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On Hotel Rooms and Their Deleterious Effects	By : beautifulliar Category: Singers/Bands/Musicians > Nine Inch Nails Views: 1266 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. I do not know the members of Nine Inch Nails. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 1-On Hotel Rooms and Their Deleterious Effects
- 2-Part 2 of 2
- 1
- 2
On Hotel Rooms and Their Deleterious Effects

Part 2 of 2

Voices woke him, much later. He didn’t feel like opening his eyes, so he didn’t bother. The voices hardly made sense, and then he wasn’t hearing them at all anymore.

Something jolted him out of his sleep—either the sound of a door closing in the room, or the sound of one closing in his dream. His bladder took the opportunity to do a little “Hey, it’s been a while” dance on his kidneys. He pushed up, squinting and fighting a yawn, and pulled his stomach off the bottom sheet.

The room was silent.

The other bed was rumpled, but empty.

Sitting back on his haunches, he let a full yawn come on. Ahhh awesome. Everyone was gone.

In the bathroom, he didn’t feel different. He leaned on a hand propped against the wall and pissed like he did any other morning. He might have been dreaming last night. He didn’t even have proof that one of the chicks had slipped into his bed, unless the sheets smelled like girly-ness. He flushed and yawned and, smelling very much not like girly-ness, or anything else pleasant, he cranked on the shower.

When he emerged from the steaming bathroom twenty or so minutes later, wrapped in one of the hotel’s white towels, he had that ‘I’m all wiped out from the shower; I just want to sprawl on the bed’ feeling. He swept open the blackout drapes. He winced at the first sting of sunlight in his eyes, but it brightened the room.

The bed, the rumpled bed with its white sheets and white pillowcases, beckoned to him. Shower + sunlight + bed = no contest. He climbed in and pulled the sheet up to his hips. He closed his eyes. He got good and comfortable.

He hoped that maybe if he put himself where sleep could find him again, it would.

Time ticked by, measured by the clicking on and off of the AC.

Eventually, another click came, from around the corner—followed by the sound of the door handle turning. He rolled onto his stomach and stretched his arms out to his sides. It was a day off. He could lie in bed all damned day if that’s what he felt like doing.

It was, pretty much, what he felt like doing.

“You’re still not up?” Jeordie asked.

“Go ‘way.”

“Hey, you seen my phone?”

“It’s not behind my eyelids, brah.”

He listened to him move around the room, picking up stuff, dropping it, shifting it around. From near the bed, near the floor, he heard, “Hey, found this.” The mattress dipped. There was a small, short puh sound—a familiar puh sound….

“The fuck are you doing?” Aaron said into the pillow as something cool touched his left shoulder blade and began to slide slowly downward. Lipstick. “Brah, you better not be drawing anything you’re going to regret later.”

Lines. Jeordie was drawing…letters—just great!—across his back.

“Dude, I just took a fucking shower.”

“Did you?” He asked it with the tone of someone hardly paying attention to what the other person was saying. He drew a line down, across, down, across, across, down.

Aaron felt no pressing need to move—it felt good; he felt good. He was a little weirded out by what he thought might have happened the night before, but not totally weirded out. He hadn’t sorted it out in his head yet, and didn’t, at the moment, feel like sorting anything.

Jeordie started a new line, over Aaron’s kidney, a line that curved outward and tickled, just a little, at his side. The lipstick trail was cool. The AC hummed softly. Neither of them made any noises, aside from breathing. Normal breathing.

Jeordie reached the right side of Aaron’s back and drew a thick, short line down, then circled heavily underneath it. Aaron hadn’t been paying much attention to the letters as Jeordie wrote, but the exclamation mark was pretty obvious.

Then came the pwuck of Jeordie slipping the lipstick cap back on.

The mattress rose.

Jeordie went back to moving about the room, rifling through shit, opening drawers.

Aaron was aware of his body moving as he breathed, slight movements like a branch in a soft summer wind, and mostly he paid attention to that: in, out, rise, fall, expand, contract.

“I had it when we got back here last night, didn’t I?”

“Couldn’t tell ya.”

“I think I remember taking it out of my pocket….”

Aaron drifted, not really asleep but not really in the mood to be awake. The room seemed to warm slightly with Jeordie bumping around in it. The air seemed hotter, closer.

“Ha! Found it.”

“Mmwhere?”

“In your shoe.”

“Mmph.”

