‘Frisco Fantasy

Serendipity, Starsky’s persistence, and Hutch’s lusty imagination combine to give the lovers a fantasy to play out during their weekend of freedom in San Francisco.

Art by Lorraine Brevig.

Originally published in Venice Place Chronicles VIII.

Hutch glanced both ways as he stepped off the trolley platform, pivoting toward his partner when Starsky joined him on the sidewalk. “Up or down?” he asked, demonstrating his meaning with a wave of his hand.

“Hotel’s thataway,” Starsky reminded him, reaching for Hutch’s hand as he nodded toward the top of the very steep street.

Automatically, Hutch began to pull his hand away, giving a panicked visual sweep of the pedestrians around them to see if anyone had noticed, then relaxed as he belatedly remembered where they were. “Sorry,” he said, his chagrined smile an apology for the memory lapse as he entwined their fingers more securely. “Forgot.”

Starsky offered no verbal response, just an understanding quirk of his lips and a shrug that swung their joined hands between them. “So, what’re you going to let me buy you?” he asked, continuing the dog-with-a-bone pursuit of the subject he had first raised when they began their walking tour of San Francisco.

“You don’t have to buy me anything,” Hutch gave the same answer he had been giving all afternoon. ‘”Course I do,” Starsky dismissed Hutch’s polite refusal, just as he had been doing all afternoon. “We have to have something to commemorate our first vacation.”

It wasn’t their first vacation, of course. It wasn’t even their first vacation together. There had been Pine Lake, and Lake Tahoe, and many other excursions during the years of their friendship. It was, however, their first vacation together. One room in the outrageously expensive hotel, and one huge, king-size bed. And walking hand and hand down a public street. Hutch didn’t need a memento of this trip; he wasn’t likely to forget it if he lived to be a hundred.

“I guess you wouldn’t settle for the little bottles of shampoo in the room,” Hutch said, adding a long suffering sigh for dran1atic effect.

“Not even if you let me steal the towels, too,” Starsky confirmed with an unrepentant smile.

Hutch grinned back. He couldn’t help himself. He was too damned happy to even pretend exasperation with his persistent lover.

“Hey. How about something like that?” Starsky asked, dragging Hutch across the down-bound foot traffic and stopping in front of one of the many shops that lined the street. He pointed at the assortment of tacky, made-in China souvenirs displayed in the front window.

“A plastic Golden Gate Bridge?” Hutch asked incredulously. “You call that a memento?”

“Sure. You don’t get much more San Francisco than the Golden Gate Bridge, right?” Starsky insisted. “It’ll go great with that Statue of Liberty you brought me from New York,” Hutch said sarcastically, taking any possible sting out of his tone with a fond smile. Starsky always brought him something whenever he traveled east to visit his mother. That generosity was the reason Hutch was the owner of an eclectic assortment of New York City souvenirs that also included an Empire State Building, and a bright red, plastic apple emblazoned with I love New York in white.

“Right,” Starsky agreed, both eyebrows disappearing under his bangs as he inquired, “Where is that, by the way?”

Hutch gave him a you-must-be-joking look in reply.

“In the closet with all the other stuff, huh?” Starsky guessed and then raised their clasped hands. “Same place you and me have to be most of the time,” he added, swinging their hands back down and squeezing gently as he reminded them both, “But not this weekend.”

They left the tacky shop behind, continuing their slow climb toward the hotel where they were staying for this extravagant get-away weekend. One unexpected benefit of the new, exclusive side of their relationship that had come as a pleasant surprise was how much disposable income they now had. With entertainment costs way down, the funds for this trip had added up almost before they had been able to wheedle Dobey into giving them the long weekend off duty.

Acutely aware of the warmth of Starsky’s hand in his, Hutch marveled again at how unbelievably wonderful it felt to be out of the closet. If only for this one weekend, he was free to not only feel the elation of his love for Starsky, but to show it. Any time. Any place. They could hold hands on the street, and when they went out to the club tonight, for the first time, Hutch wouldn’t have to turn his gaze away when Starsky started strutting his stuff on the dance floor. Tonight, Hutch could look his fill, let the wanton sexuality arouse him, and give no thought to what some astute observer might read on his unguarded features.

“Okay. No Golden Gate Bridge,” Starsky conceded, his persistence drawing Hutch from his thoughts of intoxicating liberty. “But there has to be something.”

It had to be serendipity. It was the only way Hutch could explain the coincidence of Starsky’s persistence, his own lusty speculations, and their arrival at the upscale men’s boutique. He stopped dead in his tracks, pulling Starsky up abruptly, while Hutch gazed, enraptured, at the mannequin in the window, enthralled by the image that appeared in his mind rather than by the display itself.

“There. That’s what I want,” he declared with absolute certainty that there were few things in his life he had ever wanted more.

A pleased smile bloomed on Starsky’s face, but his expression quickly changed to puzzlement as he checked out the display. “You want me to buy you a pair of white jeans?” he asked uncertainly.

“No,” Hutch said slowly, taking a step closer to the window and lifting his free hand. He pressed his fingers to the glass, the fantasy glowing in his mind so vividly that he could almost feel the warmth Starsky’s muscular curves would lend the material. “I want you to buy you a pair of white jeans,” he breathed.

