Sweet Relief

433

This first scene was published in the 2025 SHareCon Advent Calendar behind the door for December 13. But Dandelion couldn’t help herself; the boys kept talking to her, so she kept writing—and ended up with this 11-scene story. 28,000 words.

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Scene One

It was funny at the time. Maybe because they were all a bit high on life; the two detectives were obviously under the influence. Huggy had hung the live-flame lantern to the fire sprinkler above Starsky’s hospital bed—and it was Hutch who first suspected the inevitable outcome.

Starsky was feeling extra-sentimental because his closest friends had come to his hospital room that night to feed him a homemade meal, share a bottle of fine wine with him, and celebrate his miraculous recovery from a near-death experience. His euphoria was also due to the four painkillers he’d taken, especially when they were coupled with Hutch’s presence—and his partner’s contagious laughter.

But it wasn’t funny when the overhead pendant sprinkler abruptly burst and showered the room in cold water. They were drenched, and Starsky soon-after got chills.

The extinguisher also triggered an alarm at the nurse’s station—which brought Stefanie and Kathryn, two familiar middle-aged nurses, on the run; they, too, burst into the room, frantic and then confused—no fire; four men—and only calmed down when Huggy explained his stupid mistake.

“You boys aren’t supposed to be in here!” Nurse Stefanie yelled at them; she was in no mood for their antics or the obvious fact that they’d snuck into the hospital past the watchful eye of in-house security. “I want you all out now!”

“Me, too?” Starsky pretended to wonder. With Dobey’s and Huggy’s help, Hutch had pulled Starsky’s bed—with Starsky in it—out from under the waterfall and to the opposite side of the room. Starsky didn’t mind the idea that he might get to leave—go home with Hutch for the night, climb into dry loungewear, snuggle into a warm, real bed, invite Hutch to join him there, and pick up where they’d left off. He was burned out on weeks in the hospital.

Nurse Kathryn escorted Huggy and Dobey into the hallway and ordered them to go home; she made them take the food and wine with them, too. But she didn’t have similar luck chasing Hutch away. He flashed his badge, pled his case as a permanent fixture in Starsky’s life, and was backed up by Nurse Stefanie who didn’t see the harm in his staying a short while longer. “He practically lives here already,” she noted.

She even took advantage of Hutch, ordering him to help her and Nurse Kathryn move Starsky onto a wheeled stretcher they snatched from the hallway—and then transfer him into a new room several floors up. But first they gathered Starsky’s clothes, shoes, books, and toiletries, and piled them at the foot of the gurney.

“Weeee!” Starsky squealed, flashing his eyebrows at Hutch when they were finally on the way to their destination. “You should get on this thing with me,” he insisted, patting the mattress. He rather liked the earlier feel of Hutch in the bed beside him and was disappointed when the water-dump forced his partner out from under the blanket.

But Hutch apparently didn’t share Starsky’s desire. “I wouldn’t dream of making these fine young ladies push us around the hospital,” he told Starsky. He winked at his partner to say he flattered the women so they would forgive him for violating visitor hours. “Not that they couldn’t do it by themselves,” he quickly added, further sugarcoating the praise he heaped on them, “but it wouldn’t be chivalrous.”

“Then you don’t know what you’re missing, pal.”

“I say this as a grown man, Starsk: I have a pretty good idea.”

Starsky rolled his eyes.

They entered the new room where a freshly made bed and dry pajamas awaited Starsky, but first the nurses needed to get him out of his wet ones. Hutch stood nearby while they helped Starsky to sit up and then unbuttoned his navy blue pajama top.

“This will be funny someday,” Starsky predicted. He sat on the gurney with his legs dangling off the side and allowed them to maneuver his arms into an identical, but clean, dry, navy blue pajama top with light blue striping.

His nurses were not amused.

“It feels like I’m two years old again puttin’ on my jammies,” Starsky giggled. Secretly he wished Hutch was changing him out of his wet clothes. Momentarily, he fantasized about it while keeping his eyes on Hutch’s face and those blue eyes—until Nurse Stefanie told him to ‘Hold still!’ so she could straighten the shirt over his bandages.

“I think the last time you were a two-year-old was, when? a couple of days ago,” Hutch teased him, pretending to remember. He stood facing Starsky with his hands on his hips. “Nothing new here except someone other than your mother is babying you this time.” Hutch rarely catered to Starsky’s childish behavior.

When it came time to remove Starsky’s pajama bottoms, Nurse Stefanie pushed Hutch away. “Would you mind turning around, Officer?”

“He’s okay,” Starsky said before Hutch could answer her. “Ain’t nuthin’ he hasn’t seen before.” In reality, he couldn’t remember a time when they were nude from the waist down with each other—at least not with any concerted effort to closely examine the other’s phallus—but Starsky had hoped to use the opportunity to innocently flash the man. He didn’t succeed. “Besides, I don’t have anything to be embarrassed about,” he argued when no one would comment on his innuendo. “I don’t care who sees what.”

Hutch half-turned away. “Don’t flatter yourself, buddy boy. It ain’t all that.”

“Yeah? How would you know?”

“Same way I know you’re not a good kisser.”

Starsky grunted. “Tell me again how you know that?”

He wished Hutch knew. Since his emergence from the days-long coma, Starsky had been feeling emotional and needy—for Hutch—and his neediness hadn’t died down in weeks. It was definitely for real. His partner was the first person he saw when he came out of a seemingly endless unconsciousness and he would never forget who was there for him around the clock—and had been, for years.

But more than that, Starsky really appreciated his new lease on life, and he didn’t want to spend it with anyone but Ken Hutchinson. His affection for Hutch had deepened—all the way into wanting physical and romantic contact with him, despite a years-earlier discomfort with man-on-man love. Starsky had emerged from his coma burned out on what he was supposed to think and feel, deciding to be his own man going forward.

“You boys are silly,” Nurse Stefanie said, shaking her head at them. She allowed Starsky to stand with the aid of the other nurse and, together, they pulled Starsky’s wet pajama bottoms off of him and redressed him in a fresh pair.

Starsky hoped Hutch would at least steal a glance at his briefly exposed, albeit flaccid, penis—and be titillated by it—but Hutch didn’t.

Starsky also understood the nurses’ reluctance to let him stand and dress himself; he’d only recently begun physical therapy. In fact, he would stop having to wear bandages and leave the medical hospital the following morning to take up residence at the rehab center for a stay of no less than several weeks. But more than anything, Starsky just wanted to go home.

He watched while Hutch put himself to use: storing Starsky’s clothes in the small dresser, stacking his books on the nightstand, taking his few toiletries into the bathroom, and then he prepared the bed, fluffed the pillows against its headboard, and turned on a nearby table lamp. When Hutch was finished, he and the nurses carefully moved Starsky onto the dry bed.

“I’ll let you lovely ladies do the honors,” Hutch said as he stepped out of the way to allow the nurses to position Starsky more comfortably on the mattress and to tuck him in.

Once situated, they turned their attention to Hutch. “You can leave now,” Nurse Kathryn said, not rudely. “It’s late and Davey needs his sleep.”

“And you should get into some dry clothes yourself,” Nurse Stefanie told Hutch. “Otherwise you’ll catch cold and end up in the hospital alongside your partner.” She teased him, of course, but her point was made.

“I promise I’ll be out of here in ten minutes,” Hutch swore. He obviously wanted to say goodbye in private.

“If I don’t see you walk past me on your way downstairs in 15 minutes,” she threatened him, “I’m sending security in after you.”

Starsky stuck his tongue out at her when she turned her back to leave the room.

“Now, now,” Hutch gently reprimanded him after both nurses left them to themselves, taking the gurney with them. “Don’t bite the hands that dress you.”

“Whatever,” Starsky mumbled. The night hadn’t gone the way he hoped. “But you’re not really leaving me tonight, are you?” He didn’t have the courage to tell Hutch how differently he’d been feeling toward him, but it also didn’t stop him from trying to manipulate Hutch into as many moments of closeness as he could wrangle.

“I do have to get out of these wet clothes,” Hutch explained. He looked around the room. “Not much space to add another bed in here and too much work to clear the area,” he noted after studying the layout of dressers, floor lamps, and chairs. “And it’s late.” He stepped beside the bed and looked down on Starsky. They’d sobered since the fire sprinkler fiasco. “We both should get some sleep.”

“Yeah, I guess so,” Starsky grudgingly replied; he was overcome with disappointment, but didn’t let it show. “You’ll be back in the morning?”

“Haven’t I always?”

“Yeah, but…”

“When is your rehab transfer?”

“Not until 11. Have breakfast with me, okay?”

“I’ll bring breakfast,” Hutch promised. “Pancakes?”

“And everything that comes with them.”

“You’ve got it, buddy,” Hutch said, squeezing Starsky’s arm. Before Starsky could take a hold of Hutch in affectionate reply, Hutch turned toward the door; bad timing on Starsky’s part. “You still have a few minutes,” Starsky reminded him. “Why are you in a hurry to leave?”

“I should get out of these wet socks,” Hutch figured. “I was fine until I stood up and the water ran down my jeans into my shoes.”

“You’re not planning to drive home in your condition,” Starsky warned him, trying again to stall Hutch—and despite the fact that Hutch had arrived at the hospital earlier that night already a bit inebriated. “I don’t think you should be behind the wheel.”

“I’ll be sober enough by the time I get to the parking lot,” Hutch assured him. “Worry about yourself, Starsk. You still have a long road of recovery ahead of you.”

“Yeah, but, can’t I go home now? You can take me to my appointment in the morning. I don’t see why I have to stay here anymore.”

Hutch reached the door and faced Starsky. “I know it’s hard, but it won’t be much longer. We can look into me staying overnight sometimes at the rehab center.” He turned off the overhead lights, leaving the table lamp on, and opened the door.

Starsky panicked. “Hey, Hutch?”

Hutch paused, looked back at him, and made softer eye contact. “Yeah, buddy?”

“Give me a goodnight kiss?”

It was an impulsive ask, making Starsky’s heart pound, but he was anxious to lay his hopes to rest—one way or another. Hutch’s action or reaction would determine where their relationship went next—whether it remained tried-and-true as-is, or turned a corner into brand new.

If Hutch laughed at Starsky’s request and left the room, Starsky would know that he alone was feeling something uniquely special for his partner—and it wasn’t reciprocated.

If Hutch returned to the bed and kissed Starsky on the top of his head, it would be a parental, paternal, loving kiss; Hutch reaffirming his commitment to look out for Starsky.

If Hutch kissed Starsky on the cheek, it would be a friendly, playful, affectionate message that he was sending; echoing Starsky’s out-of-the-blue suggestion for a goodnight kiss, about friendship and loyalty.

But if Hutch kissed Starsky on the lips, then Starsky would know where they stood going forward, what they wanted together, and that he wasn’t alone in his newly found desires; his near-death experience would have affected them both in the same way. They’d always been of one mind, one heart. Was it still the case on this night? Starsky was about to get his answer and he was both excited and terrified at the same time.

Hutch didn’t laugh at Starsky and leave the room; he let the door close and returned to Starsky’s bedside.

He didn’t kiss the top of Starsky’s head. He wasn’t feeling paternal.

He didn’t kiss Starsky’s cheek; he wasn’t feeling friendly, playful, and affectionate.

Hutch bent over and kissed Starsky on the lips. Starsky really didn’t expect it; he bolted on the inside, as surprised as he was thrilled.

The contact was also softer and much warm­er than Starsky thought it would be—as if Hutch had long wanted to share such a moment with him; his tender side had completely surfaced. Starsky could smell Hutch, too, his skin and his sweat and his cologne, and he could feel his own heart pounding away in his chest. He was aware of the supple flesh-to-flesh feel at his lips as he inhaled out of pure appre­­hension and desire, and then he waited—for something more?

The kiss was short-lived and naturally ended—as if they often shared a goodnight kiss, like a long-time married couple; hello/goodbye. Hutch leaned back to look into Starsky’s eyes—and seemed to ask the same question. Would there be something else? Did he want an even deeper connection?

He apparently did.

That next kiss, more heart-driven than the first, lasted much longer, and became quite sensual and intimate as they took turns fervently sucking each other’s lips and tongues in between gentle kisses. Starsky held Hutch’s face in both hands to heighten the arousal the kissing caused him; he didn’t want to ever let go. He felt flushed, too, breaking a light sweat just as Hutch inevitably ended the contact.

Hutch straightened, gazed down on Starsky, ruffled his hair, and affectionately winked at him; there was a genuine smile in his blue eyes and on his face.

“I was hoping you’d do that,” Starsky admitted, not leaving eye contact, and not feeling ashamed or embarrassed, either. In contrast, he felt choked up with emotion as he quickly held onto Hutch’s hand so Hutch wouldn’t leave him too soon.

Hutch shyly smiled back at him. “I was hoping that’s what you were hoping.”

They were speechless, each momentarily lost in his own thoughts and feelings—about what such a kiss meant for them individually, and what it would mean for them together. They didn’t need to say more than what was already being spoken in the silence.

“I’d better get out of here,” Hutch eventually said, reluctantly pulling away. “Nurses are on the rampage. I hope you sleep good tonight.”

Starsky didn’t think he’d ever sleep again; his mind was wide awake, his body on fire. “We have a lot to do, Hutch,” he said when Hutch reached the door.

“I know,” Hutch softly replied. He blew Starsky a kiss—and then slowly left the room, abandoning Starsky to himself.

But Starsky didn’t care. His life had just changed, filling an emptiness in his soul.

Seconds later, Nurse Stefanie opened the door; she must have run into Hutch in the hallway. “I’m glad to see your partner has behaved,” she told him. “I’ll be back later with your pain meds.”

Starsky couldn’t imagine ever feeling pain again. He’d just fallen in love for the second time in his life. The first time was a decade earlier when he met Hutch and knew they were destined to be partners. All those years it had just been a feeling, a bond, an unspoken attraction to each other, a commitment like no other. But on this night, the night they kissed, Starsky fell in love with Hutch. There had never been anything like it in his life; Starsky had finally come home.

He rolled away from the door to stare at the bare wall, not seeing it. All he wanted to envision were the moments and experiences that lay ahead for them. Hutch really had given him a goodnight kiss—just the way Starsky fantasized about it, desired it, needed it. It wasn’t because Hutch was drunk, was it? Hutch wouldn’t sober up and arrive in the morning with pancakes and no memory of their kiss, would he? He couldn’t possibly forget that kiss!

Starsky decided to bathe in the fantasy that Hutch was quite aware of what he had done, that he wanted such intimacy, too, and needed to be closer still to Starsky, especially after nearly losing him. They’d always been of one heart, one mind—that night was no different. Starsky was betting on it.

He could barely sleep, faking it when Nurse Stefanie returned to his room with painkillers, so he wouldn’t have to take them. She called his name a few times and then left without forcing him to ‘wake up.’ She would be back later, he assumed, but Starsky wasn’t ready to be numbed. He wanted to feel every nuance and relive every memory of that kiss—Hutch’s beautiful face, his gentle smile, his willingness, his wet, sexy mouth, his knowing what lay ahead for them.

But somewhere in the night, Starsky did fall asleep. The lamp was still on in the room. Nurse Stefanie hadn’t returned. He was satisfyingly exhausted—mostly from an emotional high. “We have a lot to do,” he’d told Hutch, and Hutch said he knew; they were of the same mind.

There would be more kissing, more lip-sucking, new caressing, full nudity and erotic arousal. Uninhibited sex. Tongues and penises and orgasms with each other. The joining of their bodies, not just their hearts. A lifetime love he’d only dreamt about. Those thoughts aroused Starsky, but he was so afraid of being caught with an erection by Nurse Stefanie that he fought it off each time it emerged—until unpreventable sleep overtook him.

It was the warm hand that woke Starsky with a start several hours later.

“Hey, buddy,” Hutch said, squeezing Starsky’s arm. “Wake up. It’s 2 a.m.”

Starsky rolled back to look over his shoulder, and was surprised and confused—but relieved just as much—to see Hutch standing beside his bed. The man was still dressed in his red tee-shirt and dark green baseball jacket, as if he hadn’t changed out of his wet clothes. Beautiful face. Friendly blue eyes. Unkempt blond hair and that stupid mustache. Starsky wasn’t dreaming.

“I stayed away as long as I could,” Hutch confessed in a subdued voice; he obviously didn’t want the nurses to hear him.

Starsky was elated to see Hutch again—and so soon, but he didn’t quite understand it. “Is something wrong?”

“God, no,” Hutch said. “How can anything be wrong tonight?”

“You’re still wet,” Starsky noted when he gripped Hutch’s jacket.

“I never left the parking lot,” Hutch explained, rattling the handlebars on a wheelchair, one Starsky hadn’t noticed until Hutch drew his attention to it. “And then I had to commandeer a ride for you.”

Starsky turned all the way over to have a closer look. He glanced up at Hutch. “What’s going on, hm?”

“We’re taking you out of here,” Hutch said matter-of-factly, as if it should have been obvious. “Isn’t that what you wanted?”

That night had just become the happiest of Starsky’s life. “I’m ready to go,” he emphatically said, clumsily sitting up. But he wasn’t sure he was going home for the same reason Hutch would take him home. “Do you remember kissing me or did I dream that?”

“Remember it? I wasn’t that drunk, Starsk. I’ll never forget it. You’re not having second thoughts about this, are you?”

