenced Seth's chosen, beloved profession as part of the police force. Too plebian for her tastes, and she'd never given up on her stubborn belief that Seth would one day come to his senses and enroll in a pre-med program.

  Seth would have liked to lie to her. He knew better. Great-Aunt Eugenia could see through steaming piles of bullshit as easily as looking out a window. Besides, he had his issues with her, but she'd almost raised him.

  She'd tried to raise him as a firmly devoted Catholic, a doctor by right of birth, a spoiled country-club kid and a staunch heterosexual, too. Kind of struck out on all counts.

  "I'm off work during the Eve and the morning,” he confessed, cursing his inability to fib to the scary old lady. “The thing is, I could get called in at any time.” Unfortunately, that was true as well. People went more than a little nuts during holiday seasons. Last year, he'd ended up talking a middle-aged accountant down off a roof.

  "Nonsense.” Ice cubes tinkled on the other end of the line. Ah, sounded like she'd started early. Clay called Great-Aunt Eugenia living proof that no one died until it was their time to go. A smoker, a drinker, and a devout socialite since she'd taken the first steps of a waltz at her debutante ball, by rights she should have turned her toes to heaven decades ago, but at eighty-something, Eugenia was still going strong.

  Clay had made Seth promise he wouldn't tell Eugenia about their relationship while he was within shooting distance. Not that Seth thought he'd ever unzip his lips to Eugenia about his newfound sexual preferences. Ever.

  "This discussion is over, Seth. You'll be here bright and early on the morning of the twenty-fifth."

  "I can't. I'm sorry, I really am, but that's the way it is."

  Great-Aunt Eugenia sniffed, conveying a world of disapproval. “I'm not an unreasonable lady, Seth."

  Uh-huh.

  "Simply tell me what these so-important plans of yours are and I'll be satisfied."

  Uh-huh. Seth fidgeted. Not ever would he confess his plans to unwrap Clay under the spindly Christmas tree they'd wrangled and suck him dry. It still kind of startled Seth at how easily he'd taken to giving blow jobs and how much he loved the weight of Clay's cock on his tongue.

  Clay loudly, vocally and frequently approved of Seth's talents, calling him a natural. He'd only made the mistake of calling Seth a “cock slut” once.

  There were just some things that wouldn't fly even in the heat of the moment. Hopefully, the sore jaw Clay had suffered through for a few days afterwards reinforced the lesson.

  Seth blushed, tugging at the collar of his sweater to get some air flow going. “I'm not exactly at liberty to say,” he hedged.

  "Then it is work-related.” Great-Aunt Eugenia's sharp old-lady voice stung his ears. “Or do you have plans with your ‘buddies’ at work?” Her tone now dripped with disdain. “I suppose you're having a giant doughnut breakfast."

  Seth bristled. “You're not going to talk about my colleagues that way,” he said, surprising himself with his vehemence. “We do good work. I do good work. Would it kill you to acknowledge that for once?"

  "Law enforcement is a noble profession. It's simply unworthy of you. No, I've made my decision and this is final, Septimus."

  "Great-Aunt, I told you never to call me that.” Seth had had the hideous moniker legally changed a long time ago. “I'm not coming home for Christmas. Deal with it."

  "I will not be spoken to in that tone of voice. I've made my decision. Either you tell me the truth about why you're abandoning me at this time of year or you'll come home immediately."

  "Fine. I promised a ... a friend that I'd hang out with him this year."

  "What sort of friend doesn't have his own family to visit?"

  "One who grew up in a foster home."

  Great-Aunt Eugenia drew in a shocked gasp. Coming from her, it probably wasn't feigned in the slightest. “Seth, charitable gestures are one thing, but this won't do. Send him to a soup kitchen or something."

  "He's not homeless."

  She ignored him. “Tell your ‘friend’ your plans have changed. I'll see you at eight a.m. sharp and we'll both go to the second Mass. Oh, and do bring that lovely girl you've been seeing, won't you? Sophia, I think. When do you plan to ask her to marry you?"

  "I'm not."

  "But she's perfect for you, Seth. Lovely, mannered, from a decent family."

  "Which would be great if she wasn't—” A bitch. “And if I wasn't—” Gay. “And if I didn't—” Want to spend Christmas with the guy who really might be the big love of my life. Seth gave up. “I'm sorry, Great-Aunt, I really am.” Liar. “Merry Christmas."

  Seth hung up the phone and felt like shit for about two minutes.

  Then Clay walked in the door, his cheeks ruddy from the cold and his messy hair standing up in half a dozen different flyaway directions, and Seth's mood floated up like a balloon. Without preamble, he made straight for his lover and friend and kissed him hard.

  "Happy Holidays,” he murmured so that his lips touched Clay's on every word. “What would you think about going to the Bahamas this year?"

