Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/1759265.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      Inception_(2010)
  Relationship:
      Arthur/Eames_(Inception)
  Character:
      Mal_(Inception), Yusuf_(Inception), Dom_Cobb
  Additional Tags:
      Alternate_Universe_-_High_School, Alternate_Universe_-_College/
      University, Alternate_Universe_-_Historical, Romance, Porn, Hippies,
      Recreational_Drug_Use
  Stats:
      Published: 2014-06-09 Words: 6623
****** California Stars ******
by LaSordide
Summary
     A fic inspired by Woody Guthrie which eventually devolves into
     filthy, romantic homo porn (because that is the BEST KIND) set in
     1969 Berkeley.
     Thank you.
Notes
     I had taken this down because a reader called it "anti-Semitic," but
     then explained that she felt Eames exhibited some anti-Semitism in
     the story. While I'm glad she didn't feel it had been written anti-
     Semitically (oh god, SPELLING???) - I freaked out and took it down. I
     don't want to hurt anybody.
     So, I'm putting it back up with that caveat, ok? A reader who is
     Jewish found my version of Eames anti-Semitic, and mea culpa for that
     - not my intent, but then, I'm not Jewish. Read at your own risk.
     I'm reposting it from an old Word file, so - sorry for any formatting
     fuck-ups, too. I want to keep the story here, but apparently I'm too
     lazy to deal w/ formatting. - Sordide
Chapter 1
 
It’s another obscenely perfect Spring day in early May in Berkeley, warm and
sunny and lovely, the semester almost out, and Eames’ head is so filled with
the Frankfurt School at the moment he can hardly think straight. He grabs his
bag, Adorno, Horkheimer and Benjamin all bouncing against his hip, and heads to
his favorite spot in the People’s Park – a tiny, secluded rise that’s far
enough from the makeshift stage that he won’t have to endure any spontaneous
poetry from the locals, but that’s central enough to everything happening in
the park that he can people watch. Observe the natives in their habitat like a
good colonial, as it were.
 
Also, the spot has a botanical combination of cedars and palms happening that’s
one of the weirdest things Eames has ever seen in nature. There are things
about California that will always make him stop in wonder and awe, really.
 
He’s about to fish the pack of Embassy Filters out of his bag for a smoke when
he spies a pair of long legs in tight jeans that emerge from behind the trunk
of one of the palm trees in his favorite spot. The legs terminate in a pair of
smart black boots with a squared toe and low heel. A thick, foggy plume of what
can only be marijuana smoke emanates from the little sanctuary.
 
Eames stops in his tracks, somewhat crestfallen that his special spot is
currently occupied. That is, until the rest of said occupant brings his upper
body out of hiding, eases himself onto his back on the shady ground with all of
the grace of a jungle cat, a paperback book in one hand and a joint in the
other.
 
He goes into a sinuous full stretch and then notices Eames after a heartbeat,
looks at him upside down from where his head is pillowed on the soft grass and
smiles. “Why, hello,” he says to Eames confidently.
 
Eames stands there, poleaxed for a moment, unable to respond. The man’s hair is
longish, near black, its soft waves spilling out around his face onto the
ground. He’s wearing a white button-up shirt with the neck open under a natty
tweed vest that hugs his upper body like a sheath. There’s the glint of a
strand of glass love beads at his clavicle. He puts the book down on his
abdomen while he watches Eames with huge dark eyes.
 
Eames glances down at the book’s cover. Walter Benjamin’s Illuminations.
 
Fuck, Eames thinks. Fuck, you are bloody done for. Instead he says, “Sorry –
didn’t mean to intrude.”
 
Natty Dresser’s smile grows wider. Eames can see the man look him up and down
from where he lies, taking in his typical student outfit of sandals, loose
pants and a gauzy white kurta. He pats the ground next him in invitation with
one hand and waves his joint in the air with the other, says, “Toke?”
 
Apparently Eames has not been found to be wanting. Huh. Well, then.
 
