Another Excerpt from Saving Starsky

Hutch would take as long as Hutch would take and all Starsky could do was wait…

Saving Starsky is the second novel in a Dandelion’s Series 1.

Originally published in the SHareCon 2016 zine.

Starsky was unusually patient that afternoon. Perhaps the tranquility of the mountain had finally mellowed him; that, and Hutch’s annoyed, but instructive advice to ‘be still.’ While Hutch leaned against the truck flank outside its opened rear passenger door, Starsky climbed into the back seat to wait for him. He lay half in, half out, his butt to the edge of the opening, one foot on the running board, the other leg bent, its boot wedged between the door frame and the seat cushion, and did as he often saw Hutch do, which was to cover his eyes in the bend of his elbow. A darker ambiance allowed him to concentrate purely on all his other senses. Besides, Hutch would take as long as Hutch would take and all Starsky could do was wait.

They’d spotted what Hutch thought was a bald eagle—and he was determined to see it again, that time with his high-powered binoculars. Despite Starsky’s grumbling, Hutch insisted it would be worth the effort to see the avian predator up close—after all, it was the nation’s national bird. Hutch talked Starsky into the temporary suspension of their plans when he playfully accused Starsky of not being patriotic enough to honor his country’s symbol, even with a look-see, so Starsky reluctantly crawled into the back of the truck cab to compromise.

When neither of them spoke, he slowly became aware of other sounds: the light breeze passing through the high-leafed trees that surrounded them, the birds across the meadow in cheerful song, the ever-so-faint hum of an airliner miles away in the sky, the buzz of meadow insects on their busy, winged journeys. Though he couldn’t hear anything Hutch did—a shift in position, an audible sigh—he was, at the very least, keenly aware of Hutch’s presence.

Time passed. Slowly. Starsky sank further into his relaxation, into the pleasant feel of the sun’s warmth on his clothed legs, into the rhythm of natural sound, and especially into the otherwise almost-still quiet that enveloped him. He became lost in the present.

He’d never felt safer.

This particular visit into the wild places Hutch loved so much was seemingly without threats of rattlesnakes, black bears… Satanic cults. This time it was purely an in-the-moment experience, brought on by the unusual seclusion of that patch of wild land. The only thing missing from it was direct contact with Hutch. Intimate contact.

The breeze tickled the tall grass outside and momentarily enveloped him in its timeless rustle. “Suck me?” he finally asked, breaking the peacefulness with his masculine voice, when he couldn’t think of any other way he’d rather pass that time, cradled as he was on a soft sort of bed, feeling sleepy and content with Hutch’s spontaneous bird-watching project.

Time had slowed so much, it seemed as if a half hour had passed before he heard Hutch’s reply.

“In a minute,” came the familiar voice, more magnified than he expected, amplified purely from the quiet around them, and yet as gentle as was Hutch’s nature.

The words, “in a minute,” leap-frogged in Starsky’s mind. He was relatively thoughtless, so they were able to find a home there. He could wait a minute. He could wait two, in fact. He settled further into his realm of sound and no sound and dreamed about passing time.

Initially, he and Hutch had decided to use the daylight hours to scout the boundaries of the property, to find what did and didn’t belong to them, so they wouldn’t overstep what had recently become legally theirs. After locating the second property stake, they were certain they were on the right path depicted on their plot map—but Hutch then saw the predatory bird, which Starsky insisted was a turkey vulture, and Hutch debated. It had just cleared the treetops when Starsky was able to glimpse it for a second in the sky, and Hutch was too excited about what he’d seen to believe Starsky saw anything that mattered.

“You wouldn’t know a turkey vulture or a bald eagle—or a black bird, for that matter—if they came up and bit you on the ass,” he chided his partner.

“Says you.”

“Says anybody,” Hutch had mumbled, needing to have the last word.

