Archive of Our Own

1995

“Well,” Eddie says, as he sets his joint down in an overflowing ashtray. It has a delicate flower pattern around the edge — doesn’t look like something Eddie Munson would own. “If we’re doing this, then you should take all your clothes off.”

Steve draws a breath in through his nose and lets it out, slowly, through his mouth. He slides out of the dinette’s fixed bench seat. The whole table is covered in paperwork. The seat beside Steve is piled with dirty clothes. A scale and a calculator with a roll of paper sit on top of the mess. A weird little pyramid-shaped dice — die? — drops to the dirty carpet.

Eddie leans over and looks at it. “Oh! A four. You must be lucky, Steve.”

And he knows it; Steve undoes his belt.

Eddie looks him up and down. The beard he’s growing doesn’t quite cover the scar that creeps up the corner of his jaw from his throat. But his hair, down past his armpits, does the rest for him. At least from this angle.

Steve had worn a turtleneck, because he always wears a turtleneck on first dates.

That was kind of stupid, really. Eddie knows about his scars.

Still, it is the last thing that Steve takes off.

“Fold ‘em,” Eddie says. He picks the joint back up and takes a drag. He holds it while Steve folds his turtleneck neatly and sets it on the dinette seat beside Eddie’s dirty laundry. 

Steve’s soft dick shrinks back from the cold and the embarrassment. Eddie’s clearly looking at it.

He breathes out a cloud of smoke. It blends right into the smell that permeates the Super Chief. Steve has grown to find it sort of comforting. He can’t smoke with his job. Leaseholders might page at any time, demanding the Harrington scion take care of something for them. And while his father doesn’t take calls from Steve, he definitely takes them from clients. Because clients have something Steve’s father actually wants: money.

The Super Chief had already smelled like weed inside when Eddie bought it four years ago so that he could easily move between the super illegal grow houses that he maintained for Argyle. In a way, Steve and Eddie are both property managers. 

Steve rests his hands at his sides when he’s done, as if to say, “Now what?” His heart thuds inside his chest as Eddie keeps looking at him. His dark eyes move so deliberately that Steve can feel them. 

“Kneel for me,” Eddie says. He twists the joint between his fingers. Steve kneels. Eddie takes a drag while he watches Steve go down onto one knee at a time. He’s proud that he can do it without leaning on anything. His knees only crunch a little, like styrofoam packing peanuts.

Eddie holds his breath as he leans over the edge of the dinette table toward Steve. Then, he breathes out a cloud of smoke in Steve’s face, making him flinch back. It reeks. Steve starts coughing. Eddie laughs at him. It makes Steve’s dick twitch.

“Stay down,” Eddie tells him, so Steve sits back on his heels.

Eddie blinks down at him. Twice. He smiles slowly. 

“Good boy,” Eddie says.

Steve bites the inside of his cheeks. He hasn’t even done anything yet.

“What would everyone say,” Eddie says, “if they could see you like this? Steve Harrington, former high school king and all-American boy, on his knees for a burnout felon.”

“You’ve never been convicted of anything,” Steve reminds him. The federal government knows that Eddie and Argyle know things — that they have proof and very powerful friends. So the DEA apparently just turns a half-blind eye to the operation that spread across northern Indiana. Every once in a while, an agent will run into them and ask them to maybe tone it down, please? That’s what had gotten Eddie to move into the Super Chief instead of living out of the dirt-cheap foreclosed houses where he tended their little farms.

“True,” Eddie says, but his smile falters.

“And besides, I’m not.. I’m not that guy,” Steve says. “And you’re not. You’re not a burnout, either.”

At this, Eddie snorts and then laughs. 

“Put your hands out,” Eddie says. “Palms up.”

Steve does what he’s told. Eddie reaches out and pushes his hands together so the palms meet. His fingers are so warm.

Then, Eddie picks up the ashtray with the floral border and sets it in Steve’s hands. Steve adjusts slightly so that his elbows aren’t locked. The ashtray isn’t heavy. Steve knows this.

Eddie takes another drag, letting it linger, before he reaches out to tap the ash. Steve feels it in his elbows and wrists.

The ashtray shivers in his hands. His forearms start to scream first. Then his upper arms tremble. Eddie doesn’t speak. He barely blinks. There is no distraction from the screaming in Steve’s arm muscles.

“Oh,” Eddie says. “You are good.”

It can’t be more than a minute. It feels like Steve’s about to drop it. Why can’t he get his hands to stop trembling?

The ashtray shakes with the force of his uncontrollable trembling. He clenches his teeth, but he does not drop the ashtray.

Finally, Eddie sets the little roach against the dark piles of ashes. He scoops up the ashtray and sets it back on the dinette. 

Steve blinks and his eyes are wet. His teeth ache when he relaxes his jaw. He does not move his hands.

“You can drop them now,” Eddie says.

The breath that Steve couldn’t catch rushes into his lungs.

“What the fuck,” he says. 

“Stress position,” Eddie says. “You lasted way longer than I thought you would. Like minutes.”

A little trail of smoke rises from the ashtray. The roach burns away to ash.

Steve doesn’t think minutes are that impressive, but that’s longer than he had thought it was. His eyes still feel wet. His knees hurt. The fibers of the carpet have imprinted on his kneecaps.

“Bow,” Eddie says, and Steve hesitates. He folds part of the way forward.

“Oh come on, Steve, you can go further than that,” Eddie says. So Steve catches his right wrist in his hand and plants his face into the dirty carpet. It smells like dust and weed. He can feel the grit in it sticking to his skin.

“Yeah, that’s it,” Eddie says. “Now look at me.”

Steve turns and presses his cheek against the carpet. He has to look way up to see Eddie bent over. Eddie’s hair falls around his face like a curtain. 

“Do you ever miss your bangs?” Steve asks.

Eddie grins in the tight-lipped way he can, showing his dimples. “Why? You think I should cut them again?”

“If you want,” Steve says. “You look good either way.”

Eddie’s smile grows wider, softer.

