Clearance

Starsky gets a special kind of clearance, but is Hutch ready to reap the benefits?

First published in Venice Place Chronicles volume VII.

The phone call came when Hutch was in the shower, but months of listening for every sound from his partner had enhanced his hearing, and he reached the phone by the third ring. He stood dripping a puddle on the floor and unconcerned with water stains. “Hello?”

“What took you so long to get to the phone?”

He’d always cared more about that voice than any other, but lately it had the side effect of speeding his pulse, especially in the vein that ran along his cock. “I was in the shower, Starsk.”

“Shower? This time of day? Why’re you there, anyway? Why aren’t you at the station?” He was in the shower because he’d uncharacteristically dusted his coffee table and all its contents, washed the shelves in his fridge, and polished the brass bed rails before he realized he was doing a wholesale spring cleaning in November. He’d hoped the shower might wash off some of the insanity. But that wasn’t what Starsky had asked. “Lieutenant George seemed to think with you at the big doctor’s appointment, I’d be useless. Told me to take off after lunch.”

“Damn, Hutch, you’ve only been riding a desk in the Victim Affairs Bureau for three months. You got your lieutenant trained like Dobey already?”

“Uh, well, he got a crash course this morning, actually.”

“How’s that?”

Hutch wished he’d grabbed a towel so he would have at least had something to fidget with while humiliating himself. “The victim of a recent mugging called requesting one of the hotline numbers, and I gave her the wrong number.”

“So?” Starsky sounded confused. And unusually antsy. “Big deal. You guys have a lot of numbers to keep in the old memory bank.”

“It wasn’t that I gave her the wrong number as much as the number I did give her.”

“What number’d you give her?”

Hutch expelled a deep breath and with it a string of words, “Igaveherthedoctor’s officenumber.”

“What? Hutch, I don’t have dog ears.”

“I said I gave her the number for your doctor’s office.” After a beat of silence, he heard Starsky’s rich laughter. “I didn’t even realize my mistake until she called back and complained…to Lieutenant George.”

“You’re too much, Hutch, y’know that? Too much.”

Hutch put his hand on his hip and glared at the phone. “Too much of what?”

“Too much of a good thing.”

There it was again, that voice Hutch had still not grown used to Starsky pulling on him. He’d heard the teasing, flirtatious version of it for years, but this new, raw seductive quality had Hutch’s cock rising to meet his belly. “Thought you could never have too much of a good thing.”

“Umm. You got me there. How soon can you get over here?”

Oh, no. Christ, no. With one part of his brain supporting his hearing capacity and trying to count Starsky’s inhalations and exhalations, the remainder of Hutch’s mind went to town on self-recrimination. He’d thought he was doing the right thing moving back to Venice, shoring up Starsky’s independence, giving his partner space. Of all the stupid–

“What’s wrong, Starsky? Did they find something? Damn it, I told you I thought that new physical therapist was rushing you through the regimen.”

“Hutch! My breathing’s good, I have no broken bones, and I’m not bleeding. Okay? Just get over here soon as you can, but get here in one piece!”

~*~

Starsky opened the door expecting to pull his partner over the threshold into a knee-buckling kiss, but the disheveled man on his doorstep distracted him from amorous plans. He did pull Hutch in by the hand, though, kicking the door closed. His hair still damp around the ears, tendrils hanging over the high forehead, Hutch wore his old green running sneakers, blue sweatpants, and a yellow pullover that looked like it had been used to polish silver. Most telling of all was the solitary sock. Hutch’s right foot was bare in its sneaker. Beside the raggedy-Hutchinson, Starsky felt overdressed in his good jeans and brown-and-teal striped turtleneck.

“You come over in this shape after I told you I was fine? How would you’ve shown up if I hadn’t handed out reassurances?”

One Hutchinson glare equaled a few sentences of profane comment. “Naked, with a speeding ticket glued to my ass.”

Starsky hiked his eyebrows. “The naked part sounds good.”

Hutch looked in the foyer mirror and shuddered at his reflection. Heading for the sofa, he stopped at the arm and perched on it. “Starsky, why the urgent summons?”

Starsky’s kiss seemed to be getting farther away by the second. He went straight for the money shot, “straight” hopefully not the word of the day. “I got clearance, Hutch.”

“Clearance?”

“For sex.”

“Oh.” Hutch looked mildly confused.

Starsky tried to outdo Hutch’s glare. “That face has ‘why’ all over it, Hutch. You better not ask me any question with ‘why’ in it, when you know.” God, he hoped the man knew. The way they’d been exploring the brave new world of male-male kissing over the last month or so, he’d better know.

