December 1969

Cosmo spent most of semester break riding his bike around the desolate campus and hiding out in the room with the IBM 704 mainframe, writing little programs on punchcards to amuse himself. He wasted a few evenings hanging out with the two other guys who'd chosen to stay at school, playing Scrabble and barely listening to them argue about pro football. He read Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep for the second time, and 2001: A Space Odyssey for the third time. It was definitely better than being home with his father, but he couldn't stop thinking about what had happened with Marty.

He was somewhat dismayed to realize that self-pleasuring now held significantly less joy than it had previous to his and Marty's twice daily shared experience. Cosmo had never felt particularly guilty about doing that on his own, but now, it wasn't even fun. He woke the first day of break, inspired to hardness by images of Marty kneeling over him, but abandoned the attempt to take care of his arousal halfway through. After that, he just didn't bother.

Because until a few days ago, it had been possible for him to convince himself that his interest in their simultaneous independent bedroom activities had been for convenience sake, that the dizzying heat and satisfaction he felt could have come from any external stimulus. That the sounds and sensations of pretty much any other warm body jacking off in the bunk below his would have been equally enjoyable.

But not anymore. Being an up close and personal witness to Marty's pleasure had made it abundantly clear that he was definitely not just looking for an anonymous masturbation partner.

Now, when he should be relaxing between semesters, he was disgruntled and restless and bored. Lonely, whispered the reproachful voice in his head. It drove him out of the dorm and across the street to the business district, where he walked the flurry-dusted sidewalk, watching guys and girls in stocking caps holding hands and talking, and considered with bemusement how little he wanted that… and how much, at the same time.

Marty made his way through town to the used bookstore and browsed the science fiction and engineering books and the magazines before casually venturing into the sociology section. No one was there to watch him pick up Albert Ellis' Homosexuality: Its Causes and Cure and leaf his way through a few chapters, his lip curling in frustration. Eventually he gave up. He clearly wasn't going to find answers about his confusing desires on the shelves of academia.

An hour after a tasteless dinner at the diner across the street, and Cosmo had made it halfway through Ursula K. LeGuin's The Left Hand of Darkness, which actually contained some interesting food for thought. He was just about ready to give up on the day altogether and retire to his lonely bed when he was startled by the phone. He watched it ring for a good ten seconds before heaving himself out of the chair and grasping the receiver.

"Hello?" he said.

"Cos," he heard a breathless voice say. "It's me. Marty."

"Oh," he replied, and it was just about all he could manage to say. There were no questions in his head about why Marty was calling, or if he was as confused and occupied by memories of what had happened, or anything else. They didn't come until later. Right at that moment all he could think was, petulantly, Why aren't you here?

"How's your week going?" Marty asked.

"Uh…" Cos trailed the long cord back to his chair and sank down into it. "Fine, I guess. Quiet."

"I bet. We had a good Christmas dinner."

Cosmo realized with a start that Christmas had come and gone without any notice at all. He didn't celebrate it, in any case, but seriously, it was a cultural event, and it hadn't even crossed his radar. "That's good," he said. "Did you guys exchange presents?"

"Yeah." Marty paused. "I got you something."

Cos tried to ignore the leaping in his chest. "Well, damn, I didn't get you anything."

Marty's voice went soft. "You kind of did, though."

Now Cos' voice quit working altogether, and he just sat there, completely unsure about how to proceed. Marty cleared his throat.

"I've been thinking… a lot about what… what I did. What we've been doing. At night?"

"Yeah," Cos whispered. "Me too."

"Really?" He sounded hopeful, and excited, like a puppy, and Cosmo really did not need that image, of a lapful of wiggling Marty, licking his face. Really, he didn't. He turned the corner down on his book and set it, a little shakily, on the desk as Marty went on. "The other night… I know you said you were into it, but I just wasn't sure, and… I kind of can't believe you really liked that."

Liked might be the wrong word. "I was definitely into it, Marty. I don't think you could doubt that."

"Well, no." Now he was grinning, and Cosmo shook his head, laughing to himself. How did Marty make everything so simple? "I was kind of thinking, though, maybe… we could do it now."

