Pretense


“You ass.” Gale gets up from the studio chair during commercial and mutters it.

Randy widens his eyes. “What? Me?” He sits with his legs splayed in a folding chair off camera and grins.

Gale snorts and goes to take a piss.

* * *

One knock on the hotel door, and it’s not room service or housekeeping. He opens it and Randy swaggers in, honor bar mini-bottle of vodka in his fingers.

“You eat?”

Gale shrugs, motions to the in-room meal cart with silver covered dishes. “Sorta.”

“You want to go out? What time’s your flight tomorrow?” Randy drops to the bed and lies back on one elbow, uncapping the vodka and taking a swig.

“Fuckin’ early. Nine, which means Sarah’s waking me up at six, because she doesn’t think I can fucking get up on time. Why did she come? Michelle’s already doing the PR thing.” Gale gestures for Randy to hand over the bottle.

“Because Ron told her to. And since Sarah secretly wants to blow him, she does whatever he tells her. Duh.” Randy toes off his shoes and flops back on the bed. “Bored. Boredboredbored.”

“Here,” Gale says, and throws the remote. “There’s porn on channel 116.”

“Cool,” Randy answers, and turns to it. “Ew. That’s het porn.”

“And?”

“Gross! I can’t watch anything with boobs.” He belies his words by staring at the television with interest. “Those are huge,” he comments.

Gale glances at the screen. “Yeah. And fake.” He sits on the edge of the bed, elbows on his knees. “She has a nice ass.”

“His is better.”

“I guess,” he says disinterestedly, and smiles to himself when he feels a stockinged foot creep under his rear. “Quit it.”

“Why? You don’t like it?”

“No, I really don’t.”

“Lie,” Randy says. “That’s the hugest fucking lie.” And he keeps his foot where it is, wedged in between Gale’s ass and the bed. Gale doesn’t move away.

They half-heartedly watch the porn for another few minutes, Gale laughing at Randy’s uncensored commentary.

“Christ!” Randy exclaims, as the guy with the nice ass starts tit-fucking the girl. “Does he like that?”

“Apparently,” Gale muses, and ignores the stirring in his dick.

“Huh,” Randy says, and wiggles the foot under Gale’s ass. “Do you like that?”

“I’m trying to watch television, you shit. Go get more little tiny bottles of liquor.”

“No,” Randy yawns, and sits up to drape himself over Gale’s back. “I’m happy here.”

Gale turns his head slightly to see Randy peering over his shoulder at him. “You fucked up that interview today.”

Randy laughs. “You mean I fucked up you today. Wassamatter, can’t handle the pressure?”

“You can’t say shit like that in public. People have a field day with that crap. Did you see King perk up like he’d struck gold?” Randy is nuzzling the fine hairs at the nape of his neck and Gale can’t remember what the exact point of his scolding was.

“You got hard,” Randy whispers in his ear. “I saw.”

“So fucking what.” Gale shrugs him off, but doesn’t get up.

“The straight man got hard,” Randy taunts in a singsong voice. “And not for the first time.”

“You’re proud?” Gale sneers over his shoulder. “My dick stands up for anything when I don’t have a girlfriend.”

“Which is never.”

“Fuck you.”

“Other way ‘round,” Randy corrects, and pulls him backward. Gale finds himself under Randy in the space of a second, his hips being straddled by lean legs encased in black Levi’s. Gale tries to affect a bored expression but thinks he fails when Randy smirks at him.

“I changed my mind,” Gale says in the breath of a space before Randy leans down to taste his mouth. “Let’s go out.”

But Randy just laughs knowingly and uses his tongue to feel the roughness of Gale’s beard shadow. “You always want to go out when you’re horny around me. Because you know what happens if we stay in.”

Gale turns his head the tiniest bit – he doesn’t want to, but can’t help it – to give Randy access to the hollow behind his ear. “I’m not afraid of you,” he murmurs, and wonders if he really sounds like he’s twelve.

“I know,” Randy sighs, and grinds down a little. “You’re not afraid of me, you don’t fuck guys, you’re not gay. Heard it.”