Who is Eames to take a pass on traditional northern Californian hospitality,
anyway? He shifts his bookbag and sits down as the other man sits up again next
to him, smiling slyly, purposely pressing their shoulders together, and hands
over the joint. Eames takes a hit off the thing that’s deeper than is probably
advisable considering his instant reaction to Natty here, but – fuck it.
Natty’s watching him with that smile and those narrow almond eyes, his
beautiful dark hair all curling around his angular face, Benjamin still open
and cradled on his thin hips.
 
Eames expels the thick smoke from his lungs after a tick and hands the joint
back with a thank you, and Natty extends his hand and offers his name,
 
“I’m Arthur. Arthur Leventhal.”
 
And Eames thinks two things simultaneously: fuck and shitgoddamn.
 
No, wait.
 
There are actually layers to the things he’s thinking simultaneously, and they
hit him like a tornado hitting an American trailer park. The first is Jewish,
fuck, he would have to be Jewish, because Eames has a thing, a kink, for
slender, intelligent Jewish boys that is approximately the size of Alaska. He
recognizes instantly that, no matter the outcome of this meeting – even if
Arthur joins the Peace Corps in Nigeria or is drafted into the Army tomorrow
and Eames never sees him again - he is done for, he will simply never recover
from those eyes.
 
The second, possibly much more ominous layer has to do with the fact that he
thinks he knows who Arthur must be. And who Arthur probably is is not good, is
off limits.
 
Arthur is almost certainly his dissertation advisor’s son and stepson,
respectively. He’s never seen a picture of the boy, but – he’s heard Dom
mention the name Arthur in passing. And Arthur has Mal’s lithe grace, her slim
form, her French style, perfect pale olive skin and soft dark curls. And if
this is the case, then he also knows Arthur is still in high school. Arthur is
seventeen.
 
“Well,” Eames says as stiffly as he can given the THC working through his
system. Christ, he can feel his joints actually softening, his limbs all loose
in response the single drag he took off Arthur’s thick doobie and – no, no, it
WILL NOT DO to go there, he tells himself. No more thinking about Arthur’s
well-put together thick ANYTHING, for the love of God. “Well,” he says again.
 
“Yeah,” Arthur says, licking his lips. “Yeah, you mentioned.” Arthur takes a
last hit off the joint and extinguishes it, puts the remaining roach in a soft
little Chinese embroidered silk bag. He reaches behind him and, as if
magically, produces a wreath of large white flowers and thick jade green leaves
that he pops on his head. Eames’ nostrils are suddenly filled with the scent of
gardenia.
 
It should make him look like a ridiculous hippie, Eames thinks, but no. It
makes him look more like a bored Greek god come down to earth for a little fun
with some mere mortals. It makes him utterly, terrifyingly beguiling.
 
Eames realizes he hasn’t left yet. That, instead of leaving, he’s actually
gotten closer to Arthur, their sides now fully pressed against one another.
 
Arthur inserts his index finger beneath the little braided leather bracelet on
Eames’ right wrist and idly caresses the skin there, says, “Hey. I don’t know
how they do it in England, but – mainly when a guy smokes another guy up and
tells him his name in America, there’s more like an exchange of names.”
 
“What?” Eames says stupidly. “Oh, right, of course – I’m Eames. Tom Eames, but
– just Eames.”
 
“Well, just Eames,” Arthur says as he removes his finger from Eames’ wrist,
packs his bag together and stands up. Eames is immediately bereft from the loss
of contact. “I guess I’ll see you around.”
 
Eames watches Arthur saunter off, noting he’s at least as good looking from the
back as he is from the front. Every single little pocket of Hippies, Diggers,
Squatters and every other subcategory of Bay Area Freak that’s stretched out on
the grass in the sun greets him by name as he makes his way out of the park.
Arthur waves and says hi back, never slowing down once.
 
 
 
Chapter 2
 
 
He hangs out at his spot in the park sporadically over the next week hoping, if
he’s at all honest with himself, to run into Arthur. Eames is not honest with
himself, and Arthur doesn’t return. It’s hard to concentrate on his studies,
anyway.
 
And then May 15th rolls around, and Governor Reagan suddenly and without
warning makes good on his promise to crack down on Berkeley’s tolerance of
communists and sex deviants. Eames arrives at the park from the graduate
library to find his little spot razed, an eight foot fence erected around its
entire perimeter, and two or three hundred cops in full riot gear facing off
several thousand unarmed protesters.
 
