Twas the Night Before Christmas

111

1950 words

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“You’ve come a long way, Starsk,” Hutch managed to say after his heart calmed down and his wits slowly returned. He lay on their king-sized bed with Starsky in his arms and closed his eyes to focus on sensations beyond his sight. Holding Starsky’s warm body snugly to his own and inhaling the man’s familiar scent, commingled with the sweet aroma of his cologne and lightly perspiring skin, was more satisfying than any orgasm, and Hutch found himself reminiscing.

“Yeah?” Starsky asked in a low, masculine voice; it was as soft as the lone lamp and candlelight in the room. “I’m getting better at that, hm?” He snuggled more closely into Hutch’s big spoon, as if to say he appreciated the compliment and was proud of himself, too. “I’m just listening to your noises is all and following along.”

“It shows,” Hutch concurred, but chuckling because he’d apparently been misread. “You’re the best at giving head, but I’m going way back … to when we first met.”

“You think I was sucking other dudes’ dicks back then?”

“No,” Hutch said with a laugh, tickling Starsky in an effort to get him off his ridiculous perception, and not sure he succeeded. “I believe I’m the only ‘dude’ you’ve sucked off; I’m saying you’ve come a long way in the touch department.”

Starsky gently laughed. “The Touch Department?” His breathing had finally resolved to a quiet normal, and Hutch was afraid Starsky might fall asleep if he weren’t careful—it was almost midnight.

“I’m talking about the first time I ever laid a hand on you,” Hutch explained, relishing the feel of Starsky’s naked butt nestled into his belly and groin, their legs intertwined, and Starsky’s tight hold of Hutch’s arm to his hairy chest, sometimes kissing Hutch’s fingers. “You gave me a look that said, ‘Touch me again, asshole, and I’ll rip your face off.’”

Starsky didn’t say anything. He must have known there was truth in Hutch’s words, but he probably wondered why Hutch mentioned it.

“I’m saying you’ve come a long way,” Hutch reiterated, reading Starsky’s mind and not wanting to demoralize the mood, “from not liking my touch to sucking my dick—with such perfection, no less.”

“I thought you were gay,” Starsky blurted.

Hutch opened his eyes and blinked. Starsky’s explanation was news to him, but it also made him inwardly laugh. He freed his arm so he could gently fondle Starsky’s spent penis as if it were his own, and then subtly joked, “Whatever made you think I was gay?”

Starsky laughed; he was obviously amused by the demonstrative irony, but his laugh soon dissolved into a long moan as he wordlessly encouraged Hutch’s gentle squeezes of his shaft and intermittent fondles of his scrotum; he even rolled his hip back to give Hutch better access.

“Well,” Starsky finally said, apparently realizing that neither of them could refuel that quickly from an intense lovemaking to get anything out of it and decided to focus on the conversation instead, “first on the list, you were the prettiest man I ever did see. You still are. Second, you had this melty buttery voice—and you still do. Last, but not least, you put your hand on me and you barely knew me.”

Hutch combed Starsky’s curly pubic hair, enjoying its texture and the intimacy of his grooming. “That’s all it took, huh? my beauty, my soft voice, the simple touch of my hand? Maybe you were the one who was gay, noticing things like that.”

Starsky grunted and wiggled into Hutch again. They both knew Starsky had conflicting feelings and opinions about gay men over the years and didn’t want to be reminded of his past bigotry, but his affectionate wiggle didn’t deter Hutch.

“So at what point, Starsk, did you realize I wasn’t gay?”

“I noticed how you looked at women and how you didn’t look at men and—over time—I came to see you as you are, I guess.”

“And that’s when you began touching me, too. We had a very physical relationship even before we added the sex.”

“Because you taught me how to be all human, and I let my guard down, and I came to really love you.”

“So much,” Hutch agreed, “that one day…”

Starsky completely rolled over to face Hutch, hooked his leg over Hutch’s calves, held Hutch’s hand to the mattress between them, made intentional eye contact, and replied, “And then one day…” He knew the assignment.

“You got shot up in the parking lot—”

“—and almost—”

“—left me.”

They abruptly paused in that moment to silently share their mutually painful memory, knowing they were of one mind. Starsky even appeared apologetic, as if it was his fault he’d been in the line of fire that day and caused Hutch all that grief. Hutch pulled him away from that notion with a gentle smile and offered up a completely different recollection to stay on course. “You lived with me after leaving the hospital so I could be your nursemaid—”

“—and I eventually got back to normal.”

“You mean, you were your weird self once again.”

Starsky frowned, but immediately defended himself. “Weird is why you love me.”

“It’s ONE of the reasons. But back to our story. On one particular morning, you came into the kitchen while I was—”

“—baking cookies,” Starsky remembered, giving Hutch a small smile to let him know he was on the same wavelength again. His blue bedroom eyes sparkled in the lamplight with his recall. He obviously hadn’t forgotten that the cookies were for Christmas, making them extra special.

“I got to feeling grateful that you were alive and I was spending that time with you instead of visiting your grave,” Hutch reminded him, explaining in a roundabout way why he baked cookies for a holiday he’d had very little enthusiasm for over the years.