A touch of pink livened up Hutch’s cheeks, and he halfway smiled. “Yeah, I do. I just–I guess I wondered if…hell, Starsky, even a man who doesn’t go for peanut butter can work up an appetite for PB&Js when that’s all–“

“Stop!” Starsky snapped, then softened the yell with a smile of his own. “If that’s a joke, your sense of humor’s more twisted than I thought. If it’s not a joke, then I can’t figure out whether you’re saying I’m a big user or just pathetic, and where does that leave you?”

“It was neither; I mean, I meant neither. I–Oh, for God’s sake.” Hutch left his perch on the sofa and took Starsky into his arms.

Starsky got a whiff of freshly showered Hutch as those long tender arms went tight around him, and he had to have a taste, first of Hutch’s neck right beneath the earlobe, then the lobe itself just to feel that tall body shiver. But Hutch’s parted lips drew him, and he’d just about satisfied his need to adopt Hutch’s tongue when his partner broke the kiss, breathing heavily. Hutch drew back and looked Starsky over from neckline to socks as if expecting a big lighted High Risk sign to pop out of some not-yet-healed crevice on Starsky’s body. “Clearance, huh? For the whole shebang?”

Starsky reached around to cup Hutch’s ass, so squeezable through the sweatpants, and drew him in close again. “The whole nine yards. Believe me, partner, by the time I got through with my questions, the doc was all too glad to see me go. Good thing it’s confidential, ’cause I left no doubt in his mind that the sex I was planning to have involved another dick.”

“Jesus, Starsk!” Hutch’s delicious mouth curved upward under the mustache, but the smile was more one of respect than simple happiness.

Starsky shrugged. “Knew you’d worry if I didn’t cover all the bases.” He jerked a thumb at the bookcase wall. “And when I get you in that bed, I don’t want you worried.”

“Oh? How do you want me?”

“Outta your mind. Maybe we should have a nice dinner out, take in a movie, sit around and moon over each other a little, but, man, it’s been a long time coming–” Starsky shook his head, laughing a little at himself. “What I’m saying is I’ve been wanting you, and after all this waiting, like even my left hand needed some kind of medical waiver to get friendly with my cock, I don’t think I–“

“I know,” Hutch said in that new whispery-gentle voice he’d been using around Starsky a lot. “Me, too. Same boat. I think we can skip the cookie-cutter date.”

After that, they tried to beat each other to the bedroom. Starsky didn’t jeopardize all his PT progress with a flying leap onto the bed, but he shed socks, jeans, and turtleneck in two blinks and climbed in between the freshly laundered blue sheets. Hutch had apparently forgotten how to pull his shirt up over his head and shove his pants down at the same time, and Starsky joked that Aunt Rose could probably undress faster.

He got another Hutchinson watch-it glare. “Well, if a guy could get a little help from his partner besides smart ass commentary….”

Starsky needed no second invitation. He hastened on all fours to the edge of the bed and lifted the hem of Hutch’s pullover, yanking it up and off the squirming Hutch who was shaking his sweatpants down to his knees. In his violent haste, Hutch booted one sneaker all the way into the living room, and the other landed inches from the bathroom. Then, naked and panting, he was in Starsky’s bed and in Starsky’s arms. They stretched against each other and kissed leisurely, content to prove they could still find time for pleasure in it, even with the main event so tantalizingly near. Before kissing Hutch, Starsky had never imagined that a bristly mustache could curl his toes during a kiss, but Hutch had a way of brushing the short blond hairs over Starsky’s kiss-puffy lips at just the right instant when the added stimulation really upped the ante. Or maybe it was just that the mustache belonged to Hutch, and Starsky was all about anything of Hutch’s rubbing against anything of his. The kissing didn’t stay leisurely. Their mouths raced past heated and didn’t slow down at wild, and Hutch’s mustache hairs seemed hell-bent on getting acquainted with Starsky’s nose hairs, but that was just fine, because Starsky’s nose meant nothing to him compared to his straining, burning, crazy-for-Hutch dick.