He turns 180 degrees and heads east on Telegraph Hill to his little apartment
instead. There he and his flatmate, Yusuf, a doctoral chemistry student from
Oxford, turn on their radio and listen to the live news reports of the chaos
taking place a mere block away. Eames can hear the din of shouts and the SHUNK!
of tear gas canisters being fired at students over the broadcast a millisecond
before he can hear it in person.
 
The campus and the city are in shock the entire rest of the week, and the
semester abruptly and rather sadly comes to a close. Eames receives an
invitation from the Cobbs in the mail in the form of a note in Mal’s neat
handwriting:
           
Mr. Eames –
 
In light of the current tenor of the city, we’ve decided to forgo our normal
end-of semester celebration in favor of a small get together with just a select
few graduate students. Please join us on Friday, 23 May, beginning at 8 PM for
food and refreshments. Let us know if you cannot make it.
 
P.S., bring your swimsuit.
 
Sincerely yours, Mal
 
 
The Cobbs’ end of year party is a bit legendary among the students at the
University. One must generally be an undergraduate senior or higher in
excellent standing under their aegis within the Philosophy department in order
to win an invitation. This would have been Eames’ first time attending it, but
he has to admit being intrigued by a “small get together” with them as well.
He’s heard all sorts of rumors about the fascinating and progressive things
they’ve done to their house, as well as the fascinating and progressive things
people get up to there.
 
He’s all but given up on guessing whether or not Arthur will be there – not
that it matters one way or another. He sends his RSVP.
 
The afternoon of the 23rd arrives on the wave of several days of unusually hot
and sticky weather that’s only added to the general sense of anxiety and unease
of the city’s residents. He puts on a clean pair of jeans and a t-shirt, adds a
light cardigan for the sake of formality. Not that the Drs. Cobb are anything
like formal, but. Eames is still English.
 
He picks up a bottle of decent French wine at the corner liquor store and walks
the leafy three blocks to the house, is at their doorstep by 8:45. He can hear
the “small get together” about a half a block before he can see the house,
which is a lovely little Arts and Crafts Movement affair with a porticoed front
yard overgrown with gnarled, clinging grape vines and festooned with tiny fairy
lights and paper lanterns glowing in the twilight. He can hear peals of
delighted laughter emanating from the backyard, the bump and grind of Cream’s
Disraeli Gears on the hi-fi. There’s a hand-stenciled sign on the front door
that reads ENTER, FRIEND, and Eames does exactly that.
 
While he’s been studying with the Cobbs for a year now, this is the first time
he’s been invited to the house. Eames finds the interior every bit as
compelling and interesting as the outside, and as the Cobbs themselves: the
living room walls are lined with shelves filled with the writings of Simone de
Beauvoir, Jean Paul Sartre, Artaud, Habermas, Marcuse, Wittgenstein,
Buckminster Fuller, Nin, Tolkien, Henry Miller and Timothy Leary. He counts
tomes in a minimum of five different languages and a multitude of different
subjects, and his awe and admiration of the Cobbs ratchets up impossibly
higher.
 
Eames has just started to step away from the books and notice the art prints
that line the walls between the shelves – the majority of which appear to his
untrained eye to be of Japanese origin, many of them shockingly erotic – when
Mal herself breezes through the entryway of the living room and greets him
happily with a cherie! and a glass flute of something an eerie green. The color
is already high in her cheeks, the blush there matching the exotic crimson
paisley swirls of her long sleeveless dress.
 
He hands her the bottle of wine which she complements graciously, beckoning him
into the kitchen with her. “We have beer, we have wine, we have all of the
cocktails your heart might desire including, I dare say, gin and toniques, your
national drink abroad, no?” She says gin like “zhiiin” as she glides around the
kitchen, pointing our Eames’ different options. She waves her glass and a
beautifully filigreed slotted spoon in the air at him and says
conspiratorially, “And we have the Green Fairy, should you be interested.”
 
