Contents
Cover
About the Book
Title Page
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Copyright
We include safer sex guidelines in every Idol book. However, while our policy is always to show safer sex in contemporary stories, we don’t insist on safer sex practices in stories with historical settings – as this would be anachronistic. These books are sexual fantasies – in real life, everyone needs to think about safe sex.
While there have been major advances in the drug treatments for people with HIV and AIDS, there is still no cure for AIDS or a vaccine against HIV. Safe sex is still the only way of being sure of avoiding HIV sexually.
HIV can only be transmitted through blood, come and vaginal fluids (but no other body fluids) passing from one person (with HIV) into another person’s bloodstream. It cannot get through healthy, undamaged skin. The only real risk of HIV is through anal sex without a condom – this accounts for almost all HIV transmissions between men.
Being safe
Even if you don’t come inside someone, there is still a risk to both partners from blood (tiny cuts in the arse) and pre-come. Using strong condoms and water-based lubricant greatly reduces the risk of HIV. However, condoms can break or slip off, so:
For the safest sex, make sure you use the strongest condoms, such as Durex Ultra Strong, Mates Super Strong, HT Specials and Rubberstuffers packs. Condoms are free in many STD (Sexually Transmitted Disease) clinics (sometimes called GUM clinics) and from many gay bars. It’s also essential to use lots of water-based lube such as KY, Wet Stuff, Slik or Liquid Silk. Never use come as a lubricant.
Oral sex
Compared with fucking, sucking someone’s cock is far safer. Swallowing come does not necessarily mean that HIV gets absorbed into the bloodstream. While a tiny fraction of cases of HIV infection have been linked to sucking, we know the risk is minimal. But certain factors increase the risk:
So what is safe?
There are so many things you can do which are absolutely safe: wanking each other; rubbing your cocks against one another; kissing, sucking and licking all over the body; rimming – to name but a few.
If you’re finding safe sex difficult, call a helpline or speak to someone you feel you can trust for support. The Terrence Higgins Trust Helpline, which is open from noon to 10pm every day, can be reached on 020 7242 1010.
Or, if you’re in the United States, you can ring the Center for Disease Control toll free on 1 800 458 5231.
MIKE FELL BACK on to the tangled sheets of the bed and stared up at the muscular body straddling him. He reached out and smoothed his hands over the curves of Dave’s heavy pecs, kneading the nipples with his thumbs the way he knew the other guy liked it. Dave moaned with pleasure, closing his eyes and throwing his head back. Mike let his hands slide down the broad chest, over the valleys and troughs of the six-pack of abdominals, moving them outwards, either side of the heroic cock standing proud against Dave’s belly, along the swelling muscles of his thighs.
Dave opened his eyes and looked down at the younger man underneath him. ‘Yeah,’ he said simply.
Mike smiled back lazily. ‘Yeah,’ he agreed.
Very slowly Dave leaned forwards and down until his lips were brushing Mike’s. Gently he kissed him. Mike went to circle his waist with his own powerful arms, to pull Dave’s body back down on to him. Shaking his head, but with a grin, Dave reached back and grasped both Mike’s wrists, brought them up above his head and pinned them there. Then he leaned forward to kiss his bedfellow again. His tongue drove deep into Mike’s mouth.
Without releasing his lover’s wrists or mouth, Dave lowered his body down on to Mike’s, resting his chest on the younger man’s chest, his belly on Mike’s, until finally his meaty member was stiff against Mike’s straining cock. Slowly and powerfully he ground his cock into Mike’s; Mike’s gasps muffled in his hungry mouth. The man pinned underneath arched in ecstasy, his well-developed muscles driving his body up against the greater weight of the man on top and the relentless pressure of his grinding lovemaking. For long minutes the two bodybuilders writhed on the top of the bed, their bodies locked into a desperate and quickening rhythm, until finally Mike tore his mouth away and gasped out, ‘Stop! For Christ’s sake, stop!’
Dave let go of Mike’s wrists and pushed himself back up and away. Flushed and breathing heavily, he looked down at Mike’s swollen cock. The head was a wine purple, shiny with pre-come and visibly spasming. Mike was close – very, very close. Dave grinned again. ‘I think we’re ready now, don’t you?’
Mike laughed shakily, still riding the waves of sensation pulsing through him, fighting the primitive urge to let this orgasm that had been building for the last hour or more explode out of him. He swallowed hard a couple of times, and only when he thought he was back in control again looked up at Dave. ‘Yeah,’ he said.
Dave reached over to the bedside cabinet for the pack of condoms that had been waiting there all evening. Just the sight of Dave breaking the thing out of its foil, bringing it to the tip of his dick and slowly rolling it down the impressive length and awe-inspiring girth of his shaft, was enough to set Mike’s heart pounding again in his chest and his dick pulsing dangerously. Dave squeezed lube on to his finger tips and went to smooth it along his cock.
