I Brake for Christmas Page 3

  “I don’t see you at a lot of Pi-O parties,” he says into the quiet after we’ve been back on the road for a spell.

  “I bet you’ve never seen me at any.”

  “Aw, come on.”

  “I’m not really a ‘frat party’ guy.”

  “How do you know that if you’ve never been to one?”

  “Just a hunch,” I say. “I’ve never even really thought about it. I’d never know anybody.”

  “But, I mean, you’d meet people.”

  “I know ‘people,’” I tease. “But I don’t really have any Greek friends.”

  “You got me! You should come one of these nights. I’ll show you around.”

  “I’m not a big drinker.”

  “They are more fun when there’s beer,” he allows.

  “See, when I was in high school, we were more like Alizé drinkers.”

  He laughs. “What the heck’s that?”

  “I don’t even know,” I admit. “It’s like fruit juice and brandy, or cognac or something. My friend Denise’s mom always drank it. As in, always drank it. It was like all she had in the fridge besides maybe a loaf of bread.”

  “Isn’t ‘brandy’ and ‘cognac’ the same thing?”

  “I don’t know,” I say again, laughing. “It was abundant and free, is what it was. They had this tiny balcony over their back yard, you had to go through the attic to get to it. We’d climb up there, Denise and I, with a bottle of her mom’s Alizé and one of my brother’s joints he didn’t know I knew about, we’d get high and sing Little Shop of Horrors all the way through. ‘Back-up singer’ was pretty much my life’s ambition at that point. I don’t know about Green River, but there wasn’t really an audience for show tunes at the cool kids’ parties in Boulder.”

  “See, and my buddy John Forrester, he had this bad-influence big brother who always had a keg in his basement. It was a lot harder to stay sober on weekends than it was to find beer.” He laughs. “We had fun, though. Forrester got kinda, I dunno—frisky when he was drunk.”

  “Frisky?” I give my left leg a casual shake, then another, hoping to slyly shift my stiffening dick. Does ‘frisky’ mean something other than what I think I’m hearing?

  “Nothing major. We’d kiss a little bit, mess around.”

  “You and this John guy?”

  “Uh huh.”

  I sense that George has shifted in his own seat; I feel his eyes on me, but I don’t dare tear mine from the road. My hopes just got flung so high, I can’t look into his face and risk having them crash back to Earth—the impact would kill us all.

  “Mess around?” My throat’s full of sand, but the words crawl out.

  “Just sometimes. You know what I mean. I mean, right? You’ve messed around with guys before?”

  I nod. Is this titillation or terror? Why can’t I tell? Shouldn’t those emotions feel completely different instead of pretty much the exact same?

  “This one time,” George goes on, “we got pretty drunk. It was just us two, like it was almost morning. Everybody else had gone home, his brother was passed out. We were kinda messing around, Forrester goes, ‘I’d kill for a blow job.’”

  Surely this is the most fascinating strip of paved road in all of America; I can’t imagine putting my eyes on anything else. Yeah? I think I’m going to say. I even try, but it’s too big a word to get around the lump in my throat.

  “So I go, ‘How bad do you want it?’” George tells me. “And he goes, ‘Real bad.’ He’s like, ‘So bad I’d even let a dude suck it.’ And Forrester’s pretty good-lookin’, right? He’s lean like you, kinda tall. And he takes his dick out of his pants and I think, ‘Huh, it actually looks kinda nice.’ So I try it. You know, take it. In my mouth. It’s kinda salty, and his crotch kinda smells, but he lets out this moan, right? Like maybe it feels real good. And I kinda like that. He’s a good guy, we been friends a long time. I kinda like that I’m makin’ him feel good, you know? And I guess I’m pretty good at it, ‘cause he moans a couple more times, and then he grabs my head. Lets out this yelp and just sprays it into my mouth. I start to gag, you know, mostly from the surprise—it didn’t take very long—but actually it tasted kinda good.”

  “You liked it?”

  “I mean, I wouldn’t buy it at the grocery store and put it on my toast, but yeah. As part of the whole ‘sucking dick’ thing, I liked it.”