Jeordie sat on the bed, making the mattress dip again. Gravity tugged lightly at Aaron’s left hip. He heard the soft beeps of cell phone keys being pressed. Careful not to wind up closer to Jeordie’s back than he already was, he twisted around until he was supine, one arm thrown across his face. “Ugh. I think I’m getting a headache from hanging around in bed.”

“Guess you ought to get up and join the living, then.”

Aaron let his arm slip down. Jeordie had his phone to his ear, listening to messages. Mostly, Jeordie’s back and side were to him. He couldn’t see his face. With a grunt, he sat up.

Jeordie pressed a key, then another.

“Brah. We need to talk.” He scrubbed his face with his palms. “Fuck,” he said around another yawn.

“Talk about what?” Jeordie was still distracted with his phone. This, Aaron decided, wasn’t entirely a bad thing.

“Those chicks last night—you don’t think they, you know, woke up and had an idea of what….” He turned his face toward Jeordie—toward the back of his head, just a foot away. The room was even warmer now. He never should have opened the curtains. “You know.”

“No, I don’t think so. Hold on.” He had the phone against his ear again, listening.

Aaron bent his knees and rested his forehead against one. When he heard another key-press from Jeordie, he said, “’Cause I was thinking…whoever spent the night in this bed stayed, like, waaaay over on the side of the bed.”

“And you don’t think that had anything to do with your surly personality?” Two more soft beeps, then Jeordie tossed the phone across to the other bed.

Aaron pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes and let himself drop back onto the pillow again.

“You may or may not remember this—” Jeordie’s voice was a little clearer now; he’d twisted or shifted around a bit to talk to him. “—but I had a hell of a time convincing her to leave my bed.”

There was a second or two of quiet.

Then: “What you need, my friend—”

Aaron heard a short puh sound.

oh no

“—is to put on a hap—”

Aaron grabbed for Jeordie’s hands. “Don’t you put that shit on me.”

‘—py face,” Jeordie finished, not the least bit dissuaded. He snuck his other hand down to Aaron’s ribs and grabbed him, causing him to jump and shift his lower body away.

He felt lipstick swipe the side of his mouth. “Brah—”

“Spread…sunshine…all over the place,” Jeordie sang.

“This is so not cool!” Aaron had a hold of one wrist—the other hand was still poking at his side, or his armpit, making him squirm and twist. Half his face, he was certain, was slashed with lipstick.

“—and put on…a hap…ppppy….face!” He drew another crooked slash across Aaron’s face, with Aaron hanging onto his wrist, trying to stop him, and then he dotted the end of Aaron’s nose with the lipstick. He pulled back and stood up, smiling. “There, that’s better.”

“Fucker.” Rolling onto his back, Aaron scrubbed at his face and nose with his hands, then looked down at his red-smudged palms. Glitter, too. Great. Just great.

And there Jeordie stood, five or six feet away, grinning.

It wasn’t a bad grin.

I do not need this. He covered his face with his hands, gripped his hair with his fingers, and let out a quiet “Fuhhhhhhhhck.”

When he looked again, Jeordie wasn’t even in the room.

He looked at his palms again. “Shit. Probably got it all over the rest of my face now, too.” He sat up and laid his hands palms-up on his thighs. The sheet pooled at his hips.

The bathroom door swung open, and Jeordie came walking out. He took one look at Aaron’s face and laughed. “You should see yourself.”

“I know where you fucking sleep, brah.” He pointed. “And you’d better start sleeping with one eye open, if you know what’s good for you.”

“Mmhm.” Jeordie walked across the room, toward his duffel bag.

“Ass pirate,” Aaron muttered, lifting his hands like a doctor in surgical gloves.

Without looking up from his bag, Jeordie said, “How is your ass anyway?”

“Hey, brah, why don’t you tell me?”

“Um, tight, if I remember right.”

“If you ‘remember right’,” Aaron griped. His face was already a mess, so he propped his elbows on his knees and rubbed his temples.

Jeordie straightened with an “A-ha!” and shook out a shirt. “I was looking for this earlier.” He dropped it on the end of his bed, caught the shirt he was wearing by its hem, and peeled it up and off. Pulling on the shirt he’d just dug out, he headed back toward the bathroom.

A knock came at the door.

Aaron started to yank the sheets back.

“Got it,” Jeordie said.

“Ho—wait—” Too late. There was no time to make it to the bathroom. He had time to throw himself back on the bed, half on his side, half on his stomach, with his face buried under a pillow. Fuck!

“Hey, you about ready?”—Josh’s voice, but there were more footsteps than just his.

“Yep, just about.”

“Hey, Aaron.”