“Flattery, baby, won’t make me go easy on you,” he says. “Now put your arms up.”

Steve likes this even less than the ashtray. Something about the pull in his shoulders makes his stomach turn.

Eddie watches him curiously. “Drop ‘em.”

Steve is glad to.

“Hands on the floor, hot stuff,” Eddie says. Steve pushes his palms into the carpet. He watches Eddie stand up, but his vision is restricted by the position he’s in. Eddie steps over him easily, moving in the restricted space with an odd grace. He moves behind Steve. 

Steve can hear him moving around, but can’t really see him. He’s had to cut his hair short in the back, but it’s still long enough on the top and sides to block out his vision. It’s late fall and the sun has set. Eddie is all shadows as he squats down behind Steve.

“Aren’t you a pretty little thing, Stevie, baby,” Eddie says. Steve hears him taking another drag from his joint. “You’re really going to do whatever I tell you to? That’s really what you want?”

Steve can’t help but wonder what Eddie’s looking at, while Steve’s naked and folded up on his floor. The thoughts he has send a shiver down his spine.

“Cold?” Eddie asks.

“No,” Steve insists.

“Stay here,” Eddie says. He gets up with a loud pop in his knee. “Right there, baby, don’t even wiggle.”

He stomps around the small space of the Super Chief, heading back to where the bathroom and bed are. Steve can hear him thumping around and cursing. “Ah-ha!” comes the triumphant call. Then, more sounds of struggle. Eddie comes stomping back even louder.

The next time he steps over Steve, he’s wearing leather boots laced up over his jeans. Just like in the picture.

The picture hanging in the bathroom of the gay bar.

The picture hanging in the place Robin took him to after he got turned away from the dyke bar she likes for the third time. 

Neither of them had really fit in at this alternate bar, either, and Steve had felt bad for leaving her alone while he went to piss. 

This bar has a wall of framed photos along the wall by the doorless men’s toilet. Steve can remember the exact brand name on the bottle of poppers a man in tight jeans had been sniffing near the sink. The whole moment seems perfectly crystalized in Steve’s often shaky memory. 

The picture. The photograph. It.

Dressed in a buttoned leather shirt and pants with his curls hanging down over his face, Eddie Munson presses the heel of his boot against a man’s temple. The length of a horsewhip hangs from his hand. The flock of bats, the molotov cocktail, the demon-goblin-thing on puppet strings, the three-inch long nail, the smiley face on the elbow, the headless statue of blind justice and her lopsided scales dominating the other forearm: Eddie’s tattoos are unmistakable. 

In black and white photography, they stand out so deeply that his scars are rendered invisible. 

It’s a recent photo. Steven had recognized that much. In it, Eddie’s knuckles were inked. He’d just done that this year, in the spring.

“Marty takes all those,” a man had told him, touching the small of Steve’s back.

Marty is the bartender. 

He’d called Eddie a fetish model, “but he takes private clients, I heard. You want his number?” 

Steve had said no. He hadn’t said that he already had it.

That night, Robin got kicked out for yelling at a guy who spilled a beer on her shirt. Steve had gone out with her, because there’d been no use in staying. He’d had to stare into an egg-white scramble for forty minutes before he could tell Robin about the picture.

It still burned like a beacon in his mind’s eye.

“Oh god, the enteight was there?” Robin had said, aghast. She had rubbed both hands violently over her half-shaved head to get the thought of Eddie doing “weird sex stuff” out of her mind. But Steve hadn’t wanted — doesn’t want — to get it out of his mind. That morning, over egg whites and vegetables in a smoky Indianapolis diner, that photograph had felt like… It had felt like a door left ajar, like an open window on the second floor near a reasonably sized toolshed, like an opportunity.

Now, Steve looks up at those same boots from the floor of Eddie’s RV. Eddie has a leather vest over his faded Iron Maiden shirt.

“This what you want to see, big boy?” Eddie asks him. “Is this what you like?”

His tattoos are much softer in person and his scars, unmissable. Steve wants to rise up from his bow and press his mouth to every letter on Eddie’s knuckles. They’re nearly unreadable with his rings on. 

“Answer the question, Steve,” Eddie says, sharply. 

Steve startles. “Yeah — I mean, yes, sir.”

Eddie giggles at him. “Good, good. I get to see what I like to see, you get to see what you like to see. It’s not that unequal, really, all this…” he waves his hand. Steve can only barely see the motion. “Stuff.”

“I know that,” Steve says, quietly.

“Oh, you do?” Eddie asks. He sounds skeptical and like he’s about to quiz Steve. It’s the tone of voice he uses whenever Steve tries to talk about horror movies, board games, or rock music.

Steve stays quiet.

Eddie reclines on the dinette bench like it’s a throne. 

“Rise,” he says, crossing his knees and resting his hand on them. His elbow sits up on the back of the bench with his hand hanging in open space like the scales of blind Justice on that forearm.

Steve gets up, a little slower than he went down. He stays crouched on his hands and knees.

“You should show me how much you like this look,” Eddie says, smiling. It’s soft, even fond. It’s not the sharp and tight-lipped smile from the photograph.

“Go on,” Eddie says. He swings the toe of his boot back and forth in the air near Steve’s head.

“Kiss ‘em.”

A breath in through the nose and then out. He’s close enough to smell leather. When Steve licks his lips, there is carpet grit on them.

He bends his elbows and lowers himself, awkwardly shuffling his knees until he can reach the boot Eddie has on the floor. The other hangs over Steve like a weight. It makes his stomach flip. He knows this isn’t what Eddie meant him to do. He’s not stupid, but he…

Steve licks his lips. Eddie’s making it too easy on him, he thinks. He kisses the toe of Eddie’s boot. Leather tastes like it smells. Steve feels the grease that’s been rubbed into it trying to protect the leather from his spit. They’re really clean, only a little dusty. Steve kisses down to the rubber sole and then back up. He makes sure to wet his lips so that Eddie can hear it.

“You really kiss without tongue?” Eddie says. “Or are my boots not as good as all your other dates?”