  I can’t believe I’m about to ask this of George Cortner. I clear my throat, then say, “You like sucking dick?”

  “Forrester said I’m real good at it, too.” He sets his hand on my thigh. “You want me to show you?”

  “Wh- wh- what?”

  He takes his glasses off, awkwardly half-folds them, sets them on the dash. He brings his hand back to my leg, begins to massage it. His hand slides down to my knee, back up to my hip. He feels for and lightly traces my hard-on. “You want me to show you,” he says again, “how good I am?”

  I swallow. Hard. The lump in my throat persists, but I swallow again, somehow find the nerve to ask, “Should I pull over?”

  He begins to pull at the tab on my zipper. “No,” he says. “Keep driving.”

  “But…”

  He eases the solid, throbbing length of me out of my fly. He strokes my shaft and leans across the center console. “Keep driving,” he whispers into my ear. How are those the two sexiest words I’ve ever heard?

  We haven’t seen another car in thirty miles. The horizon is corrugated canyonland in every direction. It takes a bit of shifting to get his knees right, his headroom worked out, then he folds himself over and takes me.

  I gasp. I’ve been watching him eat all day long, I shouldn’t be surprised, but he’s unabashedly greedy about getting as much into his mouth as he can. He slurps and smacks, and at first there are more teeth involved than I expect, but once he’s got me swallowed up and got himself comfortable, he relaxes into a rhythm. His head bobs up and down in my lap as he licks me, balls to head, then slides his O-shaped lips back down to my base.

  The moans escape me involuntarily. He is good at this. He’s gentle, but determined; he licks and flicks me with his tongue, plays with pressure and speed. He’s making a point of pleasing me, but there’s no mistaking he’s sucking for cum. I keen, I sigh, I arch my back and close my eyes.

  I try to keep us more or less on the paved part of the highway—luckily oncoming traffic is on the other side of a wide, grass berm—but really the car’s on its own. I have no idea how fast we’re going, I have no idea how far we’ve gone. I can barely even make sense of the red and blue flashing lights in the rearview mirror. All I know is I’m about to come in George Cortner, and it’s about to be the load of a lifetime. Oh God yes, here it comes.

  A siren whoops. One, then two short bursts. George sits up, eyes wide. And sure enough, I shoot jet after jet of cum—into my lap, onto my clothes, all over the steering wheel—as my foot crashes repeatedly, heavily, onto the gas pedal with every spasm. By the time I manage to wrench the car onto the shoulder, I’m sweaty and panting, covered in my own mess, and laughing out bursts of joy that feel at once inappropriate and insufficient.

  We could have been killed—we probably should have been killed. If I get arrested by the Utah State Patrol on Christmas Eve and have to call my parents, I may yet be killed. But I’m not dead yet, and I’m pretty sure in nineteen years this is the most exhilarated I’ve ever felt. That weed I used to sneak from my brother was sometimes pretty good stuff, but it never got me this high.

  George is laughing, too, and pointing at the mess in my lap. Meanwhile, in the mirror, a wall of cop is unfolding from his car. I try to wrangle myself back into my jeans, but I’m still mostly hard, and so sensitive I can barely touch it. I search the car for something—anything—to clean at least the obvious dripping gob of jiz off the steering wheel, not to mention the cop is five feet away from my window and about to get an eyeful.

  “Give me your sweatshirt!” I cry at George. Still laughing, he pul
ls it off the floor and hands it over. I swipe at the goop on the steering wheel, then arrange the hoodie to at least cover the cum puddle. And, you know, the fact that my sticky dick is rapidly congealing in my lap.

  “Officer,” I intone noncommittally as I roll down the window.

  “You boys got any idea how fast you were going back there?”

  “To be honest, officer, I don’t.”

  “You were all over the road, son. In traffic you’da caused a pile-up.” He takes a step back and bends at the waist to get a better look into the car. Scans, I presume, for the open bottle of booze or the smoldering joint he assumes is responsible for my lack of focus. George makes a point of offering the officer what I’m sure he thinks is his Innocent Hello face, upon which, after a glance at my lap, the cop asks, “Everything okay in here?”