Eames is so distracted for a moment by the movement of her hand in the air when
she waved the glass at him that he doesn’t catch himself before assenting to a
glass of contraband absinthe, no doubt smuggled into the country by Mal from
her last visit home. He’s trying to remember where he’s seen such a delicate,
louche gesture before, the memory just at the edges of his mind, on the tip of
his tongue. When Mal hands him the glass, the smell distinctly floral-herbal,
his eyes flit up to hers and he remembers: Arthur, under the trees, the joint
he’d offered Eames in his delicate hand.
 
“A la votre, cheri,” Mal says, tipping her glass to him. “To your health,
darling.” She drains her glass and nods at Eames, tells him, “Bottoms up.” He
does the same, and after she’s fixed him his first refill, she sends him off to
mingle.
 
++++
 
Eames has been at the party for a little over an hour, chatting other grad
students up and smoking and drinking out of the little glass that Mal has
stealthily kept filled when he realizes he is very, very drunk. Drunk in a way
he’s never quite been before – not falling down drunk, but happily, almost
liminally drunk. Floating.
 
He also has to piss like a racehorse. The downstairs toilet is occupied, so
Eames climbs the stairs to the small upper story where there’s rumor of a
second loo. It exists, and is mercifully empty. Eames flips the light on and
locks the door, unzips and experiences relief, blessed relief. He peers into
the mirror at himself as he washes his hands in the sink, fixes his hair a
little, and opens the door to leave when it flies open and another body rushes
into the room.
 
Eames is in too much of a delicious absinthe-induced stupor to do much more
than blink in surprise. And then his eyes refocus on the face in front of him.
 
“Eames,” Arthur growls, backing him up against the sink. “I was hoping you’d
come.”
 
Eames can’t get a word in before Arthur is on him like a leopard on an
antelope. He jams the lock button closed on the bathroom’s door and then,
thrillingly, snakes his hands into Eames’ t-shirt, up his sides and onto his
chest, presses their mouths together.
 
“Arthur,” Eames says after he breaks the kiss. He doesn’t know if it’s just the
absinthe or the adrenaline that’s hit his system with Arthur pawing his naked
skin, or some terrible and fierce chemical interaction of the two, but – he’s
incapable of rubbing two synapses together suddenly. He knows there’s a reason
they shouldn’t be doing this, but he’s fucked if he can remember what that was
now, Arthur’s mouth moving over his jugular, his hands at Eames’ belt.
 
It all happens so fast. Arthur makes short work of Eames’ jeans and shorts,
shoving them down his thighs, and then settles on his knees in front of Eames.
 
“Fuck,” Arthur whispers, breathless, gaping at Eames’ already three-quarters
hard cock. “Fuck, you’re uncut.”
 
All Eames can manage is to stand there with his jaw open in shock at the
display of extreme lasciviousness he’s just witnessed, his cock bobbing further
upward with every beat of his heart, pointing directly at Arthur’s face like a
dog in desperate need of a pat on the head. And then he feels the bizarre need
to apologize for his obviously weird, foreign genitalia. And then realizes
Arthur’s staring at his dick with something akin to awe.
 
“It’s pretty normal in England,” Eames stutters.
 
Arthur lets out an overjoyed giggle and says, “Fuck, I’ve never seen one
before.” He just stays there a moment, kneeling in front of Eames, examining
it. Eames has never felt a stranger combination of arousal and inspection
before. Arthur moves a fraction closer to his exposed crotch, takes a deep
inhale at the skin at the juncture of Eames’ cock and scrotum, then rubs his
entire face into his bush like a fucking cat. Eames clutches the edge of the
bathroom’s porcelain vanity in a death grip and whimpers, suspended by Arthur’s
next move.
 
Arthur catches the movement of his hands and flicks his eyes up to Eames’,
gives him that sly smile. “I need it in my mouth,” he says, and swallows Eames
down in one gulp.
 
There’s an American tv show Eames has seen a number of times, mainly stoned on
the couch with Yusuf, that flashes through his mind unbidden as he watches
Arthur go down: Mutual of Omaha Wild Kingdom. That’s what this is fucking like,
he thinks. Like one of those insane, man-sized snakes they have in the Amazon,
what are they called now? Anacondas, yes, anacondas – like an anaconda
lovingly, slowly curling up to a sleeping piglet, winding around it ever so
gently and then swallowing it fucking whole–
 
And for the love of Christ and the Virgin Mother, why can’t Eames get his brain
to shut up in these situations? He bangs the back of his head on the medicine
cabinet mirror behind him in an effort to clear his mind and lets out the
quietest strangled moan he can manage.
 