‘Wait. Let me,’ said Mike. He scooped the lube from Dave’s fingers and gently rubbed it over the fully-stretched latex. It was like a rock under his fingers. The feel of it made him want to grab his own throbbing tool and pump hard, but he knew that if he did that he’d come in an instant and that pleasure just had to wait until this incredible man was inside him.
‘Over,’ Dave growled.
Mike immediately rolled over on the bed, drawing himself up on his knees. His hands clenched at the rumpled sheets as he waited for Dave’s approach. He could feel Dave looking at him, drinking in the sight of his smooth skin, his broad shoulders, flaring lats and narrow waist. He felt Dave’s hand come to rest on the small of his neck and shivered uncontrollably at the touch. The hand moved down his spine with delicious slowness until it reached the base, just above the beginning of the crack between the firm cheeks of his buttocks where it paused. With a small shock, Mike felt the coldness of more lube being squeezed on to Dave’s fingers before they continued their journey, down and round and up, deep into his arse.
There was no hesitation. Dave didn’t pause at the involuntary tightening of Mike’s ring, confident after all these years of the almost immediate relaxation that would follow. He worked at the young man, preparing him for the full pleasure that was to follow so very soon after. Mike closed his eyes and hung on. This was the merest foretaste of what was to come and yet after all that they had already done that night it was almost too much. When Mike withdrew, he couldn’t help himself.
‘Now, man! Now!’ he gasped.
Dave thrust into him hard.
The power of Dave’s entry, driving the unforgiving ramrod of his dick through Mike’s muscle ring, pushed Mike down flat to the mattress. For a second his body was shot through with conflicting white-hot impulses of pleasure and pain. The cry that was forced out of him could have been of either. But Dave held himself tight against Mike’s arse, thrusting with his hips and pulling with his arms wrapped round Mike’s waist, and the moment of keen uncertainty passed as it always did and the almost unbearably sweet sensation of taking and holding a man deep inside him ignited like fire through Mike’s loins, and blasted away any last scraps of control he’d been holding on to.
‘Oh, fuck, man! Do it! Do it!’
Dave drew back then thrust in again, drew back and thrust in. Again. And again. Oblivious to everything else, Mike closed his eyes tight and clenched and unclenched his arse-muscles to the rhythm of his partner’s fucking, working that iron cock inside him with all the strength he could muster. Someone was shouting out loud, wordless noises. Dimly he was aware it was him.
When Dave’s animal-like bellow of release came it was the sweetest sound Mike had ever heard. It triggered his own orgasm, sending hot gouts of come into the mattress, the climactic rush like a series of hammer blows along the muscles at the base of his dick. ‘Oh, man,’ he gasped. ‘Oh, man.’
The last thing he heard before slipping into blessed sleep was Dave’s breathless voice from somewhere on top of him. ‘Yeah.’
It was the absence of the weight of Dave’s body on top of his that brought Mike back into the land of the waking. When he opened his eyes and turned over he found Dave standing at the foot of the bed, his back to him. It took him a second to realise that Dave was staring into the full-length mirror. ‘I’ll fit one over the bed, if you like. You won’t have to wait until after then to admire yourself.’
Dave jumped slightly at the sound of Mike’s voice. ‘The way you do DIY? Thanks, but no thanks.’
Mike was surprised to see that Dave still looked flushed and that his skin still had a sheen of sweat on it. Mind you, he thought, it had been a pretty strenuous evening.
‘So, what do you think?’ Dave asked.
Mike placed his hands behind his head and grinned broadly. ‘I thought I’d made that pretty obvious.’
Dave bent down, picked up one of the pillows that had been kicked from the bed very early on in the proceedings and threw it at Mike. ‘I meant me. The body. What do you think?’ Smoothly he moved into one of his favourite competition poses: torso twisted to emphasise the narrowness of the waist, both arms raised with biceps flexed. He held the pose for a moment, then turned into another, clasping his wrists behind his back to bring out the triceps development and opening out his pecs. ‘Well?’
Mike raised one eyebrow. He picked up the pillow from where it had landed in his lap, threw it to one side and pointed to where it had been. In its nest of jet black hair, his heroically-worked cock was already beginning to stir again and show itself ready for yet more action at the sight of Dave’s impromptu display. ‘Need I say more?’
Dave turned back to the mirror. ‘Great. So as long as the next competition I go to is judged by a bunch of sex-starved size queens with their brains in their pants, I’ll do fine.’
Mike leaned forward. Something about this conversation was beginning to work its way through the rosiness of afterglow and make him a little uneasy. ‘I didn’t know you were going in for competitions again. I thought you’d given all that up.’
Dave dropped his pose and turned back to him. ‘Should I?’
‘No. Of course not. Not if you don’t want to.’ The abruptness of Dave’s words made it plain. Something was wrong. ‘Dave. What’s up?’
Dave sighed and came and sat back down on the bed. ‘What’s up is I’m forty-five years old, Mike.’
‘So? I know that.’