He’d planned to love Hutch real slow, take the edge off, linger over the foreplay, but his mind and cock had allied themselves in mutiny over his heart, and he unleashed all his pent-in fantasies on his stunned partner in blindingly rapid succession. One second, he had initiated a fire-starting friction of their cocks, lying between Hutch’s legs for better access, and the next moment, he crawled out of reach and bent over to take the exposed tip of Hutch’s cock in his mouth. He suckled until Hutch started whimpering, and then he pulled away, rolling Hutch with him until his partner rested comfortably on his stomach. Starsky gently pushed Hutch’s strong thighs together and then lay atop him, pressing his cock into that sweet, tight space between the smooth, very finely-haired legs. With his arms braced on either side of Hutch’s shoulders, he thrust harder and faster to the point of crying out, when he was abruptly but gently toppled. Hutch rolled over and came to rest on his side, facing Starsky, who stayed on his back, too stunned to move. Starsky drew in air, cock throbbing, so close. Oh, God. He slapped his hand around the base of his cock in an almost cruelly tight grip, and he heard a loud, harsh gasp from Hutch as his bedmate did the same to his own overheated erection.

Hutch let out a sound somewhere between an “aha!” and laughter. “Is it just my imagination, or has somebody in this bed been reading up on all this?”

Starsky tried hard to focus on his best friend’s flushed, sweaty face. “Why do you think–?”

“Because I feel like you’re taking me on a whirlwind tour through the pages of The Joy of Gay Sex. Why the mad rush, Starsky?”

Hutch couldn’t possibly expect him to talk. Hutch was a man, for Chrissakes; he knew that all the blood flow to the vocal chord muscles reversed course and flowed straight to the dick during sex. Even bad sex, but incredible sex like this….

Maybe it hadn’t been incredible for Hutch so far. That thought diverted some blood back to Starsky’s voice box. “Hutch, I–“

Hutch smiled, looking capable of holding forth on the recent fluctuation in the gross national product. Starsky gritted his teeth. Damn, he would have to be in bed with probably the world’s only man who had a special reserve of blood and oxygen that kept the brain functioning at peak capacity during animal passion. “Maybe you weren’t the only one thinkin’ about the PB&J scenario.”

“Oh?”

“Gonna make me spell it out?”

Hutch dropped a light kiss on his shoulder. “I’m naked in bed with you. Don’t I deserve a little spelling?”

“Yes, damn it, you do. This thing I have for you is way the hell more than a crush, and I’m acting on it, okay? I just don’t know exactly the best way to act on it.”

“And I’ve never felt anything like this for a man before you, so I’m not bringing experience to the table–er, bed–either.”

“Yeah, and you know I’m the kind of guy who’ll grab for what’s right in front of him in case–” Starsky didn’t put voice to the fear itching the back of his mind.

Hutch had never looked sexier than he did right then, fingering the sweat trail on his own chest, smile glistening and hotter than a kiss, cock flushed and hard enough to ram through every one of Starsky’s defenses. Starsky’s cock pulsed at the sight of him. Then Hutch shook his head in amusement over something he read in Starsky’s mind, and boom, he was Hutch, partner and best friend, the same guy Starsky had worked with, laughed with, and fought with for a decade. Somehow that made Hutch–and the situation–even more stunningly erotic. If they didn’t hurry back to the sex part of sharing a bed, Starsky would come from just lying here jawing with his naked partner, and the manhood police would be knocking down the door to seize his guy license for that violation.

“Starsk, are you trying to tell me you were hitting all the highlights in case I’d suddenly come to my senses, take one look at your cock, and have some kind of dissociative episode and run screaming out the door never to return?”

Starsky wanted to look away before he did something unforgivable like blush or shove his head under the pillow, but he couldn’t wrest his attention from Hutch’s smile. “I wouldn’t’ve made this a Freudian spelling bee, but yeah, that’s the general idea.”

Hutch’s mustache twitched and Starsky vowed there would be the mother of all pillow fights if Hutch started laughing at him. But he didn’t even laugh “with” him. The mustache twitching eased into another tender smile. “Well, buddy, just apply what you told me in the living room, because it goes both ways. I wouldn’t be in this bed with you if I thought I’d be out of it a few minutes later. Your cock’s a daunting hunk of meat to a virgin ass, I’ll grant you, but it’s just not that frightening. I’d even say it’s lovely.”

“Lovely!” Starsky was outraged and pleased at the same time, but outrage won by a slim margin. “Come on, Hutch, you can’t say a man’s wood is ‘lovely.’ Hung, hot, hard as a rock, fine, but lovely?”

Hutch gave him a hard look. “Starsky, you better not be assigning gender to compliments. You’ve recently called my eyes, hair, lips, teeth, and nose beautiful. Should I be concerned here?”

Starsky did blush then. “But they are, you are, and–oh, fuck it, can we go back to grilling me about the sex manual? That was easier. Or better yet, let’s just fuck. It’s been a long time, Hutch.”

Hutch nodded. “For me, too.”