Arthur appears to take this as encouragement and stuffs Eames’ engorged cock
even further down his slender throat. He takes his hands off Eames’ hips for a
moment to pry Eames’ now bone-white fingers off the vanity and slide them into
his hair, putting pressure on them, silently urging Eames to fuck his mouth.
Eames starts off with nothing but the gentlest thrusts, but Arthur’s moans and
suction both increase with his every drive into him to the point where Eames is
afraid of drawing attention and starts to push into him with more force partly
in an effort to quiet him down.
 
He gets his hips gripped hard enough to bruise - in return, he suspects, for
being a good boy, and how does someone on his knees with his mouth stuffed full
of cock still manage to communicate his dominance like that? – and keens a
brief moan to Arthur, trying to warn him of his impending orgasm. Arthur just
makes a noise like a growl, mmmmmmmmm, and Eames pulls one of his hands off
Arthur’s head just in time to shove a fist into his own mouth, silencing the
shout that threatens to loose itself when he comes.
 
When he regains some semblance of coherence he finds Arthur gently tucking him
back into his pants, smug satisfaction on his pretty face, still looking natty
and dapper as ever, whereas Eames feels like he’s been dosed with some
extremely good acid and then hit by a truck.
 
Arthur dips his head into Eames’ neck and presses kisses there, on his earlobe,
his cheek, and finally his mouth. He grins at Eames, whispers in his ear, “That
was great. Hey, you should leave first, ok? So we don’t, uh, arouse suspicion,”
pokes his head into the hallway, and then pushes Eames out the door.
 
Totally stunned and flabbergasted, Eames makes his way slowly down the hardwood
stairs. He doesn’t quite trust the strangely gelatinous joints in his shaking
legs, his inability to make sense of anything that’s just taken place in the
past several minutes. It’s not even 10 PM ad he feels wrecked.
 
He walks through the kitchen, eyeing Dom, Mal, and several grad students of
both sexes through the sliding glass door to the backyard; they’re all in
swimsuits and piled into the Cobb’s custom-built hot tub, talking and drinking
and shrieking.
 
Eames has never seen a hot tub before. Maybe next time, he thinks, and makes a
hasty exit before whatever hedonistic swinger’s club the Cobbs form on an
annual basis with their students reels him back in.
 
 
Chapter 3
 
Eames wakes the following Saturday at noon with the single worst hangover he
has ever experienced. His funky tongue feels like it’s grown some kind of
cottony fungus over night and melded itself with the skin of his palette, all
of his features feel like they’re smashed together on the left side of his
face, and the throbbing in his head screeches at him to LAY BACK DOWN, FOR THE
LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY the moment he attempts to lift his head from his
pillow. Outside, birds are singing sweetly at the same time that riot cops with
concussion grenades and double-oughts are apparently marching down his block.
 
 Jesus. Welcome to Fucking Berkeley. Now, Go Home.
 
Did I really drink that bloody much? he thinks. And then he remembers:
absinthe. And after that he remembers: Arthur.
 
Shit. Shit shit shitshitshitholymotherfuckingSHIT.
 
Arthur. The name hangs there for Eames like an anchor that will pull him down
and down and down because Arthur is seventeen and the son of his dissertation
advisers and Eames is twenty-four and obviously on the verge of being deported
for pedophilia.
 
He groans into his pillow loud enough, apparently, to alert Yusuf, who appears
in Eames’ doorway a moment later with a knowing look on his face.
 
“That good, yeah?” he asks, sympathetic.
 
Eames makes a sobbing sound into his pillow and groans at his flatmate, “Yusuf.
Yusuf… where is my moral compass?”
 
“Hang on,” Yusuf says. He comes back in a moment with a strangely fuschia-
tinged tincture and a tiny juice glass of water. Yusuf mixes the two together
and hands Eames a light pink chemical cocktail that looks innocent enough, but
the smell of which makes Eames’ already angry stomach lurch alarmingly.
 
