Page 24 of Surface Scratch
A faint buzzing sound pierced their comfortable silence and Marcus stopped to pull his phone out of his coat pocket. Caleb watched his face tighten as he looked at the screen, almost like he was uncertain about the information displayed on it.
“What?” Caleb asked. “Is everything okay?”
Marcus stared down at the screen for a moment longer before stuffing the phone back in his pocket. “Yeah, it’s just weird. The alarm on the side door of the club went off, the one that goes up to the apartment,” he said. “Probably a homeless guy is using my door as a urinal, or Ophelia is sneaking out and forgot to disable the alarm. It wouldn’t be the first time for either.”
Caleb glanced down the block, making out the vague shape of the Club Euphoria sign, its neon lights lit up despite the placed being closed. “We can go check and see if your door got ruined,” Caleb said. “We’re not that far away.”
“I can’t say I’ve ever had ‘check for hobo piss’ on my first date agenda, but if that’s how you want this date to go, we can.” He let out a small laugh. “If anyone asks, we’ll say we were checking out an art installation.”
“What would the name of something like that even be?” Caleb asked, stifling his laughter behind the sleeve of his hoodie that poked out of his jacket.
“Something pretentious, like ‘Capitalism,’” Marcus mused.
Caleb watched the snow falling in front of them, occasionally reminding himself that he wasn’t dreaming. It really felt like after year of so much adversity, he was receiving some sort of cosmic reward for his patience.
As they approached the alleyway between Club Euphoria and the strip of older one-story buildings on the other side, Caleb noticed Marcus’s grip on his hand tighten. Caleb squinted down the dimly lit alley, but aside from a motorcycle sitting outside the door across from the dumpster, he didn’t see anything out of the ordinary.
“I guess Ophelia is home?” Caleb asked.
“Mmm, no guarantee. She could be on foot,” Marcus muttered, his eyes locked on the gray metal door that led to the back entrance of the club and the elevator up to the third floor. They walked up to the door and Caleb glanced around. Nothing seemed out of place. Marcus crouched down, peering at the footprints in the snow that looked like someone had walked up to the side door and then turned around and left.
“Weird,” said Marcus. “And there is zero hobo pee over here, so it seems like both of my guesses were wrong.”
Caleb rattled the locked door, the handle almost painfully cold against his ungloved hand. “Still locked, too,” he said. “Maybe it was just some rowdy people taking a shortcut?”
He turned around and almost jumped when he realized how close Marcus was standing to him. Marcus was just staring down at him, the light above the door giving him a looming, backlit appearance that in any other circumstance would have been intimidating, but Caleb could only focus on his odd amber eyes. They were mesmerizing, and he wondered for a moment if they were contacts. He’d never seen anyone with eyes like that.
Caleb pressed his back to the cold metal door, desire quickly catching fire in the kindling of his stomach. “What would you call this art piece?” he asked.
Marcus leaned in, slipping a hand behind Caleb’s head, and pulled him toward his face. He kissed him on the forehead. “How about ‘Man in a Precarious Position?’” he whispered. He trailed his lips down the left side of Caleb’s face, tickling his skin as he did before landing another soft kiss on his jaw.
Caleb’s eyes widened as Marcus pulled away. His heart pounded against his sternum, threatening to break free.
He threw his arms around Marcus’s neck as their mouths feverishly found each other’s, more teeth than tongue with the need to taste each other. Caleb slammed into the door behind him, barely noticing the dull pain from his head bouncing off it. He felt dizzy, almost as if he had gotten high in an instant from Marcus’s scent and taste, and clung to him like he would fall over at any second.
Marcus ran a hand down the small of his back before resting it on the small curve of Caleb’s ass and giving it a rough squeeze. Caleb groaned into Marcus’s mouth, an explosion of endorphins and adrenaline pumping through him and landing directly in his groin. His cock strained behind his zipper, rubbing against the thin fabric of his boxers in a way that simultaneously pleasant and unpleasant.
He gasped as Marcus broke away from the kiss, stars flashing in his vision as the steam of his breath floating in the air obscured his view of the night sky. Marcus grabbed the hair on the crown of Caleb’s head and pulled it back, exposing his neck and throat.
“Tell me if I’m going too fast,” Marcus mumbled into his ear, not waiting for an answer before nibbling at the lobe.
Caleb could hear himself gasping in the silence of the alleyway as Marcus sucked and nipped at his neck, his legs becoming jelly beneath him. He felt the hand move from his ass to his waist, Marcus’s cold skin sending a series of shivers and shocks up his spine and down his legs. He grabbed Marcus’s jacket, letting out a little whine as Marcus pulled away from his neck.
He felt like his cheeks were glowing bright red in the darkness, both from the cold and his arousal bubbling up, ready to explode at a moment’s notice. Marcus’s hand slipped lower, fingertips dipping into his waistband. Caleb gasped, suddenly aware of the fact that he was wearing very old boxers that were definitely not sexy.
Marcus’s lips met his again, lingering before he huffed, “You can tell me to stop.” He kissed him again, roughly pressing their faces together like he was trying to fuse them into one.
Caleb kissed him back. His body shook with anticipation as he felt Marcus’s cool, nimble fingers pop the button on his jeans, pulling at the zipper. A low moan escaped from somewhere deep in his chest as he felt Marcus’s palm against his groin, fingertips brushing the sensitive skin of his inner thigh before finding his cock through his boxers. He flinched, jerking back into the door he was pressed against. He felt Marcus smile into the kiss and that familiar low mixture of a groan and a growl vibrated against his tongue.
Holy shit. This is happening.
Marcus’s hand pulled at the elastic waistband of his boxers, the cold touch moving painfully slowly over his public bone. Unable to decide whether or not he should say something, every sense overwhelmed, and his body racked with endless shivers and goosebumps, Caleb whimpered against his mouth.
“That’s so fucking sexy,” Marcus groaned, pulling away before returning his lips to Caleb’s neck. He tightened his grip on Caleb’s hair, the tension almost painful. “I can warm you up upstairs.”
Too embarrassed to say anything in the affirmative, Caleb nodded, worried that if he spoke it would somehow ruin the moment. Marcus’s hand left the inside of his boxers and he began to fumble for his keys.
A weird sound pierced the hurried silence between them, a weirdthwump, followed by the clang of metal. He opened his mouth to ask what it was, but before a word could leave his lips, he was on his ass in the snow, pressed up against the back of the dumpster with Marcus holding the front of his shirt. He looked from Marcus back to the door he had been pressed against, a good twenty feet between the two spots. How had he got there so quickly? It was like he blinked and was just… there.
