Page 63 of Tell Me Lies: Manlove Edition

The policeman frays a passage in the dense crowd and leads me through one of the aqueduct arches then onto a shopping street. The wounded woman is heavy, but I carry her as fast as I can, aware that her very life is literally in my hands.

After a few more hundred meters, I start heaving for air. Pathetic. I should have better health if I want to save someone’s life. Better fucking endurance, better fucking strength. It’s the alcohol’s fault I feel so miserable, so out of breath. I swear this is it, I’ll cut out the booze entirely or there’s no point in playing the hero. Might as well let someone else take care of her. Like her harlequin colleague—at least, he stopped the drinking and pulled his act together. What am I? A clown in the metaphoric sense. A joke.

The policeman points to a modern brick building. “El centro médico.”

“Gracias,” I utter, huffing like a seal on land, sweat coating my clothes and running down my temples.

He ushers me through sliding doors into a chilly reception and calls out in Spanish. Several people in white hurry toward us and take my precious human package away. He shakes my hand and leaves me standing in the empty room in a sweat, out of breath, very lonely and helpless in a foreign world.

After a short moment, the doors slide open again and Robin stumbles into the reception, shocked out of his mind. “Where is she?”

I reach out for him, my heart hurting because he is hurting. “Doctors are looking at her now.”

“Oh God, it’s insane.” Breaking into tears, he throws his hat to the floor, pulls at his hair, and rubs his face, smearing the makeup all over. “It’s not fucking worth it.”

“Stop.” I put an arm around his shoulders and bring him to a restroom. After closing the door, I wet paper towels and clean his face with a little soap.

Sobbing, he checks his haggard reflection in the mirror over the sink. “I can’t believe I let this happen. We gotta stop doing this street thing, it’s too dangerous.”

“You didn’t let it happen.”

“Pfft. I almost fell off the roof of a truck ‘cause it accelerated too fast. And a bus nearly ran me over ‘cause he was pissed that I stopped the traffic. Every day, our lives are on the line.”

I put a hand on his arm. “Dude, accidents happen all the time, and it’s not our fault. Even my kid dying from cancer wasn’t anybody’s fault. It happened, and we had to accept that it did. Or else it wasn’t possible to continue living.”

“You think she’s going to be okay?” He turns to me and stares into my eyes as if pleading me to tell the truth, but of course he knows I don’t know. Voice gruff, he adds, “She’s like a sister to me.”

I give his shoulders a gentle shake. “She’s strong. You need to have faith.”

Tears flood his deep-green eyes again, and he wipes them with a hand.

It’s moving to see someone caring so much for another person. At the same time, his despair breaks a barrier inside me, one that has held me back from making advances. I lean forward, circle my arms around him, and peck his lips. Maybe I can provide some comfort, or a distraction from his pain.

He has a slight moment of hesitation before kissing me back, slowly opening his mouth to me. I let my tongue enter him like a dagger, searching, roaming, licking every hot, wet part of him.

Changing roles, he takes command and pushes me backward, and for the first time I can really feel his full strength as he plasters me against the wall with the length of his body and grinds his hardness—chest muscles and washboard stomach and cock and all—against me. It’s incredibly sexy, an all-consuming feeling, and I let him invade me, take over. I swim in the pleasure of sexual excitement and wish for only one thing: to be swept away by this insane arousal and fly high until I reach a level so intense, I have to ejaculate everything I’ve got stocked up in my balls.

A hard knock on the door freezes us. We gasp, eyes wide, releasing each other and creating distance between our heated bodies as though caught in the act ... but of course, no one could see anything from outside.

A new knock. “Hello?” a man calls through the door in a heavily accented English. “Are you the one who brought in the woman-clown?”

I stutter, “Y-yeah, give me a sec.”

“I don’t have time to wait,” he says. “I have fifteen other patients to...”

“Okay, okay, I’m coming.” I throw a glance to the mirror, flatten my tousled hair, and wipe the sweat off my flushed face before opening the door wide enough to slip out, all the while keeping Robin hidden behind it.

A bearded man in a white uniform stands in the hall with a folder in hand. He gives me a glacial stare.

Uh-oh, I hope he doesn’t mean bad news. I suck in a breath to calm my nerves. “Doctor, how is she?”

He takes a moment to regard me from the length of his nose before replying, voice icy, “She’s awake. She’s lucky, there’re no broken bones, no concussion. She can thank her excellent physical fitness for that. She’ll only feel a little bruised.”

The door behind me opens. Out comes Robin, face livid. “Will she ever be able to—”

“What?” the doctor barks. He glowers from him to me a couple times, telling us he knows what went on behind that door.

Voice sheepish, Robin explains, “She’s an acrobat and a contortionist.”

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