“Me? But I already have white jeans,” Starsky protested.

Hutch turned his head and met Starsky’s uncomprehending eyes, knowing his own were hot with the passion his fantasy had aroused, that his face was a little flushed with the sexual heat possessing him. “Did you bring them with you?”

“Well, no,” Starsky admitted. He was beginning to look as if he thought a couple of the bulbs on Hutch’s string might have burnt out.

“Then that’s what I want,” Hutch insisted, borrowing a heaping helping of Starsky’s persistence. “I want you to go in there and buy a pair of white jeans,” he repeated, laying a finger over the pucker of Starsky’ s lips that he knew was going to be a but. “As tight as you can stand them,” he added, letting his voice drop into its bedroom husky register. “And I want you to wear them for me tonight when we go dancing.”

The light of understanding went on in Starsky eyes, and his protest-pucker stretched out into a grin before returning, tighter and stronger, in a deliberate kiss to Hutch’s fingertip. He turned his head to study the jean-clad mannequin, then looked back at Hutch, his eyes sparkling. “You, my old friend, have a dirty mind. Thank God.”

***

Hutch was careful to keep his touch impersonal as he showered. He had been tingling with anticipation ever since Starsky had winked at him and then sauntered into the store. His cock kept filling, crowding the crotch of his pants every time the image of Starsky in those white jeans entered his mind, subsiding only grudgingly to a waiting semi-tumescence when he forced himself to think of other things.

The room service dinner they had eaten together had been the sweetest kind of torture, as had been sitting on the bed—that was neither his bed nor Starsky’s but, for the first time, their bed—looking at those jeans hanging in the closet and listening as Starsky took first tum in the shower. A sweet, anticipatory torment that was going to end in just a few minutes. When Hutch finished his shower and entered the bedroom, the fantasy was going to be waiting for him in glorious reality.

Sweet or not, Hutch had had enough of expectation and he hurriedly dried and dressed, ran a comb carelessly through his hair, and left the bathroom, anticipation running so high he felt like a rookie facing his first day on the streets.

And just like that rookie whose first collar turns out to be a litterbug, Hutch was disappointed when he saw his lover standing at the window with his back to the room. Starsky was wearing a white silk shirt, but in place of the jeans Hutch had been anticipating was one of the hotel towels wrapped tight around his hips. It wasn’t exactly a view to be sneered at, but neither was it the one Hutch had been eagerly envisioning either.

“Is something wrong? You’re not dressed,” Hutch pointed out the obvious, eyeing the jeans laid out on the bed before turning his attention back to Starsky.

Starsky turned away from the window, smiling as he leaned against the wall behind him. He gave a long, low whistle of appreciation as his gaze swept Hutch from head to toes. “Johnny Cash, eat your heart out.”

Hutch felt himself blushing at the admiration, ducking his head and nervously tugging at the cuff of his black shirt. “I, uh, thought we’d make… a nice contrast,” he explained haltingly.

“Day and Night?” Starsky suggested with a teasing grin, then sobered as he raised his hand, revealing a pair of his briefs suspended from one finger. “Houston, we have a problem. I only brought blue or black.”

“Oh,” Hutch said, disappointment compounded as he processed the significance of the problem. “Damn,” he added in a whisper, and shook his head at his own lack of foresight.

“Mmmm,” Starsky agreed, giving the briefs a little swing and a flip, and catching them out of the air. “Not in the script, huh?”

“Script? What script?” Hutch asked, wondering briefly if Starsky might consider wearing a pair of his underwear. He dismissed the idea before it was fully formed. He already knew what Starsky thought of his Fruit of the Looms.

Starsky pushed away from the wall and sauntered toward Hutch, the movement opening and then closing the vee of the towel, offering Hutch teasing glimpses of well-muscled thighs. “The script for this ‘Frisco Fantasy you’ve been writing in your head. I’ve been waiting for you to let me in on the plan,” he revealed as he reached Hutch. He gave a gentle tug to a still-wet lock of Hutch’s hair and then tucked it behind his ear. “I don’t wanna do the wrong thing and blow it for you, babe.”

Hutch slid his arms around Starsky’s waist and drew him close, reminded all over again of why he didn’t just want this man, or even love him, but why he liked him, and always had. Even before they had become lovers, no one in Hutch’s life had ever cared enough to want to make his dreams come true, no matter what those dreams might be.

“Oh, Starsk, you’re right. I am writing a fantasy,” he murmured, bending his head to nuzzle into the smooth, warm flesh above the collar of Starsky’s shirt, fol1owing the taut muscle to a curl-hidden ear. “But you don’t have to do anything. Just… be you.”

“Be me,” Starsky echoed, a little skepticism breaking up the purr of his voice. “In white jeans. As tight as I can stand ’em,” he repeated the part of the fantasy Hutch had revealed.

Hutch sighed and drew back a little, retaining the embrace, but giving Starsky his expression to read. “It isn’t really about the white jeans, it’s just about… admiring the view,” he explained, seeing the momentary surprise chased off Starsky’ s face by smug satisfaction. “Being free to look at you and not worry about what’s on my face.”

“So, you don’t care what I wear?” Starsky asked, the question robbed of its innocence by the speculative squint of his eyes.