“Not on your life,” Starsky giggled, realizing his fears had been for naught. It would take time to trust his instincts again. “Just checking,” he explained. “I didn’t want those painkillers to blur my vision, if you know what I mean.”

“‘I can see clearly now…’” Hutch sweetly sang, positioning the chair alongside the bed.

Starsky added the next lyric in a singsong voice. “‘…the rain is gone.’”

“Let’s go home, lover boy,” Hutch said as he locked both wheelchair brakes.

“‘I can see all obstacles in my way…’”

Hutch pulled the blanket off of Starsky and helped to turn him on the mattress to better position him for the transfer. “C’mon, sit forward.”

Starsky did as instructed while he continued to sing. ‘“Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind…’”

As they gingerly moved Starsky off the bed, Hutch joined him in song. “‘It’s gonna be a bright, bright, bright sun-shiny day…’”

“But let’s finish this night first,” Hutch suggested.

“Oh, yeah. We’re gonna do that for sure, Hutch.”

“Your place or mine?”

“Whichever is closest. But can we get me up the stairs at either place?”

“If we can’t, we’ll tackle each other in the car.”

Starsky laughed, but not fondly. “That might be hard on my back.”

“Plan B: a hotel room.”

Starsky liked that idea, a lot. “Let’s make it the A plan.” Why waste time?

“You’re right,” Hutch agreed, covering Starsky’s lap and legs with the bed blanket so he wouldn’t get cold. He then headed to the dresser for Starsky’s clothes. “You said so yourself, Starsk: we have a lot to do. We can worry about stairs another day.”

Starsky watched Hutch gather up his things. He was never more excited about the future. “I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy, Hutch.”

“Not me, either, Starsk,” Hutch said, dumping Starsky’s clothes and other personal items into Starsky’s lap. He then turned the wheelchair toward the door.

When they reached it, Starsky put his foot against the door to keep Hutch from opening it right away. He tilted his head back and looked up at Hutch, hoping to make eye contact so Hutch would know just how sincerely he meant what he’d said. “I’ve never been happier.”

Hutch looked down at him, appearing shy and emotional when they made precious eye contact. “I haven’t been this happy, either, Starsk. Ever. We’re going to make the most of this new life.”

“Damn, Hutch. That’s what I’ve been thinking.” He dropped his foot so Hutch could open the door. “I love you so much. You know that, right?”

“Like I know how much I love you is how much I know.”

One mind. One heart.

Scene Two

“I only have one rule,” Hutch said matter-of-factly. “Stay out of my ass.”

Starsky internally flinched. He sat dutifully at the foot of the bed, still dressed in his hospital pajamas and wrapped in one of its ‘stolen’ blankets, and watched Hutch hang his damp clothes on hangers in the small closet. A single lamp, the one on the bed’s left side nightstand, shed the only light into the cozy hotel suite, and the heater under the window hummed as it warmed up the room.

But Hutch couldn’t be serious. “Is that a Forever Rule,” Starsky carefully asked, trying to sound nonchalant, “or is that a For Tonight Only Rule?” He honestly couldn’t tell.

Hutch lightly laughed. He’d already removed his shoes and hung his socks and his baseball jacket onto hangers, and then next pulled his red tee-shirt off over his head. “I’m going to take a quick shower,” he said, unbuckling his belt. “That, or smell like a rancid pond.” He slipped the belt’s buckle over the hanger’s hook and hung it in the closet beside his other clothes.

“That didn’t answer my question,” Starsky noted, fishing for clarification.

“I meant to tell you that I put your watch in the glovebox the day you went into the hospital.”

Starsky had wondered where his watch had gone, but it was the least of his concerns, especially that night. The hospital was kind enough—or too rushed to do differently—to leave his necklace and pinky ring on him. And he was about to push Hutch into elaborating on the specifics of his cryptic ‘ass rule’ when Hutch unzipped and lowered his jeans right there in front of him, effectively distracting Starsky from his next question.

“Your pistol and holster are in the trunk,” Hutch continued. He stepped out of his jeans, his backside to Starsky, and hung them over a hanger. “Your shoes and the clothes you went in with are also in there,” he added, hooking the hanger over the closet rod. “I threw away your shirt, but maybe the leather jacket can be salvaged—if you still want it.” Hutch since had the Torino repaired, too. It looked as good as new.

Starsky studied Hutch’s physique: his hairless back, his shapely butt, and his muscled legs—a visual he’d never seen until that very minute, not quite like that, completely bared, in soft amber light—and within reach. Starsky even noticed Hutch’s biceps, as if he’d never laid eyes on them before. His brand new boyfriend was a well-built man from head to foot.

But why would Hutch make such a flippant comment about ‘rules’ prior to their intimacy, particularly that one? They’d only shared a single kiss before Hutch abducted him from the hospital in the wee hours of the morning so they could pick up where they’d left off. Wasn’t that the plan?

Hutch turned around, faced Starsky, opened his arms, as if to present himself, and humbly said, “This is as good as it gets, partner.”

Starsky dropped his gaze; he couldn’t not. Hutch had point-blank invited him; he was standing right there after all, completely nude, just a few feet away, baring his soul in more ways than one. But Hutch’s action felt … clinical, too.

Still, the first thing Starsky obviously noticed was Hutch’s flaccid penis hanging below a patch of light blond pubic hair. Even limp, it appeared on the large side, yet something about it seemed ‘off’—but Starsky only felt that way for a second before he realized what he was seeing.

“You’re … all … natural.”

“Yeah,” Hutch said, dropping his arms to his sides; the only thing he wore at that moment was the class ring on his right hand. “Not circumcised.”

“I’ve never seen one like that before.”

“Not even mine?”

“You’ve always been shy about it in the locker room.”

“To your disappointment?”

“Just that I noticed how skittish you are, hiding it like you’re embarrassed by it—but now I don’t understand why that would be. And I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know.”

Hutch didn’t commit to his reasons. “But you’ve seen circumcised dicks, right?”

“Well, I mean, now and then—if we’re not counting mine.”

Hutch turned and headed to the bathroom, snapping on the overhead light when he entered it. “Stealing locker room glances at other naked guys, are ya, Butch?”

“No,” Starsky insisted, emphatically. “In porn.”

“Oh,” was all Hutch said. He turned on the shower. After half a minute, not having looked at Starsky while he waited for the water to heat up, he quietly observed, “I didn’t know you watched that stuff.”

“Not often,” Starsky defensively said; he didn’t know why. “Growing up, I mean.” He studied Hutch’s nude body in the brighter bathroom light from his seat at the foot of the bed, his eyes repeatedly returning to Hutch’s penis after each sweep. He wondered about Hutch’s full size—his penis’ girth and length, shape of its erection, proportions, and how that foreskin added to the mix. “Didn’t you ever watch porn in your teens?”

“Too busy with church studies,” Hutch replied with a somewhat cynical laugh. He disappeared into the shower.

What had felt like a promising night of passionate lovemaking—new and exciting and in ways Starsky had only fantasized about in life—had suddenly taken a strategical turn, and not in a fun way. Hutch had already placed restrictions on their behavior. Why would he do that without discussing them first? Something was amiss.

Starsky stared at the floor while he listened to Hutch splash around in the water. His partner would only be a minute or two, so there wasn’t much else for Starsky to do, but wait—and continue to warm up. Meanwhile, his mind raced.

He relived asking Hutch for a goodnight kiss in the hospital earlier that night before Hutch was ordered out of the room by the nurse. Starsky was willing to take the risk of asking for a kiss. He steeled himself from the pain of a rejection, appreciating why Hutch might not want to kiss-kiss him, but really hoped he and his partner were on the same new wavelength about intimacy. Although Starsky didn’t remember much about the shooting, he did know he’d practically died, and he couldn’t not empathize with Hutch’s experience during all that drama. It had to have brought them closer.

Hutch had followed nurse’s orders and left the hospital room so Starsky could get some sleep—but not until after he’d indulged Starsky in their first-and-only lips kiss—and then Hutch returned a few hours later with the wheelchair. Starsky had hinted that he wanted to go home; he was sick of being in the hospital and no longer saw a real need for it. Besides, the plan was to transfer him to the rehabilitation center the following morning, so why spend one more night in the emergency hospital?

The ‘abduction’ had been such a wonderful surprise. Starsky hadn’t let on how emotional he was to see Hutch again, that time with a wheelchair and a promise to liberate him from the boredom and sterility of his hospital room. Hutch was also keen to collect Starsky’s few toiletries, his even fewer clothes, and to wrap him in a hospital blanket for the trip outside.

Having already decided to not climb the stairs to either one of their apartments, they found a nearby hotel instead. Hutch bought a toothbrush for himself in the lobby, and together they got Starsky into the second floor room, then to the toilet, and eventually back to the bed before Hutch said it was long past time for him to get out of his damp clothes. They laughed again about the sprinkler fiasco; Starsky was lucky to have a couple of nurses who quickly changed him out of his wet pajamas into dry ones, but Hutch was on his own.

Standing beside the toilet earlier, Hutch leaned against the sink counter, crossed his arms, and figured out the plan for the upcoming morning. “We’ll stop by my apartment on the way to rehab,” he strategized, “so I can get fresh clothes, and we can grab some breakfast, and then—”

“Why your place and not mine, too?” Starsky asked, keeping an eye on the aim of his urine stream into the toilet and feeling grateful for the relief. “The only clothes you brought to the hospital were socks, one pair of jeans, and a couple of tee-shirts. I’m going to need something warmer than those.”

“My apartment is closer and along the way,” Hutch explained. He allowed Starsky his privacy by staring across the room to the shower, but he was no less adamant about the plan. “You can wear some of my sweats.”

“Yeah, but—”

“You can wear my tee-shirts, any of my other shirts and sweaters, even my jackets—and clean socks. What more do you need?”

“Okay,” Starsky said, surrendering. Hutch did make sense. “But it’s late, Hutch, and we don’t want to waste time eating breakfast, either. Maybe we should just grab whatever the lobby has on hand, hm? A donut and some coffee? I think they’ll still be serving by the time we have to leave here.”

“Good idea,” Hutch agreed. “I’ll bring you a suitcase of clothes and other stuff after you’re settled into the rehab place.”

“And maybe we can sneak me out of there now and then—overnight, I mean. We can get some real food and maybe, you know, steal more … lip-locks.” He glanced at Hutch in time to see Hutch smile, but still not make eye contact. “And maybe you should shave that mustache off in the meantime, too. Tickling my lip is one thing; scratching my dick with that thing might get you punched.”

Hutch laughed and pushed off the counter. “Someday you’ll tell me how you know that.”

Starsky finished urinating and flushed the toilet. “Not in any way you’re thinking. But you have to admit your hairy lip doesn’t have any place in our new life.”

Hutch retrieved the hospital blanket and wrapped it around Starsky again. He helped him into the wheelchair, playfully mumbling, “I would think my ‘hairy lip’ would be an added bonus.”

Was that the turning point? Had Starsky offended Hutch by asking him to get rid of the facial hair? On second thought, Starsky decided it wasn’t related; that conversation had been relatively playful—but Hutch apparently took it seriously, too.

After shutting off the water, stepping out of the shower, and towel-drying himself, Hutch stood in front of the bathroom mirror, and turned on the sink faucets. He then rooted around in Starsky’s small toiletry bag, eventually removing a razor and a used can of Gillette shaving cream. He was still completely naked, too; he wasn’t wrapped in a towel.

“You don’t have to do that if you don’t want to,” Starsky said, pulling the blanket more tightly around himself. He really did wish Hutch would shave off the mustache, but he didn’t want to be greedy about it, either.

“You have your rules,” Hutch said in a singsong voice, smearing shaving cream on his face below his nose, “and I have mine. That’s fair, isn’t it?”

Starsky’s wish had just backfired. He hoped Hutch would shave off the mustache, but Hutch’s rule—“stay out of my ass”—sounded engraved in stone, especially because Hutch wouldn’t clarify his comment when asked.

“Let me make sure I understand you,” Starsky proffered. “You’re saying we won’t be having anal sex. I mean, we’re not going to do any one-sided fucking, are we? If you don’t, I don’t, and vice versa, right?”

Hutch busied himself shaving his face—and ignored Starsky’s questions.

Starsky tried again. “I don’t want to do anything you don’t want to do, Hutch. So that’s what you’re saying, isn’t it? We won’t be doing that kind of thing. Just … what, then? blowjobs, right? I mean, we’re still talking about having sex of some kind with each other, aren’t we? Or have I been misreading that kiss all this time?”

Hutch still didn’t answer. Maybe he couldn’t hear Starsky above the running water and the hum of the room’s heater. He instead busied himself shaving off his mustache, watching his action in the mirror as he did so, and still seeming to be comfortable in his nudity. When he was finished, he wiped off his face with a wet washcloth, put the razor and shaving cream can back into the toiletry bag, and then brushed his teeth.

Starsky tried for his attention as Hutch wrapped it up. “Hutch.”

After he rinsed out his mouth, Hutch stood in front of the mirror and tidied his hair with his fingers.

“Hutch,” Starsky called him again, louder that time.

“Let’s talk about something else,” Hutch suggested, turning off the light in the bathroom as he came into the bedroom.

“Who’s this we? I’ve been doing all the talking. Why won’t you answer me?”

“Forget I said anything. It was a flippant remark.”

“I’m not buying it,” Starsky said, looking up into Hutch’s blue eyes, and admiring his shaved face, all while fighting off a compulsive study of his nude body in pursuit of a real dialogue. “You heard me each time I asked about it and still didn’t answer me. Now you say it was just a wisecrack?”

“It was an offhand comment.”

“You said that already. But your silence wasn’t offhand.”

Hutch broke eye contact and deeply sighed. “I want you to be happy,” he explained, leaving Starsky to recheck the door lock, but maybe it was actually to avoid him. “I’m willing to do whatever you’re willing to do, Starsk.”

“Well, I’m not interested in anything that makes you uncomfortable, so I guess that leaves us in a standoff.”

“I’m okay with whatever.”

“You’re anxious about something. Don’t lie to me.”

Hutch came back to Starsky. “I haven’t lied to you.” Lamplight shined in his blue eyes, but his stab at sincerity wasn’t convincing. “I may not tell you everything, Starsk, but I’m not lying to you.”

“The very first thing you told me when we walked in here tonight was to stay out of your ass,” Starsky reminded him. “Talk to me. What about anal bothers you so much, hm?”

“I’ve never done it,” Hutch admitted, sitting beside Starsky on the foot of the bed, perhaps realizing that they weren’t going to begin any kind of intimacy until he answered some questions. “But I don’t think I’d like it.”

“Doing it or having it done to you?”

“Both.”

“Okay. So we do things together, like in full agreement, or we don’t do them. Does that seem like a fair rule?”

Hutch clasped Starsky’s head and pulled him close. “It’s a perfect one,” he said, kissing Starsky’s cheek. “I should have said that first.”

“Too bad, buddy; I get to be the one to take credit,” Starsky joked, enjoying Hutch’s affectionate and brief touch, despite his disappointment. He also resented Hutch’s ploy to elude answers. Starsky wanted intercourse, but he wouldn’t dish it out if Hutch wouldn’t let him take it. “Okay, now that we have that delicate matter out of the way … I’m curious. What’s the actual problem? Are you afraid it’ll hurt?”

Hutch reluctantly answered him. “I don’t know.”

“Do you think it’s gross?” was Starsky’s next question, hoping he could prod Hutch into a more revealing reply. “Unnatural?”

“Demeaning,” Hutch blurted.

“Demeaning,” Starsky echoed in a low voice; he didn’t fully understand the definition of the word in that context. How could their love for each other—and its expression—be demeaning? Maybe Hutch needed to understand that Starsky was in it for the love, not the sex. Would that ease his mind?

“Degrading,” Hutch quickly explained, fleshing it further. “Humiliating.”

“For who? the do-er or the do-ee?”

“Maybe both—in different ways.”

“Have you ever fantasized about it?”

“No.”

“I mean, as the fucker?”

“No. Never.”

“Because it’s demeaning to the person being fucked?”

“Yeah.”

“Explain that.”

“It’s a power move. It’s about control.”

“Are blowjobs demeaning?”

“Not always.”

“Just sometimes?”

“It depends.”

“On what?”

“On who’s giving me one.”

“Suppose I’m giving you one?”

Hutch flashed him a playful smile. “That would be nice.”

“But it’s not nice if it’s anal. That’s out—no matter which one of us is doing it. That’s the rule?”

“I don’t want to talk about this, Starsk. It’s a waste of time and we’re running out of it.” He caressed Starsky’s leg as if that would win him some points.

“You’re digging yourself in deeper, Hutch,” Starsky warned him, ignoring the solicitation. “Just explain it to me so I know the score. You say it isn’t because you think it would hurt. You didn’t answer me about whether you think it’s gross or unnatural. You said it’s demeaning, degrading, and humiliating. Did you have some kind of experience that made you feel that way about it?”

Hutch groaned. “Can we talk about this some other time? You’re getting too far out into the weeds.”

“Is that another flippant remark?”

Hutch sighed. “I want to put an end to this conversation. We only have a few hours to play and still catch some sleep before your appointment.”

“Well, I don’t mean to be crass, partner, but you’re not exactly coming clean about something. I’m not pushing you to do it; I’m just trying to clear up your reasons against it.”

Hutch cut him off. “What difference does it make? Let’s just see where things go.” He abruptly stood, walked to the side of the bed closest to the dresser, and turned down the blankets and sheet. “I’m now cold,” he said, climbing onto the mattress after fluffing a couple of pillows, and then pulled the covers up to his chin. “We can get warm together. Do you need help getting in?”

