Talk Dirty to Me Some More

Starsky heard the phone ringing while he was still in the driveway. That’s gotta be Hutch. He’ll be pissed as hell, but I don’t care.

He snared the receiver, only to hear the solid click in his ear as the line went dead.

Hadda be Hutch. I was supposed to call him soon as I left the Pits. That was three hours ago. He’s pissed.

And the evening had started out so great-Hutch was supposed to be coming home tomorrow. Now they had no idea how long this trial would take, how long they might be separated.

The phone rang.

It all started with the prequel to this story, Glow’s Talk Dirty to Me. Glow sent it to me for my opinion while I had a house full of (male) housepainters who kept interrupting me every 5 minutes (and couldn’t figure out why suddenly I was so grumpy). I loved the story so much, I felt compelled to fire off this sequel, which I wrote in record time (still with housepainters in residence) and sent back to Glow for her approval. Both stories appeared originally in April Valentine’s zine, The Fix #17 in 1997.

These two stories spawned that notorious collaboration between Glow and me, Talkin’ Dirty Pool. I followed it up with “Just Another One of Starsky’s Dirty Moves” as a gift to Glow, and then later wrote Talkin’ Dirty Bingo and Cheap Toupees for the winner of a raffle for a charity Glow was involved with.

But it all started innocently, or not so innocently, enough with this short story. Enjoy.

(For the Glowing)

Now you and I have lived out centuries;
and all I can say, is what you’ve offered to me;
Please don’t be scared;
Cause I’ve stood there, too;
Between survival
And the right thing to do,
Cause only the strong
Admit their fears;
And if you really need me
I’ll always be here
Please Don’t Be Scared-Barry Manilow

This is the most embarrassing thing I’ve done since I was thirteen, Starsky thought, half-mortified, half-bemused, as he tried to find the most strategic way to hold his leather jacket.

He’d just spent a half hour on the phone with Hutch, telling his blond partner the raunchiest dream-fantasy he could imagine. His intention had been to give his lover a hard-on to end all hard-ons; he didn’t really think he could get the ice-cool blond off, and was amazed when that had happened. But more amazing yet was the fact that Starsky himself had come so hard right there on the phone! Right here at Huggy’s bar! Right there in his own jeans.

Creamin’ my jeans at my age! he thought, exasperated. All he’d wanted was for Hutch to be so hot he couldn’t wait to get home. He wanted to melt that super-composed Nordic blond right out of his shorts. And he had, oh, yes, he had. He’d had Hutch gasping, moaning, beating himself off in a blaze of aching need-but somehow, it had all backfired on the feisty homicide detective. Starsky hadn’t even had to touch himself to cause his own embarrassment. The very thought of doing the things to Hutch he described was enough to make him lose it right out in public.

Now if I can only get out of here without seeing anyone I know…. The tell-tale stain was too small and too perfectly placed to be blamed on beer. He adjusted the jacket. He just had to get to the car and get his ass home. Hutch was still waiting by the phone back at that hotel in San Francisco….

Damn that trial, and damn all the lawyers in the world straight to hell. Who needs a continuance on a cut-and-dried case anyway? They’re gonna keep my boy up there forever. Probably just so’s they can look at his pretty-

He was almost to the door. He’d managed to get away from Huggy and his ranting and raving about how he and Hutch were determined to give his place a more unsavory reputation than it already had. All he had to do now was get outside, get into the Torino, and-

“Hey, big brother! Man, am I glad to catch up with you!”

Starsky’s face fell, as he reached for the exit, only to be met there by his own kith and kin-his brother Nicky who was in L.A. for a rare visit. The main reason Starsky hadn’t been able to go with Hutch to Frisco in the first place.

“Nick,” Starsky said numbly, “what-what are you doin’ here? I thought-”

“Dave, this is important,” Nicky said breathlessly. “I’ve been lookin’ everywhere for you. I want you to meet….” He reached out, snagged the arm of a long-limbed lovely brunette woman. “This,” Nicky said, with an exaggerated gesture, “is Donna.”

This, Starsky thought with some bewilderment, is a beautiful woman. The next thought was inevitable. What the hell is she doing with my brother?

The same thing must’ve occurred to Donna, because as they were introduced, her eyes widened, then blatantly focused on Starsky, eyeing him up and down. Her green eyes lingered entirely too long on his covered crotch, as though she were hoping he would move the jacket.

Not on your life, schweetheart!

“Great to meet you, Donna,” Starsky said perfunctorily, holding out his hand. “Listen, Nick, I was just on my way-” He realized belatedly that Donna still held his hand, that she refused to release it.

“Oh, you’re not going?” she asked, all doe-eyes and wet lips. Her voice was a cross between Marilyn Monroe and Greta Garbo. It must’ve taken her months of diction lessons to perfect it. They were, after all, in L.A. “Nicky’s told me so much about his brother the detective. I’ve been dying to meet you.”

I’ll bet, Starsky thought, smelling something unsavory. Part of his mind was already back at the house, on the phone, trying to see if he could get his partner off again. He had the fantasy half-constructed. Even the fragments of it had him semi-hard. But part of him, the cop part, the part that always managed to ruin his fun, had alarm bells going off. There was something about this woman…

“Come on, Dave,” Nick wheedled. “It’s early yet. Don’t be such a workaholic. Let’s have a drink. Something to eat.”

Donna’s eyes glittered at the word eat, and she licked her lower lip. Starsky could see the edges of her perfect white teeth, but all he could think of was shark. His protectiveness won out over his horniness. He didn’t dare call Hutch to explain; he knew damn well after the last scene Huggy wouldn’t let him near the phone for weeks. He sighed and hoped Hutch would understand.

“Sure, Nick,” he said, attempting to sound upbeat. “Let’s have some dinner.” He took Donna by the elbow, while still keeping his jacket carefully in place. “So, Donna, what might your last name be?” And where have I heard it before, or seen your face? There’s something about you….

* * *

Starsky heard the phone ringing while he was still in the driveway. He slammed the Torino’s door shut and raced for the entrance to his own home. That’s gotta be Hutch. Please let it be Hutch. He’ll be pissed as hell, but I don’t care. Just as long as it’s-

Suddenly, he couldn’t find his own key hole. The phone kept ringing. Shit, Starsky swore to himself, right now you probably couldn’t find your own ass with both hands. Get it in, will ya? He finally shoved the key home, turned the lock, opened the door then swung it shut, all in one smooth move. He lunged for the phone in the dark-on the seventh ring-and managed only to trip over the blue ottoman and go sprawling. Ninth ring. Groping in the dark from the floor, he finally snared the receiver, only to hear the solid click in his ear as the line went dead.

“FUUUUUCK!” he screamed in rage and slammed the phone hard into the cradle. Rubbing his banged knee, he reached for the lamp and clicked on the light.

Hadda be Hutch. Only him or Dobey would let it ring that long, and Dobey woulda just laid the receiver down and let it keep on ringin’. And I know my boy’s pissed. I was supposed to call him soon as I left the Pits. That was-ignoring the ever present watch on his wrist, Starsky scanned the room for the time, finally spying his own antique clock nestled on the wall next to one of Hutch’s two million plants. Shit. That was three hours ago. I told him I’d be callin’ him back in minutes. Three hours. He’s pissed.

Starsky looked at the phone. It was so late. And Hutch had to be in court so early. By now, the big blond was surely under the covers sleeping, in a snit, wondering what had happened to his lover.

I couldn’t help it, babe, Starsky apologized to the phone. I knew I recognized that woman Nick was with. I had to make sure Nick was gonna be okay….

He’d seen the lady-using the term loosely-before, all right. She’d worked at Grossman’s massage parlor, the same one where Starsky had discovered the terrible secret of one of Hutch’s great romances. That had been the beginning of the end of Hutch’s affair with Gillian, who’d later had been killed by the Grossmans.

There were so many terrible memories tied up with that, Starsky didn’t even want to explain to Hutch what had happened tonight. It had taken him forever to remember just how he knew the woman Nick was with. She remembered him, too, but only as a handsome man she’d nearly given a massage to one day. He managed to find out that she was still doing massage work, but that her interest in Nicky was genuine, at least till she’d seen his brother. Starsky managed to distract her long enough to slip Nicky enough money to let him invest in a hotel room for the night-he sure didn’t want that woman in his house, sliding into his bed after wearing Nicky out!-but warned Nick that the evening was probably going to cost him some cold, hard cash. By the look in Nicky’s eye, Starsky knew his brother considered it money well spent.

