Chapter 7


February 1981…

I didn't call Starsky straight away that Valentine's Night. Oh, I wanted to of course. God, how I wanted to. But I forced myself to re-group, to settle and to wait – long enough to be able to talk to him without letting all my needs bleed out through my voice, and down the phone where he would hear them. I made another coffee, and settled myself on the couch before I got the courage to ring him. In the end we might not have spent Valentine's Day night together, at least not physically, but we spent it together anyway, over the phone, talking for hours. I held the phone, draping the extension lead over my shoulder as walked into the kitchen, and traded my empty coffee cup for a beer. A little later I waited while Starsky went to collect his own, and then we talked some more, paused our conversation to get more beers for ourselves, and picked up the talk again. It was only much later, when Starsky complained that unless he ate, he would perish. By the time we finished the call there was a definite sense humming along the phone line, that we had closed the last of the divide that had formed between us all those months ago.

February – June 1981…

For the remainder of February onwards our lives had begun to once more resemble what we had been together in the past. By that I mean we were once more back to being trusted friends to each other – buddies and partners in the strongest sense of the term. Not that we were back as the lovers we'd become the previous Valentine's Day in 1980, nor were we like we were at any time during Starsky's convalescence, or even for that matter how we were in those strained times leading up to that fateful day in May 1979 when our worlds exploded in a clatter of semi automatic gunfire. In fact, I think we were most like the two friends we had been in our earlier days as partners in the Ninth Precinct. More like the times when we were younger, more idealistic, more energetic, more excited about our lives, and where we were heading. A lot – but not all - of the dark cynicism and world-weariness that had crept into my personality by '79 had begun to steadily fall away. I didn't need Starsky to tell me (though he did repeatedly over the next couple of months much to my chagrin,) that I was more like the Hutch that I had been when he was more like the Starsky that he had been. If that made sense he'd told me. In fact in 'Starsky speak', it did – at least to me. That dirty grittiness caused by the harsh realities of cop life which had abraded my soul in that last year before Starsky was shot, was being replaced by a renewed vigor for life and the possibilities of what might lie ahead. We both had something to live for, to strive for, to work toward together. We each had a new project in life – us.

In March through April it was all about our brotherhood, rebuilding a trust that could hopefully withstand any further attacks upon it from our own stupid intrinsic behavior. For, in the past, it was are own mistakes and weaknesses that had threatened to destroy what we had built together – we couldn't blame anyone else but ourselves for our screw-ups. We were sure of one thing now. We didn't want to fail each other and ourselves ever again.

By then we were back to spending the majority of our free time together, mostly at either one of our apartments and rarely, apart from frequenting our usual haunts such as Huggy's, did we tend to go out. Our days of going out on the prowl for women stayed in the past, and even though we still weren't back to sharing a bed, nor did we show any interest in getting sex from anywhere else. Now that we weren't working in the same job, there was less need for us to have to appear to be having personal lives outside of each other. As we were no longer being seen by others as being joined at the hip through our work day as well as in our private social hours, it became easier not to have field questions and deal with slanted observations from those around us.

Of everyone we knew, Huggy was especially happy with what had transpired since that night he had lured me to his bar to meet Starsky back in September. Secretly I think he took pride in what he saw was partly down to his own efforts to help us find our way back to one another. I'd been in at his bar one day for a quick lunch with some of the other officers from my squad. While the other guys were finishing up their meals and drinks, I wandered over to the bar to have a few private words with him, preferring not to talk about Starsky in front of them. I still liked to keep Starsky and my private life out of conversations with other cops.

We chatted for a while and then to my surprise, Huggy asked me if I had seen Alice in a while. The question had come from seemingly nowhere and I was taken off guard, not sure what he was really asking me. Did he think that I was still carrying on some sort of secret liaison with her? I told him the truth – that no – I hadn't seen her in months and months. He merely nodded, his face suddenly full of a thoughtful frown as though he was trying to decide whether to say more to me. I was about to probe him more on the matter when we were interrupted by one of his staff, needing help with one of the bar orders. He raised his hand as though to say he'd be back, but then he got caught up longer than I could wait given that the other officers were all standing to leave – I decided to leave the matter alone.

I never bothered to follow it up with him and when I was next in his bar, Starsky was with me so I left it completely.