Starsky didn’t budge for half a minute. He wasn’t feeling excited anymore. The last bit of his interest for closeness that night had been replaced by frustration and hurt. His sense that something was actually disturbing behind Hutch’s façade came from a combination of Hutch’s words and his deliberate silence.

Starsky’s fault. He wanted too much, too soon. “It’s late, partner,” he said, abandoning the hospital blanket for the one on the bed as he gingerly crawled under it beside Hutch, still dressed in his hospital pajamas, and careful not to dislodge his remaining bandages. “You’re right. We don’t have a lot of time between now and my appointment, so let’s get some sleep. We can figure this other stuff out when our brains aren’t so fried.”

Hutch didn’t debate Starsky on the plan. He did lie down on the mattress and face him, hugging his pillow, and made unwavering eye contact. “We can at least have another goodnight kiss,” he said, trying a shy smile. “I really enjoyed doing that with you.”

Starsky didn’t want to go that far, either, despite his partner’s inviting beauty and his own desire to ravage it. “It’ll only lead to wanting something else,” he was certain, struggling to hide his own disappointment, “and I think we should wait until we’re both able to figure out what all the rules are.”

“C’mon, don’t get angry with me,” Hutch begged him, caressing Starsky’s cheek when Starsky’s annoyance became apparent; he had such a tender touch. “I’m okay with whatever you want to do, Starsk. I shouldn’t have said the things I said. Whatever my lame issues are, we can work them out together—or at least get around them.”

“Don’t tell me you’re okay when you’re not. It pisses me off.”

Hutch closed his mouth, dropped his hand, held steady eye contact, and didn’t quarrel with him.

“Did you hear me?” Starsky quietly asked. “Don’t ever lie to me, not about these things.” He held Hutch’s hand to the mattress. “Promise me.”

Hutch broke eye contact—more out of submissiveness than elusive surrender, and eventually said, “Okay.”

“I’ll let it go for now, Hutchinson, but I know this much: there’s something you’re not telling me, something you’re afraid to tell me.” He noted it as fact and used a confident tone of voice so Hutch would know he was serious.

Hutch didn’t argue.

“We’ve known each other for ten years,” Starsky emphatically reminded him. “That’s a decade of being the most important person in each other’s life. Don’t ever think you can run from me.”

Hutch noticeably swallowed, but still didn’t speak, not even to defend himself.

“You’ll tell me what I’m missing in this picture when you’re ready, okay? But you will tell me.”

“I’ll try, Starsk.”

“No sex of any kind until you do.”

Hutch’s expression instantly sobered. “Hey, c’mon, that’s not fair.”

“What’s not fair is us going into sex with each other when one of us is keeping something to himself that affects us both.”

Scene Three

“I’m doing pretty good now, wouldn’t you say?” Starsky asked—pleased with his progress even if Hutch wasn’t.

“You’re doing great,” Hutch told him. He didn’t sound as enthusiastic as Starsky had hoped, but at least he didn’t initiate a debate.

They had just finished eating their burgers and fries and downing their sodas while sitting in Starsky’s car alongside a curb in a local park. Hutch had done the driving—because Starsky wasn’t yet cleared to be behind the wheel—both windows were down, and a light September breeze passed through the car.

The men were relaxed following another morning of Starsky’s physical therapy sessions, and Starsky was feeling proud of his headway. Hutch obviously had something else on his mind, but that didn’t keep Starsky from making small talk.

“I don’t think it’s going to take as long to get on my feet as they think it will,” he said, feeling certain of it. “Maybe we should start planning to go back to work. What do you think?”

“Whenever you feel you’re ready,” Hutch agreed, momentarily bringing his focus inside as he considered it. “Dobey is going to start us off slow no matter when we go back. It’s probably more about how bored you are and how soon you really want to sit behind a desk for a while.”

“You’re so cheerful,” Starsky sarcastically noted. “What’s under your skin these days, hm?”

As if Starsky didn’t know. He just didn’t want to be the one to bring it up, but more than a week had passed since that sexy kiss in Starsky’s hospital room, and Hutch seemed no closer to breaking his silence on his sexual inhibitions.

He did roll his eyes. It was apparent to them both that Starsky already knew what troubled Hutch. But no prodding—or any of the opportune times he had to discuss it—brought Hutch out of his shell. They were each frustrated by the other in their own personal way.

On this day, however, at that moment in time, and much to Starsky’s surprise, Hutch was finally willing to talk about it—if only to express his dismay.

“I feel like you’re holding me hostage, Starsk.”

“I can say the same to you,” Starsky defensively replied, but he regretted it the second he said it. Hutch had turned his head and looked out the driver’s window, avoiding Starsky’s return punch, forcing Starsky to realize again that he wasn’t the lead actor in this scenario; he promised himself to stop acting like it.

“I mean, think of it this way, Hutch: suppose there was something I wouldn’t tell you; wouldn’t you wonder what it was that I wouldn’t tell YOU? How long have we known each other, hm?”

Hutch’s gaze came back into the car. He sat quietly behind the wheel and took the time to think about Starsky’s supposition: at least that’s what Starsky hoped he was doing, and not that Hutch was quiet because he didn’t plan to say more. But then, in as soft a voice, Hutch said, “It was a long time ago. I was six…”

For reasons Starsky couldn’t fathom in that moment, he wasn’t expecting to hear Hutch say anything about childhood trauma; he had thought, somehow, that whatever problem Hutch was keeping to himself, it had something to do with an experience when he was a young adult.

“Maybe it was happening to me earlier and I don’t remember,” Hutch speculated, still seeming a bit guarded, but talking just the same, “or I blocked it out of my mind, or it really only started when I was six and that’s why I have no memory of it before then.”

None of what Hutch said wasn’t alarming; he was alluding to something sinister over a period of time. But Starsky didn’t say a word; he didn’t want to derail Hutch, nor give him any excuse to skimp on the details. He held his breath—but he would have to hold onto more than that, too.

“I’ve never told anyone,” Hutch said, not adding anything else to what he’d begun to say. He looked over at Starsky. “Do you hear me?”

Starsky nodded. Hutch was trusting him—more than he already did.

“I don’t know what words to use,” Hutch complained. He looked helpless and sorry; a certain kind of vulnerability was clearly in his eyes. “How am I supposed to say this?”

“Just tell me—like you’re reading the facts from a case file.”

Hutch looked back to the dashboard. Half a minute passed before he summoned his courage. “I was told it was for my own good,” he said with a deep inhale, “so I had no choice in the matter. She’d … go down on me … pump … my little dick … and … penetrate my … at the same time … one finger … sometimes two.” He slowly exhaled.

She? Down on a six-year-old?

“The penetrations graduated into … using objects,” Hutch quickly said, as if to get past that point. “So … every week or so … I’d have to lie on the bed … not always naked, but always without pants on … and I’d be put through the…”

She? and what?

The more details Starsky was given, the sicker he felt.

“I got stiffies,” Hutch disclosed, not proudly, not amused, either, “but I didn’t come or anything. Too young, I guess, and it didn’t feel good. Sometimes it hurt—a lot—despite the baby oil.” His voice was soft, but it carried in the stillness. “I cried every time, too … but that didn’t … stop…”

Starsky choked back his disgust. He could barely believe what he was hearing.

“These ‘sessions’ lasted off-and-on for … at least … three years … until I discovered that I could fight back. I was eight then going on nine. Eventually, they gave up cornering me.”

They?

Hutch shrugged, as if he didn’t have more to disclose besides what he’d already confessed, but obviously Starsky had questions. He couldn’t not ask them.

“Who’s ‘they,’ Hutch?”

People at his childhood church?

That time, nearly a minute passed before Hutch answered. He looked out the window a few times. Was he hoping to find more courage in the view; did he not want to tell Starsky everything? could anything be worse than what he’d already said?

“‘They’ is my … parents,” Hutch finally admitted, continuing to avert his eyes.

Starsky blinked. He was proverbially hit by that fast-moving train, but was somehow able to keep from screaming.

“Mom would do the … touching … dad would sit in a chair … next to the bed … tell her what to do … ‘Stroke him” … how to do it … ‘slower’ … ‘harder’ … insist that I calm down … that I was to be a ‘good boy.’ Sometimes he would take pictures. Polaroids.”

It was everything Starsky could do to stay in the car. He was nauseated and heartsick, disgusted and angry. He wanted to open the door, lean out, and vomit onto the sidewalk. But to do so would be insulting to Hutch.

When Hutch finally looked over at him again, Starsky could see the wet in his partner’s blue eyes. He must have also seen the shock on Starsky’s face because Hutch’s grief turned to an apology. “I suppose that was a lot to hear.”

“It breaks my heart, Hutch. I mean, when you told me once that we ‘obviously’ had different mothers, only you knew what that really meant.”

“Saying it out loud makes me see just how wrong it was.”

“It’s evil.”

Hutch didn’t disagree.

“Why would they do that to you?” Starsky furthered, sure that he sounded as incredulous as he felt. He tried to keep his voice tempered, but he didn’t succeed because he was uncontrollably trembling with rage.

“They said … when I became a man … I would have a ‘strong dick’ … and I could make healthy … blonde … babies.”

Starsky snorted. It was the only release he could allow himself, and he desperately needed one.

“I didn’t understand it at the time,” Hutch continued in a still-shaky voice, looking back to the dashboard, “but I knew it wasn’t the reason they were doing that to me. Later I would come to realize that dad would get himself off while this went on; sometimes mom would take a break to suck him when he wanted her to, and then she’d get back to doing those things to me.”

Starsky balled his fists. He didn’t think he could feel more incensed and disgusted than he already did, but his blood now boiled. “You know this royally pisses me off and it’s everything I can do to sit still.”

Not facetiously, Hutch quietly asked, “Do you need more details than those?”

“If you can handle telling them, I can handle hearing them, but I think I got the picture.”

“I’m sorry, Starsk.”

“You haven’t done anything to be sorry for.”

“I never told you because I didn’t think about it after it was over—and that was decades ago.”

“But how come you didn’t say anything … didn’t react in a different way … when we investigated that Guy Mayer case?”

“Why would I?”

“Why wouldn’t you?”

Hutch looked at him. “It’s not the same.”

“Like hell it isn’t.”

“His mom beat the shit out of him—scarred him.”

“Your parents molested you—scarred you for life. Or you wouldn’t have made that wisecrack to stay out of your ass. What they did is still affecting you.”

Hutch closed his mouth. It was as if he wanted to argue the point, but he suddenly saw it through Starsky’s eyes, and decided against it.

“All these years,” Starsky noted, trying not to sound accusatory, “and you’ve talked about your parents like they’re normal, like they aren’t sexual deviants.”

“Don’t use those words.”

“Don’t defend them.”

“I’m not defending them,” Hutch insisted, his voice cracking, but then he shrugged without an explanation.

“You aren’t calling them what they are, either. In another world, they’d be spending the rest of their lives in jail.”

Hutch looked out the window again.

“I know that’s hard to take,” Starsky told him. “No one wants to hear such things about their parents, but parents don’t do shit like that to their kids unless they’re sick in the head. You know that’s true.”

Hutch didn’t argue with him. Maybe he understood that Starsky needed to vent his rage. Or maybe he agreed with Starsky’s assessment, accepting the truth about his parents for the first time in his life.

“I understand why you don’t want to give this another thought, Hutch. But let’s face facts: you were sexually abused—for years—by the people you trusted the most.”

Hutch dropped his face into his hand.

Starsky didn’t mean to push him into a deeper place of pain, but Hutch admittedly hadn’t confronted his truth in decades, and Starsky wasn’t going to let him avoid it any longer. Hutch wouldn’t be able to heal if he didn’t accept what had happened to him.

“I’m sorry, Hutch,” Starsky told him in a low voice. He leaned over and squeezed Hutch’s knee. “Don’t hate me for this.”

“I could never hate you,” Hutch assured him, dropping his hand and affectionately clutching Starsky’s fingers. “Besides, in some weird way it’s like it happened to another person in a different lifetime.”

“It happened to you in your childhood.”

“Yeah, okay,” Hutch acquiesced, keeping his eyes on their hands while he massaged Starsky’s palm. “But I never had to deal with it until now. Anal penetration hasn’t been on my radar.”

Starsky supposed not; he’d never known a woman who asked for it and, because no one ever did, he never suggested it to anyone, either. He did, however, love the feel of Hutch’s massage; strong, warm fingers lovingly handling his own.

“You said the night at the hotel that sometimes blowjobs are demeaning,” Starsky reminded him. “Do you remember telling me that?”

Hutch nodded. “But like I said then, it depends on who’s giving me one. If I’m not that attached, then it just feels … wrong. I can’t go through with it.”

“But you’d have no problem if I gave you head?” He remembered Hutch telling him that Starsky performing fellatio on him would be ‘nice.’ Was that true?

Hutch smiled as he ended the massage. He looked over at Starsky. “You, I love,” he explained, still holding Starsky’s hand to his leg. “You, I trust. And I … I’ve already had fantasies about going down on you.”

Starsky was in no mood for titillating conversation, and he knew Hutch wasn’t, either, but he was relieved to know they could at least enjoy each other in that way. Or at least he thought so. “What about me giving you one? Would that be—?”

“Just as easy,” Hutch quickly said. “I’m sure of it.”

“Okay, so we have oral sex to look forward to. We won’t worry about other sex things unless we have to.”

“But it’s there now, Starsk: the elephant in the room.”

“At least we know it’s there. Imagine if we’d gone into sex the night at the hotel without me knowing what happened to you all those years ago.”

Hutch dropped his gaze again to his lap. He seemed braced to hear more of what Starsky had to say.

So Starsky continued. “I’d be inside you,” he hypothesized, “or at least trying to be, and stroking you in a reach-around at the same time, and me feeling good—for myself, and thinking you were enjoying what I was doing to you. But there you’d be, feeling, what, Hutch? Humiliated all over again? Reliving those crimes against you? those terrible memories? Would you be tolerating me and the way I was touching you? Enduring the sex?”

Hutch didn’t answer; neither of them really knew what Hutch would feel if-and-when they actually engaged each other. But Starsky was certain of one thing.

“There’s no one I want to do right by more than I want to do right by you.”

Hutch looked over at him, his blue eyes shimmering. He appeared choked up and speechless. He also seemed to find courage despite his outwardly emotional appearance. “But all of this has now backfired on us, hasn’t it, Starsk? You’re going to be careful—in what you say, what you do, how you touch me…”

“No,” Starsky insisted. “That’s not how it’s going to be. You’re going to remember that you trust me and, when you’re feeling awkward or scared or put-off, you’ll tell me right then. Not a minute from then. Not after the fact. You’re going to tell me—even in the middle of some heated something—that you’re not doing well, and we’re going to work it through together because I’ll know now where you’d be coming from.”

Hutch studied him for a moment. “That sounds easy on the surface,” he concluded, “but it might not be.”

Starsky suddenly noticed an approaching figure from the corner of his eye and glanced out the window toward it. “Oh, here we go,” he told Hutch with a light laugh. “Looks like we might be in trouble.”

“I didn’t see any loitering signs anywhere,” Hutch noted as he reached into his back pocket for his identification, “and we’re not drinking beer.”

An on-foot park security guard soon arrived at the passenger side of the car—an older man, heavyset, dressed in uniform, no hat and wearing sunglasses, but not timid; he bent over to peer in at the boys. “Hey, there,” he said in a friendly, masculine voice. “Everything okay?”

Starsky lightly grunted as he instinctively took Hutch’s badge from him and showed it to the security guard. “Just finishing lunch,” he explained, knowing how suspicious it probably looked to an outsider. “Enjoying the peacefulness of the outdoors, shooting the breeze. I have a badge, too, but I left it at the rehab center.” He couldn’t remember where his badge had ended up, but he wanted to make the point. “You can call Captain Dobey at LAPD if you need more information.”

It was obvious that Hutch hadn’t changed position when the guard approached, so there was no need to assume the men had been engaging in oral sex with each other. The moment the guard studied Hutch’s badge, his demeanor softened. “Just doing my job, Detectives,” he explained, sounding relieved as he gave the badge back to Starsky. “There are kids in the park,” he noted, “and you can never be too careful.”

Starsky agreed. “We certainly understand your concern, Officer.” When the guard left them to themselves, Starsky turned to Hutch. “That’s some irony, hm?”

The only sexually abused child in the park that day that Starsky knew about was the one sitting behind the wheel of his car.

Scene Four

For the first time in his life, Starsky casually walked up behind Hutch while his partner stood at the stove cooking them up some dish, and wrapped his arms around Hutch’s waist as if it was the most natural thing he’d ever done. They’d been physically close before—but never like this, not like … physically romantic.

He nuzzled Hutch’s hair with his nose, deeply inhaled the aroma of Hutch’s cologne and the now familiar scent of his warm skin, and then rested his chin on top of Hutch’s shoulder. “You smell better than whatever it is you’re cooking—and what you’re cooking smells delicious.”

Hutch lightly laughed and continued to stir the ingredients in the oiled frying pan, affectionately clasping Starsky’s forearm at his waist in his free hand. “This, you peasant, is the beginnings of my pasta sauce. You wanted spaghetti.”

Starsky couldn’t wait for dinner; the caramelizing onions and garlic in olive oil had already intensified his hunger. But he enjoyed the feel of Hutch in his arms, their bodies snug to each other’s, the relaxed liberation of an intimate relationship he’d only fantasized about, and he would rather experience all of those feelings than actually eat.

