Won’t You Let Me Take You on a Sea Cruise?

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Hutch hopes an unexpected opportunity to get away from it all with Starsky might turn out to be a fantasy come true.

 

This story was first published in the zine Venice Place Chronicles, Volume V, in 2005, by Keri T.

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“Starsky. Hutchinson. Come in here.”

The tone of Dobey’s voice had Hutch looking at his partner, while mentally thumbing through his brain for what they might have done to put that rumble of long-suffering exasperation in their captain’s voice. They had only been in the squad room five minutes, and Hutch could think of nothing they had done–recently–to get them in trouble. Starsky’s shrug and innocent expression confirmed that he, too, was coming up blank.

“We in some kind of trouble, Captain?” Starsky asked. He never had been one to sit and wait for disaster to take its own sweet time calling.

“Just get your tails in here,” Dobey growled, and lumbered back into his office.

Hutch closed the cover of the file he had been reading and pushed up out of his chair. “You didn’t do anything I don’t know about, did you?” he teased Starsky, rounding the table and falling into step behind his partner.

“Me? Why’d it have to be me?” Starsky complained as he crossed the threshold, then unexpectedly stopped in his tracks.

Hutch bumped him another step forward before he could slow his momentum, then nudged Starsky in the small of the back so he could get a better look at Dobey’s visitor. A familiar face, but not one Hutch had ever expected to see again.

“Commodore Atwater,” he and Starsky said in surprised unison, then, as if their heads were controlled by the same puppet master, looked to Dobey for explanations. It was true that Huggy’s little magic show hadn’t been much of a success, but surely the little scratch the volunteer had sustained didn’t merit a visit from the head honcho himself. Especially several weeks after the event.

“Boys, I’m glad to see you again,” Commodore Atwater greeted them with a pleased smile that made Hutch relax just a little. His next words, however, reversed the effect. “I just wish the circumstances were happier.”

“Now, Commodore, I’ve already tried to tell you repeatedly that it’s department policy….”

Both detectives were amazed to see Dobey subside into abashed silence in response to an upraised hand and stern glower from the old seaman. Dobey argued for their sake with Chief Ryan, and had stood up to the mayor himself in defense of his boys. Yet here he was, backing down like a chastised schoolboy from a civilian. Maybe the woman had developed blood poisoning and died, Hutch thought. It would be just their luck.

“Boys, I’ve been trying to make this captain of yours see sense ever since the two of you risked life and limb to save a ship I’m rather fond of from being blown out of the water.” Atwater paused to loose that filthy chuckle of his. “Not to mention the nightmare insurance premiums I’d be facing if all those people had gone with it. Every day, I call him–”

“And every day I have explained that both of these fine officers have been given official commendations, and that it’s department policy–”

“Department policy my briny old arse,” the commodore interrupted again, making Hutch feel a little like he was watching a tennis match. He had the uncomfortable feeling, however, that he and Starsky, or at least something concerning himself and his equally confused partner, might just be the little yellow ball being batted back and forth.

“Commodore. Captain. If one of you could please tell us what’s going on,” Hutch invited, in the hopes of gaining a clue. At the moment, he certainly couldn’t say he owned a single one.

Both older men opened their mouths, then glared at each other before, for a second time, Dobey gave ground. It had to be those fierce eyebrows, that, Hutch suspected, Atwater deliberately left untrimmed for the purpose of intimidation.

“As I was saying,” Atwater continued, his glare softening to a smile as he turned it on Starsky and Hutch. “You boys saved me a cargo hold full of trouble, and I’m not a man to shirk a responsibility like that. Like to keep my debts cleared.”

Hutch caught the clue at just about the same time that, he could tell from his partner’s expression, Starsky caught a glimmer. They weren’t in trouble; Atwater wanted to reward them. They had to refuse, of course. Dobey was quite right, even if the commodore wouldn’t let him finish a sentence. The BCPD regulations didn’t allow officers to accept rewards for doing their jobs. No matter how far above and beyond the call of duty searching out four bombs and then racing to fling them over the side of the ship seconds before they exploded might be. But still, it was nice to be appreciated.

“That’s very kind of you, Commodore, but…” Starsky began before Hutch could work his way past the glow of being appreciated to the cold reality of having to decline. “…the captain isn’t telling you old sea yarns. The department won’t let us accept rewards. You know, some people might look on them as bribes.”

“Oh, I know that, boys. Read your regulations myself,” Atwater agreed while wearing a decidedly cunning expression. “But there’s not a word in those damned regulations that says I can’t offer you my hospitality.”

“Hospitality?” Hutch echoed, feeling that clue he thought he had found beginning to turn into a red herring.

“Hospitality, Mr. Hutchinson,” Atwater confirmed. “The Amapola is, after all, one of my homes away from home. I want to invite both of you boys to take a little cruise on her. As guests this time. Frankly, I don’t think the Amapola’s reputation could stand another cruise with the two of you as entertainment directors.”

Hutch wished he had had the good sense to sit down when he had come into the room, because, right now, he was feeling just a little woozy. Several days at sea with Starsky. No job. No cases. No distractions. Nothing but him and Starsky relaxing together. And, if only Hutch could scrape up the nerve, a chance to broach a most delicate subject that had been on his mind for quite some time now. The possibilities were…impossible, of course, because Hutch was all too familiar with the stubborn expression on Dobey’s face. The only place he and Starsky were going to be cruising was their beat in that damned red tomato. He didn’t care how it looked, Hutch went and slumped down onto the chair next to Atwater’s wheelchair.

“A cruise?” Starsky echoed, looking as dumbfounded as Hutch felt, but not, Hutch was sure, for the same reason. It was just too cruel to have such an opportunity presented and snatched away, all in the same few seconds.

“Seven days,” Atwater confirmed. “Leaving Bay City tomorrow with stops in Mazatlan, Manzanillo, and Acapulco.” He looked more like somebody’s favorite old uncle, now, with his face wreathed in beatific smiles. The salty old Captain of the Line returned, however, when Dobey again offered his objections.

“Department regulations do not allow officers to accept rewards,” Dobey insisted, this time meeting Atwater glower for glower. “Whatever name you want to give them.”

“I once had a parrot just like you, Captain Dobey. Only ever managed to learn one sentence,” Atwater told them. “I got so tired of hearing ‘blow the man down, sonny, blow the man down,’ I wrung his neck, and had the cook roast him for my supper.”

“If that’s a threat,” Dobey growled, coming half out of his chair.

“Gentlemen. Gentlemen. No need for violence,” Starsky said, stepping into the small space between the Commodore and Dobey’s desk, holding out his arms as if to hold the contestants apart. “Unfortunately, as much as we appreciate it, and we do appreciate it, right, Hutch?”

Appealed to directly, Hutch had no option but to nod in agreement with the polite refusal he knew his partner was about to deliver. He might want to throw a temper tantrum, wish he could stomp his feet and hold his breath like a three-year-old determined to have his way, but he had to hang on to some dignity. God knew, he had been having more and more trouble with that lately.

“I have just one question for you two, and I want an honest answer,” Atwater demanded, and pointed a quelling finger at Dobey. “Honest, mind you, not what you think you’re supposed to say.”

“What question?” Hutch prompted him, a growing excitement chasing away his gloom even though he couldn’t quite pinpoint the cause of it. Was it Atwater’s determined expression, or was it the sudden softening of Dobey’s? The captain had a look about him now almost as if he had been deliberately orchestrating the entire conversation and was quite satisfied with his manipulations.

“Do you want to go?”

“Hell, yes,” Hutch replied immediately, unsurprised to hear words, tone and inflection from Starsky blend in perfect harmony with him.

“Then, boys,” the commodore said, pushing hard on the wheels of his chair to back himself clear of the desk. “I suggest you start packing.” Expertly, he spun the chair and pushed it to the door leading out into the corridor. He opened the door, and then spun back around to face Dobey to fire his final salvo. “Captain Dobey, I would expect you’ll be hearing from the mayor. Probably within the hour.”

The door had barely closed behind the Commodore before Dobey’s rich laughter filled the room. “That feisty old sea dog,” he gasped out between bass rumbles. “I’ve been trying to get him to go over my head and leave me alone for days now,” he confessed. “Maybe he’s more senile then he thinks, or maybe all that salt air has pickled his brain.”

Suspicions confirmed, Hutch met Starsky’s twinkling eyes and joined in the laughter. He didn’t know exactly when Starsky had caught on, but the dancing blue eyes and face-splitting grin was proof enough that he was fully up to speed now. Dobey, of course, even if he wanted to, didn’t have the authority to give in to Atwater’s demands. Only the chief, or better yet, the mayor, could concede without being accused of, at the very least, favoritism.

“So we’re going?” Starsky asked, even though they both knew that, by this time tomorrow, they were going to be sailing–or steaming–the deep blue sea.

“Like the man said, you two better get home and start packing,” Dobey commanded, both hands shooing them out of his sight.

“Ooee, ooee, baby. Ooee, ooee, baby,” Starsky began singing in his uncertain baritone when Hutch caught up with him.

“Won’t you let me take you on a sea cruise,” Hutch joined in as they hustled out the door.

~*~*~

“Aren’t you supposed to be packing?” Hutch asked when Starsky breezed through his door several hours later. He dropped the neatly folded shirt he held into the suitcase that sat, already half-filled, on his bed, and went to the closet to select the next item. He would be further along in his packing himself if he hadn’t had to do his laundry first.

“All done,” Starsky bragged, sprawling comfortably on the couch and dumping the armload of glossy pamphlets he carried onto the cushion beside him. “Ran down to the shipping office and picked these up. Figured we might as well have a look at all the fun we’re gonna have for the next…” He paused as if he was savoring the next words, letting them melt like swiss chocolate and coat his tongue with their rich, dark flavor. “…seven whole days.”

The tone of Starsky’s voice, the expression of sensual bliss on his face, made Hutch very glad indeed that he was presently busy rummaging in his closet. He almost laughed as he realized how utterly appropriate his location was. He was in the closet, had been for months, and now, suddenly, it looked like he was going to have an opportunity to open the door and see if Starsky might be interested in making it a closet for two.

“Help yourself to a beer,” he offered belatedly when he heard the refrigerator door open. “And tell me about some of this fun we’re going to have.” He selected his yellow v-necked shirt and carried it to the bed, almost embarrassed to admit he had chosen it, and almost every other item already in his suitcase, because Starsky had once given him an off-hand compliment of how well it suited him. Damn, he really was besotted to think it would matter what clothes he wore. Starsky had seen him at his very worst–filthy, beaten, sweat-soaked and puking. What Hutch hoped to begin between them wasn’t going to have anything to do with the way he looked. Nevertheless, there was something to be said for the idea that a man should dress for success.

A long, low whistle drew Hutch’s attention away from the shirt he was folding back to where Starsky was pouring over the pamphlets. “Something good?”

“There are four bars and three dining rooms on the Amapola. They’ve even got a poolside barbeque,” Starsky read with enthusiasm.

Hutch laughed. “Leave it to you to be more interested in your stomach than our ports of call.”

“Hell, yes,” Starsky agreed. “We’re only in port three days. The rest of the time, we’re at sea. Gotta keep our strength up, you know. Hope the food’s good.”

“It was the last time. It was the captain who was killed, not the chef,” Hutch reminded him, still smiling indulgently at his friend’s predictability. He tucked the yellow shirt into the suitcase and returned to the closet, pushing the door open a little wider to let the bright, setting sun’s glow illuminate his choices. The beige sport coat, dress slacks and brown shirt, or should he go with the navy and maybe a pale blue shirt?

“True,” Starsky conceded. Hutch heard him shuffling through the pamphlets, muttering to himself for a minute before he again spoke loudly and clearly enough for Hutch to understand him. “Dinner and dancing in the Acapulco Lounge. Disco Under The Stars. Dance ’til dawn in the Crow’s Nest. Dammit, Hutch, we’re gonna have so much fun.”

And just like that, the glow of the sun in Hutch’s open apartment faded as if a storm cloud had passed over it. A storm cloud formed by the eager enthusiasm in Starsky’s voice. Starsky loved to dance. Starsky loved to dance with beautiful women. They weren’t going to be alone on this idyllic cruise Atwater had gifted them with. There would be five hundred other passengers, and Hutch remembered now what another jaded employee, believing Hutch to be the newly-minted entertainment director, Hack, had told him. Women always outnumbered the men on a cruise by at least two to one.

Hutch returned, empty-handed, to his suitcase and stood staring down into it, hardly hearing as Starsky continued to extol the virtues of the carefree, cruising life. Slowly, he reached out and closed the lid on the case, mentally tucking his foolish dreams inside it. In a few minutes, he would stuff it back in the closet where it belonged.

“I’m not going,” he said, surprised by the normal tone that had squeezed past the lump in his throat. He ought to be used to watching love’s dreams suffocate by now, he had had enough practice at it. Vanessa, Gillian, Abby. One failed dream after another.

“And there’s tennis courts,” Starsky continued to read. “Bet you could even… Huh? What did you say?”

A deep breath, sucked all the way down to his knees to take the tremble out of them, and then Hutch turned away from the bed, made his legs stroll casually over to the couch where Starsky sat amid a scatter of Kodachrome promises. “I said I’m not going.”

It seemed to take Starsky a few moments to process the simple syllables and a few more to drop his brain from stunned neutral into drive. “Of course we’re going, Hutch. The mayor said it was okay. I’m packed.” A hand was waved toward the suitcase on Hutch’s bed. “You’re almost packed.”

“I’m not going,” Hutch repeated, this third time a little easier than the two before, easy enough that he could add a sentence or two. “You go, Starsk. You’ll have a great time. You just said so yourself.”

And just as the glow from the sun had disappeared so abruptly from the apartment, so did the carefree anticipation that had surrounded Starsky disappear into somber inquiry. He studied Hutch so long that it was all he could do to stand still beneath the probing gaze.

“I said we’ll have a great time, Hutch,” Starsky finally said, soft and serious and…hurt.

Hutch couldn’t bear it, turned his back on the painful lack of understanding on Starsky’s face. “I’m not going,” he said again. For the last time. Surely, even at his thickest, Starsky didn’t have to hear it more than four times to get the message. Hutch had tried to make it sound implacable, the way Starsky knew he could be when his mind was made up and nothing on earth was going to change it. But he could hear his own despair, and if he could hear it, there was no hope it could slip by Starsky.

“What’s wrong, babe?” Starsky asked.

It was the endearment that did it. Starsky had been calling him that for years, but he never said it casually. Babe wasn’t like Blondie or Blintz or any of the other nicknames Starsky had hung on him, sometimes briefly, sometimes often enough that they stuck. Babe was reserved for the times when Starsky, for whatever reason, needed to connect, comfort, or appeal. A code that Hutch couldn’t ignore. He turned back to face his friend who, he had discovered, he wanted to be more than friend, and knew his feelings were written all over his face in letters so clear it wouldn’t even take Starsky’s special knowledge of him to read them.

“There’s been something I’ve been wanting to talk to you about for a long time,” he added his verbal confession. “There just never seemed to be the right time, or when it is, I…chicken out. Something…” The words refused to come to him, leaving him helplessly mute just as he had been unable to summon them any other right time.

Starsky leaned back on the couch. “This something. It wouldn’t have anything to do with that, would it?” he asked.

The slow nod of Starsky’s head that accompanied the question felt like a caress as the blue eyes swept Hutch’s body, coming to rest below his belt. Somehow, Hutch managed to resist the urge to cover his crotch with his hand, to shield the erection he hadn’t even been aware of, from knowing eyes. He couldn’t shield it, couldn’t hide it. All he could do was brazen it out. “With what?”

Slower even than the first sweep had been, Starsky’s gaze caressed him again as it lifted back to Hutch’s. “With the way you seem to get a hard-on every time we’re alone.” He paused, his lips quirking into the faintest of smiles, but his eyes remaining narrowed to laser beams that seemed to hold Hutch in place. “If you’ve got something to tell me, Hutch, just tell me,” he invited.

“I don’t want you to hate me,” Hutch whispered.

“Did you murder my mother?” Starsky asked and, when Hutch gave an uncomprehending shake of his head, went on. “That’s the only thing I can think of might make me hate you.” The hint of a smile deepened, not with humor, but with Starsky’s awareness of how true the rest of it was. “Even then, if you had a really good reason….”

Hutch was almost unaware of the steps that brought him to the couch, the boneless folding down of his body that found him seated on colorful pamphlets, as it hit him that Starsky meant it. No jokes. No evasions. Starsky had already ferreted out his secret, who knew how long ago, and all Hutch needed to do now was confirm it.

Hutch lined up the words and hoped they would slip out as easily as they had in his fantasies. “I…I think I love you,” he said, but somewhere between his brain and his tongue the polish seemed to have disappeared, along with one or two of the words. Crucial words. “I mean, I think I’ve fallen in love with you,” he tried again for the sake of clarity.

“You’re not sure?” Starsky asked.

For a moment, Hutch thought he saw disappointment on Starsky’s face, but it disappeared so quickly, and he was so busy trying to simply keep up with his own emotions, that he couldn’t be sure of his interpretations. And, in any case, Starsky was waiting for an answer.

“How am I supposed to be sure?” Hutch said, unsurprised that Starsky had unerringly put his finger on exactly the reason why, every time the time and the place were right, Hutch had lost his nerve. “I’ve never… No other guy has ever made me… And there’s the job. And Dobey. And….”

Starsky looked down at the pamphlets he still held in his hand, his thumb rubbing over the bikini-clad beauty posing beside the sparkling pool. First he lifted his head, then his hand, flicking the stiff paper until it gave a little snap. “That’s why you were so excited about the cruise. Figured it would be a good time to, excuse the pun, test the waters?”

Hutch felt a fleeting echo of the excitement that had possessed him, the anticipation of all the possibilities. But it was there and gone so fast he wasn’t quick enough to hold it, rekindle it, fan it back to warmth. “Yeah.”

“So, how are we gonna do that if I’m there and you’re here?” Starsky asked, dropping the pamphlet and reaching out to touch Hutch’s arm, his fingers curling around it when Hutch tried to pull away. “I’m not making jokes, Hutch. Yeah, I can tell by the look on your face what you’re doing, what you’re thinking.” He paused and smiled, the expression seeming to sit uncomfortably on lips beneath cheeks that had become just a little pink. The blush deepened a little as Starsky continued. “It took me a while to realize what was happening to you and when, and that I was probably the one making it happen. Took some getting used to.”

“I’ll bet it did,” Hutch snapped, snatching his arm away from Starsky’s grip. “Figuring out your partner was going qu–”

“Don’t, Hutch,” Starsky cut in, and whether it was a warning or a plea, it was hard for Hutch to tell in his present state. “Don’t try to make it sound like something awful.”

“If you didn’t think so, why didn’t you say something?” Hutch countered. Even for Starsky, he could only squirm in the hot seat for so long before pride and self-protection demanded he get off it.

“Because ‘I never have’ ‘No other guy’ ‘And the job’ ‘And Dobey’,” Starsky quoted softly.

His own words, not thrown back in his face, but laid out between them for Hutch to understand and accept that he wasn’t the only uncertain one here. “So you think the cruise might be a good time to…?” he ventured cautiously.

Starsky shrugged, shoulders and eyebrows lifting in tandem, then sinking back where they belonged. “Better than trying to fit it in between drug busts and stakeouts,” he joked.

Carefully, at first uncertain if his legs were going to hold him, feeling more than a little punch drunk, Hutch stood up, hesitated a moment looking down into Starsky’s expectant face. “Then…I guess I better finish packing.”

Starsky let him get as far as the alcove, even lift the lid on the suitcase, before he shook Hutch’s fledgling confidence just a little. “Just one thing, Hutch. If you turn out of be a lousy kisser, all bets are off.”

A warning, Hutch wondered? A gentle way to remind him that Starsky was making no promises for the future, only offering a willingness to “test the waters”? Or a dare? Not an attempt to shake his confidence, but an effort to stir his determination. As with so much of this conversation he had never really expected to have with his partner, Hutch couldn’t tell which it was, but either way, he had to respond. He took one step back toward Starsky. “You could find that out now if you want.”

Starsky laughed, pushed himself up off the couch and then bent to shuffle a handful of the pamphlets together. “Uh, uh,” he refused to take up the gauntlet Hutch had thrown down. “On the cruise. Just in case you decide I’m a lousy kisser, I’ll have seven days to improve my technique. See ya in the morning.” With a wink and a wave and a slamming of the door, Starsky was gone.

Slowly, Hutch sank down onto the bed beside his suitcase as it hit him that the secret he had been guarding so carefully wasn’t a secret anymore. Starsky knew, and, in just a few hours, Hutch was going to be expected to act upon what, up until now, had been only a safe, if both exciting and frightening fantasy. He replayed their conversation in his head, but couldn’t decide if he had made it clear to Starsky that even he wasn’t entirely sure just what he was looking for. He didn’t think so, and, in retrospect, unclouded by shock, he wasn’t certain exactly what Starsky had been offering either.

But he was committed now. To something. To, at the very least, finding out if reality lived up to fantasy. Climbing to his feet, Hutch went to the closet to continue packing, feeling excitement at the possibilities claim him again. It had been a long time since Hutch had felt this excited about a new love. That standing on a precipice and waiting to fall into something delightful anticipation that could make you feel like you were walking on air. How strange to feel it, he thought, as he selected a shirt and carried it back to the bed, for the old friend he had loved for such a very long time.

~*~*~

They had six suitcases between them and only four hands, Hutch realized, as the taxi that had brought them to the pier pulled away from the curb. Behind them, the Amapola towered in all her gleaming, white-painted and bunting-festooned glory. The thought of himself and Starsky struggling through the check-in and loading process, loaded down like a couple of prospector’s jackasses was enough to take some of the zing out of Hutch’s excitement. Not so his partner, Hutch observed with a tolerant smile. Starsky was nearly dancing in place, his curly head whipping around as he tried to take in every sight of the hustle and bustle of their arriving fellow passengers.

“Come on, Starsky,” Hutch said nevertheless. “You remember what this is like. A cattle call, and I’d rather be someplace near the front of the herd than trailing along behind in the dust.”

