Chapter 11
It couldn't have been more than an hour before I woke again. The room was still gloomy, and I imagined it wasn't full daylight. Arthur's arm was moving against mine, and I realised he was stroking himself. Apparently, the embarrassment of that first time hadn't put him off. Yesterday probably changed things. I kissed his ear. He froze and held his breath.
"Keep doing it," I whispered.
He let out a rapid breath, then breathed in again. I slid my hand under the bottom of his T-shirt and stroked his stomach. It quivered under my touch. He gasped out another breath. His arm began to move again, and he rolled his head back against my shoulder.
My dick hardened, and I rolled my hips to rub against him. I ached to feel flesh on flesh and wondered if he would freak out if I removed the layers of clothing between us. His arm moved quicker, and he moaned with pleasure. My erection throbbed. I could probably come like this, without anything more. Arthur lying in my arms masturbating was much more of a turn on that I could have imagined.
I tucked my face into his neck and kissed the pulse there, then tugged gently at his skin with my teeth. "Are you close?" I whispered.
He whimpered and squirmed against me. "Need… more," he gasped out.
"You want me to?"
Instead of answering, he did what I'd been thinking about. He pushed his pyjama pants and underwear down, then reached behind him and groped for the waistband of my briefs. I helped him and slid them down my thighs. My erection sprang free and bumped bare skin. I pushed it against his arse, sliding along the crack. He took my hand and pushed it lower, to his cock. I curled my fist around it, finding it slick and wet with precome.
"Please, Travis." His voice had gone husky.
I started stroking him, hard and fast, twisting my wrist a little at the end of each upstroke. He was gone, writhing in my arms, his arse rubbing against me and giving me just enough friction as he shot his load into my palm. I spurted onto his warm skin, embarrassed by how easily I came. Rather than pull away and hurry to the bathroom, I gathered him closer to me, ignoring the slick wetness in my hand and the mess between us. Arthur covered my hand with his, keeping it tucked around his softening cock. Minutes passed, and he didn't move.
"You okay, Arthur?"
"Yes. I don't want to move. I don't want it to end."
"We need to get cleaned up."
"But, I—" He released my hand and turned his face into the pillow. "I don't want to never have this again."
"Arthur." I drew away from him and sat up. What was he asking of me? More of the same? A commitment? "What do you want?"
"I want you to—" Colour crept up the part of his face that I could see.
"What do you want, Arthur? Tell me."
"Are you going to leave me?"
"No." I tugged him over onto his back and made him look at me. "Tell me what you were really going to say."
"Just that." His gaze darted away. "This was only meant to be temporary, wasn't it?"
"In the beginning. Things seem to have changed." I grinned. "I'm not going anywhere, Arthur. Not yet, anyway. We'll see what happens."
"I was going to say—" He blinked and when he opened his eyes again, they were staring directly into mine. "Next time, I want you to fuck me. Do you want to?"
My mouth went dry. Did I want to? I'd thought about it. I couldn't help myself. I'd thought about it just minutes ago, when my erection was sliding along the crack of his arse. I'd imagined what it might feel like to be inside him—hot, tight, intense. We'd probably need something. What did they call it? Lube?
"It's okay if you don't." He turned his head away, and I realised I'd waited too long without answering. "I'm sorry I asked. It was, um, the heat of the moment." A squawk of laughter burst from him, and he covered his mouth to stifle it.
Damn. I upset him without even doing anything; just by not saying anything for too long. And I did want to. More than I would have thought possible.
"Arthur." I leaned over him and pressed my lips to his ear. "I do want to."
His breath caught in his throat. "It'll be my first time."
"I know that. Mine too, with a man."
Suddenly, he smiled. "We should get cleaned up."
"Yeah." I pulled away from him again. "You want to go first?"
"We could go together." He threw back the bed covers, revealing his lower body still partly uncovered.
"And here's me thinking you were shy."
"Not anymore. Not when you want me." He sat up and peeled his T-shirt off over his head. His torso was so painfully thin, I had to hide a wince. Every rib pushed against his skin, his collar bones sharp and angular. When he wriggled out of the rest of his clothes, my gaze drifted down to the sharp V below his jutting hip bones, and his thin legs. "I don't look as good as you."
"You look fine. I like you as you are. I just think you need to put on a bit of weight, for yourself."
"I try. It's hard." His smile slipped.
"I know that. We'll work on it." I slipped off my briefs and tossed them aside. "It's going to be a bit of a squeeze in that shower."
Somehow, we managed it. Arthur stood in the corner of the tiny shower facing the wall, while I washed his hair and his back. He squirmed under my hands like a cat, and I almost expected him to start purring when I washed his hair, combing my fingers through the wet strands which no longer held even a hint of green. When he turned around so I could start on his chest, he was hard again. He flushed scarlet when I glanced down, but the self-satisfied grin on his face didn't falter.
I leaned in under the hot spray and brushed my lips across his. "You're sexy, Arthur."
"Am I?" He leaned back against the wall, posing. "I've never thought of myself that way."
"You should." I squeezed more liquid soap into my hand and reached for his erection. "You want a little more?"
His eyelids drooped and he arched his neck. "Yes."
