something to say
by LC
12/24/02mille grazie to kel for spanish and sex help, plus general beta duties executed most admirably. also to hetre, my faithful beta extraordinaire, and everybody who gave me spanish advice and/or told me what color JC's eyes are. (yes, I suck.)
happy, happy birthday to stubbleglitter. I hope it's what you wanted, or a decent approximation thereof. *hugs* many happy returns, baby.
The hotel in Oaxaca leaves brandy on the mantelpiece, two thumb-size bottles on a china plate. JC leans out the window, hands braced on the sill. Justin picks up one bottle. "Cute. It's like, bite-size. You want yours?"
"Leave it for me," JC says. The breeze outside is just a whiff, like somebody breathing out slowly so the air curls aroun in wisps. But the air inside doesn't move at all. The heat here makes his eyes feel bigger. He listens to Justin swallow the brandy, his harsh breath out when it's gone.
"It's good," Justin says. "Good stuff."
JC wants something with ice in it. Ice is forbidden to them here, unless they somehow were to make it themselves from bottled water--so no ice, no stirring the straw and clinking against the walls of the glass like a key on a string. He misses ice and he misses fruit with the skin on. The skin of peaches would feel thick between his front teeth. It'd be worth the dysentery.
Justin touches his back, his shoulder. Nothing but more heat and JC pulls away, leans further out into the night air. "There's a fan," Justin says. "I can't reach it." JC looks over his shoulder and up and yes, there it is, white-painted with a small silver chain hanging down. The ceiling in this room is vaulted and high.
"What do you want me to do, lift you up?"
Justin shrugs. "Just saying. You could call the front desk or something." Justin's hands slide down around JC's waist. "Slip them a couple hundred pesos to take care of business?"
"That's like. Ten cents."
"Is it?" He can hear Justin's grin, behind him. "I don't know. Hey, come on, it's late."
"I'm not sleepy yet."
Justin's palms creep up his sides, fingertips curling at his ribs. "So let me tire you out."
The hotel is a nunnery. It's made of cast iron twined round with white flowers that smell like vanilla. There are courtyards everywhere that block out the wind. Justin's teeth are slick with the liquor and he tastes apple-sweet. JC is scared to touch their skin together too much, scared it might stick and sweat and melt together. Justin pants against his neck; the air from his mouth is no wetter than the air hovering in the room.
"I'd kill for air conditioning," Justin says. "I mean, I'd kill somebody. A little kid."
"I would kill," JC says, considering each word carefully between his teeth. "I'd kill for an apple. A red apple with the skin still on it. And a glass of ice water."
"Oh no, you don't get to do that--" Justin smiles. JC bites Justin's lip, not the plush thick curl of it in the center but the shrinking sour corner. Justin jerks his head back. "You don't get to bitch, man, you brought us here." His tongue flicks out, catching the injured spot.
"Yeah, I did." JC kisses him, closed-mouthed and quiet. Justin softens against him, making a little humming noise of contentment behind his lips. JC fits his hands around Justin's waist, fingering the ragged hem of his flimsy tank top. He could probably rip it off Justin's body without trying too hard.
"I'm glad you brought us here," Justin says, almost whispering. Justin's hands cup his shoulders, underneath the sweat-damp fabric. They walk to the bed as one unit, Justin stumbling backwards blindly, giggling breathlessly until the mattress bumps up against his thighs.
They didn't sleep together last night. It was too hot. They had sex and then flipped a coin and Justin got the floor, which means it's JC's turn tonight. JC pushes Justin onto his back and licks at his pulse with whisper-soft strokes. Justin shivers and pushes his throat up. JC sits back on his heels, straddling Justin, pinning his legs. He shakes out the white tank top a few inches above Justin's stomach, puffing air across his damp skin, making him shiver. "Pretty," he says. Justin smiles.
"Hermoso."
"Your accent is awful," JC says. Justin's taken to Spanish with a baffling ferocity. He speaks it all the time now, even when it's just the two of them, breaking into Spanish the way JC sometimes breaks into music when his normal voice isn't enough.
"Let's hear you do better."
He pushes the shirt up around Justin's shoulders, nudging at his arms. Justin lifts up and wriggles so JC can get it over his head. JC tosses the shirt to the floor and pushes Justin back down with a hand flat in the center of his chest. "Give me something to say." JC has a good accent, he does. He just keeps forgetting the words.
Justin's eyes unfocus for a second while he thinks. Then he grins. "Voy a follarte a lo duro," he says, clipping the words off neatly and rolling the double-L off his tongue.
"What does that mean?"
"'I'm going to fuck you hard,'" Justin says, grinning broadly. JC hums a little laugh and slides forward, his hands rushing up the long stretch of Justin's arms like smooth machinery. Justin's wrists are thick and strong beneath JC's palms.
"You sound pretty sure of yourself, there."
"Now you say it."
JC does, curling every letter perfectly. He has a very good accent. Accents seem to come naturally to him. Justin's body rolls up against JC.
"That's really hot," Justin says. "Like. Yeah." His voice sounds squeezed out of him like juice from fruit.
"Where'd you learn to talk dirty in Spanish?" JC lets go of Justin's wrists to unbutton his shorts. Justin leaves his arms where they are, stretched out and hanging over the edge of the bed.
"Bought a phrasebook. I read it on the plane." His voice catches each time JC brushes him through the thin khaki. Nothing else because it's too hot outside. They spent half the day with their shirts off anyway. JC doesn't know how people can live in this heat, all the time. He gets Justin naked, rolls him over, and all the time Justin making soft happy noises, going liquid and pliant wherever JC touches him. It's as though the succession of midday suns has melted away his edges, leaving only a smooth touchable core. "Te quiero," Justin half-says-half-sighs. JC knows what that means.