Mentally, Hutch bid the ‘Frisco Fantasy a fond farewell. “You can wear a burlap sack down to your ankles if you want to. I’ll still want to nail you to that bed when we get back here.”

Starsky laughed, pulled out of Hutch’s arms, and tossed the blue briefs toward the open suitcase on the dresser. He strolled to the bed, dropping the towel as he went, and picked up the white jeans. “Well, I guess if it means that much to you, I’ll just have to go oh, natural,” he added, a wink and a grin confirming he was well aware of his mispronunciation of the well-known Gallic expression.

***

An hour later, Hutch was remembering that wise old adage: be careful what you wish for. He had wanted an opportunity to freely admire Starsky, and Starsky was giving it to him. Dancing and flirting outrageously with Hutch, Starsky had unleashed his sensual nature in this public venue the way he usually only revealed it in private. Starsky’s passion glowed in his eyes, lived in the inviting smile that never seemed to leave his lips, and stretched in hard promise in the crotch of his jeans. He was playing Starsky in heat. Everything Hutch wanted.

The problem was, Hutch wasn’t the only man in the Stag’s Choice who saw it. Starsky’s single-minded sexual energy might be laser-locked on Hutch, but there were more than a few innocent, but willing, victims being caught in the nimbus. Hutch could feel their desire-the same aching need to lay claim to this passionate being that possessed him—like the incoming tide rolling over them as they moved together on the dance floor, and it was turning the sweet taste of his desire into the bitter dregs of jealousy in his mouth.

“You ready for a break?” Starsky asked during the brief, echoing silence between one bass heavy song and the next.

Hutch was about ready to break something all right, but he just nodded and followed Starsky to their table. The irony didn’t escape him. He had been looking forward to showing his feelings, but instead he was struggling to conceal them from the one person who could read him like a billboard ad.

“You want a beer?” Starsky asked when they reached the table.

“Sounds good,” Hutch agreed as he sat down, reaching out to snag Starsky’s arm when he started to move away. “Sit down and let the waiter bring it.”

Starsky eyed the chair as if it came complete with straps and electrodes, but didn’t explain his aversion. “We’ll get it faster if I go to the bar,” he said practically, then leaned over Hutch. “And when I get back, maybe you’ll be ready to tell me what I did to turn your fantasy into a nightmare.”

Hutch should have known Starsky would immediately pick up on the change in his mood. He was going to have to confess his jealousy, and he really didn’t want to. It seemed such a mean-spirited emotion, a failure on his part to trust Starsky the way he should. Reluctantly, Hutch nodded agreement, wondering what he could say that wouldn’t make him sound like an immature idiot.

Starsky’s eyes were soft, however, with perhaps a touch of guilt in them, when he reached out and ruffled the hair at the nape of Hutch’s neck. “Told ya you should’ve given me a script,” he said, and then sauntered away toward the bar.

Hard as he tried, Hutch couldn’t avoid noticing the other eyes that followed Starsky’s retreat. He didn’t want to be jealous; thought he had conquered that emotion when they had begun double dating to keep up appearances. Obviously, however, that green-eyed devil hadn’t crossed Hutch off its list, after all.

Struggling to shake off the bastard, Hutch focused all of his attention on his white-clad lover as Starsky leaned over the bar to shout their order to the bartender, letting the sweet curves of Starsky’s ass rivet his gaze, and trying not to acknowledge any other eyes that might also be enjoying the view.

Hutch was winning the battle, his desire for Starsky beginning to overshadow his jealousy, when a man approached Starsky at the bar. Up close and personal was an understatement for the way the interloper invaded Starsky’s space as he leaned in to say something. And Starsky didn’t seem to be minding the encroachment, tipping back his head and laughing in response. Obviously encouraged, the man then laid a possessive hand over the stretched tight denim covering Starsky’s ass.

Hutch was half out of his chair, and more than half out of his mind, before his gaze flicked to Starsky’s face. What he saw settled him back in his chair. Grimly amused now, he watched as the good humor left Starsky’s face, mouth and jaw and eyes taking on the dangerous angles Hutch had seen so often on the street. The unfortunate soul who usually found himself the recipient of such an expression was often also treated to a view of the business end of Starsky’s Beretta.

Starsky said something, lips barely moving, but Hutch could easily imagine the content of the warning and the growl it was delivered in by the speedy withdrawal of the bold hand, and the even faster back-peddling retreat of the would-be suitor.

Hutch looked away then, letting his eyes sweep over the other men in the room, the jealousy that had tormented him slinking away with its scrawny tail between its mangy legs. Not every man in this room wanted Starsky, there were maybe even a few who had been weaving their fantasies around Hutch’s man-in-black figure. But they were all shit out of luck.

Hutch felt the smug little smile on his face trying to turn into a grin as Starsky reached their table and set the brimming glasses he carried on it.

Starsky straightened, hands on hips and his head tilting to the side, his expression puzzled. “Hutch?” He asked seven questions with the inflection he put on the single word.

Hutch stood up and grabbed Starsky’s hand. “Come on. Let’s dance,” he commanded, and dragged his startled lover back out onto the floor.

***

The disco beat faded out and was almost immediately replaced by the sensual ooze of a slow song. Grateful for the break, Hutch held out his arms to his sweating lover, laughing when Starsky almost collapsed against him.