“Oh, yeah. Sure thing. You think they’ll give us a nice room like Helen had?” Starsky asked, obediently taking up his share of the luggage.

“They call them cabins on a ship,” Hutch corrected automatically, winced and then forgave himself. It was only nerves, and, as usual, Starsky didn’t seem to mind.

“Right, cabins. But do you think we’ll have something better than the last time?” he asked, falling into step beside Hutch. “I mean, last time we were in crew quarters. Not much privacy.”

Hutch felt a little frisson of excitement shiver through him at the reminder that Starsky knew his secret. Starsky had tactically agreed to explore the possibilities. Starsky was the one who had introduced the subject of kissing. But it didn’t seem to Hutch that the tone of his friend’s voice was particularly suggestive, or intimate, so he quelled his excitement and took the inquiry at face value. “We aren’t crew members this time. I doubt they’re going to bunk us in with the stewards.”

It wasn’t the first time since they had met that Hutch wished he really could read Starsky’s mind. He would like to know what was going on behind the enigmatic little smile Starsky gave him for his reply, but the chaos of arriving passengers hardly seemed the place to start such a conversation.

They had reached the end of the line leading to the building that housed the check-in offices. With relief, Hutch set his luggage down and pulled the tickets out of his pocket. “I hope you remembered your passport.”

“You asked me that when you picked me up,” Starsky reminded him. “I showed it to you in the cab.”

Hutch ignored the reminder, choosing instead to do a little rubbernecking of his own. They weren’t exactly at the head of the herd, but it wasn’t the crowd in front of them that caused Hutch’s heart to sink, it was the composition of that crowd. Couples, for sure, a dozen, of them, maybe, hanging onto each other and their luggage possessively. There were even a few lone or, like him and Starsky, duos of assumedly single men. But the vast majority of this herd consisted of heifers. Not all of them young, not all of them pretty, but enough to shake Hutch’s newborn confidence right down into the insoles of his shoes. If he had been wearing sandals, he had no doubt that the elusive commodity would have leaked right out the open sides. How the hell had he ever thought he had a hope of catching and holding Starsky’s attention when they were going to be surrounded by more pretty female distractions than the sea had fishes?

“Hutch, that lady up there is looking for us.”

Give up while you’re ahead, Hutch advised himself, trying hard to take his own advice. Starsky couldn’t help it if he could spot a woman’s interest a hundred yards away. It was his nature, just as, up until a few months ago, it had been Hutch’s. He hadn’t changed overnight, his fixation on Starsky something that had started in his heart and only gradually retrained his eyes and his brain and his cock to find beauty where he had never thought to look for it before. He couldn’t expect Starsky’s ladykiller spots to change just like that, even if Starsky had agreed to try out a little spot remover.

“Which one?” he asked, following Starsky’s pointing finger, but seeing only a uniformed clerk with a clipboard moving slowly down the line of waiting passengers.

“That one,” Starsky insisted, shaking the pointing finger as if that would somehow lead Hutch’s eye to the object of his interest. “The brunette in the uniform. I just heard her ask the two guys there if they were Starsky and Hutchinson. Ah, shit, Hutch. Do you think Dobey’s looking for us?”

Hutch almost wished that Starsky were right. It would be a reprieve. Except, now Starsky knew and it had to be worked out. Between stakeouts and drug busts already hadn’t worked very well. That would take them years, and Hutch, as uncertain as he was of both himself and Starsky, knew he didn’t want to go on living in limbo forever.

“Are you Mr. Starsky and Mr. Hutchinson?” the woman asked the next two men together in line, who were about ten people in front of them.

“You see? What do we do?” Starsky asked, that he expected his dream vacation to be snatched away apparent on his face.

“Well, unless you’ve got a couple of fake ID’s on you and tickets made out to some other guys, I guess there’s only one thing we can do,” Hutch concluded fatalistically. He raised both his arm and his voice to attract the woman’s attention. “I’m Mr. Hutchinson.”

In a few briskly efficient strides, the clerk was beside them. “May I see your tickets, please?” she asked politely.

Hutch handed over the tickets, noting the relief on Starsky’s face as he obviously drew the same conclusion as Hutch had. Whatever reason the lady was looking for them had nothing to do with their jobs. Otherwise, why would she ask for the tickets?

A professional smile of welcome was offered along with the return of their tickets. “Commodore Atwater sends his greetings. My name is Elspeth. I’m the assistant purser. If you would follow me, gentlemen, I’ll show you to your stateroom and introduce you to your steward.”

Stateroom? Steward? Hutch looked at Starsky’s equally uncomprehending face and saw the same questions.

“Uh?” Starsky said, offering his ticket again. “You do have the right Starsky and Hutchinson, don’t you?”

Elspeth gave her practiced smile again, but didn’t even glance at the ticket Starsky held out. “I’m quite sure I do. If you’ll just follow me.”

Hutch gave his partner a who-are-we-to-argue shrug and bent to retrieve his luggage, but was halted in mid-bend.

“Don’t worry about your luggage, gentlemen. The porter will take care of it,” Elspeth assured them. She snapped her fingers at a nearby porter and pointed to the bags before handing over a card to the man. “For the next seven days, Mr. Hutchinson and Mr. Starsky, Commodore Atwater insists that you let the staff of the Amapola do all your worrying for you.”

Obediently, Starsky and Hutch followed as the woman led them along the line of waiting passengers and through the doors that would, eventually, lead them to the covered gangway. Hutch had to suppress a fit of nervous giggles as they passed a multitude of uniformed personnel, wondering just which one of these professional worriers he was supposed to burden with his first and foremost concern. He couldn’t seem to picture himself grandly informing any of the Atwater Steamship Line employees they passed that their unenviable task was to worry how he was going to get into Starsky’s jeans before the end of the cruise, and make it good enough that Starsky might consider making it a permanent arrangement. Despite the “I think” with which he had prefaced his confession to Starsky last night, Hutch was certain he wasn’t interested in a shipboard romance. If that were all he wanted, he wouldn’t, he was sure, be fretting so much about it. Getting into Starsky’s jeans, he freely admitted to himself, wasn’t really the issue.

But neither was it exactly a non-issue, Hutch conceded as he realized that, rather than gawking at the semi-familiar surroundings as Elspeth led them aboard and along the narrow corridor of the loading deck, his gaze had been fixed on Starsky’s rear view. Reluctantly, he tore his eyes away from the prominent curves encased in tight white linen to find they had reached the elevator.

Hutch noticed as they all stepped through the open doors into the waiting car that their guide pressed the button for the tenth deck. It was one he hadn’t visited when he was previously aboard, and he couldn’t remember now what was up there. While they were aboard, under cover, his and Starsky’s job of catching a killer hadn’t really left them with much time to explore. They had concentrated on learning the parts of the ship they needed to know to perform their cover roles convincingly, and did their best not to get lost while they did their real job.

“This way,” Elspeth directed, leading them off the elevator when the doors opened, and turning right.

Starsky and Hutch continued to allow themselves to be led past closed doors, far more widely spaced apart than on the lower decks they were more familiar with, until they reached the last door before the corridor disappeared around the corner. Here, Elspeth turned the key that waited in the lock and pushed the door wide, stepping back to allow them to enter first.

Stateroom, Hutch remembered, as they crossed the threshold and the true scope of Commodore Atwater’s hospitality was revealed. This suite made the cabin where Starsky and Hutch had met the soon-to-be deceased Captain LaRue, look like a linen closet. A spacious sitting room with double doors leading out onto a private balcony was flanked on either side by, the open doors revealed, bedrooms. Hutch was willing to bet that this must be the Commodore’s personal suite.

“Christ on a crutch,” Starsky whispered so softly that Hutch was sure only he heard the awed exclamation.

Hutch would gladly have echoed it, over-awed himself by the unexpected luxury, the profusion of flowers, and the enormous fruit basket and buckets of iced wine that seemed to crowd every surface of the sitting room.

“The Commodore hopes you’ll be comfortable here in his personal quarters,” Elspeth said, confirming Hutch’s guess. “If there is anything you require, you need only call your steward and request it.”

As if he had been summoned by the mention of his position, a man stepped out of the bedroom to the right. Automatically, Hutch gathered the details of the appearance of this personal servant-cum-magician, that was supposed to be at their beck and call for the next week. The steward was short, no more than 5’6″, with a wiry build, and handsome features that betrayed his Asian background.

“Juni, this is Mr. Starsky and Mr. Hutchinson,” Elspeth introduced the newcomer.

“Gentlemen,” Juni said with a little bow and a smile as professional as the assistant purser’s. “I will go and collect your luggage. Unless there is some other service you require of me.”

Dumbly, Hutch shook his head and saw Starsky do the same. The steward departed and, after receiving the same mute reassurance to the same polite inquiry, the assistant purser followed him. Alone, Starsky and Hutch looked at each other for a stunned moment, then, as if their minds were processing it all at exactly the same rate, broke out into wide grins.

Starsky turned in a slow circle in the middle of the sitting room, stopping when he faced Hutch again, and held his arms out to encompass their surroundings. “All of this, just for us?” he asked doubtfully.

“I guess Atwater knows how to treat a couple of heroes,” Hutch replied, unwilling to show that he was just as dazzled by it all as his partner.

Starsky didn’t buy it for a minute. He dropped his arms to his sides and eyed Hutch with a knowing gaze. “Don’t try to kid me, Mr. Cool. You’re just as impressed as I am,” he challenged.

Hutch apologized with a grin and a shrug. “Hell, yes,” he agreed. “I was thinking we’d be lucky if we weren’t stuck in steerage.”

“Do they have steerage on cruise ships?” Starsky asked.

“Search me,” Hutch replied, letting his gaze wander the suite once again. “I just wasn’t expecting the royal welcome, I guess.”

Starsky smiled his sympathetic understanding, then seemed to decide it was time he stopped acting like a dumb-struck peasant, and sauntered to the over-stuffed leather couch and sprawled on the center cushion. He spread his arms and rested them on the back, his fingers automatically stroking the smooth leather the way they did the Torino’s seats.

Or, once in a while–occasionally, briefly, and wonderfully–the back of Hutch’s neck. The sight of his partner spread out in his white clothes on the black leather, combined with the sensory memory of his touch, had a predictable effect on Hutch. His skin tingled, his blood seemed to rush just a little faster in his veins, and the warm crotch of his jeans became warmer still.

Automatically, a habit acquired within minutes of the first time this had happened to him when his friend had been the cause, Hutch sought distraction. He found it in the double glass doors and the unexpected feature of a private balcony beyond them. Stepping up to the rail, Hutch looked down on the herd he and Starsky had been cut from, watching as the mass of humanity made its slow, single-line progress into the building. Closer to him, between the building and the ship, stretched the gangway. As he watched, the first trickle of processed passengers began to emerge from the building and hurry excitedly up the gangway.

Was somebody trying to tell him something, Hutch wondered, when he counted twenty-five women, most of them, from this distance, looking young and pretty and clad in as few clothes as was publicly legal, before a single man appeared. Sometimes, Hutch truly was amazed at his own stupidity. Surely, he had a better chance of competing on a boring stakeout where not much of anything happened for hours on end, than he had on a whole boatload of beauties.

Sunk in his gloom, Hutch didn’t say anything when Starsky joined him on the balcony. He just stood there and counted women and waited for Starsky to confirm what was already obvious to him. When it didn’t happen, Hutch, feeling masochistic, decided he might as well get it over with. He picked out a particularly curvaceous redhead in tiny shorts and an even tinier, tummy-baring top, and pointed to her. “Looks like just your type,” he invited Starsky to forget last night’s conversation and allow the status quo between them to continue.

Out of the corner of his eye, Hutch saw Starsky study him seriously for a moment, then turn his attention to the now steady stream of passengers arriving below them. He, too, pointed out a woman–a blond in an ankle-length, clinging excuse for a dress. “There’s one just your type,” he countered, then dropped his arm and turned away from the rail to face Hutch, a smile that was just this side of a leer on his face. “Unless–”

“Steward.”

The call, accompanied by a loud knock, cracked the charged moment right down the center, the halves falling apart as, unsure whether he felt rescued or assaulted, Hutch hurried to answer the door.

“Mr. Starsky?” Juni said. “Your luggage.”

“Hutchinson,” Hutch corrected automatically, seeing the cart loaded down with their luggage behind their diminutive steward. He stepped back and allowed the man inside.

“So sorry,” Juni apologized.

“People do that to us all the time,” Starsky said as he came in from the balcony. “People are always getting us mixed up, aren’t they, Hutch.”

“All the time,” Hutch agreed.

“If you would tell me whose luggage is whose, and which rooms you have chosen, I will begin unpacking,” Juni said.

Hutch looked at Starsky and echoed his shrug. “Doesn’t matter. Mine are the brown cases. Mr. Starsky’s are…” Hutch grinned as he realized that all three pieces of Starsky’s luggage were mismatched. And now that he thought of it, he could only ever remember seeing the blue one before. Starsky must have had to borrow the other two. “…and the rest are Mr. Starsky’s,” he finished a little lamely.

“Thank you. I will work now. There is a reception in the forward lounge for our special guests. If you would go now, all will be completed when you return. One deck below.”

Dismissed. Politely, of course, but adamantly. Obviously, Elspeth had been quite serious about leaving their worries on the dock. It looked as if they weren’t even going to be allowed to unpack their own socks and underwear.

“Geez, Hutch,” Starsky whispered as, obediently, they left the cabin and walked to the elevator. “I sure hope you didn’t bring that ratty robe. One look at that eyesore and the guy will know we’re just a couple of bums.”

~*~*~

“Well, that was…” Hutch paused in his critique of the special reception to open the door to their cabin and let Starsky precede him into the sitting room.

“Boring?” Starsky finished for him.

Hutch laughed. No one was ever going to accuse Starsky of having too much respect. Except, he had been much quieter and restrained in the company of the eight other special guests, all of them considerably older and obviously far more used to the elegance. This lifestyle wasn’t as unfamiliar to Hutch as it was to Starsky. His family had been well off enough that the ballet, the opera and elegant receptions had been a part of his formative years, and his friendship with Jack Mitchell had, for a while, elevated him into an even higher social stratosphere. But the air could be pretty thin up there, could put a spin on your brain that had you thinking you had the right to look down your nose at other people. Hutch had been proud of how Starsky refused to let their fellow guests intimidate him, but he had been aware of his partner’s tension, and so the succinct dismissal delighted him. It was so Starsky.

“But the food was good,” he countered.

“Yeah,” Starsky agreed. “If they feed us like that all week, we’ll waddle like Dobey by the time we get back.” He disappeared into his bedroom, but reappeared a minute later. “All my stuff’s unpacked. But I don’t know where the hell he put the suitcases.”

Details. It was one of the ways Starsky dealt with an unfamiliar or uncomfortable situation, by making sure he was in possession of all the information he could gather. Whether it was making a visual map of a previously unknown bar as they entered it, or reading up on an unfamiliar subject that came up during a case, Starsky’s pattern was the same. Collect the details. Ground himself. That he was doing it now, when he was supposed to be relaxing and enjoying the rewards of a job well done, wasn’t fair at all, and Hutch wondered guiltily if that was as much his fault as the unexpected luxury.

“Hey. Come on, Starsk. Relax, okay,” Hutch coaxed. “We did good. If Dobey hadn’t thought we deserved it, you know he would have come up with some way to keep us on the job. Whatever kind of pressure Atwater and the mayor put on him.”

“Yeah. You’re right,” Starsky agreed, some of the tension, that had been visible only to Hutch, easing out of him. “Guess I’m just not used to this kind of treatment.”

“Think you could get used to it?” Hutch teased, surprised when Starsky gave him a serious reply instead of the banter he expected.

“Hell, yeah, Hutch,” Starsky said, pausing until their eyes met and held across the width of the room. “Think I could get used to anything.”

It took a moment for Hutch to get the message, then a bit longer for his brain to process the fact that Starsky was picking up just where they had left off when they had been interrupted, and giving Hutch an opening to bring up the subject that seemed to be on both their minds. He took two steps toward his partner, and hesitated automatically, despite the nervous welcome he could read on Starsky’s face. The right time and the right place, and yet Hutch knew he was chickening out again. The uproar of cheering that erupted outside their balcony that was punctuated by a brisk knock on the door, only gave him a valid excuse to let the opportunity escape him. He spun on his heels and hurried to answer the door, finding yet another strange face.

“Mr. Hutchinson, I’m Richard from cruise entertainment. The captain thought you might like an opportunity to watch us leave port from the Crow’s Nest. It is an exciting moment, you know, and an excellent view from the very top of the ship.”

If he hadn’t lost his nerve again, Hutch thought, there might have been an exciting moment going on right in this room. But he had lost his nerve, and it was going to take him a while to get it back again.

“What do you think?” he asked Starsky with false enthusiasm, looking over his shoulder and wondering if that really had been a peeved expression flitting briefly over Starsky’s face. “Want to go wave goodbye to all the poor suckers stuck on land?” he asked and somehow held up under Starsky’s probing gaze.

After a moment, Starsky’s features settled into a neutral pattern of polite agreement, and he waved a hand toward the door. “After you.”

~*~*~

Back to square one, Hutch thought when he and Starsky returned to the privacy of their cabin. He couldn’t help but wonder how many minutes they might be left alone this time. That some other helpful person would most likely knock on their door, just when he might actually have managed to locate and tie down a little daring, wasn’t encouraging.

“Sure looks different pulling away from that pier when you’re really on vacation, doesn’t it?” Starsky said. He had wandered over to the bar and appeared to be checking out its stock. Hutch could only conclude that he hadn’t been impressed with the wine already on ice.

“Can’t argue with you there, buddy,” Hutch agreed. He felt nervous and uncertain and automatically looked for a distraction, finding it in the California coastline sliding past their open balcony doors. He went out into the open air, watching the scenery slip past and tried to summon the courage to, at the very least, open the subject with Starsky. This shouldn’t be so damned hard. Starsky had already given him two openings. Perhaps it was just the repeated interruptions, and the anticipation of the next knock on the door, that were making him more nervous than a pimply-faced teenager with a crush on his English teacher.

“You want a drink?” Starsky called through the open doors.

Hutch turned a little to see him holding up a bottle of wine. “Sure. Why not,” he accepted. Why not, indeed, he thought. He couldn’t seem to come up with any courage of his own; maybe a little of the hundred proof variety could serve in its stead.

Hutch accepted the glass Starsky brought him but, beyond a polite thank you, couldn’t think of anything to say. All he needed were maybe a dozen words, but the harder he searched for them, the more elusive they became. In the meantime, he was acutely aware of the warmth of Starsky’s body standing so close beside him at the rail while his mouth got drier, his heart beat faster, and his cock got harder.

And it was all so utterly ridiculous. This was only Starsky. The same man who had been Hutch’s friend and partner for years. The same man whose bad habits Hutch knew as well as he knew his own. Only Starsky, and Hutch had every reason in the world to believe that, right at the moment at least, Starsky was prepared to be receptive. He shouldn’t be standing here, dithering and acting like his friend would bite his hand off if he dared touch him.

Having talked himself into just a little confidence, Hutch turned, smiled into the eyes that had been watching him so closely, and laid his hand on Starsky’s arm. “Starsk….”

And somebody knocked on the fucking door!

Hutch snatched his hand back and saw Starsky roll his eyes before he shrugged and went to answer the door. Hutch followed, wondering if the commodore’s stateroom, that was so well-stocked with any luxurious item you might ask for, might also hold something as simple as a do not disturb sign.

“Juni, what can we do for you?” Starsky asked when he opened the door, sounding exactly like he did when Dobey came looking for them five minutes before the end of their shift.

“Captain extends invitation for Mr. Starsky and Mr. Hutchinson to dine with him this evening,” Juni explained, holding out an embossed envelope.

“That’s…real nice,” Starsky said, accepting the envelope and turning it over in his hands. It was obvious he didn’t know exactly what was expected of him.

“Does Captain Stafford request a written reply?” Hutch stepped in smoothly. “Or is our verbal acceptance of his kind invitation acceptable?”

“Most acceptable, Mr. Hutchinson,” Juni assured him, but continued to linger in the doorway. He seemed to have something on his mind, something making him uncomfortable that he didn’t know exactly how to say.

At the moment, Hutch could sympathize with that particular dilemma in spades. “Was there something else, Juni?”

The steward sighed, looking visibly relieved. “Dress for dinner is formal. I notice that gentlemen did not bring tuxedos. If you would come now, there is time for fitting and alterations. All ready and delivered before dinner. If this is acceptable.”

“A monkey suit?” Starsky complained. “Where am I ever gonna wear a tuxedo again? That’s a lot of money to spend–”

“Money?” Juni interrupted. “No money. Commodore’s orders are to provide anything gentlemen need. No money on ship. Please to come with me now.”

Hutch had to laugh at the obvious disgust on Starsky’s face. He slung an arm around his partner’s shoulders and used it to propel him out the door. “Sorry, Starsk, but it looks like you’ve been out maneuvered. You’re gonna have to dress the part to dine in style at the captain’s table tonight. Maybe you should have read those pamphlets a little more carefully.”

~*~*~

“Damn, I didn’t think that guy was ever gonna let us out of there,” Starsky said, the words drifting back to Hutch as Starsky hustled across the cabin and disappeared into his bedroom.

Hutch laughed softly as he closed the door behind them and followed as far as the couch. He had recognized Starsky’s problem and done his best not to laugh as his partner was repeatedly requested, each time with just a shade more forced courtesy, to please stand still while the tailor pinned and tucked and twitched the pants and jacket into a perfect fit on his trim body. Starsky had to pee, and standing still with a full bladder was never number one on Starsky’s hit parade. More than a few times in the past, Hutch had jokingly suggested that Starsky’s tiny bladder might benefit from a visit to a urologist. His partner was never amused by the suggestion.

Oddly enough, the antsier Starsky had become throughout the fitting process, the calmer Hutch had become. That often happened on the job, of course. Being ready to back each other up, support each other’s weaknesses with their own strengths, or prevent each other from going off half-cocked at some lame-brained idiot, was all part of the way their worked. So, perhaps the fact that Hutch’s nervous tension had disappeared wasn’t odd at all. He felt simply re-grounded in the close friendship and tolerant affection he had felt for Starsky for years. It was easy to think “it’s only Starsky” now, and believe it.

