Benny & Ray 88

Raging Bull

 

Benny was waiting for me curbside when I eased our Ford Explorer out of the dense Chicago traffic.  He looked good, standing out on the street, in his civilian jeans and t-shirt and boots.  Damn, what a good-looking man.  I don’t ever think I’ll ever get over how hot Benny really is.  When I’m away from him all day, and I see him again, it just hits me like a ton of bricks.  I smile.  In a couple of months, it’ll be ten years ago that Constable Benton Fraser, RCMP, walked into a holding cell and right into my life, changing me forever.  Ten years.  Wow.

 

I get a good look at Benny as I pull up closer, and what I see wipes the smile right off of my face.  Benny looks kind of…I don’t know what.  Funny.  He looks glum before he first catches caught sight of me coming around the corner, and then when he sees me, he puts on this big bright smile.  The one I’ve learned is fake.  He yanks open the door and slides in next to me.

 

“Where’s Carie?” He asks as he catches sight of the empty back seat. 

 

“Frannie’s,” I say.  “I was going to call you and tell you that Frannie wanted to take her for the afternoon, but I figured I’d better lay low for a while.  I didn’t get you into trouble this morning, did I?”

 

Benny doesn’t answer.  I pull out into traffic again after checking over my left shoulder for oncoming traffic.  “Hey, look.  I’m sorry.”  Things had been going so good between Benny and me lately.  The last thing I wanted to do was piss him off by getting him into trouble with his C.O.

 

“It wasn’t your fault,” he replies.

 

“What’d he say?”

 

“Nothing I care to repeat.”

 

I reach over and give his hand a squeeze.  His hand feels stiff like a claw.  I shake the tension out of his hand.  “Sorry, babe. You feelin’ okay?”

 

“I’m fine.”

 

“How’d your day go besides that?”

 

“Okay.” Benny stares out the window, but he squeezes my hand.

 

“You, uh….feel like going home and finishing what we started this morning?”

 

Benny sighs. “I think we should go and get Carie.”

 

“Come on, Benny.  It’d be nice. Frannie’d be glad to keep Carie a little longer. We can stop by the market. I’ll cook for you. Baccala con Polenta, Melanzane Marinata.  Huh? Come on.”

 

Benny blows out a long breath.  I watch his profile for a moment while he considers.  I realize that he’s tired.  “I can draw you a bath. Put a little eucalyptus in.”

 

Finally he relents with a heavy sigh.  “All right, Ray.”

 

“Benny?”

“Yes, Ray.”

 

“I’d do anything for you.  You know that, right?”

 

“I know Ray.”

 

“I just wanted you to know.”

 

“I do.”

 

“I love you, Benny.”

 

“And I love you, Ray.”

 

“Thank you.”

 

I drove Benny home.

 

VVVVVV

 

I’m on Benny as soon as we get home.  I can’t help myself.  Sure, I was horny from this morning, rubbing against him and not being able to finish off, but most of all, it’s because Benny was so quiet on the way home.  When he gets in one of his moods, I can’t stand it.  I just want to make him feel good again.  I press him against the door and open his pants as I kiss him.

 

He wants it, too.  He gets hard in record time, and I go to my knees and pull his jeans down to his ankles.  I rub his hard-on through his underwear, getting off on how it tents out the front.  I kiss and then suck him through the cotton, and he moans.  He puts his hands on my head and pushes me closer.  I force my breath through the fabric, heating him up, and I inhale, smelling his musky scent.  A sharp thrill hits me right in the nuts as Benny moans again. 

 

He reaches down and pushes down his own underwear, and with a hand at the back of my head, he guides me to suck him.  I take in every bit of length that I can.  He tastes and smells so good.  I can’t get enough of him.  I reach down and undo my own pants before my dick pokes right through the zipper.

 

He begins to thrust into my mouth, and I reach around with my right hand and grab his ass, encouraging him to use me.  I wet him down with my mouth, and then I bring my right hand around to grab the base of his cock.  I deep-throat him as I brace myself with my left hand by clutching his hip. “Oh, Ray,” he whispers.  “Ray, Ray, Ray.” He moves his feet further apart and thrusts his hips out even more.

 

I pause long enough to wet my middle finger and push it into him.  He cries out sharply. I am relentless until he comes in my mouth.

 

VVVVVV

 

He takes his bath while I cook.  I spoon-feed him as we sit on the floor, eating picnic-style on his old striped Hudson Bay point blanket.  I put on the mix tape I made for him a long time ago, when he was in Ecuador and I was missing him so bad, it hurt.  I sing to him a couple of songs, “How Deep is Your Love,” and Queen’s “You’re My Best Friend.” 

 

I lean over to kiss him, and push him down to the floor and I get on top.  I pull back to run my fingers through his soft hair.  He had just gone to Burt’s yesterday for a haircut.  His hair was stiff with product, and not a hint of curl.  I smiled.  “You’ve got a little gray there,” I said, touching the hair at his temple.