He thought he’d never get away from the couple and out of Huggy’s. Then there’d been that accident that tied up the freeway-Hutch wasn’t gonna believe a word of it. But Starsky didn’t even want to tell Hutch about Donna and have to dredge up all that pain about Gillian all over again.

Shit! And the evening had started out so great-or as great as a night without having Hutch physically here could be. Hutch was supposed to be coming home tomorrow. Now they had no idea how long this trial would take, how long they might be separated.

I don’t care what it costs, Starsky decided, and I don’t care about Nicky visiting. Tomorrow’s Friday. I’m flyin’ up to Frisco right after work–

The phone rang.

Starsky was so surprised he actually jumped. He grabbed the receiver, yanked it to his ear, then managed to control his voice enough to say politely, “Hello?”

“So, you finally had enough fun and decided to come home, huh?” an irritable male voice grated in his ear.

“Hutch,” Starsky breathed. He was swamped with conflicting feelings-relief to be hearing from his lover, guilt that he hadn’t called him when he’d promised, worry over what he might reveal that might cause Hutch pain, and on top of all that, a piercingly bittersweet hunger that manifested itself as a throbbing ache deep in his balls.

“And before you start with the fantasy of why you haven’t called me for three hours,” Hutch grumbled, “don’t bother. I know exactly where you’ve been and who you’ve been with-with the exception of forty-five minutes unaccounted for. That’s kind of quick for you with a new conquest, isn’t it? I believe her name was Donna, wasn’t it? I can’t believe you, Starsky. It’s bad enough to screw around on me, but to steal your own brother’s date-that’s low.”

Starsky found himself making fish faces at the receiver. How had he found out her name? “Hutch, that’s not, I mean, I didn’t, I mean, I never-”

“Well, at least you’ll be occupied until I get home,” Hutch said sarcastically. “I’d love to know what you’re gonna tell her when I do get back. ‘Oh, this is my partner. Well, yeah, we share a bed, but it doesn’t mean anything.'”

“Hutch, will you just shut up and let me explain?” Starsky snapped, his temper getting the better of him. Hutch could make him madder faster than any three people on the planet!

“Why should I? You’ve already proven yourself quite the master with words, haven’t you? Ready to weave another fantasy, lover, hmmmm?”

“HUTCH!” Starsky shouted, his tone long familiar to the blond. Finally, there was silence on the other end. If his partner knew nothing else, he knew when Starsky had reached his limit with Hutchinson rantings. “Look, I don’t know what Huggy told you-” The bartender could’ve been the only one to give Hutch so much information; Nicky certainly didn’t have time to.

“He told me plenty,” Hutch assured his partner. “She was about five nine, packing thirty-eight, twenty-four, thirty-four-the numbers closest to your heart-and the minute she laid those green eyes on you, she didn’t have a moment to spare for your poor brother.”

Starsky winced. He’d kill Huggy, at the very least. “If you called while I was still there, why didn’t Huggy let me know?”

“He said you were too busy,” Hutch insisted. “He also said you told him to tell me you weren’t there.” The last words were clearly muttered between clenched teeth.

“He what! I never said that! I swear, Hutch….”

“Oh? What did you tell him? ‘If Hutch calls just tell him I left already?”

“No!” Starsky sighed, wanting to weep. God, he hated when they got into this kind of thing. Hutch’s jealousy could be so overwhelming, so heated. The blond could be so insecure, so distrustful…. Of course, if Starsky didn’t give him reason to be insecure-

Starsky tried one of Hutch’s own ploys on him. In a voice dripping with calm righteousness, he intoned, “You know, a jealous outburst like that is usually the sign of deep-seated insecurity and a poor self-image.”

“No shit, Sherlock!” Hutch barked, startling Starsky so much he nearly dropped the phone. “If I’m ‘insecure’ and have a ‘poor self image,’ maybe you ought to ask yourself why! Could it possibly have to do with the fact that my lover is the most blatant, outrageous flirt in all of L.A.? Might there be some connection with my insecurity and your inability to walk by a moving skirt without suffering whiplash? Or would it have anything to do with the fact that you go out of your way to make me feel like whatever I do for you in the bedroom hardly matters, since I can’t keep up with the insatiable, the ever-inventive, the indefatigable David Michael Starsky, King of the Lovers?”

Starsky sighed. He supposed this would not be the best time to remind Hutch that the blond’s use of multi-syllabic words-especially in heated arguments-always cranked Starsky’s libido up a few notches.

But if he were being honest, he would have to admit that Hutch’s last sentence rocked him. Did his passion for Hutch really make the blond feel that way-inadequate? If ever a man didn’t deserve that feeling-

“I’m sorry, Starsky,” Hutch said into the silence, contrite. “I-I didn’t mean that.”

Yeah, you did. Maybe this is something we shoulda talked about long ago. But maybe we can’t talk about it when we’re face-to-face.

He lowered his voice, tried another tactic. “Hutch, I didn’t know you called Huggy’s again. I never told him I didn’t wanna talk to you. I suspect after what we did tonight, Hug might never let us speak to each other again over one of his phones. I was leavin’ there to get home, to call like I said I would when Nick walked in with this-this woman.”

“She was beautiful,” Hutch said knowingly.

“Very,” Starsky admitted. “Way too beautiful to be payin’ that much attention to Nick.”

“But not so beautiful she wouldn’t fall for you.” Hutch’s voice held that tone of smooth acid that could melt the paint off a car.

Starsky had the sudden urge to blurt, “No comment!” but instead said, “Yeah, she was interested in me. ‘Cause she remembered me-from before.” He wished Hutch wouldn’t press, but he knew that was impossible.

“Before? You’ve slept with her before? Before what, this week? Last week?”

“Huuutch….” Starsky growled irritably. “She remembered me-from Grossmans.”

That’s all he had to say to bring the discussion to a grinding halt. There was nothing but silence on the line, the soft sound of controlled breathing.

“She was one of Grossman’s girls, the one who was gonna massage my bad shoulder that day…. I knew I recognized her from somewhere, but I couldn’t remember for awhile. I was afraid Nicky had gotten himself connected with some high-priced hooker, and I wasn’t completely wrong. I think she really likes him. But she’ll like him better if he buys her a new coat…. Anyway, it took me awhile to work it out without bein’ too obvious. An’ yeah, she was flirtin’ with me, and I was trying to scope her out so I was flirtin’ back.” He was talking faster now, trying to fill the silence with all the reasons Hutch needed to understand, to forgive him, to not be angry-to not remember the pain of Gillian’s loss, a pain Starsky was intimately involved in.

“But, I swear, Hutch, I wasn’t interested in her! On the way home, there was a three car collision with a tractor trailer and I got trapped on the expressway for almost an hour. Just sittin’ in the Torino, frustrated as all hell, knowing you were gonna be as mad as a wet cat, and not bein’ able to do anything about it….”

The silence on the other end was deafening, and Starsky ached to see the blond, to look into his eyes, to know what he was going through. “Hutch, look, I may flirt an all, but I swear, since we been together, I’ve never cheated on you. I never wanted to. I mean, damn it, sure I look. We live together, we work together, I love you with all my heart, and we might as well be married, but shit, man, I ain’t dead! I look-that’s all. I swear. Lookin’, but no touchin’! Nothing like that. I mean, why do you think I hadda talk all that shit to you over the phone at Huggy’s? If I was sleepin’ around, you think I’d’a been able to-to just come like that, right in the middle of a restaurant, just from talking about making love to you? That happened ’cause I need you, not some green-eyed bimbo who’d roll over for anybody with a regular pay check.”

There was no response, so Starsky filled the dead air. “And you know damn well what you do for me-and to me-in the bedroom matters a whole hell of a lot. Look, Hutch, we loved each other for years before we ever got in the bedroom, and then, when we finally did, it was like we finally found what we both were lookin’ for all that time! You can’t really think it doesn’t mean anything to me. I’m dying here without you. I’m walking around with half-a-hard on all the time, ’cause that’s what thinking about you does for me. And if it seems like I’m always ready to go, that I can never get enough of you, that’s ’cause I can’t. It isn’t like what you give me isn’t enough-it’s that it’s so wonderful, so perfect, I’m always scared it ain’t real, that I’m gonna wake up and you’ll be gone, so I wanna keep goin’ all night just in case that one dream is all I’m gonna get.”

Still, the line between them was silent. In exasperation, Starsky sighed, “Damn it, Hutch, if I didn’t love you the way I do, you think I could let you…?” he trailed off, realizing too late that he’d said too much.