Right up to the moment Starsky walked back into the room with his shirt rucked up to his armpits, baring that furry torso that Hutch had only recently learned to appreciate. For years, Hutch had been teasing Starsky over the particular vanity that had him walking around with his shirt open to his belt; now Hutch wanted to run his hands all over the exposed chest, test with his own fingertips if the black hair was as soft as it looked, and coax the flat, nearly hidden, dark nipples into taut erection with his tongue.

“You see? I told you he stuck me,” Starsky complained when he stood looming over Hutch, one finger delicately tracing the thin red line that marred the smooth skin of his side just above his waistband.

Hutch hardly noticed the minor wound, his field of vision totally filled up with the naked, muscular chest, narrow waist and just a tad lower, the heavy bulge in the tight white pants.

Only Starsky. Only, what Hutch felt for Starsky–the depth and breadth of the desire that possessed him now–was so much more than he had ever felt for anyone, that it was a struggle for Hutch to remember just to keep breathing.

“Hutch?” Starsky whispered, forcing Hutch to look up, let his eyes travel over the flesh he wanted so much to put hands and mouth to, to find, once again, a cautious invitation on Starsky’s face.

Caution. Did Starsky really understand, Hutch wondered? Despite the talk of kissing, did his partner really understand how much Hutch’s feelings had changed, grown? Did he understand that Hutch might not be looking for a one-night stand, a little adventurous experimentation in a previously unconsidered sensual venue, a shipboard romance? Did Starsky understand that the erections he had noticed were really only the tip of the iceberg? Only the physical manifestation of the emotions Hutch yearned to share? Maybe what they really needed was to talk about this first.

Or maybe not, Hutch thought when Starsky let his shirt fall back down to his hips and reached out toward him. He watched that hand approach, waited breathlessly to see whether the touch of his friend’s hand would reveal whether Starsky truly understood what Hutch was asking for. It seemed almost too much, with so few words spoken between them, to hope for.

Before those fingers could connect, however, could offer even the most fleeting caress to any part of Hutch, some goddamned brilliant person with the worst timing in the universe knocked on the door.

“Aw, shit!” Starsky cursed, his fingers curling into a fist as he turned away and stalked over to the bar.

Stunned, Hutch sat where he was, watching Starsky pick up the glass of wine he had left on the bar after the last interruption, and gulp it down like it was water.

A second knocking finally brought Hutch up off the couch and striding to the door. “What now?” he demanded as he flung the door open. “Sorry,” he apologized immediately and automatically when their visitor stepped back with a startled little exclamation.

Their caller, pretty and, once she recovered her aplomb, perky in her neat sundress and swept up hair, might once have immediately captured Hutch’s attention. All he wanted now was for her to state her business and be gone.

“Is there something I can do for you, Miss?” he asked in only slightly warmer tones than his original inquiry.

“I’m Sharon, the entertainment director,” the woman introduced herself. “The captain thought you might like a tour of the ship.”

With all the thought the captain was giving them, Hutch really hoped that somebody else was driving the ship. He had a polite “maybe later” on the tip of his tongue and was tightening his grip on the door to close it in her face, when Starsky appeared beside him.

“Can we see the bridge? And the engine room?” Starsky asked eagerly.

That eagerness dropped Hutch’s confidence back down the few steps of the ladder it had managed to climb. Was Starsky’s enthusiasm aroused by the prospects of the tour or by their guide?

“I’m authorized to show you anything you’d like to see,” Sharon assured them.

Was it Hutch’s imagination, or was her smile a whole lot warmer and a whole lot less professional since Starsky had joined them? Imagination perhaps more than a little influenced by jealousy?

“What do you think, Hutch?” Starsky asked with the pleading look he usually reserved for trying to coax Hutch into agreeing to eat at his choice of restaurant.

Since Hutch wasn’t entirely sure what he thought, and wasn’t about to air it in front of this pretty stranger in any case, he just shrugged and nodded. With a mocking little bow, much like the one Starsky had given him after the last interruption, he waved an invitation for Starsky to precede him. At least he could enjoy the rear view if it turned out Starsky was truly more interested in the guide than the tour. Hutch had the sinking feeling, however, this opportunity that had, last night, seemed so golden, was slipping through his fingers.

~*~*~

The tour, however, turned out to be far more interesting, and less ego deflating, than Hutch had feared. Although it was true that Starsky asked a million questions, he seemed genuinely more interested in the answers than the answerer. And he spent far more time talking to Hutch, reminding him of their last sojourn aboard the Amapola, than in trying to make time with pretty, perky Sharon. By the time they returned to their cabin, Hutch had relaxed again and felt some confidence that, this time when he was alone with Starsky, he just might be able to hang onto his nerve long enough to get out a coherent sentence.

“Man, would I love a chance to get behind the wheel of this big sucker,” Starsky declared somewhat wistfully when Sharon had departed and they were once again alone.

“Better warn the crew to break out the seasick bags,” Hutch advised. “If you corner the Amapola the way you do the Torino, everybody’ll lose their lunch.”

“Hey, my driving’s never made you barf,” Starsky protested.

“Only because I’m too busy being petrified,” Hutch teased and flopped down on the couch. He wasn’t going to be nervous anymore. Which was a good thing because, from the look of him, it was Starsky’s turn. He looked like he was ready to take to his heels any second now.

“What time is it?” Starsky asked, even though he had just looked at the three hundred dollar watch on his arm.

That wasn’t necessarily a symptom of nerves, however. He did it all the time and, more than once, Hutch had wondered if Starsky actually couldn’t figure out what the time was among the other functions on the fancy watches he loved so well, but refused to admit it.

Hutch tapped his own bare wrist and lifted his eyebrows.

“Oh, yeah,” Starsky muttered, and disappeared into the bedroom, from which Hutch heard the sound of a door being opened and then closed. A moment later, Starsky reappeared. “No monkey suits yet,” he reported.

“It’s only been a couple of hours and there’s still plenty of time until dinner,” Hutch pointed out, wishing Starsky would alight someplace, preferably on the couch right next to him. A few more minutes of watching Starsky prowl around opening doors and cupboards, peering vaguely inside each one as if he wasn’t entirely sure himself what he was looking for, and Hutch would be antsy again. In fact, it was already too late, he realized. He was tilting back to the other side of that mental teeter-totter he had been riding all day. He couldn’t seem to decide whether he should talk it all out with Starsky first. To be certain, for the sake of both his heart and their friendship, that Starsky understood Hutch wasn’t just lusting after him. Or if such explanations could wait until after they, at the very least, kissed. After all, Starsky had said if Hutch was a lousy kisser, all bets were off.

Once again it appeared that he had managed to talk himself into a stalemate. Hutch tried to remind himself once again that it was “only Starsky.” It didn’t work. Because Hutch knew that, if they so much as kissed, even once, Starsky was never going to be “only Starsky” again. And, he suspected, he would never be “only Hutch” to his friend. Even if they agreed that it was all a big mistake, much ado about nothing, they were going to be changed. And, even though he had thought it through a hundred times or more in the past few months, considered every angle he could think of, maybe he needed to think about it one more time before he made a move.

Abruptly, Hutch stood up just as Starsky was about to sit beside him. “I’m going to grab a nap,” he announced and retreated to his bedroom. He didn’t even care that it was an obvious retreat, made no effort to make it appear casual or strategic. Navel gazing wasn’t always a bad thing, especially when what you were contemplating were actions that would shape the rest of your life.

~*~*~

Against all odds, Hutch had fallen into one of those deep, dreamless sleeps. The kind where, one minute you think you can’t possibly go to sleep because your mind is running in circles like a berserk gerbil on amphetamines, and the next you’re abruptly aware, with no clear instinct for how long you had slept.

It took only a second for Hutch to recognize what woke him. Starsky was sitting beside him on the bed. He had a sensory memory of the small shift of the bed, that heralded the arrival, that was just as sharp as the awareness of the warmth of Starsky’s hip pressed to his.

“Hi,” Starsky said, the tension that had been so apparent before Hutch’s retreat faded down to that idling-in-neutral alertness Starsky seemed to be able to gear into, and somehow maintain, through the long hours of a stakeout.

Hutch yawned and stretched, and realized that, at some point, whether before he dropped off or somewhere in the deep well of unremembered dreams, he had made his decision. He had done his own version of putting it into park, and felt refreshed and renewed by more than the brief nap. Starsky often accused him of talking a subject to death when action was the more direct route to the same goal. This time, Hutch was sure that Starsky’s philosophy would be wrong. This was too important to rush in like adrenaline-pumped fools; this deserved more words.

“Hi, yourself. Did I sleep long?” he asked, feeling a dopey smile on his face, seeing the fond and affectionate sleepiness of it reflected on Starsky’s. Comfortably idling. They were both doing it, and it felt so good to be this easy with Starsky again, Hutch was in no hurry to shift either of them into overdrive.

“‘Bout an hour,” Starsky said. “It’s almost six.”

“Mmmm. Isn’t the captain’s dinner at seven?” Hutch asked, letting the minutia of the scheduled uses of time back into his brain. “The tuxes…?”

Starsky waved a hand toward where the black suit hung on a hook on the open door of Hutch’s closet. “Juni delivered ’em a couple of minutes ago. Shirts and all.”

“Guess we better get ready,” Hutch suggested, but reluctantly, loath to leave this undemanding place of unspoken affection where social commitments, his desires and Starsky’s unknown response carried no weight. No backward, no forward, just a now where the time and the place didn’t have to be either right or wrong, it just existed.

“Twenty-four hour room service,” Starsky reminded him, the tilt of his head and the tiniest shrug of his shoulders telegraphing his intention to follow Hutch’s lead wherever it might take them.

Tonight, Hutch decided, his lead was going to take them to dinner. At the captain’s table. “Get moving, mushbrain. It’ll take you an hour just to get your bow-tie right,” he accused, lifting up to prop himself on both elbows. For just a moment, fantasy intruded and he imagined Starsky leaning in, half-bending to brush a soft kiss onto his sleep-dry lips. But the fantasy had no substance, devoid as it was of the reality of feel and taste. Hutch tucked it away and tipped his chin to signal Starsky to get out of the way.

“You’re not gonna help me with the noose?” Starsky complained, obeying the silent command with a fluid unfolding to his feet.

“Sure I will, buddy,” Hutch promised, letting a wicked grin imply his own agenda in the aid he would offer. “I was a sea scout, after all. I know all about knots.”

~*~*~

Dinner with the captain might be the social event of the cruise, Hutch thought when he and Starsky entered the private dining room precisely at seven, but it was going to be boring. The company, the same eight people who had already bored him and Starsky to near catatonia at the special reception, practically guaranteed it in writing.

“You think he remembers us?” Starsky asked, sotto voce, nodding significantly to where the newly-minted Captain Stafford was officially greeting his guests.

Hutch caught the less-than-thrilled glance, quickly covered by professional neutrality, that the fussy little Englishman threw them, and shrugged. “Hack and Zack aren’t exactly an easy duo to forget.”

“Fun night,” Starsky predicted gloomily as they took their place in the receiving line.

“Probably not,” Hutch agreed, but, in reality, he was content. Dinner couldn’t last forever, and even if it did, he had more than enough to keep him occupied. He and Starsky had always been adept at making their own fun, and, should their usual mutual ability to entertain each other fail them, Hutch knew he was going to be more than happy just to look at his partner. Starsky might detest the formal wear, but the fine picture he presented in the tuxedo, altered to highlight trim waist and broad shoulders, wasn’t wasted on Hutch at all.

“Mr. Starsky. Mr. Hutchinson. It is my pleasure to welcome you aboard the Amapola again, gentlemen,” Stafford greeted them, shaking their hands in turn.

“Other way around,” Hutch said, automatically correcting the switch of identities so many people seemed to make. “Hopefully, we’ll be less…disruptive guests than we were employees,” he added, hoping to remind the former first officer that, in the end, they had worked well together for the safety of the ship and her passengers.

“Indeed, Mr. Hutchinson,” Stafford agreed with a considerable thawing of his smile. He shrugged his shoulders slightly, drawing the eye to the new insignia that adorned his starched white uniform. “Should you, however, feel disruption is warranted to protect the Amapola, I will do my best to remember your previous valor.”

“Thank you, Captain Stafford. We’ll keep that in mind,” Hutch replied and smoothly moved himself and Starsky along to shake hands with the first officer and then, thankfully, to a waiter who offered glasses of sparkling wine. He smiled his thanks as he took two glasses and handed one to Starsky.

“Did all that mean he’s glad to see us or he’s gonna keep a ‘weather eye’ on us?” Starsky asked, low-voiced, hiding the movement of his lips against the rim of his glass as if they were still undercover and the exchange of information between them was not for other ears.

Hutch liked the intimacy of that, but not what it said about his partner’s state of mind. He took a moment to study Starsky over his glass and realized his friend was, once again, feeling way out of his depth. He waited until Starsky met his eyes and then winked. “I’ve got you covered, partner,” he promised, and was rewarded by Starsky’s relieved smile.

“Ladies and gentlemen. If you will take your seats, please,” the first officer requested.

Got you covered, Hutch reminded himself as they approached the gleaming white table with its multitude of shining silver, and he felt Starsky falter for just the briefest moment before falling back into step beside him. He leaned slightly closer to his partner. “Just start at the outside and work your way in,” he whispered toward Starsky’s curl covered right ear so softly the suggestion wouldn’t be heard by his left ear.

“What about all the stuff at the top?” Starsky asked just as quietly, beneath the genteel scrape of chairs being pulled out for the ladies and the rustle of formal gowns.

“Let the waiter worry about it,” Hutch advised.

It was a sumptuous dinner, just as Hutch had expected it to be. Course after course of elegantly presented gourmet fare that, unfortunately, far outshone the conversation. The rest of Stafford’s guests appeared to be successful businessmen whose only topics of interest were their companies and money, and their wives who looked almost as bored as two out-of-their-element cops. It was only one dinner, Hutch reminded himself, but could see that, despite the fine food, Starsky was beginning to build up a charge of surplus energy that would soon need discharging.

For a second, Hutch toyed with the idea of abandoning his talk-before-action plan, whisking Starsky off to their cabin and seeing what would happen if he offered himself as a grounding rod for that energy. But, although the idea excited him, it was also just a little too unpredictable in what that released energy might do to both of them.

Therefore, when Stafford brought the seemingly endless dinner to a close and thanked his guests for joining him, Hutch was prepared with a Plan B. When Starsky would have turned right as they left the captain’s private dining room to take them back to their cabin, Hutch laid a firm hand in the small of his back, letting the pressure guide his partner, instead, to the elevator. He could almost feel the static electricity of Starsky’s need to move in the tips of fingers.

“Where we going?” Starsky asked after Hutch pushed the up call button to summon the elevator.

“Plan B. Disco Under The Stars,” Hutch reminded him of the Amapola’s many amenities. He stepped through the doors when they opened to reveal an empty car. He turned to face Starsky, who still stood on the wrong side of those doors, his hand held against the shiny metal to prevent them closing between them.

“You sure that’s what you want to do tonight?” Starsky asked, that same willingness to follow in his expression, but now sharing space with a few doubting questions.

Hutch wasn’t sure at all, part of him fearing what they would find two floors up, knowing he took the chance of both of them falling into the familiar pattern of the hunt. That they might choose the well-worn path of cold beer, women and a bass-heavy disco beat over the one not yet traveled of him and Starsky alone together, discovering exactly what new layers they could create in the close relationship they already shared.

“Plan B,” he repeated, trying to sound self-confident, but certain he had fallen way short of the mark when Starsky continued to hesitate. “Sure enough. For tonight,” he confessed more honestly, meeting the probing eyes and hoping his partner would read hesitation and not rejection in Hutch’s actions. When Starsky nodded and stepped into the car with him, Hutch was fairly certain Starsky understood that, this time, it was Hutch who wasn’t too sure if the water might not be way over his head.

“Got you covered, partner,” Starsky promised before the doors parted on the Amapola’s upper most full deck.

Hutch spent the first twenty minutes after they made their way to the crowded bar and then found a table, wondering what kind of a self-defeating idiot he really was. Starsky didn’t even wait long enough to take a first sip of his beer, before he deserted Hutch for the dance floor where he partnered pretty lady after pretty lady while, slowly but surely, his elegant ensemble disintegrated. Predictably, the bow tie was the first casualty, followed quickly by, first, the buttons on the tuxedo jacket, then the ones on his shirt. Hutch found himself making a mental bet as to how much longer the restrictive cummerbund would last, and would have won when it was the next item to find its way into Starsky’s jacket pocket.

When he finally realized what Starsky was doing, Hutch blamed the distraction of the striptease for his failure to catch on sooner. He had been so busy watching the gradual transformation from formal to casual, he hadn’t noticed that, although Starsky danced every dance, throwing his heart and soul and athletic body into each one of them, he chose a different partner each time. No one woman was squired onto the floor more than once, and none received the full wattage of Starsky’s smiles that was offered to Hutch every time their eyes met.

Starsky did, indeed, have him covered, Hutch realized, relaxing and beginning to look around for a pretty lady to dance with. A familiar path of beer, women and song, but neither one of them would be following it to its well-worn end in someone else’s bed tonight.

By three in the morning, when the crowd began to thin, leaving behind the drunkest, the most determined or the most desperate, Starsky and Hutch left the Disco Under The Stars together. They rode the elevator in silence, and walked the long corridor to their cabin within that same soundless bubble of comfort. Many times in the past, after striking out or when they hadn’t truly been hunting, they had gone home together, to one apartment or the other, and crashed on each other’s couches. This was the first time, however, Hutch realized with a little thrill, that they had returned to a place they shared equally.

The intimacy of it made Hutch linger at the door, savoring the feel of it, the exclusive connection it implied, while he watched Starsky cross to the couch. There, the tuxedo jacket with its bulging pockets, was shrugged off and tossed over the padded arm. Starsky continued to the door of his room, turned to face Hutch and ran a hand through his sweat-tight curls, then cocked his head to the side.

“You planning on letting me in on Plan A anytime soon, Hutch?” he asked, curiosity glazed with just a hint of impatience brightening his tired face.

“Tomorrow,” Hutch promised. Tomorrow they would be rested, renewed and, hundreds of miles from Bay City, truly free to see where Plan A might take them.

“Tomorrow for sure?” Starsky asked, reminding Hutch that his friend wasn’t the most patient man in the world.

“For sure,” Hutch promised.

“Fair enough,” Starsky agreed, gave him a saucy wink, and then an even saucier sway of his hips as he retreated to his bedroom.

He did not, Hutch noticed, close the door. For a moment, Hutch was tempted to follow, but, after only two steps, decided to stick with his plan. Tomorrow for sure he, he repeated silently to that open door. A few minutes later, when he had turned out the lights and made his way to his own room, Hutch deliberately left his door open as well.

~*~*~

It was the smell of coffee that coaxed Hutch to climb from the bed where he had spent the night dreaming and waking and eventually falling back to sleep. His subconscious had had a field day with him all night, sending him hot dreams that woke him aching and wanting, followed by nightmares that mocked him for his hopeless desires. It wasn’t a combination that was likely to leave a man feeling that his Plan A had a snowball’s chance in the brimstone heart of hell.

Hutch paused in the doorway of his bedroom-cum-torture-chamber, and let the sight of his friend give his subconscious a good swift kick. Freshly showered, as evidenced by the still-wet hair, and wearing only a pair of running shorts, Starsky lounged on the couch with coffee in one hand and an inch-thick sandwich–the contents of which Hutch didn’t want to even guess at until he had downed at least one cup of coffee–in the other. This was neither the larger-than-life ogre of his nightmares, nor the wanton seducer of his dreams. This was Starsky, Hutch’s friend of many years, who had toast crumbs sprinkled on his chest hair, and who rudely slurped his hot coffee with a complete lack of self-consciousness.

“Coffee?” Hutch greeted him, propping his shoulder against the doorframe and scratching at his hair, making no attempt to impose order on the pillow-induced tuffs he could feel beneath his fingers.

Starsky smiled a greeting and waved wordlessly, with the hand that held the half-eaten sandwich, at the pot and clean cup on the table.

Hutch shuffled forward and poured himself a cup of the eye-opener, grateful that Starsky expected no sparkling wit from him. Starsky was already well versed in the fact that, despite Hutch’s regime in the morning, he didn’t really have his brain engaged until he had imbibed enough caffeine to jump start coherence. Until then, Hutch was functioning on autopilot, just as Starsky usually did when he first woke up.

He had downed half of the cup of coffee before he realized that Starsky was watching him with tolerant affection tinted with fond amusement. His hair must really be standing on end this morning, Hutch thought, and shuffled back into the bedroom with his cup. “Shower,” he mumbled as he went.

Hot water and caffeine had worked their anticipated magic by the time Hutch emerged from his bedroom to find the Starsky tableau, minus the sandwich, unchanged.

“Morning,” he offered more civilly. He sat down in the easy chair and bent over the crowded room service tray to investigate the possibilities for appeasing his growling stomach. A bowl of grapefruit segments, a box of Special K, and a carton of milk.

“They didn’t have any of that shriveled up roots and berries you like, so I improvised and ordered you Special K,” Starsky informed him.

Hutch popped a grapefruit slice into his mouth and bit down, wincing as its tart juice battled for possession of his taste buds with the lingering mint of his toothpaste. He eyed the empty plates stacked on the tray. “Do I want to know what you had for breakfast?”

“Nope,” Starsky confirmed Hutch’s worst suspicions with an unrepentant grin. “By the way, it isn’t good morning, it’s good afternoon.”

Hutch looked at his watch, shocked to find that it was well after noon. If the Amapola were a sailing ship, the sun would definitely be over the yardarm. “Guess I was more tired than I thought,” he said, although it had been late, after a very early start to the day, before they had gone to bed. All in all, he had to forgive himself for his laziness, even if he had wasted half a day of their vacation. He would make up for it tomorrow. Maybe, he added, remembering that, if Plan A unfolded the way he hoped, he might have a different reason altogether for sleeping in tomorrow. As soon as he finished breakfast, Hutch decided, he and Starsky were going to talk.