“Mmmm. You lead this time,” Starsky ordered, snuggling in close and tucking his head into the curve of Hutch’s shoulder.

“One of us is leading?” Hutch asked as they began to shuffle their feet, propelling them around in a slow circle. He had been simmering since his attack of jealousy had disappeared, acutely aware of the way the fast dancing had rubbed his pants over his half-aroused cock, trying to coax it into full erection. Where the pants had failed, the warm press of Starsky’s body succeeded.

“It’s your ‘Frisco Fantasy,” Starsky reminded him, his lips moving against Hutch’s neck. “You had enough of it yet?” he asked, arching his hips to push his hard cock against Hutch’s thigh. “‘Cause I’m just about ready to hump you right here on the dance floor.”

The confession startled Hutch. He had been so immersed in his own enjoyment as his fantasy had played out, that Starsky’s admiration and desire had slipped past him. Not exactly unnoticed, but only a part of the script that Hutch had written.

Hutch pulled back a little so he could see Starsky’s face, trying to judge if the eager impatience with which he had spoken was only a facet of the role Hutch had asked him to play. There was no mistaking the heat in the blue eyes that met his, or the possessive restlessness of the hands that slid down his back and cupped his ass.

“Not even close to last call yet,” he teased both his eager lover and his own suddenly sharp desire.

“Do you really wanna wait until after last call to nail me to that big bed?” Starsky asked, his expression innocent, perhaps even resigned, but his body undulating a demanding caress from Hutch’s shoulders to his knees.

“No,” Hutch growled, teasing forgotten in the wake of the lust that swept his body. “Let’s go.”

***

The doors of the elevator had barely closed for the short trip up to their room before Starsky had Hutch backed into a corner of the small space. Where Hutch had expected lusty kisses—all teeth and tongue and groping hands—he received instead the tender cherishing of Starsky’s mouth and a pair of hands that framed his face as if it were the most delicate crystal. The gentle benediction drew the same from Hutch, and when the elevator doors parted on the eighth floor, they walked leisurely to their room with their arms around each other.

Inside the room, Hutch found his back against the closing door as Starsky leaned into him again. His fingers fumbled for the lock behind his back and twisted it, the soft click of it securing their privacy was almost drowned out by the low moan of pleasure Starsky gave as they kissed. Hutch echoed the sound as their tender kissing continued, wondering when the urgency that had driven them to leave the club had disappeared.

Hardly disappeared, Hutch discovered when Starsky ended one labial exploration but didn’t immediately begin another, tipping his head back and sighing instead. Impatient desire stirred inside Hutch again, prodding him to give up the unhurried pace. He suppressed it, dipping his head to nuzzle into Starsky’s throat, licking experimentally and tasting the strong salt of exertion.

“Are you gonna tell me what happened tonight?” Starsky asked, the question flexing the musc1es under Hutch’s lips as if they were trying to elude him.

“Hmmm?” Hutch hummed, baring his teeth to nip at the dancing flesh. “Happened?”

Starsky pushed at him, gently, but still a definite demand for Hutch to pay attention to the conversation. “Yeah, happened. It took me five minutes to get us a couple of beers, and somehow you had gone from miserable to the life of the party. What happened?”

Hutch studied the familiar features, his arm tightening around Starsky’s waist as his jealous uncertainty tried to make a curtain call. He dismissed it, refusing to give it the attention and applause it craved. “You know what an epiphany is, Starsk?”

“Bolt of lightning?” Starsky analogized, lifting both eyebrows and tilting his head in silent inquiry the way he had in the bar.

“More like enlightening,” Hutch qualified. He loosened his grip, still holding them pressed close together, but no longer feeling the need to declare his possession. “I was jealous, and I was letting it ruin our night. Then, when I saw you brush off that guy at the bar, I realized I was acting like an idiot. They could look if they wanted, but there wasn’t a man there you’d let have you.”

“I see,” Starsky murmured, his gaze dropping, apparently catching on the top button of Hutch’s shirt. Or maybe it was the vulnerable hollow of his throat, because his hand lifted, one finger delicately skimming over the small spot as he raised his head again to meet Hutch’s eyes. There was an imp dancing in the blue, but it couldn’t quite invalidate the seriousness of the rest of Starsky’s sober expression.

“You’re wrong, babe. There was one man there I’d let have me. Have anything he wants from me,” Starsky confessed, his voice a low growling in his throat. The tone that could raise Hutch’s cock, no matter how temporarily disabled he might have thought himself by exhaustion or stress. “One man I’d spread my legs for. One man I’d kneel for,” he promised, beginning to sink to his knees before Hutch.

Hutch halted the descent with a grip that pulled Starsky to him, and kissed him with all the joy and love Starsky’s revelations had roused in him. He carried the loving exchange on so long that Starsky was the one to become restless.

“Don’t wanna nail me to the bed anymore?” Starsky asked, his expression equal parts satisfied contentment and pouting impatience, as if Starsky himself couldn’t decide whether or not he wanted to advance this emotional moment into the hungry lust they had discovered they could arouse in each other.

“Nope,” Hutch replied, his own personal dilemma resolved, at least for the moment. He was ready to wallow, take tonight and tomorrow and maybe right up until they had to leave for the airport, to work through every way they could find, from gentle to frantic, to express their love. He placed his lips over the protest beginning to form on Starsky’s mouth and tried to kiss the pleasure of his newfound patience into his lover.