“Hey, Aaron. You’re still asleeping?” Alessandro.

Aaron grunted from under the pillows.

“What’s that say?” Josh asked, and Aaron winced, realizing he had no fucking idea what Jeordie’d written on his back. God, don’t like it be ‘Jeordie wuz here’ with an arrow….

Josh gave a laugh—one that wasn’t pointed at his back—and said, “Nice. Who’s the cock-liker?”

After a few seconds, Aaron realized that there was nothing worse than silence permeated by the certainty that everyone was, in fact, now looking at you.

A soft footstep came closer. Just a few feet to Aaron’s left, Alessandro said, “What does that say?”

“It says go the fuck away and leave me alone,” Aaron said from beneath the pillow.

“Well, I guess that clears up the cock-liker question,” Josh said.

Aaron felt a wave of heat roll down from his scalp.

“Crazy chicks,” Jeordie said. “What can you do? Hey Aar, you coming with us?” He tapped Aaron’s heel, through the sheet.

Someone jingled some change.

Aaron, the heat seeping slowly from his cheeks, mumbled, “No.”

“Aw, duzums has a widdle hangover?”

“Eat my peepee, Josh.”

“Give us a call if you change your mind.”

“Uh-huh.” He was starting to get tired of breathing his own air. His hair was sticking to sweat on his brow again. It seemed to take the three of them forever to reach the door—and finally it latched closed.

Aaron shrugged the pillow off his head—ah, fresh air—and slowly sat up. The sheets were smeared with a subtly glitterful red. He stumbled off the bed and into the bathroom.

“Fuck,” he said to the face in the mirror. He cranked on the faucet, then he turned and hurt his eyeballs trying to read his back in the mirror. “Fucker,” he muttered. He turned back, stooped, and splashed water on his face.

***

Every room he walked into was a dressing room, but somehow he had to walk into six or seven of them before it dawned on him that it was the same dressing room every single fucking time. He had a sour taste in his mouth—the taste of crankiness. Then he realized he wasn’t in a dressing room—he was sprawled someplace uncomfortable and he felt like crap. The sour taste in his mouth may well have been crankiness, but it also tasted like a hell of a night spent drinking. What started to come back to him, bits and pieces of the night, supported that theory.

He moved his arm, and that made it not hurt quite so much, which was encouraging, so he lifted his face just enough to turn it the other way and drop his other cheek on what felt just like carpet. He blinked his eyes open. Bleary carpet in a dark room, the end of a bed maybe four feet away, and someone snoring. His eyes closed again on their own. That seemed to shut some of the snoring out, too. Nifty. But lying with his neck cranked this way wasn’t doing him any good. He got both his hands moving and managed to push himself onto his side. He rested his head on an outstretched arm.

He had to piss.

He really wanted to be back to sleep.

This floor wasn’t getting any more comfortable the longer he lay on it.

He may have suffered permanent indentation in his stomach from his belt buckle.

He really wanted to be back asleep, just not back asleep here, on the floor.

With a grunt, he pushed up and sat, heavily, rolling back a bit and banging his shoulder blade against a large, sharp-cornered object that he identified, from slapping his hand against the front of it, as a dresser.

He turned his head to look, blearily, toward the bathroom and saw instead the vague shape of a chair near blackout drapes that were almost 100% effective, save for where they hadn’t been pulled quite shut at the far end of the window.

Staying at a different hotel room most nights did, admittedly, make it difficult to remember what any given room you were staying in at any given time looked like; however, he was confident at this particular moment that the room he was supposed to be in had the bathroom in the direction that a window currently stood. Which was too bad, because he really needed to use a bathroom.

He reached up and back and grabbed the edge of the dresser to pull himself to his feet. He stumbled over his own foot, caught himself, and blinked at the two beds. Two beds, both taken. Awesome. It wasn’t his room.

Where the fuck was his room?

He turned and, with his fingers still touching the dresser just in case, started moving in the direction that the bathroom in this room was located.

His fingers hit something that moved, which hit something else that moved, and then both drumsticks bumped against his leg and each other on their way to the floor.

“Shit,” he whispered. He stepped over them carefully, trying not to imagine accidentally stepping on one and ending up on his ass.

He patted his back pockets. Once he found his room, he’d need to get into it—the feel of a smooth plastic rectangle in his back left pocket was comforting.

He shouldered his way into the bathroom, pushed the door closed, and pissed with both hands braced on the wall. His forehead rested against his knuckles.