“Juni’s already been twice to clean up the room,” Starsky reported. “Wasn’t too happy when I told him to come back later. Think he might have a stroke if I send him packing again, so you better eat up there, Blondie.”

Or maybe not, Hutch accepted, when a knock on the door and a muted call of  “steward” levered Starsky up off the couch to answer the summons. Hutch had been in enough hotels to know how much the maids hated it if you hung around and watched them work. They would have to leave their private sanctuary, for a while at least, and Hutch doubted they were likely to find a quiet place on a boatload of fun-seeking vacationers to have an intimate conversation. Certainly not one of the kind Hutch wanted to engage in.

Obligingly, they collected suntan lotion and towels. Hutch found the paperback he had brought with him on the nightstand in his bedroom and, even though he doubted it would have a hope of capturing his attention, brought it along, too. If nothing else, he could use it as an excuse to avoid the non-stop schedule of fun activities his own brief sojourn as co-director of entertainment warned him would be going on outside their door. Starsky, he saw, had not come so prepared, but Hutch didn’t doubt for a minute he would find something to occupy him. He wondered if Starsky would continue to  “cover him” today as he had at the disco last night.

With that thought in mind, Hutch had even less chance of allowing his paperback to keep him occupied. He couldn’t seem to keep his mind, his eyes, or his ears from following Starsky’s activities. From his comfortable lounge beside the pool, Hutch watched his partner engage in a game of Simon Says, and then join in on an enthusiastic, if seemingly rule-less, game of ring toss. Unable to think or do or watch anything but Starsky, it didn’t take Hutch long to notice that Starsky was, indeed, continuing to cover him. Every flirting female under the age of fifty was brushed off, politely but firmly, while those lucky ladies over that magic number were treated to the full barrage of Starsky’s special brand of gallant charm. If Starsky didn’t watch it, Hutch thought with amusement, their fellow passengers would be coming to the conclusion that the handsome, young brunet was a gigolo on the make.

Or queer for his traveling companion. Because no one Starsky encountered throughout the afternoon had the same flirting intensity turned upon them that was bestowed on Hutch. He didn’t give anyone else the laser lock of his blue eyes, nor the full wattage of his smile. If Hutch had been certain that Starsky knew exactly what he was inviting, he would have been delighted. Uncertain as he was, however, Starsky’s behavior had him revisiting the emotional upheaval of his restless night, aching and wanting, and fearing he could never have. And wishing, during one of the frequent, if brief, check-ins he made beside Hutch’s lounge, that Starsky would linger long enough for Hutch to suggest they get out of the sun for a while, look up some lunch, or any other excuse he could think of to get them back to their cabin.

As soon as Starsky got out of the pool, Hutch decided firmly, determined not to give himself another chance to be faint hearted. If he kept this up, they would be tied up along side the pier in Bay City and his golden opportunity would be gone. He was still determined that they needed to talk first, but watching Starsky swim laps in the pool wasn’t helping him keep that plan in mind.

Starsky wasn’t the best swimmer in the world, but what he lacked in technique, he certainly made up for in enthusiasm. Hutch had heard that before, had thought it himself about his partner. With Starsky’s teasing remark about technique fresh in his mind, however, the observation had a different meaning altogether. With a head full of fantasies, Hutch watched Starsky pull himself up out of the pool and knew, whether it was right or wrong, the time was right now.

“Hutch?” Starsky said, standing over him, haphazardly toweling away streams of water that seemed to draw Hutch’s eye, mesmerize him in the wandering, broken paths they took from dripping curls over the long torso to….

Hutch forced himself to look away, shut down the vivid imagination that made of him one of those rivulets being soaked into the inadequate scrap of Starsky’s swimming trunks. “Had enough?” he asked, trying hard for casual inquiry, but too tense to hear if he succeeded.

“Yeah, Hutch, I have,” Starsky said in an exasperated tone that brought Hutch’s eyes up to his face. He wrapped the towel around his waist and propped his hands on his hips. “Think it’s about time you and me…” He looked about the crowded deck. “…got outta the sun for a while.”

With his heart in this throat, Hutch agreed, and followed Starsky’s determined retreat out of the public eye.

“I’m gonna put on some dry clothes,” Starsky announced when they had closed the door of their cabin, sealing out the rest of the world. “I’ll be back in a minute, and then, Hutch, I’d really like to know what the hell is going on.” It was a demand, uncompromising enough to rouse illogical resentment in Hutch, until Starsky followed it with a soft, pleading, “Okay?”

Hutch closed his eyes, took a deep breath and then opened them again, hoping he was ready to face the moment of truth with his friend. “Okay,” he agreed and stood up under the close scrutiny Starsky subjected him to until, seemingly satisfied, Starsky left to change.

While he waited, Hutch toyed with the idea of pouring them a drink, waffled over where to sit, and wondered if he should close the drapes over the balcony doors. All of which were delaying tactics, and none of which mattered a damn, he chided himself, and parked his butt firmly in one corner of the couch. If Starsky didn’t get out here soon, Hutch was going to lose his nerve. What little he had. Again.

Starsky, of course, must have known that because he reappeared in record time, white shorts and blue t-shirt in place over his still damp body. He hesitated a heartbeat, then crossed the room and sat down next to Hutch. Right next to him. On the next cushion and turned toward him. Where all Hutch had to do was reach out and touch him, even just move his leg an inch and they would be in contact. That contact, Hutch feared, would let loose the barely restrained need inside him. Without direction from his dithering brain, his body drew back deeper into the corner.

“You know, Hutch, it’s like I told you at your place, if you’ve got something to tell me, just tell me,” Starsky reminded him. “If you’ve changed your mind, or figure you and me getting it on isn’t such a bright idea, all you gotta do is say so.”

“Because you’re just going along for the ride?” Hutch asked, unsurprised that, somehow, whether by design or pure instinct based on Starsky’s knowledge of him, his partner had hit the nail of Hutch’s worst fear right on the head. He didn’t want to be anyone’s pity fuck, let alone the man he had come to suspect he loved with all his heart.

“Hell, no. Because I feel like an idiot comin’ on to you, and you backin’ off. I thought… You said…” Starsky looked down at where his hands were clenched around his knees, and slowly, finger by finger, released the death grip before he let Hutch try to read what was going on behind his wary eyes. “I’ll go along for the ride when you wanna try some crazy health food diet. I’ll go along for the ride when your instincts tell you the suspect’s down this alley instead of that one. But you gotta know I wouldn’t get on this train if I haven’t been considering visiting that destination myself.”

As if he couldn’t help himself, couldn’t see or willfully chose to ignore the barely restrained tension in Hutch’s body, Starsky laid an undemanding hand on his taut thigh. “I’ve known you eight years, Hutch. You think in all that time I’ve never noticed how beautiful you are? I might never have swung that way, but that doesn’t mean my eyesight’s not twenty-twenty.”

“That isn’t what I want from you,” Hutch blurted the truth that had kept him waffling for months. His gaze dropped to the hand that rested on his thigh and saw that the outline of his blatant erection was branding him the worst sort of liar. The delusional kind, who couldn’t even be honest with himself. “Not all I want,” he qualified in a whisper. “I…think what I’m looking for is forever, Starsk, and I…I wanted us to talk before….”

Starsky squeezed his thigh once, then took his hand away, and Hutch felt him ease back on the cushion, putting a few inches of space between them. “Then talk, Hutch. I can read you on the street, babe, but this you’re gonna hafta tell me. But it seems to me, you and me together, have always been able to work out whatever we need to between us.”

And that, Hutch knew, was so true, it ought to be carved in stone somewhere. He lifted his head, let himself look at Starsky the way he had wanted to for so long. To offer all the old love and the new love, the joy and the desire he had been hiding in his heart. It was on his face now. He could tell by the reaction on Starsky’s, the way his left hand lifted, moved forward to rest gentle fingers on his cheek as if he needed to feel as well as see the gift.

“I’m in love with you, Starsk. Tried to talk myself out of it, but couldn’t. Tried to hide it from you…” Hutch’s lips quirked in a smile of self-mockery, and Starsky’s fingers moved to brush at them then dropped away. “…but should’ve known I couldn’t do that either. I’m not even sure what that means to me.”

“You said that, back at your place,” Starsky reminded him. “Thought I made it clear the idea that you wanna sleep with me didn’t make me wanna run screaming. Thought we decided we were gonna take this chance to figure out what it means to both of us.”

Hutch sighed, exasperated with himself. “I know, but I guess I’ve been sitting on the teeter-totter so long, I just couldn’t get off it. And you…you….”

“Made too many jokes?” Starsky finished for him. “Fine pair we make. You sitting in the park and me making jokes. Way we’re going, one thing we won’t have to worry about’ll be the job, because we’ll both be retired before we ever get around to holding hands.”

Hutch laughed, at the picture Starsky presented of their procrastinating future, and at himself. “You kept giving me openings yesterday. I realize that, Starsk, but then we kept getting interrupted, and then I started wondering if you, uh, really knew what you were, uh, getting yourself into….”

There was understanding in Starsky’s eyes, now, that Hutch knew went beyond his dithering, delved into Starsky’s knowledge of Hutch and his past. Understanding and sympathy with the need, however impossible it was to fulfill, to protect himself from the same pain inflicted by Vanessa and Gillian and too many other women to whom Hutch had entrusted his heart. Understanding and sadness that he couldn’t be the one to promise Hutch the moon and then give it to him wrapped up in ribbons.

“I don’t know anymore than you do, Hutch,” Starsky said softly. “Can’t give you any guarantees that I’m gonna like what I’ve never done before, or that I’m gonna want to keep on doing it forever with only you. Scares me spitless when I think I might; scares me just as much when I think I might not.”

“Because what we already have is too important to fuck with,” Hutch concluded, surprised to discover that Starsky had been sitting on the same ride that should have been left behind in childhood. He should have known Starsky was being way too patient. It just wasn’t natural for his partner.

“But I keep getting the feeling, Hutch, that if you don’t get off the teeter-totter, and I don’t stop making jokes, we’re going to regret it for the rest of our lives. Sure don’t want to figure it out when we’ve both got wives and a couple of kids,” he said, his expression abruptly turning grim. “Or when one of us buys it on the street.”

When Starsky was right, he was right, even when it scared Hutch to death. With more fear than he had felt when he had plucked a hypo full of certain death out of the hand of a father driven insane by grief, Hutch lifted his hand and laid it on Starsky’s shoulder.

“You’ve gotta promise me, Starsk, that you’re not going to end up hating me,” he begged even as he felt himself leaning forward, saw the waiting stillness that suddenly possessed Starsky, and sent one last prayer to any deity not otherwise occupied, that he wasn’t making the biggest mistake of his life.

“Just don’t ever shoot my mother,” Starsky joked, bit his lip over it, then laughed just a little. “For Christ’s sake, kiss me, Hutch, before I blow it again.”

Hutch obeyed, eyes open until the last second to memorize this moment, to record in the part of his brain reserved for his most cherished memories, the image of his friend’s welcoming eyes, the way the thin lips parted in anticipation. Closing his eyes finally when they were so close the image blurred, recording instead the feel of Starsky’s warm, moist breath against his own lips just before the yearned for, dreamed of, fantasized kiss became a reality with the first hesitant brush of their lips. A brush that, of its own accord, deepened into a touch and then a press that required he tilt his head the barest fraction to perfect the fit because he felt, in the fingertips that had somehow found their way to Starsky’s jaw, that the lips beneath his were about to part and invite him to….

Rap. Rap. Rap. “Steward.”

The sudden parting felt as if it might rip the heart right out of his chest.

“I’m going to kill that little pipsqueak,” Starsky growled, half-rising to his feet.

Hutch caught his arm and pulled him back down. “Let me go, Starsk. I don’t want to have to visit you in the brig,” he insisted and hurried to answer the door.

The steward greeted him with a grin and their tuxedos. “Cleaned and pressed, Mr. Hutchinson. Fresh shirts for dinner.”

Reluctantly, Hutch accepted the clothing. “Thank you, Juni, but, uh, I…if you could give the captain our regrets….”

The small man looked as if Hutch had just suggested he might enjoy eating babies for breakfast. “Captain’s invitation, Mr. Hutchinson,” he insisted, looking past Hutch to where Starsky had come to stand behind him. “Dinner at seven, Mr. Starsky.”

“I have the feeling he’s trying to tell us we have a standing reservation and should have called to cancel,” Starsky said, much to Hutch’s disappointment. “The captain probably wouldn’t understand why we would want to order room service.”

The warning in Starsky’s voice reminded Hutch that, though well removed from Bay City and the long arm of the law enforcement officers they both were, a little discretion still wouldn’t go amiss. Even should this cruise see the beginning of an all-encompassing love between them, it was going to be a short honeymoon indeed.

“Thank you, Juni,” Hutch said, reluctantly accepting the cold reality before he even had a chance to explore the warm dream. “We’ll be there, of course.”

“No way, Hutch,” Starsky insisted when the door closed on Juni’s approving smile, and Hutch tried to slip past him.

With his arms full of tuxedos, Hutch found himself at a decided disadvantage when Starsky caught him by the shoulders and halted his retreat. He tugged half-heartedly at the firm grip. “Come on, Starsky. We have to start getting ready if we’re going to…” He let the lame excuses disappear into the ether where they belonged. “We don’t have time…” he tried again.

“I’m the one with the three hundred dollar watch, Hutch,” Starsky reminded him. “So don’t worry that I’m gonna start something we don’t have time to finish.” His hands tightened just enough to emphasize his next words. “But now I want a promise out of you. Stay off that fucking teeter-totter,” he demanded.

Hutch faced down tomorrow and told it to get back into the unforeseeable future where it belonged. “Promise. As soon as dinner is over, we’ll pick up where we were so rudely interrupted,” he swore.

Starsky nodded, released him and plucked his tuxedo from Hutch’s arms. “So get moving, Blintz. Ya still gotta help me with the noose.”

~*~*~

Dinner was an instant replay of the night before. The same self-centered, self-satisfied businessmen, the same bored wives, Stafford being politely correct–Hutch suspected these social aspects of his new position were less pleasing to Stafford than sailing his ship–and two very, uncomfortable and anxious-to-be-elsewhere cops. As Starsky had observed the evening before: fun night.

At least the food was good, and Starsky had learned fast and no longer seemed to need his back covered. A good thing, since Hutch barely dared let his eyes wander to Starsky’s general vicinity. Every time he did, like a compass needle to true north, his gaze was drawn to Starsky’s mouth. Memory of the too-brief kiss would then take over his brain and Hutch would feel a sappy, besotted smile growing on his face. This was definitely going to be a problem on the streets where so much of their communication was done silently with a look or a touch, but, for once in his life, Hutch decided to worry about the future when it put in an appearance. He had his hands, and his heart, and his briefs full enough dealing with the anticipation of what would happen when this endless dinner was finally over.

Mercifully, dinner did end, but Stafford completed his “thank you for coming” speech with an invitation to his guests to join him for an evening of entertainment by some of the ship’s more musically talented crewmembers. It would be boorish to refuse, a really uncalled for rudeness. Even as he heard himself accepting the captain’s invitation, Hutch wished that his parents had never taught him the meaning of polite. He had managed to reject or forget so many of their teachings, why did this one inconvenient lesson have to remain intact?

After-dinner brandy was served while the waiters rearranged the dining room into an improvised theater. Hutch did his best to keep up his end of the conversation, thankful that, at least, it was Stafford he was talking to. He was grateful as well that, when he faltered in his reply, Starsky was there to pick up the fallen conversation ball before it thumped to the carpet.

“The night is young,” Starsky whispered as they took their seats–at the back, even though they had no hope of a quick escape–and the lights were lowered.

Starsky sounded easy and just a little amused. Did that mean he hadn’t liked the kiss after all? Or that he wasn’t as anxious as Hutch, despite the promise he had extracted, to pick up where they had left off? Or… Worry escalated to fretting, then had to slink off with its tail between its legs when, beneath the cover of the lowered lights, Starsky slipped his hand into Hutch’s. Ah, now he understood. Starsky was still watching his back.

An hour of classical music played by a string quartet of passably talented musicians wasn’t exactly a description of inhumane torture for Hutch. It might have been tonight, however, had Starsky’s hand not remained contentedly within his the entire time. No guarantees, no commitments made, and yet the promise of those fingers entwined with his was, in reality, both. To their friendship, to the closeness, to the old love, even if the new didn’t work out. For the first time, Hutch was also certain that he, too, would be able to offer and honor that promise, whatever the future held. He relaxed and allowed himself to enjoy the beautiful music and the cherished company of the man beside him.

Anticipation returned when they left the captain’s dining room and strolled down the long corridor to their cabin. It curled in Hutch’s belly, sending out tendrils of heat in every direction each time their shoulders touched or their arms brushed in the close confines until, by the time they closed the door behind them, Hutch was as aroused as he had been when Juni had knocked on their door. Well, Starsky had made him promise he would be ready to pick up where they left off. Except for the fact that they were standing in the middle of the sitting room instead of sitting on the couch, as far as Hutch was concerned, the past few hours might never have been.

His touch on Starsky’s shoulder turned his partner toward him, and Starsky stepped into his arms, returning the careful embrace, his chin tilted, his mouth offered. But Hutch found, despite the hours of it they had already endured, he wanted to prolong the anticipation just a little longer. Instead of claiming the kiss Starsky offered, he sought a hug, holding tight to his friend, securing that part of the love he knew he needed in his life so much, before he sought the lips of the lover he had learned to desire.

“Stop,” Starsky commanded, their lips so close that the word was spoken as much onto Hutch’s mouth as into his ears.

Reluctantly, but obediently, Hutch straightened, released the embrace of his arms when Starsky’s dropped to his side, and watched, puzzled, while Starsky left him to search through drawers that he had already investigated in his nervous wanderings the day before.

“Found it,” Starsky exclaimed when Hutch’s patience with the mystery was almost exhausted. He turned and held up his discovery–a do not disturb sign. “Knew I’d seen this somewhere,” he added with a wicked grin. It took him only a moment to hang the notice on the outside of their door and return to Hutch, inserting himself back into the embrace Hutch gladly offered. “Now, where were we?” he asked, his voice husky.

“Right about here,” Hutch replied, lowering his head until, once again, the promised kiss was only a hairsbreadth away.

A brush, a touch, a press, and they were back in time to the afternoon, to the first time, but free now, with their privacy secured, to explore further. As it had before, the jaw beneath Hutch’s fingertips moved, telegraphing the parting of Starsky’s lips to his, offering the tender inner lip and warm recesses to him. A familiar flavor slid onto his taste buds when he accepted the offer and tentatively slipped his tongue into Starsky’s mouth. He knew this taste, from shared cups and glasses and bottles passed back and forth between them as naturally as a borrowed pen. What a joy to find it, undiluted by coffee or soda or beer, and savor it as it flooded his mouth. Savor, too, the power of Starsky’s mouth against his, the way the strong muscles of his jaw worked against Hutch’s fingers, the masculine aggression of the thrust of his tongue that conquered Hutch’s mouth. Without permission. Without supplication.

Whatever doubts Hutch had harbored that the reality of love with Starsky could live up to nebulous fantasy were blasted away in that first, perfectly timeless kiss. He was convinced, beyond any possible shadow of a doubt, that he never wanted this kiss to end, but, if it must, then he would want more. An eternity of Starsky’s kisses.

Still, he was sad when, inevitably, Starsky drew away and their virginity-stealing kiss was over. He opened his eyes, saw the promise of more to come in Starsky’s, and let the joy of it possess him.

“So, what do you think? Are all bets off?” he asked, so certain of the answer that he dared to steal one, small sample before he allowed Starsky to answer him.

“No way, babe,” Starsky murmured, his fingers threading into Hutch’s hair to bring them to that almost kiss again. “Double or nothing. Let ‘er ride. Keep rollin’….”

Hutch cut off the litany with his lips, finding new pleasure in the sudden aggression of the hand that held and directed him, the tongue that invaded his mouth, took no prisoners and filled it with that intoxicating taste again.

It was Starsky who parted them again, because Hutch knew he would gladly suffocate to keep Starsky’s lips on his. Learn to breathe through his ears if it meant he never had to abandon this mouth.

“What about me?” Starsky asked with a flattering breathlessness that let Hutch know he wasn’t the only one trying to learn how to live without air. “‘M I gonna have to improve my technique?”

It could have been a joke, or his cocky partner fishing for a return of the compliment he had given Hutch. It was neither. There was uncertainty on Starsky’s face that brought a lump to Hutch’s throat.

“Your kissing is just like your swimming. What you lack in technique, you make up for in enthusiasm,” he teased gently, delighted that their banter could slip just as easily into this new sharing, as his hand slid from Starsky’s jaw into the curls at his temple. He saw the acceptance of that comfort settle in Starsky’s eyes before the heavy lids came down again, and a silent invitation was given with parted lips.

Third time could only have been the charm if Hutch’s hadn’t already been captivated. Still, it was delightful in itself, and it led to the fourth and the fifth, until the softness of Starsky’s throat beneath his fingers reminded him that the now swollen lips weren’t the only uncharted territory he had dreamed of exploring. Hutch let his lips begin the journey from cheek to jaw to the tender lobe of a curl-covered ear while his fingers slipped loose the silk he himself had tied and worked at the buttons that hid what he wanted to possess.

“Hutch,” Starsky whispered, an uncertain protest that vibrated against Hutch’s lips where they pressed into the hollow of his throat. “Hutch. Babe, please.”

The gentle tugging on his hair delivered the message that, uncertain or not, Starsky was protesting, and Hutch knew he had to stop. The brush of chest hair, coarser than he had expected, softer than he had dreamed, tickled his bottom lip and tempted him to stay, to try with lips and tongue to coax protest into acceptance. He could do it. He had employed sexual expertise more than once to gain surrender from a skittish lady. But this was Starsky, and coercion, however gentle, had no place between them.

Hutch lifted his head and smiled his understanding into Starsky’s eyes.

“Maybe we better…” Starsky began.

