Cowboys Are My Weakness

Before going undercover, Starsky attempts his own seduction of his partner.

Originally published in Venice Place Chronicles V.

Starsky breezed into Hutch’s apartment in his trademark manner—a “hallo” sung out as the door opened, and a slam as he kicked it closed with the heel of his shiny black dancing shoe. He was wired for sound tonight, and it was all Hutch’s fault.

A quick glance around, while he unbuttoned his tuxedo jacket, revealed one white-shirted shoulder through the gap in the ajar bathroom door. Starsky danced over to it, right hand raised to lay claim to an imaginary partner, while the left hand rested on his belly where he could feel the anticipatory racing of his pulse. He hesitated a moment to rein in that galloping beat, before he pushed gently on the white-painted wood. Inside, he found Charlie McCabe staring at his own reflection in the mirror.

Careful to stay behind the broad shouldered figure so that Hutch couldn’t see his reflection in the glass, Starsky ran an admiring gaze over his disguised partner. From slicked-back hair, over the crisp white shirt bisected by suspenders, to the trim waist, over the deep, delicious ass barely hinted at beneath the too-short trousers, down endlessly long legs to the high-heeled cowboy boots, Starsky’s eyes caressed his, as yet, unsuspecting friend.

“You’re early,” Hutch pointed out in a distracted tone, as he picked up the wire-framed glasses and perched them precisely on the bridge of his nose.

Inspection complete, Starsky took up a provocative pose against the door frame. Their reflections now shared the mirror, but it seemed Hutch was more interested in Charlie’s costume than in Ramon’s posturing.

“What a miserable thing to do to a tux,” Hutch complained, fingers flicking the string tie at his throat, drawing Starsky’s eyes to the incongruous accessory.

Starsky’s bow-tie was stuffed in the pocket of his jacket. He would put it on later. Much later, if all went according to his plans. Whether those plans came to fruition or went awry depended totally on Hutch. Starsky had discovered that Hutch could be seduced. By accident, the first time, when teasing innuendo and perhaps a beer or two too many, had led them into a previously unexplored world of mutual desire. Since then, upon the right occasion, and under the right circumstances, Starsky had met with delightful success. Often enough to give him reason for some confidence. But not every time. And there was still the first fence to jump—Starsky had to get his partner’s attention.

“You picked the persona, cowboy,” Starsky reminded Hutch. “Not like you haven’t been down that dirt road before. Were you Rafferty, or was I?” he asked, and saw, when the bespectacled blue eyes met his in the mirror, that he had managed to catch Hutch’s undivided focus, chisel a fine crack in that single-minded devotion to duty.

“O’Brien,” Hutch corrected, but it was obvious the amendment was automatic. He had that Charlie’s-first-sight-of-Ginger look of startlement to him that, here and now, Starsky could see wasn’t an act.

So, Hutch hadn’t chosen to play the cowboy deliberately to inspire Starsky’s libido. Starsky had wondered if some of the details of that particular undercover operation—the ones that hadn’t made it into their reports—might have prompted Hutch’s choice, and couldn’t help feeling a certain disappointment that they hadn’t.

Recovering his aplomb, Hutch returned his attention to Charlie’s ensemble. He picked up the gray Stetson off the back of the toilet and settled it down on his head. “Better than a gigolo with a lousy accent and a worse moustache,” he declared as he turned away from the mirror and made a shooing motion with his hands.

Obligingly, Starsky backed out of the doorway while perusing the front side of his partner’s display. “Yee haw,” he yodeled softly, letting the admiration show in his face, but careful to mix it with a little irony in his voice, knowing he had to give Hutch some time to adjust. A few minutes, at least, to decide if he was interested in playing away the two hours they had until Ginger’s soiree. To be seduced, or not to be seduced, that was Hutch’s question.

That didn’t mean Starsky couldn’t keep trying to bring his balking stallion into the paddock. He continued to back away until they reached the freer range of the open living room. “No wonder my heroes have always been cowboys,” he added as Hutch finally passed him to reach the couch.

Hutch paused, half-bent as he reached for his jacket, studied Starsky’s face for a moment, then completed the movement, straightening up with the jacket in hand. If Hutch moved like that at Ginger s soiree tonight, the jig would be up, Starsky thought. Charlie McCabe couldn’t hope to possess that casual grace if he paid for a million dance lessons.

“I thought your hero was Mighty Mouse,” Hutch said, his tone teasing, his eyes innocent, and the unnecessarily slow swing of his arm as he started to don the jacket, all sending their own conflicting signa signals. To be, or maybe not. Hutch couldn’t seem to make up his mind.