Starsky gaped at him. “You had no restrictions, no doctors telling you to avoid a hand job if you didn’t want emergency surgery, you didn’t have to–“

“Didn’t have to, what? Wait for you? Come on, Starsky, you know how it is. Sometimes when a guy really knows what he wants, his hand starts looking a hell of a lot better than any substitution out there. And no lady has your three o’clock shadow and this amazingly silky hair right here…” Hutch drew his fingers through Starsky’s chest hair, and Starsky loved that those fingers didn’t avoid the interruption of scar tissue, traversing the surgical lines as easily and unselfconsciously as they caressed the healthy skin on Starsky’s chest.

“So what’re you saying?”

Hutch brought those questing fingers up to thread through Starsky’s rumpled hair. “I’m saying we don’t have to tick off the chapters in a sex guide one by one, and we don’t have to think about how unusual this is for both of us. We can just explore.”

“Explore?” Starsky’s cock jumped with interest. Why hadn’t he thought of that?

“Um-hm. There are so many things I never imagined I’d be curious about.”

“Yeah? Like what?”

Hutch moved that gifted hand again, and this time the fingers carded through and tugged lightly on the dark nest of hair around Starsky’s cock. Starsky hissed and lifted his hips, pressing into the gentle touch. “Like these little curls. How many times have I seen them in station showers? Never thought I’d know what it feels like to run my fingers through them. Or, I wonder–“

Hutch shifted around to lie on his side parallel to the shelved headboard, propped his right elbow to the left of Starsky’s waist, and Starsky felt the warmth of Hutch’s chest pressing into his thigh. Even hotter was the stare Hutch leveled on Starsky’s crotch.

“Wonder what?” Then Starsky held his breath.

Hutch leaned forward and nosed through the curls his fingers had explored. Starsky bit down on his lip, tasting metallic saltiness in his mouth. He watched in disbelief and the next thing to asphyxiation while Hutch parted his lips, snagged a small clump of those short dark curls between his teeth, and tugged, hard enough to send shock waves straight from Starsky’s dick to his brainstem, but too softly for pain. Starsky heard himself make some hybrid of groan, grunt, and bleat, and just when he was about to die of embarrassment that Hutch now knew he shared a bed with the human sheep, Hutch kissed the moist slit of Starsky’s cock and looked up at him with diamond brightness in those happy blue eyes.

“That has to be the sexiest sound I’ve ever heard,” Hutch told him with a smile. “You do that often during sex?”

Frozen to the bed, bewitched by a blond sorcerer, Starsky couldn’t even shake his head. He had to look away from Hutch’s captivating eyes to put voice to words. “No. Never had someone use their teeth to play tug-o’-war with my pubes.”

Hutch’s laughter vibrated along Starsky’s shaft, and he jerked his hips again. “There’s a lot of little things like that to discover,” Hutch said. “Things I never knew about you, things only I can make you do, say, feel. And vice versa.”

Starsky let his gaze drift back to the man whose sorcery could give him the vocal range of a wooly four-legged mammal. He saw, somewhat amazed, that the spell went both ways. “You’re really into me, huh?”

The smile died out of Hutch’s eyes, but the sternness to his face was just as pleasant because it came with his deepest emotions. “I’m in love with you, Starsk.”

Oh, God. Game over. Starsky began thrusting into thin air, violently seeking release, and Hutch put his lips around the crown of Starsky’s cock, tonguing the slit, until Starsky screamed and erupted in that tight, hot mouth, thrashing in the sheets like a man possessed. When he landed back in reality, he saw Hutch trying not to gag and swiping at dribbles down his chin. Starsky had just enough breath to laugh and beckoned for his lover–oh, oh holy shit, Hutch was his lover–to come up for a kiss.

Hutch was still trying to swallow without looking disgusted by the taste. The expression brought with it a flash of memory to Starsky from years ago on the run from mob assassins at a backwater Northern California gas station. As clearly as if it had happened yesterday, he could see Hutch stealing a bite of meatloaf from Starsky’s plate and instantly regretting the crime, forced to spit the sub-par cuisine into a napkin.

Knowing he was in love when that same look in this context filled him with humor and warm affection, Starsky grinned. “Come here, you finicky eater, gimme some of that so you don’t choke yourself.” Smiling through the grimace of discomfort, Hutch maneuvered up to lie in Starsky’s open arms and offered his mouth. Starsky licked at his chin, licked the sticky lips clean, and then went in for a deep cleansing kiss. Afterward, he kissed Hutch’s eyebrows. “I have to say I doubt we have a swallower here.”

