'Nicky' by Ally Blue

Note: This story features male/male relationships and sexuality.

Nicky didn’t call me this time until a couple of hours before the show was supposed to start. I could tell he’d just woken up, from the roughness of his voice. He always did like to stay up all night and sleep all day. I used to tell him he was born to be a rock star. Prophetic, huh?

“So, Jack, you coming tonight, or what?” He yawned when he said it. I wasn’t fooled. 

“I don’t know. Maybe.” Like I’d miss one of his shows when it’s right here in town. I’ve been to every last show Bloodlust has played within two hundred miles of Asheville. 

He laughed. He can read me every bit as well as I read him. “There’s a ticket and pass waiting for you at will-call. Hey, Jack?” 

“Yeah?” 

Silence, thick with the things we never say. “Nothing. See you tonight.” 

He hung up. I hung up, locked my office door, and jerked off. 

Funny, but when I get myself off thinking of him, it’s never the beautiful, seductive star I picture in my head. It’s always the Nicky I knew when we were boys. The kid with the dorky laugh and the genuine vintage “Frodo Lives” t-shirt and shelves full of obscure mythology books. The boy who taught me what it was like to take pleasure in another boy’s body. I imagine what he might’ve been like if things were different, and it makes me come every time. 

Not that I don’t want to be with him now, the way he is. I do. Very much. I don’t cry for the boy he was, any more than I cry for the man he isn’t. He’s happy with his life. Who am I to argue? 

So now here I am, ridiculously out of place in this heavily Goth crowd. There’s lots of Nicky clones here, all black leather and eyeliner and faces studded with jewelry, but I’m the only one in a button-down shirt, slacks, and loafers. 

At least the pants are black. 

I lean against the brick wall outside the club and try not to look nearly thirty. Though why it should matter, I don’t know. Nicky’s exactly my age. We have the same birthday, even. 

I know, I know. He’s a star, and that makes all the difference. But it’s not fame that makes his age forgivable to these frighteningly young fans. He just has that shine. That magic glow that makes him ageless, timeless. He’s always had it.

It gives me a twisted sort of satisfaction to see the jealously on the painted faces around me when I pick up my VIP ticket and all-access pass. 

The club is packed to the rafters with college kids in black. I stick out like a fucking sore thumb. Or, more accurately, like a twenty-nine-year-old department store manager in the middle of a bunch of young Goths with black lipstick and artfully pallid faces. 

The things a guy’ll do for sex, huh? 

I can ignore the fact that it’s never been about just sex. I’ve had years of practice.

Nicky’s gotten me a seat in the balcony. VIP area. Guests of the band, record execs, those sorts. I glance over at the two girls at the table next to me, and wonder who they had to blow to get their passes. Then I remember who I always blow to get mine, and smile to myself.

The opening band is terrible. Seriously. I can’t imagine why Nicky picked them to open. And I know he picked them himself. He always does. I can only assume that at least one member of the band is a great lay.

It’s a relief when the lights come up and the tone-deaf screeching gives way to bland house music. I lean my chair against the wall and watch the seething press of people below me. I can feel the energy in the room, electric anticipation arcing through the crowd. I know how they feel. My skin tingles with the memory of Nicky’s hands, his lips and tongue, a thousand intimate caresses over the years. 

I can close my eyes and recall every inch of his body, his every reaction to my touch. The way his hands ball into fists when he’s about to come. The way his back arches when I suck his little pink nipples, tugging on the silver rings with my teeth. The way he clings to me afterward, even after all these years, with his arms and legs around me and his face buried in my neck. Just like he used to when we were sixteen, making love in his bed after school, before his mother got home from work.

His hair’s black now instead of golden brown. He wears leather and eyeliner, and he tastes like vodka instead of Dr. Pepper these days. But inside, he’s still my Nicky.

Some things never change.

Years pass, it seems, before the stage goes dark again, signaling the start of the main event. The crowd surges forward, already calling for him. Ash! they cry in desperate voices, because that’s all they know of him. Ash, short for Ashtaroth, the name he took when he formed Bloodlust. Phoenician demoness of lust and seduction. I doubt more than a handful of people here know that. And I’m damn sure no one but me knows that he got that name from one of his dusty old books, the ones he always used to read to me when I was all heavy-limbed from sex and unable to stop him.

These people would sell their souls for a night with him, but they don’t know him at all. Not like I do. 

