I only rated this R because there's nothing graphic and I don't really understand the ratings. Let me know if I should change it... Thanks again to all you who reviewed Chapters 1 and 2 - I hug you I kiss you!
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Time passed like a vague shadow, carrying the moon along it's lonely ark through the sky. The stars spiralled, and somewhere to the east dawn was breaking on another town. But here in an apartment, a tiny box in the concrete highway between heaven and earth, five men sat around a table watching a tube of glass spin its random path. They were all drunk; sweat trickled down the bodies muscled by discipline and necessity as they eagerly awaited for all motion to cease.
Slowly, painfully slowly, the bottle eased out of its frantic spin. And stopped. Crawford, whose hand was still poised over the glass, followed with his eyes the straight, invisible line that connected him another person in the room. It took him a moment to realize, to the sounds of ridiculous laughter, that the line which was strung like police tape at a crime scene was between himself....and the door to the closet.
"Impossibe!" Crawford protested, knocking the bottle away. At his side his german companion, accompanied by Ken, was doubled over in hysterics. "S -Someone is doing this on purpose - It's impossible that I could spin three times and always get the same result!"
They had been playing for over an hour, and with each spin of the bottle and roll of the die they had gotten more and more into the game. They all knew what lay in store when the game reached its end ... but anticipation makes the prize ever so sweeter, and they would patiently wait for one man's willpower to crack. So far, each man had spun twice, and ended up with a different partner each time.
Except for Crawford, of course. Each time he put his hand on the bottle and the dice, it ended up the same: the bottle pointing at the door to the damned closet, and the dice smiling with two sets of lips.
Yoji reached across the table, attempting to pat Crawford in a consoling sort of way but ending up slapping him roughly on the cheek. "S'gotta be a sign, Crawford - you ain't gonna have any fun 'til ya pucker up and head off into that closet yonder." Yoji spoke with a cigarette dangling from between his lips, complimented by a Texan drawl that could border on sexy or downright annoying. Crawford wasn't sure which it was at the moment, and pushed Yoji's hand away.
"He's right, 'darlin,'" Pushing Ken aside Sculding leaned onto Crawford, twirling a finger in the jet black locks baitingly as he spoke. "You have to do what the bottle says ... unless you'd rather do what I say." As he spoke, Schuldig slammed Crawford's brain with a series of images that made both men, already flushed from alcohol, blush.
Somewhere in the back of his alcohol-addled brain, Crawford made a mental note to thouroughly pound Schuldig the next morning. " I will NOT go to the damn closet - I will spin again."
Schuldig placed his hand over the bottle, lifting a sharply-arched brow. "Closet."
"No."
"'fraid the man's right - closet first." Yoji looked at Aya and Ken, smiling. "Am I right, gentlemen? Are those not the rules?"
Ken nodded fervently, chanting under his breath, "closet! Closet!" Aya, resting a naked elbow on the table, smiled, and looked at Crawford with amethyst eyes. "Afraid so."
Crawford surveyed his companions, looking as though the liquor in his system was the only reason he was not gutting them on the spot. He slammed his hands on the table, standing up. "FINE!"
With an air of supreme, murderous rage, Crawford stormed towards the closet with pounding footsteps. As the others looked on he yanked the door open and reached inside, so blinded by fury that he didn't even see who he was reaching for. He didn't see the shocked faces of the two boys, or the expression on the one he pulled naked form the closet and crushed against his mouth. He didn't want to know - but he felt the heat of a body relaxing in his arms, and the warmth of wet lips against his own.
The four men around the table looked on in shock. Even Schuldig, who prided himself on having seen almost everything the world had to offer, was stunned silent. My my my . . . Crawford could be full of surprises.
After a very long moment, Crawford, his eyes still closed, threw the body back in to the closet and shut the door. He stomped back over the the table and threw himself down in his seat, glaring at Schuldig.
"Crawford..." Schuldig thought, looking back at him.
"Not... one... word. Don't even say it. Let's just play the game." To the others around the table Crawford appeared to be sitting in silence, the same as before but slightly more angry and more...disturbed.
Schuldig smiled, understanding. "I wasn't going to say anything... except that you're fucking sexy when you're like that."
Crawford smiled coyly, turning to Aya and tossing him the dice.
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Inside the closet, in the inky blackness, Omi and Nagi also sat in a dumb silence.
"What the hell was that?" Omi demanded, feeling a slight and irrational tinge of jealousy. Yeah, right. He began to try to find Nagi in the dark, having been so rudely interupted that he sorely needed to be put back in the mood.
"I ... don't know." Nagi replied, running his tongue over his bruised lips. Was that...? What the hell? He felt Omi's hand brush blindly against him in the dark and grabbed it, pulling the other boy onto him. He ran his hands over the tight muscles, invisible in the dim light, that traced along Omi's back and knit with those in his strong buttocks and thighs. The familiar smell of their bodies mixed together. "But is doesn't matter." Nagi placed a finger against Omi's lips, kissing it. " Now shhhhhh ..."