  “Yes sir,” I say, as if I can be bothered to pay the slightest attention to his road safety concerns. While processing the emotional and social bombshell that George Cortner sucks dick—like a champ—I’m still pretty much orgasming onto his sweatshirt while trying to play it cool for a cop in a state famous for its love of issuing larcenous speeding tickets. I wish my voice wasn’t quite so trembly, but my blood’s racing through my body like it’s jet-propelled.

  “You boys been drinking?” the trooper asks.

  “No, sir,” we say together.

  “I guess we’re just excited to get home,” I try. “Christmas Eve and all that.”

  “Where’s home?”

  “Green River,” George leans across me to say. “We’re almost there.”

  “And you say you haven’t been drinking?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Doin’ any drugs?”

  “No!”

  He casts his eyes suspiciously into my lap again. No! I command him telepathically. Do not ask to see what’s under the sweatshirt. I fight to keep my face as pleasantly bland as possible; the effort of not following his eyes to my crotch with my own strains my neck. There is nothing to see here, I will him to understand.

  He looks from my lap to George’s face, which I now notice is flushed and looking lightly misted. That something was going on before we were pulled over would be obvious even to the disinterested occupants of a passing car.

  “So you’re not trying to hide anything under that shirt you got in your lap?” he asks. My bowels clench—after almost expelling their contents into my seat. For his part, George, whose face is now the color of a ripe red apple, fails miserably at covering his laugh with a pathetic half-cough.

  I make every effort to meet the state trooper’s eye. He’s youngish, maybe ten years older than we are. He’s blond, and doughy through the midsection. Suffice it to say, despite my frantic attempts to unearth unsexy, cold-water thoughts, I’m not exactly at rest. I choose my words carefully. “If you need me to expose what’s under the sweatshirt, I will, but I have to ask you to please take my word, there are no drugs or alcohol anywhere in the car, and what’s happening here with this sweatshirt is really personal and very embarrassing, but, I think, one hundred percent legal.”

  He looks from me to George again. George reaches for his glasses on the dashboard and puts them on. He sets a hand on my leg, then smiles at the trooper. So suggestively that I wonder if he’s about to lean across me and offer to blow him, too.

  The penny drops. The trooper shifts the focus of the interview. “Do you have any idea how much the fine is if I clock you going over ninety-five?”

  “Was I going over ninety-five?” My surprise is apparent. I didn’t know this old bucket had it in him.

  “If I answer that, I’ll have to cite you,” he says. “And you can believe it’s a ticket that’ll wreck your Christmas. Since you’re only going to Green River—and can, I assume, wait that hour and a half before you enjoy each other’s company—” George gags out another poorly stifled laugh. The trooper keeps talking. “I’m going to let you go with a warning. A serious warning, son. There was nothing safe about what you were doing, and I bet if you die out here on the highway, that’ll wreck some Christmases, too.”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Now look: I know where Inland Empire is. One of my cousins went there. I’m gonna be watchin’ for you when you head back to California, and if I see you, you’re gonna be drivin’ the speed limit with both hands on the wheel like a little old lady. Is that clear?”

  “Yes sir.”

  He shakes his head. “You’re just kids,” he says. “You got your whole lives ahead of you. Don’t screw it all up just ‘cause…” He seems to search for phrasing. Settles on, “Dang it, at least pull over.”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Go on, then,” he says. “Get home. Safe. And have a Merry Christmas.”

  “Yes sir,” we say together. “Merry Christmas.”

  “Thank you,” I add.

  He stands up straight and steps back from my door. “Go on,” he says again.

  And so we do.

  Neither one of us risks a breath until the highway curves around a mesa and the trooper’s out of sight. After a couple deep breaths, I at least feel my heart slow down until it doesn’t feel like it’s hammering out Iceberg dead ahead! in Morse code. George has redirected his attention to his bag of Doritos, only occasionally sliding me smug, conspiratorial smiles.

  “I’ll tell you this much,” I eventually say.

  “What’s that?”

  “That John dude was right.”

  “You mean Forrester?”

  “Yeah. You’re really good at that.”

  He laughs an acknowledgment. Then says, “You weren’t so bad yourself. You played it pretty cool with that cop.”