“You mean I risked neutering for nothing?” Starsky whined when Hutch released his mouth.

“Oh, no. I’m gonna nail you, all right,” Hutch promised, then let his smile and a single word qualify it. “Eventually.”

“Eventually?” Starsky echoed, shivering a little, but his eyes lighting with the anticipation of knowing the prize was going to be worth waiting for.

“Eventually,” Hutch confirmed, relishing the power to control their loving only because it was so freely offered.

Starsky shifted a little within Hutch’s embrace as if he was settling in on both feet, braced to accept whatever might come his way on what could be a very long journey to aftermath. “What comes before eventually?”

“This,” Hutch whispered, and kissed his lover again with the same gentleness that had marked all of tonight’s kisses. A brush, and then a press, designed to imprint the warmth and shape of his mouth upon Starsky’s lips with precise delicacy.

“And this,” he added, his mouth still pressed to Starsky’s, the movement of his lips coaxing Starsky’s to part a little, to allow the tip of his tongue to carefully sample warm, moist inner lip, and to let an equally cautious tongue tip claim the same privilege of his mouth.

“And this,” he whispered yet again, removing his mouth from Starsky’s, drinking in heavy-lidded eyes and parted lips as his fingers deftly slipped free the few buttons on Starsky’s shirt that were fastened. His hand slid into the opening he had created, stroking the soft hair, following the whirling pattern to the smooth, naked circle of Starsky’s nipple. It tightened as he stroked it, becoming a rough caress to his fingertip that begged for firmer contact.

“And this?” Starsky asked, the moaning question a prelude for the fingers that fumbled for the buttons on Hutch’s shirt.

“Eventually,” Hutch agreed, engulfing Starsky’s hand in a gentle, undeniable grip that led the wandering appendage to his shoulder. He patted it and was thrilled by the silent compliance when Starsky’s fingers flattened out against the material of his black shirt.

Wanting to reward such unquestioning obedience, Hutch popped the snap on the white jeans with yet another whispered, “This,” then gripped the zipper tab and slowly drew it down, the soft ratcheting of the metal teeth an accompaniment for Starsky’s relieved sigh.

“Thought the cab ride was gonna castrate me,” Starsky confessed in a lazy rumble, as if the loss of the family jewels was nothing but a negligible expense for giving Hutch the fantasy he had requested.

“Never meant to hurt you,” Hutch apologized nonetheless, remorse freezing the hand that had been about to dip inside the gaping jeans. He understood now why Starsky hadn’t wanted to sit down all night. Obviously, when Hutch had said “as tight as you can stand them,” Starsky had taken him very seriously.

“No harm done,” Starsky reassured him, both hands on Hutch’s shoulders now, a little pressure hinting at the forthcoming suggestion. “You could kiss it all better for me,” he proposed, flirting with Hutch in this private moment as he had on the public dance floor.

Hutch ignored the hopeful pressure, grinning with the power Starsky had willingly placed in his hands. Slow or fast. Hard or easy. Starsky was ready to take it any way Hutch wanted to dish it out. Lust, however, took center stage for a moment when Hutch let his teasing fingers slip past the rough caress of the zipper and encountered the hot, naked tip of Starsky’s cock.

Oh, natural. Despite the way the knowledge that Starsky was naked beneath the clinging denim had aroused him all night long, the detail had slipped Hutch’s mind, allowing the shock of that naked heat to almost undermine his plans. Helpless to control his desire, Hutch let his fingers circle the hard length, stroke downward to the base where he could feel the still-trapped softness of Starsky’s testicles.

“Eventually,” Hutch managed to croak, battling the urgent need to stroke and squeeze, to fall to his knees and engulf the throbbing promise in his mouth.

Starsky groaned, his whole body growing taut, hips snapping forward abruptly as if they had suddenly broken free of his restraint. “Eventually’s gonna get here in about five seconds,” he warned.

Hutch reluctantly removed his hand, steadying them both with a fierce grip on Starsky’s hip as they backed away from too soon, too fast. After a panting minute or two, he dropped to his knees, helping Starsky with the awkward business of discarding shoes and socks and wriggling the clinging denim off and away.

Face to cock, Hutch again fought the temptation to hurry. It would be so simple just to lean forward a few inches and take the hard, dark tip between his lips. Saliva rushed into his mouth in preparation for the hot bath he would give his lover’s needful flesh, and Hutch tore his gaze away from the object of his fascination, tipping his head back to meet Starsky’s eyes. He traced his lips with his tongue in a silent offer, letting Starsky make the choice, returning the power that had so intoxicated him as willing as Starsky had yielded it to him.

Starsky’s hand touched his face, trigger finger lightly stroking the wet promise of Hutch’s lips. “Eventually,” he finally whispered. His right-hand gripped Hutch’s arm to bring him to his feet. “And together.”

Hutch allowed himself to be coaxed upright, waiting patiently, as Starsky had waited, with his hands hanging at his sides, willing now to follow Starsky’s direction. He knew they were completely attuned, both focused on the same goal. How long it took them to get there hardly seemed to matter at all.