Steve swallows and feels his stomach churn.

He licks across the toe of Eddie’s boot, dragging his tongue over to the side and up along the edge of the laces and eyelets. He tastes metal and fabric and leather.

“Yeah, just like that,” Eddie says. So Steve does it again and again.

Eddie’s boot swings over his head and settles on the floor. Steve crouches between Eddie’s spread open legs and laps up the side of Eddie’s boot. 

“Don’t forget the other one,” Eddie says. “She’s feeling a little neglected.”

Steve licks his lips, but his tongue has dried out. He pulls spit from the back of his throat to wet it inside his mouth then turns his face toward Eddie’s other boot.

He drags the whole length of it up and down Eddie’s boot from mid-calf to the toe and back. His tongue dries out, but he keeps going.

“Alright,” Eddie says, “back to the other one.” And Steve moves, quick, eager, until he loses feeling on his tongue and his lips.

He’s sort of half hard over it too, because Eddie’s watching him and almost touching his hair.

“Just like that,” Eddie says.

“Good boy,” he says.

And now Steve sort of feels like he’s earned it a little.

“That’s enough,” Eddie says. “You’ve been on your knees too long, baby, they’re gonna hurt.”

Steve can handle some aching knees, he thinks. He did the ashtray thing and that hurt way more.

Only when Eddie makes him stand up, Steve’s knee cracks. That hurts, but he doesn’t mind. It makes him feel… present. Deep breath in through the nose and out through the mouth.

“You want me to tell you what to do, huh?” Eddie says, when he’s got Steve up on his feet again. “You said you want to be useful. I can tell that you think I’m going easy on you, that you need to earn this.”

Eddie gets up; with Steve barefoot and him in his boots, they are eye to eye. Steve looks down, avoiding Eddie’s stare.

“Alright, hot stuff,” Eddie says. He takes a quick turn around Steve and throws himself into the other dinette bench, sitting on Steve’s neatly folded clothes.

“Collect my dirty laundry,” he says. “But only the dirty things.”

Steve wonders how Eddie moved in this space and barely brushed against him.

He wants Eddie to fucking touch him already. But… But Steve hasn’t earned that.

And if he does this? If he does this well ? Eddie set the rules and the rules say that Steve gets a reward at the end, that he gets to choose the reward.

The thought rattles around inside Steve’s brain like forgotten pocket change in the dryer.

He looks around Eddie’s RV. Pretty much every flat surface has clothes on it. Other stuff, too.

Steve heads to the front of the RV first, where Eddie thankfully has a sunshade up. For my modesty, Steve thinks. His dick hangs heavy between his legs, not hard enough to stand up but no longer shrinking from the chill. He picks a denim jacket up off the dash where it’s been tossed beside the little gumball machine Steve got him as a gift for the first anniversary of him not being dead, when Eddie was all pissed off about Steve spending money on him. Steve told him that he’d spend his last nickel on Eddie if he wanted gum, because it was Steve’s nickel and Steve’s choice.

That was back when Steve was just trying to make Eddie into a friend, before he really understood what he wanted from Eddie.

He’d give Robin his last nickel, too, or Dustin. But he knows now that he doesn’t feel about Eddie the way he feels about Dustin. They’re not brothers, Eddie and Steve. He doesn’t want them to be.

Steve brings the denim close to his face and smells weed and Eddie’s shampoo.

“Where should I hang this?” Steve asks. “It’s clean.”

He shrugs. “Well, clean enough.” 

Eddie shrugs and makes a little face, the corners of his mouth pulling down in chagrin. He points at the storage beside the door, which is crammed with records and boxes and tools. There’s a bottle of laundry detergent balanced precariously on the edge of a leaning Dungeons and Dragons book. It doesn’t look like the new one, but Steve’s not sure. He takes a moment and fixes things just enough so that Stephen King’s “IT” doesn’t get soap on it. He hangs the jacket up.

From there, it’s almost like a scavenger hunt. The RV is small, but Eddie has him bending over and reaching under the driver’s seat for three socks and a moth-eaten Megadeth shirt. All of which smell ripe, like days old sweat. Steve’s stomach turns. The socks are stiff with … something.

The socks don’t make Steve hesitate, but the first pair of Eddie’s boxers does. The fabric is soft with regular washing and wrinkled from being wadded up in a ball for an unknown length of time.

“So,” Eddie draws the sound out. “Are those clean or not?”

He swings the toe of his boot in the middle of the narrow path between the dinette and the door.

“You should check.”

Steve knows that he’s watching. He’s been watching this entire time. His joint has been swapped for a cigarette. Steve loves the smell of those, especially because he quit for good in ‘89.

His palms sweat, and the soft, soft fabric of Eddie’s boxers soaks it up.

Eddie doesn’t look away from him, so Steve can’t look away either. He should. He really should. But he can’t. The sharp smell of sweat hits him, but it’s different — starchy and a little sweeter. It’s not old and rancid like the socks. It’s like these could be the boxers Eddie wore yesterday.

His eyes fly open at that thought. So, he did look away. He couldn’t keep his eyes open and do this. The corner of Eddie’s mouth lifts. The cigarette dangles from Eddie’s fingertips. Steve’s dick twitches a little bit to the left, half hard and vulnerable to the kick of Steve’s pulse. He feels hot and cold with embarrassment.

“What’s the verdict?” Eddie asks.

“Dirty,” Steve says, and he blushes all the way down his neck.

“Yeah, that makes sense,” Eddie tells him. He drags from his cigarette. He doesn’t elaborate, so Steve’s imagination does it for him. Thinks about pushing his face into the crease of Eddie’s thigh, into the space under his balls. It would smell like this — sweat and sex and unwashed skin — but stronger.

Eddie’s dirty shirts smell like sweat, too, especially at the pits. Eddie watches him smelling his shirts there. His eyes flick down to Steve’s cock, which is half-hard. He gets harder with every dirty pair of boxers and sweaty shirt he finds.

“Good job,” Eddie tells him, “you’re doing so much better than I expected.”

Steve’s face burns from the condescension.