Starsky recalled that playful crack while he lightly dozed in and out of consciousness, sometimes sleeping past a stronger breeze in the leafy trees, coming to the surface over something much quieter—the buzz of an insect on the wing—while the sun continued to warm his legs.

He rather liked this kind of serenity. It was as if time stood still—and yet there were reminders all around him that it marched on: the endlessness of the barely noticeable wind, the immeasurable stillness of their isolated wilderness surroundings, the birds in perfect harmony.

But it was all slower somehow, more appreciated, made its presence known to him. He understood better why Hutch loved the outdoors. No telephones. No computers. No television. No troubled kids. No rape victims. Or memories of rape. He and Hutch were adrift, held captive by the material while they sailed aimlessly along on the breeze.

“In a minute,” he heard again in his mind. Hutch would suck him ‘in a minute.’ The idea would normally have aroused Starsky, but he was so sleepy and serene, he could only wait for it. His senses were tuned much more to his environment—and to Hutch’s presence—than they were to Hutch’s promise.

He heard Hutch sigh—a sort of soulful commiseration with the wind—as Hutch abandoned his effort to relocate the majestic bird. A minute had passed, after all—a minute that had felt like a thousand minutes to Starsky, and each one of them welcomed, un-pressured—because Starsky was in no hurry. He knew what would eventually pass his way.

Hutch audibly moved, shifted outside the door, his sleeve rubbed against his shirt, and he crunched gravel under his boot with a single step. Starsky heard him set the binoculars inside the truck bed, metal clanking to metal, a hollow, weighted sound. And then he felt, not just heard, when Hutch stepped into the doorway. Starsky didn’t open his eyes. He couldn’t if he’d tried. He was no place with nothing to see, and yet he was right where he relished to be: alone in an unplanned, private wilderness with his brother-by-fate.

He felt Hutch’s strong hand squeeze his knee; its contact warmed his skin further when his jeans were more tightly pressed against his leg. It felt good and gave him that first pang of want. He felt Hutch lean into him, his determined hip to Starsky’s willing thigh. And then he felt Hutch’s other hand nudge his bent knee, to encourage Starsky to lower his leg, which he did, resting that foot on the running board, too.

No words passed between them.

Starsky was—probably for the first time in his life—at Hutch’s mercy. At least he felt so. It was Hutch’s world, after all—the mountain and the sky and the breeze in the high trees. They held him in their timelessness. And those were now Hutch’s strong hands on both his legs, squeezing him, massaging him, approaching his penis, which had begun to noticeably throb with anticipation.

Hutch caressed Starsky’s legs and his pelvis, his hips and his belly. He then gently pulled Starsky’s arm away from his face. Starsky knew Hutch wanted to see him in the throes of ecstasy, so he didn’t resist the request. But he didn’t open his eyes, either. He was immersed purely in the feel of the man who was about to pleasure him.

Hutch’s fingers pulled the tab of his zipper while he intentionally groped Starsky’s bulge through the denim—and slowly, teasingly, opened the fly. Starsky didn’t wear undershorts and Hutch was mindful to not catch his hair in the teeth of the zipper.

Starsky’s smile never appeared on his mouth. He was too mesmerized to move. Instead, he anticipated, and he relished the feel of every action at Hutch’s command, and he was increasingly aroused and aching for the inevitable.

The fly fully opened and nature’s cool breeze, the one that passed in the high-leafed trees, tickled his skin on its way through the truck cab. He had hardened, but couldn’t straighten in the confines of his jeans, exhaling his relief—and delight—to feel Hutch reach inside to aid him. Hutch’s tug was gentle and pleasing. He pulled Starsky’s stiffening penis to the fly, massaged his sac from outside the denim to assuage whatever discomfort he perceived he may have caused Starsky in the repositioning, and then he gripped Starsky’s waistband.

