Page 42 of Edge of Control

All I kept thinking of was how tight his ass felt. How stiff it made my cock. I’d jerked off until my dick was sore the other night. I hadn’t done that since I was a fucking teenager, hormones raging, making me wild.

Fuck. He’d think I was such a fucking weirdo if he knew. I had to calm down.

“What kind of books do you like to read?” I asked him as we entered into Chelsea Market, joining the stream of tourists and locals that entered the industrial mix of shops and food spots. There were interesting sculptures and sepia photos hanging on the concrete walls, spotlit by recessed lighting and describing the vast history of the marketplace.

“Mostly nonfiction books. I like a fantasy now and then, but all the odd names throw me off sometimes.”

“Same here,” I said. That wasn’t true. I actually loved fantasy books. Devoured them.

So now I was lying to impress this man? What the hell was happening to me?

“Do you have a favorite read?”

“You’re going to laugh,” Theo said. He looked delicious today in a gray shirt with a low neckline and short sleeves that showed off his artful black-and-white tattoos. A silver anchor earring dangled off his left ear. His hair was recently cut, buzzed short. It highlighted that James Dean kind of jawline he had.

I wanted to rub my cock against it.

“It’s Britney Spears’ autobiography. I ate that shit up.”

That did make me laugh. “You didn’t strike me as a Britney fan for some reason.”

“I’m full of multitudes,” Theo said with a cocky wink. “I’m also a gay man who grew up closeted in the nineties. Of course I love Britney. I’m also fascinated by her story. How someone so powerful, so iconic, could have such a severe downfall and still survive it.”

“People are fucked-up. They all ruined her.”

“People are fucked-up.” Theo motioned into a candy shop. “Want to check it out?”

I nodded. I actually wanted to sayno, I need to push you into a bathroom stall right this fucking second so you can drain my balls down your throat.“I love candy.”

“Same.”

We took a spin through the aisles of sour worms and rainbow jellies and hard chocolates. “So when did you come out?” I asked him as Theo popped a sour cherry gummy in his mouth without paying for it.

Oh, he was a bad boy. I liked that.

“In college. When I was twenty. I was actually outed. The guy I was sexting with blasted my photos online when I told him I wanted to stop hooking up with him. It reached my parents by the end of the day.”

“Holy shit. I’m so sorry. How did they take it?”

“My mom was already checked out by then. My dad—he’s ice. There’s nothing there. No warmth. He hit me across the face over and over again. Not for being gay—he didn’t give a fuck about that—but for embarrassing thefamily. My father is a well-connected man. He’s powerful, and he runs off an economy of reputation and power. He thought this would ruin him. I moved out after that. Haven’t spoken to him since.”

“Fuck…”

A young kid ran past us with a bag full of candy, giggling as his mom chased him to the register. We made our way out of the brightly lit candy shop, back into the crowded hall of the market, past a French bakery that displayed all kinds of colorful pastries.

“And your sister?” I asked.

Theo paused. He almost seemed surprised that I remembered he’d told me about her.

“She came with me. We split rent in a tiny shoebox of an apartment near here, actually. She was transitioning at the time, and that was another thing my father wasn’t supportive of. I wanted to give her a safe space, always had. So we left together.”

“Are you two still close?”

“She’s not with us anymore,” Theo said. A shadow crossed his features. “Em, she had a rough go at things. Harder than what I had to go through. She… it broke her.”

The pain was clear as day in Theo’s voice. I wanted to soothe him but understood that there was no way to ease the hurt from losing someone you loved.

“I understand. I lost my father. It was unexpected. He died on the job. It was when we were both policemen. I worked the same district—I probably would have been on the same call. I still wonder if things would have beendifferent if I were there. Maybe I could have saved him. Maybe I could have taken the bullet.”

---