Eventually, though, Steve has collected all the dirty laundry and sorted it from the clean. He didn’t need to put the clean shit away, but each piece has a home that Eddie directs him to with the wave of his hand or the point of his boot.

“I’m getting thirsty,” Eddie says. “Aren’t you?”

Steve’s mouth has been dry since he finished licking Eddie’s boots. 

“Get me a beer,” Eddie says, “and a bottled water.”

“Yes, sir,” Steve says. He already knows that beer will be on the shelf and bottled water will be in the door of the small fridge. It’s close enough Eddie could grab it himself if he reached.

“Want some?” Eddie asks.

Steve nods.

Eddie cracks open the beer and takes a swig. 

“You’re driving, right?” Eddie asks.

Steve’s stomach clenches. Would Eddie let him spend the night if he got drunk? Would Eddie want that? Would Steve?

He nods again.

“You’re quiet,” Eddie says. “Are you sure you’re enjoying this?”

“Yes, sir,” Steve says.

Eddie looks at him, eyes narrowing.

“I’d offer you a recycled beer, but I don’t know if you’re that kind of man, Steve.”

Steve’s brow scrunches up.

“Recycled?” he asks.

“Also, for guys who like that stuff — watersports, I mean — usually I’ve rented a room that has a bigger bathroom.” Eddie talks with his hands, waving the can of beer about.

Recycled beer? Watersports? 

“You don’t seem like a sailing guy,” Steve says. He knows it’s a mistake as soon as he’s spoken.

Eddie grins. His dimples stand out on his soft cheeks, not even hidden by his beard. His dark eyes sparkle. Steve’s dick leaps against his belly. Eddie’s eyes drop. He’s looking. He’s curious. His gaze lingers.

Steve flexes a muscle in his groin and makes it bounce.

Eddie raises his eyebrows.

“Steve,” Eddie says. “Recycled beer is piss.”

Steve feels hot and cold all over.

“Oh,” he says.

A few years back, Robin and — of all people — Jonathan Byers dragged Steve to a photography exhibit in Chicago that was full of pictures of famous people, flowers, and dicks. It was all black and white. Steve barely remembers it — except the photos of cocks. One of the photos showed a man holding his dickhead at the mouth of a champagne flute and peeing into it.

Since then, he’s gone to at least two experimental film showings that involved weird German films of women in leather paddling bare, white asses. At least one of those had the women in leather pissing all over someone’s face.

He wasn’t an artist, so he couldn’t really say that it was art.

“Watersports is also piss,” Eddie says. “In case you were wondering.”

A little bit high, Robin had leaned over during the German women in leather pissing movie and said, “You know, that’s not very hydrating.”

So, Steve says, “I don’t think it would be very hydrating.”

And Eddie laughs, delighted. His face crinkles up. Steve can even see his teeth.

“You sound like Buckley,” Eddie says.

“Yeah, she said that once when we…” Steve considers his words carefully, “Saw a German porno at some art show.”

Eddie blinks a few times.

“You saw German piss porn at an art show, Steve,” he says, “and you didn’t invite me?”

“Hey,” Steve says, smiling, “that’s your fault. I didn’t know you were into the art scene until I saw the photo.”

In his head, the crystal clear image of Eddie with his hair obscuring his face and his tattooed knuckles curling around the handle of a whip starts to blur with the memory of the champagne glass. He can imagine that hand with Eddie’s rings. He can imagine Eddie’s hairy thighs, his scars and the tattoos over them captured in black and white.

His dick twitches again. This time, it’s not something he controls.

It makes Eddie smile.

“Thirsty?” Eddie asks, and Steve feels his throat close up. He — well, can he really say he doesn’t want that?

“Don’t worry, baby,” Eddie says. “You’ve been so good, I wouldn’t do that unless you asked.”

Steve exhales. He doesn’t know if what he feels is relief or disappointment.

“Come here,” Eddie says. He sets the beer and the water down on the little table bolted to the wall. His hands are open, palms up, waiting for Steve.

Despite the heavy rings and scars and calluses, they look almost delicate under Steve’s. He’s never thought about how big and awkward his hands are. Obviously, they’re bigger than most women’s hands, but they’re bigger than plenty of men’s. It helps his handshake. But it feels wrong, somehow, to swallow Eddie’s hands up with his own.

“What’s wrong?” Eddie asks.

“Nothing,” Steve says. When he looks down, he mostly sees his hard dick and his own hands.

He tries to look up at Eddie, but Eddie looks at him all serious and dark. His eyes are so dark.

“Uh-uh,” Eddie says. “That’s not going to work here. What’s wrong, Steve?”

“Feeling weird,” Steve says. Then, belatedly, “Sir.”

“Was it the piss stuff?” Eddie asks.

“No,” Steve says, “sir.”

“Can you tell me what it is?” Eddie asks. His thumb peeks up over the side of Steve’s hand where he’s running it along the side of Steve’s pinky finger. It’s soft.

Steve shakes his head.

“You need to use words, Steve,” Eddie tells him, firm. He squeezes Steve’s hands. The metal of his rings digs into Steve’s skin.

“I really can’t,” Steve says. “I just feel weird.”

If Steve can be in love with anyone, he’s probably in love with Eddie. He just can’t imagine sharing his life — what a joke — with anyone who doesn’t know there are monsters in some impossible space under the state of Indiana. Legally and morally, that’s not even something Steve can tell anyone. The scars means he has to wear turtlenecks. The nightmares mean he doesn’t spend the night. 

Most girls? He doesn’t even go on a second date because they have some shit to say about queers or how much they like Bush or Dole. Or, Jesus Christ, Reagan . Most girls don’t even make it to the point where they suggest Steve spend less time with Robin Buckley; when they do, he stops taking their calls.

He’s never gotten a guy he met in a club to call him afterward, but maybe he deserves that. Maybe they just know he’s the kind of guy who called other guys queers in high school and never went to college and can only get a job outside retail because of his dad.

Eddie doesn’t ask him to, but Steve sinks to his knees. The weight on his shoulders feels too great to bear.