In another time, Starsky would have helped his partner undress him, but he was too relaxed and too hypnotized to lift a finger, let alone his hips. Hutch didn’t seem to mind. He certainly wasn’t deterred. He lowered Starsky’s jeans without Starsky’s help, with a bit of force and a whole lot of determination, pulling the jeans’ crotch to just beneath Starsky’s scrotum, fully releasing Starsky’s sac and his cock from its confines and, no doubt, enjoying the view. Hutch couldn’t take them lower because he stood between Starsky’s thighs, and it was simply physically impossible, but it was enough to free what they both hungered for.

A brief, inexplicable pause in the action actually allowed Starsky to momentarily fall asleep—contented and entranced by Hutch’s caressing touch and by his obvious want and by his precious presence; it was only when he heard the faint sound of the oil bottle being recapped did he wake to consciousness again. Hutch hadn’t moved from inside his legs except to retrieve the tiny vial from his own front jeans pocket.

Starsky quietly moaned. He knew Hutch had deposited a spot of oil into his hands; he heard Hutch rub them together and knew he coated his palm and fingers with it. And he imagined Hutch’s knowing smile when he heard Starsky make such a sound, the moan of ache and want and desire and anticipation all rolled into one audible expression. They read each other without words, especially their volumes of unspoken ones.

Hutch pushed Starsky’s shirt further up onto his chest and then caressed Starsky’s haired belly with the almond oil. Then his bared hips. Then his sac. He gently massaged each bulging testicle in his slick fingers, and allowed the breeze to heighten the sensation of his touch. Warm hand. Skilled fingers. Slow motion. Hutch straightened Starsky’s penis against his navel and it noticeably swelled from the contact. Starsky moaned a sort of begging sound—and was delightedly rewarded. Hutch’s wet lips unexpectedly kissed his cock, tongued kisses to build Starsky’s pleasure sooner, kisses that covered his glistening measurable length and widening girth.

Nature disappeared. There was no sound. No wind in the trees. No airliner on a horizon. No magnified flutter of butterfly wings in flight. All he could do was feel, to sink further into his serenity, to surrender entirely to the physical sensations with its tickle across his skin, and to feel Hutch’s lips on his stiffened and still-hardening shaft, from their softest touches to their most determined ones.

There was no better lover than the man who devoured him in that tight, caressing, squeezing, warmly wet hand and mouth. No one more meticulous. Or attuned. Or sensual. Or giving. And certainly not one who was all those things. Hutch had promised ‘in a minute’ and it was a promise Starsky knew would not be broken. On that commitment alone, Starsky gave himself over completely to the man who loved him.

The first sound to creep back in was Hutch’s heavy breathing, his own soft moans of pleasure, an emotional satisfaction he gave himself in the giving, an empathy Starsky knew Hutch felt with him—from the pure joy of the physical sensations on his cock and sac. Only a man could feel it precisely so. He was certain only a man understood its necessity. Only a man appreciated the degree of its urgency. And only a man would willingly lengthen those desires for him, make them last, push them to the edge, bring them back, push them further again. He reached for Hutch, held his head and his soft hair between his hands so he could feel the rise and fall of Hutch’s mouth and hand through it, in tandem, on his cock, briskly pumping it at times, slowly loving it at others, kissing and licking and caressing him, tightly, then gently, over and again, till he didn’t think he could resist another minute of delaying his orgasm.

“Oh,” he whispered between his deepening pants. His heart pounded. His cock was hard and slick with oil, and hardening further because Hutch’s sucking was spurred by Starsky’s moans of pleasure. Starsky knew his lover could feel his heart throbbing into his penis, engorging it more intensely. He imagined Hutch’s heartbeat, pounding furiously, too, despite the rhythmic sensualness of the deliverance—or maybe because of it. He could hear it in Hutch’s halting breath, in those soft, drawn-out, compulsive moans of sheer and unabated enjoyment. He knew they were both captive to Starsky’s heated flesh—differently, but the same.