Hutch smothered the halting explanation with a fingertip. “S’Okay, Starsk,” he reassured his friend, feeling the rightness of it now himself. The desire in Starsky’s eyes, the arms that still held him close, reassured him that this was only a hiatus, not an ending. “I’ve got no objection to learning to walk with you this way one step at a time.”

“I was just going to say…” Starsky tried to protest again.

“It’s okay, Starsk. I understand,” Hutch repeated, relieved when Starsky’s doubtful expression cleared into a puzzled smile as Hutch released him.

After another moment, during which Starsky seemed uncertain of exactly what was expected of him, he shrugged and began backing toward his bedroom. “‘Night, Hutch,” he said just before he disappeared.

It was a strategic retreat. Hutch thought he should, at the very least, be disappointed, but he wasn’t. He felt content, replete with the kisses they had shared and excited by the promise of tomorrow. There would be no ogres in his dreams tonight, he was sure. As for the wanton seducer, now that he had a little substance with which to enrich his fantasies, Hutch was more than happy to welcome the incubus.

For the second night, their doors remained open between them.

~*~*~

The alarm was ringing. Or maybe it was the phone. Hutch flopped over onto his back and groped at the bedside table. He didn’t think he found the source of the noise, but it stopped, so he quit groping, quit worrying, and let himself drift back down under a few layers of awareness.

Only his brain refused to cooperate. Insisted that the noisy intrusion meant something. Alarm clock. Get up and run? No, that wasn’t right. Phone. Dobey? Uh, uh, he was on vacation. Ah, that’s what it was, he was on vacation with Starsky and last night they had… Hutch’s eyes popped open when the bed dripped, and he found Starsky just sitting down beside him.

Hutch was mesmerized by the soft smile of greeting. No, not by the smile, but by the mouth that formed it. He had kissed that mouth. Those lips were a little redder than usual, a little fuller, because of his kisses. That tiny, slightly darker bruise near the right corner of the bottom lip had been caused by his teeth. The flavor and the texture and the strength of that mouth were now indelibly imprinted on his memory.

“Morning,” Starsky murmured, the soft smile puckering and then flattening around the two syllables.

“Morning,” Hutch agreed, and realized that Starsky was watching his mouth, too. Was Starsky as possessed by the wonder of it as he was? As enthralled by how something so visually familiar had all new meaning now that other senses had intimate recall to offer?

Hutch forced his eyes to abandon the object of his fascination to check out the rest of Starsky’s face. Oh, yeah. As so often happened, it looked like he and Starsky were on the same page, maybe even reading the very same paragraph.

“That was Sharon on the phone. Wanted to know if we’re gonna go ashore in Mazatlan,” Starsky reported.

“Do you want to?” Hutch asked. They hadn’t talked about it. There was a part of him that wanted to leave the do not disturb sign on the door and hole up with Starsky until they pulled up to the pier in Bay City. Another, more practical part, warned him not to be so greedy. Slow, go slow, he reminded himself.

Starsky shrugged, the same dichotomy of wishes warring for dominance on his face. “Guess so. When am I ever gonna be here like this again?”

“Okay,” Hutch agreed, reminded that this luxury was only borrowed, and feeling indulgently willing in any case, to grant Starsky any wish that was within his power to give.

Then Starsky was getting closer, leaning in with obvious intent, yet it still took Hutch a second to lift a hand between them and bring a halt to the kiss Starsky was, oh so naturally it seemed impossible, about to bestow. “Morning breath,” he mumbled.

“That bad, huh?” Starsky said with obvious regret, but he didn’t move away.

“I meant me,” Hutch explained his reluctance.

Starsky’s finger found his bottom lip, traced its outline and tested the sleep-dry padding. “What you were talking about yesterday,” he said, the sudden seriousness of his mood putting an edge to his jaw and drawing his heavy eyebrows together. “Forever. Isn’t this part of it? Morning breath.” His finger abandoned Hutch’s lip to scrape a nail tip against the beard growth on his chin. “Morning stubble.”

art and parcel, Hutch had to agree, and removed the hand between them, sending it to the nape of Starsky’s neck to bring them together.

Morning after kiss, though the night before had held no more than kisses. The magic wasn’t lost, Hutch was delighted to discover. Starsky’s taste, sleep-soured and musky, was still welcome in his mouth and the masculine strength aroused him, though it seemed impossible, even more than it had the night before. The wiry bristle that caught at his own stubble and scraped tender skin wasn’t quite so enchanting, but Hutch knew he could learn to live with that. Live with it every morning for the rest of his life. When, he wondered, had he stopped questioning whether he was going to like the reality as much as the fantasy?

“And morning hard-ons,” Starsky whispered when he finally broke the kiss and straightened to reveal the strain of his arousal in yesterday’s white shorts.

“Thought you wanted to go slow,” Hutch reminded him, though slow now felt, with his fingers itching to discover the heated promise beneath the taut material, like sheer idiocy. “Thought you wanted to go ashore.”

Starsky seemed about to protest, then shrugged. “Well, maybe,” he agreed and then pushed up off the bed, stood there with that morning erection unashamedly displayed as if to provide visual contradiction to the spoken agreement. “And, yes. Outta bed, Blondie. All ashore that’s goin’ ashore.”

Hutch lingered long enough to enjoy Starsky’s retreat, then rolled out of the bed and followed his erection to the bathroom. It suddenly occurred to him that, without the benefit of either caffeine or the hot stinging spray of the shower, this morning, his brain was fully engaged.

“Ain’t love grand.”

~*~*~

The market place Sharon directed them to was huge, so large that Hutch was sure they would never have time, in just one day, to visit all the tents and lean-tos and shabby stalls. A stunning array of wares was spread out upon tables and blankets and, in some cases, directly onto the hard-baked earth. A flood of touristas and gringos from the Amapola, and another ship also in port, thronged the dusty lanes between merchants, necessitating that Starsky stay close to him. Hutch didn’t feel at all inconvenienced by the need to stay shoulder to shoulder with his friend, delighted, in fact, by the freedom to reach out and touch to ensure they didn’t become separated.

“Geez, Hutch, where the hell do we start?” Starsky asked, his dark head swiveling on his neck as he tried to take in each and every sight around them.

“In the middle,” Hutch suggested. He gestured toward the congestion of bodies already clogging the first lane, then indicated the lesser traveled middle one. “Work our way to the end and then double back to the beginning. Less likely to end up trampled that way.”

Starsky grinned at him. “Always knew you’d be good for something if I kept you around long enough,” he teased, but his eyes were on Hutch’s mouth again and, whether deliberately or by sheer coincidence, his tongue peeked out to lick his bottom lip.

“Jesus,” Hutch swore, swamped by a wave of heat that had nothing to do with the Mexican sun. How could something he had seen a hundred times before leave him, in an instant, floundering in a sea of lust?

Starsky’s eyes widened before his head dropped, all of his fascinated attention suddenly taken up by the canvas bag he had brought to carry their purchases. “Sorry,” he muttered, sounding both startled and contrite.

So, the temptation had been deliberate, but perhaps the strength of Hutch’s reaction unforeseen. Clearly, Starsky was testing the boundaries of his newfound power to arouse, but didn’t yet quite know what to do with the results.

“Any time,” Hutch reassured him, stepping a little closer when he was bumped from behind by a lady anxious to spend her pesos. Once again the crowded conditions worked in his favor, allowing him to whisper almost directly into Starsky’s ear. “Any time we’re alone, that is, Starsk. Don’t want to scare the horses.” He jumped at the loud braying from a little donkey pulling a cart past them. “Or the donkeys.”

“I’ll remember,” Starsky promised, but there was just the hint of a challenge in his eyes that made Hutch shiver. He had seen Starsky on the make. Had competed with the wanton sensuality turned up to its highest intensity. Had dreamed of it being turned on him. For the first time, he wondered if he would survive it. Certainly not unchanged.

“We’re gonna start in the middle?” Starsky asked, reminding Hutch that there was another purpose to this day. A carefree purpose to play the gawking tourists and spend some of the thousands of pesos their few American dollars had bought them.

“Any idea what you want to see?” Hutch asked, turning so that they both faced the marketplace.

“Yeah,” Starsky agreed, slinging the canvas bag over his shoulder and rubbing his hands together as he set out toward the first shabby tent. “All of it. Come on, Hutch, time to show me how good your Spanish is.”

Hutch’s Spanish was very good, but, for Starsky’s purposes, it didn’t really need to be. For these people, the language of money had been learned in English numbers. At a hundred pesos to a single American greenback, the prices were ridiculously low for the handmade pottery and carvings and colorful clothing. Hutch stood back at the first tent after Starsky had found something he wanted to buy and watched his partner barter with the merchant over the price. Clearly, Starsky was enjoying the give and take of the haggling process, but Hutch was much less comfortable. He was used to paying the cost clearly displayed on a price tag, and wandered away to wait, squatting down to study a display of tiny carved animals spread out on a dirty blanket. He had only been there a moment when a pair of small feet and dirty legs appeared on the other side of the blanket. Looking up, past a ragged shift, Hutch found a round, unsmiling face in which were set eyes far too old for a child.

“Buenos Dios,” Hutch greeted the, he guessed, little girl. The child blinked at him, but didn’t reply.

“Hey, Hutch. You ready to go?”

The child scampered away as Starsky approached, and Hutch unfolded his legs to stand upright. His partner held up the canvas bag. “Got the flower pot for my mom.”

“Yeah? How much did you get him down to?” Hutch asked.

“Five hundred pesos,” Starsky reported. “And I just saw a shirt at the next stall that makes Huggy’s wardrobe look like a nun’s. I’m gonna buy it for him and see how long it takes him to wear it.”

“You go ahead, Starsk,” Hutch said, waving a hand toward the carvings on the ground. “I’m still trying to decide if I want one of these. I’ll catch up in a minute.”

Hutch waited until he saw that Starsky’s attention was engaged by the gaudy-shirt-selling woman at the next stall before he approached the proprietor of this one, digging into his pocket for his wad of native currency. He peeled off five one-hundred peso notes and handed them over to the startled woman and then left the tent.

Over the next few hours, Starsky bought souvenirs for the Dobey family, his brother, two more for his mother, and even a little doll in traditional dress for Minnie. He argued and bargained until he was content with the prices, and then he moved on to the next merchant. Each time, Hutch found a reason to linger until Starsky’s attention was elsewhere, and then handed over the necessary pesos to cover the difference between the asking price and what Starsky had paid. He didn’t want to spoil Starsky’s fun, knew that, in his own way, his partner was being generous by buying things he really didn’t need for people who would tuck them away in a drawer, but the blatant poverty appalled Hutch.

“Ah, Hutch. Smell that. Real Mexican tacos. Not that watered down stuff we get at home,” Starsky said when Hutch caught up with him in front of a taco stall. “What I wouldn’t give….”

“Would you give the rest of your vacation in the can?” Hutch asked. “If not, I think you better stick to Mrs. Ramos’ tacos and refried beans.”

Starsky nodded reluctantly, his gaze lingering on the bubbling pot on a coal brazier, becoming less wistful when he saw the flies on the tortillas. “It’d be nice to have some real Mexican food while we’re here, but I guess you’re right. Montezuma’s got a long memory and really knows how to carry a grudge.”

Hutch laughed at the gloom and slung his arm over his partner’s shoulder. “So who’s next on your souvenir list? The meter maid?”

“Think I’m all done,” Starsky confessed. “Hey, what did you buy back there?” he asked, looking pointedly at Hutch’s empty hands. “I saw you handing over some money…” Suspicion narrowed the blue eyes and he shrugged free of Hutch’s arm. “Hutch?”

Hutch squirmed, blushed, and then tactically admitted his philanthropy. “Well, dammit, Starsky. Can’t you see how poor these people are?” he blurted in defense of his generosity.

“Yeah, babe,” Starsky agreed, his hand settling in the small of Hutch’s back, a gentle pressure prompting him to begin walking again toward the entrance to the market and, beyond it, the pier and the Amapola and their privileged world. “I see it, but you feel it. I think that’s one of the things I’ve always loved the most about you.”

Even if Hutch had had any words he could give in reply, he knew they would never make it past the spasming muscles in his throat. Starsky loved him. Long before there had been his reluctant confession, long before there had been magical kisses, Starsky loved him.

~*~*~

They returned to their cabin only long enough to drop off Starsky’s purchases and change into swimming trunks. By mutual, unspoken agreement they both seemed to decide they didn’t need to be alone right now and left immediately. Lounging beside the pool, they feasted on hamburgers from the poolside grill and cold beer from the poolside bar.

Hutch took a brief, muscle-stretching swim, then hid behind his paperback while he contemplated the succession of emotions that had possessed him, one after another, throughout the morning, sorting them, and finally tucking away the sorrow he had felt for the natives. He had done what little he could and received the unexpected reward of Starsky’s loving, unrestrained approval. He had always known that Starsky loved him, just as he had loved the friend whose loyalty and faith he could always depend on. But in a way, even though he had recognized the value of it, he had still taken it for granted. Starsky knew him the way no other living being in the world knew him. Knew every single one of his flaws, had seen every weakness, experienced all his strengths. Starsky knew him. And Starsky loved him. And trusted him enough to follow him as they explored what limits that love might have.

One step at a time, Hutch reminded himself, watching Starsky splash his way back and forth across the pool. A few magical kisses did not a lifetime commitment make, but still, Hutch wanted to reward the courage it took for Starsky to follow where he led.

He left Starsky sleeping off his aquatic marathon in the sun and sought out the entertainment director, securing her advice and assistance to implement his plan. It wasn’t a new plan, more of an addendum to the one that had already gone far more smoothly than he had ever hoped.

Hutch returned to the pool before Starsky woke, stretched out in the lounge and, between checks that the sun wasn’t having its wicked way with his partner’s exposed skin, even managed to read the first two chapters of his novel. It wasn’t a particularly interesting book, and looking at Starsky was more pleasing in any case. But at least he had had the sense not to bring War and Peace, Hutch congratulated himself.

It was after five before the trickle of returning passengers became a steady stream, and the noise aroused Starsky from his nap. He stretched and yawned, scratched at his chest where suntan lotion had plastered the black hair to his skin, and generally put on an unconscious performance that had Hutch wishing he were wearing more than swimming trunks. He surreptitiously draped his towel over his lap and raised a knee to hide his condition.

“How come you let me sleep so long?” Starsky asked, squinting at the angle of the sun. At least this time his watch was back in the cabin and he wasn’t just ignoring it.

“Your snoring kept the seagulls away,” Hutch deadpanned.

Starsky flicked him with his towel, sat up and swiveled to gingerly rest his feet on the hot deck. “Guess we should start sprucing up for dinner,” he said, clearly not looking forward to another evening of good food and boring company.

“Guess we better,” Hutch agreed, hiding his anticipatory smile behind gathering up the lotion and book and making sure his towel was draped casually in front of him.

Hutch followed Starsky into his bedroom, caught the startled glance from the blue eyes at this invasion, and pretended to ignore it. Opening the closet door, he studied the selection of clothing Starsky had brought with him, all the time feeling his partner’s puzzlement and wondering how long his curiosity could be contained. Since he didn’t want to have to reveal his plans if he could help it, Hutch didn’t prolong the process, but pointedly pushed the tuxedo aside and picked out navy slacks and a shirt to match, hesitated, then added a white jacket.

“You mind wearing this tonight?” he asked, handing the hangers to Starsky.

“No monkey suit?” Starsky asked.

“No monkey suit,” Hutch confirmed. “See you in a while.”

Hutch had already mentally made his own selection and took a long, leisurely shower before approaching his closet. Standing under the hot water, he was almost tempted to take his still swollen cock in hand and masturbate, let a fantasy ease the pressure magical kisses and even the memory of them had built up inside him. But he didn’t want fantasy, even with little hope that tonight would see them take more than another tentative step or two toward making love. He wanted the real thing, and could wait for it. A few days, at least. The third day of their vacation was almost over, but Hutch was putting his faith in love.

Dressed in cream and chocolate brown, Hutch waited only a little anxiously in the sitting room for Starsky to appear. It wasn’t like his partner to take longer to get ready to go out than he did, leading Hutch to speculate whether Starsky might be taking the route he had rejected and indulging in a little self-pleasuring in the shower. The thought, and the image it evoked, sent Hutch to the bar for a fortifying glass of wine.

“Am I supposed to wear a tie? Holy shit!” Starsky exclaimed, stopping abruptly in the middle of the sitting room, his gaze fixed on Hutch.

“No, you don’t have to wear a tie,” Hutch said, almost intoxicated by the admiration on Starsky’s face. “Something wrong?” he asked.

“Christ, Hutch. You make me promise to be good and then you wear something that makes you look like…like…” Starsky groped for a comparison, but couldn’t seem to find one. “Goddamnit, but you’re so…gold.”

Somehow, Hutch managed to put down the glass of wine and make it from the bar to Starsky without stumbling over his own feet, while his carefully laid plans for the evening slipped out of his brain. The only steps he could think of now were how many it would take to back Starsky into his bedroom and… Hutch shoved his hands in his pockets, knowing that if he laid one finger on Starsky now, there would be no stopping, and he refused to behave like a rutting animal.

“We have to go,” he said, hearing the reluctance in his voice, hoping Starsky would understand that it was time to cover him again. For both their sakes.

It took a moment, but then Starsky waved a hand toward the door. “After you, partner,” he invited.

The air up on deck was, fortunately, beginning to cool as evening approached. Hutch was grateful for the onshore breeze that ruffled his hair and dried the sweat threatening to wilt his collar as they made their way across the gangway and onto the pier. Aplomb somewhat recovered, he looked around for the car Sharon had promised to hire, and spotted it parked a few yards down the road leading to town, its driver lounging against a gleaming bumper.

“This way,” he told Starsky, automatically placing a guiding hand on his partner’s white clad back to steer him in the right direction.

“Señor Hutchinson?” the driver asked as soon as they approached, leading Hutch to assume that Sharon had told the man to look for a big blond. Certainly, he would never be mistaken for a native. “My name is Carlos. I’ll be your driver tonight,” the man said in Spanish, opening the back door for them.

“Sharon told you where we want to go?” Hutch asked in the same language.

“Sí, Señor. Casa del Rosa,” Carlos confirmed.

Starsky, Hutch noticed, as they drove through the narrow streets, was being uncharacteristically patient. Usually, the experienced cop had little patience with a mystery, but if his curiosity was tormenting him, he had obviously decided to rein it in and let Hutch spring his surprise in his own time.

The Casa del Rosa was, like its neighbors, a small and drab adobe building, but the sign out front was painted in bright, cheerful colors that invited them in. The interior was simply decorated, but Hutch could tell at a glance that it was spotlessly clean and he silently thanked Sharon for her advice.

Starsky, however, hesitated at the doorway. “You get a memo that Montezuma’s decided to forgive and forget?” he asked.

Hutch settled his hand in the small of Starsky’s back again and nudged him forward. “Sharon assures me that this is where the crew eat when they’re in port, so I think we’re safe. I wanted you to have that real Mexican food you were talking about.” He leaned closer to Starsky’s ear so the waiter leading them to their table wouldn’t overhear. “But there’s still time to make the captain’s dinner if you want to go back.”

Starsky opened his mouth, seemed to think better of what he was going to say, and closed it. “Think I’d rather take my chances here.”

Hutch automatically held Starsky’s chair for him and then circled the table and sat down at his own. The table was small, set with candles that already burned and a single red rose. Red roses were for love, he remembered, and wondered if Starsky knew that. Probably. His partner only played dumb when the occasion warranted it, he wasn’t really ignorant. Especially of the ways of seduction.

The waiter spoke only Spanish and the menu was written in the same language, so, after obtaining Starsky’s approval, Hutch ordered for both of them. When the wine came, he poured Starsky’s first and waited for him to take a sip before drinking himself. Then he ran smack into the brick wall of not knowing exactly what to say. He looked around the small restaurant, hoping for an interesting picture, a noteworthy bit of memorabilia, anything that might untie the knots that suddenly seemed to bind his tongue.

Finding no distraction worth commenting upon, Hutch finally had to turn his gaze back to his partner. Starsky was lounging comfortably back in his chair, with his hands folded across his flat stomach, and a knowing smirk on his face.

“What’s that look for?” Hutch growled, but he didn’t need Starsky to answer. The look alone was enough to make Hutch realize what he was doing. He was treating Starsky like a date. Falling into the same pattern of careful, gentlemanly behavior he employed when he was intent on charming his way into some woman’s lacy panties. But Starsky wasn’t some woman, he wasn’t even just some other person, he was the man whose heart Hutch was hoping would be placed in his keeping for the rest of their lives.

“Starsk, I’m sorry,” he apologized, truly contrite. If Starsky had done this to him, he would be furious. Wouldn’t he? Hutch was too rattled to say for sure.

“It’s okay, babe,” Starsky reassured him. “It’s like the way they’re treating us on the ship. I wouldn’t want a steady diet of it, but once in a while is okay.” Above his teasing grin, Starsky’s eyes twinkled with devilment. “And, as long as turnabout’s fair play. Once in a while.”

Hutch sighed in relief and relaxed. Had they just taken another step forward? In understanding that this was going to take some adjusting to in every facet of their lives, not just in whose bed they were sleeping? He thought so.

He lifted his glass toward his partner and proposed a toast. “One step at a time.”

Wearing an unreadable smile, Starsky leaned forward and touched his glass to Hutch’s with a musical ping. He did not, however, echo the toast.

~*~*~

Hutch stood with Starsky on their private balcony watching the lights of Mazatlan slip past as the Amapola put out to sea. They had barely made the “all aboard” last call, lingering over dinner and wine. Hutch knew he had been loath to see their “date” end. He had enjoyed their subtle, but definite, flirting over the spicy courses the waiter served, fascinated at how familiar and yet excitingly new it felt. And Starsky had left him with no doubt that he was enjoying this blending of old and new as well. But, Hutch reminded himself, Starsky had always been a flirt. It came to him as naturally as breathing.

“Are you sure you don’t want to go up to the disco for a while?” Hutch repeated the offer he had made when they returned to the ship. He had thought that Starsky might appreciate an opportunity to dance off a little of the dinner they had eaten.