I jerked him off again, slower this time. Seeing him like this aroused me all over again, despite having come so recently. I added more soap and wrapped my hand around us both together. Arthur grunted in surprise as I began to rub our dicks against each other. It felt so good, touching him, sliding against him. It was all new to me, too. I didn't know what I was doing, but it all felt good. We came together, the shower quickly washing away the evidence.
Arthur picked up the shampoo then and began washing my hair. No one had ever done that for me before, and I closed my eyes as his fingers massaged my scalp. It felt almost as good as when he'd stroked my hair that day to help me go to sleep. When he finished, he washed me from head to foot, by which time the water had gone tepid and threatened to turn cold. We got out and dried off.
"Are you feeling better today?" I asked as we found clean clothes to put on.
"Yes, a little. That's your doing. Thank you."
"When do you start doing the Punch and Judy gig? It's today, isn't it?"
He nodded. "I'll be glad to be earning some money."
I started making coffee and oatmeal, and Arthur switched on the television. The news was on, and the first thing I heard was that a James Pearson had been found dead in his home, after having possibly surprised a burglar. The fact that he'd been shot twice with two guns, one being his own in an apparent suicide, confused police. They had interviewed his girlfriend, Cheryl Steeple, who was in the hospital after having been beaten by him. She was a suspect and police were looking for taxi driver, Travis Bickle, who had picked up Cheryl from the street. He was said to have seen her being chased by James, meaning she couldn't have been responsible for his shooting.
"Shit," I muttered. Way to draw attention to yourself, Travis.
Arthur looked at me. "You helped that woman?"
"Yeah. She was running away from him last night; jumped into my car. He banged on the window as I drove away."
"He's dead."
"So it says."
Arthur's eyes widened. "Did you kill him?"
"It said he shot himself," I said carefully.
"It said he might have, but he was shot by another gun, too. Were you there?"
"She told me where to find him; gave me the address," I admitted. "He's a worthless piece of shit. I shot him in the shoulder and encouraged him to finish the job."
Arthur smiled. "He was awful," he said. "Like Sport. Like those three rich guys. Like Murray."
"Yeah, he was awful."
"Are you going to contact them and give her an alibi?"
"Yeah, I'll have to." I didn't relish the idea. I'd probably end up on the suspect list, but what else could I do? I passed Arthur some coffee and a bowl of oatmeal. "Make sure you eat that so you can take your pills."
"Yes, Mom." He grinned. He ate but drank water between bites and took twice as long as me to finish the bowl. His smile quickly disappeared, and a frown creased his brow.
"You okay?"
"Yeah. A bit nauseous. I'll be better in a few days." He took his pills, then got his puppets out to practise. He had an hour before he was to leave for the market.
I wrote in my journal, pretending not to pay attention to Arthur, but I listened to the comical conversations between the characters. He was good and I knew he'd do well so long as he didn't lose his nerve.
After he left, I called the cops and arranged to go to the station to give a statement about Cheryl. As I waited to be seen, I began to convince myself they'd cotton on to what I'd done, especially given my history. But I was in luck. The sergeant who interviewed me had been involved when I got rid of Sport and his minions. In fact, Sergeant Rodgers had been the one to practically strangle me in his efforts to stop my bleeding before the ambulance arrived.
"Mr Bickle." He showed me into an interview room and closed the door. "It's been a while."
"I've been out of town."
"You haven't wasted much time drawing attention to yourself." He winked and offered me a cup of coffee from the machine in the corner.
"Well, you know, damsel in distress."
"Here you go." He passed me a paper cup of coffee and sat down at the other side of the table. "This isn't about you, by the way. It's about Miss Cheryl Steeple. Do you want to tell me what happened last night, starting with you first seeing her?"
I recited the events, including her fiancé banging on my window, proving that he was alive and kicking at the time I took her to the hospital. I left out the part where she told me her address.
"So, you didn't see any more of him after that moment?"
"No." I eyed him steadily.
"The circumstances of his death are confusing. He seems to have surprised a burglar, and yet the bullet that killed him was from his own gun. An apparent suicide."
"Yeah, I heard that on the news." I shrugged one shoulder. "Maybe he had an attack of guilt. You know, over Cheryl."
"Maybe. What did you do after you left the hospital?"
"I'd had enough for the night. I was tired. I went home."
"Where is home? Is there anyone there who could confirm when you arrived?"
I gave him my address. "I don't have an alibi. Didn't think I'd be needing one, otherwise I might have checked in with the warden when I got back. Don't think he'd have been too impressed to be woken up in the middle of the night, though."
"Okay, Travis. That'll do for now."
"That's it?"
He smiled. "Were you expecting to be treated like a criminal?"
"No. But I helped the woman, I saw her man and know what he did, and I have no proof as to where I was."
"Well, like I said, this isn't about you. You're her alibi, that's all. I know where to find you if we have any more questions, although I don't think that's likely."
"Thanks, Sergeant."
Minutes later, I was back in my car heading home to try to get some sleep before Arthur returned. I was sure Sergeant Rodgers suspected I was more involved than I admitted, but if he did, he clearly didn't want to know about it and would rather pass the incident off as a simple burglary gone wrong and a suicide. Then I remembered something. A few years back, not long before I killed Sport, there had been an incident in the paper. Sergeant Rodgers' daughter had been beaten half to death by her boyfriend, and all the system gave him was five years in prison. Perhaps the Sergeant thought James Pearson got what he deserved and was happy to bury any thoughts he had on who was responsible.