“Can I touch you?” Eddie asks. “Your face.”

“Yes,” Steve says, “sir.”

He swallows around the urge to say Eddie’s name. There’s something hot in his throat and climbing up into his eyes.

Eddie slowly releases his hands. He tilts Steve’s chin up. He touches Steve’s cheeks, which are clean shaven, because his father’s clients expect it. His thumb finds Steve’s moles, the one’s his mother thinks he should get removed, and kisses them with a touch. His ears and the sides of his jaw are naked. So is the back of his neck. Eddie touches him there.

“Is this OK?” he asks.

“Yes, sir,” Steve says.

His eyes close as Eddie massages the back of his neck between his fingertips and the meat of his thumb. When he exhales, Steve feels his body sagging into Eddie’s touch.

“Sweetheart, can you put your hands on my thighs?” Eddie asks.

Steve does so without thinking, a shudder running through him. Is it “sweetheart”? Is it feeling Eddie, solid and real, under his hands? Is it being between Eddie’s legs while naked and on his knees?

When Steve opens his eyes, he can see that Eddie is hard. He’s really eye-level with Eddie’s belly, but he’s got a good view. Eddie’s dick presses against his thigh, but it’s big. It’s close.

Steve’s mouth tries to water.

“I think…” He licks his lips. “I think I’m thirsty, sir.”

When he looks up, he catches just a moment of Eddie’s eyes widening.

“Do you want to stop?” Eddie asks. “Do you want to pick out your reward now?”

Steve shakes his head. “I want…”

He swallows. “I want whatever you want me to have, Eddie. I don’t want this to end. Not yet.”

“OK,” Eddie says. “That’s a lot of responsibility, you know? But you asked for it.

“You still want to be told what to do?” Eddie asks.

“Yes, sir,” Steve says.

“Open your mouth,” Eddie tells him.

Steve does so. But he’s not looking at Eddie’s face. He’s looking at Eddie’s belt buckle. At the hard cock hidden behind the fly of his jeans. Eddie’s hand moves from the back of Steve’s neck to his jaw and his fingers curl under Steve’s chin. He moves Steve’s head so he’s looking up, up, up at Eddie’s face.

“There you are, baby,” Eddie says. “So beautiful like this. You’ve been so good. I never imagined — but that’s on me. I didn’t let myself imagine this.”

Steve blinks up at him, mouth open.

Eddie’s hands leave him. He twists the cap off the bottle of water and Steve watches his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down under the scars on his throat. It’s framed, really, by the beard that grows down Eddie’s neck.

“I’m going to spit in your mouth,” Eddie says.

A shudder runs through him. Steve feels his cock start to leak — one drop, then another.

“You know what to tell me if you don’t want it, baby,” Eddie tells him.

Then, he takes hold of the back of Steve’s neck. This time, Steve feels his rings. 

“You want it?” Eddie asks.

Steve doesn’t want to say, “Yes, sir.” right now. He doesn’t want to shut his mouth. So, instead, he opens it wider. He pushes his tongue out over his teeth and his bottom lip.

He arches his neck against Eddie’s hand.

Eddie giggles, a bright and sort of grating sound. He smiles. This time, Steve can see his dimples and his teeth. When he gathers up his spit, Eddie’s face contorts a little. He shifts around in his seat. He leans over Steve.

“Hope my aim’s good,” he says. “I always try to shoot true, but you never know. I might get it in your eye.”

The anticipation lingers. Steve squeezes his thighs together. He feels his body tense. He’s hot and cold in flashes. His dick drips onto the dusty carpet of Eddie’s RV.

Eddie’s spit is a shock of body-warm wetness against Steve’s tongue. It’s slick and runs right to the back of his throat. He swallows on instinct.

“Oh,” Eddie says. “Steve.”

It’s over too fast. Steve barely even tastes it. He feels his face burning. His hands on Eddie’s thighs would be shaking if he didn’t grip so hard.

“Do you need more, baby?” Eddie asks.

The heat is back in Steve’s eyes. He swallows again. It’s a little easier, because he’s borrowed Eddie’s spit.

The second time, Eddie gathers his spit up on his lips. He purses them, like a kiss. It drips down. It should be disgusting. Or juvenile. This is how Steve spit when he was in sixth grade and trying to see if he could slurp a loogie back up before it fell or touched the ground. Now, Eddie’s spit drips slowly until it touches Steve’s tongue. It’s so wet . It slides around on Steve’s tongue tasting like nothing, maybe a little like Pabst. 

A sound comes out of Steve that he didn’t know he could make.

“OK, sweetie, I hear you,” Eddie says. “Can you swallow it for me?”

His eyes sting when he closes them. Steve swallows without closing his mouth.

“Gonna give you some water, too,” Eddie says. “I think you need it. Do you need it?”

Eyes closed and mouth open, Steve nods his head. 

“Open your eyes,” Eddie tells him. It feels nearly impossible. Like he might have to take his hands off Eddie and pry his eyelids open with his fingers. But Steve closes his mouth, swallows hard, and then he opens his eyes. And his mouth.

“You’re so good at doing what I tell you,” Eddie says. “I can’t tell you how good that makes me feel.”

Eddie giggles, a little more high-pitched this time. “Though I think you can tell, Steve. I saw you staring.”

As if Eddie hasn’t been staring at Steve’s dick since before it was even hard.

“God, it’s so hot how you can look like a bitch even while you’re on your knees with your mouth wide open for me,” Eddie says.

Steve tries to smooth out whatever happened on his face, just then. He doesn’t know what he did. He sticks his tongue out a little further, until it aches. 

“You want to be good, though,” Eddie says. “I know, you’re not a bitch, you’re not, you’re such a good boy, Steve. I’m sorry I said that.”

“Here,” Eddie says, “let me give you something nice.”

Then, he takes a swig of water from the bottle. His cheeks puff out. His mouth is so full it’s dripping down his chin and catching in the hair of his beard. Then, like a fountain, like a stream, a personal waterfall, the water flows from Eddie’s lips into Steve’s open mouth.

