Excessica Anthology BOX SET Winter by Edited by Selena Kitt

answered the door. "Hey,
man," a male voice from the other side had called, "mind if I join
you? Whatever you're watching sounds a hell of a lot more fun than what I have
going on." When Spencer ventured to open the door, he'd been met with a
toothsome grin between a once-fashionable fauxhawk and a thin chain, at the end
of which a set of military dog tags rested against a bare, hairless chest. That
was how he met Ronnie Dodd.
    They started
hanging out after that, watching porn, drinking beer, kind of like friends.
Then one time, Ronnie reached over and took Spencer's cock in his hand and
Spencer was so startled he didn't do anything. Didn't do anything but let
Ronnie jerk him off until he came. Ronnie did it for him the next time as well;
the time after, Ronnie grinned and said, "You know, you can help me out,
too." It didn't seem like a big deal, so Spencer reached over, and that's
how mutual masturbation became an occasional part of their hanging out.
    The unmistakable
tread of Ronnie's boots comes up the stairs now. Spencer zips up but doesn't
bother with shirt or shoes. "Hey, you feel like—" he says as he
leans out of his door, "—oh."
    "Hey, man,
what's up?" Ronnie turns to the young man beside him and explains,
"This is my neighbor."
    "The one
who doesn't like the violin," the young man says. Blue-eyed and
tousled-blond, cherubic dimples become angelic, horrifyingly All-American, more
Boy-Next-Door than the actual boy next door; more everything, certainly, than
Spencer. "Hello, Spencer. It's you, isn't it?"
    Spencer's tongue
swells, thickening in his mouth as if it will fill the whole thing.
    Ronnie looks
between them. "You two know each other?"
    His
violin-playing friend nods. "We were at the Conservatory together."
He turns and looks at Spencer again. "But maybe you don't
remember—"
    "I remember
you, Brad," Spencer says. Now that his tongue is working again, it's his
lips that seem to be having the problem; he isn't sure if he has managed a
reasonable facsimile of a smile or not, but between them Brad and Ronnie seem
to have the smiling situation covered. "Well," Spencer says, "I
won't keep you. Sorry to interrupt."
    He ducks back
inside but doesn't manage to get the door shut before Ronnie says, "You're
not interrupting, we're just hanging out. Why don't you hang with us?"
When Spencer hesitates, Ronnie says, "Come on, buddy. You can stroke off
any time. Come drink with us."
    Spencer feels
the fury of his blush, but he doesn't say anything. He glances at Brad, who
senses the gaze and turns to meet it. Just before Spencer looks away, he sees
that Brad is smiling—which doesn't necessarily mean anything, good or
bad; it doesn't mean Brad is smiling at him or Brad is laughing at him because,
as Spencer recalls, Brad used to smile an awful lot. He probably still does.
    "Okay,"
Spencer says, because Ronnie has already countered the only excuse that comes
to him.
    They sit in
Ronnie's apartment, drinking and talking. Ronnie and Brad are doing most of the
talking, but Spencer doesn't mind sitting there listening to them.
    Then Brad turns
to him and says, "So what happened to you, Spencer?"
    Spencer has been
expecting this. He has had over an hour to think of what he'll say, and he has
his response clearly thought out and at the ready: "I dropped out."
There seemed to be more to it when the words were in his head; when he hears
them aloud, he sighs inwardly and braces for awkwardness, for awkward silence
or awkward questioning. But Brad nods and says he figured it was something like
that. Spencer isn't sure what to make of the response, but Brad smiles and
eases the conversation back to Ronnie, who takes over like it's nothing to
talk.
    The evening
wears on and Ronnie's alcohol supply is exhausted, even though the boys
themselves are not. Ronnie suggests going on a run to get more, but Spencer
remembers the six-pack he bought today. As he's opening his own door, Ronnie
and Brad appear behind him. "Oh," Spencer says,