Starsky was still seeing Mina his therapist, but far less frequently, as the need for the sessions was no longer as imperative as it had been. We were turning back to each other as sounding boards and confidantes – opening up to one another on far deeper levels than we ever had before our hiatus.

Things were good and getting better every day. Even the looming of the dreaded anniversary in May couldn't dampen our spirits for our renewed chance at being best friends and hopefully, back to being lovers.

By unspoken agreement we had continued to keep intimacy off the agenda. Even into May we hadn't re-consummated out relationship. It wasn't easy – for either of us, particularly for me. Still it didn't harm our internal fortitude and it was damn thrilling to keep the anticipation of it in the background as a reward for when we both felt ready to take that final step in our recovery.

Several times when spending evenings together on the couch or even in the car as we were driving we had all too easily transitioned from fraternal body touches to caresses and suggestive rubbing and stimulation which was had more in common with heated foreplay than overtures of mate ship. Up to that point anyway, we had managed to pull ourselves up before going further. Well to be more correct, I stopped myself. I wanted it to be Starsky that made the final move to take us from foreplay to sex. He had to be totally comfortable with it like he'd said in that letter to me and I was damned if I was going to mess up his internal psychological roadmap. It was become increasingly hard for me to resist, but from somewhere deep in me I called up the fortitude. I can't count however, how many times I had to slip off to the bathroom and relieve myself of what I wanted so badly to share with him and not my hand. Later, I would slide back into the bed beside his warm body and he would pull me close to him, but would say nothing. I could wait for him – he was worth it – but I couldn't pretend to him that the waiting was starting to kill me.

The second anniversary of Starsky's shooting was suddenly upon us. Incredibly however it turned out that "the" day in May was when the final piece of the whole of us slotted into place. It had been a weekend day and so we'd spent it together, filling the hours with anything that kept my mind off the motion picture relay of the horrors that had unfolded that day two years ago. It was natural for us to agree to spend the night together also. Starsky stayed at my place and we'd tumbled into my bed after consuming a few mind numbing drinks to ward off the ghosts of the date. I wanted him in bed with me that night, needed him to be close enough that I could wrap my whole body around him, reaffirming myself physically and emotionally that he was safe and whole and with me.

Despite my ongoing sexual urges toward him, that night I was simply happy enough to have him with me to hold, just that and no more. So, after we'd lain together and talked quietly for a while, it was a joyful surprise when it was Starsky who initiated the kissing and the exploratory touches. Not that he hadn't done so on other occasions of course – but this time there was a definite sense of deliberateness about the way he was moving his hands over my body and how he was looking at the parts of me he was stroking. The tempo and pressure of his touch had changed from gentle and caring to something far more erotic. My skin and nerve endings knew it, and my groin definitely knew it. I had begun to tremble beneath him, my breaths coming too fast and too shallow, causing lightheadedness even before he began unbuttoning my shirt, one button at a time with slow motion speed. He kept his eyes on my face the whole time he worked his way down my buttons, trailing his fingertips over my damp skin as each opened button exposed more of my flesh to the hot night air.

I lay still and quiet; almost too afraid to do anything that might halt his seductive moves as he slowly unbuttoned my shirt and pushed the fabric aside before lowering his head to first lap and then nip at my nipples. Clenching my jaw at the buzz of sensual tension I was thrilled that this was Starsky, not me, boldly taking the act of seduction into his own hands. It was Starsky too, who moved his hand beneath the waistband of my pants, undoing the fastening and sliding down the zip slowly. His hand dipped beneath my briefs to barely glide the tips of his fingers teasingly over the head of my already throbbing penis. It was Starsky too, who rolled me to my back and straddled me suddenly with unexpected force, holding his muscled thighs to the bared sides of my chest. I lifted a little wantonly against him, but he stopped my movements quickly by increasing the pressure of his legs, gripping my flanks like I was a nervous stallion to be controlled – and he, the skilled and strong horseman. He pulled my hands down to the sides of my shoulders and pressed them hard into the pillow. With forceful deftness he had my whole body covered and pinned down, effectively preventing me from making any willful movements beneath him. All of it, all of this overpowering sexual domination was coming from Starsky, and his whole face was alight with an almost animalistic urge to take control over me.