"You – ?" Cosmo blinked. "Where are you?" He imagined a crazy house in which there was a phone in the bathroom. He'd known Marty's family was well-off, but -

"My bedroom."

"Oh." Now he was having trouble swallowing. He ran a hand over his stomach, in which the butterflies were awake and doing their choreography. "Uh…"

"I mean, if you're not interested, that's cool."

His body was completely invested in the idea, so much so that his head was a little dizzy from the exchange of blood from his brain to his dick. But… there was absolutely no way he was going to be able to pretend this was anything other than intentional and mutually desirable if they had phone sex, right now. Cos felt the conflict inside him, shame warring with lust, and other things. Finally, with a sigh, he made his decision.

"Yeah, sure, that would be fine. I'd like that."

"Yeah?" That word was loaded with all kinds of emotion, and Cos found himself tearing up even as he unzipped his jeans.

"Yeah." And it's been six days, and I miss you so fucking much. He leaned back in his chair, taking his hard cock in hand. This time, his sigh was more anticipatory. This was what he wanted - or at least as close to it as he could get over the phone. "Yeah… that's good."

He could hear Marty shift into familiar breathing patterns, and the rhythmic sounds of his hand, slicking over his own cock. He knew enough about the way Marty liked it by now, the way he always started with long, slow strokes, and close to the end he liked it fast and focused. "God, Cos, the way you touched me. That was so hot."

Cos groaned, ramping up his own pace a notch, and hunched forward in his chair, letting himself thrust a little into his own hand. He wished the phone would reach the bed. He liked to be on his stomach, feeling the push of his own hips into the mattress, the clench in his ass, but there was no way he was going to be able to talk on the phone at the same time he was… fuck, this wasn't going to take long.

"I woke up to that picture in my head the other day," he admitted, "but it wasn't the same without you here."

"I know. It doesn't feel nearly as good all by myself now. What the fuck is that about, huh?" Marty gave a nervous laugh, his voice breathy and… yeah, sexy, Cos had to admit it, couldn't deny it. Marty was just fucking sexy.

"I don't know, but it does kind of put a damper on things when you're not around." He rolled his thumb over the head of his cock, remembering how Marty's looked different, felt different in his hand. Marty wasn't circumcised, for one, and he was longer, more slender, and pale and way more beautiful than Cos had ever expected another guy's dick to be. He closed his eyes against the images that swam before his imagination, the things he wanted and could barely consider, even now.

"Yeah. I'll – it's only six more days, and then – " Now Marty sounded anxious, and Cos didn't want that, he just wanted him to shut up and enjoy himself, for god's sake. Wasn't this supposed to be about getting him off? He sifted through Marty's frequent pornographic flow of words, so familiar to his memory, and grabbed hold of one particularly vivid fantasy.

"Then I get to have you on your knees, in front of me, sucking my cock," Cos said roughly, and reveled in the sound of Marty's shocked intake of breath, and the following moan.

"God, yeah, I'm gonna do that, I'm gonna take you right down my throat…" And Marty was off, saying everything he wanted to do and wanted Cosmo to do to him, and Cos just floated away on one hot, desperate desire after another. He let Marty feed him ideas he hadn't even considered, and every one was more erotic than the last one.

"Want to do everything with you," he whispered, right before he came. "Want you inside me, fucking me, want to screw you to the floor, god, Marty…"

He heard Marty come apart, his breathing harsh and interspersed with god and fuck and Cosmo's own name, and at the end, one long, satisfied yeah. It was just how Cos felt, too, just one big yeah. They sat there, hundreds of miles apart, together, and Cos closed his eyes and smiled.

"Thanks for calling, Marty," he said. "Tomorrow, same time?"

"O-okay," Marty said, chuckling. "Yeah, definitely. Tomorrow. Have a good night, Cos."

"You too, man."

Cos heard the click of the line disconnecting, and eventually, the sound of the busy signal. After a few minutes, he managed to get up from the chair and wobble over to hang up the receiver.