“Agggh,” Eames moans. “What the fuck is it? Tell me it’s aspirin, please.”
 
“Sure, it’s bloody aspirin. Trust me, just fucking drink it. You won’t
understand the chemistry anyway and I promise it’ll make you feel better, all
right?” Yusuf pushes the glass forward and Eames gulps it down and keeps it
there.
 
“Yusuf,” Eames moans miserably. “Why does being easy keep getting harder?”
 
Yusuf just shakes his head sadly at him and says, “Eames. Don’t be a fool. Take
it from someone who has known you awhile, yeah?” He crosses his arms at his
chest and regards Eames sharply. “For you, slutting around has never been easy.
Too much good Catholic boy in you.” He raps on the doorjamb a couple of times,
maybe considering whether or not he’s said too much, tells Eames to feel
better, and leaves.
 
Eames stays in bed until his bladder is positively screaming at him and then
gingerly starts for the toilet. Yusuf’s foul pink medicine was spot-on: his
headache and nausea have already significantly abated. Thank Christ for
chemistry PhDs.
 
The rest of the day is spent taking it easy, his body a mess, his head a
minefield of remorse.
 
++++
 
He runs into Mal at the grocery store a few days later. Eames feels like he
should be guiltily skulking around her, beg her for a sharp French slap across
the face, maybe prostrate himself at her heels like the bad dog he is, but – he
reminds himself she has no idea what transpired between himself and her son.
Her sweet, fresh peach of a seventeen year old – you MUST STOP that, he nearly
screams aloud in the middle of the checkout.
 
Mal notices the creepy internal battle going on in Eames’ head with alarm and
asks, “Darling, are quite all right?”
 
“Fine,” Eames shrugs. “Girl trouble.” She gives him a sly look that manages to
make her look exactly like a feminine version of Arthur, and Eames attempts to
lock onto something mundane to change the subject. He glances at Mal’s shopping
cart, notices all the sodas and fruit and snacks therein, says, “Getting
prepared for another party?”
 
“Yes,” she says, delighted. “Arthur’s graduation party.” She makes a parody of
a sad face and says, “Alors, mon petit garçon est tous grandi.”
 
Eames is frankly scared of what his face might be betraying right now. He tries
to force it into a kind of benign interest when he asks, “And will he be going
away to college?” Please say he’ll be going far, far away to college.
 
“Non! He will be staying here with us, going to Berkeley. The tuition remission
is too good to pass up, and it is an excellent education, as you well know.”
 
“Right,” Eames replies.
 
Mal gives him and his groceries a lift home in her black 67 Plymouth Valiant.
Like all things Cobb, Eames notes that the car treads the line between avant-
garde and respectable very, very subtly.
 
After he’s spent a couple hours glumly puttering around his apartment, Eames
convinces himself to brave the standoff between students and police and get to
his carrel at the graduate library. He’s been letting his studies slide the
past week or so, his thoughts mired in… other things.
 
He packs his bag and walks slowly up Telegraph towards campus, passing a
different Flower Child playing a folk song on guitar or pick up Frisbee game
every few feet. It’s nice. Once he’s gotten away from People’s Park, things
seem almost normal in the neighborhood today, he thinks, heaving himself up the
short Classical Revival steps of Doe Library. Maybe the police riots have died
down permanently.
 
He stops by the front desk to see if any of the books he’s requested have come
in, then makes his way into the serene dim of the graduate stacks.
 
There are few students making use of the library on a sunny late May day after
school has let out, and those who have stuck around seem to generally be part
of the protests happening, so Eames is surprised to see the glow of one of the
lamps above the carrels at the end of the Critical Theory stack.
 
Legs that go on and on like I-5, legs that go on forever, rest atop Eames’
carrel, crossed at the ankle. Christ, the boots are tobacco brown this time,
the pants cut extra slim and in a summer weight tan wool. Eames hears the soft
turn of a page, the creak of the heavy wooden swivel chair he’s claimed as his
own, and his mouth goes dry.
 
There’s a sigh that comes from just beyond the stack. “I was wondering when you
were gonna show up,” Arthur says. He brings his legs down to the floor and
gracefully tips forward in the chair, peering at Eames hiding behind the
shelves.
 