"That's the first thing you looked up, isn't it." He drags his thumb down the slide of Justin's back, bumping it over each knob in his spine. When he gets to the bottom his thumb jumps a little, thumps the thick cord of muscle at the base of Justin's skull.
"It's important," Justin says. "That's a very important thing to know how to say."
"Yeah it is." He peels off his own shirt and stands up briefly to step out of his shorts. Justin doesn't look around, just stays with his knees spread wide, his face pressed against the sheets. Sweat's already beading on his hips, his tailbone, anywhere it can get a hold. JC steps forward and it's like moving through water. "Do you know enough to tell me what you want?"
Justin shakes his head. "Just here and there. What I remember." He rolls his hips back towards JC. "Bet you can figure it out."
JC strokes the soft insides of Justin's thighs. The skin seems to ripple up to meet his fingertips. "I like you talking." He leans forward and kisses the back of Justin's neck.
"Besos," Justin says, into the mattress.
"Kisses?"
He nods. JC mouths the same spot, listens to Justin's breath. He jerks when JC bites him, tugging the skin between his teeth. The movement pushes his ass back against JC's cock. JC hisses through his teeth and grabs Justin's hips, holding him there. Justin moans and arches his head back. "Fuck me fuck me," he says, then stretches to look back at JC. "Cojame."
"Whore," JC says, stroking Justin's sides where it makes him shiver.
"Puta." Buries his face in the crumpled sheets again when JC grinds up against him, almost fucking him but not where Justin needs it. It's so easy, here, to make Justin need it. Sweat trickles down JC's back and it feels like insects crawling over his skin.
There's a bottle out on the bed table, because nobody in this city cares. JC pumps it twice, rubs his fingers slick and pushes inside, holding Justin still with his other hand. Justin shudders hard, tries to push back but JC tightens his fingers on Justin's hip. So Justin subsides, though JC can hear him whimpering into the sheets, and just shakes while JC fucks him, slow and deep, with one and then two fingers. He twists his wrist, curls his knuckles, to see what sounds he can pull out The noises he gets are familiar, Justin's voice stretched taut with sex, but JC feels some uncertain difference. The sound refracts differently in this wet air, is the only thing he can think of.
"Tell me you want it." He pulls his fingers out of Justin's ass, a rough motion that gets a surprised cry, a noise that sounds like the rainforest. Justin's dick is hard and needy in his hand; JC squeezes lightly--gets another bird-call noise--and lets go.
"I want it god I want it--please," Justin moans, his words tumbling on top of each other like running water. JC slaps him hard, making him cry out. For a second there's a pale white handprint across Justin's ass, until the blood rushes back in and erases it.
"No," JC says, "tell me you want it."
Justin says, "Quiero, quiero," and his voice is shaking like his body, and JC strokes his back and says,
"I know."
JC fumbles a packet from the box in the drawer and slides the condom on with his tongue held tight between his teeth. He reaches for the bottle again, slides a wet hand up and down his cock for a minute before pushing forward, slow but steady, and he doesn't stop until he's in.
It's too much for a moment, the unbelievable heat that wraps around him, hotter than the afternoon sun beating down on them, warming beer in bottles, sticking his eyelashes to his skin. Justin's begging, slipping from language to language seamlessly, probably senselessly. JC fucks him slow and hard, pinning his arms down when Justin reaches to stroke himself. The breeze outside is picking up. JC feels it whisper over his skin. He can smell the street below, oil and litter and a whiff of overripe melon.
"Te quiero," Justin says again. He gets it all wrong, losing the /i/ in a rush of vowels. JC kisses him in the valley between his shoulderblades, moving faster as he comes.
Justin sighs in protest when JC pulls out. He starts to talk, to plead, but JC says, "sshhh," and turns him on his back. Justin lies back, flushed all over and hard and trembling, and he's beautiful and JC thinks for no reason of the cacti lined up by the roadside, mile after mile from the airport to the city. "I want to see you."
"I want you," Justin says. "I want you."
JC wraps a hand around Justin and strokes him, letting Justin thrust up into his fist. It doesn't even take a minute. Justin comes with his mouth open, mewling, still shaking when JC holds his hand up to Justin's red-bitten lips and Justin sucks the fingers in, licking them clean.
Slowly, JC starts to hear a clicking noise from outside. He slips his fingers from Justin's mouth and goes to the window. A cold shock beneath his feet makes him jump back, and he sees the melting thumbnails of hail beneath the windowsill.
"Is it raining?"
"Hailing," JC says. A chunk of ice hits the edge of the window and skitters past JC to the floor. He scoops it up and shows it to Justin, who picks it up between two fingers and sniffs it before sucking it into his mouth and crunching. JC grimaces. "Justin. That's filthy. It's been through, like, pollution and mud and stuff."
"It doesn't taste dirty." Justin shrugs and sits ups. "Tastes like ice. Do you still want that brandy?"
"Later. I can't believe it's hailing. It's so warm outside."
"The weather here," Justin waves a hand expressively, "crazy." He looks out the window for a second, surveying the sky, then turns to JC with a grin. "Tienes ojos de cielo."
"Don't you try sweet-talking me," JC says. "That only works once."
"I can learn French," Justin offers. JC rolls his sky-blue eyes and takes the bottle from the mantel.