Getting out of the bathroom made a little more noise than wanted, and the snoring stopped—and then started back up in the next breath. He sidestepped toward the room’s door and let himself out to a corridor lined with doors that all looked the same, save for the numbers on them, which was the rub ‘cause he had no idea what his room number was.

He worked his room key out of his pocket and blinked at it. Turned it over and blinked at the other side. It was supposed to be in a cardboard folder. The cardboard folder was supposed to have his room number on it.

Some lucky bastard somewhere in the course of the evening must have gotten his cardboard folder with the room number on it.

With any luck, he or she wasn’t sitting on his bed waiting for him to show up.

Thank god he had the key still.

He pointed himself toward the elevator alcove. Once there, he pushed the down button. When the elevator doors opened, he got in and pressed the floor one below the one he was on. When the doors opened again, he pressed the door close button. When the doors opened for a third time, he stepped out onto his floor, just like he’d done maybe three or four times since arriving at the hotel, and headed for his room—hopeful that he would recognize the door to his room if he came at it the way he was used to coming at it.

Hey, sometimes it worked.

This time it narrowed the possibilities down to rooms, one ending with a 23 and one ending with a 27. Both numbers sounded familiar. Both doors looked familiar. Thank god he had his key. He slipped it into the first lock—nothing. Slipped it into the second--score!. He palmed the handle and let himself in. The room was dark. The AC was running. He stripped out of his shirt and toe-heeled his sneakers off while his eyes adjusted to the darkness.

Two beds, one empty. He bumped into the end of the empty own bed while he was trying to make out what was on the other bed. Looked like just one body, face-down. He shucked his jeans and socks and pulled the blankets and sheets back from his bed. Slipped inside. Thought a small prayer about not having too the hangover from Hades when he woke up again, and then fell fitfully asleep.

***

The hangover fairy had paid him harsher visits—he got off this time with a low-level throb in temples and a compulsion to gulp water. He had a half-empty bottle of the stuff in his hand as he climbed the two black steps into the bus.

“Hey!” he said in surprise when he near walked into Trent just inside the bus.

“There you are. Head on back there.”

“Okay….” He side-stepped by Trent, water bottle dangling from his fingers. He caught a look from Alessandro, hunched at the table with a steaming breakfast Hot Pocket that made his stomach feel a little weak-kneed, and then another from Josh, lounging on a couch.

“’S up?” he said to Josh on his way by.

“Not much.” Josh grinned. Grinning wasn’t a good sign.

Aaron’s shoulder’s dropped as he continued past. He made his way past the pee closet, then the bunks. When he glanced over his shoulder, Trent was a few feet behind. He nodded ahead. Aaron sighed and went through the door into the back lounge.

Jeordie was chilling on a couch. He had one knee crooked and his heel on the edge of the couch cushion.

“’S up?”

“Hey.”

“So,” Trent said, behind Aaron. “Which of you now owns this fine example of modern art?”

Aaron turned, and took a little half step back. The mustard yellows and lentil greens against the hospital-blue sky were way too close way too early in the morning. “Oh shit,” he said. “There wasn’t glass?” There wasn’t glass. “Who puts a crap art print up in a high-traffic area like a fucking hotel room without glass?” Greasy stains from the lipstick base had feathered the edges of his I LIKE COCK.

“I’ll take that as an ‘Oh, that’s my painting now.’” Trent, holding the frame by its sides, pushed it at Aaron, who managed to grab it without losing his water bottle.

“How much is this gonna cost me?”

“Hundred and fifty.”

“A hundred and fifty? Fuck! Can’t they keep the stupid frame and sell me the print for twenty?”

“You’re welcome to negotiate with them. You’ve got—” He checked his watch. “Four and a half minutes.” He said it with a smirk.

“Shit.”

“Sell it on eBay,” Jeordie said.

“There’s a thought,” Trent said. “Anyway. See ya when we get there.”

“Yeah, see ya.” Aaron frowned at the picture.

He dropped it on the floor, where it fell against the couch. Dropping himself next to it, he banged his knee on the side of the frame. “Shit.” He tipped up his bottle of water and emptied it in a few long swallows.

He leaned his head back and closed his eyes.

After fifteen, twenty seconds, he lifted his head and looked at Jeordie. “He brought that over here himself just so he could watch me squirm first-hand, didn’t he?”

“Yep.”

“Fucker.” He lifted the bottle to his lips, then remembered it was empty. “I can’t believe the frame didn’t have glass. What were they thinking?” He dropped his head back and closed his eyes again.