  “Did I? I couldn’t hardly hear him or myself over my pounding heart. All I could see was you laughing. Like pretty much the entire time.”

  He’s still laughing. “I gotta tell ya, I didn’t see that coming. I mean, I figured we might crash and die when you came, but it never occurred to me we might get caught! The only other car for a hundred miles, and it’s that guy?”

  “Then he was kinda good-lookin’, and I was like, how exactly is my hard-on supposed to go down when I’m sitting here talking to you about it?”

  “That siren scared me half to death. I sat up so fast!”

  “Yeah, I know. Thanks for that. It went everywhere.”

  “Then he’s like, ‘Everything okay in here?’”

  We relive the blood pressure-spiking episode over and over until we’re laughing so hard I’m afraid we might get pulled over again. Before we get anywhere near the topic of what sex in a speeding car might mean about any feelings we might have for each other, we’re bearing down on Green River and, for the first time in a while, I feel called upon to pay attention to where the car might be going.

  “Okay, wait, so, where do you live?” I ask. “Right in Green River, or do I turn off somewhere? How far are we talking? That sign said ‘Green River, twelve miles.’”

  “We’re out in the country a little bit, but you can just drop me in town. My sister comes from the other side of town, she said if I call her from the grocery store she’ll get me on her way through to Mom and Dad’s.”

  “Nah, I can drive you. Really, it’s no big deal.” I’m not fishing for an invitation to Christmas Eve dinner necessarily, but I’m sure as heck not gonna say No, thanks if one is issued. Two days ago, George was permanently relegated to the unsatisfying role of unrequited choir crush. Now, sitting here with a crotch full of the cum he coaxed out of me, I can’t get my head around the idea of saying See ya and driving away. I don’t want to be as far away from him as the console between our seats makes necessary—hundreds of miles seems unreasonable, and more than a little unbearable.

  At least to me. But George says, “No, really, the grocery store is fine. It’s all worked out with my sister, she’ll be waiting for me to call. By the time we pull over there for me to use the phone, I might as well just wait for her. You have a long ways to go. I don’t want to waste a b
unch of your time.”

  “It’s not a waste of my time. I said I’d drive you home, I’ll drive you home.”

  He pats my thigh. “I know. It’s not like I don’t appreciate it. It’s just easier.”

  I feel like something’s slipping away. Was this just a one-load stand? We’ve been getting along great, but we have only been hanging out for the day. I don’t suppose his frat marches in very many Gay Pride parades. I try not to sound crushed when I ask him, “When were you planning on heading back? You want me to grab you on my way?”

  “Nah. Thanks, but I got a buddy goes to Pepperdine, I’ll hop in with him.”

  “‘Cause it’s no big deal. I’m gonna come right through town.”

  “It’s fine, Brent. Really. Get off here,” he says as a quick aside, pointing to the upcoming exit. “I appreciate the offer,” he goes on. “It’s just…”

  “Easier. I get it. No problem.”

  “Look.” Again with the hand on my thigh. “I really appreciate the ride. And, you know, getting to hang out with you. You’ve always seemed kinda cool, and I’m glad we, you know…got along.”

  I can’t suppress a lascivious grin. He smacks my thigh with an open palm and keeps talking. “I’m serious. You should come to a party. We’d have fun, I bet. Once we’re back at school, I’d love to hang out. It’s just…my family…it’s complicated enough…”

  “It’s fine, George. Really. I understand. This was kind of a cool day, is all. I was just thinking it’d be fun if we rode back together.”

  “I know you were.” He smiles. Moves his hand to tickle my balls. “It would be fun. It’s just…”

  “Easier.”

  The I-70 Business Loop runs through the middle of town. I’ve already spotted it when George points out the grocery store coming up on our left, sprawled between a gas station and the long brown awning over the Greyhound bus stop. “There it is.”

  I pull into the parking lot. “Do you at least want me to wait with you?”

  “Nah. She doesn’t live far, it won’t take long. I don’t want to add all kinds of time to your drive. Brent, look…” He takes hold of my hand. “I had a great time today. Thank you. Really. Can we hang out? You know, when we get back?”