Starsky’s answer then had been a gratifyingly immediate refusal. This time, he turned and leaned back against the rail, both hands propped behind him so that his half unbuttoned shirt gaped open. “We can if that’s what you want, but I’d rather stay here,” he said simply. He looked down at the deck, then through the open door into their cabin, then finally at Hutch, revealing his puzzlement. “I’m getting confused about what we’re supposed to be doin’ here, Hutch. Maybe I just haven’t made myself clear, but you don’t have to seduce me. When you backed off last night, I thought maybe you were getting cold feet, so I let you. It hit me about ten minutes after I went to bed that was a mistake, but by then…” He shrugged eloquently. “…you had gone to bed, too, and I figured it would be better to wait until morning. Tried to let you know that this morning. Anyway, just so you know, I’m already seduced. Already ready.”

Of course Starsky was ready. He had made that perfectly clear this morning, seeking kisses and flaunting a hard-on that Hutch knew wasn’t just biological hydraulics anymore than his arousal had been. What Hutch had been doing, of course, was trying to stack the deck in his favor, to find some way to make Starsky see him the way he now saw Starsky. New and exciting. Not the same old Hutch. And all he had done was put on parade the insecurities Starsky was already all too familiar with.

“If I’m coming on too strong, Hutch. If one step at a time is really how you want this to play out, then I guess I can do that, too,” Starsky offered. He released the rail long enough to wave a demonstrative hand the length of Hutch, then curled his fingers back around the shiny metal. “I just want you to know you don’t have to.”

It was long past time he quit dithering, Hutch thought, and closed the distance between them. He slid his arms around Starsky’s waist, spreading his hands flat on the muscular back beneath the white jacket and felt Starsky give up his seductive pose to mirror the embrace. He looked into Starsky’s welcoming face and smiled his relief. “Guess you and me have been running together too long to be taking baby steps now, huh?”

“Running and falling and helping each other back up,” Starsky agreed. “Now why don’t you shut up, quit thinking, and help me improve my technique some more.”

Hutch kissed him then, if for no other reason than to shut him up. But there were other reasons. A multitude of them to be found in warm lips and a strong tongue and a restless body that danced against him. Hard and wanting, Hutch thrust back, matching the simple, age-old rhythm Starsky set and reveling in the hands that burrowed under his shirt, gripped and released the flexing muscles of his back as he too found warm, velvet skin to explore beneath Starsky’s shirt.

“Don’t wanna be crude,” Starsky panted with a flattering breathlessness when Hutch, still unable to figure out a way to breathe through his ears, came up for air.

Even though he ought to know better, Hutch just couldn’t help challenging him. “Crude? Nah, Starsk. But you do rude…” He jumped and arched hard into Starsky’s groin when a very bold hand suddenly cupped and squeezed the cheek of his ass. The sensations as their hard cocks pressed together made him decide he would have to make a point of challenging Starsky more often.

“Your place or mine?” Starsky growled, maybe having received a bit more than he had been expecting. His hands were on Hutch’s hips now, holding him at bay just a little.

“Yours,” Hutch decided for no good reason he could think of, or, perhaps, for some lingering need to level the playing field a little. He had had longer to think about all this, find some sort of perspective. It seemed only fair to give Starsky the dubious advantage of home ground.

“Goddamnit, Hutch, would you quit thinking,” Starsky demanded, emphasizing the command with a mock ferocious expression and a little shake that rocked Hutch back on his heels then brought them together, groin to groin. “If you gotta think, do it with this head, will ya.”

Just as exasperated with himself, Hutch took a page from Starsky’s book and became a man of action. The resolve carried them as far as the chosen bedroom before it began to waver. This was it, he realized, looking at the big bed Juni had turned down so neatly while they were at dinner. No more pretty fantasies, just him and Starsky climbing into that bed and….

He turned his back on it, found Starsky watching him with his arms crossed over his chest, obviously waiting, expecting him to chicken out again. Not this time. “Strip,” he commanded, and followed the order himself, shrugging out of his jacket and tossing it onto the valet. He waited until Starsky’s jacket had joined his, and then began unbuttoning his shirt. Starsky, of course, had fewer buttons to undo, and Hutch noticed he didn’t start on them until Hutch had caught up, but then matched him, button for button. Cuffs next, then shirttails were pulled free so that chocolate and navy could be shrugged off in tandem and flung on top of their jackets.

Hutch would have liked to pause for a moment of appreciation just then, but knew if he did, the mood could too easily be broken. He gestured an “after you” toward the end of the bed, then sat down beside Starsky, close enough that their hips pressed and their bare shoulders and arms brushed as they discarded shoes and socks. They rose as one, turned and faced each other, their differing dominant hands resting on the snaps of their slacks.

“Show you mine if you show me yours,” Starsky challenged with bravado that Hutch could see went no deeper than Hutch’s. He popped the snap with a twist of his fingers.

“Already seen it, already showed it,” Hutch countered, his confidence bolstered by the simple reminder that this was all as new to his friend. He released his snap, grasping the tab of his zipper and pulling it slowly down, watching avidly as Starsky mirrored his actions.

“But never ready for action,” Starsky reminded him, his fingers tucked far enough into the waistband of his slacks that Hutch knew they were tucked under the edge of his briefs as well.

Hutch couldn’t let himself think about that, it might make him break stride with Starsky and stumble. Again, he mirrored Starsky’s pose, took a deep breath and pushed. His last barriers cooperatively dropped straight to the floor while Starsky’s took an extra little wriggle to complete their decent. But, within less than two minutes of walking through the bedroom door, the awkward hurdle of getting naked was jumped together.

With that same precise concurrence, they moved to opposite sides of the bed, grabbed the turned down corners of sheets and blankets and flung them off the end of the mattress. They grinned at each other as they climbed onto the bed, stretched out facing each other and reached out to connect, Hutch’s hand falling on the smooth skin of Starsky’s hip, while Starsky’s found a home it seemed to like in the curve of Hutch’s waist.

“Now what?” Starsky asked, reminding Hutch that neither one of them had any experience with sex with another man.

And that, if he let it, could be the hurdle that would bring him down, Hutch thought. But only if he let it. First times were never perfect, usually turning out to be an awkward mess of tangled up arms and cross purposes. With the right person, Hutch knew that didn’t matter, and, for the first time in his life, Hutch was absolutely certain he was in bed with the right person.

He stroked the smooth skin under his hand and smiled. “Whatever comes naturally?” he suggested.

“Damn, I’m glad you said that,” Starsky agreed, a wriggle and a tightening of his grip on Hutch bringing them together from knees to chest. “‘Cause I just naturally wanna kiss you.”

Hutch had fantasized this first time with Starsky a hundred times at least. Never once had he thought that something so simple as the reality they were sharing could be so good. When Starsky pulled out of that first kiss, Hutch demanded a second, then submitted when Starsky’s lips claimed his for fair play, while their bodies, far wiser left to themselves than either of them could hope to be, shifted and thrust and danced against each other.

“Yeah. Like that,” Starsky voiced his panting approval between kisses.

Hutch squeezed the pliant ass cheek again, digging his fingers into the moist crevice, rewarded with the sudden jerking of Starsky’s hips that pressed the lush handful harder into his palm, then drove the hard hot bar of Starsky’s cock into his belly. He swallowed the groan that gusted into his mouth with their next kiss, then gave it back to his lover when Starsky burrowed his fingers between their chests and bestowed a perfect pinch to Hutch’s already friction-sensitized nipple.

Hutch was so close, every stroke of the muscular body against his edging him nearer to the point of no return. He could feel it gathering inside him, the sweet rush of fire in his belly that swept through his balls and into his cock, making it pulse in warning. Stop now or go with it, each throb seemed to beat into his brain. But there was really no choice, no stopping this now. Not with Starsky’s cock sliding against his, slick with their sweat and pre-come, pulsing that same warning in counterpoint.

“Come with me,” Hutch pleaded, wanting Starsky with him when he plunged into the abyss.

“Always,” Starsky promised.

And then it was happening, each spasm that wrung a succession of hot splashes of semen from Hutch echoed by the beat and spray of Starsky’s release. Rhythm shattered, they jerked and plunged and hung onto each other for dear life and dearer pleasure, shouted their release against each other’s mouths, and finally collapsed together. A tangle of sated limbs, they held each other close while their hearts slowed and the sweet, sharp strain of release faded into the sleepy reward of afterglow.

Hutch was content to drift on that cushion, just sink down a little deeper with Starsky held tight in his arms, secure in the knowledge he would need no dreams tonight. It would be so perfect if they could just go to sleep, wake up together and start all over again. That might even have been possible if he had been in bed with one of his dreams, but the real live article obviously hadn’t been briefed on the post-coital program.

“Christ, Hutch, are we a mess,” Starsky complained, pulling away and letting the cool evening air invade the nice warm nest between them. “We didn’t think about this,” he added, running his hand down his chest and belly and holding it up for Hutch to inspect their combined emissions.

Hutch didn’t need the reminder that those emissions were growing colder and stickier by the moment. He flopped onto his back and stared at the ceiling, wondering if he really wanted to spend the rest of his life with someone who could trample such a perfect moment as if he wasn’t even aware it existed. Of course, for Starsky, perhaps it hadn’t.

“Damn. The bed’s wet, too,” Starsky pointed out as he climbed over Hutch and disappeared into the bathroom.

At least Starsky hadn’t planted a knee or an elbow somewhere painful, Hutch thought, but it wasn’t much consolation. He didn’t even watch the retreat, feeling himself climbing on a merry-go-round this time of doubts and what-ifs, while he listened to Starsky mutter until the rush of water in the sink drowned him out.

A minute later, Starsky reappeared and threw Hutch onto the next level of confusion by sitting down beside him and, without hesitation, applying the warm, wet washcloth he held to Hutch’s belly and groin, handling his still puffy and extra sensitive cock with fine delicacy. TLC. The kind of thoughtful little service one lover gave to another, but performed with an almost casual disinterest of touch and expression.

“Gonna have to be better prepared next time,” Starsky said as he dropped the washcloth on the floor.

Next time, Hutch wondered? But Starsky had already left his side and was busy pulling the bedcovers back up onto the bed. The view, as delightful as it was when Starsky bent to pull at the sheets and blanket, wasn’t one Hutch was practiced reading. He needed to see what was going on on Starsky’s face, combine it with the tone of his voice and….

“Make sure the Kleenex is in here,” Starsky added, then flipped the covers up so they fell over Hutch’s face.

When Hutch had clawed clear of the white blind, Starsky was standing beside him again, hands on hips and a long-suffering look on his face. “What?” he asked, and then realized his partner was probably waiting for him to make a polite exit and leave him in peace.

“Just this once, Hutch, please, can’t you stop thinking for five minutes,” Starsky pleaded. “Or at least tell me what you’re thinking.”

Was it good for you, Hutch thought, but bit his lip hard, refusing to let the cliché make him look like an even bigger fool than he felt. Starsky had thrust and moaned and shot his load all over Hutch’s belly, so it had to have been good. Good enough, at least. So Hutch settled for a question that he hoped wouldn’t sound quite so insecure.

“Do you want me to go sleep in my own bed?” he asked, hoping Starsky would have the inclination to refuse the courtesy.

Starsky lifted the covers and propped one knee on the bed. “Hell, no. But I’m really hoping you’ll volunteer to sleep on the wet spot,” he said with an expression far too innocent to be worn by a stark naked man.

Obligingly, Hutch moved over, wincing as his butt settled on a very wet and cold spot, indeed. If Starsky forgot the Kleenex next time, Hutch made a mental note to remember, realizing suddenly that he had accepted that there would be a next time. With just a couple of sentences, Starsky had managed to stop the doubt and confusion spinning in Hutch’s head. When he climbed into the bed, and, with that same casual attitude of entitlement, slid an arm over Hutch’s stomach, he threw on the parking brake.

“Light’s on your side,” Starsky reminded him.

Hutch rolled to switch off the lamp, careful not to dislodge Starsky’s arm, rolling back and settling against the pillow. Starsky’s arm tightened around him briefly, and it was as if the gesture suddenly pulled the chain that turned on the light of understanding in Hutch’s mind. Starsky wasn’t casual or disinterested, he was rattled, and yet trying his damnedest to hold that incredibly intimate connection open between them. Smiling into the darkness, Hutch slipped his hand under the covers, found Starsky’s against his chest and laced their fingers.

“Night, Starsk,” he whispered.

“Night, babe,” Starsky murmured and squeezed his hand.

Tonight, Starsky’s bedroom door was closed, sealing the rest of the world out.

~*~*~

Somebody was watching him. Hutch knew it. He had that creepy-crawly tingling in his scalp that always warned him he wasn’t as alone as he thought. Even caffeine couldn’t jolt his brain awake quite as fast as this instinctive alert.

Hutch’s eyes popped open to find that, yes, he was being watched by a pair of eyes in a dopey, introspective face. But it was the fingers in his hair, lightly sifting through it, lifting the strands and then letting them fall back, that were stimulating his scalp.

“You’re awake,” Starsky said, as if he had absolutely nothing to do with Hutch’s current state of consciousness.

“I am now,” Hutch grumbled just for the sake of grumbling. Awake felt like a very nice thing to be this morning with Starsky’s body warm and furry all along his left side and those blue eyes becoming less sleepy by the second.

“Not my fault you signed us up to go look at some dusty old ruins out in the middle of nowhere,” Starsky reminded him.

“Damn,” Hutch swore. It had seemed like a good idea yesterday when Sharon asked him if they wanted to join the tour. A good way to occupy a day while he and Starsky continued to inch their way along the path of sexual discovery. Now that they had taken a giant leap forward, it didn’t seem quite so smart. He grabbed the hand that was still playing in his hair, turned it so he could look at Starsky’s watch and grimaced. They only had an hour. Enough time to eat and make themselves presentable, but not enough for anything else. Especially for the anything else the fingers, that had twisted free of his grip and found their way to his nipple, seemed to be suggesting.

“I’m beginning to think it might have been easier to fit this in between drug busts and stakeouts,” Starsky said. His fingers continued to tease for a moment, then flattened out on Hutch’s chest. “Can we at least order room service tonight?”

It was on the tip of his tongue to agree, but Hutch held it there while he searched Starsky’s face, tried to see beyond the flirting and the sensual nature to what might be ticking along in that mind. Hutch knew what he wanted, had known, if he was honest, before their first kiss. Last night had just taught him the true depth of how much he wanted it. He didn’t want to rush Starsky. Didn’t want to push his friend into a decision he might regret. Or maybe he did, because Hutch wasn’t quite sure, if they went any further, if he could really find his way back.

“Hutch?’

“Huh?”

“You’re thinking again,” Starsky observed sadly. He lifted his hand and cupped Hutch’s cheek, rubbing his thumb against morning bristle. “If you’d stop doing that so much, maybe I could stop worrying about what you’re thinking and do some thinking of my own.”

Hutch almost repeated his unintelligent grunt. Either his brain wasn’t as engaged as he had assumed, or Starsky’s logic was even more convoluted than usual this morning. “Starsky, please. In English, okay. Plain English.”

“You keep fretting. And assuming,” Starsky elaborated. “I can see it in your face every time you do it.” He lifted his arm and waggled it back and forth. “On that teeter-totter again. You don’t say ‘Hey, Starsk, what did you think about last night?'” His hand dropped back down, pushed the covers to Hutch’s waist and rubbed, flat palmed on his belly. “I came all over you, Hutch, so if you don’t want to ask, you should at least be assuming I liked it. Right? So how come you keep getting a face on you like Dobey when his piles are acting up?”

The comparison was supposed to make him laugh, but Hutch didn’t feel like laughing. He wanted Starsky to understand just what this meant to him. The trouble was, of course, that he had been waiting for Starsky to read his mind the way he did on the street, or at the end of a long day when he stopped for beer and pizza on the way home even though Hutch had promised him a steak. The rules had changed for Hutch, and he expected Starsky to know that.

“Because…because I need you to say it,” Hutch whispered. “Because I know what a hedonist you are. I said I thought I was looking for forever and you said you didn’t know. After last night, I know I’m looking for forever.”

“So you think you’ve changed the rules on me in the middle of the game, huh?” Starsky said. “Okay, Hutch, you want to know where I am right now? I’m in bed with you. And wishing you hadn’t signed us up for this stupid trip ’cause I woke up wanting to pick up right where we left off last night. Want to find out if there’s anything we can do that would make me want to throw on the brakes and get out of the car.”

The shadow of impatience disappeared from Starsky’s face and was replaced by disbelief, as if he couldn’t quite grasp the enormity of what he was about to confess. “Right now, I can’t think of anything that’d do it, and that includes letting you fuck me. And, Hutch, that’s something I never expected to hear myself say. Not to any man. Not even you. I know you’ve had longer to think about this, but if that doesn’t mean I’m catching up, I don’t know what would.”

Starsky paused again, but Hutch had no feeling that he was waiting for a reaction or comment, that it was more he was reviewing that startling confession and trying to figure out where it lined up with his life and his self-image up to now. This time, it was Hutch who found himself possessed by the patience to just wait, not assume or second guess, but just to wait.

“I’ve never thought about spending forever with anyone,” Starsky finally continued, his hand slipping upward over Hutch’s torso, his fingers lingering where the pulse beat in his throat, then coming to rest along the slant of his jaw. “Except you, Hutch. Always assumed that as long as I was a cop, you’d be my partner. Always knew you’d be my best friend for the rest of my life. And now I’m looking at a whole new kind of forever with you. And I have to be sure. ‘Cause you don’t deserve anything less than that, Hutch, and neither do I. Not if we’re going to make it work against all the odds that are going to be stacked up against us.”

Hutch closed his eyes, blocked out the sight of Starsky’s earnest face so he could take in everything he had said. The promises and the provisos, match them up with the raw, aching ends of his own feelings, and let them be enough. For now. Enough until Starsky knew just how many parts of his forever Hutch would finally be granted.

“Okay,” he said simply, opening his eyes in time to see Starsky react to the one word he had to give in return for the many Hutch had forced out of him. He lifted his arms in time to prevent the pillow swung at him from connecting, wrestled it away and threw it on the floor.

“Just okay?” Starsky demanded.

“Okay. I promise not to think anymore,” Hutch elaborated, bracing to fend off his weaponless partner if Starsky made a grab for the other pillow under his head.

But Starsky threw back the covers and bounded out of the bed. “Fair enough,” he declared an end to the soapy scene. “Now get outta bed, Blondie. ‘Cause if you’re going to drag me all over Mexico today, you’re gonna feed me first.”

Hutch watched him disappear into the bathroom, his gaze irresistibly drawn to the flexing sweet curves of Starsky’s ass. His cock stirred hopefully as he remembered what Starsky had said about fucking. “One step at a time,” he growled at his impatient anatomy, then raised his voice. “Hey, Starsk. You know the Aztecs used to practice human sacrifice, don’t you?”

“Yeah?” Starsky shouted back over the thunder of the shower. “Then maybe this won’t be a waste of time after all.”

The more things changed, Hutch thought as he left the bed and headed for his own shower, the more they stayed the same.

~*~*~

The tour was almost over, and for that, even Hutch was grateful. They had been trekking around the excavated city for two hours, while the guide talked endlessly about the long-dead culture and tried to titillate the imaginations of his group of tourists with descriptions of warrior slaves and primitive gods. Unfortunately, most of these people were more interested in getting back to the bus and quenching their thirst with bottled beer. Hutch was grateful, however, that Starsky appeared to have found the tour interesting, if not fascinating. At least he hadn’t been doing any complaining or impatient fidgeting.

Juan had, of course, saved the most spectacular sight for last, leading them up a steep embankment of crumbling limestone to gather on a plateau at the foot of a towering pyramid temple. Here, he launched into a description of the religious practices of his long dead ancestors.

The details of human sacrifices were of no interest to Hutch, but he did want a good picture. There was only one left in his camera and, wanting to be sure he captured the entire temple within the frame, he started moving backward one step at a time. Concentrating on the tiny viewfinder, Hutch stepped back once too often, right off the edge of the plateau, and slid down the embankment a good eight feet. It happened so quickly, there was no time for even a startled yelp, before he had stopped his unexpected trip and was scrambling back up.

His head cleared the top of the plateau and he looked around, hopeful that no one, especially Starsky, had noticed his fall. He felt like a cat who, having done something really stupid, was very much hoping that no one had seen. No such luck. Trying to assume a cat-like poise of “I meant to do that,” he finished his climb under the curious eyes of the whole group and hurried back to Starsky’s side.

“You okay?” Starsky asked softly when everyone else’s attention had returned to the guide.

“Fine,” Hutch reassured him, fully expecting a pronouncement of “klutz” from his sure-footed partner.

Starsky, however, refrained, and Hutch meekly followed as the tour group began to wend their way back to the buses. By the time they reached the parking lot, Hutch had surreptitiously removed most of the dust from his fall off his clothes and hands. He had discovered, however, that, at some point during his unscheduled descent, he had taken his last picture. He was pretty sure that, if he wanted the spectacular shot he had been trying for, he had better buy a postcard before they left the site.

It took Hutch only a few minutes to complete his purchase and climb aboard the bus. Almost everyone else was back aboard already, and Starsky had claimed the window seat. It was only fair, Hutch decided, since he had had it on the way out. The bottle of beer waiting on the aisle seat, running with streams of dew that promised cold ambrosia for his dry throat, only inclined him even less toward objection.

Starsky was looking out the window, but turned his head and smiled a subdued welcome when Hutch sat down. He lifted his half-empty bottle in salute and then took another deep swallow with obvious relish. His partner did look pretty wilted from the heat, Hutch had to admit, and wasn’t really surprised when Starsky remained quiet and then quickly dropped off to sleep.

Hutch spent the two-hour ride back to the pier, that felt so much longer without Juan’s preliminary lecture, alternating between reading the book on Aztec culture he had bought, rubbernecking around Starsky’s head at the passing scenery, and dozing himself. By the time they reached the pier and made their way up the gangplank, Hutch was ready for a long cool shower and to stretch his legs. Maybe he would accomplish both goals in the ship’s pool, he decided.