He leans down, down, down, but never close enough to kiss.

Yes, Steve could just push himself up on Eddie’s thighs and mash his mouth against Eddie’s. But he doesn’t do that. He swallows. Open mouthed, like he’s shotgunning beer or chugging punch.

The water dribbles from Eddie’s mouth at the end and gets all over Steve’s chin, his throat, his chest. 

“Was that nice?” Eddie asks. 

Steve nods, mouth still open.

“Answer the question, baby,” Eddie says. 

“Yes, sir,” Steve says, embarrassed by how his voice sounds. “It was nice.”

“Are you ready to end?” Eddie asks. “You were so good, I think you could ask me for just about anything.”

Steve knows what he wants. His thoughts don’t hesitate; his voice does. He swallows. He blinks. He wills his voice to be steady, not so whiny or tearful.

“We can end it,” Steve says.

“OK,” Eddie says. “I’ll allow that.”

Eddie’s still leaned over him from when he spit into Steve’s mouth. He looks down at Steve, but Steve has to crane his head back to look up at Eddie.

“Do you know what you want as a reward?” Eddie asks.

“Yes, sir,” Steve says. “I want you to hit me.”

It’s the one thing Eddie hasn’t done, hasn’t even talked about. But that whip in his hand. His boot on the man’s face. Eddie’s face wasn’t even in the photograph — obscured by his hair — but Steve could see the pain-pleasure-whatever on the mans’ face. Steve hopes he never knows that guy’s name. 

He can accept it. Eddie’s not his. Eddie can do whatever he wants with his own life.

Steve has always just accepted that. Ever since…

He hopes he never meets the other man in that photo. He hopes he never meets anyone else Eddie has done this with.

“A reward’s supposed to be something nice,” Eddie says. “Something you want from me.”

“I know that,” Steve says. “I’m not stupid.”

“I didn’t say that, Steve,” Eddie says. “I said it’s supposed to be something you want . Is that what you want? For me to hit you?”

Steve’s eyes feel so hot and itching that he doesn’t understand how he’s not already crying. His throat is thick with the feeling. 

“Yeah, duh,” he says. Then, “Sir.”

Eddie giggles again. “Jesus Christ.”

Then, “Alright, alright. I’ll hit you. But, I need you to be more specific.”

Steve blinks. The ringing in his ears starts to clear. He can swallow again.

“Do you want me to use a toy?” Eddie asks. “Or my bare hands?”

“Hands,” Steve says, quickly.

“Open palm,” Eddie says, “or fist?”

Steve chews on his lower lip. The thought of Eddie’s knuckles against him. He does want that. But, maybe not today. He wants something that he can take a lot of. He’s an only child. He’s always been spoiled, greedy, gotten more than enough of everything anyone could reasonably ask for.

“Palm,” Steve says. “Maybe you can fist me later.”

He smiles up at Eddie, with his face all flushed and his dick rock hard and his eyes all wet.

Eddie chokes. “Steve, sweetheart, you’re trying to kill me? After I was so nice to you?”

For a moment, despite everything, they are just two friends laughing together at each other.

Then Eddie starts taking his rings off both hands.

“Where do you want it?” Eddie asks.

“What are my options?” Steve asks.

“Hmm,” Eddie looks up at the ceiling. He looks anywhere but at Steve’s face. But all Steve can do is look up at him. He digs his fingers into Eddie’s thighs rhythmically. No matter how he grabs at him, Eddie hasn’t shoved him off. His hands are still there.

“Face, chest, ass, or thighs,” he says.

“OK,” Steve says. He doesn’t have to think. He’s got plenty of sick fantasies about Eddie to pull from. “I want you to slap me in the face, just once, but like a really good one, and then you can spank my ass as much as you want.”

Eddie’s eyebrows raise. He tips his head down. Steve likes the way he no longer has bangs to hide his brows and, yet, the beard doesn’t hide the way Eddie’s chin creases up into his neck from this angle. He’s handsome somehow through it all. The handsomest man Steve has ever met. Also, a total cartoon of a human being, as Robin would say.

“Yeah,” Eddie says, his voice high. “Yeah, baby, sure, I can do that for you. It’ll be a real trial, you know, laying a hand on that pretty face.”

There’s just enough of a pause for Steve to say, “But smacking my ass will be easy?”

Eddie’s whole body jolts with laughter.

“No, that’s going to be a trial, too,” Eddie says. “But you’re worth it, Steve, you’re worth everything.”

Steve feels almost sick to his stomach from that. He wants to stop and pinch the bridge of his nose. But that would mean taking his hands off of Eddie’s thighs, so instead he just blinks and lets the tears clump his eyelashes together.

“Are you ready?” Eddie asks. “Do you want me to count down?”

“Wait,” Steve says. “Actually, can I —?”

As he starts to get up, Eddie’s warm and calloused hands take him by the shoulders and the backs of his arms. He climbs, Eddie pulls, and, in the end, Steve slips one knee onto the dinette bench and lets himself sit in Eddie’s lap.

“You wanna move to the bed,” Eddie asks. His eyes are dark and bright. “We’d have the space for me to put you over my knee.”

There are still tears in Steve’s eyes and his dick brushes against Eddie’s t-shirt, leaving behind a wet spot.

“Yeah,” he says. “I’d like that.”

Eddie’s hands stay above the waist as he helps Steve stand and then walks him backwards through the slightly tidier Super Chief.

Steve sits his bare ass down on Eddie’s bedsheets, but then Eddie throws himself into bed with his boots still on. He pulls Steve around by the arm. Steve climbs astride his thighs again and settles his weight over Eddie’s dick.

“You’re so fucking hot, Steve,” he says. “Do you know that? Do you know how pretty you are?”

No one has called Steve pretty since he was twenty three. Except for Eddie. Steve believes he means it, too. Eddie does think he’s hot and pretty.

Eddie combs his fingers through Steve’s hair.

“I don’t need a countdown,” Steve says. “Just do it.”