Deciding to ignore the mixed messages and to make his own desires unquestionably clear, Starsky danced forward, caught the jacket in mid-swing and hooked it from Hutch’s grip. For a third time, he swept Hutch with his gaze, this time allowing admiration to be supplanted by lust. “Oh, my hero is mighty, all right,” he purred, eyes locked on the bulge at Hutch’s crotch that even the ill-fitting trousers couldn’t conceal. Then, very deliberately, he raised his eyes to Hutch’s. “But he’s nobody’s idea of a mouse.”

The blue eyes, framed by the wire spectacles, blinked once, narrowed, then slid away. Hutch reached out for his jacket and Starsky gave it up without demur, noticing how Hutch’s fingers brushed his, lingered a moment, then were withdrawn.

It looked like Hutch wanted to play coy tonight. Dismiss Starsky’s open invitation just as he had been dismissing Starsky’s flirting. And the pinch on the ass. And “Can I have a bite.” If he didn’t know Hutch so well, if they had never danced the horizontal mambo together before, or if he hadn’t seen the flicker of heat just now on Hutch’s face, Starsky might even buy it. But he did know, they had danced, and Starsky had seen. A coy Hutch was normally a turn on as fierce as a cowboy Hutch, but not when time was of the essence. It was time this particular cowboy learned that all you got from sitting on the fence was splinters.

Before Hutch could shrug into his jacket, Starsky moved in on him, lifting one hand to catch the brim of the Stetson between thumb and fingers. He tipped it forward, then dragged it clear of Hutch’s head, deliberately messing the carefully combed hair beneath. He ran his hand through the disordered strands, and then brought it up between them, rubbing his thumb and fingers slowly together, as if to test the consistency of the substance that coated them. “What is this stuff? Vaseline?”

Their lubricant of choice. Messy, but so perfectly effective for two men who, only occasionally, indulged a common need. A passion acknowledged and incited more openly by Starsky than Hutch, but, once kindled, mutual nonetheless. Starsky understood that Hutch was still once burned and twice shy. More than once, in fact, and that his partner wasn’t looking to be roped and branded any time soon. Starsky could accept the seeming inequity because he knew that, whatever name they put to it—mutual comfort, compassion, or lust—neither of them, in the end, could deny the need that brought them together, nor the fire that burned between them when that need flared.

Starsky saw the pointed reference hit Hutch right where he had aimed it—between the legs. He didn’t even have to look down to know that monster cock was growing, coy evasions run off the ranch by the blunt reminder. Lust was burning behind the clear glass now, and expanding the neatly-buttoned shirt in panting breaths.

“Gotta save it for the show tonight, babe,” Hutch protested, the last, fading-fast sparkle of devotion to duty almost extinguished by the husky desire in his voice. “Little Miss Marsha can’t blackmail down-home Charlie if he can’t get it up.” But the tuxedo jacket hit the floor with a soft little shush.

Starsky laughed derisively at the suggestion that, hours from now, his potent partner would fail to rise to Marsha’s expected invitation. “Speaking of show,” he said, quick to take advantage of this opening to get Hutch in his arms. “There’s a couple of moves I wanna show you.” He slid his slippery fingers into the back of Hutch’s hair, following the slick strands down to the nape of his neck, and slipped the other arm around Hutch’s waist. “You can’t dance bad if you don’t know how to dance good.”

“You mean,” Hutch said, offering no resistance as Starsky drew their bodies together, but stubbornly locking his jaw over the gasp as his hard cock met the smooth planes directly beneath Starsky’s waistband. “You have to know the rules before you can break them?”

“Exactly,” Starsky agreed, triumphant laughter trembling the single word, followed by an arch of his spine and rub of his hips that ripped the suppressed gasp from Hutch’s throat. “Besides, this cowboy…” A second arch and a long, slow undulation, “…has to be ready to stand and deliver.”

“Lock and load?” Hutch growled, passive surrender abandoned more quickly than coy evasion, as his big hands settled on Starsky’s restless hips. The firm pressure of his thigh demanded a claim of its own on Starsky’s cock.

“Oh, yeah,” Starsky husked, riding Hutch’s thigh in a dance far older than the birth of Bill Hickock’s Wild West Show. “Cocked and ready to fire.” He widened his stance, tightened the grip of both hands, counted to three, then twisted. His shoulders screamed a protest at the sudden strain of Hutch’s full weight, but Starsky controlled the dip, leaned into it until it became a fall to the carpet, drinking in the mix of instinctive fear and learned trust on Hutch’s face as he eased his partner to the floor.