‘No, you don’t. You’re twenty-five. Look at you.’ Dave slapped Mike’s naked thigh. ‘Area champ two years running now. National potential, if you’d just shift your arse. Bodybuilding mags crying out for your pictures. And you’re still nowhere near your peak. You’ve got years yet of getting bigger, stronger. Better.’ He let his hand fall back to the mattress. ‘That doesn’t go on for ever, Mike. It can’t. And when you get to the point where you’re not getting better . . .’ His voice trailed away.
Mike looked across at this man who had been so much to him: teacher, training partner, benefactor, lover and friend. He’d never heard Dave talking like this before. It made him uncomfortable. Something was called for; there was something he had to say. He just didn’t know what. He was intelligent, compassionate – all of those things. He just didn’t have the way with words you needed in situations like this. Richard would have known what to say. But Richard, of course, was the very last person he could have around right now. In the end, he had to go for the only thing he could come up with. ‘Dave. You’re fucking ace!’
Dave stood up from the bed again. ‘Am I? Am I really? Come on, Mike, take another look. A proper look – with your head, not your dick. Tell me what you really think. Am I really as “fucking ace” as I was five years ago?’
Right there in the bedroom, Dave went through his whole competition routine, the entire series of moves designed to show off each of the muscle groups: legs, stomach, arms, chest, shoulders, the lot. He moved from one to another with the deceptively easy grace that only came after long years of development and practice. His skin gleamed, the sweat acting like a natural oil. His face was a mask of concentration. This wasn’t some casual routine to turn on a one-night stand. This was the real thing.
Mike sat up in the bed and watched him silently, making himself concentrate on the technicalities of movement, size and condition that Dave wanted him to, refusing to allow his thoughts to wander to thoughts of just what he’d like to do with those solid buttocks, those tree-trunks of thighs and the heavy ball sac hanging so temptingly above them. He forced himself to mentally work through the familiar marking schemes of bodybuilding competitions, and surreptitiously reached for the discarded pillow and laid it across his lap again.
When Dave had finished, he was visibly breathing more heavily, and the sweat was gathering in tiny rivulets that trickled down the tanned sculpture of his body. ‘Well?’ he said.
It was some time since Mike had looked at Dave critically like that, putting aside the sexual attraction and, yes, love that was between them. In fact, he probably hadn’t since that very first meeting five years previously between the seasoned and successful pro bodybuilder and the young kid just starting out. But now he had looked, and Dave was asking him for his opinion. Mike himself was surprised at the answer, but the truth was undeniable. ‘No,’ he said. ‘You’re not as good as you were five years ago.’ He rose, crossed the small floor space between them and wrapped his arms tight around the other man’s waist. ‘You’re better.’ And it was true.
They kissed. Mike let one hand fall down and slip, accidentally, between Dave’s legs. He whispered something in Dave’s ear.
‘Yeah,’ said Dave, and he laughed.
It was eight o’clock the following evening that they came to tell Mike that Dave was dead.
MIKE SAT IN the small living room of his flat and struggled to take in what he’d just been told. Richard sat across from him, arms folded across his chest, regarding him but making no move towards him. The other two men in the room remained standing. One, the inspector, was talking; the other – a sergeant, Mike thought he’d said he was: young, only about the same age as him and Richard – was silent. He looked occasionally at Richard, but mostly kept his attention fixed on his boss. He didn’t seem able to look Mike in the eye. Mike didn’t care.
The inspector droned on, but Mike wasn’t listening. From downstairs came the faint chinks of metal on metal as guys slapped weights on dumbbells, barbells and squat racks and worked out in Mike’s gym. Mike didn’t hear them either. Dave was dead. That’s what they’d told him. Heart attack. But that wasn’t possible. Only last night . . .
‘Mike. Mike!’ Mike looked up. It was Richard calling his name, leaning forwards in his chair. ‘The inspector’s asked you a question.’
Mike cleared his throat and tried hard to focus. ‘Sorry. What did you say?’
‘I was asking, sir, if it was correct that you and Mr Ross had spent the night together.’
‘Yes. Yes, we did.’
‘And how did you spend the time?’
Mike hesitated. ‘We talked, had a meal, that sort of thing.’
‘“That sort of thing.”’
‘Yes.’
‘Anything else?’
The sergeant taking notes paused, his pen held above his small pad. Mike glanced across at Richard. Richard sat, arms still folded, expression still unreadable. He was very good at that. ‘Not really.’
The inspector nodded, as if the answer was much as he expected, but not what he wanted. ‘And how did Mr Ross seem to you, last night?’
‘Dave.’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘His name was Dave.’
‘Quite. How did he seem?’
‘The same as ever, I suppose.’
‘Nothing at all unusual? In his appearance? His manner?’
‘No.’ The answer had come automatically but almost immediately afterwards came the nagging memory of Dave’s uncharacteristic moodiness, that posing display and that question. ‘So, what do you think?’ Too late to mention that now. The moment had passed. What did it matter anyway? Mike didn’t see why he should share those last memories with this man standing in his flat like he owned it. There was something about him Mike found himself instinctively reacting against. Then the inspector spoke again, and Mike realised exactly what that something was.