The pullback is noticeable. Eddie draws his hand back, his arm, his elbow. He swings. Steve flinches before it even hits. There’s a crack of skin against skin. Pain explodes, hot, across his cheek. It tingles with the shape of Eddie’s palm.

Steve’s mouth hangs open. He knows he’s made some embarrassing sound, but the ringing in his own ears drowned it out.

“Holy shit,” Eddie says. “Steve.”

A little grunt comes out of him, still, as he shuts his mouth.

“Was that good?” Eddie asks. 

“It was perfect,” he answers, and he means it. His face is still hot as he climbs off of Eddie’s lap.

“Like this?” Steve asks, laying himself down over Eddie’s thighs, so his cock presses against the denim of his jeans.

“Yeah, baby, this is perfect, too,” Eddie says. “You’ve done this before? Been put over someone’s knee?”

“Not since I was, like, five,” Steve says.

“Oh,” Eddie says. “Well, I imagine this is… a little different?”

His warm hand rests against the back of Steve’s thigh. His face starts to sting, the skin of his cheek warm and aching.

“Yeah,” Steve says. “It’s good.”

He’s wiggling, squirming even, and he knows it. He wants to grind his cock down against the solid flesh of Eddie’s leg, but he’s not sure he’s earned that. He certainly didn’t ask for it. So, instead, Steve just shifts around.

Eddie’s hand presses down on the small of his back.

“Hold still, Steve, or I might hit you in the balls,” he warns. Steve twitches at the thought, but he is pretty sure he wouldn’t actually like that.

Eddie takes a deep breath that comes out of his shaking. Steve wonders if he could move just right to be able to feel Eddie’s thick cock underneath him. But, he’s trying not to squirm right now.

The first strike is sudden. Steve is looking at the bedspread on Eddie’s mattress, with little green and blue flowers on it. He wasn’t paying enough attention to Eddie’s movements. He yelps and his hips jerk down against Eddie’s thigh.

“Oh shit,” Eddie says.

Steve feels the heat in his skin, the shape of Eddie’s hand.

“Again?” Eddie asks.

“Again!” Steve says.

This time he’s braced; Eddie’s hand strikes him just as hard, but he doesn’t cry out nearly as loud. He grunts. His dick still grinds into Eddie’s thigh. There’s no pause. Eddie swats him again, hand cracking sharp against his ass. It stings after, when the blood rushes to the surface of his skin. 

Again, and Steve feels struck by lightning. His dick gets driven into the rough denim. He’s making a mess.

“Sorry,” he gasps.

“Too much?” Eddie asks.

Steve’s voice cracks under the strain. “No, sorry I’m getting… I’m getting jizz on your jeans.”

“Hm,” Eddie says. His hand is warm against Steve’s ass cheek, which is too tender for this gentleness. Steve finds himself humping Eddie’s leg a little even though he just apologized.

“That would make a good song title,” Eddie says. “Jizz on my jeans.”

Steve laughs, despite himself, and laughing makes him hiccup. 

“You alright?” Eddie asks.

“Yeah,” Steve says. “Never been better. You gonna spank me again?”

Eddie answers by slapping his other ass cheek, not the one he was groping. He alternates, but not precisely. It’s like he’s — Well, Steve hopes that he’s looking and he hits him where it’s getting less red.

“Yeah, baby, I can keep going. How about ten?” Eddie asks.

“As much as you want,” Steve insists.

“Well,” Eddie says. “If we follow the letter of that rule, Steve, I’m never going to stop.”

Steve screws his eyes shut so hard it makes his whole face scrunch up. He bites down on the inside of his cheeks, the tip of his tongue. Eddie spanks him again. 

“One,” he says.

Again. “Two.” Again. “Three.” He switches sides for four and five. Steve’s dick rubs and rubs. He feels like he might come from this. Like if Eddie hit him just right. 

“Six.” Eddie stops for a moment and strokes him, hand gentle over his ass and down his thigh. “You’re so pretty like this.”

The hair at the nape of Steve’s neck feels wet with sweat. It drips down the curve of his ear and gathers on his upper lip. He’s so hard, but the burning hot feeling on his buttcheeks distracts from it. He feels more desperate to be hit again than to come. 

“My — ah, such a pretty boy,” Eddie says. “Who wants to do everything I tell him.”

He spanks Steve hard enough to knock some sound loose. It’s not a grunt, this time, or a whine. Steve opens his mouth and moans.

“Oh, Steve,” Eddie says, and hits him again. “That’s eight.”

“Oh fuck,” Steve says. He shoves his face into Eddie’s bed, like it will muffle him.

Two more swats in quick succession, one to each asscheek.

“Want me to keep going?” Eddie asks.

“Yes,” Steve says. “Yes. Yes!”

It’s begging, maybe, but Eddie seems delighted. He grabs Steve hard, pushing his fingers into skin that feels like it might bruise from the touch. How it Steve going to be able to sit in the driver’s seat and make it back to his apartment like this? How’s he going to be able to get his dick to go down ever again?

Eddie keeps counting and talking as he spanks him. He tells Steve how pretty and good and obedient he is, how nice his back looks and his haircut and ass — “It’s like a beefsteak tomato, I could eat this on a burger.”

Between groans, Steve finds himself laughing. His eyes are wet and the bedspread gets wet. His mouth hangs open. He drools.

“Nineteen,” Eddie says. The crack of his hand never seems any quieter. He never complains about his hand hurting. “Twenty.”

Steve’s balls draw up tight as his cock gets driven into the seam of Eddie’s thighs. The head rubs against so much fabric. It hurts. It feels amazing.

“Twenty one.” Steve moans again and his body shudders, jerks.

“Twenty two!” Eddie says, louder, over the sound Steve makes.

Steve bites down on the bedspread as he comes all over Eddie’s lap. His ass stings when he clenches it, but it feels like all the heat pours out of him at once. He shivers a few times, full bodied, then relaxes.

“That good, huh?” Eddie asks.

Steve doesn’t even have it in him to nod. He just lies there.