A half a minute went by, maybe a full minute. Just him and Jeordie and silence. His fingers started tapping his water bottle. They hadn’t said much to each other when they’d gotten up this morning, nothing beyond ‘what time’d you get in?’ and ‘brah—laaaate’.

Aaron hadn’t bothered getting out of bed until Jeordie was nearly finished getting ready. He just lay there, head buried under the sheets, tuning out the sounds of Jeordie walking back and forth and brushing his teeth in front of the TV and shit. All he’d needed to do was crap, shave and drag his happy ass out to the bus, and that didn’t take fifteen minutes.

So. Now it was just the two of them. He opened his eyes and looked over.

Jeordie’s head was bent; he seemed intent on cleaning under one of his fingernails.

A momentary pull of gravity came, that signal that a large vehicle was beginning to propel itself slowly forward.

Jeordie brought his hand to his mouth, still working at cleaning under that fingernail. Or gnawing at it maybe. He looked Aaron’s way, nodded his chin in the direction of the TV. “You wanna watch something?”

“Nah… I think.... I’m gonna grab a nap before I fall over.”

Jeordie nodded, his attention already turning back to his fingernails.

Aaron grabbed hold of the picture frame and used it to hoist himself to his feet. Tapping the empty water bottle against his thigh, he headed out of the lounge.

By the time the bus was picking up speed on the Interstate, he was stretched out on his stomach in his bunk, staring at the just-about-in-his-face wall along the back of it and chewing his lip softly. He heard the door to the lounge close, and then—faintly—the TV going on.

I like cock. He was gonna ditch that painting in the dumpster of the next fast food place they pulled into.

***

New town, new stage, new show. Jeordie and Trent both opted out of hitting the afterparty—totally normal for Trent, not all that strange for Jeordie either. Aaron lasted an hour or so, drinking, having people talk at him, zinging out barbs here and there. He was wore out, though—he’d mostly tossed and turned on the bus, broken up by trips to piss or grab another bottle of water.

He couldn’t, practically, avoid his hotel room every night for the rest of the tour.

In the hallway of the latest hotel, he eased the handle to his room down and removed his keycard. He pushed the door open slowly, with his fingertips, in case Jeordie was asleep. Or maybe he was busy. Maybe he picked up someone in the hotel bar. It had been known to happen.

(It’s just…. They’ve always been girls.)

The yellow glow of one of the bedside lamps cast a halo on the carpet. The TV was going. He let the door fall shut behind him. “’S up?”

“‘Maximum Exposure’s on.” Jeordie gestured to the TV with a handful of potato chips. He crumpled the bag with his other hand and tossed it onto the nightstand. He was barefoot, both feet propped on the bed, and he still wore the t-shirt he’d left the venue in, paired with some navy boxer briefs and nothing else. Again: totally normal shit. Aaron dragged his eyes back up and over to the TV.

“You missed the guy who hit the ground face-first, rappelling off a cliff,” Jeordie said.

“Nice.”

“Every time they cut to commercial they show some guy jumping off his roof. You just know something bad’s gonna happen. That segment should be up soon.” He shifted over, making room. His bed was directly across from the TV. It made sense. Again: totally. normal. shit. “It’s got maybe another seven or eight minutes.” He wiped his hand on the blanket without taking his eyes off the screen.

Aaron’s limbs felt…not heavy, but like he was moving through overstuffed air as he walked toward Jeordie’s bed. Arriving at the side of it, he turned, and then sat. He leaned over his knees to unlace his boots.

Behind him, Jeordie gulped a drink, then set it back on the nightstand.

Act normal. He’s acting normal for christ’s sake.

As he pulled one of his boots off, he straightened, the boot in his hands. He opened his mouth. The words that came out were, “So, dude…what made you get into my bed the other night anyway?”

There was a beat of silence. He leaned down to pull his other boot off.

“Huh? Oh—I don’t know.”

Aaron, stretching forward from where he sat on the side of Jeordie’s bed, set his boots, by his own bed. And Jeordie said, “If I had to guess I’d guess was thinking…well, it was how you weren’t interested in what we were doing, you know? It’s like…. Okay, it’s like you weren’t interested, and that made you interesting, maybe…. I really don’t know. I mean, when I thought of it, it was going to be a joke, you know? Just a, you know, a joke— What happened to my Coke?” He shook the empty bottle. “Whatever. Anyway.” He got up, pitched the bottle into the trash and crouched in front of the mini fridge. “And then,” he said, “there’s the whole joke thing anyway, like how people joke about something, only it’s true, only they’d never come right out and say it’s true ‘cause it’s easier to joke.”