‘Was Mr Ross your boyfriend, sir?’
It was faint, almost undetectable, but it was there. The slight inflection on the word ‘boyfriend’. The subtle taint of contempt. Mike gritted his teeth and looked down at the floor. He didn’t want to catch Richard’s eye. ‘No,’ he said softly.
‘I am.’ It was Richard. He had shifted his regard from Mike to the inspector, fixing him with a steady gaze. It was clear to Mike, who knew how to read all the signs, that Richard too had picked up on the inspector’s tone. ‘In case you were wondering,’ Richard added, turning now to the sergeant who hurriedly looked down at his pad and scribbled something there. Richard transferred his attention back to Mike.
‘Ah. So you’re in an “open” relationship.’ There it was again: that inflection. Mike continued to look at the floor. Richard remained silent. ‘I see,’ said the inspector. ‘But he had been your boyfriend, some five years ago?’
How to sum up for this man just what Dave had been to him? Mike knew from experience that it wasn’t worth the effort. ‘Yes.’
‘And he helped set you up with your gym business just over two years ago?’
‘Yes.’
‘And then you split up?’
‘No.’
The inspector adopted an exaggerated expression of surprise. ‘No? But I thought you said . . .’
‘We’d . . . grown apart before then. It happens, you know?’ No, Mike thought, looking directly at the inspector for practically the first time since he had broken the news. No, you probably don’t know.
‘So you remained friends even after you’d “grown apart”, and he lent you money, a substantial amount of money, to set up your business.’
‘He was a good man.’
‘Obviously. And you continued to see him regularly for sex?’
Mike stormed to his feet. ‘It wasn’t just sex!’
In the face of this blazingly angry, powerfully built man, the inspector didn’t retreat by so much as a centimetre. ‘I see,’ he said calmly.
His calmness just infuriated Mike even more. ‘Look, just what the hell is going on? You come here telling me that Dave is dead; then, next thing I know, you’re asking me all sorts of questions as if I –’ Abruptly Mike stopped. His face drained of colour. ‘You don’t think –’ He could hardly get the words out. The idea was so preposterous. ‘You don’t think that I had something to do with it, do you?’ The inspector remained silent, just looking at him. ‘But you said it was a heart attack.’
‘You’re a very well built man, sir. You obviously work out. Well, who wouldn’t, with all that equipment downstairs?’ Mike blinked, confused by this apparent change of direction. The inspector gave a small, very cold smile. ‘Do you use steroids, sir?’
At last, understanding dawned. Mike barked out a harsh, humourless laugh. ‘Steroids? You’re saying Dave took steroids?’ He shook his head vigorously from side to side. ‘Oh, you are so wrong.’
‘Actually, I was asking you, sir, whether you took steroids. Professional muscleman like yourself, always in competition – some pretty big prizes these days, so they tell me – and all these drugs floating around for the taking, with everyone on them if we’re to believe the papers. Who’d be surprised if you were on them, Mr Kilby? But, since you raise the matter,’ he went on, not giving Mike a chance to interject, ‘yes, we do have reason to believe Mr Ross had been taking steroids.’
‘You can’t possibly have done a blood analysis by now, inspector,’ said Richard calmly from his chair.
The inspector looked down at him. If he wondered at the contrast between the heavily muscular, fiery Mike and the slim, outwardly calm but intense Richard, he gave no sign of it. ‘In forensics are we, sir?’ Richard met his gaze but said nothing. ‘You are, of course, correct. What I was in fact referring to was the sizeable amount of illegal steroids we found in Mr Ross’s home.’ He turned back to Mike. ‘When the autopsy results come through, I’m pretty sure we’ll find your boyfriend – sorry, ex boyfriend – was a user. It’s just a matter of time.’ He nodded to his sergeant, who closed his writing pad and tucked the pen into his top pocket. ‘Right now, though, I think we’ve outstayed our welcome. We’ll be on our way. I’m sure you have a lot to talk about. We’ll be in touch again soon. Don’t bother showing us out.’ With a short nod to Mike and Richard, the inspector left the room. The sergeant hesitated, looked as if he was about to say something, then just nodded too and followed his boss out of the room and down the stairs.
Mike stood. Richard remained seated. They heard the door open and then close behind the two policemen. Neither of them moved. Muffled by distance and floorboards, the sounds of the gym beneath them carried on. Finally it was Richard who spoke. ‘Now, would you like to tell me just what the hell you’ve been up to?’
‘Not now, Rich. Please. This isn’t the time.’ Mike ran his fingers through his hair, still struggling to take in what he’d been told.
‘I think this is exactly the time, Mike,’ Richard insisted. ‘When the police come round and tell you that your boyfriend’s still screwing around with someone he said he’d finished with years ago, that is precisely the time to start talking about what has been going on.’