  "Let me guess.” Clay caught Seth by the hips and swayed him. “You want to leave the country so Great-Aunt Eugenia will have a harder time tracking us down?"

  "I love a smart man. Kiss me again."

  "With pleasure."

  When their mouths parted only due to a need for oxygen, Seth was feeling a lot less upset about Great-Aunt Eugenia and a lot more interested in Clay's rising cock. He cupped Clay through his jeans and squeezed, loving how that always made Clay gasp. “So, um, you want to...” Damned if it didn't still freak him out a little when it came to asking for this. He blurted it out fast. “Youwanttofuck?"

  Clay, the big adorable sap, nuzzled Seth's cheek and, much manlier, thrust into Seth's palm. “And they say romance is dead."

  Three minutes later, Seth was really enjoying Clay's hand inside his sweatpants, wrapped around his own very interested dick, when the phone shrilled. They both ignored the phone in favor of getting naked ... until the answering machine kicked in.

  "Septimus, how dare you hang up on me? Have you lost all sense of decency? Disconnecting on a poor old woman on the cusp of the holidays! You must come home right now. These associates and friends are such a bad influence."

  Seth groaned and buried his face in Clay's shoulder. “Shoot me."

  Pa-Rum-Pa-Pum-Pum:

  "Good morning and welcome to the program. This is Clay of Clay in the Morning and you're live on WKZL. How are you doing today?"

  "Hi. Is this Clay?"

  Clay suppressed a sigh. “Yes ma'am. You're live on the air."

  "I'm on the air?"

  Tracy, Clay's co-anchor, rolled her eyes and circled a finger next to her temple. Clay grimaced at her in mutual sympathy. “Yes, ma'am. Today we're taking calls about the worst Christmas ever. The best horror story wins the prize: tickets for two to the Canterbury Carolers at the Beach Palladium on Christmas Eve."

  Neither the contest nor the prize had been his idea. Damn the station managers, anyway.

  "Do you have a story for us?” Tracy prompted.

  The caller hung up.

  "Okay, I think we lost her.” Clay clicked over to the next caller. “Good morning, and welcome to the program."

  "Clay,” the caller drawled in an extra-heavy Piedmont accent, extending the “y” by about three times. “How's it hangin', man?"

  "Full and furry and to the left,” Clay replied before he could stop himself. Tracey boggled at him. He waved her off, already cringing in anticipation of the new one the aforementioned, prudish station manager was going to rip him during their next commercial break. “Do you have a holiday horror story for us?"

  The caller cackled. “You're somethin’ else, man. Okay, yeah, I got a story for you."

  "Go ahead,” Tracy cut in
, shaking her head at Clay. He gave an apologetic shrug. “We're all ears."

  "Okay, see I was at my girlfriend's stepfather's house, right?"

  "That already sounds like fun,” Tracy noted. She picked up a pen and scribbled on the sheet of copy paper that she and Clay used to trade notes on while they were on the air.

  WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU?!?

  Clay took the pen from her, only half listening to their caller's lazy buildup to his perceived punch line. SETH. He underscored the name. SETH.

  "You're kidding me. He actually danced on the table?” Tracy gushed false delight at the caller while she took the pen from Clay. TROUBLE IN PARADISE? She jabbed the pen at Clay, who wrote beneath the question:

  MAYBE? NOT SURE.

  LIKE WHAT? Tracy asked. She laughed merrily and obligingly as their caller waxed eloquent on how it had scarred him for life to see his girlfriend's stepfather adding Skoal to the eggnog for extra “kick". “He actually did that? Oh, my God!"

  God bless multi-taskers. Clay tapped the pen on the paper. Should he confide in Tracy? He thought she could keep a secret. He knew she'd needle him until he spilled the beans.

  Slowly, he sketched out the letters: I DON'T THINK HE'S TOLD HIS FAMILY ABOUT US YET.

  "Oh, fuck!” Tracy squeaked.

  Clay closed his eyes in dismay. Two ass-chewings coming right up.

  What would it feel like to be unemployed for Christmas?

  "You have a good day, now.” Clay ended the caller's session. “Okay, we'll be back with ninety-nine-percent less profanity and ninety-nine-point-four fewer feet in our mouths after this break. You're listening to WKZL, Clay in the Morning."

  "For the last time,” Tracy muttered as the commercials kicked in. Clay half listened to his own voice extolling the pre-recorded virtues of Doggerina Kibble, recommended by local vets and prizewinner in the Rover Taste Test Trials. The enthusiastic praise of dog food didn't distract him nearly enough.

  He took off his headset. “So how fired are we?"

  "Who's this ‘we', friend?"

  "You dropped the F-bomb on air."

  "I wouldn't have if you hadn't dropped the closet-bomb on me."