“Starsk–“

“Shh, it’s okay. All part of the discovery, remember? And now that you took some of the burn out of my fire, I can do a little exploring of my own.” He rolled Hutch over and began applying hot, wet kisses to various parts of his body just to find out what reaction he could get.

Licking at Hutch’s neck netted him a few soft moans, and Hutch’s gentle hands patting his hair, teasing his scalp. Kissing underneath Hutch’s chin, Starsky had to smile at the cock twitch he could feel with his wandering hand. Nosing into the hairs in Hutch’s armpit earned him an affectionate swat to the back of the head, which was probably Hutch’s way of encouraging him southward to more interesting locales. He found that Hutch really, really liked being nipped gently in the crease between groin and thigh, if the drops leaking from his swollen-to-bursting cock tip and his staccato panting signaled pleasure. He wanted to continue his exploration down to Hutch’s toes, but if the blond sorcerer’s wand burst into flame and burned down to a blackened nub, Starsky would never have forgiven himself. And there was a certain skin sheathing that hot, blood-flushed wand that Starsky wanted to tease until he repaid Hutch the nitroglycerin surprise of the little pubic hair tug-of-war trick. Licking his palms for slickness, Starsky tried to look confident and in control of the situation–as if romancing a dick was no more unusual to him than breathing–and stroked both hands up the sides of Hutch’s cock.

Hutch had pursed lips that usually went with sucking a lemon slice. He appeared to be shoving all his short, choppy breaths through his nose. Starsky wasn’t sure if that meant he was doing something right or wrong. “Hutch, you okay?”

Barely opening his lips, Hutch gritted, “I’ve been on the edge since I got in this bed. I’ve been composing Haiku in my head for the last ten minutes.”

“Really? Let’s hear one.”

From the look on Hutch’s face, any man besides Starsky who’d made the mistake of saying that would have had a .357-caliber hole through his wiener. Starsky fondled his softened dick out of respect and apology for the close call. “Uh, sorry.”

“If you must know, I’ve been biting my tongue.”

Starsky pushed his luck again by stretching toward Hutch, but he kept his left hand firmly caressing the hardened flesh at his mercy. “Lemme see.”

Hutch stuck out his tongue tip and revealed a crescent-shaped bite mark on the side. Starsky beckoned with his finger for Hutch to stick the tongue out a mite farther, and then he gently took the wounded tip between his lips, barely sucking, letting his mouth fill with soothing, warm moisture. Hutch’s sounds rumbled up from his chest, but he kept his arms rigid at his sides, and Starsky knew if those arms lifted, he’d be crushed in Hutch’s embrace and rolled feverishly around in bed.

God, Starsky wanted that.

But Hutch was clearly too afraid yet. Afraid of doing damage. Afraid of his own strength mixed with Starsky’s healing body. Well, Starsky knew how to shake a rigid Hutchinson loose. At least, he had an idea he could do it. In his fantasies, he could do it. Okay, time he went back to seeing what was up Hutch’s sleeve. He licked his palm again and stroked up Hutch’s cock until he saw the foreskin glide over the glans. Starsky dipped his head and swirled his tongue tip around the inside uppermost edge of the fragile skin.

Bellowing, Hutch arched so hard and high he cuffed Starsky on the chin with his hip and bowled him backward. Dazed, Starsky fingered his chin and reflected on the testimony to Hutch’s lust-fogged shock that he didn’t already have Starsky on a gurney halfway out the door to a waiting ambulance.

“Damn, you’ve got one hard hip bone, Hutchinson!”

Hutch was whimpering, rolling his hips, looking ready to lift his legs and try jerking off with his own feet. And, damn, that image got Starsky so hot and bothered he’d have to ask Hutch to try that sometime and let him watch. Ready to climb back on the horse that bucked him, Starsky warily approached the hip bone from Hell and kissed it tenderly by way of a bribe. He decided more Fun with Foreskins could wait until Hutch wasn’t ending months and months of celibacy. Cupping the tightening sac below Hutch’s cock and watching him closely to see if his blond was a balls man or not, Starsky received permission to fondle to his heart’s and hand’s content when Hutch closed his eyes, nodding and huffing little cries. The pleading noises and the warm, wrinkly intimate heaviness in his cupped palm brought Starsky’s dick back to red alert, and he thought about asking Hutch to teach him the art of Haiku composition or tongue biting. His tongue sent a signal to his brain that it better damn well be the Haiku composition. Letting his mouth fill again, he bent over and drooled right on Hutch’s cock head. He felt the balls draw up in his hand, saw the jump in Hutch’s cock, and opened his mouth to receive the fountain.