Mike rounded on him. ‘We weren’t screwing around!’
‘Could have fooled me! But then, you did, didn’t you?’
Mike took a deep breath. He hated arguing with Richard. When Mike argued, he liked to shout, rave, make a big fuss and carry his points that way. And whenever he tried, Richard would stay quiet and outwardly calm and pick every one of those points apart with icy logic. But this wasn’t just one of those arguments over politics, football or what television programmes they were going to watch that night, was it? This was a betrayal of trust and he’d been found out in the worst possible way. He took another deep breath. ‘Dave had lent me money. I was paying him back. I had to see him every now and again. You knew that.’
‘My bank lends me money,’ Richard replied coldly. ‘That doesn’t mean I end up fucking my bank manager every time I go to discuss my overdraft!’
Mike threw himself back on to the sofa and closed his eyes. ‘Maybe. But you have to admit you’ve said you’d like to.’ His ploy didn’t work, as he’d known really it wouldn’t.
‘Don’t try to joke your way out of this one, Mike. You’ve been screwing around and you’ve been caught with your pants down, big time.’
‘It wasn’t . . .’ Mike began again, and then wisely decided to drop it. ‘C’mon, Rich. The inspector was a prick but he was right. We do have an open relationship –’
‘Which works because we tell each other exactly what we’re up to.’
‘Yes, and –’
‘And you didn’t tell me about Dave. In fact, I’m beginning to realise you didn’t tell me about Dave on several occasions.’
For the second time in as many days Mike felt himself adrift in an argument, reaching out for the words he needed to explain the complicated feelings that were churning around inside him and unable to grasp them. And once again the only person he knew who could help him was the very last person he could ask, the person sitting only feet away from him. ‘He was my friend, Rich.’
‘He was your boyfriend!’ For the first time, Richard allowed the emotion that was building up inside him to erupt as he flung himself up from the chair and took his turn to pace around the room.
‘Had been, Rich. He had been my boyfriend.’
‘So why were you still screwing him, Mike? Or, should I say, why were you still letting him screw you?’ Richard paused to look down at Mike. Mike shifted uncomfortably and looked away. ‘Right.’ Richard went back to his pacing. ‘And, most important of all, why weren’t you telling me?’
This time, Mike had no hesitation in replying. The answer was simple, the truth undeniable. ‘Because I knew you’d be hurt.’
Richard stopped his pacing as abruptly as if he’d been slapped in the face. Slowly he turned to face Mike. ‘Right again.’ He let himself fall back into the armchair. The two men sat regarding each other. ‘So what are we going to do now?’
For a long time, the question hung unanswered in the air between them until, finally, uncertainly Mike leaned forward. ‘Come to bed with me, Rich.’
‘What?’
Caught in a maelstrom of emotion, Mike clasped and unclasped his hands, needing the warmth of his lover, the comfort of his arms and the sweetness of his love, but unable as ever to put his feelings into words. ‘Come to bed,’ he said again. ‘Please.’
‘After what happened to the last guy you slept with? No, thanks.’ Feeling rejected and humiliated, Richard had lashed out with a vicious jibe, but the instant it was out he regretted it. ‘Shit, Mike,’ he muttered. ‘I didn’t mean that. I’m sorry. Look, I . . .’
Mike shook his head. ‘It’s all right. It’s all right,’ he said huskily. There was silence between them. A minute passed. Two. ‘It’s all right,’ Mike said again finally. ‘And thanks.’
‘What for?’
‘For making me answer your question. I was trying to dodge it there for a moment. No, no,’ he said quickly, raising a hand to cut Richard off before he could go further with the protests he started. ‘You were right. What do we do now? What we do is we have to look at what caused this.’
‘It was a heart attack,’ Richard said uncertainly. ‘The inspector said . . .’ He trailed off. How could he say it? Dave Ross had suffered a fatal heart attack only hours after a protracted session of lovemaking with Mike. Richard knew from first-hand experience just how demanding Mike could be. Throw in a flawed heart, a condition possibly made worse by steroid use, and the conclusion seemed inescapable. Even Mike had to have worked it out. How he was going to live with that was another matter. Richard looked closely at Mike, but Mike was shaking his head.
‘It was drugs that killed Dave. Illegal steroids.’
Richard waited. Usually, he could follow Mike’s thought processes. Nine times out of ten, he could even predict them. But now Mike had him lost. ‘So?’
‘So we find out where he got them. We find out who gave them to him.’ Once again Mike rose to his feet and stalked around the room. Coming to a halt again at last in front of Richard, he placed one meaty fist in the palm of the other hand. ‘We find out who killed him.’
I’ve slipped out of reality, Richard thought. My life has been hijacked and turned into an episode of a TV cop show. Aloud, he said, ‘Mike, if it was the steroids that did it, then he killed himself. He was a grown man; he knew what he was doing. He was a bodybuilder, for God’s sake. You of all people should know what they’ll do to pump themselves up.’