There was a short, bitter laugh on the other end. “It always comes back to that, doesn’t it? That thing you let me do.”

“I didn’t mean it that way, Hutch,” Starsky blurted.

“Sure you did. You let me. You don’t really want me to, but you let me.”

“Hutch, please.” He pounded his own fist on his knee, wanting to cut out his own traitorous tongue.

“You can call me ‘Mr. No-Displays-Of-Public-Affection’ and that’s true. I’m self-conscious in public. But at home, you can-and have-bent me over that ottoman any time you want and you know I’ll love it. Just your talking about it makes me crazy. I don’t let you take me. I long for it. Because I love you. But when it’s your turn-you have to make yourself do it. You let me. You never really want it, no matter how hard I try to please you. And I always know it.”

Hutch’s tone wasn’t acidic now. It was worse. It was forgiving. And Starsky’s face burned with the shame of it.

“I love you, Hutch, I swear I do. I just- I never thought-never imagined-never saw myself-”

“Getting fucked,” Hutch finished for him. “We’ve been lovers for two years, and you still can’t even say it.”

Starsky closed his eyes. “I love you. I never said it would be perfect. You make it sound like I hate it and you know that’s not true. You always make it good for me, Hutch. You always make me come, don’t you? Yeah, it’s hard for me to do it. And it’s hard for me to talk about it. I don’t know how you can be so easy about it, but I’m glad you can. And I want to be more like you, which is why I keep trying. Shit, Hutch, don’t be mad. I can’t help it. I never turned you down, and I never will. And I know someday I’ll get my head together about it. It’s not you, Hutch, it’s me. It’s my problem. And I can’t believe that after what we shared tonight over a phone-that we can be doing this to each other now, when-when we can’t even make up right.”

Starsky had finally run out of words. His stomach was in knots and his balls ached the way they always did when the two of them argued. If Hutch was home now, Starsky knew damned well the fight would escalate until they fell into bed still angry, half-wrestling, half-raping each other, using their seemingly endless passion to work out the situation. But with them separated like this-

It scared him. They couldn’t resolve it this way, being separated. Hutch would have too much time to think, too much time to brood. Something like this-they might even break up over it.

The silence stretched to the breaking point, as they listened, long-distance, to each other’s breathing.

“Where are you?” Hutch suddenly said softly.

Starsky thought he sounded close to tears and the thought of that made his own throat tighten painfully. He swallowed. “I’m home.”

“I know that,” Hutch said in exasperation, and Starsky could imagine him rolling his eyes. “I called you, remember? No, I mean, where are you? What part of the house?”

Starsky shifted. “I’m…on the floor in the living room. I kinda tripped- When I first got in, the phone was ringin’ off the hook. I thought it might be you, so I ran in fast in the dark and fell over the ottoman….” He trailed off, leaning against the blue leather footstool. Remembering the fantasy he’d woven for Hutch in Huggy’s bar, he slowly rubbed his palm over the top of the smooth leather. Even now, he could see Hutch laying over it, nude, clutching the sides, waiting for him to-

“It was me,” Hutch admitted. “I was afraid…. I thought maybe you were there with-”

Starsky was astounded. “It’s bad enough you thought I was screwing around, Hutch. Did you really think I do her in our bed?”

“I wasn’t thinking,” Hutch admitted. “I was just-panicking.”

Starsky heard the word. Hutch never used words lightly.

“Thinking about you with her…. I guess I was going a little crazy. Wasn’t being very logical-”

“That’s okay,” Starsky offered. “It’s not like Mr. Spock’s my idea of a hot date. You’d look pretty silly in those ears, anyhow. And bangs don’t do anything for you, even though you got that high forehead-”

“Starsky,” Hutch said, sounding tired.

The detective expected the next words to be “shut up,” but that wasn’t what he heard.

“Starsk, what- what are you wearing?”

Huh? What am I wearing? Starsky blinked, and really listened. Oh! What am I wearing! He pitched his voice low. “I’m wearing that dark blue shirt-the one you gave me for my birthday? The one that’s been washed so much it’s all soft now.”

“I know which one. I can never keep my hands off you when you’re wearing it. Even on the job, I look for excuses to reach over and touch you when you’re wearing that shirt.”

Absently, Starsky rubbed his knuckles over his own taut stomach, feeling the worn cotton softness of the favored shirt. He leaned one elbow on the ottoman, letting it hold him up.

“I bought it ’cause it matched your eyes,” Hutch admitted. He’d never told that to Starsky before, underplaying the purchase, telling him it was on sale, it was the right size, it was the first thing he saw…. “I didn’t know it’d get soft like that from washing. I love you in that shirt.”

Starsky’s balls were still aching, but now his cock started to twitch in concert. He measured his words carefully. “I wish you were here, Hutch. So you could touch my shirt. Man, I miss you.”

“Why do you think I’m acting so crazy?” Hutch murmured softly. “It’s making me nuts, being here, when you’re there. Do you know this is the longest we’ve been apart since…since we’ve become lovers?”

He’d nearly whispered those last few words and the longing in his voice made Starsky’s cock squirm like a snake. He grabbed himself to try and stop an unstoppable reaction.

“Wanna know what else I’m wearin’?” Starsky murmured back at Hutch.

“I already know,” Hutch told him, and there was the glint of familiar humor in his voice. “You’re wearing a pair of jeans that are so tight, I can’t imagine how you get those heavy balls of yours tucked safely inside. Your jeans are so tight, you can’t even fit any underwear beneath them; so tight, the seams are all strained. The calves of your legs are beautifully outlined, the shape of your thighs perfectly defined. Your cock is plain to see, and because you have a bad habit of running your hand over it every chance you get, the material is thin there, nearly worn through, as blatant an add for your size-and your religion-as a man could want. You’re a walking piece of pornography in those jeans. You oughta be arrested.”

“You wanna arrest me, officer?” Starsky teased, pitching his voice low, working at the seduction. “Wanna read me my rights? Slap the cuffs on me? Make me assume the position…?”

Starsky could hear Hutch’s breathing increase. “When I see you in those jeans, with your cock smiling at me, your tight balls pressing hard against the nearly white fabric, and your ass-that ass that makes me crazy for you, that ass that makes me want to-” He stopped abruptly.

How had they managed to come back to that? Starsky didn’t dare let the moment pass. “I love it that you’re crazy for my ass.”

“You don’t mean that,” Hutch protested, sounding dejected again.

“I do! I love it. Why do you think I wear these jeans? I want you crazy for me. I want you panicked. I want you so hot for me you go wild. I want you so hot you gotta touch me, gotta have me. I love it when you get like that. Needing me. Hungry for me.”

“I’m starved right now,” Hutch confessed breathlessly. “Where-where’s your hand? The one not holding the phone?”

Starsky had to think for a minute, then realized he was absently rubbing the knuckles of his right hand over his belly, enjoying the feel of the soft shirt. “I’m petting your shirt. It’s the closest I can get to you right now.”

“You’re touching yourself? With your palm?”

“Uh-uh. My knuckles. Not really thinkin’ about it, just, you know, rubbing-”

“Open your hand,” Hutch said softly. “Use your palm. Really feel it.”

Starsky obeyed, and his hand traced a slow pattern over his stomach.

“It’s so soft,” Hutch murmured, as though he could feel it himself. “Starsk, would you-move your hand lower?”

Starsky paused. He felt weird sitting here on the floor of his own house touching himself, much weirder than he had sitting on a bar stool in a public place. But then again, he hadn’t touched himself at Huggy’s. He’d been all wrapped in a fantasy of his own choosing, lost in the passion in his own mind. He realized with a jolt it was Hutch’s turn. This might be harder, to give up that much control to Hutch. Was that really true about him-did he really resist giving that much to Hutch?

“Starsk?”

“I’m here,” he assured his partner. “I’m here, Hutch. I’m listening. You-you’ve gotta tell me what you want.”

Hutch hesitated, then said quietly, “Move your hand lower. Over your belly. Over your waistband. Slide it down. Down to where your cock nestles tight against the fabric. Rub your hand over it, the way you like to do when you think no one’s watching.” It wasn’t really a command. It was more like a request. Like Hutch half expected him to refuse.

Starsky flushed a little. He always told himself no one noticed when he handled himself, but he knew that was a lie. He did it to tease Hutch, but Hutch wasn’t here now. Well, he was-over the phone. He sighed, and did as he was told.

The feel of his own palm tingled across his cloth-covered cock as Hutch murmured, “I wish it was my hand. I want it to be my hand.”

“I’m wishing the same thing,” Starsky told him. “Wishin’ it bad.”