“You want to get changed and go for a swim?” he suggested as he let them into their cabin. “We could get burgers from the grill again.”

“No thanks,” Starsky replied. He dropped the canvas bag that, today, held only the pamphlets from the tour, onto the couch, and continued on toward his bedroom. “I’m kinda tired. Think I’ll just grab a nap.”

Hutch followed as far as the doorway, watching as Starsky toed off his Adidas and stretched out on the bed with a sigh. Starsky had already slept most of the bus ride, and Hutch was concerned. It wasn’t like his partner to be tapped out like this by what had really been a leisurely two-hour stroll. It was hotter here than at home, but Hutch had seen Starsky work a ten-hour shift in August’s blistering heat–while wearing a jacket to cover his gun–and still have plenty of energy to dance away half the night.

“Are you okay?” he asked, trying not to sound too over-protective. Both of them were in the habit of tolerating some fuss and bother from the other, but only if the cause was sufficient.

Starsky opened eyes that gave Hutch a long perusal from dusty hair to dustier shoes, then winked. “Don’t forget we’re ordering room service tonight,” he purred.

Reassured and tingling with sudden anticipation, Hutch left him to his nap. He reconsidered his own plans for a swim, then decided to follow through on them after all. He definitely needed to cool off–in more ways than one now–and didn’t quite trust himself to resist the temptation to eschew his own bed and climb into Starsky’s. After only one night there, Hutch already knew he never again wanted to sleep anywhere but beside his partner.

It was 5:00 before Hutch woke from his nap beside the pool. As he made his way back to their cabin, he was glad he had taken the time to find Sharon earlier and ask her to send their regrets to the captain, because it would be too late to do it now. There was no way he would have been able to sit through dinner and make polite conversation, while anticipation of the night to come made his heart race and his hands shake and occupied every particle of his attention.

If Starsky were still napping, he decided, fitting the key in the door, maybe Hutch would wake him with a kiss. And, depending on which appetite Starsky wanted to satisfy first, maybe they would be making do with the fruit basket tonight.

But Starsky wasn’t still sleeping. He was sitting on the couch, already showered and dressed in last night’s slacks and a fresh, white, short-sleeved shirt that hung open around him. And, from the way he immediately put aside Hutch’s new book and focused all of his intent regard on Hutch, he had been anxiously awaiting his partner’s return.

“Wondered if you got lost somewhere,” Starsky teased, though his eyes failed to reflect the smile on his mouth.

“Just fell asleep beside the pool,” Hutch explained. He walked to the couch and, feeling drawn by those eyes that uncharacteristically gave nothing away, laid his hand on Starsky’s shoulder. He felt a totally illogical need to grab on tight to Starsky and hold on as if a chasm was suddenly stretching out between them rather than just the low barrier of the back of the couch. Then Starsky’s hand covered his, gripped hard and pressed down, the muscles of his shoulder bunching and relaxing like a cat’s beneath a favored hand.

“I ordered dinner,” Starsky told him, his voice low, as if the information was some secret only the two of them could be privy to. “Be here in about twenty minutes. Lots of time to get cleaned up.”

Despite feeling nearly hypnotized by Starsky, Hutch obediently tried to move away, but Starsky didn’t seem willing to let him go. Hutch settled back on both feet and waited to see if his partner would tell him what was going on or leave him guessing as, Hutch realized, he had too often left Starsky guessing on this trip.

But that wasn’t Starsky’s nature. The hand that covered Hutch’s slid up his arm and gave him a gentle tug. “Kiss me before you go,” he commanded, chin tipped, lips parting, eyes already beginning to close in expectation of compliance.

More than happy to obey, Hutch bent over the back of the couch, laid his mouth over the one offered to him, and knew immediately that something had changed. As wonderful as all their kisses had been, there was a giving in the lips beneath his that elevated this kiss into a dimension of sharing that had been missing up to now. A willingness to yield and a sweet supplication to be yielded to that had nothing to do with taste and texture. Somehow, although he had been watching and waiting hopefully for it to happen, Hutch had missed the moment when Starsky had joined him on the other side of the line between here and forever.

For all its life-altering revelation, however, the kiss was brief, lasting only a moment or two before Starsky eased away.

“Starsk?” Hutch whispered, so certain and uncertain at the exact same moment that he felt he must be two people. Surely one brain, one heart couldn’t survive such a dichotomy of emotions.

“I love you, Hutch,” Starsky said, each one of the words spoken separately, distinctly, as if to ensure that, though they had been spoken before, casually or intently, Hutch would hear the difference and know they finally laid Starsky’s heart bare. But Hutch was given no opportunity to reply in kind before Starsky took his eyes and his hand away and picked up the book. “Go on and shower,” he ordered.

Hutch hesitated, inclined this time to disobedience until he saw the way Starsky’s hand shook as he turned pages. Silently, he obeyed.

Hutch had learned at the Academy how to rid himself of a day’s dirt and sweat in four minutes flat. It was a necessity when you couldn’t count on the hot water in the communal showers to last longer than that, and had no fondness for an icy deluge. He put that acquired talent to good use in the tiny private shower off his bedroom, just as determinedly putting his too active brain on hold until he found himself lingering in front of his closet. The rest of his life was waiting for him in the next room, and he was dithering over what to wear. He was an idiot.

A barely heard knock at the door of the cabin, followed by the sounds of dinner arriving and being laid out in the sitting room, disengaged Hutch’s autopilot. What he wore was going to be the last thing on their minds. Impatiently, Hutch pulled the royal blue, Atwater Line robe from its hanger and belted it around his briefs.

When he emerged from the bedroom, he saw that he was right. Starsky wasn’t interested in what he wore, barely flickered an eyelash at the robe. But, when Hutch joined him on the couch, Starsky also didn’t seem to be interested in any of the food that sat on the table in front of them. He just sat and stared at Hutch’s face as if he had never seen it before, until Hutch began to feel just the tiniest bit nervous. As if he realized what he was doing to his partner, Starsky picked up a plate and sat back with the attitude of a man intent on his dinner after a long day’s work. But it didn’t last long, didn’t even bring one forkful of mashed potatoes from plate to mouth before the plate was set back on the table.

“Starsk?” Hutch prompted him, knowing his own stomach wasn’t about to accept so much as a lettuce leaf right now.

“You know what, Hutch,” Starsky began in the querulous tone that usually meant he was getting ready to launch into a litany of complaint. “I’m sitting here wondering why the hell you put up with me.”

“Because I love you?” Hutch suggested gently, uncertain if, in the few minutes he had been gone, Starsky’s mood had changed. What if twenty minutes had been all it had taken for the intoxication of whatever epiphany Starsky had experienced to wear off? Teeter-totters, merry-go-rounds and now roller coasters. Hutch was running out of analogies for the emotions that couldn’t seem to just settle down.

“It’s a good thing you do, babe, because I am an idiot,” Starsky pronounced judgment on his intelligence with the same precision with which he had said “I love you.”

Hesitantly, Hutch put out a hand, laid his fingers on Starsky’s bare arm and felt the tips begin to tingle at the contact, the connection allowing a low-voltage charge of anticipation to pass between them. “Because you love me?” he asked, even though Starsky was looking at him as if he feared Hutch was a mirage that, any moment now, might shimmer into non-existence.

“Oh, no, Hutch. Figuring out today how much I love you is the smartest thing I ever did,” Starsky reassured him.

“Are you going to let me keep wondering what happened between this morning and this afternoon, or are you going to come over here and tell me?” Hutch asked, opening his arms, feeling, for the first time since he had realized how his love for Starsky had changed, like his feet were planted on solid bedrock instead of shifting quicksand.

Starsky was quick to accept the invitation, shuffling out of his corner and into Hutch’s arms, sliding both of his hands around Hutch’s waist and laying his head on the smooth terrycloth of the robe Hutch wore. He gave a sigh that had to expel every molecule of oxygen out of his lungs, and then went happily, completely limp.

“Now, tell me how you went from idiocy to brilliance in just one day?” Hutch invited, relaxing just as completely into this coming-home embrace as Starsky.

“I was being brilliant all along, Hutch,” Starsky told him. “I just wasn’t listening to myself. I kept telling you you were thinking too much, when I wasn’t thinking enough. I had it in my head that all of this was about our dicks. About finding out if making it with another guy, with you, was something I wanted to do.”

“Wasn’t it?” Hutch asked. It certainly had been for him, once upon a time, though, it seemed, like Starsky, he might have been wearing blinders for a while.

“Yeah. Okay. I guess for a while, maybe it was,” Starsky conceded. “But it sure as hell wasn’t this morning.” He lifted his head, sat back enough that their eyes met without endangering their embrace. “I sat there talking about forever, and didn’t even know that you’ve been forever for me for a long time. Except for sex, you and me have been married for years, Hutch. A whole lot more married than most married couples I know.”

It was true, of course. Hutch had even heard it commented upon by other people, though no one had ever had the guts to say it to his face. “What…dropped the scales from your eyes?” he wondered, brushing his thumb over Starsky’s right eyebrow and then under the same eye, smiling and dropping his hand when Starsky’s face screwed up at the ticklish caress. He hadn’t experienced the stunning revelation that Starsky had, his awareness of the growth of his love having been a far slower and subtler progression.

“When you fell today–”

“I didn’t fall,” Hutch protested automatically, feeling the heat of remembered embarrassment flooding his cheeks. “I just…slipped a little.”

Disbelieving eyes skewered him for a moment before Starsky blinked and let Hutch have his face-saving amendment. “When you slipped, a little, I heard the noise and I knew without even looking it was you. Turned my head and saw yours disappear. It was, what, Hutch, ten seconds, maybe fifteen at most, before you popped back up looking like you hoped everybody had gone blind, deaf and dumb? But it felt like years. I couldn’t move. Couldn’t even shout your name. ‘Cause all of a sudden it was like I was in the middle of some other life, and you weren’t in it. And it was the emptiest goddamned place on the face of this world.”

Hutch’s hand was back on Starsky’s face, drawn irresistibly to the lines remembering a mere fifteen seconds had etched into the dear features, robbing them of their familiarity. “That’s never going to happen, Starsk. No matter what, I’d always be your friend,” he promised while his fingers tried to repaint the image back into the man he loved.

Starsky turned his face into Hutch’s hand, pressed a kiss into the palm that was fierce and needy and protective all at once. “Know that,” he agreed, giving up his retreat, and offering Hutch back the gift of eyes stripped of every defense. “But now I know it’s not enough. I’m a greedy bastard, Hutch. I want it all. Wanna be just as married to you as the rest of the world will let us be.”

And that, of course, could be the highest, most insurmountable, hurdle of all, Hutch thought, feeling brought back to earth from cloud nine with a resounding crash. But Starsky was there to cushion the fall.

“Tomorrow, Hutch,” Starsky chastised him gently. “We worry about that tomorrow. Start figuring out how we’re gonna make it work in the real world.”

“What about tonight?”

Starsky smiled, the wanton seducer who had inhabited so many of Hutch’s dreams suddenly reappearing from wherever he had been hiding. “Tonight, we get what all the other newlyweds get,” he purred. “A honeymoon.”

“After dinner?” Hutch teased, nodding toward their now cold repast.

“What dinner?” Starsky countered. Slowly, he rose to his feet, caught Hutch’s hands and tugged until Hutch stood with him. “Your place or mine?” he asked with an exaggerated leer that failed to hide the love in his eyes.

“Yours,” Hutch chose because he wanted them to come together again in the place they had already made theirs.

Starsky grinned his agreement. “You hang out the do not disturb, and I’ll go…” His hands grabbed imaginary bed clothes and gave them a mighty heave. “…turn down the bed.”

But Hutch, of course, had to hesitate one last time, in the name of fair play, but more, because it just suddenly seemed too easy. “Starsk, are you sure we shouldn’t talk about…?”

Starsky put his hands on his hips and his most exasperated expression on his face. In another second, he would be tapping his foot. “Listen, Blondie, you’ve made me talk more in the last few days about how I feel than all the women I’ve ever dated put together. That just isn’t natural for me. A little less conversation and a little more action, if you please, Mr. Hutchinson.”

Moments of hearts and flowers were going to be few and far between with this man of his dreams, Hutch accepted. Now that Starsky had made a commitment to him, Hutch didn’t doubt that Starsky would always make sure Hutch knew he was loved. But, true to his nature, those declarations would more often be made in actions than words. Just as they had always been. Hutch knew that was going to be enough.

“Last night wasn’t action?” he teased to send the message of understanding.

“Last night was just the pre-game warm up,” Starsky growled with a leer and a wink.

“I’ll hang out the sign.”

When Hutch entered the bedroom, the covers were on the floor and the white shirt hung on the valet, but the navy slacks were still in place around Starsky’s lower body.

All Hutch had on was a robe and briefs; all Starsky had on were his slacks and briefs. They were even again, if not exactly balanced, in the barriers between them. Unwilling to repeat last night’s somewhat clinical strip, being more inclined to savor the experience tonight, Hutch made his preference clear by enfolding Starsky in his arms.

The furry torso felt exactly as it had the night before–delightful–with the exception that, as yet, Hutch could only feel the contrast of velvet skin and soft/coarse hair beneath his palms. Starsky didn’t let that state of affairs continue for long. He slid both hands into the shallow ‘v’ where the edges of Hutch’s robe came together. Slowly, his fingertips brushing bare skin as they travelled and sending a shockwave of sensation through Hutch, Starsky widened the ‘v’, baring Hutch to the loosely tied belt at his waist.

“Mmmm, one thing I’m gonna love about undressing you,” Starsky murmured, his hands making the return journey, but open-palmed and fingers wide-spread, back over the flesh he had just barred. “No damned bras.”

“But not quite as…interesting, either,” Hutch countered, almost losing track of the bit of banter when Starsky’s hands suddenly cupped around the shallow swell of his flat male breasts and squeezed.

“Oh, yeah?” Starsky challenged, and with the delicate finesse of a sculptor of clay, proceeded to teach Hutch just how interesting his chest could be.

How pectoral muscles could be coaxed to jump and quiver beneath the right hands, sending spasms of fire to a brain already beginning to lose the ability to start a coherent thought and follow it to the end of the track. When Starsky’s fingers zeroed in on his nipples, fingertips synchronized to perfection as they first circled around and around the crinkled areola before closing on the tight, hard peak of his nipple, the pitiful connection was lost completely.

“Look at you,” Starsky whispered, holding the sensitized buds between thumbs and fingertips as if he displayed some rare jewel. “Rosie red as cherries, and just gotta be as sweet.”

Hutch moaned, loud and long, the sound he hadn’t even known he was capable of battering his ears, trying to impose just a little polite restraint. But Hutch had lost the meaning of those two words, held in helpless thrall when Starsky bent and attached the warm, wet vacuum of his lips to Hutch’s chest, sucking sensation into that tiny erection that throbbed and echoed in perfect time with the much larger one still imprisoned by his briefs. He grabbed a breath when Starsky’s lips left him, but the reprieve didn’t last long enough to prepare him for the renewed tidal wave of sensation that swamped him when they latched onto his neglected nipple. Then the brief sharp nip of hard teeth drove clarity into his brain, even as it nearly drove release from his aching balls.

“Stop,” he pleaded, pushing Starsky’s mouth away abruptly, scrambling with trembling fingers for the bare shoulders to prevent Starsky from retreating too far.

A flushed face was offered to Hutch’s addled perusal, the heat beginning to cool in glowing blue eyes. One gentle fingertip was pressed tentatively to the bud that had been bitten. “Did I hurt you?”

Oh, yes. Starsky had hurt him. Perfectly. Exquisitely. Hutch shook his head, covered Starsky’s fingers and pressed them hard into his chest. “Too good,” he explained, then slid the hand under his down his heaving belly, halting just above the waistband of his briefs where he knew the heat of his erection would be felt on Starsky’s wrist. Who had untied the belt, leaving his robe hanging open from his shoulders, Hutch neither knew nor cared. “Too fast,” he added, just in case Starsky’s brain was as disconnected as his own.

Starsky’s fingers curled under his, moved as if to reverse, and Hutch sucked in a quick breath, trying to brace himself for when those fingers would breach his last defense and grasp his cock. He was going to come at the first caress. He had no hope of stopping it. The mental bracing was no more than a vain attempt to keep his knees from buckling when it happened. He hung on the edge of it, until Starsky’s hand slowly flattened, slid back up his chest and settled over his heart, then left him completely, both arms falling to his sides in a wordless offer.

~*~*~

Hutch closed his eyes, blocked out the sight of Starsky waiting for him to accept or reject, while be battled a nearly uncontrollable imperative back into its cage in his balls. It growled at him menacingly, but he ignored it, opening his eyes and letting his gaze wander the familiar hills and valleys of Starsky’s torso. He denied his twitching fingers one more moment while the memory of that muscular, furry body squirming against his sent the sensory memory to them. Then he reached out and, though Starsky wore no robe, repeated the sliding caress from throat to waist that had bared him to his lover.

“Turnabout’s fair play here, too, huh?” Starsky teased, his chest rising and falling beneath Hutch’s hands in a disappointingly even rhythm.

But Hutch had felt the tick and quiver of excitement in the muscular slabs on Starsky’s abdomen and the arousal charged racing of his heart. Without warning, he plucked at the dark nipples trying to hide from him in the inadequate camouflage of chest hair, earning himself a gasp from Starsky’s throat. “Black cherries already,” he countered.

Starsky’s back arched and his idle hands clenched into fists that pressed into his thighs. “Christ,” he swore in the reverent tones of the convert, the heat of devoted passion promising to follow wherever this newly discovered god of magic fingers would lead him.

Hutch wanted to taste. But the difference in their height that had meant an easy bend and a drop of his chin for Starsky to sample at will, was more of a disadvantage for Hutch. It was well past time, for the sake of their trembling knees, to move this to the bed. Boldly, he worked the snap at Starsky’s waist, found the tab on the zipper and drew it slowly down, feeling the promising heat of Starsky’s erection against the back of his fingers. Starsky’s hand caught his when it would have moved away, led it to his cock, then abandoned it to its own devices to seek out a mirroring grip, extended fingers and palm claiming the length of Hutch’s cock through the thin shield of his briefs.

“Been wanting to do that for a while,” Starsky confessed, hand and hips moving to hold them on this plateau.

“How long’s a while?” Hutch asked, one last insecurity rearing its head.

“Does it matter?” Starsky whispered, his eyes offering understanding for where the insecurity had sprung from, but demanding that Hutch leave the past behind them.

Once it had mattered, Hutch was sure. When he believed himself, knew himself, to be in love alone. With Starsky’s eyes promising a forever of love and desire, it no longer did. He gave his answer with one long, slow caress from shrouded base to tip, then stood still as the caress was returned. They both reluctantly released the other.

“Bed?” Starsky suggested. “Before we both hit the deck.”

They climbed onto the mattress that had already seen one frantic, simple coupling and fell into each other’s arms, seeking kisses to further bank the fire within them while stoking the flames behind those inadequate barriers to more impressive heights.

Hutch wasn’t interested in an instant replay of the night before, even if the promise of long hours of night stretched before them when, perhaps less urgent, they could savor each other with more patience. Hutch was the greedy one now, wanting it all, but willing to settle for at least a little more. A wedge of fleeting minutes, driven between them and too hasty climaxes, in which to live snippets of fantasy.

His lips left a trail of nibbling kisses along Starsky’s unshaven jaw, returned to briefly kiss muttered protests into silence, then found the hollow of Starsky’s throat. His tongue played there leisurely, lapping at the rumble beneath the tender skin, then followed the sound to its source, nuzzling into the valley between the steep slopes of the hard curve of Starsky’s pectorals. The smooth glide of hair beneath his lips seemed to grant them a heightened sensitivity as he nibbled through the thick growth to the dark nipple. It no longer tried to hide within the symmetrical swirl of hair, but stood tight and proud as if begging his lips to sample for the sweet flavor it promised.

Hutch accepted the offer, closing his lips around the tiny peak and testing its firmness with the tip of his tongue. He circled the rough areola, only to return again and again to the tip that fed his need. Fed him the salt of Starsky’s sweat that hinted at the richer, stronger flavor to be found in undiscovered country still shrouded in mystery behind the stretched-taut material of Starsky’s tiny briefs.

Reminded dimly of his own resolve, Hutch deserted the well-mapped nipple for a brief exploration of its uncharted twin, then followed the soft trail over lower peaks that jumped and valleys that deepened until his chin brushed the damp cloth that restrained the tip of Starsky’s penis. Teasingly, he pressed his lips to the moist proof of his lover’s need, rode out the hip-thrusting earthquake that erupted, then lifted up to watch his fingers catch the blue scrap and draw it away, baring new vistas to conquer.

The first step in conquering such unfamiliar territory was the hardest, of course. Face to swollen cock at last, Hutch was amazed to feel himself hesitate, to offer a tentative hand to cup the full balls and an uncertain probing of his thumb to the base of the iron shaft. He felt Starsky’s fingers slide into his hair, a gentle touch that tried to intrude upon his frozen fascination.

“No ‘have to’ between you and me, sweetheart,” Starsky reminded him.

The endearment rocked through Hutch, writhed in a part of him that had longed for this powerful intimacy, and then settled into his heart where it found a home, all memory of ever hearing it spoken in that deep voice to someone else forever erased. It belonged to him now.

“I want to,” Hutch denied his own fear of inadequacy, but voiced it anyway. “Guess it’s me worried about my technique now.”

Hutch heard the gusty sigh that escaped above him, and, this time, allowed himself to be gently coaxed into abandoning his burgundy prize and looking up into Starsky’s face.

Starsky was propped up on his elbows, watching him with seriously puzzled eyes. “Who do you think I have to compare you with? No other guy’s ever done this for me.”

“But lots of women,” Hutch whispered the fear that, in his ignorance, he would be unable to give the pleasure he wanted to.

Starsky gave him a chuckle for that, full of fond amusement and affection, with only the slightest edge of strain to it. His cock swayed a little with the laughter, drawing Hutch’s fascinated attention back to it. He steadied it with his thumb, rubbing at the hot, velvet skin over the hard inner core.