“Don’t let me interrupt you,” he insisted, watching Hutch sauté the concoction while he studied Hutch’s skilled practice. Starsky should probably do something to help out with the meal. “Is it too soon to open a bottle of wine?”

“Is it ever?”

“Well, I mean, I don’t want us to be drunk before dinner’s even ready. I’m feeling so relaxed right now, Hutch. I haven’t felt this good in … since … ever.”

Hutch quietly laughed again; he obviously enjoyed Starsky’s embrace—and his confessions, too. “You can open a bottle when it’s time to boil the pasta,” he suggested.

“Okay. Here’s what I’m thinking, Hutch—”

“Uh-oh.”

Starsky playfully squeezed Hutch to make him pay attention, and then said, “How about we have this really nice dinner … watch a little TV … and then call it a night?” He wanted to diffuse the tension he imagined was still in the air from their earlier conversation. There wasn’t any reason to rush things. “I’m a lot more tired than I thought I’d be tonight…”

It wasn’t completely true; he’d never be too tired to make love for the first time with Hutch, but he sensed Hutch’s unusual passiveness that day following their unexpected and emotional talk in the car, and didn’t want Hutch to feel pressure to do anything any time soon—if ever.

When they’d left the park after the lunch break, they returned to the rehab center for a couple more sessions of physical therapy. Starsky was able to talk the doctors—and Dobey—into letting him go home that night. He was ‘climbing walls,’ he told them, and simply wanted to sleep in his own bed for a change.

Dobey wasn’t pleased any more than the therapists were. “You live upstairs,” he reminded Starsky. “They haven’t cleared you to climb steps.”

“It’s just one foot in front of the other,” Starsky argued with a chuckle, doing his best to sound playful. He needed to win the debate and figured he’d have more luck with his charm than with his brawn. “No different than what I’m doing here, Cap—except each footstep will be higher than the one that came before it.”

Dobey rolled his eyes.

Hutch bit his lip and playfully looked away as if he didn’t know Starsky.

“C’mon,” Starsky begged them. “I promise to walk up the stairs in front of Hutch going up and behind him coming down; he’ll break my fall.”

Hutch laughed, more amused than disagreeable, but he didn’t have Starsky’s back in that argument. In fact, he seemed rather … reserved. Was he just along for the ride and maybe even hoping that they would get a night off from each other after that intense afternoon conversation? Was Hutch afraid of what lay ahead?

“If I have to sleep in a hospital bed one more night and eat one more cafeteria meal, I’m going to throw up,” Starsky swore. He didn’t let on that he and Hutch had snuck out of the hospital more than a week earlier unbeknownst to anyone until it was long after the fact—or that Hutch often brought him homemade meals. “My mental health is part of therapy, isn’t it?”

In the end, the doctors, the therapists, and even Dobey caved to Starsky’s wishes. He played the victim card, coupled with the ‘almost died’ reminder, arguing that he deserved some semblance of normalcy, and he smiled a lot, too—leveraging what he already knew to be a winning charisma.

But after leaving the rehab hospital, and deciding that they would indeed spend the night in Starsky’s apartment—because he’d feel more at home there, especially if Hutch had to leave him alone for any reason—they stopped for errands. Early-on in Starsky’s hospitalization, Hutch had cleaned out Starsky’s refrigerator, watered his few houseplants, picked up his mail and driveway newspapers, kept his car battery charged, and otherwise babysat Starsky’s possessions.

When Starsky told Hutch they didn’t need groceries because he remembered he had spaghetti at home—as well as jarred pasta sauce—Hutch gave him a dirty look and drove them to the nearest strip mall. He was the one behind the wheel, so Starsky was his hostage. But before they entered the corner market, Hutch made them each get haircuts at the nearby barbershop—and Starsky didn’t argue with him; they’d both gotten a bit shaggy over the past month.

They ended up buying more food than Starsky thought they would—fruits and vegetables, but also some premade deli items, and a new bottle of wine—but he was glad after it was all put away because his apartment suddenly felt moved-back-into. Hutch had even moved in. They were set.

Starsky showered, shaved, and redressed in clean clothes, ones he got to choose directly from his own closet and dresser. He then popped the Eagles’ Greatest Hits cassette into his player, pushed the PLAY button, lowered the volume, and joined Hutch in the kitchen—finding him already in the middle of sautéing fresh garlic, herbs, and freshly cut onions. That’s when he couldn’t resist taking Hutch in his arms from behind him.

“I like you better without that dumb mustache,” Starsky admitted, watching Hutch stir the pan as he nested his chin on Hutch’s shoulder. “I like your hair shorter, too. Reminds me of the old you.”

“You mean, the younger me.”

“That, too.” He kissed Hutch’s cheek and eventually released him to sit on the swivel stool between the end of the counter and the dining table. Starsky had made notable gains in therapy, but still got tired if he stood for too long. His back had a long way to go before it was completely healed, though he didn’t have any trouble climbing the stairs in front of Hutch; they went up in single file without bags of food, and then Hutch left him in the apartment to get the groceries out of the car, making several trips by himself up the stairs.

“What do you think, Hutch?” Starsky asked, studying Hutch’s back. His man was dressed in lightweight sweats, was barefoot, and seemed intently focused on caramelizing onions. “Call it an early night? Well, I mean, maybe we can move the TV into the bedroom and watch it in bed, hm?”

“Sure,” Hutch said in a soft voice. He didn’t seem insincere, but he’d been rather quiet most of the afternoon, perhaps preoccupied with what he’d confessed to Starsky earlier about his parents molesting him.

“I might even be as tired as you are,” Hutch said. Maybe he was. But then he looked over his shoulder at Starsky and gently smiled. “We can kiss goodnight again, can’t we? I really enjoyed doing that with you and haven’t stopped thinking about it since we did it.”

Starsky smiled back at him; he was pleased to hear Hutch still wanted intimacy with him—even if it was limited to kisses. “I really liked it, too. Best kissing I’ve ever done.”

“You’re just saying that because you were kissing me,” Hutch joked. He broke eye contact and opened the door on the bottom right cabinet beside the stove. “But, seriously,” he added, “I never felt more at home.” Apparently not finding what he hoped to, he opened the door to the pantry to the left of the stove and rummaged inside.

“What are you looking for?”

“A pot to piss in.”

“Go one cabinet over on the left next to the sink. You’re looking for the big spaghetti pot and it needs more space. You’ll find the strainer in there, too.” He was about to get them for Hutch, but Hutch beat him to it. “Can I do something to help out?”

Hutch went to the sink to fill the pot with water. He didn’t answer Starsky until he carried the pot to the stove and set it on a front burner. “Keeping me company is doing something,” he said, turning on the burner, “but you can help by making some garlic bread.”

He took a whole loaf of freshly baked sourdough over to the counter and placed it near Starsky. He then retrieved a bread knife, a stick of butter and a butter knife, found the small spice jar of granulated garlic on a shelf to the left of the sink, and a cutting board, and set them within Starsky’s reach, too. “I assume you know how to put all of this together?”

“If you see me doing it wrong, feel free to correct me,” Starsky said. He wasn’t facetious, but he was fairly sure he knew how to prepare garlic bread—and was glad to be involved in making dinner. They’d bought side dishes from the deli: one with seasoned asparagus and the other of marinated artichoke hearts. Starsky could heat those up when the time came; that would be another way to participate in the meal prep.

“I’m probably getting ahead of myself here, Hutch, but do you think we might end up living together? I already like doing this domestic stuff with you.”

Starsky noticed Hutch’s smile while Hutch busied himself cutting up fresh tomatoes for the sauce. Starsky could read Hutch’s wordless response as a positive reply—Hutch didn’t say no—but maybe Hutch was afraid to commit long-term to anything romantic until they passed a few more tests. And the last thing Starsky wanted to do was pile extra tension onto an already tense situation. It was time to diffuse it.

“We could buy a duplex,” he dreamily suggested as he concentrated on cutting the bread into even slices. “Punch a door between the two units, keep our personal space, but have quick access to each other when we need it, hm?”

Hutch lightly laughed. “I love your dreams,” he said. “Don’t think I’m not dreaming them, too.”

“You aren’t jumping on the idea, so I didn’t know.”

“I was imagining such a life is all.”

Starsky accepted as much. He could ask for refinement later. He also noticed that Hutch had found the jarred pasta sauce in the pantry and used it, along with fresh tomatoes, a can of stewed tomatoes, and a small can of tomato paste they bought at the store to finish off the ingredients in the frying pan. It was going to be the tastiest spaghetti Starsky had ever eaten; he was sure of it. Hutch’s love had gone into the meal, after all.

If they lived together, Hutch would obviously do most of the cooking, so Starsky decided that he had better learn to help him out with innovative side dishes and desserts. He could do the clean-up afterward, too, to make himself useful, but also to show his appreciation for Hutch’s efforts, despite that Hutch really did love to cook. They would be a team in more than just the way they’d been for ten years.

There was a pause in conversation as Hutch stirred the sauce and Starsky buttered the bread. In that quiet moment, the Eagles’ hit song, ‘The Best of My Love,’ serendipitously drifted into the kitchen and filled in the silence.

Hutch added the spaghetti to the boiling pot of water and stirred. He adjusted burner temperatures and set timers. “That’s a nice song,” he said after a while, turning away from the stove and approaching Starsky. He put a new bottle of wine on the counter, along with an opener. “Maybe we should make it ours.” He next fetched a wine glass from a shelf near Starsky. “Do you like that idea?”

Starsky smiled. “I like it a lot. This is our first real date, don’t you think?”

Hutch chuckled and turned away to get plates, utensils, and paper napkins. He first made room on the table and then arranged two place settings while they listened to ‘their’ song. Hutch also took the plastic deli containers out of the refrigerator and poured their contents into oven-safe bowls, presumably leaving them on the counter until closer to heat time. He stirred the spaghetti and the sauce. He put an empty wine glass on the table.

Starsky kept an eye on him as he finished the garlic bread prep, eventually pushing the cutting board toward Hutch on one of Hutch’s passes from table to stove and back again. Hutch took the bread from him with a friendly wink, transferred the slices onto a baking sheet, and placed it near the deli dishes.

Despite wanting to grab Hutch each time he passed in front of Starsky to prepare the table, Starsky instead opened the wine bottle and poured some of its contents into the glass Hutch had set near him on the counter. At first, Starsky didn’t understand why Hutch had only given him one glass to fill—and why Hutch wasn’t drinking from the one he’d placed on the table—but Hutch returned to Starsky, stood patiently in front of him, and seemed to wait for his turn to share the glass.

Starsky had a long way to go before his intuitive mind would resume its normal habits. He questioned too much since the shooting, having lost step with his second-nature lifestyle. He dutifully drank from the wine glass and then casually handed it to Hutch. “Good stuff,” he commented, as if he hadn’t been confused about what Hutch wanted from him. “We should have bought two bottles.”

Hutch set the glass on the counter after he drank a few sips—and then, without warning, leaned into Starsky; he obviously wanted more than just the wine. Maybe he didn’t even want the wine. Maybe his wait wasn’t about sharing the glass at all; he’d been waiting to kiss Starsky—better yet.

Hutch’s intimate touch was as gentle and warm as Starsky remembered it from their first kiss, the one in the hospital more than a week earlier. He closed his eyes to focus purely on the sensual and the taste of Hutch’s lips and tongue, to listen to his deep breathing, hear his soft moans, inhale his masculine scent.

Starsky’s ­erection pressed for attention inside his jeans as each kiss evolved into a more passionate one from the last. He was about to cup Hutch’s crotch for proof of reciprocation, but a timer on the stove suddenly sounded and startled them both.

“Crap,” Hutch whispered with a grunt after he quickly broke away to tend to their dinner, mumbling as he went. “The story of my life.”

“Should I be offended,” Starsky joked, “because you chose to play with a buzzer over kissing my sweet face?” He didn’t see any notable bulge at Hutch’s zipper.

Hutch laughed. “I figured you’d hate me forever if you had to eat mushy spaghetti. I weighed your preferences.”

“You weighed them wrong.”

Hutch turned off the timer, then the burner, and removed the pot from the stove. There was a smile on his face, but he didn’t say anything; it was as if he was lost in his own amusement and reflections. He took the pot to the counter and poured its contents into the strainer that he’d already placed in the sink. Steam frosted the kitchen window. “You say that now,” he finally said, as though certain, “but I’m pretty sure you’d complain all night if I overcooked the pasta.”

“Yeah, maybe,” Starsky reluctantly agreed. The thrill of kissing Hutch had been interrupted—and his budding erection had dissipated—so he was willing to get on with dinner. ‘Hotel California’ played on the stereo; he kept rhythm with its beat and dreamed about dancing. “Do you want me to put the garlic bread in the oven?”

“Oh, shit,” Hutch cussed, abruptly pivoting on his heel as he grabbed the baking sheet. He shoved it into the oven, put both side-dish bowls in alongside it, and closed the oven door. He then spun again and faced Starsky. “Stop distracting me from making dinner, will ya?”

“I’m distracting you?”

“Sitting there with your handsome face and your sexy self and your manly voice and—”

“Shut up.”

Starsky loved it when Hutch teased him, but he’d never admit it. He sat patiently on the stool with his arms crossed and watched Hutch wrap up preparing their dinner. There was a difference to him in the way Hutch looked: not just that Hutch was relaxed, that he was obviously comfortable, but that Starsky noticed Hutch’s body, at least more closely than he ever had before: the man’s muscles and build, proportions and shapes. Hutch was now his lover and he couldn’t help but see him in a different light. When the time came, he abandoned his careful study and helped Hutch take the spaghetti, the garlic bread, and the two side dishes to the table.

Starsky sat in the chair facing the wall while Hutch repositioned the other chair at the end of the table on the far side from the kitchen and joined him. Starsky felt quite at home; it was cozy and casual—and a far cry from his weeks-long stay at the hospital. The best part? Hutch was with him.

With the Eagles still playing in the background, Starsky lit the only pillar candle on the table, having remembered that book of matches he kept in the fruit bowl. He then poured wine into both their glasses while Hutch dished food onto their plates.

The meal was a sight for sore eyes. “This looks great,” Starsky said, hungrily eyeing the vibrant food. He took his first bite. The spaghetti was even tastier than he expected it to be. Hutch had blended the perfect medley of spices into the flavorful sauce—and his love brought it all together. “It tastes ten times better than it looks.”

“I’m happy to hear you say so—given my distractions,” Hutch said with a teasing smile.

They ate for a while, mostly to satisfy their hunger, and listened to several Eagles songs, before Starsky was able to think about anything else.

“Did kissing me make you hard?” he bluntly asked, not easing into his question; the enticing sensations in his mouth had reminded him of Hutch’s delicious kisses. He could tell he’d taken Hutch by surprise, but that wasn’t his intent. “I mean, did it make you feel—”

“Yeah,” Hutch said, looking over and holding affectionate eye contact. “It turned me on. Everything about it just feels . . . right.”

Starsky wasn’t much on conversation in that emotional moment. “Same here,” was all he could manage to say in reply. He hung on the look between them, never wanting to stop gazing into Hutch’s beautiful blue eyes, and hoping Hutch understood how deeply Starsky was in love with him—even though Starsky hadn’t yet used those words to tell him so.

Hutch winked at him and then broke eye contact to finish his meal. “Let’s save cleaning up to the morning so we can move that TV into the bedroom right after dinner.”

“And then snuggle?”

“And kiss,” Hutch added, not looking at Starsky, but casually adding it as if were an everyday occurrence.

“And kiss and then kiss some more?”

“That, too,” Hutch said, glancing up at Starsky with a shy smile. “But be forewarned: I sleep in the nude.”

Starsky closed his mouth. He didn’t want to breathe, least of all to say the wrong thing and destroy the mood. Maybe he misread Hutch; maybe Hutch wasn’t hinting toward anything beyond kissing and watching TV. Maybe he simply wanted Starsky to know the score—like his initial rules of ‘stay out of my ass’ and ‘this is as good as it gets.’

Maybe there would be more ground to cover before Hutch could overcome his childhood trauma, and casual lovemaking became a matter of routine in their lives. But for then, it was enough for Starsky just to hope for it.

Scene Five

“Well, now, that’s scary,” Starsky said in a low voice; he lay behind Hutch on his full-sized mattress after they moved the television from the living room into the bedroom, and situated it to the right of the closet and near the foot of the bed, unintentionally forcing Starsky to peer over Hutch to see it. But he didn’t mind. He loved feeling snug to Hutch’s nude body much more than he was enjoying the sixth season premiere of Barney Miller.

“Lots to think about,” Hutch agreed after a moment of silence.

The episode, ‘Inquisition,’ had just ended, apparently leaving them both with considerations they didn’t expect when it began.

“What are we going to do if we get found out?” Starsky wondered. He kissed Hutch’s shoulder to let him know he didn’t plan to abandon their newly found affection just because of a TV show—or their Department’s actions, whatever they might be. Despite the episode’s humor, there was a dark cloud behind its message.

Hutch moved out from under the blanket to turn off the television, giving Starsky another pleasing glimpse of his naked butt and legs, his bared back and shoulders.

Starsky would miss being able to have penetration sex with Hutch—if it was off-limits to him because of Hutch’s past—but he would always enjoy the view of Hutch’s backside. He still couldn’t believe what Hutch had endured as a little boy.