Two days before vacation was over, Cos said goodnight to Marty, and ten minutes later found himself on his knees in front of the toilet, puking his guts out. It wasn't shame or guilt he was feeling; he was just sick as a dog. Something I ate? he wondered, between bouts of nausea. In any case, he stayed on the floor of the bathroom for quite a long time before he decided being back in his own room would be better, even if he had to have a bucket beside him.

It didn't take long before he was feverish and his head ached and he was shaking all over. He didn't even bother to climb up into his own bunk, he just crawled into Marty's vacant bed. Even the smell of Marty on his pillow didn't make him feel any better. He drifted off into fitful sleep, waking up periodically to puke up what was left in his stomach. He was cold and hot and hardly aware what was going on, and his dreams were even crazier than usual.

One dream had Marty sitting next to him, wiping his face with a wet, cool washcloth, and that felt incredibly good. Marty made him sit up and drink some water, and his stomach was settled by now, so it stayed down. He smiled at Marty and said, "I love you," and Marty looked reasonably happy to hear that, because it was a dream, after all, and thank god for that.

"Close your eyes," Marty said, and he did. He thought he felt Marty kiss his forehead, but he couldn't be sure.

Cos wasn't sure how long had passed when he woke up for real, but his stomach was completely empty and he was starving. It was mid-afternoon. He was still in Marty's bed. It didn't smell very good in the room. He sat up, feeling light-headed and weak but a lot better. His mouth tasted like something was growing on his tongue.

"Take it easy," he heard, and Marty was there next to him. He gazed up at Marty, who crouched down next to the bed with an anxious smile. Marty reached out and touched Cos' head, and Cos winced a little.

"Pain?"

"Yeah," he said, his voice coming out in a raspy croak.

"Try aspirin," Marty said, and handed him two. He held the glass of water while Cosmo swallowed them, and drank. "Your fever's gone, I think? But you weren't making a whole lot of sense."

He squinted at Marty. "Why are you here? Aren't you still on vacation?"

Marty shook his head. "Cos, tomorrow's the first day of classes. You've been sick for days. I came back yesterday to find you burning up with fever in my bed and – well, I kind of haven't left since then."

Then Cos could see how Marty's face was exhausted, and his eyes had dark circles under them. He leaned back on the bed, feeling dizzy. "Uh… god. I'm sorry."

"Yeah, I could tell, you got sick on purpose just to piss me off." Marty sounded more relieved than anything else. "When you didn't answer the phone on Friday, I changed my train ticket and came back a day early. Probably a good thing I did."

Cos lay on Marty's pillow and watched him walk around the room with a sense of unreality, but it was definitely more real than the dreams he'd been having. Some of them, anyway. He realized, with a sudden dawning horror, that some of those dreams had actually happened.

"I said – " he started, but Marty shook his head.

"You said a lot of stuff, man. Don't sweat it. Any chance I could get you out of bed and into the shower? You really need it, and that bed could use some clean sheets."

Cos let Marty shuffle him out of bed and down the hall to the communal bathroom. They passed neighbors along the way, all of whom seemed relieved to see Cosmo alive. Cos hesitated beside the showers, but Marty just helped him take his shirt off, and his shorts, and handed him a bar of soap before he turned the water on hot and nudged him under the spray.

"I'm going to wait for you here," he said. "You still look like you might fall over any second."

Cosmo did his best to wash all the parts of himself that were most disgusting, and the water felt better than he remembered a shower feeling. He tried not to think about Marty standing out there, waiting for him, or anything else related to Marty, because they were in the bathroom where anyone could see, and even if guys didn't actually stare at each other's parts in the bathroom, nobody would miss Cos's big hard-on for Marty. Not thinking about it, he told himself resolutely, and finished up as quickly as he could.

Marty's expression as he held out the towel for Cosmo was shuttered, but after Cos was dry, he handed over Cos' toothbrush and said, "I'm going to go open the window in the room."