“Okay, you had me for, like, two seconds, brah…and then you lost me again.”

Jeordie came back to the bed with a beer. He hadn’t shaved since late morning; his chin was dark with stubble. His eyes looked small and tired, outsized by their baggage. “Okay,” he said, sitting, crossing his ankles Indian-style on the bed, “I was thinking about how, you know, a lot of times people joke about things that are true when they don’t feel comfortable out and out saying it—like, so you can see how it plays.”

Aaron turned away and put his elbows on his knees, hands dangling. He stared at them. His heart was beating a little erratically—and what did that mean? He could hear his pulse in his ears. He could feel a light sweat above his upper lip. His footfalls on the carpet drowned out the swoosh swoosh in his ears, and then he realized he’d gotten up and started walking away. He kept walking, right into the bathroom. He pushed the door closed behind him without looking back. He hadn’t turned on the light. The toilet was dead ahead; the toilet was always dead ahead. He took two steps, felt porcelain solid against his calf, and stopped, head down. Heart beating erratically.

He breathed—in out…in out—his heart thuh-thunking against his chest. What the fuck was that about? Then he turned away from the toilet without so much as unbuttoning his fly and banged around the sink, feeling for the faucet handle. One handle, two…cold water came out in a rush against his mouth and chin. Swallowing, his eyes closed, water washing away the sweat above his upper lip, he thought about I like cock, which he’d never see again, if he was lucky—that belonged to Mickey D’s now and whatever service took care of the shit in their dumpster. He thought about

Jeordie with his stubble and his dark circles and his ‘you know?’ ‘you know?’….

And his….

He pressed his eyes closed.

He turned the water off. He stood there with his hand still grasping the knob. A thin, faint line of light showed at the bottom of the door. He swept his hair back with one hand, staring at the light. Thoughts rushing. Heart going thudthudthudthud.

Okay.

He passed the side of his hand across his upper lip.

Okay.

He strode to the door, swung it open, and headed toward Jeordie’s bed, turned on his heel at the side of it and sat, stiffly. Then turned, stiffly, on his butt and put his back against the headboard. Put his feet, still in socks, white athletic socks, up on the bed.

Thudthudthud.

“So’d I miss the guy jumping off his roof?” he said, trying to sound normal. Totally fucking normal.

Thudthudthud.

He could feel a major vein or artery in his neck pulsing.

“Yeah. He missed the swimming pool. It was ‘ouch,’ big time.”

“Sucks to be him.” Thuh-thud…thuh-thud…thuh-thud…

“Got him on TV.”

Thuh-thud.

“Not the way I’d collect my fifteen minutes of fame, brah.”

Thuh-thud.

“Maximum Exposure” was wrapping up. Endings of things weren’t good—they led to awkward moments, those “okay, what now?” moments. Turn the TV off and go to sleep? Change the channel? Get invested in another show?

“So,” Jeordie said, and even without looking Aaron could tell that he was watching the television screen as hard as he was. “You asked me a question, so…I guess that makes it my turn, right?”

Thuh-thud.

Aaron glanced in Jeordie’s direction, but Jeordie was looking down at upturned fist. His damned fingernails again. Aaron cleared his throat before saying, “I guess so,” but it didn’t help; his voice sounded like it had had to detach itself from the walls of his throat before it could lend itself to words.

He felt sweat above his lip again.

Jeordie said, while reaching over his shoulder to scratch his back—he said, with his head ducked while he scratched his back, “So, what made you not—not beat the crap out of me when I jumped in your bed the other night?” He straightened with a glance in Aaron’s direction—and even after he turned his attention to chewing at his thumbnail, something unguarded about his look stayed with Aaron.

Aaron looked down. Saw his jeans, the worn knees of his jeans. “You got any beer left in that bottle?” he asked. He didn’t look across Jeordie to the bottle.

“Uh…yeah. Want some?”

The bottle appeared in his line of sight. He looked at it, and Jeordie’s hand holding it. He took the bottle from Jeordie’s hand. Half full, its sides were wet with condensation. He wiped a finger through the condensation on the label, and said, “I guess after listening to you and those girls getting it on, I was just horny. I guess you just showed up at a good time.” He brought the bottle to his lips just as he finished the last word. Tipping it up, he drank in long swallows, drinking with his head back and his eyes closed, wondering if Jeordie was watching him—or not. When he’d drained the bottle, he lowered it and let it rest on his thigh. His eyes were still closed. He could still feel the headboard against the back of his head.

