It's Not Shakespeare Read Online Free PDF Page B

I’ve got certain rules, okay? You’re pretty, but I need you to respect those rules, okay?”
    Rafael’s hand was suddenly rubbing on his back, and James was too miserable with a confused mixture of mortification and desire to even find the touch arousing.
    “How long’s it been?”
    “Since what?”
    “Since you got off with someone live?”
    James had a hazy memory of someone going down on him in the back bedroom of a staff party. He’d been on his fifth or sixth glass of wine then, because he’d been new, and it had been easier to drink than to socialize, so he couldn’t even remember the man’s face, much less his name.
    “Two years?” he asked himself. “Closer to three.”
    “How long since it was with someone you could remember?” Rafael asked laughing, and James had a better answer to that.
    “Three years, five months, seven days.”
    Rafael stopped laughing. “Mr. I’m-gonna-ditch-you-for-a-sugar-daddy?”
    “That was the guy.” Marlowe hopped off of Rafael’s lap and came to lick James’s face. James let him—welcomed it, in fact, because unlike underwear models and Rafael, James knew that Marlowe would always love him.
    “Well, I’ll tell you what, Professor Jimmy. How ’bout you and me, we go throw the ball for your dog here, and let him take his dump, ’cause he’s just being patient, and we’ll talk like two guys that just met and pretend we’re not picturing each other naked. How’s that.”
    “Sounds peachy,” James muttered, mostly because he didn’t have a better plan. “Then what?”
    “Then we stop some place they got a patio, so Marlowe can sit outside with us on this fucking beautiful spring day, and we eat like civilized people, and then you take me to my mom’s place, so I can get my car from frickin’ Sophie the matchmaker….”
    “And that’s the end?” Because that sounded perfect, as long as there wasn’t a second date or anything, and James didn’t have to think about his specially laid-out rules to keep his specially made-out life from getting specially fucked up should James get inconveniently laid.
    “Hell noes!” Rafael laughed. That comforting hand on his back moved up to his shoulder, and he whispered the next part right in the sensitive hollow of James’s ear. “Then I’m gonna kiss you goodnight, and if we like the way that goes, I’m gonna pick Sophie up some more, and let her borrow my car.”
    James strangled on his tongue. “But….”
    “But any man who needs to get laid as badly as you do needs to forget all his rules, Professor Jimmy. Rules are for chumps. You’ve got a dog who needs his daddy all nice and relaxed, not tied up in a big knot of shouldn’t-do-this, you feel me?”
    His hand was still on James’s shoulder, and his breath was puffing in James’s ear. “I feel you,” James whispered, because it was true physically, even if James couldn’t agree philosophically.
    “Good, then let’s get out of this car before your dog loses his patience, ’kay?”
    Rafael got out with Marlowe’s lead in his hand and escorted the little dog to the dog park entrance without looking back. James stopped long enough to get a couple of the plastic bags he kept in the back of the car, under the seat, and shove them in his pocket, and then grab Marlowe’s special doggie balls from behind the bags, before he followed them out to the park.
     
     
    R AFAEL threw the ball with an easy, laughing grace that made James’s mouth dry and his heartbeat thready. If he wasn’t conscientious about his cholesterol and blood pressure, he would have thought he was having an arrhythmia. As it was, he just stood there with his hands in his pockets and allowed Rafael to lead him through some polite conversation.
    “So how long you been out here, Professor Jimmy?”
    “About ten minutes, just like you.”
    Rafael sent him an eloquent look, and James felt foolish.
    “Uhm, three years, three months, and a week or so.”
    Rafael bent and took the