“Stroke it the way you do me,” Hutch told him. “God, I love that. The way you hold me so carefully, the way you run your fingers over me, touching me so light, so delicate. You have incredible hands, Starsk.”

“Do I?”

“You know you do,” Hutch assured him. “You make me wild with those hands. And your fingertips-”

Instinctively, Starsky outlined his cock with the very tips of his fingers, the way he loved to do it to Hutch.

“The way you trace my shape in my pants to tease me,” Hutch whispered, unable to finish the sentence.

Under his own touch, Starsky’s cock twitched and started to grow, started to nod.

“Does it feel good when you do it to yourself?” Hutch wondered.

“Not as good as when I do it to you,” Starsky confessed.

Hutch sighed.

“Are you touching yourself, Hutch?” Starsky asked.

There was silence for a moment, then Hutch finally said, “No. I’m touching you.”

Starsky felt a shiver chase over his arms, and his eyes shut involuntarily

“I’m touching you,” Hutch breathed, “with the tips of my fingers. I’m feeling you grow, feeling you harden because I’m touching you. If-if you close your eyes, Starsk, you can feel it, too. Feel me touching you.”

“Okay,” Starsky breathed, “okay.” As he touched himself lightly, carefully, he tried to do it the way Hutch always did, and was surprised at how difficult it was to imitate that tender, gentle contact. Hutch’s hand was so big, and his own was smaller in comparison.

“Can you feel me touching you, babe?” Hutch asked, his voice low. “I can feel it. The strong column of your shaft as it begins to harden and swell. The elegant conical shape of your glans. The clean definition of the ridge around it. That’s always such a turn-on for me, that difference between us.”

“You never told me that before,” Starsky said softly, even as he fingered his circumcised crown. “I love it, too. That we’re different that way. The same way I love that you’re so smooth, so hairless-”

“And you’ve got that incredible pelt!” Hutch said, laughing. “Did you know that the fur on your chest is almost as soft as that shirt you’re wearing?”

“No,” Starsky murmured. “Is it?”

“Yeah,” Hutch said. “And petting you when we’re in bed-running my hand over you from collarbone to hip-god, I love doing that. Tracing your ribs, finding your nipples under all that hair-then sucking them into my mouth….”

Starsky squeezed his eyes shut as Hutch described one of his very favorite moments of foreplay. “Oh, damn, Hutch-”

“Yeah, I know you love that. My mouth on you, licking, tasting, nipping-especially those small, brown nipples. I think you’ve gotta be the most sensitive man on the planet, Starsk. When I work on your nipples, you just melt.”

Starsky forced himself to swallow, even as he realized he was rubbing his cock harder through his jeans. He ached now; he was swollen hard. He needed Hutch, his hands, his mouth. This was no good, sitting on the floor of his living room, hugging an ottoman. He wanted to weep.

“Where’s the stain?” Hutch asked, his voice nothing but a dark undertow of sound, of need, of hunger.

“Stain?” Starsky asked dazedly. He was falling into the vortex of Hutch’s voice even while his body ached desperately for his lover’s physical presence.

“The stain,” Hutch said patiently. “On your pants. From the bar-”

Starsky blinked. Oh. The stain. He looked down. To him, it seemed as bright as a painted neon bulls-eye, the small spot on his jeans that had dried to a whitish mark.

“Can you see it?”

“Sure, I can. Hell, it’s as big as my hand!” He felt his cheeks-with heat or embarrassment, he couldn’t say.

“You have a small hand, Starsk,” Hutch reminded him. “Besides, if you wore underwear you wouldn’t be having this problem.”

Only Hutch would scold him during a seduction, Starsky thought, chagrined.

“But then, if you wore underwear,” Hutch added, “I wouldn’t be having as much fun with you.”

Starsky smiled at the phone.

“If I was there,” Hutch told him, “I’d clean that stain for you.”

“Yeah? How?” Starsky wondered.

“I’d wash it-with my tongue. You know I love the way you taste.”

“Hutch!” Starsky breathed, feeling his cock throb at the very suggestion.

“I’d lick the stain clean, then work my way up, until your entire groin was soaked, then finally-are you in those button-fly jeans again?”

Starsky frowned, then realized he was. “Yeah, I am.”

“Hmmm. A zipper would be easier, but, hell, I’m creative. I’m sure I’d figure out how to open those buttons-with my teeth.”

Starsky had to choke back a moan.

“And once those buttons were open-there wouldn’t be anything between us, would there? Just your cock-growing right out of your pants-and my mouth.”

“Oh, please, Hutch,” Starsky heard himself beg.

“I love that, when you’re so hard your cock is bobbing up and down on its own, climbing out of your jeans. I love running my cheek over it just to feel its heat, its power. I love to brush my upper lip against it, to make my mustache stroke the heavy column of it.”

Starsky hissed, the familiar image searing him. “Your mustache, oh damn, babe. It’s so soft, your mustache. ‘Cause it’s blond, I guess. But soft. And when you do that to me-”

“You fall apart,” Hutch said smugly, and Starsky could plainly hear the satisfied smile in his voice. “And it’s so good for me when you do. Your cock grows even bigger, and your body arches toward my mouth, wanting, asking-”

“Begging!” Starsky admitted shamelessly. “Please, Hutch!”

“You don’t have to beg,” Hutch whispered. “You know I love to-”

“Hutch!” Starsky breathed, not wanting him to say another word, unable to bear the tension. He was clutching himself in a death grip, with no relief in sight. He couldn’t bear this.

“I love it when I open my mouth-”

“Hutch, no, no!”

“-And you slide yourself inside-”

“Oh, goddamnit….” Starsky exhaled. A shuddering jolt of pleasure gripped his testicles as Hutch whispered those words, and he rubbed himself hard through his jeans, then squeezed his balls. The tingling surge of desire wracked his lower body, making his ass clench hard in need. “I can’t take this!”

“You always say that when I go down on you,” Hutch reminded him.

He moaned. “That’s cause I can’t! It’s-it’s so hot, so tight in your mouth. You always use your tongue that way-”

“Making you wet all over,” Hutch agreed.

“From the root to the tip, just to make me insane. And then, and then, you suck the head, just the head, an’ you do it just to make me flip out-”

“Which you always do,” Hutch said.

“It’s a wonder I don’t die the way you suck me! That wide, pretty mouth of yours, taking me in, taking me deep-”

“As deep as you can go-”

“Inside you! God, what a turn-on that is, to watch my cock go all the way inside your mouth, then feel you suck me the way you do. Aw, geez, Hutch-!” Without realizing it, he’d crossed his legs as he rubbed himself, and was rocking against the ottoman trying to ease the terrible ache.

“I really love sucking you, Starsk,” Hutch admitted. “I love the feel of you in my mouth, getting bigger, getting harder. There are times I think there’s no limit to how much you can grow when I’m sucking you. Sometimes, when you start to lose it, and you grab my hair and start pumping into me, I can’t catch my breath and I think, ‘damn, I’m gonna faint, this is so good’!”

Starsky groaned out loud.

“I can feel myself getting dizzy, cause you won’t let me breathe, it’s getting so good to you. I love it when you’re in my mouth.”

“Hu-Hutch, I…I need…” Starsky realized he was gasping.

But Hutch wasn’t listening now. He was getting lost in the telling. “I know what you need. Open those damned buttons now.”

Dazedly, Starsky fumbled with his shirt, getting it half undone.

“Not those buttons,” Hutch snapped, as if he could see the cop wrestling with his shirt.

Starsky jumped, looking around the room guiltily as if he half expected Hutch to leap out from behind the couch.

‘The buttons on your fly!”

Starsky realized Hutch had that dangerous edge in his voice, the one he always got when he was hot, really hot, when he couldn’t wait, when his patience with the process went right down the tubes. It didn’t happen that often. Hutch’s ability to hold on to the moment, to keep them riding the crest just before the peak was nothing short of phenomenal. But there were times when Hutch would suddenly lose it, just let it go all at once. Those were always some of their wildest times-and for Starsky, some of the scariest. Those were the times when he was forced to admit that in a fair fight, Hutch’s size and strength gave him an advantage. And this was hardly a fair fight.

When Hutch got like this, almost anything could happen. When Hutch got like this-his needs overwhelming him, his passion for his lover running over his gentleness, even his fairness-

When Hutch got like this- When Hutch got like this, Starsky knew to yield.

Starsky felt an answering throb deep in his bowels, as his anus tightened convulsively.

“Starsk?” Hutch breathed into the phone, asking, almost pleading.