He was exciting the hell of me, but amongst my percolating excitement I remember seeing what really stirred me to fever pitch. There was a look of pure sexual hunger and lust shining in his eyes. It was there so vividly when he looked down at me from his position of dominance above. Held captive, not only by his hands but also from his penetrating gaze, I'd looked up into those intense navy eyes and wanted to cry out in relief. There it was, in all its dark blue, sparkling glory. What I had been waiting for all these last few months. Hot desire – frantic and just short of uncontrollable. Although close to agony with physical desire, I needed to be sure before I made any further move or said the wrong thing.

"Starsk?" My voice had quavered.

"Yes," he didn't hesitate to answer me. His voice was raspy with need but the simple answer seemed filled with certainty. He knew of course what my question was about.

"Are you sure…really? I don't want you to feel that –"

He'd looked down at the juncture of where his splayed thighs pressed against my now bared stomach. Even jean clad his rock hard erection could not be more evident as it pulsed through the incredibly tight folds of the soft denim. "Does it look like I'm sure?" he croaked, the smile tipping up the corners of his mouth in a way I could never resist. Then he dipped his head lower to nuzzle at my ear, his voice hot and seductive. "Does it feel like I'm ready Hutch?" he reinforced with a firm grind of his heated crotch against mine.

I was going insane with the need to touch him, but when I went to lift my hands he re-doubled his hold on them and frowned. "This is going to be my show babe, all mine." I felt the nip of his teeth on my ear and then the graze of his stubble as he began to move himself lower over my pinned down body. "I've been wanting this now for weeks. Ya' see I had a plan."

"A – a plan?" I could barely think let alone understand him.

"Yeah – I wanted to make us both wait. Hold out till this fucking terrible day we both hate so much and then kick it out of our minds by finally getting what we've both been holding off for now for weeks and weeks." He stopped moving down my chest for a moment, and turned his head on the side, laying his cheek flat against my chest, his soft curls tickling my underarm. As he spoke, his moving lips making small tingles of vibration across my skin. "Tonight I want to reclaim this date for you Hutch, replace your bad memories with hot sexual ones. I know how much this date freaks you out – far more than it does me, because I can't really remember much of the day at all."

Freak me out? The anniversary of seeing my partner all but bleed out while I could do nothing but scream his name and call for help? Freaking out didn't come close to what it did to me. There wasn't a word gut wrenching enough to describe how it made me feel then and still made me feel whenever I let myself visit the memory of that day.

"So I decided to make us both wait," Starsky was saying, "to do this, to make love to you like I've been aching to do and to make you think of nothing else for the rest of tonight then what I'm about to do to you. If its as good as I think its gonna be between us, then this is what'll you remember about this date from now on – not – not the," I noticed he baulked a little on the word too, despite his denial that the day conjured up less pain for him then me, "the shooting."

I needed to touch him then, touch his soft hair as it lay across my chest, touch the lips that caressed my chest – but he still wouldn't relinquish his hold on me.

"I'm goin' to do you real good Hutch – so fuckin' good. You want that – you want me to do that babe?"

"So much – I – I want you so much Starsky." Could I ever express to him how very much?

"I thought so," I felt his lips curl in a smile against my beating chest. "I'm goin' to love you so damn hard, fuck your beautiful body so damn senseless that you'll know for sure, that I never died that day Hutch. I'm alive and I'm here – and I'm never goin' to leave you again…"

He began moving his whole body down mine, slinking backward and lower down the length of the bed. As his head neared my crotch he began making almost wild animal sounds deep in his throat like some predatory beast, his arms and back muscles stretching out fully as he kept the pressure on my hands above my shoulders. I felt his hot breath near my briefs and heard him groaning softly as he moved away my open pants with his chin and pressing his nose hard against the thin fabric of my briefs. Christ he was smelling me, smelling my cock, snuffling in the heady odor that even I could smell myself, the smell of pre-sex filling the room as I clenched up my buttocks, lifting my tight balls and cock closer to his face. He snuffled and sucked in the musky odors like he was some wild dog on the scent.