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Aya arched his neck, fingers digging into the wood of the floor. Between slightly parted lips ragged breaths escaped as he watched, with dilated eyes beneath heavy lashes, Yoji go to work. He forgot the others around the table, watching them in the murky light; instead, he abandonned himself over to the warmth of the other man's mouth, the movement of his tongue, and the voyeuristic pleasure he felt in watching. To hell with it - it felt too damn good.
Yoji, looking up and catching his gaze, and bit into the index finger between his lips. "Now you know why I'm so famous for what I do." He said, wiping his mouth slowly with the back of his hand. "And THAT was just your FINGER."
Schuldig, a deep flush staining his cheeks, caught Yoji's glance. "Ohhh..that just begs the question, doesn't it?"
Aya looked away, wiping off his hand and scanning the other faces around the table. Crawford had been watching them intently, a slight grimace pulling at the corner of his mouth. His eyes, in the shadows cast by the lamp, looked bottomless and black. He looked back at Aya, with a face that made the red head's body shiver. A look that said Crawford would not be able to take much more of this game. For that matter, Aya thought, neither could he.
"I have to go pee," pronounced Ken, killing the moment. He stood up, wavering slightly, and the motion seemed to rouse the deeply-pensive Schuldig seated beside him.
"But it's your turn." Schuldig said, looking up from an advantageous angle.
"I know, but I can't hold it!" Ken frowned, walking off down the hall. " But don't skip my turn - I'll be gone for two seconds!"
"I promise - you won't miss your turn." Schuldig cooed. Watching until Ken disappeared from sight and sending him silent professions of innocence and trust, Schuldig nonchalantly curled his fingers around the cool glass bottle. He turned back to the rest of the party, looking towards Yoji and Aya, and flicked his wrist. The dice were already warming in his palm.
Suddenly, as the bottle slowed, Nagi's head popped out from the closet. Before anyone around the table knew what had happened, they looked down to see the glass on the table cracked neatly in two: one half pointing at Aya, and the other at Yoji. Beside it, two white dice clattered against the wood.
As the closet door slammed shut again Aya, realizing what had happened, stared for a long moment at the bottle, and at the two dice now lying side by side on the table. He laughed out loud, looking at Shuldig. "Wow - was that by luck of the draw?"
Schuldig smiled back, running a hand through his wild hair and closing his eyes. "What? There's no such thing as luck - only advantage." From the closet they could hear the sounds of the other boys' laughter banging against the walls.
"Too bad, though," Aya replied, casting an eye at the dice once more, "I don't think that THAT'S something you can do. At least, not with two people at once." Yoji, on his hands and knees, crawled over to where Schuldig slouched against the couch. Neatly, adeptly, he pulled the other man against himself so that he could feel the heat from Schuldig's back agains his naked chest. As spoke to Aya he began traiing his fingers lightly over Schuldig's thighs, and buried his mouth in his neck. "Don't worry, Aya," Yoji said, nipping Schuldig's sensitive skin with his teeth, "We're experts at this kind of thing."
Aya nodded, crawling over to Schuldig. "Oh, that's right - I forgot you had so much field experience." Aya said, laughing at himself. He was so drunk, he barely knew where he was .. but he knew that, at times like these, he was blissfully happy. These were the moments that answered to no one. He straddled Shuldig's lap, running his fingers down the expensive cotton shirt and ripping off the buttons as Schuldig covered his mouth with savage kisses. The light in the room seemed so bright when reflected off the crisp linen and his own alabaster flesh, he thought, beginning to trail a line of kisses down Schuldig's taunt stomach. Schuldig, arching his neck, grabbed a fistful of crimson hair as Aya reached his belt and tugged at the Italian leather with white teeth.
Crawford, sitting across the table from the others, rested the bridge of his nose between his thumb and index finger before slamming the tabletop with both palms. "What? I'm here too, god damn it - What's the matter with me!?" He demanded, standing up.
Aya, Schuldig, and Yoji each paused im mid-action, and looked up at Crawford in surprise. In their eagernes, they had almost forgotten he was there. Ken, who had apparently stopped in the kitchen on his way back, walked innocently into the room. A ring of cookie crumbs circled his lips, and he was licking chocolate icing off one of his fingers. He looked at Crawford, smiling. "What's going on?"
Crawford stared back for a short moment with an intensity that made Ken feel completely exposed. "You!" He commanded, walking towards Ken, "Come with me!" He grabbed Ken by back of the head and kissed him; then, yanking the younger boy off his feet, pulled him towards the stairs leading to the bedroom. Ken, confused, did not resist. Hell, it was almost flattering. Like victor in a battle Ken waved mockingly at the three men seated on the living room floor, and eagerly followed the American up the stairs.
Yoji, Schuldig, and Aya sat still, listening to Crawford and Ken thump up towards the master bedroom. Where the silk sheets were. Where the bed was. Slowly, knowlingly, each of the three men looked at each other. And grinned. Without saying a word they scrambled to get up, grabbing at each other and racing for the stairs. Yoji, pausing for a breif instant, turned and ran back to the living room table. He grabbed the bag he had taken out earlier, shaking it; inside, he could hear the contents knocking softly together. "What a night." Yoji smiled, and raced off after the others.