Arthur’s gaze turns predatory almost instantly. He rakes his eyes up Eames’
body from his feet to his face, then grins with what Eames thinks may be too
many teeth. Eames shivers in response and Arthur catches it, grins harder.
 
“Eames,” he says. “C’mere.”
 
“No,” Eames whispers. He shakes his head, feeling like a stubborn toddler.
 
Arthur’s face goes hard. “Eames,” he says again. He points at the ground by his
feet. “Come here.”
 
“Arthur,” Eames whines.
 
“Now,” Arthur demands, his eyes gone narrow with disbelief at Eames’ apparent
lack of respect for his authority. He slaps his thigh in emphasis at Eames,
then curls his index finger at him: right this MINUTE.
 
He’s in another tight vest, Eames realizes, this time paired with a sedate,
tasteful tie tightly knotted at his handsome throat that matches the color of
the chestnut locks curling around his irritated face. Arthur’s mouth is tight
with anger, one eyebrow arched, his cheeks slightly pinked. He points his
finger back down to his feet and that’s all it takes - Eames goes.
 
“That’s better,” Arthur soothes, smiling up at him gently. “Isn’t that better?”
He puts his hands proprietarily on Eames’ hips, up his t-shirt again, runs the
pads of his thumbs over Eames’ nipples, and Eames has to agree: better, yes –
better.
 
Arthur immediately goes for his belt, uncinching the buckle without ever
breaking eye contact. The clink of the brass and the zip of his fly must be
audible for miles, Eames thinks, but – there’s no one around.
 
Arthur frees him from his shorts, already hard to the point that he’s leaking,
the head peeking out from the hood, and Arthur hasn’t even looked at it yet,
hasn’t really even touched him. Eames groans.
 
“I missed you,” Arthur whispers. He puts his tongue out, gives the head of
Eames’ cock a little kitten lick without ever looking away from his face. It
makes Eames just about scream right there in the library and he buries his face
in his hands. “I missed you a lot,” Arthur continues his kitten licks, briefly
pushes the tip of his tongue beneath the edge of where Eames’ foreskin hasn’t
entirely retracted and caresses the arc of his corona. “Did you miss me?” He
asks, moving down to trace the veins of Eames’ shaft.
 
Eames finally takes his hands off his face and looks down at Arthur, strokes
his cheekbone. “You’ve no idea, darling,” he murmurs.
 
Arthur brings him off in no time, ends up with that same ridiculously happy and
satisfied smile on his face and languidly tips himself back in the swivel when
he’s finished with Eames. He puts his arms behind his head and grins at Eames’
disheveled shock at having just gotten the other best blow job of his life.
 
“Christ, you look like you just successfully brokered peace between Egypt and
Israel,” Eames grouses, getting his pants back together, looking everywhere but
at Arthur. He wants to offer to get Arthur off, too – he wants so much more
than that, really, but - seventeen.
 
“Yeah, blowing a guy like you is a real hardship,” Arthur answers. “When can I
see you again?”
 
“Arthur,” Eames says. “This needs to stop.”
 
Arthur snorts derisively at him. “No,” he says plainly. Eames gives him a
scandalized look and Arthur shrugs. “No,” he says again.
 
“Oh, you call the shots, do you?” Eames spits, annoyed.
 
“Generally. What’s the problem, you seemed pretty pleased a minute ago. Maybe
you need your dick sucked more often? Because that’s definitely something we
can arrange.”
 
“Jesus, the mouth on you,” Eames shakes his head. “You’re seventeen.”
 
“Big fucking deal,” Arthur counters. “What’s today, the 28th? I’ll be eighteen
in exactly a month, if that makes you happy. And I already know what I want for
my birthday, by the way.”
 
“Your parents –“ Eames replies.
 
“Have you met my parents, Eames?” Arthur snaps. “They’re sexy forty year old
swingers with a hot tub in the yard next to their personal marijuana farm.
They’re cool with what I do. They host orgies when I’m out with friends all
night, for fuck’s sake, I’m not kidding –“
 
“God,” Eames moans. “God, I don’t want to hear these things, please, Arthur.”
 