“Only you, Hutch,” Starsky accused, ruffling his hair. “Would try to think with both heads at the same time. What you need is some distraction. Swing around here and we’ll see what we can learn from each other.”

There was an awkward few moments while Hutch complied, the length of his legs, that suddenly felt like they belonged to an uncoordinated colt, presenting a seemingly insurmountable problem until Starsky shoved the pillows unceremoniously to the floor and wriggled down to even out the distribution of mattress space. But the problem still occupied Hutch’s attention sufficiently that they were settled face to groin before he remembered that he still wore his briefs. The nervousness that had been trying to grapple his arousal for possession of him gained a little more ground as, with brisk efficiency, Starsky rid him of the forgotten barrier. He was, he knew, feeling himself beginning to soften, in danger of blowing this completely. Even the unintentional pun wasn’t enough to make him see the ridiculousness of it and relax.

He needed Starsky for that. As always, whenever Starsky’s confidence wavered, however briefly, Hutch’s automatically prepared to compensate. As it was on the streets, so it was on the sheets, Hutch discovered, when he felt the trembling in the hand that circled his cock. They were each as ignorant as the other, desperate to pleasure and, therefore, destined to please.

No longer uncertain, Hutch wrapped his hand around the thick column and led it to his lips, engulfing the tip in his mouth, and tightening his lips behind the hard ridge left behind by the circumcision Starsky’s religion of birth demanded. He smiled around the bulk as he felt his actions repeated, waited through the slight delay as Starsky found his way around the unfamiliar foreskin that neither religion nor the medical wisdom of the day had been able to convince Hutch’s parents to deprive him of.

When Starsky seemed to find an arrangement of lips and retracted sheath that satisfied him, Hutch rewarded the willing accommodation of their differences with a slow circle of his tongue around the smooth flesh in his mouth, teasingly dipping his tongue tip into the tiny slit. The moan that vibrated into his cock fed him Starsky’s surprised approval, while a surprise of his own slicked onto his taste buds. Pre-come. Almost tasteless. A preparation for, and precursor of, the sperm-rich semen waiting to be pumped into his mouth.

The thirst Hutch had felt under the Mexican sun this afternoon suddenly felt a paltry thing, an imagined inconvenience, compared to the thirst that seized him now. He wanted it now. Would surely die, parched and shriveled, if he wasn’t soon given the flood of Starsky’s seed to quench it. He sucked hard, seeking immediate gratification and nearly gagged as the pump he tried to prime with his own suddenly urgent need was rammed down his throat.

For a moment, he scrambled in panic as his gorge rose and suffocation threatened. Then instinct was overridden when his penis was given the same deep sheath, the same spasm and ripple of throat muscles that his bestowed. Hutch remembered he could breathe through his nose, inhaled deep and was intoxicated all over again by the pungent musk of Starsky’s aroused scent that filled his sinuses.

Hutch drew back until the wide head rested on the back of his tongue, waited for the echoed withdrawal on his cock, then, slowly eased forward again, his hand pressed firmly to a sharp hipbone to prevent another hurried impalement. He felt his throat stretching, the need to swallow nearly overwhelming him. He subdued it until he felt his lips press into coarse curls, and then he let autonomics take over, his throat contracting while the need to somehow succeed in swallowing this flesh into himself consumed him.

What Starsky might be doing with his mouth, Hutch could no longer tell, all of his focus on milking what he craved from Starsky’s cock. He loosed the restraint he imposed on his lover, accepted the sharp, shallow thrusts, encouraging deeper, harder plunges with the hand that gripped Starsky’s ass.

“Christ. Christ. Pull off,” Starsky shouted from some other reality.

Not this one. It couldn’t be, because there was nothing that was going to deny Hutch what he craved. He subdued Starsky’s struggle to escape with a bruising grip sunk into clenched muscle, swallowed hard on the warning pulse to ensure the point of no return could not be denied, then reared back. With his lips locked behind that convenient ridge, Hutch greedily drank each warm spurt that burst its creamy, bitter nectar onto his tongue. He swallowed and swallowed, greedily pumped the stiff shaft with a relentless fist until he heard Starsky’s hoarse cry of too much pleasure. He offered mercy then, a gentle hand that cradled too-sensitive flesh, and savored the last few drops that leaked onto his tongue.

He was going to have to withdraw soon, release the slowly softening cock back to its owner, or risk eclipsing the pleasure he had given with unwelcome pain. It was only the knowledge that he could claim it again, drink deep for the rest of his life from this same fountain, that allowed Hutch to open his mouth and let Starsky escape.

Hutch closed his eyes and rested his head on the mattress, becoming aware only now of the discomfort of abused neck muscles. He felt Starsky’s fingers creep along his scalp, slide down the sweat-slick strands of his hair and begin kneading the stiffness away. Only gradually did he become aware of his own unsatisfied flesh, pulsing a throbbing protest at Starsky’s sudden desertion and the cold wash of panting breaths over his wet length. He balanced only a moment on the knife edge of frustration, before that cold became warm again as Starsky took him back into his mouth and slid down as far as he could. He sucked hard, delivering the same demand for his thirst to be quenched, and securing it with an uncompromising grip on Hutch’s balls that hurried the process. The fingers that probed the hard spheres of his testes coaxed them to deliver the rush of his seed into spasming channels, and into the mouth that accepted all he had to give.

Hutch was grateful for the mercy he had shown Starsky when the same consideration was given to him. When he had no more to give, when one more lick would have surely stripped protective skin from raw nerve endings, Starsky opened his mouth wide and let Hutch’s cock slip free.

Slowly, Hutch became aware that, though the rest of him had never known a sweeter resting place, his knees weren’t quite so thrilled to be pushed into the unforgiving surface of the headboard. They would lock in another minute, and he would have to spend the rest of his life a cripple. A small price to pay not to have to somehow right his sated body on the bed, but, he found when he convinced himself to make the effort, there were compensations. Heavy arms to cradle him possessively and salty, bitter kisses to share their first savoring of each other’s flavor.

“A-plus,” Starsky murmured, a lazy finger tracing lips that felt to Hutch as if they must surely be swollen to twice their normal size.

“Huh?” Hutch grunted an even lazier interrogative. Didn’t his motormouth of a partner know you had to have pillows before you could have pillow talk? It was written down in some book of sexual etiquette somewhere. Hutch was sure of it. Their pillows were on the floor. Ergo, no talking.

“Your technique,” Starsky elaborated, proving that he had probably never read a sex manual in his life. “I’d give you an A-plus.”

Maybe Starsky had the right idea avoiding self-help books. Self-taught, or more accurately, partner-taught lessons in love had certainly worked for them tonight.

“Oh,” Hutch said, his lips puckering on Starsky’s finger with the word. He said it again, soundlessly this time, then nipped the fingertip for good measure. “You, too. Top of the class.”

Starsky gave him a sleepy grin, then wriggled until he lay on his belly, his arm thrown in unquestioning assumption of privilege over Hutch’s body. “Sleep now? For a while,” he suggested.

Oh, yes. Hutch was almost chin deep in sleep’s warm pond already. Sleep. Recharge their batteries. And wake–together. “Love you,” he whispered, then held his head above lapping wavelets long enough to hear his lover’s reply.

“Right back at you, sweetheart.”

Hutch fell asleep with a smile on his face.

~*~*~

For a night and a day and another long, delight-filled night, they holed up in their luxurious cabin, doing their best to live on love with the occasional forays to the fruit basket to satisfy less romantic appetites. It wasn’t particularly smart, nor discreet, Hutch acknowledged, but they had met few of the other passengers, and he was counting heavily upon their special status as Atwater’s personal guests to seal the gossiping lips of the staff.

On the morning of their last day at sea, with the fruit basket decimated down to two mushy kiwis, and both of them finally admitting their couldn’t get it up again–for a while–it was time for them to emerge from their private love nest. In stages. First they ordered an obscenely huge brunch from room service, then, reluctantly, removed the do not disturb sign from the door. The waiter arrived first, then, after a decent interval that allowed them to wolf down their breakfast, came the expected, brisk rap on the door and the call of “steward.”

“Hang on a minute, Hutch,” Starsky requested when Hutch would have immediately left the remains of their brunch to open the door.

“Just a minute,” Hutch called to the, he was sure by this point, impatient steward. He let a couple of raised eyebrows prompt an explanation for the delay.

Starsky shrugged, blushed faintly, then finally satisfied Hutch’s curiosity. “Can we go up on deck now? Hang around the pool like we planned?” He fiddled with his napkin a moment, then gave a chagrined little quirk of his lips as he waved it toward the bedrooms. “Don’t think I wanna be here when he sees those beds.”

Hutch had to agree with the sentiment. Although he and Starsky had made an attempt to straighten them this morning, the creased covers and liberally stained sheets gave mute testimony to how they had spent most of the past thirty-six plus hours. Wearing his own rueful grin, Hutch collected suntan lotion, the new book he had bought in Manzanillo–the novel he had given up on; this one had pictures he could pretend some interest in–then joined Starsky already waiting for him at the door.

“Good morning,” Juni greeted them when Starsky opened the door. A flicker of dark eyes took in their swimwear and towels before he stepped to the side out of their way. “Beautiful day. Enjoy your swim,” he said and disappeared inside the cabin, closing the door behind him.

“Thank God the Chinese really do know how to be inscrutable,” Hutch said softly as he and Starsky moved down the corridor together. “That could have been….”

“Yeah,” Starsky agreed, bumping Hutch’s shoulder and giving him a cheeky grin. “We’re gonna have to make sure we leave him a really good tip.”

Hutch let a quick turn of his head confirm they had the corridor to themselves before he leaned in close to Starsky’s ear and whispered. “Like, if you’re going to seduce your partner, make sure you pack some lube?”

“Christ, Hutch, let him get the beds changed before you start tempting me to drag you back there,” Starsky protested.

Hutch was prevented from continuing the teasing when they arrived at the elevator and found other passengers waiting. It really was only teasing, in any case, though he was pleased by the deeper blush it had brought to Starsky’s cheeks. They had, as yet, had no need of lubricant. By mutual, if unspoken, agreement, they seemed to have decided to save intercourse for when they were in the familiar surroundings of their own homes. They had spent their time, instead, exploring a multitude of other ways to give each other pleasure, and allowing this new way of loving each other to blend with all the old ways that already bound them together.

The pool and surrounding deck were more crowded today, but the lounges they had used before were conspicuously empty. He hadn’t noticed a reserved sign, either today or any other day, but had to assume the places were just one more perk of their special status. Tomorrow they would dock in Bay City, and the day after, they would be back at their desks at Metro, their magical holiday over. Hutch wasn’t about to complain about this final day of pampering.

They swam for a while, even got in some serious laps, stroking side by side, to stretch unused muscles and over-used ones alike, but decided to quit the water when too many bodies got in the way of their exercise. Smoothing suntan lotion on the broad back that, the night before, he had spent an hour kissing every inch of, Hutch wished that, like the couple next to them, he could have the right to coat every exposed inch of his lover’s skin. He suppressed the resentment that tried to drop an anchor into the ocean of happiness inside him, handed the bottle to Starsky, and turned his back.

The feel of Starsky’s fingers gliding over his shoulders with just a little more firmness than was technically needed refused to let Hutch’s happiness be disturbed by so much as a ripple. He didn’t care what they couldn’t do in public, not when there was so much joy to be had when they closed out the rest of humanity. They would live by society’s rules, giving lip service to a world that thought itself so rich in love it could scorn the multi-layered variety he and Starsky had found. And someday, maybe when they retired, when their jobs and perhaps their very lives didn’t depend on who they chose to love, they would move to San Francisco and thumb their noses at all the narrow-minded bigots.

“Fuck ’em if they can’t take a joke,” Starsky advised with his own unique brand of practicality. He finished his assignment with a tender pat to Hutch’s lower back that seemed to defy anyone to take exception, then stretched out on the lounge, propped his sunglasses on the bridge of his nose, and promptly fell asleep.

Obviously, Starsky had decided that the millions of people who might object to their love were morons beneath his notice. Whether he could sustain that defiant attitude in the face of their work-a-day lives remained to be seen, but Hutch refused to speculate. He was done with borrowing trouble from tomorrow and allowing it to take the glow out of today.

Today was for dozing in the sun, rousing often enough to turn under its heat like a roast on a spit, and to wake Starsky to do the same. It was for cooling dips in the pool, hamburgers barbequed to perfection, and leafing through his Aztec book with no more attention than he wished to give it. And looking at Starsky. Remembering and anticipating, all he wanted. Hutch was a happy man. Soul-deep, contentedly happy, as he never had been before in his life.

Hutch closed his book and gave Starsky his complete attention when a grunt and a creak of the wooden lounge announced his partner’s imminent waking. Idly, Hutch wondered if the several hours of napping might have restored Starsky’s natural vitality, or if the noise just forewarned of another brief surfacing. Curiosity, however, deepened into another, more earthy, emotion when Starsky, still unaware, lifted one arm above his head and the t-shirt he had donned at some point in the afternoon rode up. Between that faded blue and the waistband of the surprisingly modest trunks Starsky wore, a thin strip of tender, sparsely-furred skin appeared.

With an urgency that surprised him in its intensity, considering the freedom to touch that had been his in the past days, Hutch desperately wanted to claim that tiny spot. Explore every pore, examine each hair separately, taste the flavor that hid beneath oil and soap and chlorine. It took him a moment to remember he could. To console his sudden hunger with the sweet knowledge that he had the right. Not here, of course. But alone, just the two of them, there was now no part of himself Starsky would not freely offer, no caress Hutch might want to bestow that would be rejected. The certainty gentled his need and let him reach out to prod the spot with a friendly finger to rouse Starsky fully awake.

“Somebody needs to stick a fork in you, buddy,” he teased the dopey expression that emerged from behind the sunglasses. “I think you’re done.”

Starsky yawned and stretched, looked around at the few stragglers who, like them, seemed in no hurry to end this last day in the sun and begin their last night of dinner and disco under the stars. Finally, he looked at Hutch and gave him a grin that was only a little less dopey. Hutch returned the grin that seemed to celebrate the fact that, unlike most of their fellow passengers, they would be taking their shipboard romance home with them.

“God, Hutch,” Starsky muttered, shaking his head in disbelief. “Sometimes the way you look at me.”

Hutch ducked his head a little, even though he had no hope of hiding the red tide he could feel creeping up his neck and into his ears. He had thought he had banished his lusty thoughts, or, at least, kept them off his face. “Guess I’m going to have to watch that when we get home, huh?”

“At work, you mean?” Starsky asked, but didn’t immediately go on when Hutch nodded. First he stretched again, then sat up and slowly tested the hot deck against the soles of his bare feet. Once he seemed to have decided he could tolerate the burn, he gave Hutch his full attention and a hell of a shock. “Geez, Hutch. It’s way too late for that.”

Hutch was way past embarrassment now and well on his way to mortified. “What?” he protested. “You mean I’ve been looking…sappy all these months, and you never told me. Christ, anybody could have–”

Starsky leaned forward and laid his fingers over Hutch’s lips and, for a moment, Hutch was almost sure he was going to replace those fingers with his own mouth. But, even possessing a “fuck ’em” attitude, Hutch was relieved to see, hadn’t stripped Starsky completely of his sense of caution.

“Did I say anything about sappy?” Starsky asked, took his fingers back, and lowered his voice a little. “I was talking about the way you look at me sometimes. The same way you’ve been looking at me for…forever. Almost since we first met.”

“What’s this look, Starsk, if it isn’t love?” Hutch asked, thoroughly confused but more than willing to let Starsky show him the light.

“It’s…” Starsky began, then hesitated as if he were seeking words to explain why the sky was blue, or rain was wet, or any other indisputable fact that just was. “It’s like somebody told you you could only have one person in your life. One person to talk to. One person to spend your life with. One person to trust with all the stuff you really don’t want anyone else to know.”

“And my look says I chose you?” Hutch whispered, so full of the truth of it, so overwhelmed by just how very long it had been true, that he was afraid he might weep. And if Starsky did that to him, made him break down and blubber like a baby in public, Hutch was going to kill the dirty fink.

“Nooo,” Starsky said slowly, and Hutch suddenly knew that his lover was as close to tears as he was, and that neither one of them would shed them. “Your look says you made that choice a long time ago, and you’re still glad you did.”

Hutch lifted his hand and rested it on Starsky’s shoulder. A small touch, offered and accepted down all the years of their friendship and under the critical eyes of those who would condemn them. A small touch that had always carried the strength of all they were to each other within it.

“I am, Starsk,” Hutch promised. “I am.”

~*~*~

Hutch found his partner out on their balcony, his tuxedo already discarded and the luxurious folds of the Atwater Line robe wrapped around him. He should have known, considering the way Starsky hated the monkey suit, that Starsky would finish changing first. He wouldn’t be at all surprised to find out that the formal wear had been “hung up” on the floor.

Tucking his own robe-clad body neatly in behind Starsky’s, Hutch slid his arms around his lover’s waist, then nuzzled behind his ear, where, he had discovered only last night, Starsky had a particularly sensitive little bump. “I knew you were in the army, I knew you drove a cab for a living once, but you never told me you were a quick change artist.”

“Stripper,” Starsky replied in a tone so matter of fact it took a beat for Hutch to realize he was being teased in his turn. He bit the nearby earlobe in retaliation, then licked it in apology.

Starsky shivered at the wet caress, then reached back and threaded his fingers into the back of Hutch’s hair. “I ate too much,” he sighed. “Feel like a fat, lazy cat ready for a sleep in the sun.”

“You already did that all afternoon,” Hutch reminded him. “But I know what you mean. So much food and so good.”

“And Stafford didn’t even give us a hard time about all the dinners we missed.” Starsky paused in his stroking. “Didn’t even give us a funny look. Unless I missed it.”

“Asking the wrong guy,” Hutch muttered, nosing aside the collar of Starsky’s robe to get at his neck. There was a spot here, too, that, when he licked it just right, made Starsky shiver all the way down to his toes. It seemed to him that Starsky was just one tender erogenous zone after another. Of course, Hutch had also discovered that, beneath Starsky’s hands and mouth, he was, too. Who would have thought the outside of his knee could be so sensitive?

“Are you planning on finishing that sentence?” Starsky prompted him, adding a little tug to Hutch’s hair as punctuation.

“Asking the wrong guy,” Hutch repeated obediently. “I spent most of dinner looking at you.”

Starsky turned within the circle of Hutch’s arms and rewarded him with a tender kiss. “Last time we’ll be able to do this in the open air,” he said sadly when their lips parted.

“Regrets?” Hutch asked, already knowing the answer because it was the same as his own.

“Only that we have to hide it, Hutch, not about what we’re hiding,” Starsky reassured him. “Love you. Maybe I can’t tell anyone but you that, but that’s enough.”

“You sure?” Hutch pursued, no longer uncertain, just wanting to hear his own feelings spoken aloud, echoed to him as if that would write them into a book of indisputable records.

“Oh, yeah,” Starsky breathed, his tone so content that the need for written records was banished from Hutch’s heart. “It’s been a long time coming for us, but it’s here now, and I’m not about to give it up.”

Such eloquence must, of course, be rewarded with another kiss that soon found its way from tenderness to passion, became so deep, in fact, that neither of them heard the cabin door open. They became aware of an intrusion only when the door closed. They broke apart guiltily and hurried into the empty sitting room.

Empty, but not entirely as they had left it. Beside the couch, in a tall ice bucket, sat a bottle of champagne. Very old champagne, Hutch discovered, when he read the label. 1937. He whistled softly, then lost interest in the wine when he saw the envelope sitting on a silver salver on the table.

“What is it?” Starsky asked, looking over Hutch’s shoulder.

“I don’t know, but it’s got our names on it,” Hutch pointed out, holding up the envelope, but moving it out of reach when Starsky tried to take it.

“Of course. Juni wouldn’t have left it here if it was for someone else,” Starsky said as if Hutch really ought to know that.

“How do you know it was Juni?” Hutch wondered, distracted momentarily from the mystery note writer.

“Because neither one of us wears Old Spice. Would you just open the letter,” Starsky demanded impatiently.

Hutch tore open the envelope, pulled out the single sheet of paper, and hurriedly scanned the paragraphs of neat, old fashioned script. “Holy Christ,” he murmured when he reached the signature.

“What?” Starsky prodded him. “Holy Christ what?”

“Gentlemen,” Hutch read from the paper that rattled just a little from the shaking of his hand. “If you are reading this note, it is because Juni, whose judgment I trust absolutely, believes that my plans for you have come to fruition, and you have cause to celebrate.

“I hope you will forgive an old man his sentiment and his meddling, but after seeing the two of you together, I could not resist. Perhaps I have done you no good service, my friends, setting your feet upon a path that many will scorn you for following. If you suffer for it, I am sure I will face some heavenly reckoning for my sins. I simply believe, with my old heart that will soon fail me, that to waste a love such as yours would be a crime deserving of a flogging through the fleet.

“May the oceans of your lives always be calm, and may the wind always be at your back.

“Fair sailing, my friends. Commodore Atwater.”

Hutch let his hand fall to his side and stared at Starsky in stunned disbelief. Set up. Commodore Atwater had somehow ferreted out his secret in one brief meeting and set them up.

“Why that sneaky, wily, old…soft-hearted bastard.” Starsky breathed the compliment softly.

Without replying, Hutch handed over the letter and took up the champagne, working at it until the cork popped and the bubbly wine frothed from the top. Starsky was there with glasses to catch the well-aged ambrosia.

Hutch accepted his glass and slid his free hand around his lover’s waist. He touched the fine crystal of their glasses together, letting the clear, sharp ping fade completely before he spoke. “May we always have fair sailing,” he proposed, but before he could drink, Starsky touched the side of his face.

“Won’t be fair sailing, Hutch. You know that as well as I do,” Starsky said seriously. “There’s gonna be plenty of people ready to sink our row boat if we let them.”

Hutch thought for a minute. “Safe harbor?” he proposed a second toast. It seemed appropriate to him. They had always been each other’s port in any storm and always would be.

Starsky nodded, winked and lifted his glass to his lips. “Safe harbor,” he agreed.

They drank together to the future.