“You weren’t the only one jealous tonight,” Starsky confessed, fingering the first fastened button on Hutch’s shirt, apparently in no hurry to open it, just circling it with a fingertip while his eyes narrowed and his features tightened. “Don’t you ever look in a mirror?” he asked a little querulously. “All blond and gold, walking around like you have no idea what a wet dream you are. Then you wrap it all up in black, and don’t even notice the tongues hanging out.”

Hutch felt the heat rush into his face but forgot to be embarrassed when the lazy fingers suddenly attacked his shirt buttons with ruthless efficiency. In seconds, Starsky’s hands were wrapped in the edges of his shirt, yanking it wide. Hutch could feel the smoldering heat of the blue eyes as they tracked over his chest, stroking the hairless skin, plucking at nipples that rucked up hard even before Starsky bent to suck one into his mouth. Back arching, Hutch groaned and sank his fingers into clinging curls, then echoed himself when Starsky doubled the stimulation with teasing, pinching fingers to the other nipple.

“‘Nuf!” Hutch commanded, uncertain whether he had actually been able to gather the breath to push the single word between his lips, or if it was only echoing in his brain.

He must have said it, because Starsky abandoned him, straightening abruptly and searching his face. “Five seconds to eventually?” he teased, but his hands were briskly efficient again as they rid Hutch of the shirt.

“Maybe four,” Hutch panted, feeling a delicious exposure that had nothing to do with the black shadow his shirt had become on the light carpet.

Starsky’s hands circled his arms in a gentle grip before he began backing away. Helplessly, Hutch followed, tethered far more securely by the desire in Starsky’s eyes than by the strength of his hands.

“Better be real careful then,” Starsky murmured, halting his retreat when they stood beside the bed. His fingers worked the snap and zipper of Hutch’s jeans, taking only a cautious fingertip hold on the tab as he inched it down with exaggerated care. With the same precision, he grasped the waistband of jeans and briefs and pushed them down to Hutch’s thighs. “Sit on our bed,” he commanded.

The possessive jolted through Hutch. Our bed. Not his. Not Starsky’s. Theirs. To make love in, to sleep in, to wake up in wrapped around each other. A promise for some future shining day when a closet would only be a place to hang their clothes.

Hutch shook his head, kicked off his shoes, and pushed down on his half-mast pants until they slid to the floor. Bending, he disposed of them and socks, then straightened to hold out his hand to Starsky. “Together,” he insisted.

Starsky accepted the hand, his lips forming a teasing grin, but his eyes soft, perhaps also focused on that dreamt of day in the future. “Romantic,” he accused, then scrambled onto the bed, dragging Hutch with him.

Hutch swooped in for more kisses before they were even settled onto the huge mattress, only reluctantly submitting when a hand on his chest held him at bay. He growled a wordless protest, then allowed the strength of that hand to push him over onto his back, asking silent questions with his eyes as Starsky propped himself on one elbow.

“You’re gonna fuck me, right?” Starsky asked. “Yeah, I know, eventually,” he added with a grin before Hutch could say it. “But you are gonna fuck me tonight?”

“That’s my plan,” Hutch agreed, squirming a little, impatient with the anticipation of mounting his willing lover. Unless… “But if you don’t want—”

“Oh, beautiful man, I want,” Starsky reassured him quickly, the hand that had enforced Hutch’s compliance now caressing as if to pet away the momentary uncertainty. “But what always happens when you fuck me?”

Hutch could usually follow the illogical leaps Starsky took, but with more of his brains in his balls than his head, he was having a little trouble catching the drift. “Uhm. We come?” he suggested the only answer he could think of, then jumped when that caressing hand suddenly gave him a sharp poke in the ribs.

“No, dummy, we fall asleep,” Starsky reminded him, beginning to lean over Hutch, his lusty intentions sparkling in his eyes. “So, first, I’m gonna get in a few good licks of my own.”

When Starsky said licks, he meant licks, Hutch discovered when Starsky started in on his neck. He licked a moist path from neck to chest, pausing at a nipple to add sucking and nibbling to his repertoire, then employing his tongue again when he left the tingling bit of flesh behind.

The bed rocked under Hutch as Starsky straddled him, that magic mouth never leaving him but continuing to lap and lave at his quivering skin. By the time Starsky reached his navel and added nipping around the edges, Hutch was wishing they were at his place. When Starsky abandoned his belly and sta1ted in on his cock, Hutch knew he was going to need those brass bars to anchor him to the Earth.

As if sensing the imminent flight, however, Starsky bypassed his cock, patiently licking a path down one thigh to his knee and then back up the other thigh, before lifting up and meeting Hutch’s eyes.

“Gonna turn over for me, babe?” Starsky asked.

Hutch didn’t want to. Wasn’t going to. Starsky had had his turn and now… Hutch groaned as he settled onto his belly, his aching cock trapped against the unyielding mattress. His hips thrust once, but then Starsky laid a hand on the cheek of his ass, and Hutch obediently lay still.

“That’s good,” Starsky rumbled into Hutch’s ear, the mattress rocking for a second time as Starsky once again straddled him.

Ears, neck, and the full width of his shoulders all came in for their share of attention as Starsky worked his way down Hutch’s body.