‘I don’t use steroids!’ Mike roared. ‘And you know why? Because Dave never used steroids, and that man taught me everything I need to know about this business. So if that shit was in his place, if it was in his body, there had to be a reason for it, and I’m going to find out what it was.’
Richard measured his words carefully. ‘Mike, you haven’t been with Dave for how many years now? Two? Nearly three? OK, you’ve been sleeping together.’ Mike went to interrupt. ‘Just listen to me a minute. You’ve had sex, but you haven’t been together properly for that long. People change, Mike. How can you be sure Dave didn’t change?’
Mike heard Richard’s words. Part of his mind went back to the previous night to Dave’s talk about growing older; his news about re-entering competitions; his magnificent muscles and the sheen of sweat that had stayed on them longer than Mike would have expected. He shook his head. ‘I have to know who gave him those drugs.’
‘You’re not a policeman, Mike.’
‘No. PC Plod and his friend back there are, and do you think they’re going to put themselves out for some dead Muscle Mary?’
Richard avoided answering that one. ‘OK, so suddenly you’re Dick Tracy. What are you going to do?’
Mike hesitated. ‘I don’t know,’ he admitted. ‘But you’re going to help me.’
Richard nodded. Oh yeah. Right. He, Richard Green, was going to help his boyfriend track down illegal drug-dealers to avenge the death of the guy that that boyfriend had been sleeping with behind his back. Of course. Richard pushed himself to his feet. ‘I’m going home,’ he said.
‘Richard, wait. I need your help here.’
‘So what am I now? Madonna to your Warren Beatty?’
‘You’re a reporter. You can make contacts, follow up leads.’
‘I write for local papers and the gay press, Mike, not the News of the World! If you want a crate of grade A poppers, I could probably find you a good deal, but illegal steroids are way out of my league.’
Mike moved to bar the doorway with his body. ‘And if it was one of your friends who was dead, maybe one of your former boyfriends?’
Richard looked him straight in the eyes. ‘The answer would be the same.’
‘And if it hadn’t been my former boyfriend?’
Richard went to reply but stopped. Mike had never understood about him and arguments. Just because he was good at them didn’t mean that he liked them. He was good at them because he worked hard to end them as quickly as he could, and he did that by trying as far as possible never to say anything without thinking it through first. He’d already made one bad mistake that night. He was damned if he was going to make another. ‘I’m going home,’ he said. He waited for Mike to move to one side and then ducked past, heading down the stairs without looking back. ‘Good night,’ he said.
Outside, in an unmarked white car, Inspector Alan Taylor and Sergeant Paul Ferris sat waiting. Taylor chewed slowly on a double cheeseburger he’d had the younger man fetch for him from a nearby fast food outlet. Paul sat staring fixedly out of the car window at the door that served as entrance and exit for Mike Kilby’s gym and the flat above. Neither man spoke. Paul was wishing his superior would hurry up and finish his meal. The sound was not pleasant and the smell was making him feel queasy.
At precisely twenty-nine minutes after they had first entered the flat, Richard erupted on to the street.
‘Trouble in Paradise,’ Taylor said. ‘Right. Out you go, and mind you keep him in sight.’
Paul opened the car door. ‘You think he’s off to spread the word, then?’
Taylor shrugged his shoulders. ‘This is how you play the game, lad. You shake ’em up and see what falls out. We’ve shook ’em up.’ He indicated Richard, who was pacing furiously backwards and forwards in front of the gym, as if trying to make his mind up about something. ‘And now they’ve fallen out. True, he’d have to be a pretty dizzy little queen to head straight off to a dealer . . .’ He trailed off as Richard, mind apparently made up, headed off determinedly away from the gym. ‘But then, perhaps that’s just exactly what he is. Get after him, Ferris. If he goes home, then that’s probably it for the day and you can turn in. If he goes anywhere else, you let me know.’
Paul stepped out of the car, closed the door and looked back in through the open window. ‘And you?’
Taylor shrugged again. ‘Duty calls. I’ll stick around here for a while longer.’ His eyes slid over to the fast food restaurant. ‘I may just take a minute or two to stock up on fuel, though.’ He pointed after the fast-disappearing Richard. ‘Now get!’
Paul got. Even after such a comparatively short wait, it was a relief to be out of the car and doing something. It was a relief to be away from the sight and sound of cheeseburgers. It was a relief to be away from Taylor.
Mike threw himself back into one of the large living room chairs and punched its leather upholstered arm hard. ‘Damn. Damn!’ The chair arm creaked warningly. Go ahead, said a voice in his head. Smash the place up if it makes you feel better. It’s what guys with big muscles and small brains do best.
The voice sounded like Richard.