“Besides,” Starsky recalled with a provocative wink, “I was licking the batter beaters.” He’d taken a seat on the counter beside the bowl of cookie dough and decided on his own that Hutch was done with the mixer. “You had to have noticed.”

Hutch had noticed, but mainly because he was chagrined to see Starsky eating up batter that could have been made into cookies. He should have bought an extra can of frosting and given that—and a spoon—to his partner so he’d leave the cookie mix alone. “But that’s not what drew me in,” Hutch explained, ruffling Starsky’s hair to jog his memory. “It was the look in your eyes.”

“It was the look in YOUR eyes,” Starsky argued. “You had that look, you know? I was licking that thing up and down like a pro—”

“No, dummy. That wasn’t it—and you know it. I was feeling grateful and you noticed—so much, that you melted. I saw it in your eyes.” He’d never forget the impulsive understanding they seemed to share in that unexpected moment, looking deep into each other’s eyes and hearts, and knowing life had just begun for them again. “You told me—without words—that I could—”

“—go ahead and kiss me like I knew you wanted to.”

“No small feat for a homophobe,” Hutch said, not unkindly.

“I wasn’t afraid by then, least of all … of you.”

“So I moved in, like this…” Hutch said, demonstrating as he leaned over and kissed Starsky’s warm lips, purposely replicating what he remembered about their first kiss that Christmas morning when Starsky found him baking cookies.

In the kitchen—Starsky sitting on the counter, Hutch about to slide a tray of dough dollops into the oven—their lips touched for the very first time, tentatively in the beginning, then with a certain confidence, and finally with the freedom they gave themselves to fully feel the contact, driven by their love that allowed it.

Hutch had summoned his enormous feelings of gratitude, his respect and his admiration, his unconditional love and his life’s passion for the man he called his hero. Besides, Starsky had given him permission—without words—through the soft look in his blue eyes; they seemed to smile, as did Starsky’s mouth, subtly, as if he sensed Hutch’s desire—and wanted Hutch to know he felt likewise.

Hutch kissed him at length and with feeling, with passion and out of pure love and possession, warm kisses, moist kisses, his heart pounding with excitement. The contact was softer and much warm­er than he expected, especially because Starsky generously replied in kind.

When the kisses naturally ended, Hutch opened his eyes and straightened away from the counter. For a minute, they were wordless as they eyed each other, taking the time to catch their breaths, perhaps aware that they were also aroused; at least Hutch felt turned on. Maybe Starsky felt the same way.

When neither man made a move, Hutch figured the exchange was over, that the invite for anything else, including a repeat performance, had been rescinded; what they’d done was enough, as far as Starsky was concerned—or so Hutch believed. He stepped back and lightly laughed. “Did I do that right, Starsk?”

“Right as rain,” Starsky said with a wink. He brought them back to the present on that king-sized bed, remembering those same words. “But I should have stayed with my first instinct. I knew you were gay from the moment we met.”

Hutch laughed. “Never forget that you had no problem kissing me back—and then followed it up a minute later by walking me into the living room, undressing me, and sitting me in a chair—where you then proceeded to give me a blowjob beside the Christmas tree.”

“The lighting was best there.”

Hutch laughed again. He did love Starsky’s spirit. “I wouldn’t know; all I remember about that morning was that my dick was buried deep in your mouth.”

“Merry Christmas?”

Hutch laughed. “I’ll say. No one ever did me that favor without my having to ask for it first.”

“Just like I took it tonight, hm?”

“Except you’ve really mastered your technique since then.”

“So have you, my cock-sucking friend.”

“Yeah, I’ll admit it: I’m a one-man cocksucker.”

Starsky giggled. “And a great top and bottom when I need one, too.”

“You know, Starsk, the major difference between that first kiss and this last one is that our first kiss tasted like gingerbread cookies and this last one tasted like cum.”

Starsky seductively smiled. “I eat yours, you eat mine. I guess you could say we’ve both come a long way, hm?”

Starsky was right; the journey hadn’t been one-sided. They were each other’s perfect lovers—not just lifelong partners, best friends, real heroes, forever soulmates—and they always would be, and they knew it, together.

“So, Merry Christmas to us again, my big blond brute?” Starsky playfully asked. It was Christmas Eve after all. “You’ll make me cookies in the morning, right?”

Starsky had given Hutch a new lease on life; his unconditional willingness to cross that intimacy line with him on that particular Christmas morning was a gift Hutch never expected, but would forever cherish.

“I’ll make you cookies in the morning,” he promised, affectionately squeezing Starsky’s hand as he longingly gazed into his sleepy blue eyes. “As many as you want.” He’d give Starsky anything.

“And you’ll let me lick the batter beaters when you’re done?”

“And my dick after that.”

Starsky winked at him. “You have my word, Hutchinson.”

Hutch gently combed Starsky’s mussed hair with his fingers as he admired his handsome face and those bedroom blue eyes lovingly looking back at him.

“Merry Christmas, partner,” Hutch quietly said. “I love you, too.”