Eddie’s hand rests gently on his thigh.

“You want more?” he asks.

Steve blinks. Tears roll out of his eyes, but it’s not anymore embarrassing than pissing or coming. He swallows.

“Yeah,” Steve says. “One more.”

He licks his lips. “Please?”

“Oh, Steve,” Eddie says. “You’re going to be the death of me.”

And then Eddie slaps his ass once more. It hurts now that Steve’s not hard. His softening cock gets pushed against wet denim. The sound that comes out of him is rough and catches in his teeth.

For a long moment, Steve rests in Eddie’s lap. Neither of them says anything. Then, Eddie gently lifts his hips.

“I need to get you a washcloth,” he says. “You want some lotion?”

Steve tries to say something, but he’s talking to the bed. Eddie doesn’t let him fall as he gently eases Steve off so he can get up. Steve listens to him moving around in the Super Chief. Water runs. The storage cabinet opens.

“Can you roll over?” Eddie asks, voice so neutral that it makes Steve feel weird. What happened to the commands?

Steve rolls over, exposing his soft, wet dick. He almost wants to cover it, but at least it’s bigger than when he took his jeans off at first.

“Do you want me to do it?” Eddie asks. “Or… I mean, I’d understand if you don’t.”

Steve blinks up at Eddie. There’s a look on his face that Steve can’t figure out. He can’t possibly be nervous, that makes no sense.

“You can touch me, Eddie,” Steve says. “Promise my dick doesn’t have teeth.”

Eddie laughs a little. His face relaxes. His little tight-lipped smile reappears. “Be pretty metal if it did.”

The washcloth is warm, not hot, and Eddie wipes Steve’s belly and cock and thighs so gently. 

“There you go,” Eddie says, patting his thigh. “Now you won’t get all crusty.”

Steve huffs out a laugh. He rolls over again when Eddie tells him to. The lotion has vitamin E according to the bright letters on the bottle. Steve rests his cheek on his forearms.

“You sure you don’t want to do this yourself?” Eddie asks.

“Want you to do it,” Steve says, smiling at him. He flexes his glutes — one and then the other — at Eddie. It aches to do, but it makes Eddie laugh.

He warms the lotion between his palms. His rings are gone. His touch is so, so gentle. Steve’s eyes slide shut. He sighs.

“Should help with the bruising,” Eddie says.

“Yeah, vitamin E’s, like, really good for your skin,” Steve says. 

It’s very conversational for Eddie’s hands rubbing lotion into the skin of his ass. Steve could get lost in the fantasy of this: how easily Eddie’s fingers could slip into the cleft of his asscheeks, how it would feel to have Eddie press into him with only lotion, how good-bad it would feel to be fucked when his ass is already sore. Steve bites his lips. He lets himself dream.

“You want to do this kind of thing?” Eddie asks. “Not just following orders, but getting smacked around a little.”

“Yeah,” Steve answers. “I like it.”

Eddie’s hands stop moving, but they both rest on Steve’s ass. “I had no idea.”

“Yeah, well,” Steve says. “You never asked.”

Eddie giggles, but it’s a little too high pitched. His hands leave Steve’s ass. He’s a little cold, but he doesn’t want to put his clothes on yet. He’s too comfortable. He wants to lie in Eddie’s bed and dream a little longer.

“I’m going to get you some water,” Eddie says. “A fresh one, not the one with my backwash.”

“Backwash is fine,” Steve says. “I share with Robin all the time.”

“You guys are gross,” Eddie tells him.

Then, “What’s that radio station you like?”

“Power 97?” Steve asks. 

He hears static and then music. George Michael sings, “— I forgot to be! Take back your picture in a frame, don’t think I’ll be back again. I just hope you understand, sometimes the clothes do not make the man!”

Eddie is still making a face of displeasure when Steve can peel his eyes open. He has a fresh bottle of water and opens it as Steve watches.

“Need to get out of these boots and jeans,” Eddie tells him.

Steve sits up with a groan. He takes the bottle of water. Eddie’s normally shy about undressing — enough that Steve wasn’t surprised at all that he was fully dressed in leather for the photograph and has stayed fully dressed for this scene between them — but he goes up toward the front of the Super Chief with a pair of sweatpants in hand. Steve gets to see his skinny legs as he unlaces the boots and struggles to get them off. His jeans are even harder to remove, apparently. Eddie grimaces and turns around.

He wishes that Eddie wouldn’t. He’d like to see his dick, or at least the tent of it under his boxers. Eddie has apparently tucked it up into the waistband before he turns around. Steve can barely see the bugle of it in his black sweatpants.

“I want to do this again,” Steve says. George Michael sings about freedom. 

“Yeah?” Eddie asks.

“Yeah,” Steve says. 

Eddie smiles at him, even shows his teeth.

“Alright,” he says. “I’ll admit I’ve got some ideas I’d like to try.”

“Me too,” Steve says. He lets his eyes drop pointedly to Eddie’s crotch.

When Eddie gets closer to him, there’s some pink in his cheeks above his beard. He grabs his beer off the dinette table.

“You want a massage or anything?” he asks. “I’ve been told I’m pretty good with my hands.”

“Hmm,” Steve says. “I thought you gave the orders while I was here.”

“Scene’s over, Steve,” Eddie reminds him. 

He sighs. “Fine, just — we can just hang out.”

“Alright,” Eddie says.

His weight makes the bed sag. “I like hanging out with you.”

Steve feels the dream fading quickly. He’s not Eddie’s lover. They are just friends. But, they are good friends. They’re friends who’ve nearly died together. They’re friends who wear the same scars. They’re friends with conveniently compatible sexual interests. They’re friends who can torment each other with opposing tastes in music. They’re friends who like cheap beer.

“I’ll pick a day that I’m not working,” Steve says. “We can share a beer next time.”

“Now that sounds like fun after care,” Eddie says. 

Steve steels whatever courage got him to Eddie’s door to ask about the photograph, about Eddie’s services, and throws his arm around Eddie’s shoulders and his faded Iron Maiden shirt.