"Oh man, I forgotten how you get this smell about you when you're hot for me, when you're hungry for me. Its just another thing I've missed about us…" Starsky moaned in delight as he darted out his tongue to lick up some of my milky droplets from the head of my turgid column of flesh. "Tastes so good – tastes like my Hutch – honey and sweet as well as salty and creamy."

"Oh God…. Starsk….Starsky," I choked, feeling my cock well and truly oozing now with the need to have him touch and suck me, my cock's slit dripping pre-cum like a salivating mouth.

By the end of our long night of raunchy, hot sex, my tired body replete, I looked down at the already sleeping Starsky who lay in tangled in my arms, his own body pliant and limp after his marathon performance of fierce lovemaking. Before I slipped into total post sex oblivion I kissed his head, and fingered his curls, thinking as I surrendered to sleep, I had never felt so fulfilled as I did in that moment.

SHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSH

Just after May I sat my Lieutenancy exams. In the next month not only did I find out that I had passed with flying colors but Starsky attained a second job to add to his already busy schedule of part time study and consultancy at the Child Abuse Prevention Foundation – this one being back within his familiar territory of direct police work. He had been granted a post as part time lecturer at the Police Academy within his chosen areas of expertise, weapon handling. I think he would have really preferred driving tactics, but after having finally completed his physical therapy, the possibility of having an accident behind the wheel while training cadets was just too risky. I was glad he arrived at that decision himself without me having to voice my own concerns. I was determined to never again make him feel cornered or pressured by my need to protect him and to keep him safe.

After our steamy sexual reunion we had to use even more restraint not to rush headlong into a full-blown heady overdose of sex and passion. I felt like I was some spinning top toy around Starsky. Even the lightest brush of his skin against mine threw me wildly out of orbit it was almost dangerous to be around him in public. Despite the fact that we felt like two adolescent boys just discovering the potency of our libidos we still treated each and every intimacy as a special gift and awarded each opportunity to make love with the respect that having been granted this second chance deserved. We found that our sexual attraction for each other, far from having faded in our time apart, had actually magnified in intensity. In those first few weeks leading into June and the onset of LA's baking hot days, sometimes we came close to spontaneous combustion ourselves, so hot were we for each other and so voracious were our appetites for one another's bodies.

On working days, when Starsky was not with me for hours on end, the time without him could seem as arduous on my body, as a twenty-mile run. Starsky had his own comparison to how it felt for him to spend up to ten hours without me. It was like being he said, starved of all food for forty-eight hours - which, in Starsky terms, meant he had a pretty damn tough time of it. Our working hours apart although an interminable agony to get through had the duel effect of providing us with an excruciatingly exciting build up of sexual tension. It made me wonder how the hell the two of us ever managed to work side by side all those years without mauling each other bodies from across the desk, or going for it like rabbits when we were closeted together in the cramped interior of the Torino. Days were only survived by little bites of each other in the form of intermittent phone calls. These snatched moments, whenever our busy schedules allowed, had to suffice for the hours apart. Just to hear Starsky's voice had me surging with heat and likewise he told me that when I would call to remind him of what I planned for us later that night (in the bedroom) he had to be sure he wasn't standing when he took the call. Truly, as Starsky so aptly crooned, we had "it sooo bad for each" other.

June began to merge toward the hotter days of summer and the haze of heat that hovered over smog laden LA added an extra layer to the sizzling crackle and spark between us whenever we spent time together.

"Was it ever this good for us …I mean …ever as fucking intoxicatin' as this for us, before do ya' think?" Starsky had wondered as we rolled off each other, sweat slicked and panting after another frantic coupling on a late June night.

I turned to him, unable to resist licking at a small rivulet of salty sweat as it trickled from his brow.

"It was always good babe, but it just keeps getting better – we just keep getting better – and better."

"We get any better than this Hutch, then I think you'll have ta' find yourself a new lover. Don't think my body could keep up this pace without me completely blowin' a gasket." Starsky said, rubbing his fingers over his lips, swollen and tender looking from a particularly wild kissing session.

"Well then we'd better learn to pace ourselves, because no other lover will do but you babe," I told him, serious despite the joking context. "I couldn't settle with anyone else but the perfection I have with you."

And it was true. We had come to a point of near perfection in our love and respect for each other.

So then, I asked myself the question, why would I go and fuck all the beautiful perfection sky high just one week later?

SHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSH

TBC