Microsoft Word - Talkers_Redemption_Lane.docx

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    laugh. He knew that Brian hated pirating music because he thought
    of musicians as artists like his Aunt Lyndie, and he hated to cheat
    them.
    Talker knew Brian forgave him for doing that exact thing
    because Brian knew that music kept him on this earth when nothing
    in the world, not even Brian’s touch, would do the job.
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    “What what?” Talker smiled. Something about the way Brian
    looked at him made him forget his scars and his tattoos and his
    crooked teeth.
    “What are you thinking? Whatever it was, you were thinking it
    so loud it woke me up.”
    Talker leaned forward and bumped noses with him, making
    him smile again. “I was thinking that we’re wearing too many
    clothes,” he lied.
    Brian shivered. They had heat, but heat was expensive, and
    the central heat and air was… inconsistent at best. They kept the rat
    in their room, with the sunlamp, and a small space heater, and they
    slept in sweats and sweatshirts, under a double-thick sleeping bag
    that Brian had found for cheap at a thrift store in June.
    “That’s a crock of crap,” he said, rolling his eyes, and Talker felt
    compelled to come clean.
    “I was wondering if you missed it.”
    “Missed what?”
    “That thing we don’t do.”
    Brian frowned at him. “The… the….” He blushed terribly,
    disconcerted as he always was by sex on a platter.
    “The butt-sex?” Talker asked ingenuously, and Brian wrinkled
    his nose and rolled sideways, so they could be face to face. Talker
    liked it when they did that—it felt like little kids at a sleepover,
    except Brian would sneak his hand under Talker’s sweatshirt and
    rub his chest, and as far as he knew, little kids never did that.
    “Well go out and say it like that!” Brian kidded gently. And, sigh,
    there went that hand. It was a little cold, but still worth it as it
    outlined Talker’s stringy muscles and played desultorily with his
    nipples and generally made him feel touched, which he needed so
    badly sometimes, it was like his skin was screaming.
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    “I will, thank you. Do you miss it?”
    Brian pursed his lips (they were sort of pillowy when he did
    that) in honest thought. “I did it with girls sometimes, and it was
    okay,” he said, and Talker’s mouth fell open so wide he almost
    drooled on the pillow when he was awake.
    “You what?”
    Brian wrinkled his forehead and tried to explain. “Girls are
    different in real life than they are in books!” he said, sounding
    anxious. “They’re… aggressive and shit! One girl brought her own
    condoms and her own lube and just… just… got on her hands and
    knees, greased herself up and said, ‘Put it in there!’ And, well, you
    know. That thing’s pretty much got a mind of its own… it went!”
    Talker was giggling by this time, because Brian sounded so…
    so… put out by being asked to ass-fuck a pretty girl! “Yeah?”
    “Yeah!” Brain was laughing, but his ears were also pink. Talker
    wanted to kiss him, badly, but not as much as he wanted to hear the
    end of the story.
    “So… how’d it feel?”
    “Tight,” Brian answered promptly. “It was tight—and it felt really
    good.” He shrugged. “But it was the last time I heard from the girl,
    and she told me the sex was awesome, and she seemed to like it,
    but, you know….” He shrugged the shoulder that wasn’t pressed
    against the mattress.
    “No. No I don’t.”
    Brian sighed. “It was… it was like all the girls I was with. They
    were fun, and I liked their company, but their touch didn’t… didn’t
    make anything get warm. Didn’t make it pop or zing or ache.” That
    hand moved up to Talker’s neck, so that his pulse throbbed against
    Brian’s palm. “Didn’t make me feel any of the things I feel when you
    touch me or smile or… you know, sing in the shower or leave your
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    shoes in the hallway or have conversations with the rat when you
    think I can’t hear you.”
    “Mmm…,” Tate sighed, but better, and arched into Brian’s
    touch. And then refused to give up his bone. “But, don’t you miss…
    you know, fucking something?”
    Brian grimaced and then turned pinker, which meant he was
    about to talk dirty. Tate watched him try to find words with great
    delight. It didn’t happen often. “You mean besides your hand or your
    mouth or your thighs or pretty much any other alternative? Just
    because it’s