He blinked, abandoned his semi-successful assault on his shirt and nearly dropped the phone in his haste to get his fly undone. His cock was out by the time he hit the third button. He couldn’t manage the fourth at all.

The shock of air on his overheated organ make him whimper and Hutch heard it. That wasn’t good, Starsky thought absently. It always made the blond worse if Starsky showed signs of weakness.

“How does it feel?” Hutch asked.

Starsky could tell by the tone that the receiver was pressed right against Hutch’s mouth. He had to close his eyes. He wanted so badly to be that receiver, that unyielding hunk of plastic, just for the momentary pleasure of being in contact with Hutch’s beautiful mouth.

“It hurts,” he sighed, unable, for the moment, to find any other words to describe the sensation. “It hurts for you, for wanting you, needing you-oh, damn, Hutch-”

“I don’t want it to hurt,” Hutch whispered. “Touch it for me. Make it feel good. Make it feel right.”

Starsky rubbed his palm over the glans. The sensation comforted him a little, but didn’t do a thing to ease the deep ache inside him. “I can’t make it feel right. I need you for that.”

He thought he heard Hutch choke back a sound. “You’re killin’ me, you know that, don’t you? Are you doing it on purpose?”

Starsky wet his lips, his mouth suddenly bone dry. “You know I’m not. I can’t help it, Hutch. I’m wantin’ you. It’s like just knowin’ I can’t have you, just knowing how far away you are, how long it’s gonna be before we get back together, it’s just making everything worse. I need you. Not my own hand. You. Your hand. Your big, pretty hands. Coverin’ me. Maulin’ me. Moving me around. When you get those hands on me, you make me want everything, anything. When you start grabbing me, turning me over, touching me wherever you want, letting me know what you want from me-Hutch, it’s so good I can’t take it. And-and I can’t pretend my hand’s gonna make me feel that way.”

There was quiet on the line again, except for Hutch’s tortured breathing. Neither of them could pretend they didn’t know what Starsky was talking about.

“You…make it sound almost like you-like you want that,” Hutch murmured so quietly, Starsky nearly couldn’t hear him.

Starsky closed his eyes. Tell him the truth. The truth. He rubbed his cock hard, as if he were mad at it for making him feel this way. “I do want it. I want you. You always do this to me, make me crazy this way. I hear your voice, the way you sound-after two years you don’t think I know what it means? It means one thing when you sound like that-think I don’t know?”

“Starsk, don’t-” Hutch sounded like the words had been torn out of him.

“You need me. You need me. You need to get in me. You need to fuck. No. You need to fuck me. You think I don’t know what that feels like-to need someone like that? I’m a man, I know.”

“Don’t do this now, please!” Hutch was begging, really begging.

“Don’t do what? Don’t tell you how I feel? Don’t tell you what I really want?”

“You don’t want this-I know you don’t-” The big blond sounded lost, abandoned.

“You don’t know shit, Hutchinson. Two years we been rockin’ and rollin’ and you still don’t know. When you get that need, you get crazy, y’know that? We’ll be in the bed, playin’, makin’ each other smile, and alluva sudden, it changes. You change. Like fuckin’ Lon Chaney, right there in the bed. You go from playing to suddenly not playing. Not playing at all. And all that need, all that hunger you got, it’s right there in front of me. I never saw that before in anyone, that kinda raw, bottomless need, and all for me. I sure never saw it in any woman, and I never had a man before you. No one ever needed me, ever needed so much from me like you do. You think that’s not scary? You’re damned right it is. It’s scary as all hell.”

“Starsk, I never meant-I don’t wanna-”

Starsky cut him off, not letting him finish. “Suddenly, you’re all over me, all that Viking size and strength. I swear, at moments like that, Hutch, I think you gotta be the biggest man on the planet. Your cock looks like some kinda billy club and I think, ‘this isn’t possible. It’s just not physically possible,’ but, I’m lying to myself, ’cause I know it is. I’m lying cause I’m freaked out, ’cause you want me so much. Like no one ever did.”

“Starsk, please, I don’t want-”

“-what I’m really thinking, as you flip me over like a ragdoll, or haul my legs over your shoulders is, ‘it won’t be enough. Whatever I’ve got, whatever I can offer, it can’t possibly be enough to satisfy this much man.'”

There was complete silence on the line.

Starsky’s voice tightened, roughened so much he was afraid he couldn’t finish. “It doesn’t mean I don’t want you, Hutch, don’t you see? I-I coulda never told you this if you were standing here. I’d get all distracted by your eyes goin’ all soft and worried, and start being afraid you wouldn’t understand. And it sure isn’t something I could bring up when the moment’s on us. It’s not like you’re real open to discussion when it’s happenin’. But when we’re there, at that place, and you’re on me-I just know it isn’t gonna be enough. I just know. And I ‘let’ you anyway, cause I can’t say no. Don’t wanna, anyhow. And somehow, when it’s happenin’ you make it so good for me, so fine, so unreal, that all I can think is, even though it’s not enough for you, you make it perfect for me. And my heart breaks a little, ’cause you’re always so good for me. And I figure I’ll make it up to you somehow, someway, somewhen…. This isn’t making any sense anymore, is it?”

He realized he was still rubbing his cock, but there was nothing sensual about it now. It was nothing more than a comforting gesture, something that a child might do alone in bed at night. Because, after all, that’s where he was right now, alone. At night.

“Hutch, it ain’t workin’,” he said sorrowfully, releasing himself and tucking himself back inside his pants. “I’m too lonely for you. My hand’s too small to pretend it’s yours. Tomorrow, right after work, I’m getting on a plane. Don’t try and stop me! Nicky can take care of himself for a few days. I’m coming up there and we’re gonna tear that hotel bed apart. And I swear I’ll give you all I got and I’ll find some more besides ’til I can finally give you enough. Hutch? Hutch, you there?”

There was a strangled, choking sound on the other end, and Hutch finally managed to say, “I can’t do this anymore.” A sudden sharp clunking rattle sounded as if Hutch dropped the phone, and Starsky heard odd background sounds, the kind you hear on an abandoned line. Was Hutch crying? Had he dropped the phone to get a grip on himself?

When the silence stretched on too long, Starsky called into the mouthpiece, “Hutch! Hutch, don’t go! It’s gonna be okay, babe, we’re gonna work this out. I’ll talk to Dobey, maybe I can get out half a day early. Hutch? Come on, man, talk to me!” He strained to hear, strained to figure out where Hutch was, where he’d gone, but there was just white noise and sounds he couldn’t identify. “Hutch, please! Talk to me!”

“I don’t wanna talk anymore,” Hutch’s rough baritone suddenly said.

Starsky stared at the phone, baffled. That voice hadn’t come through the receiver.

Slowly, disbelievingly, he looked up.

Standing there, impossibly tall, imposingly needy, stood Starsky’s own personal Viking. Hutch was in the open doorway, still clutching the door knob in a death grip, his knuckles white from the pressure. His hair was wild, his eyes wet, his clothes thrown together, and beneath the zipper of his perpetual brown cords bulged an impressive hard-on.

A thousand things went through Starsky’s keen mind in an instant.

What the hell is he doing here?

How could he get from Frisco to L.A. in two minutes? He’d hafta teleport, like in Star Trek!

What about the trial tomorrow?

What’s he doin’ wearing that horrible green shirt? I thought I threw that away.

But as he fully absorbed the import of Hutch’s strained expression, the only thing Starsky could think to say as he clutched a useless phone and leaned against their blue ottoman was, “Oh, shit!”

Hutch was on him in two strides, before he could get off the floor, before he could hang up the phone. As Hutch knelt beside him, his hands-those big, magnificent hands that Starsky couldn’t even pretend to emulate-took hold of his face, so gently, yet so possessively. “How could you even say such a thing? How could you even think it?”

Starsky was too confused to even begin to fathom what thing it was he wasn’t supposed to say or think. He could only blink and stare up into the ice blue eyes he loved, the eyes he hadn’t seen in-how long? Days? Weeks? Months? Years? Forever, it seemed. They were beautiful, those eyes. His own hands came up, gripping Hutch’s shoulders, still trying to make himself realize Hutch was here, right now.

“Don’t you know that what you give me is so much, I can hardly bear it?” Hutch asked him, sounding almost angry. “You give me something no one else ever came close to, you damned fool!”

Starsky realized absently that he was grinning while Hutch yelled. Hutch was the only one who ever yelled at him while making love to him, so Starsky knew now for sure that this was no alien body snatcher, this was really his Hutch. Here. In their house. With him. With the world’s biggest hard-on. Starsky couldn’t stop grinning.