The room did smell better when he returned, and there were clean sheets on Marty's bed. When he closed the door, he heard Marty say, "Lock it," and Cos had to put a hand on the wall to steady himself at the tone in his voice. He did manage to reach out and lock the door before Marty had him in his arms and was kissing him – kissing him, right there in the middle of the room, in broad daylight.

"God, I missed you," Marty gasped, running his hands through Cosmo's wet hair. "You – you scared the crap out of me, man, when you didn't answer the phone, I thought something – I thought maybe you'd decided – and then you were so sick, I wasn't sure what to do…"

Cosmo clung to Marty as much for balance as anything else, but he let Marty touch him and hold him, and now the hard-on was here, pressing right up against him, and Marty was hard too, and it was definitely not time for talking anymore. "I missed you, too," Cos managed to get out, before Marty was walking him over to the bed and pushing him down to sit on the edge.

Marty knelt in front of him, looking for all the world like he was the one who hadn't eaten for two days, and he pushed the towel aside to reveal Cosmo's erection, bobbing in the air right by his face. Right by his mouth.

"Oh, god, Marty –" he whispered frantically, before Marty hungrily took his cock between his lips and began the familiar rhythm, the one he knew as well as Cos did by now. He knew exactly how fast Cos wanted it, the pacing, when to speed up, and Cosmo just leaned back onto the bed with shaking arms and let him take care of everything. The only sound he could make was the word god, over and over again, and then at some point when he got close to the end, he switched to yes, his own hips twisting up into Marty's waiting mouth. Yes, god, yes.

Cos had never had anything like this, had never had a girlfriend or anything, but he could imagine a world in which he never did anything else again, just gave in to the bliss of Marty's mouth, every day, all the time. We wouldn't change the world, but we'd sure as hell be happy, he thought, and he choked off the laugh that accompanied the idea of nobody doing anything but giving each other blowjobs all day.

And then he heard himself say, "You're next, Marty, want your cock in my mouth," and Marty was making hungry grunts, little moans that went straight inside Cosmo and made him crazy, and he was thrusting up into his mouth and coming without any regard for Marty or anything, justgod, it felt good. And, thankfully, Marty wasn't objecting one bit, he just reached out for Cosmo's hips and pulled him in, took him, all of him, let him come into his mouth without one word of complaint.

Cos was still shaking with reaction when Marty stripped off his own jeans and crawled onto the bed next to him, saying urgently, "Come on, Cos, I want your mouth, want to feel you…"

He managed to haul himself over between Marty's legs, onto all fours, positioning himself with his face in Marty's crotch, much closer than he'd been two weeks ago when last he had encountered a half-naked Marty in his bed. I hope I'm better at this than Lisa was, was the random thought that crossed his mind before he descended on Marty's insistent erection.

Judging by Marty's muffled, blissful noises, he was doing just fine when they heard the doorknob rattle, and their RA's voice called out, "Cos? You feeling better?"

Marty pressed a hand to his mouth, stifling his hysterical laughter, as Cosmo paused only long enough to say, "Yeah, Andrew, I'm feeling a lot better, thanks."

"Okay," Andrew said, sounding uncertain. "Can I come in?"

"I'm in the middle of – exercise," Cos said, and Marty's bright eyes danced with repressed hilarity. "I'll come find you later, okay?"

"Sounds good, man. Hang in there."

"You bet," he muttered, and returned with renewed focus to what he was doing.

Marty was more quiet after that, not wanting to prompt more unwanted attention from the hallway, but he was clearly enjoying himself, and it wasn't too much longer before he heard Marty panting, "Oh my god, Cos, oh my god ohmygodohmygod –Yeah," Marty said, gulping in air and clutching for Cos' hand. "That… that's what I missed."

It was enough time for Cos to make up his mind about swallowing, but in the end, he absolutely had to see Marty coming all over himself again, and he replaced his mouth with his hand, stroking hard and fast and slick from his own spit. Marty had turned back into his own personal porn movie, thrusting his head back, arching up into Marty's touch, and Cos was going to enjoy every moment of it. Marty gave one last whimpering, shuddering push up into Cosmo's wet grip, then covered his stomach and Cos' hand with long white spurts, and finally collapsed back onto the bed.