“Star-AR-sky, oh, oh, Oh, OH, OH, Oh, oh, oh!”

All right, Hutch had better aim with a firearm than his cock, but most of the spurts landed in Starsky’s mouth, and he felt a little weird that he loved the feel and taste so much. Not wanting his partner to feel outclassed in swallowing, Starsky made a farce of tilting his head back and gargling the heavy juice while Hutch watched.

Having caught his breath, Hutch promptly lost it again laughing. “That’s….” Hutch dissolved in snorting mirth again. “That’s….” Now his mouth was open wide as he tried his silent imitation of a braying donkey. “That’s…the most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen you do, and I love it!”

Starsky swallowed all the way and smiled, reasonably confident that Hutch meant the gargling and not the entire sex act. “You always sing a perfect scale when you come?”

“Huh, scale?”

“Yeah, you’re a real virtuoso. It was like the orgasmic version of ‘Do-Re-Mi’.”

Hutch shook his head and wiped a hand over his eyes. “Oh, man. I’ll never live that down, will I?”

Starsky eyed Hutch’s softening cock. “It’s down for right now.” He moved up to lounge beside his lover. “Made you sing, schweetheart.”

Hutch didn’t seem entranced by the endearment. “Starsky, if you have to use that pet name, kindly leave off the Bogey accent, will you?”

“Why?”

“Because you’ve used that on everyone from drive-in waitresses, nurses, meter maids, to Bigelow in Supply to get a rise out of him–“

Starsky shuddered violently and there wasn’t a thing theatrical about the response. “I have never wanted to see anything on Bigelow rise, thank you very much!”

“Anyway,” Hutch continued loudly, “when we’re in bed together, I don’t need the reminder, so find something else.”

Starsky helped himself to a kiss for inspiration. “Um…Cinnamon Lips?”

Hutch put his hand to Starsky’s forehead. “Did they take your temp at the doc’s?”

“You don’t like Cinnamon Lips?”

“Where are you getting that?”

“‘Cause kissing you is kinda like sucking on one of those cinnamon red-hots, and I feel the burn all the way down to here.” Starsky thrust his pelvis to show off his very own hot cinnamon stick.

Hutch wrinkled his brow. “Nice try, Starsk, but you might want something with fewer syllables for the purposes of a sex name.”

“My wittle, wovey-dovey Hutchie-wutchiekins?”

Much to Starsky’s relief, Hutch squashed that one with a glare that he felt in his vocal chords. “That was more syllables, not fewer, idiot, and there will be no, and I mean NO, infantilism in this bed, even with pet names. In fact, I’ll rip that chapter out of the sex manual and burn it just to keep you from getting any strange notions.”

“Sweetness?”

“Cornflakes,” Hutch declared haughtily.

“Adored Beloved?”

“Redundant!”

“Big Blond Hot Ass Hung Like a Horny Elephant Piece of Sex on a Stick?”

Hutch was back to making hilarious donkey faces. “That’s–that’s an improvement, but I dare you to try calling me that when I’m sucking on your stick.”

“Oooh, don’t dare me, Hutch. You don’t wanna dangle that red flag in front of this bull.”

“Speaking of bulls,” Hutch rolled over on his side and traced fingertips over Starsky’s hip and onto the tender skin of his inner thigh. “Somebody’s raring to get back in the ring.”

“That’s okay, matador, I’ll wait for you to rise to the occasion.”

Hutch groaned. “Keep launching rotten cabbages like that one, and you’ll be waiting a long time, buster.”

Thankfully for the sake of Starsky’s testicles, Hutch was wrong. A brief interlude of kissing and petting caught him up to Starsky’s frantic for more sex state of mind.

“What do you want this time?” Starsky whispered in Hutch’s ear, kissing its shell beneath the soft hair that was beautiful, damn it.

Hutch licked the tip of Starsky’s nose. “Whatever we do, let’s do it together.”

“I got an idea.” Starsky reached behind him on the bottom shelf of the headboard for the brand new tube of K-Y he’d invested in at an out-of-district drugstore on the way home from his doctor’s office. Hutch eyed the tube with blatant alarm, and Starsky looked down to make sure he hadn’t grabbed a hissing black mamba by mistake. Seeing as he didn’t keep deadly poisonous snakes on the shelves of his headboard, he decided the K-Y had to be the cause of Hutch’s distress.

Hutch confirmed his suspicion seconds later with a nervous chuckle. “Whoa, there, Stampedin’ Sam, you think we’re ready for the full ride?”