The screams when he takes the stage are deafening. He glances toward me as he steps up to the mic. Those enormous aquamarine eyes meet mine, and my breath hitches. I’m sure he can’t see me past the glare of the spotlight, but he knows exactly where I am. He smiles, that wide, sweetly sinful smile that turns my knees to jelly, and for a second I see the old Nicky. The boy I lost my virginity to under a Nirvana poster on a hot July afternoon. My throat constricts, even as my cock starts to rise.

The show, as always, is fucking amazing. Love them or hate them, you can’t deny this band’s talent. The music’s like a living thing, slithering and coiling around me, heating my blood. It’s like Nicky’s essence in musical form. 

Evidently the crowd agrees with me. Most of them are all but fucking on the floor. 

Not that I blame them. Nicky brings it out in them, with the music, with his powerful voice, with the way he moves. The rest of the band’s damn good, but it’s Nicky that makes the magic. Up there on stage, he’s larger than life, in spite of his slight stature and waifish body. Clad in low-slung black leather pants and nothing else, washed in a violet light that makes his white skin glow, he’s beautiful. Unearthly. 

Times like this, when I’m watching him on stage, it’s hard to believe that after the show he’ll belong to me again, for a little while. That those pale thighs will part for me, those lovely eyes will cloud with desire for me, that heart-shaped face flushing pink when I enter him.

Nothing’s sweeter in this life than my Nicky when he’s lost in rapture.

After the show, I wait until most of the other people have left, then make my way downstairs. The security guard waves me through to the backstage area without a second glance when I hold up my pass. Down a dim, cramped hallway, around a corner where several girls stand smoking and flirting with some of the road crew, and I’m standing in front of a peeling black door. Before I can raise my hand to knock, the door opens, and Nicky’s standing there smiling at me.

“Jack. Hi.”

“Hi, Nicky.”

“Glad you could come.”

“Have I ever not?”

He laughs. “Good point. C’mere.”

He flings his arms around my neck and plasters his sweaty little body against me. His mouth finds mine, and God, it takes me flying back in time, to the first time he ever kissed me, pushing me against the fence in his back yard and opening my mouth with his tongue. He didn’t have the silver ring piercing his lower lip then, or the metal stud in his tongue that feels so amazing when he sucks me. But the wet heat of his mouth is the same, and his passion hasn’t dimmed. 

By the time we pull apart, I’m so hard it hurts, and I can feel his cock stiff and needy under the snug leather pants. “Need you so fucking bad, Jack,” he whispers as he pulls me into the dressing room. 

He has my shirt off in seconds. I kick my shoes off, then pull Nicky to me again. His kiss is an addiction, I can’t get enough. He shimmies those tight leather pants halfway down without once taking his tongue out of my mouth.

“Fuck me,” he growls, and bites my lip. “Hurry.”

I fumble my dress pants open and tug them off while he peels the sweaty leather off his legs. “Lube and rubbers, where?”

“Table,” he says, gesturing toward a small plastic table beside the sagging couch. “God, Jack, please.”

He takes my hands and tugs me toward the sofa, making me stumble over the pants still tangled around my ankles. I step out of them, pull Nicky close, and kiss him, soft and slow, until his slight body stops vibrating with impatience and he melts against me. 

It’s like this every time. He’s like a wild animal, fierce and aggressive, and always in such a hurry. But I don’t want to be rushed. Once, years ago, Nicky and I spent nearly every waking moment together. Afternoons in his bed were the highlight of my day. Now, I see him only a few times a year. I want to savor our time together, make it last. So I have to calm him, gentle him, so we can make love instead of just having a quick fuck.

Only when he’s perfectly relaxed in my arms do I break the kiss. “Hand me the lube and a rubber,” I whisper in his ear.

“Jack...” he sighs, arching against me when I kiss his neck. He reaches toward the table, hands me a tube of K-Y and a condom. “Need you so much, please...”

He sinks to his knees, pulling me with him, then turns and bends over, laying his chest on the couch. “Please, Jack.”

I take a moment to just look at him. Pale and slender, black hair clinging in damp tendrils to his neck and flushed cheek. I lean down, lick a trickle of sweat from between his shoulder blades, plant little soft kisses along the flowering vine tattoo that starts just below his right ear and winds around his body all the way to his left foot. A tiny fanged pixie leers at me from behind one purple flower. The little naked figure has a huge erection.