“I don’t fuck guys,” Gale agrees, and lets Randy lift his t-shirt over his head.

“Right,” Randy affirms. “You let them fuck you.” And Gale is turned to his stomach before his shirt is even all the way off, cheek pressed into the rough, quilted hotel bedspread. “You let them fuck you,” Randy continues, licking patterns into Gale’s bare skin, “because then you can keep up the pretense. And pretense is important, isn’t it?”

“Most of the time,” Gale says, reaching under to unzip his pants and wriggle out of them, hindered mostly by the fact that Randy is sprawled on top of him with no intention of moving.

“Most of the time?”

“Sometimes pretense doesn’t mean shit. Especially if you’re not fooling people.”

“In that case,” Randy says slyly, “here.” And he hands Gale the condom from his back pocket, the condom Gale knew Randy put there before strolling down the hall to his room.

Gale turns to his side to look at Randy, so cocky in his self-assurance, then looks at the small foil square. He deliberately turns back to his stomach and reaches up to hug the down pillow to his chest. “Just do it.”

Randy snickers and Gale knows it won’t be as easy as just saying “no thanks”. Out of the corner of his eye he sees Randy put the condom on the bedside table. “We’ll just leave that there for now,” he says blithely. “You might change your mind.”

Gale makes up his mind right then not to.

But it gets really fucking difficult when Randy sheds his jeans and underwear and is hard and lean against him, grinding slowly against Gale’s ass crack and shoving Gale into the bed with a thrusting motion. And what Gale really wants to do is flip the kid over, tear the wrapper with his teeth, and fuck him within an inch of his life.

But keeping up the pretense is important.

So Gale presses his dick down against the coarse bedspread, knowing it will be raw and angry-red in the morning and someone in makeup will probably notice but probably not say a word. He welcomes the rough friction, craves it, even moreso when Randy leans over and mutters low in his ear, “C’mon, just fuck me. Put the condom on and do it.”

He shakes his head once, violently, and says, “I’m about to get off all over this bed, and after I do, neither of us gets to fuck anyone. So quit dicking around before I come.”

Randy chuckles wisely and Gale hears the rip of the wrapper. He puts his head down on the pillow clutched in his arms, feels Randy prep him with two experienced fingers, using only saliva. Gale hopes the kid at least grabbed a lubed condom.

A soft grunt, and Randy pushes in. Gale relaxes his body, savoring the little stings and flashes of pain, holding on to them tightly and making them outweigh the underlying pleasure. The pain is the important part.

Except his body is just one big fucking pit of betrayal, because even through the burning, Gale feels himself grow even harder, listens with everything he has to Randy’s dirty whispers, bucks back against the boy on top of him and grinds into the bed on the downstroke. Once, twice, three times – and then he comes with a gasp, the orgasm sneaking up and surprising him, making him jerk against the bed and rubbing the skin on his thighs raw.

Gale senses Randy’s triumphant grin against his shoulder, feels the bite of even, white teeth on his neck. And then Randy is digging in with urgent fingers, grasping the covers on either side of Gale’s head and straining for release. He finds it a minute later, muffling his groan in the hollow between Gale’s shoulder and neck, shuddering against him.

The only sound in the room is the faint faux-orgasm from the television. Gale finds it offensive. He shifts under Randy’s weight and Randy pulls out roughly, peeling off the condom and disappearing into the bathroom.

Gale watches the flickering light from the tv make shadows on the ceiling. He doesn’t look at Randy when he emerges from the bathroom.

“So,” Randy pauses, one hand on the hotel room door. “I get in at noon. You’re coming in tomorrow, yeah?”

“Yep,” Gale says, knowing he told Randy that already.

“Will you be around tomorrow night?”

“I’ll be home, if that’s what you mean.”

“Do you …” Randy trails off uncertainly and Gale wonders about that. Uncertainty is not a quality Randy usually exhibits. He tries again. “Wanna hang out?”

“With you?”

Randy doesn’t answer. Gale turns his head sideways on the bed to see him. He looks young, nibbling on a nail.

“Why not,” Gale says dryly. “Pretense is for straight men.”


~End

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