What Starsky loved about the question was that he could tell it had nothing to do with his surgical stitches, long since healed, or his PT-stressed muscles, or even his virgin ass. Knowing Hutch, the worry was all for their formerly heterosexual psyches, or some psychosexual shit like that.

“Thought you weren’t afraid of my lovely cock,” Starsky teased.

Hutch squared his shoulders, interesting gyrations for a guy lying on his side. “I’m not. And when did we decide that my ass is first on the deflowering agenda?”

“Well, I tried to think of something fair to decide who deflowers whom first, but couldn’t. If we went by inches, you’d win out. But my dick’s a smidge thicker than yours. I’ve got chest hair. You have a foreskin. Let’s face it; we both have big balls. Mine are a little hairier, but I think your sac has a few more wrinkles.”

Hutch grabbed the tube of K-Y. “Forget it! No one with a thought process like that should be in charge of something as life altering as this point-of-no-return gel. Here’s what we’ll do. Some night we’ll get fall down drunk, and the one who can still get it up does the other one and then returns the favor when his buddy’s past the hangover.”

The teasing died out of Starsky to be replaced by a deep chill. “You think we’ll hate it that much?”

Hutch’s grin warmed him right back up again. “No, I think we’ll damn near die, we love it so much, but I think being drunk the first time will probably get us past the reflexive ‘I’m supposed to put my dick where?’ stupidity so we can start loving it faster.”

“Sounds like a master plan, Blondie. But I wasn’t thinking of ass right now anyway. I was thinking about dick. Dicks. Ours. Gimme that tube.”

First giving him a few seconds’ scrutiny, Hutch slowly handed over the K-Y. Starsky squirted a generous amount in his palm, folding his fingers over to warm the gel, and gestured for Hutch to follow suit. With their hands warm and fairly dripping with lube, and the tube discarded somewhere they wouldn’t squish half of it out on the bed in the heat of sexual frenzy, Starsky scooched over to Hutch and lifted his top leg, crooking it over Hutch’s so they could line up their cocks base to hilt. He wrapped his lubed hands around the base of their cocks, and Hutch, catching on predictably quick, closed his hands in a tunnel around the remaining visible cock flesh. They hissed and groaned in unison at the hot, wet constriction.

“This’ll take a little teamwork,” Hutch said breathlessly.

Starsky smiled. “Where’s the challenge in that for us, partner, even when we up the difficulty level with some necking at the same time? Ready?”

Hutch kissed him tenderly. “In so many ways, yes.”

They began pushing upward together through the tunnel of hands they’d built, and Starsky heard every hitch in his lover’s breathing, sure that Hutch was listening to his. Oh God, the heat, the feel of Hutch’s cock rubbing one side of Starsky’s dick, and that long-fingered familiar hand catching on Starsky’s head with every upstroke. For a while, they stopped trying to kiss and looked into each other’s eyes, but that emotional nakedness threw them off stroke. After doing more jabbing than sliding, Hutch quit moving and blinked at Starsky. With control he could probably never find again if he tried, Starsky resisted the urge to keep thrusting and waited for Hutch.

“I’ll go, then you go, then together,” Hutch panted.

Starsky nodded. He could do that. Right. He closed his eyes and waited for the glide of Hutch’s cock along his shaft, but his own dick had other ideas and he’d stropped against Hutch before he could rein himself in. Oops. He blinked his eyes open and saw Hutch doing a poor job of looking put out. Then Hutch started laughing, and Starsky joined him. They braced their foreheads together. Hutch said, “If we have to strategize in the middle of it, we’re probably getting something wrong.”

“Who cares? Feels so friggin’ good…” At the renewed thrusting, Starsky pressed harder against Hutch’s forehead and groaned, “Awww, do it, do it, Hutch!”

“Perfect,” Hutch whispered over Starsky’s lips.

“Hm?”

“Perfect sex name.”

Starsky groaned again, feeling like the sound traveled up from his tightening balls. “But most people…call you…Hutch.”

“And nobody ever says it like you do,” Hutch growled, applying a sudden squeeze to their mated dicks.

Damn Hutch and his sexy words and his sexy fingers! Starsky saw stars exploding in front of his eyes and came with shouts and jarring thrusts, spiking the wet heat between them. Hutch followed several sharp thrusts later, gasping Starsky’s name, and Starsky got crushed in the rib-busting embrace he’d wanted. The fear exorcized from their bed, they relaxed in a looser embrace, kissing until they found each other on the other side of sleep.