“Do you want some water?” Hutch asked, turning to face Starsky. He made eye contact, and then gently smiled when he noticed that Starsky also couldn’t help but steal a glance at his flaccid penis and sac.

“Yeah,” Starsky said, shyly, having noticed again that Hutch’s penis was sheathed. He also felt a bit embarrassed being caught in the act of looking at it, though he didn’t know why. Hutch seemed to appreciate it—and they were both men, understanding each other’s sex drive and what visually attracted them, even if it was just out of curiosity. “Bring us some crackers—and peanut butter, too.”

After Hutch left the room, Starsky rolled to his back, the sheet pulled to just below his navel, locked his hands behind his head, and stared at the ceiling. Had he handled Hutch’s confessions earlier that afternoon as well as he could have? Should he pry deeper? Would it help—or hurt?

Or maybe he should just let it go—until it became an issue.

One thing was certain: he really did love the sound of Hutch rummaging around in the kitchen. It was such a relief to be home and especially to be there with his best friend and forever partner.

But what was taking Hutch so long? They’d already had dinner—and a tasty one at that—followed by a dessert of ice cream and an after-dinner drink. They’d both showered, separately, despite Starsky fantasizing about joining Hutch in the shower stall; he still wasn’t certain what liberties he could take. Once refreshed, they eventually climbed into bed, Starsky having found the Barney Miller premiere, and laughed at how serendipitous it had been to find a cop show to watch at bedtime.

But the episode was about an anonymous letter the precinct had received from a police officer who was confessing to being gay; Internal Affairs was on the hunt to out him, and soon the inevitable gay jokes and discomfort among the squad room detectives began.

The message was two-fold: gay cops were required to disclose to the higher ups that they were gay while Barney and some of his subordinates argued it wasn’t anyone’s business what they did in their private lives.

“It’s one thing to be gay on the Force,” Hutch said as he came back into the bedroom carrying a plate and a glass of water—and obviously still thinking about the show, “and it might even be forgivable in this day-and-age,” he concluded. “But it’s a whole other thing to be a committed gay couple on police duty; that’s not acceptable.”

Starsky didn’t like the implication in Hutch’s assessment. He pulled back the blanket and sheet to let Hutch into the bed and tried to lighten the mood. “People might think one of us used the other to sleep his way into a badge.”

Hutch laughed as he settled, cross-legged, on the mattress, and set the plate in his naked lap. “It would have to be you, slutty boy. I’m the pretty one, remember? They’ll figure I already slept my way to the top.”

Reluctantly, Starsky laughed as he sat up against the headboard. “But, I mean, seriously, Hutch, what are we to do if we leave work every day to sleep in the same bed together at night and the Department finds out, hm?”

“Let’s ‘cop’ the attitude that it’s nobody business—and cross that bridge when we get to it.”

“We could both be fired, Detective, lose our pensions, not just our badges.”

“We’re undercover cops,” Hutch reminded him, handing Starsky the glass after drinking from it. “Unlike Barney’s gang, we’re good at pretending to be someones we’re not, don’t you think?”

Hutch had a point. “We’re the best,” Starsky proudly said. He drank the cool water and then noticed what Hutch had brought back on the plate: a sliced up couple of apples and a small jar of Jif peanut butter. “What happened to the crackers?”

“I left them in the pantry where they belong,” Hutch said. “What you eat in bed on your own time is your business, but—”

“Okay, whatever,” Starsky replied, cutting him off and mocking more disappointment than he felt. “That’s a better reason than you were just forcing me to eat better.”

“Yeah, because god forbid I do that.”

Starsky ignored him while they sat side-by-side—two grown, naked men eating peanut butter and apples in bed, and sharing a glass of water until it was empty.

Hutch then set the plate on the nightstand and the glass on top of it, rolled back over, licking his lips, and laid down on the mattress, facing Starsky. He pulled the sheet and blanket over his hip—to feel less exposed, perhaps, or because the room’s cool air was too much for him. Starsky didn’t ask.

But he did join Hutch, lying down beside him and hugging his pillow.

They wordlessly gazed into each other’s eyes for several minutes. They didn’t touch. They didn’t smile. They simply immersed themselves in the other’s presence.

Starsky couldn’t imagine what Hutch had survived as a young boy; how unloved he must have felt for most of his entire life. How he’d ever come to trust anyone—even Starsky—was a miracle unto itself.

But there he lay, nude on the bed with Starsky, looking longingly into his eyes, both of them seeming to understand and to appreciate how fortunate they were to have each other.

Starsky was grateful, anyway. A person as kind, formidable, and ethical as was Ken Hutchinson loved him, needed him, trusted him. He’d learned a lot from Hutch over the years—and experienced so much with him, too, from fistfights to shootouts to solving high-profile cases to saving lives—including their own … and each other’s. To have someone’s back like that was the polar opposite of what Hutch had endured in the hands of his own parents.

When Starsky woke from his coma, it was Hutch in the room with him, sitting close by, nearly frozen by fear; it was Hutch’s gentle voice he’d heard, soft and compelling, words Starsky couldn’t decipher, but they pulled him back into consciousness. He was sure of it.

To lie on the bed with him then, admiring Hutch’s blue eyes and his beautiful face and listening to the sound of his quiet male breath and knowing how much they loved each other was a gift he’d only fantasized about in the hours and days and weeks that had followed his immediate recovery.

That Hutch wanted to be with him in deeper intimacy was beyond fantasy; it was almost supernatural that they’d arrived at the same time with the same mindset about each other, that they wanted more from their partnership than they’d ever dreamed of having before.

Despite that, there had been an unexpected speed bump on the highway. Starsky wasn’t sorry to have stumbled over it; better to learn about Hutch’s past in an unplanned, strained conversation than during any kind of lovemaking between them.

But how to get around it? How to touch Hutch without triggering those awful memories of being manipulated, violated, abused—by the very people he was supposed to trust? Had sex with women been difficult experiences?

What kind of monsters would do such damaging things to a child? And what more had happened to Hutch in their hands that Hutch hadn’t yet shared with Starsky?

“Hey,” Hutch said, stroking Starsky’s cheek as if to comfort him. “Don’t be sad.”

Starsky hadn’t realized until then that tears had come into his eyes. He blinked them back, then wiped one away. “I can’t believe we’re here like this,” he said, sharing only some of his thoughts. “We lived long enough—and came through so much enough—to want something like this with each other.” He couldn’t help but be touched by that, but it wasn’t the only reason Hutch had read a deeper emotion in him.

Hutch rose to his elbow, gently pushed Starsky to his back, leaned over him and kissed his lips, pressing his length to Starsky’s; a thin sheet was the only thing between them.

Hutch’s warm body alongside his own was a new sensation for Starsky; it ratcheted up his desire for sexier kisses, tongued kisses, deeper kisses, the ones Hutch obviously wanted with him, too. They held each other’s faces, breathed in each other’s breaths, relished each other’s willingness, kissed lips and tasted apple-peanut butter mouths, one direction and another, then back again.

Starsky’s erection formed rather quickly. “I’ll take whatever you want from me,” he managed to say when he felt the heated flesh of Hutch’s hardened penis against his thigh.

But Hutch didn’t react with words. Instead, he pulled back the sheet and repositioned himself on the bed to trail kisses from Starsky’s neck to his navel, pleasingly kissing Starsky’s penis when his wet lips finally reached Starsky’s highly sensitive erection.

Starsky closed his eyes and immersed himself in the feel of Hutch’s nibbling kisses fearlessly rounding its crown. He giggled, tickled, excited still, and spoke between his deepening breaths. “God, Hutch, what you do to me. I wouldn’t trade it for anything, not anything in the whole wide world.”

Hutch sucked Starsky’s stiffened penis into and out of his mouth with a determined rhythm, sensually stroking it in tandem with his reaffirming hand.

“I can’t believe this,” Starsky whispered after he gulped air through his clenched teeth. Each time he felt the inevitable upstroke, Hutch’s wet, warm hand, his lips, and his tongue along his penis’s length, he nearly yelped, a unique sound interrupted purely by his sudden need to grab another breath—just in time for the next viscous, tantalizing stroke.

“You make my dick feel so good,” Starsky said between pants. He rose onto his elbow to watch while Hutch continued to suck him; he stroked Hutch’s hair and his face while Hutch raised and lowered himself on Starsky’s unbelievably thirsty penis, and said it again. “You make my dick feel so good.”

Too good, in fact. He was closer to cresting than he’d ever been in so short a time—yet still able to keep his wits about him. He slipped a hand into the fray, effectively stopping the fellatio as he dropped his head back into his pillow. “I almost came,” he explained between panting breaths, “and I don’t want to. Not yet.”

Hutch crawled up on him and kissed Starsky’s lips before Starsky could realize he was even there. He tasted of sensual flesh and pre-cum. They both lightly laughed, aware of it together.

And then Hutch did the unexpected; he rolled over beside Starsky, pressed back into him, and pulled Starsky’s arm over his hip. “Come inside me,” he said, cupping Starsky’s hand around his penis—and he didn’t sound facetious. “I want to feel you all the way in while you stroke my dick.”

Starsky stalled; everything he’d learned about Hutch that afternoon flooded his thoughts and he wasn’t certain he understood the instruction. Hutch couldn’t mean what he did, did he?

“C’mon, Starsk,” Hutch encouraged him, using Starsky’s hand to stroke his shaft so Starsky would get the picture. He also pushed his butt more firmly into Starsky’s groin; Starsky’s penis was so hard, it slid involuntarily between Hutch’s cheeks. “I want this,” Hutch promised.

Maybe he needed it.

Scene Six

“Tell me.”

Starsky needed to know.

He’d obliged them both the night before, though not without initial trepidation on his part. It wasn’t until he was fully and finally inside Hutch, deeply thrusting into him—from one end of his swollen penis to its tip—that he was able to allow his orgasm to build.

It wasn’t just Hutch’s insistence that coerced Starsky into copulation; it was the can’t-miss-it fact that Hutch was himself as excited, his penis tumescent and rigid in Starsky’s stroking hand, especially the further along into Starsky’s firm strokes he was taken.

Hutch’s body didn’t lie, so Starsky trusted it. But he didn’t prolong their experience, either; in the recesses of Starsky’s mind, he wasn’t fully certain he understood the situation in light of Hutch’s painful past; that, and it felt so good, too good to ignore or dismiss.

So he put his faith in Hutch’s request—and in Hutch’s encouragement—and, with a small dollop of lube, had carefully entered his man, tentatively at first, but then with confidence when he was reassured he wasn’t hurting Hutch. Starsky didn’t leave until they both climaxed, moaning and laughing, and squeezing each other—as if they were of the same mind in the pleasure they shared. Perhaps they were. Starsky’s euphoria was unlike anything he’d ever experienced.

In the quiet aftermath, exhausted, and wrapped in each other’s arms, Hutch soon fell asleep, leaving Starsky alone with his thoughts. But now it was morning and Starsky had to know. He’d awakened to find Hutch lying naked on his back beside him; Hutch’s eyes were open and he stared at the ceiling. Was he immersed in second thoughts? bad feelings? regrets?

“C’mon, Hutch,” Starsky coaxed him, squeezing Hutch’s firm bicep to get his full attention. “Tell me.”

Hutch turned his head and made eye contact; he seemed surprised to find Starsky awake, but then a gentle smile came to his lips, and he rolled to his side to face his partner. “Good morning,” he softly said, his blue eyes sparkling. “I thought you were going to sleep all day.” He ruffled Starsky’s hair. “Maybe you’re not strong enough to endure that kind of strenuous—”

“Shut up and tell me.”

Hutch closed his mouth, held eye contact, relaxed in his expression. He obviously knew what was being asked of him—and he seemed to settle into the task. “I wasn’t looking for you to fix anything,” he promised, momentarily caressing Starsky’s cheek to ease the obvious burden he could see in Starsky’s eyes. “You weren’t a means to an end.”

“What then?”

Starsky hadn’t felt used; he knew he was loved and, in the case between them, that he was desired, too. It had all been so easy. Other than that initial tightness in the pit of his stomach, they’d made love as if they’d been doing so from the day they met. Despite the newness of joining their bodies, Hutch was the most familiar thing in Starsky’s life, the one place he felt most at home.

“Ever since I can remember, it seems everyone has wanted something from me,” Hutch said. “Sex. Money. A house and a yard. Babies.”

Starsky was getting a couple of those ‘wants’ from Hutch, so what was Hutch easing him into? He choked back his anxiety to keep Hutch from stalling and himself from exposing his apprehension.

“I’ve been a trinket to some,” Hutch continued. “‘Oh, he’s so cute; he’ll be in movies someday.’ ‘Put him on the cover of Gerber Babies Are Us.’ I was a cliché. A thing to be used. A little boy who should never grow up. And then, when I did, and after I found my place in this world, sometimes what people wanted from me was to stop doing what I loved, to stop being a cop.”

Vanessa.

And if they didn’t leave Hutch, Starsky further mused in silence, those things were taken from him.

“What happened to me back then wasn’t going to keep me from being with you now,” Hutch told him, “or make me anxious about it; the only problem I was having was facing it—and admitting it to you.” He definitely appeared apologetic for his failure, and then seemed to search for his reasons. “I didn’t want you to accuse me of anything—like I somehow played a part in what my parents did to me.”

“I would never have thought that,” Starsky insisted. He tried to ease Hutch’s guilt by squeezing his hand. “Children don’t play those kinds of parts.” He jiggled Hutch’s arm to make him accept the truth.

“Yeah, but I’ve second-guessed myself over the years,” Hutch countered him. “In those rare moments of remembering it, I told myself I could have fought back sooner. I could have told someone. Called the police.”

“But you know why kids don’t. When you have thoughts like those it’s because you’re looking at it through the eyes of a grown-up.”

Hutch seemed to agree. He slightly nodded, gently smiled, obviously grateful for Starsky’s insight. “I knew you’d be the one person who would forgive me for all of it, if forgiving me had merit.”

“It doesn’t. There’s nothing to forgive you for—except maybe not telling me about it when we were in the middle of Guy’s case. You know how much that upset me.”

“Yeah. I know. I’m sorry.”

“You didn’t even hint that what was happening to him had happened to you.”

“Maybe I was defensive, that I couldn’t allow even a moment of those memories into the mix. I’m sure my reaction would’ve been different if his mother was sexually abusing him.”

“I guess I can see that, but you know there’s no difference. It’s all child abuse.”

“Yeah.”

“I mean, I don’t know what I would’ve done if I’d known sooner, but you have to stop separating the two. Your parents abused you.”

Hutch was slow to accept the facts of his life, but he eventually did. “Okay,” was all he said, and then added, “My delay in telling you what I meant when I said ‘stay out of my ass’ wasn’t because I had misgivings about our being together in bed; it was my coming to terms with what they did to me. I haven’t wanted to accept it; it’s much easier to live in denial and not deal with those facts.”

“I can’t say I don’t understand why.”

“The last thing I wanted, Starsk, was for you to walk on eggshells around me, or that you have to be careful touching me, or that you have to ease me into sex with you—because what they did wasn’t sex, and sex with you is obviously different from sex with women.”

“It sure was,” Starsky recalled with a quiet smile. He’d never experienced anything as sexually satisfying as the intercourse and intimacy he’d engaged with Hutch the night before. Until that moment, he even believed he’d been in love—with his childhood sweetheart, Cindy, with Mary, a woman he’d met in the Army, with Rosey, with Terry, with Kira—but, in hindsight, those were infatuations.

The euphoria he felt in Hutch’s arms, kissing Hutch’s mouth, caressing Hutch’s skin, feeling himself swallowed up inside the man—wet, slippery, tight, orgasmic, all that and more—was also overwhelming emotionally, not just physically. Even the swelling in his heart was different, not just the one in his penis.

“But another truth, Starsky, is that I’ve said those same words to women, too. ‘Stay out of my ass.’ It’s been a kind of subconscious defense on my part to lay the ground rules even where there didn’t need to be any.”

“What would they say when you’d tell them that?”

“They’d laugh, like I made a joke. But the second I said it to you, I realized what I’d done. I was serious when I said it was a stupid thing for me to say, that it was flippant and sarcastic, and had no place between us.”

“Maybe subconsciously, Hutch, you were wanting us to deal with it, hm? Maybe you didn’t realize you were forcing that conversation, but deep down, you wanted it. Maybe that’s why you always said it to women, too. You’ve been wanting to talk about it all your life and, at the same time, not.”

Hutch seemed to consider it, momentarily breaking eye contact as his mind wandered into a temporary silence. Then he looked into Starsky’s eyes again, and said, “You might be right.”

“Yeah,” Starsky agreed, feigning reluctance as he repressed a smile, “I probably am.”

Hutch ruffled Starsky’s hair again, but his tone wasn’t playful. “Until I met you, I never felt like anyone wanted to know me. There isn’t anyone I’ve been closer to, as open with, trusted implicitly, cared about as much, needed, desired, and loved—more than I do you.”

Starsky wiped away a tear. “You know I can say the same back.”

“I do know—which is why I didn’t have to be defensive. Had I not been so rehearsed that night, I wouldn’t have said what I did; you’d have never known what my parents did to me. We would have gone into sex the way we went into it last night—but without your concern.”

“I was nervous at first—”

“But then your dick took over.”

Starsky lightly laughed. “It did.” Really it was his heart, but he appreciated the change in their discussion. They’d both been swept up in the newness of a relationship that felt deeply familiar at the same time. “You were as hard as me, Hutch, so I put my faith in that.”