 

“Yes,” he says.

 

I lean down and kiss him again.  We are making out when Frannie shows up at seven-thirty with the babe.

 

And then I lose Benny again. 

 

At least we had the afternoon together. I clean up and wash dishes while Benny bathes Carie, and gives her a bottle. I go to her room to check up on them.  Benny’s gently rocking her as she gazes up at him, suckling away.  He’s talking to her in Eskimo or something, smiling down at her.  He doesn’t see me.  Or at least doesn’t acknowledge me, standing there in the doorway. 

 

This is hard.  Don’t get me wrong.  I love that little girl too, but this is so hard.

 

VVVVVV

 

So I’m up at 2 a.m. watching “Raging Bull” on TV because I’m wired from some reason.  Pearson lies half on my lap and half on the couch as I scratch between her ears.  She twitches from time to time.

 

Haven’t watched this movie in a while.  Benny turned me on to it a couple of months after we did our little prison stint together, after I made some wisecrack about how stupid black and white movies were.  I remember how we watched it on Mr. Mustafi’s old VCR, and an old beat-up TV that Benny found next to the dumpster one day.  Sitting up against the back of his bed, we ate greasy slices of pepperoni pizza.  Dief sat at our feet, silently begging for food as he watched every bite go from our hand to our mouths. 

 

I was kind of surprised that Benny had picked “Raging Bull”.  He usually didn’t go for the hardcore violent stuff.  But he knew I liked De Niro, and he knew I liked boxing, so…he rented it for me. 

 

Benny had fallen asleep on me, right there on the floor.  His head fell to my shoulder, and I let it stay there, thinking about how intimate it was, how good it felt, to have him so close. I remember watching his face as he slept, smelling him. Benny had smelled like clean sweat and Ivory Soap.  He looked so peaceful. Even back then, I loved him before I even knew I loved him.

 

The movie is pretty intense, and doesn’t really help me unwind.  If anything, I’m more keyed up after the credits roll.  But I gotta get up with Carie in a few hours so Benny can get up and get ready for work, so I gotta try to get some kind of sleep tonight.

 

I use the remote to turn off the TV, and gently push Pearson aside so I can get up to go to bed. I walk through the dark apartment, having done it so many times coming home from work that it was automatic.  Surprisingly, Benny was still awake.  His legs are moving restlessly under the thin sheet when I walked in. It’s a hot night and humid out, so the window is up but only a slight breeze is blowing, just barely lifting the curtain.

 

“Hey,” I said.  “I wasn’t keeping you up with the TV, was I?”

 

“No, Ray.  I’ve only been awake for a little while.”

 

“Something’s been bothering you all night, hasn’t it?”

 

“I’m fine, Ray.  Just a little…stressed.  That’s all.”

 

I climbed into bed, wrapping my arms around him.  “There’s something you’re not telling me.”  I rubbed his upper arm. 

 

“Ray.”

 

“Yes?”

 

“Did you ever find out about what happened to Officer Dudley?”

 

“Nothing too definite, Benny. Just some rumors about his having some gambling problems or something. I dunno.”

 

 “So, nothing to do with Briggs?”

 

I shrugged.  “I dunno, Benny. Like how?”

 

“Like was there something personal going on between Briggs and Dudley? Dudley had told me he didn’t want to get me into any trouble, but he wouldn’t elaborate.”

 

“Benny.  What’s going on?  Did Briggs do something to you?”

 

“What?”

 

“You heard me.”

 

“I.  No, Ray.”

 

“You sure?  Cuz you don’t sound sure.”

 

“Ray.  I’m fine.”

 

“That’s not what I asked you.  I asked you if Briggs did something to you.”

 

He sighed.  “Oh, Ray.”

 

“I’ll take a pipe wrench to his fuckin’ face.” I’m already sitting up in bed.  Like I’m going to kick his ass in the middle of the night or something. Well, maybe I was, and maybe I wasn’t.

 

“Ray!”

 

“I mean it, Benny.”

 

“You can’t go around beating up everybody on my behalf, Ray.  We just had words, that’s all.

 

“What kind of words?”

 

“Just words, Ray.”

 

Benny pulls me back down to him and kisses me.  He does this a lot when he wants to distract me or change the subject.  It works just as well as it always does.  Knowing that he now has my full attention, he puts a shoulder under me, and I naturally roll on top of him. 

 

“Mmmm,” I moan.

 

It’s too dark to see his face, but I know he is smiling up at me.  He knows he has me hooked.  So yeah, I take the bait.  I kiss the base of his neck, his collarbone, behind his ear.  He smells like eucalyptus.  Benny takes a deep breath and slowly lets it out.   Spreads his knees apart.  I squirm around and fit our growing hardness together. 

 

For the second time in a few short hours, we begin to make love again. Lucky me.