~*~

Responding to the siren call of consciousness, Hutch yawned, rubbed his eyes, and got a jolt of surprise when his eyes focused on Starsky wide awake and watching him. Starsky matched his yawn and turned it into a lazy grin. Hutch was also surprised he didn’t feel uncomfortable stickiness from the waist down, but one quick look at the bed sheet told him Starsky had thoughtfully rescued them from waking up with more togetherness than they’d bargained for. They lay facing each other, and Hutch held out his hand, which Starsky folded into a loving grip.

“Um, smart man. Think I’ll keep you,” Hutch said in appreciation. Starsky’s grin softened to a pensive smile. “That’s an interesting expression this soon after sex.”

“Didn’t know what it would be like,” Starsky said. He yawned again. “Had these fantasies, y’know? But they’d either be us falling into bed and going all intense and animal and everything happening in fast-forward. Or some wine-and-roses scene that I didn’t think we’d pull off without feeling ridiculous. I’m not saying we can’t have wine and roses, just couldn’t see how we’d handle it today.”

“And?”

“All that laughing, messing around, making something good happen when we didn’t know what the hell we were doin’ half the time…I’ve just had sex with my partner.”

Hutch didn’t understand at first. Of course, Starsky’d had sex with his–oh. Starsky meant “cop partner” not “sex partner.” Hutch didn’t know whether to be worried or pleased. Starsky’s face was serious, thoughtful. “Disappointed?” Hutch prayed for a headshake.

“Hell, no!” Starsky gave him more than a headshake. He leaned forward and met Hutch’s lips in a very satisfied kiss. “I’m glad, so damned glad.”

“Is it fishing for me to ask why?”

Starsky stroked Hutch’s shoulder, down his arm, tickling, caressing. “Glad ’cause I’m in love with my partner.”

“Oh.” Hutch jerked and felt his heart race. “Now I know why you got all overheated when I said that earlier.”

“Sounds good, hm?”

Hutch nodded. “If I weren’t over thirty and you hadn’t already drained my balls inside out, that would have me all the way up again.”

“Happy I got clearance?”

“Oh, yes. In fact, I’m so happy with the whole medical clearance concept right now that Lieutenant George better not ask me how I spent my time off today. I’m liable to tell him!”

Starsky smirked. “Okay by me, stud, but hell, long as Dobey’s known us, even he’s not ready for that yet. Lieutenant George would probably put in for early retirement the same day.”

Hutch loved the comfort he heard in Starsky’s voice. “I think I got clearance today, too.”

Starsky’s smirk widened. This was Starsky sitting on info to good-naturedly gloat when Hutch came out with the same info himself. “Okay, Starsky, spit it out before you choke on it, already.”

“Nothin’. I just noticed you getting that clearance. Noticed that I’m not in Memorial right now getting a chin X-ray. Got an idea when you mentioned alcohol consumption. You’d been eagle-eying my fridge for anything that even smelled like beer while I was on the meds. But the topper was that bone-crusher you gave me when you got off.”

Hutch smiled, feeling free, immortal, all powerful, and all around divinely good. “Guess there’s nothing like some time with a guy between the sheets to see if he’s really on the mend. From now on when you call and tell me to get over here quickly, I’ll take the time to put on both socks.”

“Won’t happen.”

“What won’t happen?”

“I won’t be calling you up and telling you to get your ass over here for sex.”

If not for the desire in Starsky’s smile and the love shining in his eyes, Hutch would have panicked. “Time for you to do some more spelling.”

“Way I see it, we’re ready for the big leagues. We can spend Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays in Venice, and the other days here. Or weekends here and weekdays there. Or if you’ve been itchin’ to lay down roots in Antarctica, I’ll help build the igloo. But wherever we hang our hats, I don’t want to climb in a bed at night–or in the middle of the afternoon–that doesn’t have you in it.”

“And all I have to do is sign that particular clearance form, is that it?”

Starsky nodded. “Yep, but I don’t want you getting out of bed to find pen and paper.”

“No problem. I’ll just do the next best thing.” Hutch freed his right hand from Starsky’s grasp and drew his fingers down Starsky’s chest, circled over his hip, and nudged lightly at his half-hard cock. Pillowed on Starsky’s thigh, the shaft provided ample room for Hutch to draw a single word with his forefinger.

Y-E-S, Hutch spelled.

Starsky pulled him into a kiss that left Hutch seeing fireworks behind his closed eyelids. “Ah, Hutch,” Starsky whispered in the kiss. “Hutch….”

“Perfect,” Hutch said.

The End

Chapter End Notes:

For Keri, who wanted “sassy.”

And for someone who would definitely put cinnamon in the recipe of a good S/H kiss….