“Not enough for me?” Hutch asked, even as his thumbs traced patterns against Starsky’s cheeks. “Not enough? When I’m inside you, it’s like drowning. I can’t breathe, I can’t think, I can only swim for my life. You surround me, you swallow me up, and you make it so incredible for me I lose complete control. When I’m in you, I’m captured by you, owned by you, and everything that happens between us at that moment, you control. I’m yours then, completely. Because you’re giving me more than I can bear, more than I can handle. Don’t you know how much I love you?”

Well, he can’t be that mad, Starsky thought dazedly, still captivating by Hutch’s flashing blue eyes, ’cause he didn’t call me a moron!

And then Hutch’s mouth-that wide, mesmerizing mouth that so enraptured Starsky when Hutch was using it to berate him even during their love-making-came down and claimed Starsky’s for a searing kiss.

His arms surrounded Hutch automatically as the blond’s tongue thrust into him hurriedly, hungrily. This was Hutch at his neediest, his most desperate, and Starsky trembled in the face of that need.

As if trying to answer his friend’s fears, Hutch pulled out of the kiss, murmuring, “You give me so much, so much more than enough. And I need you to give it to me now.”

Starsky felt the words cut a path straight to his groin and he moaned. Hutch’s eyes sought out the truth in him, piercing him, laying him open.

“It’s still there,” the blond whispered worriedly. “That look you always get. Like you want to run-”

Starsky grabbed a handful of Hutch’s blond hair and somehow found his voice. “Run? I wanna bolt, wanna race out of here, want to get away. But that’s only ’cause I know my trying to leave would make you wild, that you’d come after me and pounce on me like a lion, dragging me to the ground.” He had to smile at the image, even though Hutch seemed so upset. “And then, because you had to chase me, you’d be even hotter! You’d tear me apart….”

Then Hutch’s mouth was on him again, his tongue searching for Starsky’s words, the words that could make Hutch so crazy. “You’re dangerous,” Hutch gasped, in between kisses. “The most dangerous man I know. Dangerous to me. Dangerous to yourself.”

Starsky wanted to laugh, but he couldn’t get enough air. His heart was pounding, his blood turning to vapor, as Hutch pawed at him with those big hands, touching him everywhere, but especially his ass.

“I thought I told you to unbutton these damned things,” Hutch growled, as he tugged at the waistband of Starsky’s jeans. He was seconds away from losing it, Starsky knew. He licked his lower lip.

“Is that what I’m supposed to do?” he asked innocently. Deliberately provoking. Throwing meat at the lion. “What you tell me?”

Hutch’s jaw clenched-always a promising sign-and suddenly he grabbed Starsky’s jeans by the belt loops and used them to haul Starsky off the floor. Dropping Starsky’s butt unceremoniously into the arm chair, Hutch placed one knee on the ottoman and loomed over his partner threateningly.

Starsky’s blue eyes widened as he realized how trapped he was.

“Hey, hot stuff, where’s all your smooth talk now?” Hutch wondered. “I thought you had the ottoman all ready for me. Where’s the lubricant? You’re supposed to be prepared for action!”

Starsky was shaking his head in sheer bafflement. “That-that was a fantasy, you big lug. What the hell are you even doin’ here? You were in Frisco when I talked to you at Huggy’s bar-weren’t you?”

Before answering him, Hutch honed in for another kiss, his hunger for Starsky’s mouth obviously making him reckless in his desire.

Starsky melted into the leather armchair, his knees spreading wide in a blatant plea. He couldn’t really want this, could he? Him, Dave Starsky, macho cop, lady-killer stud? He couldn’t really want this man, his partner, the sometimes-effete, overly-sensitive, Nordic god of an intellectual to fuck him, could he?

He felt every muscle in his ass tighten in anticipation.

Oh, yeah, he most certainly could.

“I was in Frisco then,” Hutch said abruptly, as he reached impatiently for Starsky’s fly. “You have any idea what’s it’s like bein’ in San Francisco when you’re a man in love with another man? Another man who’s not with you? Starsky, the place is crawling with gays. Everywhere you go, they’re kissing each other, touching each other-”

“Will you quit with the fuckin’ travelogue already and get in my pants?” Starsky asked in sheer frustration.

“Oh, don’t worry,” Hutch assured him with a grin that exposed his canines. “I’m gettin’ in your pants all right.” The big blond wrenched open the last recalcitrant button on Starsky’s fly and yank the denims apart.

The mechanics of the situation suddenly occurred to Starsky as his nerves began to fray. “You-you’re gonna do me right in this chair, aren’t you?”

Hutch was mauling the pants down his legs, barely taking time to tow his shoes and socks off. “I thought about using the ottoman, but that’s your gambit. God knows I wouldn’t deny you your own scenario.”

There he goes using those big words again. Italian ones, at that. And I can see he’s too damned hot to ever make it to the bed. “Hutch, come on, wait!” Starsky tried to keep the creeping panic out of his voice. “Let me get the KY-”

“You’re not going anywhere,” Hutch growled, the sound lighting a fire inside Starsky’s gut. “Just be grateful you fell in love with a sea scout.” Hutch reached deep into the pocket of his cords, pulled out a small tube of Vaseline. “We’re always prepared.”

‘That’s the boy scouts who’re always prepared,” Starsky said as his eyes fell on the pristine tube. No doubt they sold those convenient little items at the airport, for people who had to catch quickies in the lavatories. Oh, shit. “Sea scouts are into ropes and knots and stuff-” He trailed off at the dangerous glint in Hutch’s eyes.

“Oh, I’m a whiz at ropes and knots, too, Starsky.” Hutch finished unbuttoning the soft blue shirt. “Wanna demonstration?”

Starsky felt the color drain right out of his face as his freed cock bobbed joyously at the news. He shook his head hurriedly, before Hutch decided to go find some unused clothesline. “No! Not now! Take your word for it!”

Hutch’s face shifted as his eyes roamed Starsky’s nearly nude body. He was sprawled unglamorously in the armchair, wearing nothing but an unbuttoned blue shirt, his bare ass nestled in the leather seat, his legs spread around the ottoman, while Hutch continued to perch one knee there.

“Jeez, Starsk, you’re beautiful.” Hutch sighed and ran his hands-those big, handsome hands that Starsky ached for-over the fine brown hair that covered his chest.

He could still remember the first time Hutch had said that to him, that first night they’d gone to bed together, both of them amazed and terrified at what they were doing. Starsky had been struck dumb by the amazing splendor of his friend’s body-a body he’d seen so many countless time, now suddenly all new again-but had been unable to voice his feelings. Then Hutch had first breathed the amazing concept, that he, Starsky, could be beautiful to Hutch-he still couldn’t believe it, it was too bizarre, too unreal. He sighed with same rush of feelings he’d felt the first time Hutch had said it.

Hutch stroked him from collar to thigh with his big hands, just like he promised, and Starsky could only gasp and arch. When Hutch fingered his hardening nipples, his eyes rolled back in his head. He reached, blindly, to pull the blond into a kiss. But he was only granted one. And he knew why.

“I can’t wait anymore.” Hutch’s voice was rough with need. Impatiently, he tore off his own shirt-much to Starsky’s relief-and quickly unzipped without bothering to divest himself completely of his pants.

Starsky swallowed and dared to look into the face of all that hunger. Hunger for him.

Hutch pushed the ottoman against the seat of the chair, then grabbed Starsky’s hips. Whatever happened to him from here on he’d have little to do with. Just ride the tide and try to relax, at least until the tsunami. Hutch hauled his rear down onto the ottoman, so that he slouched in the chair, shoulders pressing into the seat, shirt riding up, just covering his arms and little else.

Kneeling by the ottoman, Hutch simultaneously grabbed one of Starsky’s legs and slung it over his shoulder as he reached for the small tube with his other hand.

Starsky thought maybe if he closed his eyes he could control the escalating panic he couldn’t help but feel, but as Hutch uncapped the lube, he found himself staring helplessly. The blond squeezed a dollop into his palm and held it. His eyes glistened wildly, predator on the prey.

Starsky found his voice, or the remnants of it. “Nicky could walk in any minute….”

Hutch shook his head and smiled. “You sent him to a hotel. Whatever else Nick is, he’s a Starsky. He’ll be busy all night. And besides,” his eyes roved the exposed body lying before him, “if he does walk in, maybe his brother can teach him something yet.” Then, cupping one of Starsky’s buttocks in his free hand, Hutch bent over his lover’s groin and enveloped Starsky’s raging cock in his mouth.