“I had hoped diving in the way we did last night would have laid notions of my hangups to rest for you, but I see, from this morning’s look on your face, that you’re worried about what having sex last night meant for me … and for us.”

“You read me right.”

“Well, baby boy, I’m here to tell you that my childhood trauma didn’t—and doesn’t—have any bearing on what we do together. I couldn’t possibly have anything but love for you. We’re just getting warmed up; that’s all.”

Starsky felt enormous relief; he could believe Hutch. The truth was there in Hutch’s beautiful blue eyes and his mussed blond hair and his apparent relaxation and his soft voice. “I should have known you were all-in by the way you were moaning,” Starsky teased him, “like you were going to explode at any second, and then did.”

Hutch shyly smiled. “All I could think about was you—and what we were doing, and how good and right it felt. I came hard and fast.”

“I came faster than I usually do, too,” Starsky said, feeling flushed with his own admission. “Maybe it’s been too long; I haven’t played around with anybody since before the … coma.”

“Neither have I.”

Hutch’s comment surprised Starsky. More proof that they’d endured that nightmare together.

Scene Seven

“I want to talk about last night.”

“I thought we already did that,” Hutch replied, not accusingly. He seemed more interested in smothering his hamburger in extra ketchup than he did even to glance over at Starsky and acknowledge his partner’s serious wish. He also assumed Starsky’s direction. “I wasn’t lying, Starsk, when I told you I was okay with—”

“Not that conversation,” Starsky corrected him. He was ready to eat his meal, but he waited for Hutch to join him, choosing first to open a dialogue about all of those things he hadn’t been able to get out of his mind since the night before. “I want to talk about what we did.”

They sat across from each other at a small round table in the shade of large maple trees at the edge of a parking lot outside a local hamburger stand—this one without fly traps and insect spray, mainly because Hutch had chosen the place. It was a warm September afternoon and they were both dressed in jeans; Hutch in a blue, short-sleeved cotton shirt, Starsky in a green tee-shirt.

When Hutch finished preparing his burger, he finally looked up at Starsky. “Hey,” he affectionately said when he made eye contact, visibly pleased to have the moment. He then quickly searched Starsky over with his eyes as if looking for clues, found none, and then addressed what he must have thought was Starsky’s intention. “Are you having second thoughts?”

It was an absurd question. Certainly Hutch could tell it had all been pleasurable. “No,” Starsky insisted, incredulously. “I mean, well, I haven’t stopped thinking about it, so in that way, I guess I’ve been having second and third and twelve and a hundred other thoughts, but not like you’re wondering.”

Hutch smiled at him. “You’re not alone in that.”

“So maybe we should talk about it, hm? Let’s make sure we’re thinking the same about all of it.”

Hutch began eating, appearing nonchalant and not at all interested in Starsky’s suggestion. But after a couple of bites of food and a swig of his cold beer, he was obviously able to focus. “I didn’t make you gag, did I?”

Starsky couldn’t imagine what made Hutch ask such a question—another thing Hutch should have instinctively known the answer to—but the conversation had begun and Starsky was anxious to have it, so he ignored his surprise and concentrated on the things he wanted to say.

“You didn’t gag me,” he promised. “You think because you have the bigger dick that I—”

“Keep your voice down,” Hutch bluntly ordered him, nervously glancing around. When he realized—before Starsky could point it out to him—that they were the only people in the dining area of the food truck and that no one was within earshot, he shrugged at Starsky and continued eating. “You’re crediting me with the bigger dick, Starsk?”

“Like you didn’t notice.”

“A finger up my ass is a massive intrusion, if you know what I mean, so imagine how that hard dick of yours felt. You’re a lot bigger than you think you are.”

Starsky didn’t smile; he wasn’t sure how he should react to such a statement in light of Hutch’s abusive past, except to keep on point. “You didn’t gag me,” he reiterated, munching on a salty French fry as he recalled the pleasant taste of Hutch’s skin. “But that begs the question, as they say.” He believed Hutch when Hutch told him that his childhood trauma never played a role in their sex the night before—nor in the sex they had that morning prior to breakfast.

“No problems,” Hutch happily reported, seeming to avoid eye contact, but he was obviously a hungry man, too, perhaps from having worked up an appetite in the past 12 hours or so; he would rather eat than chat. “The truth is you made the entry easy.”

A titillating urge for a repeat performance momentarily crept into Starsky’s groin and both aroused and stalled him, so much that he had to consciously push the stimulating thoughts out of his head to stay on track. “You did the same for me, pal: made sex easy; it was our first time and our first time with, you know, a guy, and yet it was all so natural. But I want to talk about what we did.”

“I thought we were,” Hutch playfully quipped. “What am I missing?”

“I mean, I’ve never been inside anyone that way before.”

He said what he did before he realized how it must have sounded to a man who’d been sexually violated when he was a little boy, but Hutch seemed to roll with it.

“I’m glad to hear it,” Hutch noted with a wink. “But that doesn’t explain why you had K-Y at the ready.”

Starsky blinked. Why wouldn’t he have such a thing on hand? He’d remembered the lube in the nightstand drawer right after Hutch unexpectedly invited him into intercourse. They were both glad to have it, so why was Hutch sounding upset that Starsky had a tube on hand?

“Just something one of my boyfriends brought over,” Starsky defensively retaliated, but he could immediately tell that Hutch wasn’t falling for the punch-back. “Terry had some problems,” he explained instead, reluctantly recalling that terrible time in his life. “We bought some … but it didn’t help much. She was too worried about…”

“I’m sorry, Starsk,” Hutch whispered, setting down his hamburger; he was genuinely apologetic. “I didn’t mean to—”

“It’s okay. I had it coming—being sarcastic a minute ago.”

“No, you didn’t. I should know better than to ask dumb questions about anyone’s personal life—even yours.”

“Well, there’s nothing off-limits for us anymore,” Starsky decided. “Don’t you think so, too? Ask me anything, anytime, and I promise not to be so stupid about it.” He ate his hamburger while he watched Hutch and got the agreeable answer he expected.

They’d crossed into a personal relationship neither of them had experienced in their lifetimes; learning new things about each other was both exciting and sometimes a bit awkward, but Starsky persevered. “That was just amazing … being inside you like that … both of us getting off on it.”

Hutch leveled eye contact and wordlessly chewed his food. He was probably shy and embarrassed, or maybe he relived those moments in his mind the way Starsky had been doing since waking that morning; perhaps it was a mix of emotions Hutch felt, including a few he may have tried to repress.

“You’re good at giving head,” Starsky told him. “I mean, for a guy who’s never done it before, that was—”

“It still needs some work; is that what you’re saying?”

“I’m not saying that at all,” Starsky countered him. He had to finish swallowing some French fries to clarify himself. “You gave the best blowjob I’ve ever gotten. Bar none.”

Hutch winked at him. “Love, baby.”

“Exactly. That’s what I’m trying to get to here: that this love we have—and maybe because we’re both guys and think in the same ways—sex with you has already been the best ever. For me, at least.”

“Me, too,” Hutch admitted in a low voice, forcing a gentle smile—or so it seemed a bit pained. It was probably just embarrassment. Neither of them were used to talking as explicitly about sex as they were that afternoon—at least not with each other.

“So, tell me, Hutchinson. Don’t you think it’s the love mostly?”

“I do.”

“Yeah, I do, too,” Starsky replied, feeling contented by their same answer. “I can’t imagine the sex being any better, but I also think we still have a lot to learn about each other in that department, so maybe it gets better still, hm?”

“I think so.”

“We didn’t need all that much foreplay,” Starsky recalled. He liked that part, among other differences from sex with women.

“Not that we’re knocking foreplay,” Hutch assumed.

“But you know what I mean. We don’t have to ‘get ready’ for anything; we’re ‘go for launch’ as soon as the rockets are fired up.”

Hutch lightly laughed. “That, we are.”

“It’s a much more natural flow, I think.”

“Like we were meant for each other.”

“Yeah, buddy. Like that.”

It was after a minute of silence that Starsky realized Hutch only involved himself in the conversation when Starsky said something that warranted a reply. Hutch himself didn’t offer any information beyond what was asked of him. Was he still covering for his past—or was he unwilling to hurt Starsky with his personal truths about their lovemaking? Maybe Starsky should have asked Hutch if he was the one having second thoughts. Instead, he found a more direct question.

“Is there something you want to tell me that you’re not telling me?”

Hutch kept his eyes on Starsky while he swallowed a few long gulps of beer, and then kindly asked, “Can we eat first?”

“Yeah, sure.”

Starsky chose to talk about cars while they ate their meals—with Hutch mostly listening; Hutch had never been interested in cars except as means to an end, but Starsky needed to fill in the silence. He was anxious about Hutch’s confirmation that he had more to tell his partner.

Had Hutch been in homosexual relationships before? He sure pleasured Starsky like he’d bedded other men. Maybe the child sexual abuse had confused him at some point in his life, and it was time to tell that story about a past homosexual relationship—at least, an experiment. Starsky didn’t want to know such a thing, but he wanted the truth, too.

When they finished eating and had crumpled up the trash into the brown paper bag, Starsky sipped the last of his beer, and kept his eyes on Hutch. He didn’t want to push his man, but he didn’t want Hutch to elude him, either.

Hutch finally seemed to settle, leaned forward on the table, and made eye contact. He didn’t appear as shy or embarrassed as he’d been only minutes earlier (maybe the car talk calmed his nerves—or a full belly relaxed him?); he seemed committed to telling Starsky more of his life’s truth, something they both wanted him to say.

“I’ve never had a blowjob before,” Hutch eventually confessed after summoning the courage, or maybe just the right words. “You were the first.”

Starsky wasn’t sure he heard him. “I’m the only guy you gave head to, right?” He hadn’t climaxed in Hutch’s mouth the night before, but the fellatio still counted as oral sex by his definition. “That’s what you mean by ‘first,’ yeah? First time giving head?”

“Obviously. But I meant what I said,” Hutch emphasized, correcting him. “The part that needs clearing up is that you’re the only person to blow me.”

There wasn’t any frivolity in his voice. He didn’t look like he was kidding or baiting Starsky. He seemed quite genuine. But Starsky needed to know it for sure.

“Are you saying that no one ever went down on you before this morning?”

“A few tried.”

“But didn’t succeed? because they didn’t like that you’re uncut or something?”

Hutch frowned at him, as if Starsky’s supposition was the furthest thing from reality. “Because I wouldn’t let them,” he explained. “It was too close to what my…”

Hutch didn’t need to say more; Starsky understood that time. “I’m sorry, buddy.” He was definitely sorry for the man, but there was that other part to the equation that pushed its way through his chaotic thoughts and took over his mind. “I gave you your first blowjob?”

Hutch shrugged, sheepishly. “Yeah. Imagine that.”

“No shit?”

“None of that, either.”

“So … no other boyfriends?”

“What? Didn’t you hear me the first time?”

Starsky was stunned to learn what he did, but he still had questions, and didn’t know which to ask first. How could such a beautiful man like Hutch, especially one at his age, never have had the enormous pleasure of oral sex? Maybe the answer lay in Hutch’s definition of fellatio. “You mean you’ve never come in anybody’s mouth before, but surely women have sucked on your dick to make you feel good, at least to get things going.”

“I’m saying what I mean, Starsk—and I’m talking about sex here, not that other stuff. I’ve never had a mouth on my dick, not for more than a minute. I rarely even let anyone touch it. Get hard on kissing and caressing—and get it in and then out—has been my modus operandi.”

Starsky couldn’t believe what he heard. How was it possible that a 36-year-old man, one as sexy and attractive as Hutch, could confess to such a thing? Hutch had only ever fully experienced fellatio that very morning?

“So, when I sucked you off, did it feel good?”

Hutch lightly laughed. “You couldn’t tell? I tried to stop you before I came, but you wouldn’t let up—”

“I meant, you didn’t have any bad feelings?”

“No, buddy, none.”

“When ‘a few tried,’ but you stopped them … how did you get around it? I mean, didn’t they wonder?”

Starsky didn’t know any other way to ask his questions without triggering hurtful feelings, but Hutch proved he was keen to his intent by being forthcoming.

“When all is said and done, I haven’t had that many women. And not every girlfriend would try to go down on me, either; I guess some women don’t like fellatio, and I never pushed it, so no one ever asked why we didn’t do that particular thing.”

“When you told me that you never thought about what your parents did to you—until I cornered you on it—apparently you were channeling it … enough to not want anyone to suck your dick all these years.”

“Yeah, okay, at least subconsciously.”

“Did I make you feel … I mean, when I didn’t stop when you asked me to, did you feel … forced into finishing?”

“God, no. I felt privileged.”

“Why? Because of the love thing?”

Hutch warmly smiled at him. “One hundred percent because of the ‘love thing.’”

“C’mon, you know what I’m trying to say here. Don’t piss all over it.”

“You’re misreading me if you think that’s what I’m doing, so let me put it this way, Starsk: I didn’t have my parents on my mind last night—and I didn’t think about them when we were having sex this morning, either. When you touched me, when you kissed me, when you … pleasured me … all I could think about was you … all I was channeling was us.”

Starsky would never have known about those childhood assaults had Hutch not told him. Nothing in their lovemaking had lent itself to Hutch’s dark past, but Starsky wanted to be doubly sure. Looking back, the truth had been right there in plain sight.

In the early morning hours, when dawn had just broken and the light in the room was soft, and the silence comforting, Starsky woke Hutch by kissing him. They were both immediately aroused, wordlessly feeling each other’s erection snug between them. It didn’t seem as if they were thinking; they were purely lost in the heated moments—without forethought, without memory, without inhibition or reservation.

The only conscious thought Starsky had was the one that came to him when their bodies had hardened and Starsky felt the urge to orgasm—an overwhelming feeling he intuitively believed Hutch felt as well. But it was too soon to ejaculate. Starsky wanted to feel Hutch’s flesh for longer. He broke from their kisses and sucking tongues, from rubbing their penises against each other’s body, and followed his heart into giving Hutch fellatio, feeling his way along, guided by Hutch’s subtle cues.

Hutch’s breathing had deepened, become labored, and his skin lightly perspired. He’d tangled his fingers in Starsky’s dense curls as if he would show him how, but he seemed powerless to carry through.

In those brief moments when Starsky opened his eyes to steal glances of Hutch’s face, he was further aroused by the sight of Hutch’s glistening body, his heaving belly, his erect nipples, and his mouth parted in a glorious pant. The well-muscled, blond, blue-eyed, delirious Adonis was definitely in heaven—which was right where Starsky wanted him.

Starsky also loved the feel of Hutch’s meaty and sizable erection, its musky aroma, its animal taste, its erotic appearance when he paused to examine it with his eyes. There wasn’t a single thing about Hutch that he didn’t absolutely feel grateful to know and to have. “You’re so beautiful, Hutch,” he said to him—without actually speaking the words.

He sucked Hutch all the way in, and then out, over and again, spurred by Hutch’s more frequent moans and whispers. He could eat Hutch forever just to let his man feel that good for that long.

Starsky wanted to giggle, purely from delight, but he was cognizant of the hush in the room, fractured only by their softer moans, their heavy breathing, and Hutch’s occasional hiss of delirium as he sucked air between his teeth; the pleasure was that exquisite.

Starsky was so immersed in pleasuring Hutch that he failed to notice how aroused he’d made himself—or how close to ejaculation Hutch had suddenly been pushed to—until Hutch tightly held Starsky’s head, freezing them in mid-action, and breathlessly whispered, “Stop. Let go. I’m gonna come.”

But Starsky didn’t let go; he didn’t want to interrupt Hutch’s ecstasy. A moment later, Hutch helplessly emptied his sac into the back of Starsky’s throat. He cried out in overwhelming submission as he writhed beneath Starsky like a man in excruciating pain—or in his case, one in the throes of pure elation.

Starsky thought he might follow in kind just from the feel of the hot, creamy delivery that filled his mouth as Hutch bucked against him, knowing he’d driven Hutch into that degree of liberation, but Hutch wouldn’t let him go. His flesh was too sensitized to endure further touch, so Starsky froze, holding Hutch’s penis in his warm hand and wet mouth—and waited.

At times, Starsky did his best to keep from laughing, all while making an honest effort not to be forced into swallowing Hutch’s ejaculate—and not because he couldn’t or wouldn’t eat it, but because he hoped to use the viscous deposit to coat his own shaft for a mutually satisfying orgasm.

“Starsk?”

Starsky snapped out of his recollection when he heard Hutch’s voice, not realizing how deeply into it he’d fallen. He’d broken a light sweat, felt a bit embarrassed to feel the way he did, right there in public, and needed to cool off.

“C’mon,” Starsky said, averting eye contact as he picked up their trash and got to his feet. Three men and a woman had taken up residence at a nearby table. “Let’s take a walk,” he said, inviting Hutch to leave the area while he successfully hid his emerging erection.

Scene Eight

“The next time we stop by that hamburger truck, let’s try to remember this place so we can eat here instead of the parking lot.”

“I doubt I’ll forget,” Hutch whimsically said as he stood close by and scanned the lush grounds of a lesser-known public park dressed in age-old shade trees, green rolling hills, and private picnic areas; very few people were about, and no one was even close to being within earshot. “How did you know this was here?”

“I didn’t.”

Starsky made a beeline to the nearest picnic table and straddled the bench on the side that opened out into the park; it was a perfect picture, complete with Ken Hutchinson in the foreground, adding a special kind of beauty to the panoramic view.