“Sorry,” he said, and held the bottle back out.

Thuh-thud thuh-thud.

The weight of the bottle left his hand.

Thuh-thud thuh-thud.

He couldn’t take the hyperawareness of his heartbeat fucking again, or the…all the pressure in the room, pushing against his ears. He dropped his feet off the bed and stood, in one motion, facing away from Jeordie’s bed. Facing his own. Fucking say something, he thought loudly in his head—at Jeordie, licking his upper lip and tasting sweat. Thuh-thud. “And I guess,” he said suddenly, his hands going for his belt, “I’m just fucking horny now, too.” He dropped his head and watched his fingers unbuckle the belt. He grasped the bottom of his shirt and pulled it up over his head. Dropped it on the floor, near the end of the bed. Parted his fly. Pushed his jeans down over his hips. He climbed out of them as he climbed into his bed, pushing the jeans off his feet and pulling sheets down by turn.

And maybe Jeordie hadn’t heard him, what with the TV and all the tension pressing down on them…and that was all right. Thuh-thud thuh-thud. Maybe.

He lay between the sheets, on his side, his back to the other bed, one hand stuffed under a pillow. The fingers of his other hand rested on top of the pillow, by his chin. He squeezed his eyes shut.

There was the click of the TV powering off—then silence.

The shsh of movement against fabric.

(Thudthud thudthud thudthud.)

He heard Jeordie’s foot on the floor.

(Thudthud thudthud thudthud.)

After another few seconds, he felt the slightest, softest movement against the side of his arm. Then the sheet started sliding away, cool like silk, down to his waist. The lamp was still on; he could tell by the color through his eyelids.

The mattress sank, just a little, then a little more—

—Jeordie’s fingertips touched his side, lightly. Lightly like the other night.

His face heated, quickly, suddenly, and he had this problem now, this sickened, excited feeling—shouldn’t—but…shouldn’t—but fuck….

Jeordie’s palm touched him.

Aaron’s eyes opened. His lips parted. He pressed them together and swallowed. thud thud thud thud Slowly, he reached down and back, and laid his hand over Jeordie’s, on his hip.

Some of his fingers fell, naturally as you please, between some of Jeordie’s fingers.

He drew in a breath.

Jeordie pulled gently at him, then a little harder. At the third pull, he let himself roll half onto his back, his shoulder knocking against Jeordie’s chest. He felt Jeordie lift his chin, against his shoulder, and then he felt Jeordie’s stubble, from the underside of his chin, scrape, just a little, against his skin. His eyes, open, darted, skimming the wall, the thermostat, the blinking red light on the smoke alarm, the blankets slumped halfway down the bed. Stubble scraped again, and then came the light, warm touch of lips. He glanced down, without moving his head, and could just see the tips of Jeordie’s index and ring fingers, on top of the sheet, against his hip, and the paler tip of one of his own fingers, between them.

Jeordie slipped out from under him and half sat up.

Aaron watched Jeordie’s hand roam his belly, up to his chest, back down…

When he looked back at Aaron, Aaron closed his eyes, tilted his face away.

Toward the side of Aaron’s belly, Jeordie’s fingernails, not yet bitten down to nubs, scraped lightly for a second, bringing out gooseflesh along Aaron’s ribs.

Aaron’s lips parted. He lifted his chin.

The touch of Jeordie’s fingers on him, moving down over the sheet, over the heat under the sheet, brought a soft breath out of him. The touch lingered a moment, and then traced slowly back up to his skin, his belly, along each rib.

Up to his neck, where the pad of Jeordie’s finger rested for a second against his pulse.

Slowly he turned his face. Through the veil of his eyelashes, he watched Jeordie study his neck, the underside of his jaw, touching it with his fingers, watching his fingers move over it. He must have felt Aaron looking; he raised his eyes.

Aaron watched him watch him.

Jeordie’s eyebrows came up the slightest bit—a question?

Without looking away from, Aaron lifted a hand toward Jeordie’s side. His thumb brushed Jeordie’s t-shirt. He caught it between thumb and forefinger and tugged, just a little bit. A nudge. His lips parted. He touched the corner of his mouth with the tip of his tongue. Jeordie’s tired-looking eyes were still watching him.

His gaze flickered down to Jeordie’s mouth.

He closed his hand around a fistful of Jeordie’s t-shirt.

He pulled.