‘Damn!’ He punched the chair arm again, twice, and then leaped to his feet to pace the length and width of the living room. ‘Damn!’ Savagely he kicked at the coffee table, sending Richard’s broadsheets and his own bodybuilding magazines cascading to the floor. It was no use; he had to do something to relieve this tension while he still had some furniture left to call his own. He glanced at the clock. It was getting on for nine o’clock. Time to let Andy downstairs go and close the gym up. Then maybe he could burn up some of this confusion and frustration in a hard-core workout, bollock-naked the way he liked to do it. He strode purposefully for the stairs.
Andy was at the entrance desk. That supposed contradiction in terms, a cheerful Brummy, Andy had been with Mike a couple of years now, ever since the time he’d been working in a sports shop and had tried to pick Mike up when he’d come in looking for some new trainers. They never had gone to bed together, but they’d struck up a friendship, and Andy had been only too pleased to come and work in Mike’s gay-friendly gym. Not that he was a bodybuilder himself. Too much of a fondness for the nightlife and associated pleasures didn’t go hand in hand with the discipline needed for that, but he certainly enjoyed the company of muscular men, and there were several regulars of Mike’s gym who enjoyed the company of Andy.
Normally by this time of night Andy would have had his coat on and be raring to be out and hitting the club of choice for that evening. Tonight, though, his coat was still on the peg and he was leaning across the main desk, eyes fixed on a spot some way across the gym when Mike walked in. ‘Thinking about overtime?’ Mike said.
Andy sighed and didn’t look up. ‘I could certainly handle a little time and a half with that.’
Mike looked across the gym in the direction Andy had been ogling. The guy was young, kitted out in vest and shorts and heaving some respectable weights. ‘Nice?’
‘Oh, yes,’ Andy affirmed.
‘No luck?’
Andy adopted an indignant stance. ‘Do you think I try it on with every good-looking guy who walks in here?’
Mike kept a straight face. ‘You were the one who came up with the gym’s unofficial motto.’
Andy grinned broadly. ‘“Always an opening for new members.” I still say it would look good in neon outside. And no, I haven’t had any luck. I think our young friend is one of those who likes ’em big. And I am talking about muscles, here.’ He finally took in Mike’s unusually sober mood. ‘You all right?’
Mike considered telling him – after all, Andy had met Dave a couple of times – but he decided against it. He just didn’t want to think about it any more that night. ‘Troubles,’ he said vaguely.
‘Richard?’
‘Among other things.’
Andy looked back to the guy across from them. ‘Then maybe what you need is a little distraction.’
‘I don’t think so, Andy. Not tonight.’
Andy walked over to the pegs and picked up his coat. ‘Don’t be hasty, my friend. Why not wander over, take a closer look and . . . consider your options.’ He headed for the door. ‘And you can tell me all about it tomorrow. All about it.’ The door closed behind him, only to open a second later as Andy put his head round. ‘His name’s Dean. Good luck!’ And then he was gone.
Mike smiled ruefully. Not tonight, he thought. He busied himself for a few minutes with tidying up the counter and closing the till. Not after what I’ve just been through, he thought. He put away a couple of the gym T-shirts that Andy had left out. I don’t really feel up to it, he thought. He stopped. The counter was spotless, and everything squared away. There really were no other distractions. OK, so maybe I’ll just wander over and take a look, he thought. Just to see what was getting Andy so hot under the collar. He looked around to be absolutely sure there was no one else in the gym and then sauntered over in Dean’s direction with a very deliberate casualness.
Dean was sitting on a bench in front of one of the floor to ceiling mirrors, the back fixed at an angle while he worked on his pecs with dumb-bell flye exercises. Mike watched as Dean flung his arms out to either side and then brought them and the dumbbells back in front of him. ‘Like hugging a tree,’ was how Mike usually described the action to beginners. A great way to pump up the chest. With each exertion Dean gave a soft grunt, the sort of sound a man made working away on top of another man.
Mike stood behind Dean, looking over the young man’s head at his own reflection in the mirror. Well, he was the gym owner, wasn’t he, and the chief instructor? Appraising guys’ technique and giving them advice was all part of the service. Of course, it was also a great way to appraise the guys.
Dean was young: nineteen, maybe twenty at the most. His sweat-soaked white vest clung to his skin, revealing clearly a good body, chunky if not yet actually muscular. Mike let his eyes travel down to the black cotton shorts the lad was wearing and the broad thighs they left so wonderfully visible. Rugby player, he decided. High school first team. College level, now. Took up weights perhaps a year ago to build himself up for the scrum. And maybe to meet like-minded guys.
Dean carried on with his flyes, grunting softly, regularly, apparently oblivious to the man behind him. Except when Mike dragged his eyes back up from the promising treasure trove of those obviously well-filled shorts, he found the reflection of Dean’s eyes fixed on him. For a second they held each other’s gaze. Yeah, Mike thought. Definitely to meet like-minded guys. He moved in closer.
‘Try to bend your arms a little as you lower the weights,’ he said. ‘Here.’ He reached round from behind to show what he meant, cupping Dean’s elbows and pressing up gently. ‘Feel the difference?’