“I just wanted to get away from the staleness of that parking lot and saw the opening to the path that ended up here,” Starsky explained. He didn’t take his eyes off of Hutch, pleased to see just how thrilled his partner was that they found the place; Hutch couldn’t stop gazing out over the landscape. Such a nature boy.

Several minutes passed before Hutch seemed to get enough of the fresh air and visual stimulation and realized he wasn’t alone. He half-turned and looked back at Starsky. “Just beautiful,” he noted. “Did you see the red-tailed hawk?”

“Must have missed it,” Starsky confessed with a shrug. “I had my eye on other things.”

“Yeah? Like what?”

“Like you.”

Hutch shyly smiled. “I like you, too,” he affectionately said as he joined Starsky at the table, quietly laughing at his own pun. He sat on the table’s planked surface with his feet on the bench, rested his forearms on his thighs, and continued to look out over the park. “I like you a lot, in fact.”

Starsky didn’t breathe another word. He wanted to know more about what Hutch was thinking and the sex they’d had, but he didn’t want to seem pushy, either. Maybe, if the sex was as much on Hutch’s mind as it was on Starsky’s, Hutch would just offer information without too much prying.

A moment later, as if Hutch had read Starsky’s mind, he turned his head, made eye contact, and said, “I know it was rather hot-and-heavy both times—last night and this morning—but for me, I think we made love more than we made sex.”

“Because it came out of love,” Starsky assumed; at least it was true for himself, and he was fairly certain then that Hutch shared his convictions. “When I said I’ve never been in love before, I meant it.”

Hutch held eye contact with him, and was speechless, hearing Starsky’s admission for the first time. Then he looked away—into his past, it seemed. “I told you years ago—and sometimes since—that I became a police officer because I can’t stand bullies. I just never told you why.”

Starsky understood it; he loathed bullies as much as Hutch did, but now for different reasons; rather, for the same reasons, but with a deeper hatred. “You’ve had this hyper-affection for children, too, and now that makes sense.”

“I’m glad you know what you know about my life. I’m sorry I took so long to tell you.”

“You had your reasons.”

“Dumb ones, but okay.”

“Not dumb,” Starsky argued. He briefly pinched Hutch’s thigh to snap him out of his self-deprecation. “C’mon, stop beating yourself up.”

“You make me feel so…”

“Horny?”

Hutch chuckled. “I was going to say … loved, but yeah, horny, too.”

Starsky knew better than to expect a different answer. He’d never known anyone as kind and sensitive as Ken Hutchinson—despite all of those times they came to blows, mostly over stupid things. “You felt loved because you are loved.”

“I know it. When you woke me up this morning by kissing me, I didn’t have time to think. I was where I was meant to be—and I never felt safer in the world.” He looked at the ground while he spoke, reflecting on that very morning when they spent it making love, satisfying each other, lying in bed together long after the sex was over. “I was purely in the moment.”

Starsky understood that as well; he’d been purely in the moments, too.

“When you carried those kisses on down,” Hutch continued, holding his hands between his knees, “when you touched my dick with your mouth … kissing it like that … it was such a … such an amazing sensation—unlike anyone’s ever touched me before.”

Starsky remembered that Hutch had said some women had ‘tried’ to fellate him, but he wouldn’t let them finish, so how was Starsky’s touch all that different except that he’d taken it to completion for Hutch? He didn’t ask, despite his curiosity. Hutch’s tone was reflective and his voice soft; he was willing to tell Starsky what Starsky waited to hear.

“You didn’t go at it like a means to an end,” Hutch explained. “You kissed me … you kissed my dick … you made love to it.”

“It’s part of you,” Starsky said, as if it should have been obvious. “It’s your manhood. Your man-ness is one of the things I love about you.”

“And I’ve always known there’s this gentle side to you,” Hutch told him, still not looking at Starsky, but not so awkward that he was in any hurry to leave the conversation, either. “I’ve seen the way you treat people who’ve been wounded,” Hutch continued, “me, included.”

He didn’t laugh; he was dead serious. “I’ve seen you nearly put a bullet in somebody’s head or almost pistol-whip them, but there’s this other extreme side to you, one that’s very tender. I imagine you’re that way with women, too, but I was privileged to experience it this morning, first-hand.”

Hutch thought for a moment and then followed up his words with, “I suppose all the hesitancy and lack of satisfaction in my sex life was of my own making, but even so, no one’s ever touched me as tenderly as you have.”

Starsky could have used those same words to describe Hutch. He studied the shape of Hutch’s fingers, his profile, his blond eyelashes and hair, and listened closely to Hutch’s soft voice. He didn’t want to dilute Hutch’s self-discoveries with his own experience. There was plenty of time to tell Hutch his reflections.

“When you entered me last night,” Hutch recalled, “you made it so easy; you didn’t barge in like you owned the place, know what I mean?” He lightly laughed, sounding embarrassed, but willing to tell Starsky how it felt even if it made him look foolish. “You eased yourself in with that same mindfulness you had this morning when you sucked me off.”

Hutch wasn’t saying anything he hadn’t already said about their lovemaking, but in the context of what his parents had done to him, it meant more.

“When we were having sex and making love, there wasn’t room in my head to think, even for a second, about what happened to me when I was a kid.”

Starsky had heard that already, too. He didn’t mind hearing it again. He could believe Hutch, and he sorely wanted to.

“Our relationship is already the most authentic one I’ve ever had,” Hutch finished, finally looking over at Starsky, his blue eyes sparkling, “but now it’s much deeper, more real, and will last forever.”

Starsky patted Hutch’s leg. “Everything you said: back at you.”

“Everything except the part about shooting someone in cold blood or pistol-whipping them, right?” Hutch determined with a laugh. He ruffled Starsky’s hair to break the pouting expression on his partner’s face. “C’mon. Lighten up. That’s what we call comic relief.”

Starsky knocked Hutch’s hand away and pretended to be insulted. “Whatever. But do you mind if I ask some questions?”

“Nothing’s off the table.”

“You said a few women tried to blow you, but you wouldn’t let them. Did you have any problem returning their favors?”

Hutch glanced away. After a momentary silence, he found his answer. “Let’s just say I don’t think I was ever any good at it, and I didn’t go out of my way to do it; the few girlfriends I had didn’t ask for it all that much—and I preferred the intimacy that came with sex more than I liked the sex. I sometimes wondered if they didn’t feel the same way.”

“So … overall … your sex life was—”

“Less than perfect. Not satisfying in the overall scheme of things.”

“You spent more time cuddling than coming?”

“Something like that,” Hutch replied with a sad laugh. “Sometimes, I couldn’t even get it up. But, like I said … I did love the intimacy. Maybe I’m a woman in that way.”

“That big dick between your legs begs to differ.”

“Yeah, I suppose it does.”

“Well, I don’t know, Hutch. Seems the sex and the intimacy between you and me is balanced. Or maybe my two comes we’re better than yours?”

“If they were, then I’m jealous—because mine were way over the top of any I’ve had before.”

Starsky was convinced Hutch enjoyed his orgasms as much as Starsky enjoyed his own. He was beginning to see just how liberated Hutch had become. “Did you like it when I fucked you? I mean, did you like it for yourself, not just for me?”

“Starsk … I loved it all. Immensely. I loved you fucking me. I loved sucking your cock even though you didn’t come that way—and I especially loved it when you sucked mine. I’ve never had the pleasure of climaxing in anyone’s mouth; it was a first—and a sensual experience—I’ll never forget.”

“Is there anything I could do better?”

“There’s one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“Stop worrying about my lack of a good time. I honestly don’t know how it could be better.”

“I’ll try not to worry. I wasn’t worried when we were doing it; it’s afterward, thinking about it.”

“Don’t think about it so much.”

“But some of it is a lot of fun to think about.”

“Then stick to thinking about the good parts,” Hutch suggested with a laugh, “because that’s all it was: good. Great, in fact. I didn’t know until we kissed in the hospital that you’re what I’ve been missing all these years. I was so happy when you asked for that goodnight kiss.”

“Do you think maybe we’re gay?”

“At least for each other.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Unless you’ve been daydreaming about sucking off other guys—and I know I never had the fantasy—then we’re only gay for each other.”

“Not that there’s anything wrong with being gay,” Starsky said under his breath. He was still ashamed for his previous antiquated views about homosexuals and man-on-man sex. “In some ways, gay sex is better than straight sex.”

“It’s all sex, Starsk. Everything we did to each other we could do to women.”

“Well, not everything,” Starsky debated him. “I mean, we can’t be fucked in the ass by a woman—not with an actual dick.”

Hutch laughed, realizing his mistake. “Okay. But you’re the only one I want fucking me in the ass.”

“That was really hot,” Starsky admitted, reflecting on those lengthy minutes he was thrusting inside Hutch, bringing himself to orgasm while he stroked Hutch into his in a reach-around. “Tight. Deep. Like nothing I’ve ever felt before.” The memory alone of his ecstasy titillated him even then.

“Yeah,” Hutch sighed, obviously remembering it as fondly from his own vantage point. “Maybe you’ll let me come inside you sometime so we both know how that feels.”

“Tonight would be good,” Starsky chirped. After he’d pleasured Hutch orally that morning, he masturbated onto Hutch’s fading erection while feasting his eyes on Hutch’s perspiring skin, the flatness of his belly, that blond patch of hair at his groin, those erect nipples, closed eyes.

But he’d never given Hutch the chance to enjoy penetration.

“Tonight would be good,” he reiterated.

“Tonight it is,” Hutch said, a twinkle in his eye. “Imagine this, Starsky: having sex with each other—real, hot, liberating sex—any time we want it, and no hangups.”

“Oh, I’m way ahead of you in imagining all of everything with you.”

That Starsky would never again hear ‘no’ or ‘not tonight; I have a headache’ would be heaven on earth. Or not having to charm his way in every time he craved sex when she didn’t. “Ain’t it nice not to have to worry about birth control, either?”

“I’ve never worried about birth control.”

“Because the girls took—?”

“Because I had a vasectomy when I was 19.”

Without thinking, Starsky abruptly bolted from the bench to take a few steps away from Hutch. He didn’t know why he felt floored; he couldn’t put it into words, but he knew he felt it. When he faced Hutch, he still didn’t have an explanation for his sudden action.

“What?” Hutch asked, appearing confused and bewildered. “What did I say?”

Starsky took a few more steps away, ran his fingers through his hair to comfort himself, and then looked at Hutch again. “All these years we’ve known each other…”

“Yeah?”

“…and I don’t think I know you at all.”

“C’mon, Starsk,” Hutch complained with a frown. “You know me—better than anyone else knows me.”

“There’s this side to you I never knew existed until recently: about your childhood, about your sex life, about your … vasectomy.”

“It’s not like my vasectomy affects us.”

“That’s not my point, Hutch,” Starsky insisted. He closed half the distance between them so he could lower his voice and speak more calmly. “I’m saying I don’t think I know you: not this whole other side to you, anyway.”

“You know it now.”

“But all these years … all my jokes and innuendos and all of our conversations about dating and sex and relationships … and you never let on about any of it: not what your parents did to you, not how unsatisfied and inexperienced you’ve been in your sex life, not about deciding almost twenty years ago that you didn’t want kids.”

“I was afraid I might hurt one if I had one,” Hutch blurted. He shrugged as if he couldn’t explain it further, but then added, “I guess I subconsciously knew early on that I was going to have trouble in bed—trouble of my own making. But maybe I also didn’t want to explain to you why I’d had the procedure when and why I did.”

“Did your women know?”

“Not all of them. Vanessa knew.”

Starsky closed his mouth and relaxed, cornered his mind; he didn’t want to sound accusatory. He was simply overwhelmed. There wasn’t a more beautiful man on earth than the one he laid eyes on just then, no one more formidable, giving, trustworthy. Hutch was a good person and a better soul. But how did such a catch like Hutch ever live a life lacking in love—from his parents and his women; how was that possible?

There Hutch sat on the picnic table, his feet on the bench below him. He’d straightened when Starsky bolted away to get his wits under control. Hutch was dressed in snug-fitting jeans, an open-collared cotton shirt—blue to match the color of his eyes, now seeming to plead with Starsky for forgiveness that he didn’t need to ask for; he’d done no wrong.

Hutch was also an intelligent man, a kind and sensitive one; he had a big heart. He’d never been a threat to children or women—just the opposite, in fact. He was a savior and a hero—and he’d rescued Starsky and saved his life more than once, too. They were deeply indebted to each other.

Why did it take so long for Hutch to finally find love and intimacy, two things in life he so richly deserved? Why couldn’t Starsky have known Hutch’s history sooner and given him those gifts of pleasure and satisfaction in years past?

Of course the answer was obvious, as much as Starsky didn’t like it: were it not for his having been shot in the back and flat-lined at the hospital, neither of them would have been as close as they’d become because of it.

He stepped nearer to Hutch and looked longingly into Hutch’s crystal blue eyes, hoping to ease his partner’s apprehension, a discomfort he’d caused by his own impatience with the way the facts of their lives had unfolded.

Despite how ‘mostly alone’ they were in the park, Starsky still didn’t feel free to touch Hutch, not the way he wanted to in that moment, but he conveyed his affection and his love in the tone of his voice and in the compelling expression on his face. “If I had to get shot nearly to death so this could happen between us, then I’m glad I got shot.”

“You don’t know what you’re saying,” Hutch immediately snapped, sounding as angry as he suddenly looked; the softness had left his appearance.

“Yeah, I get it,” Starsky quickly explained. “You went through it more than I did; I was in a coma for a lot of that time. But I wouldn’t trade what we have right now together for anything in the world. I’m grateful for whatever brought us to this place with each other.” When Hutch shook his head and glanced away, Starsky tried a different angle to his argument. “Look at me.”

Hutch made eye contact again, he was wordless and no less mad.

“What do you see when you look at me?” Starsky asked, not playfully.

But Hutch lightly laughed, as if he was embarrassed or ashamed or simply needed to break the new tension in their conversation in order to survive it. “I see a dark-haired moron—”

“Come on. Be serious.”

Hutch paused a moment and then said, “I see the person I was destined to meet, to know, to love, the person who became the most important person in the world to me, and who is going to do more than just be in my life; he’s the one who will help me to finally and fully live it.”

Starsky wasn’t prepared for THAT answer, making him all the more moved by what he heard, and forgetting what he was planning to say. Instead, he said, “I guess it’s a ‘better late than never’ thing for us, hm?”

“Let’s go with that.”

“You know I want to kiss you right now, right?”

Hutch laughed—and then he reached out, grabbed Starsky by the back of his neck, and pulled him into a kiss; it wasn’t a long, sensual one, but it was affectionate and it was warm and it was loving. Mostly, it was quite carefree—and public.

“You know we could lose our badges over that,” Starsky reminded him when they broke apart, still pleased to have had the intimate contact. “You need to be more careful. We can’t take those risks.”

“They can strip us of our badges and our jobs,” Hutch agreed, “but nothing can stop us from being together, so I don’t give a shit what they do.”

“I like your style,” Starsky eventually said, surrendering to a smile. In his own way, Hutch was liberating Starsky, too. “I like you a lot, Hutchinson.”

“It shows,” Hutch said, pulling Starsky closer—to between his legs. “I see an entire world of love for me in your eyes.”

Starsky immersed his every sense in the snugness of Hutch’s embrace, the one in which he’d unexpectedly found himself. “Yeah? Well, you should be ashamed of yourself for stealing those words right out of my mouth.”

Scene Nine

“What are we doing next, Hutch, hm?”

Starsky sat against the trunk of a large ash tree; he’d left the picnic table for something more comfortable—and cooler—and found the grass to be just the ticket, despite the hard bark at his back.

He hadn’t asked Hutch if they should relocate from the private pergola to a shade tree, but he figured two things: one, that Hutch’s inner nature-boy would prefer it, and two, that Hutch would follow Starsky no matter where Starsky led him.

He mused on that notion before Hutch joined him on the ground; that they would trail after the other—maybe not immediately, but very much eventually. They were tied together in ways that were both conscious and not, and where one went, the other was predictably sure to follow.

“What are we doing next?” Hutch lazily asked, echoing Starsky’s question, obviously not certain about its direction. He lay on the ground beside Starsky, on his back, his hands folded over his belly, his ankles crossed, and his head in Starsky’s lap. For a while, he’d silently stared through the leaves toward the sky, but now his eyes were closed. He was the picture-perfect epitome of relaxation.

“Well, I mean … I want to sleep with you every night now,” Starsky explained. He rested his right hand in the grass beside him and his left on Hutch’s shoulder. “Don’t you want the same?”

“Then I guess that’s what’s next,” Hutch concluded.

“Yeah, but at whose place, dummy?”

“You have the bigger space—and it’s near the woods.”

“Yours is closer to markets and movies and other things to do.”

“There’s an actual bedroom at your apartment—complete with a door.”

Starsky lightly laughed—as if they needed a door. “You have that really cool greenhouse off the back.”

“It doesn’t hold a candle to the wooded area behind your place.”

“So it’s decided.”

Hutch laughed, but didn’t open his eyes. “Yours or mine?” He apparently didn’t care.

“Someplace new,” Starsky said, slipping his hand inside Hutch’s shirt and caressing his warm skin while he daydreamed. “We can get a house that has a big yard, a garage to park our cars, a TV in the living room and in our bedroom—which will be ‘complete with a door.’”