The sudden, shocking pleasure was like a live wire touching his balls. Starsky cried out loud and arched up, up, reaching, plunging, needing to go deeper into all that warmth, that heat, that appetite. “Hutch!” he gasped, disbelievingly, “HUTCH!”

Hutch, however could only growl in answer because his mouth was full, busy licking, sucking, devouring Starsky’s heavy manhood. He anchored Starsky in place with the grip on his ass as his other hand-the one warming the lube-zeroed in on his goal.

With trembling urgency, Hutch stroked Starsky’s anus with the gel, coating him, at the same time that he teased and tormented him as his greased thumb circled his puckered hole. Starsky was so sensitive there that Hutch’s touch electrified him. He nearly shouted from the sensation, and shoved hard into Hutch’s mouth and throat. The big blond just took it, even when Starsky grabbed as much hair as he could and pulled that sweet mouth all the way onto him.

When Hutch penetrated him with a slick finger, Starsky nearly came. Hutch gasped as if surprised as Starsky’s cock swelled bigger in his mouth, and quickly pulled off. Starsky groaned, wanting to weep, but he knew there was no point in complaining. Hutch would never let him come that way tonight. Not tonight. Which didn’t mean he wouldn’t tease him to insanity, torture him with all the pleasure he could stand and then some. Hutch penetrated him deep with that finger, very business-like, determined, opening him up. But even as he did, he never forgot Starsky’s pleasure, moving his tongue lightly over the swollen shaft, the furious wine-dark glans, the tightening balls. He knew Starsky couldn’t stand another minute of that intense sucking, but a little light torment would just stoke his fire.

The second finger nearly paralyzed him, and he tried to clutch his lover to him with the leg riding Hutch’s shoulder. Those icy Nordic eyes were like lasers now, watching him, gauging his reaction. Starsky tightened convulsively around the invading hand, unable to bear the too-sharp pleasure. Hutch slowed it down, made it smooth, made it sweet. He wasn’t about to take no for an answer. Not tonight.

Starsky felt him shift, felt the hand gripping his ass move up to his cock, knew Hutch was getting impatient. The third finger made him cry out loud, made him wonder how he’d ever managed this before. Then a lube-filled hand was stroking his cock as a warm mouth bathed his glans and in seconds he was open, wide open, filled with Hutch’s hand, feeling like a freight train could fuck him now and that would be good, too-if Hutch were driving it.

He was whimpering, making all those little prey noises that made Hutch go wild. He didn’t want to make them, but he couldn’t help himself. Hutch was in him. Hutch was in him. No, not really. Not yet. Oh, shit!

Feeling the moment drawing near, feeling Hutch’s expectant tension, Starsky forced his eyes open. He was gripping the arms of the chair, holding on for dear life. He blinked. He could tell Hutch wanted to say something. Something. “Hutch?” It was only a whisper, all he could manage.

Hutch was panting, his chest flushed bright red, sweat already beading over his skin. His nipples were so hard-

“Starsk?” he gasped, barely able to speak himself. “Will you? Will you let me?”

I’m sprawled naked across an armchair and an ottoman in my own living room, my legs look like you’re about to use ’em to make a wish, your hand’s half-way to my heart, and now you’re gonna ask permission? Starsky blinked, wondering how many years it would take before he really understood his convoluted blond. He wet his lips. “‘Let’ you? Hutch, if you don’t do me right here and now, I swear I’ll never forgive you!”

Hutch stared at him, clearly disbelieving.

Starsky’s whole body thrummed with need. Was he going to make him beg for it? Okay. He was hardly in a position to act proud. “Please, Hutch, come on. I need you now, really bad. I-I’ll try to be enough-”

Hutch released a choked sound, then suddenly fell on Starsky, devouring his mouth, wrestling with his tongue, until Starsky was breathless, and impossibly even more excited. Hutch pulled away just as suddenly and then it was happening, urgently if not hurriedly. The hand was gone, and in its place something round and blunt and all Hutch. So much man, too much, surely, for Starsky.

“Oh, god, I love you.” Hutch watched himself as entered Starsky.

“Oh, jeez, Hutch.” Starsky gripped the chair as Hutch pulled his ass onto his shaft. “Oh, god, oh god!” He would dissolve. Shatter. Crumble. It was too much, way too much, more than he’d ever learn to handle.

“You’d better pray,” Hutch warned, taking him, entering him, grabbing his other leg and hoisting it over his other shoulder, gripping his hips, moving them the way he needed, the way he wanted, making them dance and sway, bringing pleasure to them both.

Then Starsky was filled, completed, his center on fire-his head thrashed on the chair seat, his breath was gone, he couldn’t find it-

Then Hutch collected his erection in that still slick hand and stroked once. The groan tore out of him from deep inside, the pleasure becoming all, everything. He was nothing now but what Hutch made him. Hutch stroked again from root to tip, even as he withdrew slowly from Starsky’s body, then moved back in.

Fucking me. Hutch is fucking me. It stilled amazed him that it could happen, that he could allow it, that they could do this thing. It still amazed him how it made him feel-both violated and delighted, imprisoned and liberated. He was surrounded and filled, nearly suffocating with pleasure. Hutch moved slowly, surely, using the kind of pace Starsky knew was for the long haul. Prayed it was. Wanted it to be.

Will it be enough? Could it ever be enough?

“Oh god, I love you.” Hutch rocked his hips, honing his stroking hand, working in concert so that Starsky was totally overwhelmed, totally taken. “Love being inside you. You maul me when I’m in there. You don’t even know it, do you? You think I’m doin’ it all, but I’m not. You’re pulling me inside, sucking me deep, the same way you do when you go down on me. Oh, Starsk, it’s more than I can take. So much. So good. I love you.”

Starsky could only watch Hutch tell him this in stunned disbelief. He felt like an inanimate lump of clay, becoming whatever Hutch made him. Yet Hutch acted as if Starsky were the predator, catching him, holding him-he couldn’t think any more. All he could do now was feel.

Tell him, something inside him said. Tell him how you feel. How could he find the words to describe what couldn’t be described? He made himself reach, made himself move. It was nearly impossible, but he did it, until he clutched the wrist of the hand stroking him so fine, so perfectly. I made love to a million women before you, and most of ’em disappeared once I was inside them, becoming nothing but faceless bodies. There was just me and my need and their sweet wet warmth. But you never forget my need, my pleasure. Even when you’re this close. Tell him.

Hutch was watching him, staring at him, as though he couldn’t get enough of looking at him because of their separation.

“Hutch.” Starsky’s voice was so harsh he wasn’t even sure he could hear him. “Hutch, it’s good. You always make it so good. You make me want it. You make me love it. I really mean it. I love the way you fuck me.”

Hutch actually lurched when he said the words as if completely taken by surprised. He shook his head and opened his mouth but nothing came out. Then, his eyes all soft, he rasped, “You’re more than I can handle, more than I can take. You’re everything to me. Don’t you ever forget it!”

Starsky felt it coming on fast, faster than he could react. He would’ve tried to hold back if he’d realized, but it was too late. Hutch’s words pushed him over the precipice he’d been dancing on too long. “Hutch!” he called out in warning. “Hutch!”

“Oh, dammit, Starsk, what are you doing to me?” Hutch said and drove into him, as if he were trying to pierce his heart, come in his throat.

Doin’ to you? Starsky thought incoherently just as his body short-circuited, imploding and exploding all at once, scattering his atoms to the solar winds. He erupted as Hutch squeezed him hard. In answer, he clamped down so tightly on Hutch he saw spots before his eyes. His cry of pleasure was met and matched as Hutch took him, claimed him, made him his own. Oh, wow, you’re in me. Coming in me. Who could’ve ever imagined….

That was his last tangible thought as Hutch collapsed over him, enfolding him, blanketing him in the chair as the two of them lapsed immediately into sleep.

* * *

The worst thing about their passion, Starsky thought tiredly, as he struggled back to consciousness, was the payback. How come they never felt their age when they were doing it, only when they woke up from doing it?

He was glued to the leather chair and the ottoman with sweat and semen, and by the pressure of the heaviest Viking on the planet. Right now, it felt like Hutch was from Jupiter and weighed about a million pounds. Even so, Starsky realized, as he gently moved long blond strands off the peacefully sleeping face, he was loathed to disturb him.