And then Hutch did what he did so well to Starsky when he knew the man was close: he nursed the cock’s head and crown in his tight, slick lips while his fingers tightened around the shaft, stroking it in long orgasmic sensations of seemingly unending ecstasy—creating a rolling wave for Starsky, one that ebbed and flowed, but grew stronger on every upstroke.

“Oh,” Starsky managed to tell him, completely at Hutch’s generosity, “oh… you make my dick . . . feel so good… oh, god… my dick… feels… so good…”

Hutch finally put Starsky over the edge, as he knew he would, as they both knew he would, when he added his tongue to the exquisite pleasure that only Starsky could feel in those minutes—by licking his frenulum while he sucked its meaty head. The overwhelming surge of cresting ache crashed over Starsky and forced him into a helpless ejaculation.

His grip on Hutch was unrelenting; he stopped the man from making a single other move, to make certain he wouldn’t be interrupted, while his releasing moans were loud and unchecked, his hiss and his cussing as equally reflective of the intense pulse after pulse of pleasure that spilled from the abyss within his dark-veined cock, emptying its creamy white spurts of semen as deeply into the back of Hutch’s throat. Starsky was too overcome with the heightened ebb of his climax to know that Hutch swallowed every drop he delivered, but he would know afterward, as he always did, just from its absence.

Starsky still couldn’t open his eyes, even after his body fell deeper into the cushioned seat at his back. He was immeasurably spent and satisfied, too satisfied to need any sort of visual communication. He held Hutch in his grip for some minutes while he continued to enjoy the more caressing strokes from Hutch’s tongue and the looser touch of his hand.

Oh, the bask of the aftermath.

When it seemed their breathing had quieted and nature’s sounds resumed their harmonies, Starsky let Hutch go. But Hutch didn’t leave hurried. He didn’t leave for another minute. He simply held Starsky in hand, buried still in his embracing mouth, unmoving, but connected. Waiting. When he did retreat, he did it carefully, slowly, with affection and warmth, with tenderness and love. As Starsky’s shaft and then his crown slipped from Hutch’s mouth, he kissed it with his tongue and lips in a sort of sensual farewell.

Then he straightened and let Starsky go completely.

Starsky reached for Hutch and soon felt Hutch’s oiled fingers in his own. He gave them a squeeze of gratitude, before he, too, let that go, and Hutch left the truck’s doorway.

Starsky buried his face against the backseat cushion to elude the light, to drown out the call of time, in his last ditch effort to bathe in the after-bliss. His fly was still unzipped, his penis still too swollen to tuck inside the denim. He would patiently wait for it to subside, just the way he waited for Hutch’s ‘in a minute.’ He would wait while he dozed and woke and dozed again, and listened to the wind in the high trees, the low hum of another airliner on a faraway cloudless sky, the buzz of an insect in passing, and the sweet, cheerful song of a bird nearby.

Hutch’s presence, close and keenly felt, woke him enough to be conscious, and he couldn’t help but feel time had passed without him, more time than he could have measured. He lifted his hips to pull up his jeans, zipped them without buttoning them, and finally sat up to have a sleepy look around. Hutch was where he imagined he’d be: on his back in the grassy meadow, his arm bent over his eyes, no doubt basking himself in the satisfaction of his giving satisfaction, warmed by the sun, sung to by the breeze in the trees, and Starsky’s presence, right up front, never out of mind.

Starsky slid off the seat to his feet, pushed out of the truck cab, and walked out to where Hutch lay. He knew, despite no visible acknowledgement from Hutch, that Hutch knew he was there—the way he himself had known it some many minutes ago when Hutch stepped into the truck doorway.

He sat in the grass beside him, studied what he could see of Hutch’s flawless face, his lips and his nose, his lightly creased forehead, that translucent, breeze-tousled blond hair. He swept his eyes over Hutch’s shirted chest, his belted, snug-at-the-groin zippered jeans, that bulge he longed to touch, the hiking boots he wore, his ankles crossed, and then he gently squeezed Hutch’s knee.

“Your turn,” he said.