“You’re killing me, you know that,” Hutch protested feebly while Starsky gave the mole on his back the same delicious attention he had given his nipple.

“But what a way to go, right?” Starsky countered, no trace of sympathy in his voice.

Hutch pushed his face into the pillow and groaned, then sucked in a breath and held it as Starsky’s mouth deserted him. Six, seven, eight heartbeats passed before the mouth returned, latching on at the small of his back and sucking hard.

“Bottle fed baby,” Hutch growled the accusation into the pillow, then moaned when the sucking stopped and the licking started again, zigzagging further down his spine and then detouring to the cheek of his ass.

“You complaining?” Starsky asked, the inquiry followed by the wet sweep of his tongue from waist to thigh.

“Thinking about… ” Hutch began, then had to pause as that damned tongue swept up the other cheek. “About writing your mother a thank you note,” he continued when he could breathe again. Hutch shivered when the moist heat of Starsky’ s laughter washed over his ass, cooling the wet trail his tongue had made, then gratefully spread his legs when Starsky’s hand delved between them, arching up a little to give his lover access to his eager cock.

“Down, boy,” Starsky chastised him, a hand on his ass pushing Hutch back down onto the bed.

That hand was joined by a second that stroked and petted and kneaded Hutch’s ass until his whole body was rocking with Starsky’s rhythm. The bones were melting inside his skin, muscles nothing but soft clay to be molded to Starsky’s will, when Hutch felt the hands that had been stroking his ass so deliciously, suddenly take a firmer grip, the thumbs dipping into his crevice and spreading him open. The startling warmth of a sigh washed over his exposed opening.

“You’re not,” Hutch protested, his body instinctively tensing to reject the implied intimacy.

“Unless you say no,” Starsky murmured, the offer to retreat followed by a tender kiss just above the pressure of his thumb.

Once upon a time, Hutch was sure he had known how to say no to Starsky. A long time ago. Certainly before they had kissed for the first time. Before Hutch had discovered what it was like to be loved without reservation. Ancient history that he could barely recall.

“Yes,” Hutch whimpered and buried his face in the pillow. His hands slid under it, fingers scrabbling for the edge of the mattress and gripping hard, wrists and elbows and shoulders screaming in protest as he felt the first bold swipe of Starsky’s tongue over his center. His anus clenched, denying the tongue tip that accepted the rejection, swirling around the tight portal until it relented. Insanity beckoned, this powerful intimacy threatening to unhinge Hutch’s grasp on reality as Starsky’s tongue breached his last weakened defenses, and laid claim to his final secrets. No place left to hide, and no need to ever hide again.

“Easy, sweetheart.”

Hutch shuddered back from the edge, drawn irresistibly by the tenderness of Starsky’s voice and the solid weight of him spread out like a shield on his back. He could feel the hard length of Starsky’s cock pressed into the crevice of his ass, the heat of it riding on slick saliva. He lifted his hips, shifting carefully until he felt the tip of Starsky’s cock probe at his relaxed anus.

“Don’t wanna nail me anymore?” Starsky whispered, triumph and teasing and purring satisfaction reminding Hutch more than the question that, when the evening began, Hutch had been writing a very different scenario.

“Eventually could come tomorrow,” Hutch suggested, torn himself between the need to be taken and the need to take, uncertain if there was really any difference.

“That’s what you think,” Starsky growled and abruptly rolled off his back.

Hutch stayed where he was, allowing Starsky to think he was just being stubborn, but needing the moments to shift gears. He had to ease away from overdrive and settle back into idle if he was going to nail Starsky as he had promised. When he finally felt he was capable of some control, he turned his head and found Starsky waiting, lying ready on his belly with a smug smile tugging at his lips.

“Ready now?” Starsky asked sweetly.

Hutch offered an “mmmm” that was only an octave above a snarl.

“Me, too,” Starsky confessed, the strain suddenly showing on his face as he pulled his hand from beneath the pillow and slid the tube of lubricant toward Hutch. “Don’t get fancy, Hutch. I’m way too close,” he warned. “And I want you balls-deep when l come.”

Accepting the responsibility along with the lubricant, Hutch scrambled up and knelt between Starsky’s spread thighs. He fumbled the top off the tube and squeezed the cold gel directly onto his penis, hoping the shock would place a few strands of control back into his hands. Only a very few fine threads, he discovered when he spread the slickness with cautious fingers and his cock throbbed a warning.

“Come up, babe,” he encouraged Starsky, putting his hands to better use with a firm grip that lifted Starsky’s hips from the bed, positioned the coveted ass just where he needed it to be. His hips thrust, his cock stabbing at Starsky’s anus, and met the lockdown of instinctive rejection. Starsky’s yelp of frustration was an echo for his own.

Trembling, Hutch fought his urgent need to delve deeper, to force the reluctant muscle to submit to his body’s demands. Somehow, he held to the steady pressure he knew they needed, his hands stroking up the quivering muscles of Starsky’ s back. “Easy, baby. Let me in,” he begged for them both.

Starsky would yield. He always did. His body opening slowly as it had the very first time. But not tonight. When his body surrendered, it was all at once, giving Hutch a sudden easy slide to that balls-deep goal they had been aching for.