Hutch clutched him around the waist even in his sleep, as though if he didn’t, Starsky would try to escape. It made Starsky think of Hutch as a big bird of prey mantling the meal he’d so cleverly brought down. Starsky’s legs had somehow managed to fall off Hutch’s shoulders, but they were still spread wide around either side of the ottoman where Starsky’s now unpleasantly sticky ass was glued. Hutch’s head nestled on his belly, his knees on the carpet.

Bent you over the ottoman after all, didn’t I, blintz? Only not quite the way I’d planned. He would’ve laughed at that, but he ached too much all over. Only hurts when I laugh. Or breathe. Or move.

Hutch began to stir all at once, sucking in a deep lungful of air, then stretching and arching without ever releasing Starsky’s body. He groaned a little. “Am I too heavy?” he asked, rubbing his cheek against Starsky’s furry belly.

“Yes,” Starsky said precisely, knowing what the response would be. After two years, some things were consistent.

“Too bad,” Hutch muttered, and rubbed his face in Starsky’s pelt, burying his nose in Starsky’s navel. Finally, he looked up with one eye. It was still blue, but a little weary looking, a tad bloodshot.

Starsky felt smug. Not often the prey gets to score points.

Hutch hesitated. “You okay?”

This was always the point where Starsky had to decide how much sympathy he wanted to wring out of him. He often found himself the recipient of lavish meals, sometimes even roses, if he bore enough scars. He moved his hips a little. The truth was he felt great. He could fake it, though.

No, not today. Well, maybe- There were still some things he needed to know. “I’m okay. I’m fine.” He had to smile. Couldn’t keep it in if he tried. “It was good, babe.”

Hutch brightened a little and the edge of worry left his eyes. “Yeah?”

Starsky stroked his hair. “Better than that. Incredible. I love it when you get crazy like that, and you know it.”

Hutch colored a little and sat back on his heels, pulling his weight off his partner.

Starsky wasn’t finished. “But, good as it was-you owe me, pal.”

Hutch glanced at him sideways, even as he gave him a hand and helped him into a normal sitting position. “Owe you? Owe you what? Another go ’round?” He was grinning.

Starsky glowered. “Tonight? Dream on. I’m a crippled man. Probably have to call in sick. Need a chiropractor at least, maybe even a specialist-”

“Like a proctologist?” Hutch offered helpfully and hauled up the cords that had drifted so ignominiously around his thighs. “Forget the Camille bit. You already said you felt great. So, what do I owe you?”

Starsky reached for his jeans, realized they were way out of reach and gave up, settling for buttoning up his shirt and pulling the front over his shrunken organs. It always amazed him how small they seemed afterwards when they had been the center of his universe just a few short minutes ago. He folded his bare legs under him, sitting on the ottoman like the caterpillar from Alice in Wonderland. “You, my love, owe me some answers.”

No argument, just a smirk and a nod. “What are the questions?”

Starsky glared, growing impatient. “Cut to the chase, Hutchinson. Where were you when I talked to you at Huggy’s?”

“I was in a hotel in San Francisco, just like I said.” Hutch moved to sit in the chair Starsky had vacated. Hutch placed an impossibly long leg on either side of the ottoman. They were inches apart, but there was a part of Starsky that suddenly felt like Hutch was too far away. They were separate again. They weren’t joined. He was stunned to realize how he now felt about that.

“When you talked dirty to me from Huggy’s bar,” Hutch continued, “it made me just about nuts. I couldn’t figure out how I was gonna make it through the next few days without you.” He buried a hand in Starsky’s hair and drew him close for a chaste kiss. “I was sitting there, waiting for you to call me back from the house, knowing if you did it was just gonna make everything worse, but needing to hear you-when the State Attorney called. Seems one of the perps finally opted to plea bargain and sell out the other one, and the next thing you know they were both copping a plea, and I was no longer needed. The State Attorney wanted to let me outta there while I could still catch a plane to L.A. since he was sure ‘my captain needed me back on the job.’ I tried to call you at the house, but you hadn’t gotten here yet, and I couldn’t wait around or I’d miss the last plane.”

“Okay,” Starsky said, nodding. “I’m with you so far.”

“Well, I told the hotel that if anyone called for me to tell them I’d gone to bed and put a do-not-disturb on the line. I figured you’d be mad, but it would give me a chance to surprise you at home. Imagine my surprise when I arrived, and you weren’t here. I brought in my bags, unpacked my stuff-if we’d ever made it to the bedroom you would’ve seen the suitcases-and waited for awhile. And waited. And waited. Finally, I called Huggy’s.”

“Ah, yes, Huggy. The man I’m going to kill in the morning.”

Hutch held up his hands. “No, you’re not. I-exaggerated a bit. Huggy told me you were there with Nick and one of Nick’s dates. He was going to call you over to the phone when I told him not to. I still wanted to surprise you, but I was not happy that instead of going home to call me like you said, you’d opted to sit around and compete with your brother over some pretty girl.”

“Hutch, you really didn’t think I’d-?”

“No, really, I didn’t,” Hutch swore. “Well, that is, I didn’t want to think that, but you were there. Huggy must’ve heard the suspicion in my voice, and he tried to cover for you, which just made it sound worse. He really didn’t know why you were hanging out with her either, and he was worried about it. I didn’t tell him I was in town. I told him not to say anything to you, and told him everything was okay, everything was cool. I trusted you. I knew you had a good reason for being there.”

“But then,” Starsky said, easily filling in the rest, “I left Huggy’s with Nick and the woman, and didn’t get home for nearly an hour.”

“So, my imagination started working overtime. I kept telling myself I could trust you, I knew that, but-”

“But, you don’t really believe you’re worthy of being loved, so how could I be faithful to you in the face of-”

“A conventional relationship,” Hutch finished, looking chagrined. “I’m sorry. I’m not proud of it. But I was strung out pretty bad, needing you, wanting you, thinking once I got back home everything would be so perfect-”

“And I wasn’t here. Okay, I’m with you. But, where did you call from?”

Hutch smiled. “The pay phone right on the corner. Did you know that on a quiet night like tonight you can hear the Torino before it ever hits our street? I had plenty of time to go out the back door, hop a few fences, and get to the pay phone before you even pulled into the driveway. Bet you didn’t know that someone on that phone can see right into the living room window. I mean, I couldn’t see much, since you were sitting on the floor, but I could see when you started unbuttoning your shirt.”

Starsky didn’t know whether to laugh or slug the big blond senseless. “Bet you think you’re pretty smart, don’t you?”

Hutch sobered. “Not really. I was so insecure, so wild with my own dark fantasies I ended up pushing us into a topic that could’ve-well, things might not have gone as well as they did…. I’m sorry I said what I said. And I’m really sorry I mistrusted you, Starsky. I guess I’m just too afraid of losing you.”

Starsky had to laugh then, a wry, slightly bitter laugh. “We’ve been together since the Academy; what is that, twelve years? And now that we’re lovers-lovers!-we spend all this energy scared to death the other one’s gonna split. Damn, Hutch, we are a pair.”

They both sighed on cue, then kissed, a friendly, coming home kiss. It tasted perfect to Starsky. It tasted like forever.

“Can we go to bed now?” Starsky asked plaintively. “My back feels like we tried every position in the Kama Sutra at least twice.”

Hutch laughed and stood, lending his lover a helping hand as he pulled him off the ottoman. “You know, I never would’ve guessed you were such a silver-tongued devil before tonight, Starsk.”

Starsky wiggled his eyebrows suggestively. “Oh, yeah? I still got a few surprises up my sleeve to keep you guessin’, blondie.” They moved slowly into the bedroom together, arms resting comfortably around each other’s waist. “Hey, Hutch, is the living room window the only thing you can see from that pay phone?”

“I’m not sure,” the blond answered. “Why?”

“Well, I was just thinkin’-the bedroom’s on the same side of the house. Maybe once in a while, we could call each other….”

Hutch chuckled happily, a rich satisfied sound. “That might be fun, Starsk. We can try it out a little later.”

“One more thing,” Starsky said, as they approached the bed and Hutch turned down the covers. “Where the hell did you resurrect that shirt from? I thought I ditched that thing-”

“You made me take out the trash that night,” Hutch told him. “I saved it. It’s my shirt.”

“Oh yeah?” Starsky said slyly, as he slid his legs under the covers. “Well, just wait’ll the next time you go out to use the phone-”

Please don’t be scared;
Cause I’ve stood there too;
Between survival;
And the right thing to do;
Cause only the strong
Admit their fears
And if you really need me,
I’ll always be here.
No matter where you are
If you really need me
I’m never far
Please Don’t Be Scared-Barry Manilow