“Jack, Jack please!” His black-painted fingernails dig into the threadbare sofa, the muscles in his back standing out hard and tense. 

“Shhhh, baby. I’m right here. Right here.” 

He turns his head, looking over his shoulder. Those gemstone eyes plead with me. I lean up, kiss his cheek, slide a hand down his flat belly and wrap it around his cock. He lets out a soft sob, thrusting into my hand, and my chest tightens. The depth of Nicky’s need leaves me breathless, every time.

I manage to get the condom on and open the lube with my cheek still pressed to Nicky’s. Practice makes perfect, as they say. He shudders when my fingers slip inside him. I know just how deep to go to find his gland, exactly how hard to press to make him moan. I open him just enough to keep from hurting him, then push my sheathed cock inside.

God, he’s like a furnace, scorching hot even through the latex. His skin, satin smooth and wet with sweat, is nearly as hot as his insides. I love having his dick in my hand, feeling the thick weight of it against my palm. I love feeling his body writhe beneath me, I love his sharp masculine smell, I love the filthy things he says, the way he opens his thighs wider and pushes his ass against my hips. 

Most of all, I love how he cries out my name when he comes. How the strength of his release always brings my own.

Afterward, we lie wound together on the floor, Nicky’s head resting on my chest. His delicate fingers trace lazy patterns on my belly. I can feel his heart beating. His skin’s so soft. So warm and soft. My eyes drift closed, and my mind wanders. Back to that day nearly twelve years ago. The day that set us on this path.

We were playing soccer. You wouldn’t know it to look at him now, but in high school Nicky was one hell of a soccer player. It wasn’t a big important game, but Nicky was bound and determined our team was going to win. The score was tied at nothing each, with only a few seconds left in the game. It seemed like a lost cause. Then I saw the shot. Nicky and I looked at each other and grinned, and I knew he’d seen it too. I stole the ball right out from under Billy Jamison’s nose and passed it to Nicky, he hauled back and kicked, and the ball flew right past the goalie, right into the middle of the net. It was fucking beautiful.

Our families and friends went crazy, whooping and jumping on the sidelines. The whole team crowded around Nicky. I ran to him and threw my arms around him. We were both laughing, celebrating our victory, falling to the cool grass under the weight of our team mates. 

I think that may have been the last purely happy moment of my life. Because he kissed me then, and everything changed.

We’d been together for almost two years, but never openly. Both our families were deeply religious. They’d never accept it. I guess we just forgot ourselves, that day on the soccer field. By the time we noticed the shocked silence around us, it was too late. Nicky’s mother yanked him away from me, my father dragged me across the field, the coach screamed that we were both off the team. I tore away from my father’s grip, and looked back, and Nicky’s eyes met mine, and we knew it was over.

I didn’t see Nicky again for eight years. By then, he’d become the creature he is now. Ashtaroth. Sleek, sexy, beautiful. I showed up at a Bloodlust show after seeing his picture in the local indie paper. We jerked each other off behind a pile of boxes backstage. It wasn’t like it used to be. But it was enough just to feel his body against mine again, to taste his kisses.

It’s still enough, because it has to be. It doesn’t matter that I want more, or that he does too. Nicky’s found a place for himself, finally. A place where he can be who he is, where he doesn’t have to hide or pretend, where he can share his immense talent with the world and be adored for it. 

My own life is much, much quieter, but I like it that way. I like having my cozy little apartment to come home to, and the routines of my life are comforting. I have my own space here, a job I enjoy, friends who know and accept who I am. 

If it all seems more empty than usual after I’ve been with Nicky, well, that’s the trade-off for a peaceful life. 

“Come with me, Jack,” he murmurs, nuzzling my throat. 

I expected that. He always asks. “Can’t, Nicky.” I lift his face and kiss his soft, soft lips. “Stay here, with me.”

He gives me a sad little smile, and I know what his answer is. It’s always the same. We’re both too settled in our lives, too content, to give up what we know. 

You need more than feelings to build a life together. I think most people don’t truly realize that. But Nicky and I know.

“We’re playing in Charlotte Saturday night,” he says, rolling over to lie on top of me. “Come see me again?”

“Wouldn’t miss it.” 

He smiles, we kiss again and cuddle together. I hold him close, stroking his back, his hip, his damp hair. And for a little while, time stops, and rewinds, and we’re boys again, blissfully happy, with no concern for what the future holds.

We don’t need to say ‘I love you.’ We already know.