“I’m game,” Hutch agreed with a chuckle. He slowly exhaled, as if life had just come full circle for him.

“I’m thinking something else, too, Hutch.”

“I thought I heard more noise.”

“I’m thinking we should clean the slate,” Starsky continued, playfully bumping Hutch with his knee to repay him for the sarcastic jab.

“What slate is that, Starsk?”

“The life slate.”

“Wipe the life slate clean?”

“Yeah. You know. The past. The wrongdoings. The times we beat each other up. Those things. Put it all behind us.” He gazed out over the park grounds, its green grass and trees, the picnic areas, the few people about, some on bikes, others with dogs. It was a beautiful day—sunny and peaceful.

He also loved the feel of Hutch’s head snug in his lap, Hutch’s comfort with him, Hutch’s love and affection. Maybe there was something to intimacy being meaningful a thousand-fold in ways sex could never be.

“I mean, we can talk about those things if you want to, Hutch, about how we’ve done each other wrong over the years, but I’m saying we should just erase it—like we’re starting life over and this time it’s all about me and you.”

Hutch crossed his arms and opened his eyes. He looked up at Starsky and smiled when Starsky noticed. “You’re saying that I’m forgiven for punching you in the face when you told me about Gillian the night she was killed?”

“I forgave you for that a long time ago.”

“And you forgive me for being an asshole when you needed me after accidentally blinding Emily Harrison? I don’t know what my beef was then, but I was wrong to abandon you.”

“You solved the case; I couldn’t stay mad forever.”

“You could have and you would’ve been justified. I’d been a prick for a long time.”

“But I saw what was happening to you this past year: you were burned out and needed an escape, so you grew your hair and a stupid mustache and took on this ‘fuck it’ attitude to protect yourself from the violence that makes up a big part of our lives.”

“You’re waxing wise today, Starsk,” Hutch playfully warned, first patting, and then squeezing and holding Starsky’s hand to his chest under his shirt. “Watch yourself.”

“I’m just telling you like it is, Hutch. I could’ve been there for you while you unraveled as much as you think you should’ve been there for me. It took getting shot up in the parking lot to bring us both back to our senses.”

“I’ll forever wish we’d found another way to find ourselves again.”

“Well, it’s done. And here we are.”

“Here we are. So, no hard feelings about that whole Kira episode?”

“She taught me who mattered most. I mean, you’ve always been my Number One, but I never thought I’d have to choose between you and a woman.”

“You won’t ever have to do that again.”

“Another perk to Me and Thee, Hutch.”

“Another perk, Starsk. They just keep piling up.”

“So let’s do that: clean the life slate. Buy a house. Be just us from here on out.”

Hutch reached up and affectionately squeezed Starsky’s chin. “I think we’ve already begun.”

Scene Ten

“Mom, can you put Dad on the line? There’s something I want to tell you both.”

Starsky was jarred out of his lazy engagement with the real estate pamphlets when he heard Hutch speak those words. He’d half-noticed that Hutch was even making a phone call as they sat beside each other on the living room sofa. He was happy just to have Hutch join him there that evening, to sit so affectionately close, as they often did, but this time to be more deeply connected to Hutch than he’d ever been before.

Subconsciously, he did see Hutch set his wine glass to one side on the coffee table and pull the telephone to its edge between his knees, and that Hutch leaned forward, forearms on his thighs, and that Hutch repeatedly spun the finger wheel on its dialer—eleven times, was it?

Starsky even heard all of the mechanical sounds that such a task brought into the room. But until Hutch actually spoke into the handset, Starsky hadn’t really paid attention to the hard fact that Hutch had made an actual call.

After leaving the park that afternoon, they agreed to swing by Hutch’s apartment after Starsky’s physical therapy session so Hutch could water his plants. He also planned to gather up a few more personal items to take back to Starsky’s pad. But when they arrived at Venice Place and Hutch took his ever-loving time watering everything on the premises, they decided to have a sit-down meal at a nearby Mexican restaurant, having worked up an appetite.

“Why don’t we just stay at my place tonight?” Hutch suggested when they were finishing dinner. Two margaritas between them, coupled with satisfied, full bellies, and even the thought of driving back to Starsky’s apartment seemed to tire Hutch, at least mentally. “You wear my clothes anyway,” Hutch noted with a wink, implying that Starsky could dress in clean clothes come morning, even if they weren’t his own. “Let’s crack open a bottle of wine tonight and hang loose.”

“But there’ll be sex later, too, right?” Starsky wondered. If staying at Hutch’s place meant no sex—because Hutch didn’t want to risk prying eyes from his neighbors—then Starsky would do the driving himself back to his own apartment if Hutch wasn’t up to it. He refused to go a single other night without enjoying the pleasures of the flesh with Hutch.

“Who said sex was an option?” Hutch teased him. “I assumed it’s a given. Isn’t it?”

“Music to my ears, Hutch. Just making sure we’re thinking the same.”

“Bank on it.”

“Okay, so let’s spend the night at your house. I believe we’re planning on another first between us.” He flashed his eyebrows at Hutch.

Venice Place was only a block from where they’d dined; no driving across town between the end of dinner and enjoying themselves—romantically, playfully, and sexually—and they could get to their fun much sooner. Of course, Starsky stopped on the way back from the restaurant to grab half a dozen real estate promos, and Hutch bought a few groceries for the morning at the corner store.

Now on the sofa together, Starsky froze when he realized Hutch had made a long-distance call to his parents. Hutch’s voice was tempered, soft, not unfriendly, definitely unassuming; his posture relaxed, but confident. What was he hoping for? an apology?

“Starsky’s fine,” Hutch said into the receiver; his parents, one or both, must have asked about his partner. “He’s sitting right here with me so, no, that wasn’t a guess. He’s fine.”

Starsky slowly let out his breath, not realizing until then that he’d been holding it. He couldn’t help but think that the last person Hutch’s parents should ever want to talk to again would be Hutch’s partner. Starsky wouldn’t be so … casual. He might even punch someone. But it still didn’t explain why Hutch chose that moment, that night, to call his parents. He and Hutch were supposed to ‘crack open a bottle of wine and hang loose.’

Obviously, Hutch had changed his mind, and his decision to call his parents had to be related to the secrets he’d shared with Starsky, but in what way?

“Speaking of Starsky,” Hutch told them, “he said something to me this afternoon that’s stayed with me—and I want to follow up on it. He said we should clean the slate, put all the negatives in our lives behind us, start over.”

His call to his parents now made sense; Hutch was about to wipe the slate clean with them, too. It was too bad—because Starsky was more than willing to at least ‘crack’ Hutch’s father’s head open for the perverse damage he’d done to his son.

“For 30 years,” Hutch continued, without emotion in his voice, “I’ve avoided thinking about what you did to me when I was a kid. I told myself that that was then and this is now and to let bygones be bygones. I rationalized it as if it had happened to someone else in a different lifetime.”

Starsky remembered Hutch telling him those very words, too—and Starsky reminding him that it happened to Hutch in his only lifetime.

“I don’t want an apology,” Hutch abruptly warned them, sounding strong as he pushed back on whatever it was they were hoping to tell him. “I’m going to wipe this slate clean, so let me finish.”

Starsky didn’t know if he should touch Hutch, remind him that he wasn’t alone, but he might only serve to interrupt or distract him, so he decided against it.

“For decades,” Hutch said, “I convinced myself that those years you used me for some kind of sexual kink weren’t affecting my adult life; I’d outgrown them, moved on, recovered. But it wasn’t until Starsky nearly got killed that I realized I couldn’t go into a deeper relationship with him without telling him the truth of my life.”

A pause on the line, during which Hutch’s mother or father may have said something or asked a question, or were crying, before Hutch replied, “Yes, he’s still sitting here. I wouldn’t make this call without him.”

That’s when Starsky couldn’t help himself; he gently placed his hand on Hutch’s lower back to let him know he was appreciative of the inclusion—and that he was there for him, no matter what.

Hutch pressed on. “Starsky helped me to see that what you both did to me wasn’t just criminal. It was also immoral. Sick. Unconscionable. I can’t come to terms with it any other way. But it’s only now, because of him and his love and trust in me, that I’ve been able to see it for what it really was. I’ll never understand how you could molest a helpless little boy the way you did and for as long as you did—a boy of your own flesh-and-blood, a boy who trusted you to take care of him. … Yes, I’m angry.”

Hutch’s voice finally cracked—and he drew a deep breath, seeming resolved to end the call on the point he planned to make.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do about this legally—whether I should turn you in to the authorities or not, but I am going to tell Karen”—his sister—“especially now that she has a two-year-old. Maybe she and I can decide what to do. Maybe there are other children you’ve—”

He apparently got cut off at that moment by one or both of his parents because he changed direction. “Stop crying, Mom. It’s too little, too late. You’ve had decades to make this apology and you’re only doing it now because I’m calling you on it. I just want you both to know that I’m wiping this slate clean. I’m going to put it behind me. I’m finally on the road to recovery, at least to process it.”

Starsky gently caressed Hutch’s back, reminding him that he was loved—and that he was proud of Hutch for finally standing up to them.

A long pause passed before Hutch concluded, “You can’t explain it in a way I’ll ever be able to forgive or accept it, so stop trying. Just know that I’m hanging up now—and that you won’t be hearing from me again.”

He set the receiver in its cradle.

Scene Eleven

“Are you okay?”

Starsky wanted to laugh at the absurdity of Hutch’s question, but he was as appreciative of its timing as he was breathless, and all he could manage to say came purely by way of an approving moan.

Hutch had meticulously entered him for the first time; it wouldn’t be the last. Starsky knew that fact the second he felt Hutch’s hard, warm flesh push into him as he knelt before Hutch on the bed. He never wanted to give up that amazingly erotic sensation.

“Come back a little,” Hutch told him, pulling Starsky’s hips more firmly against his own for a better angle.

Stroking his own erection in his oiled hand was all the relaxation Starsky had needed to release the muscles in his anticipating groin, a surrendering wave of excitement that also found its way into his legs and toes, allowing Hutch an easy, glorious, and initial entry into his anus.

“Are you okay?” was actually a beautiful question, one of mindfulness and caring, matching Hutch’s gentleness and loving nature. Hutch was also breathless, but he had enough wits about him to lightly laugh when Starsky replied with that long, accepting moan. Hutch bent over him, hands beside Starsky’s shoulders, and whispered in Starsky’s ear. “You’ll tell me if you need to stop.”

It was one thing to be of the same mind, to be of similar beliefs and convictions, to have shared life experiences for a decade and counting, to be mutually respected and trusted—yet another to be in each other’s arms. But it was an altogether different and extraordinary event to feel Hutch inside him. There was simply nothing else like it on earth.

Despite the enormity of that moment, Starsky couldn’t convey his emotions in words; he could only do his best to keep breathing. But he did wiggle his hips to encourage more than just a deep slide into his already aroused body. He had waited a lifetime for something he never knew he’d wanted until then.

“Oh, Starsk,” Hutch whispered as he held them for half a minute in that suspended connection, as if, perhaps, he’d just become aware of the exceptional circumstance himself.

Starsky dreamily closed his eyes and focused his senses at the intersection of their union: Hutch’s fully erect and heated penis deep inside him, dilating him more than he would have thought possible, and seeming to throb, at least to fill him with warmth, with wet, with blood and skin, and that ever-present promise of extraordinary pleasure.

Then Hutch’s thrusts began. He eased out of Starsky to the very tip of his penis, and then drove back into him again; each withdrawal and penetration going deeper, becoming faster, but still disciplined.

Starsky surrendered to the rising wave of pleasure in his own well-rehearsed hand as he massaged and stroked his shaft, its head, edge of crown, frenulum—that amazing sweet spot on the underside of his penis beneath its cap.

But quite suddenly, something compelled Starsky to shift direction, a notion he didn’t have time nor his wits to think through; it was pure feeling, a thought-free, but conscious desire to be completely taken. He continued to pleasurably stroke himself in his lubricated left hand as he lifted his right arm up over his lower back. It was an awkward position at first, but one he immediately settled into, and one he could withstand were it to go the way he hoped.

Whether Hutch knew it or not, Starsky had just invited him into unleashing his deeper desires, if he had any, or realizing his hidden fantasies, likewise—or even to relinquish the long-buried resentment he may have felt toward his stolen childhood. Starsky wanted Hutch to know he was liberated and safe—and to use Starsky as a means to any end. Would Hutch even notice Starsky’s solicitation? Would he decline it? be offended?

Like the team they’d been for a decade, like all those times they read each other’s mind and knew each other’s heart, Hutch took the bait. He let go of Starsky’s right hip to grip his sacrificed forearm instead, pinning it more tightly to Starsky’s back while, at the same time, he drove deeper and more fervently into and out of Starsky with long, hard, and deliberate strokes.

There was the sound of their commingled heavy breathing, of their grunts and moans; the wet perspiration where their skin came into contact with each of Hutch’s penetrations, an audible, stimulating slapping against Starsky’s thighs as Hutch plunged deeply into him and out again.

Starsky reveled in the feeling that he was being held in place, helpless against the furious onslaught, forced into that inevitable ecstasy.

It seemed to be likewise for Hutch because he soon let go of a lengthy moan of pleasure. “I’m coming,” he blurted. “I’m coming hard.”

The crest of an orgasm washed over Starsky until he couldn’t help but reply in kind. “Me, too,” he said between heavy breaths.

Hutch’s climax pushed Starsky’s ejaculation into its long-awaited existence. It overtook him as Hutch emptied his sac as far inside him as Hutch could manage, tightly fixed against him as he surrendered the load. Starsky spilled at the same time onto the bed, crying out when the initial pulse of pleasure overwhelmed him, and then whimpering with each of the diminishing, but pleasurable spasms of creamy spurts. His head spun. His heart pounded—so hard that he thought it might explode out of his chest.

Hutch finally let go of Starsky’s arm so he could drop it to the mattress, and then he slowly withdrew—another long and glorious slide, this one relieving in its departure. Hutch fell onto his back to Starsky’s left, wordless as he audibly caught his breath.

Nearly a minute passed before Starsky stirred, finally collapsing onto his belly, his entire body tingling with satisfaction. He opened his eyes and looked at Hutch lying beside him; his partner’s eyes were closed, his arm up over his forehead, and his skin glistened in the lamp light. Starsky too was sweating and he was spent, but not so much that he couldn’t find the strength to say, “Maybe I didn’t survive that shooting—because this sure feels like heaven.”

Hutch did what Starsky hoped. He dropped his arm to his side, turned his head, and made eye contact. Then he smiled on an exhale and lightly laughed. “I must have died with you because here we are together again.”

“Again, forever.”

“Yeah. That, too.”

When Hutch looked back to the ceiling, Starsky let a minute of silence pass before he returned a question he’d heard earlier that night. “Are you okay?”

He didn’t know what Hutch had been feeling when he pinned Starsky in front of him and aggressively took him; had it been a deeper desire? a hidden fantasy come to life? Or had it been resentment, a reclaiming of his damaged childhood—and his disappointing sex life because of it? Could that hurt ever be erased? Would Hutch even know why Starsky asked him if he was okay?

Hutch didn’t look at Starsky, but he did smile. “Could. Not. Be. Better,” he said, emphasizing each word.

“Yeah, but I mean, are you really okay?”

Hutch rolled to his side, faced Starsky, gently ran his fingers through Starsky’s hair, and eventually replied, “I honestly couldn’t be better. I know what you were doing there—and I took advantage of it. Got it out of my system.” He shyly smiled and dropped his hand to the mattress between them. “But I’d rather punch a bag than bang you like that again.”

“I loved it,” Starsky confessed. He also loved the way the light shined from Hutch’s blue eyes, and the reminder he was given by how tousled Hutch’s hair was; they’d both had a rough round of sex—and they enjoyed it equally, albeit for different reasons. “Any time you want to purge more angry feelings like that, please feel free to. I won’t mind.”

“I’d rather make love to you. Despite what you’ve heard—or seen—I’m more of a lover than a fighter.”

Starsky lightly laughed. “That’s saying something. But there’s also that other thing.”

“What other thing?”

“You … leaving your parents.”

“Were they parents? Don’t answer that. I don’t want to talk about them anymore. I’ll call my sister and then that’s the last I want to know about it, at least for a while, okay?”

“Sure,” Starsky said, not insincerely. He held Hutch’s hand to the bed and appreciated his warmth. “But whenever you want to deal with any of it, you know, to heal more or to close the door tighter or whatever, you know I’m here.”

“I do. You’ve always been there for me, even when I didn’t deserve it. And soon we’ll be living together. We’ll be there for each other around the clock. If it were legal, I’d marry you.”

Starsky lightly laughed. “Well, we can dream, hm?” He’d marry that beautiful man in a heartbeat.

Hutch winked. “Who knows what the future holds?”

“But the past and the present are still here, Hutch. I mean, you just left your parents.” Starsky couldn’t believe how nonchalant Hutch had been about divorcing his parents.

“And?” Hutch quipped. He looked so relaxed and happy—like he didn’t have a care in the world.

“And you can’t be as okay with that as you say you are.”

“Sure I can. It’s behind me.”

“Just like that?”

“Just like that.”

“How do you figure?” Despite how much he wished it for Hutch, he couldn’t imagine it.

“How do I figure, Starsk? Because I had a life-changing epiphany not too long ago.”

“Yeah? And what was that?”

Hutch gazed longingly into Starsky’s eyes and then gently stroked his cheek. “That you’re all I need.”

* * *