The long legs spread obligingly for him, and Starsky settled eagerly between them. Their height difference no longer an impediment, Starsky brought their cocks together, battling the immediate need to climax, watching the same urge conquered on Hutch’s face. They couldn’t come in their pants. A sinful waste, and.. .there would be no time to clean them before Ginger’s soiree.

Imperative eased by the reminder that Hutch would soon offer all of this glorious flesh to someone else, Starsky took up a teasing rhythm of thrust and withdrawal. Dry fucking, reveling in the unashamed writhing of Hutch’s body and the moans that escaped the long throat as they danced to the rhythm of passion that seethed between them.

But dry humping still wasn’t what Starsky had planned for tonight. An inarticulate protest, chased by a groan of frustration, escaped Hutch’s throat as Starsky suddenly push-upped out of the arms that tried to restrain him. One big hand caught in his curls, but Starsky ignored it, leading it downward as he wriggled back. His efficient fingers working suspenders, button, and zipper, he spread the edges of fabric and eased down the virginal white briefs beneath. He caught the thick, smooth shaft as it sprang free, then lifted his head to find Hutch’s hopeful gaze upon him.

“Need to keep your weapon properly lubricated, cowboy,” he teased, tongue-tip glistening parted lips, and the deliberate glint of challenge in his eyes, daring Hutch to offer further protest.

“Guess Marsha’s just gonna hafta settle for sloppy seconds,” Hutch surrendered. The submission was proven to be a sham a moment later when his grip tightened painfully, and his strength led Starsky exactly where he most wanted to be.

Eagerly, Starsky accepted the cock, determined to banish all thoughts of pretty, scheming Marsha from Hutch’s mind with the knowing glide of his tongue on the unsheathed tip, the tight circle of his lips inching down the shaft, and with the sweet-drawing suction that hollowed his checks. Alert to every moan, every twitch and gasp, Starsky sought to tune into Hutch’s need, hungrily feeding his own while, fumbling with shaking fingers, he worked one leg free of his clinging pants.

“Don’t stop!” Hutch protested when, naked enough for his purposes, Starsky retreated for a second time. But the breathless demand had barely left his lips before Starsky saw understanding dawn in befuddled blue eyes.

“Sure about that, Hutch?” Starsky taunted as he straddled the broad hips, bare knee nudging into Hutch’s right side, while, on the left, the knee still encased in black cloth completed the bracket of Starsky’s intentions.

“Don’t stop,” Hutch repeated when Starsky hesitated, demand leached away by the promise of the body hovering over him, leaving behind only the ache of need to raise his voice into the higher ranges of adolescence.

Starsky grinned, felt the evil lustiness of it even as the wariness of being caught on its hook showed on Hutch’s face.

“Oh, no, cowboy. I’m not stoppin’,” he reassured his skittish mount, as he carefully slipped the tiny pearl buttons that marched between starched frills all the way up to the string tie. One-fingered, he loosened the bolo, then carefully spread the white material back to reveal the broad sweep of Hutch’s chest. Starsky planned on shooting all over that smooth, golden expanse; to decorate the taut, copper nipples with spatters of creamy come. Marking his territory. Even though Hutch would wash it away; the pleasure Starsky gave him would be branded into the skin.

“Stop?” Starsky echoed himself as he reached between them, caught Hutch’s thick cock in a relentless fist and angled it away from the taut belly. Slowly, aim perfected by desire, he lowered himself, pushing gently until the wide head was embedded within his slick anus. A groan escaped him as, even more slowly, he eased downward, each centimeter of folding legs giving him the same agonizing increment of Hutch’s cock inside his ass.

“Starsk. Please,” Hutch panted, strain and pleasure robbing him of volume, leaving behind only a rasping whisper.

“No stopping,” Starsky promised yet again, breathless with the perfection of it. “Gonna ride you hard and take alla your hot wet come inside me.”

Eyes locked, they panted and sweated through the first impalement. Enthralled by the pleasure of possession on Hutch’s face, Starsky savored the joy of being possessed that filled him. Hutch inside him. Deep-seated in the core of him. Hard and strong and, if only for these too-brief moments, all Starsky’s. Roped, as Starsky settled his full weight against the velvet balls pushed up tight by the slant of supportive thighs Hutch offered. Branded by the tight grip of Starsky’s heated sheath.