"Yeah," Marty said, gulping in air and clutching for Cos' hand. "That… that's what I missed."

It was hard for Cos not to be smug, when he had so obviously turned Marty into a puddle of useless goo. He rested his chin on his forearm, grinning up at Marty's prone form.

"I'm feeling a lot better," Cos said fondly. "Thanks for taking such good care of me."

"No... problem..." Marty sighed.


It was snowing already by the time they had cleaned up the second time, and they'd missed half of dinner, so Marty convinced Cos to come to the mainframe lab for a few hours. He lured him there with a joint and Chinese food and the promise of night time activities – my bed has clean sheets, he said, and Cos felt his cock jump.

They put on some smooth jazz and Cos leafed through Marty's printout of numbers before sitting down at the terminal screen. "Where to tonight?"

"Mmmm… I'm feeling like spending some money. It's the holidays, after all. How about the US Treasury? There's a number for the Federal Reserve Banking Network on there."

Cosmo tapped it in, setting the phone receiver on the modem's hook. "You never told me where you got these numbers," he mentioned casually.

"Let's just say my father is very well connected in Washington and has no sense of network security. I was hacking into his accounts by the time I was in tenth grade." Marty didn't look at all ashamed of this; on the contrary, he was grinning. "You ready?"

He typed in the numbers Marty fed him. "What'd we just do?"

"The Republican party just made a very generous donation to the Black Panthers."

"Farm out," Cos said, begrudgingly impressed.

"Right arm. Let's see…" He turned a page on the printout. "Oh, Richard Nixon's personal checking account's in here."

"Oh, this is a challenge. Marty, we have to find somebody truly worthy to give his money to."

"How about… the National Society to Legalize Marijuana?"

"Perfect. How much should he give?"

"He's a generous man. I'd say all he's got."

Cos sighed, feeling a twinge of guilt. "Marty… you are sure we won't get into trouble for this?"

"Cosmo." He slapped Cos on the back and leaned over him, smiling. "Trust me."

It was hard not to want to trust Marty with that expression on his face, that close to his own, and Cos found himself leaning into Marty's letterman jacket, almost guiltily taking in the sensations of his warmth and scent and just the feeling of him, right there next to him.

The hypothetical syllogism was a familiar one, and Cos heard himself say, "I'm going to change the world, Marty," with complete confidence. Somehow, though, it felt like he was really saying You're making all the impossible things possible, Marty. Marty was casual about it, but Cos could feel the way he touched him, the way Marty was moving in orbit around Cos, and he basked in the knowledge that in a couple hours, they'd be going back to their room and they'd be even closer than that. Possibly – he felt faint and dizzy at the prospect – possibly closer than they ever had been before.

Cos held out a coin in two hands for Marty to choose. "Loser goes," he said.

"I never lose," Marty boasted, and chose the empty hand.

And yeah, they were both empty. So he manipulated Marty into going to get the pizza, but maybe that was okay? After all, Marty was a little on the gullible side. The phrase I never lose coming out of Marty's mouth was just about enough to make him laugh out loud, but Cos managed to keep his laughter friendly and social and not at Marty's expense. Mostly, though, he just loved the way Marty looked at him in amazement when he opened his hand to reveal it was empty.

"Pepperoni pizza, please," he said, grinning. "Shaken, not stirred." He thought of Marty's mouth on him that afternoon, his mouth on Marty. You just can't trust anybody these days, he said to himself blithely, but it wasn't true. He really thought he could trust Marty. He appreciated his trust, what it meant about them, and he didn't want to lose that.

Which was why, when the doors burst open and the federal agents came rushing into the mainframe lab, shouting, "Police – put your hands where we can see them and step away from the machines," Cosmo's sense of betrayal was all that much more acute. Cos saw Marty through the window, saw him standing below in the snow, and as he shouted his name over and over, all he could think was No, not now – don't take this away from me now. It's the best thing I've ever had. Don't split us up.

But Marty vanished into the snow, and Cosmo went to prison. It would be twenty-three years before he saw him again.