There was half a second of shifting, arranging—and then the first shock of unfamiliar lips. Like all of Jeordie’s first touches, it was feather-light for a second, then two….and then came a shifting of Jeordie’s weight. Aaron still clutched the fistful of t-shirt. Jeordie’s weight came down on him, fully, pressing against him at every pressure point. Pressing against his mouth, trapping him again the mattress. Jeordie’s cock, hard, pushed against his hip. The fabric of Jeordie’s boxer briefs rubbed between them.

Aaron hooked his arm around Jeordie’s back.

In the space of a breath, they both opened their mouths.

Then—even the first touch of Jeordie’s tongue, just the tip of it, was so soft and fleeting that it might almost have been imagination. Aaron gripped the back of Jeordie’s neck and opened his mouth wide, showed him, by example, how he wanted to feel Jeordie’s tongue in his mouth: assertive, probing—stubble raking skin, teeth clashing for a second, then everything going soft and warm again as they shifted their heads. Soft and warm but…intense.

And then it was just the two of them, face to face, breathing in the few inches of space between them.

Jeordie pushed up on his hands.

His hair fell forward as he looked down. He said, “Here I was thinking you’d been trying to avoid me.”

“Yeah, well, that would be because…I sort of have.”

Jeordie nodded. “Needed time to process things?” Then: “For the record, I wasn’t going to try this again, at all— But.”

“Uh, yeah. For the record….I haven’t processed a fucking thing.”

Jeordie lowered himself, putting his weight on his elbows, laying one hand on Aaron’s chest, high enough so that the tip of his index finger dipped into the hollow between Aaron’s collarbones.

Around his mouth, the skin was tinged red, like he’d gone outside the lines with lipstick and then tried to wipe it off. Aaron suspected his looked the same—maybe brighter red.

“So?” Jeordie said. “What are we doing?”

“Uh….” Aaron pulled an eyebrow up. “We’re…finishing what we started then getting some shuteye?”

Jeordie’s face creased into a grin. “That’s a plan I can get behind.”

“Yeah, apparently there are a number of things you can ‘get behind.’”

“Hey, any time you need someone to have your back….” His hand was warm, against his chest. Warm and growing warmer. It didn’t feel too bad.

Aaron said, “Har har.”

Jeordie rolled off him, to the side. He put his hand on Aaron’s stomach.

Aaron watched it rise and fall with his breaths.

He said, “Another thing.”

“Yeah?” Jeordie’s hand moved lower, nudging the edge of the sheet down.

“I’m not sleeping in a fucking wet spot again.”

“Mmhm.” His fingers pushed lower.

“And one more thing,” Aaron said, following the fingers with his eyes. They left a trail of melty, inside warmth wherever they went—like caramel. And they were…so…. Close. He held his breath.

Jeordie said, “Yeah?”

A beat passed, then two.

Jeordie’s fingertips had stopped, less than an inch away from the rise in the sheets. Just stopped there. Gazing at them, the contrast of them against the sheets, the ragged edge of a torn-off hangnail on the side of one of his fingers…. He felt like heated caramel all the way down through the insides of his thighs.

“And another thing….” Jeordie said, reminding him. Looking back at him.

Aaron couldn’t pull his attention away from the fingers on the sheets. Just another inch…. He licked his lips quickly and said, “Yeah. We’ve gotta keep this strictly to hotel rooms. Okay?”

Jeordie nodded. “Okay.”

“No tour buses, no bathroom stalls, no under the stage….”

“Yep. No problem.”

His fingers just stayed there, their heat bleeding through the sheet, drawing his attention even more down to that area.

Jeordie said, “Don’t worry. You won’t catch me looking inappropriately at your ass.”

In what was more air than voice, Aaron said, “Good….” He said, “…. And….” His focus pulled back, slowly, from the heat building up against the sheet against his body as Jeordie’s words started to bump against each other—echoes jostling in his head. He wrinkled his brow. His lips formed a Wh shape. Then: “Wait. Have you been looking inappropriately at my ass?”

Their eyes met.

Jeordie’s eyebrows came up, matching Aaron’s.

Aaron said, “Dude.”

“All right—one time. Maybe. And it wasn’t really a ‘look,’ so much as it was…. I mean, there are looks and there are looks and there are looks, and then—”

Aaron reached for the back of his neck.

“—‘inappropriate,’ which is entirely—”

He lifted his head from the pillow.

“—in the eye of the beholder, or the ‘beheld,’ as it were—”

Their mouths met.

Jeordie stopped talking.

~fin~
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On Hotel Rooms and Their Deleterious Effects