Dean nodded. ‘Yeah. Yeah, that’s good.’ He did just one more repetition, then let the weights fall heavily to the floor. He turned on the bench to face Mike directly for the first time. ‘Thanks.’
‘My pleasure.’
Dean rubbed his hand across his chest, not taking his eyes off Mike’s face. ‘It really gets you, doesn’t it? Here.’
‘It certainly does.’
Dean’s gaze moved from Mike’s face to take in his body at close quarters, and Mike stood silently and let him. He saw Dean’s eyes glance to right and left before coming back to him. ‘There’s no one else here,’ he said, as if surprised.
‘It’s past closing.’
‘I was hoping to have a shower before I went.’
OK, Andy, Mike admitted inwardly. You were right. ‘No problem,’ he said out loud, sweeping his hand extravagantly in the direction of the changing rooms. ‘Water’s still hot.’ He gave it two seconds. ‘In fact, I think I’ll join you.’
As Dean made for the showers, Mike made for the entrance and dropped the latch. There was no doubt in his mind that he would rather have been with Richard. The sex would have given him some of the release he needed right then but Rich could have given him so much more as well, a deeper comfort he couldn’t find anywhere else. But Rich had cut him dead, not entirely unsurprisingly, and Dean was there and apparently willing. It wasn’t the workout Mike had planned, but then sometimes you just had to go with the flow. Mike headed purposefully for the changing rooms.
Dean had already turned on the shower and a warm steam was beginning to fill the changing room. Glancing across to the benches, Mike saw Dean’s vest and shorts casually thrown to one side over a sports bag. Easing his own T-shirt up over his head, Mike strolled over to the shower area. Dean was standing under the streaming hot water, waiting. Mike smiled at the convulsive jump the sight of his muscular frame caused in the young lad’s cock. He kicked his trainers off, pushed his tracksuit trousers down and stepped out of them. He never wore anything underneath them in the gym. He stepped up on to the shower platform, reached for the soap in the dish fixed to the wall, and worked up a lather. ‘Need a hand?’
Dean swallowed and nodded once. Mike reached over and began to smooth the creamy foam in long, slow strokes over the boy’s wet skin.
Mike worked his way down Dean’s body, smoothing his hands across the broad shoulders, over the chest with its light dusting of hair and down the flat stomach. Dean stood, eyes fixed on Mike’s hands as if fascinated, his dick lengthening and hardening the closer Mike’s hands came to it. By the time Mike touched it, it was bolt upright, foreskin pulled back and helmet gleaming purple in the hot water. As Mike soaped it gently, Dean’s breath caught in his throat and he closed his eyes, tilting his head back to let the hot water run down his face and into his open mouth. Mike moved down to the root of the cock, taking the ball sac carefully in the palm of one hand. Very gently he squeezed. Dean gave a soft gasp, much like the ones he’d made when working out.
Releasing the balls, Mike took Dean by the shoulders and turned him round. For a second, the lad hesitated, but Mike firmly though gently insisted and then it was done. Mike stepped in closely, so close his own now iron-hard dick rested against the cheeks of Dean’s arse, and then he began the work again of soaping the young man’s body, working his way downwards again from the shoulders, along the spine, to the small hollow at its base. He slid both hands along the magnificent pale moons of Dean’s buttocks, pausing to enjoy the feel of them and to give the lad a moment to prepare. And then he moved inwards, sliding his fingers between Dean’s cheeks and into his arse.
Mike felt the heavy muscles clench against his fingers and the boy pulled away from him slightly. He leaned in closely, lips close to Dean’s ear. ‘Kind of new to this?’ he said softly.
There was a moment’s hesitation. When it came, Dean’s voice was husky, breathless. ‘I’ve been training for nearly a year now.’
Mike nodded, accepting the deliberate misunderstanding, excited by the confirmation of what he’d suspected. ‘It’ll be all right,’ he said. He turned the young lad around to face him again and sank to his knees. Tenderly, he took Dean’s ball sac into his mouth. Dean gasped and his hands reflexively clenched, digging into the thick muscles of Mike’s shoulders. Mike felt the urgent tension of the lad’s grip. It was a real turn-on. He sucked deep and slow, and felt Dean’s fingers dig in even deeper. He’d probably carry the lad’s fingerprints there for days. The thought and the sensation made his dick ache for relief.
Finally releasing the balls, Mike turned his attention to the cock itself, running his tongue around the tip of it, bringing on more gasps from Dean. There was just the faintest taste of pre-come, the hot shower water washing it away even as it seeped out. Enough teasing. Mike leaned in hard, taking the impressive length of the boy’s meat deep into his mouth. Dimly he heard the boy cry out above him, then seconds later felt hands clamp uncontrollably on his head and pull him hard into Dean’s groin. For long minutes Mike pleasured the lad expertly, licking, sucking, working with his tongue, and as Dean moaned, cried out and thrust into him with his hips, Mike reached round behind him, ran a soapy finger down the crack between his arse-cheeks then thrust in and up hard. There was no resistance this time.