“Ah, Christ. Yeah,” Hutch moaned as he settled on Starsky’s back, his hands sliding down the outstretched arms until he found Starsky’s hands, feeling how fiercely those fingers gripped onto the edge of the mattress, just as Hutch’s had when Starsky’s mouth had claimed him.

“Love you,” he murmured, wallowing in the rippling caress of the channel that sheathed his cock.

“Ah, Hutch,” Starsky groaned, his muscles gathering, a brief warning for the eruption that suddenly lifted his hips. “Fuck me,” he demanded in a strangled howl.

A slave to Starsky’s needs and his own, Hutch obeyed, pistoning his hips, surging upright to lock a relentless grip on Starsky’s hips. Finding a frantic rhythm that needed no music but the guttural grunts forced from Starsky with each hard thrust, Hutch echoed them as he drove them closer to that elusive moment of immortality.

“Now!” Starsky shouted, his body freezing at a quivering apex.

Obediently, Hutch stilled, grasping Starsky’s neglected cock as it sta1ted to jerk, and stripping each straining burst of semen from it while spasming muscles squeezed and milked an echoing stream from Hutch’s deeply buried cock.

His body quivering with the power of his climax, Hutch struggled to force his muscles to bear his own suddenly overwhelming weight. To brace arms and shoulders and back and ignore the screaming strain of it until Starsky’s panting eased and his body began to collapse. It was follow then or be separated, and Hutch couldn’t yet bear the parting.

“Sorry,” he whispered while the weak clenching of Starsky’s ass tried to coax him to stay forever imbedded. “Gimme a minute.”

“Couple o’ hours, if ya want,” Starsky panted obligingly, shifting only a little, the weak contractions suddenly becoming a vice around Hutch’s sensitive cock. “Sorry,” he murmured in his turn.

Selfishly, Hutch took every second of the minute he had requested, soaking up the sweetness of being joined with his lover as a shield for the empty aching of parting to come. It stabbed him when he could finally delay no longer and had to withdraw, easing his cock from Starsky’s ass and flopping to the mattress beside him. But the way Starsky immediately wriggled around and into his arms spread salve over the wound and soothed it. Just as the cushioning silence that followed soothed his overwrought nerves into the lethargic pleasure of afterglow.

“You okay?” he finally remembered to ask, his conscience twinging just a little for the delay.

“Eventually was definitely worth waiting for,” Starsky reassured him in a satisfied purr. “Hope you enjoyed your ‘Frisco Fantasy as much as I did.”

Hutch’s conscience kicked him a little harder at the reminder of how close he had come to letting jealousy ruin the dream. “I’m sorry I almost spoiled it for both of us,” he apologized again. “It isn’t that I don’t trust you, Starsk.”

“I know that,” Starsky reassured him again, easing back a little, resting his head on the point of Hutch’s shoulder. “Do you remember that story Zack Tyler told us when he was shot? The one about the scorpion and the toad?”

“The scorpion and the frog,” Hutch corrected automatically, remembering the friendly Texan and the grief that had made death the only option open to him.

Starsky shrugged. “Toad, frog. What’s the difference?” he dismissed his amphibian misnomer. “Point is, you’re just being true to your nature.”

Uncertain whether he was being excused or insulted, Hutch turned his head, twisting his neck to get a look at Starsky’s face. But Starsky wasn’t cooperating worth a damn, his current position giving Hutch a view of only his curly bangs and heavy eyebrows. “Are you saying I was born jealous?” he asked in an effort to decide if he should be offended.

The arm that had been laying over Hutch’s chest in lax possession tightened, pulling a grunt from him. “Hell, no,” Starsky reassured him. “I think Vanessa and a few others taught you that lesson.”

Hutch was grateful for the strength of Starsky’s grip as he remembered the pain of past betrayals. Vanessa. Gillian. Too many others. Ghosts that could still haunt him. “You could be right,” he conceded. “But it’s not as if I own you.”

Starsky shifted again, this time propping himself on his elbow and staring down at Hutch with a little exasperation on his familiar features, as if he suspected Hutch might be being intentionally dense.

“Of course you do, Hutch. You said it yourself. There wasn’t another guy there tonight I’d ever want,” Starsky reminded him, then leaned in and kissed him briefly. “I’ve got no objections to you holding my deed,” he said, his expression becoming fierce as he continued. “As long as I get to hold yours, too.”

“Sole and unencumbered possession,” Hutch promised, then drew Starsky down for a kiss to seal the bargain.

Hutch let his mind wander as Starsky settled back down on his shoulder, drifting toward sleep where he knew he would find no dream sweeter than the one Starsky had already helped him live tonight.

This wasn’t the first time Starsky’s persistence had paid off with such a satisfying reward, but it was certainly the most memorable. Starsky might never have an opportunity to wear those white jeans in public again, they might have to hide in the closet with the Statue of Liberty, but he had definitely given Hutch a shining memento of their first vacation. Which reminded him….

“Starsk. What am I going to buy you to commemorate our San Francisco vacation?” Hutch asked and watched a slow smile work its way onto Starsky’s lips.

“Well, now that you ask,” Starsky murmured. “Those jeans come in black and extra-long, too.”

Hutch grinned. It looked like he wasn’t the only one writing a little ‘Frisco Fantasy in his head. “Tomorrow,” he promised, and hugged his sleepy lover close.