The out-slide approached the perfection the impalement had been until, passivity once again vanquished by need, Hutch arched his back, hands locking down on Starsky’s hips as he lifted and sank in delicious counterpoint to Starsky’s posting. The untamed calf of climax was within reach now, and Starsky gave Hutch his head, letting the mad race possess his mount as he gripped his throbbing cock, taking the reins of his release into his own hands and stripping free the heated pulses to splash on Hutch’s heaving chest, even while the cock within him spewed Hutch’s seed into the secret passages of his body.

A dim recollection, that he could not smear the semen spattered on Hutch’s chest all over his own shirt, caught Starsky on trembling arms before he could collapse onto his partner. Hutch’s hand pressed his back, trying to urge him down into the few moments of tenderness in the afterglow they usually allowed themselves but, reluctantly, Starsky resisted in the name of duty. The temptation to slip into post-coital depression erased by the gentle stroking Hutch took up on his back, Starsky tried to chase thoughts of the coming evening away for just a few more minutes.

“You okay?” Hutch asked gently, as he always asked when lusty satyr gave way to caring friend. The mundane words given texture by tenderness that eased whatever hurts pricked at Starsky’s being in these first few moments of aftermath.

“Mmmm,” Starsky hummed, blinking against the sweat that dripped stingingly into his eyes. “Save a horse, ride a cowboy.”

Hutch chuckled a little, and Starsky gasped as the movement slipped the softening bulk of his partner’s cock from him. Starsky loved it when Hutch fucked him. Loved to spread those long legs and fuck Hutch senseless. It was this part he hated. The coming apart of the perfect moment of complete togetherness. The separation of the one being into two—still entwined by friendship and partnership, but the unique bond of pleasure shared fraying almost to the breaking point as their bodies parted.

Giving in to the inevitable, groaning with the protests of over-worked muscles that expressed the pain of his yearning soul, Starsky forced his arms to push away, his body to flop, boneless and sated, beside the loose sprawl of Hutch’s. He stared at the ceiling and listened to the silence, unable to think of anything to say as he struggled to submerge the tender vulnerability he felt.

“You okay?” Hutch repeated a few moments later, reminding Starsky that he hadn’t answered the question the first time. He scrambled to paint lazy satiation on his face as Hutch rolled to his side and propped his head on his hand. “Spit’s not the best lube in the world.”

It was Starsky’s turn to chuckle now, made unwary by the lethargy of pleasure known, and delighted by this evidence of Hutch’s need for him. “You musta been pretty far gone, babe. I was already lubed.”

Starsky realized his mistake a heartbeat later when Hutch’s eyes narrowed.

“You planned this?” Hutch asked.

The accusation was delivered softly, but it was an indictment nonetheless. They fucked around occasionally. On the spur of the moment. When one or the other of them fell victim to lust’s prodding. But you didn’t plan lust. Didn’t plan to scratch an itch that wasn’t itching yet.

Fast on his feet even flat on his back, Starsky held up the hand that had, earlier, played in Hutch’s hair. Again he rubbed thumb and fingers together. “Vaseline. Remember?”

Distaste banished the suspicion from Hutch’s face. “Christ, Starsk. Haven’t you ever heard of Brylcreem?”

“Sure I have,” Starsky was quick to agree. “Just goes to prove what they say is true. A little dab’ll do ya.”

Hutch rolled his eyes, his fist delivering a rabbit punch toward Starsky’s jaw that Starsky eluded, and then he rolled to his feet. “Guess I better grab another shower,” he said, attempting to hold his pants up and his shirt away from the semen on his chest.

His aim hadn’t been completely perfect, Starsky saw as Hutch headed for the bathroom. There was one small, wet patch on the white shirt, down near the hem. Tucked into Hutch’s pants, it would be hidden, but, as he lay sprawled on the carpet listening to the thunder as the shower went on, Starsky acknowledged a petty satisfaction. In a few hours, Marsha would be staking her claim on Charlie McCabe. She would have no reason to suspect, but she was nothing but a conniving little claim jumper, because Starsky was here first. And, maybe someday, it wouldn’t be just first, but first, last and always.

Hutch might not know it yet, Starsky thought. Might not be ready to admit that Starsky already held the deed to his heart. Might really believe that the moments of passion they shared were no more than temporary squatter’s rights, but Starsky knew better.

“One of these days, Hutch, old buddy,” Starsky told his absent partner. “You’re just gonna have to admit that nobody dips like Ramon.”

The End