“Fuck. Fuck, you are repressed, you know that?” Arthur says in a resigned way
that Eames doesn’t like the sound of at all. “I don’t know what England was
like, but, Jesus – try to leave the Old World behind a little bit, huh? We’re
in the middle of a sexual revolution, man. All parties are willing. Live a
little.”
 
Eames has just stood there silently for this, eyes closed, rubbing his
forehead, Arthur staring at him hard enough to bore holes.
 
“Oh, fuck this,” Arthur says, grabbing his bag and getting out of the chair.
 
Eames latches onto his wrist as tightly as he can and gently yanks him back
before he can disappear out of Doe Library, out of his life. “Arthur, wait,” he
says. “I want one thing.”

“Fuck, name it,” Arthur says with no reserve whatsoever.
 
“I want to go on a proper date with you. In a month. A date. Something that
doesn’t involve clandestine blow jobs.”
 
“Are you hearing yourself?” Arthur grimaces. Eames increases the pressure on
his wrist and Arthur rolls his eyes. “Yes, fine, okay, whatever. A date,” he
replies, like it’s the squarest thing in the world. “Fuck.”
 
Eames lets his wrist go and watches Arthur thread his fingers through his hair.
He shakes his head at Eames, but his eyes go tender. “Can I get a fucking kiss,
at least? Since I apparently have to go without cock for an entire month?”
 
“You’re not seeing anyone else, then?” Eames caresses his shoulder, the taut
muscles of Arthur’s upper arm.
 
Arthur shrugs. “I love cock, but – I really like you,” he says with the same
honesty he’s displayed since they first met.
 
Eames pulls him in for a kiss that lasts until the sun shifts entirely out of
view of the little window overlooking Wheeler Hall. Then he walks Arthur home
slowly, their shoulders bumping together, hands glancing off one another, the
occasional hip-check happening the entire way.
 
 
Chapter 4
 
June is full and ripe, the year now just teetering on the cusp of tipping from
potential to kinetic, all the buds that are out on the trees and bushes on the
verge of bursting.
 
It’s all something of a blur for Eames. His days pass in the presence of both
the Frankfurt School and Arthur like they’ll never end, the sun not setting
until around half eight, and then it seems like the weeks fly by in retrospect.
The city is still shaky and anxious, but the sheer presence of cops has
gradually died down.
 
They get to know each other. Arthur is whip-smart, as sharp and intense as his
parents, mature beyond his years, as well as startlingly more experienced than
Eames is in just about every way. And he knows what he wants with a kind of
singular concentration that Eames doesn’t think he’s seen in anyone else
before.
 
And what he wants is still, fascinatingly, Eames.
 
Arthur borrows the car and drives them into San Francisco where they go to the
de Young Museum, the Presidio, hang out on Crissy Field and attend free
concerts. He takes Eames to the Castro, just to walk around, shocked that Eames
has lived in the Bay Area a full year already and never been. Eames grins like
an idiot, confides that he’s never seen so many homosexuals in one place in his
life and Arthur replies enthusiastically, “I know right, isn’t it great?” and
holds his hand as they stroll around, window shopping. Nobody bothers them.
 
They spend that evening in mid-June on a picnic blanket in Golden Gate park,
half listening to a double-bill with Creedence and Jefferson Airplane, half
just mooning at each other and smiling, insects flying around in the late
afternoon sun that’s grown hazy with the dust kicked up from twirling Hippies
and pot smoke. He looks up at Arthur from where he’s laying on their blanket,
and Arthur gently strokes his hair and feeds him fat green grapes from the
Sonoma Valley, one by one by one. He picks the tiny white flowers that litter
the grass on the hillside they're on and sticks them in Eames' hair.
 
It’s incredible, idyllic; Eames feels like he’s living in a Maxfield Parrish
painting. He’s never been happier in his life.
 
They agree that Arthur will celebrate his eighteenth birthday first with his
pack of no doubt extremely hip high school friends getting his first legal
drunk on at any number of local watering holes. He’ll stay out for as long as
he wishes, and then he’ll come over to Eames’ to finally collect his “gift.”
 
Eames is a mess of nerves when June 28th finally comes, compulsively tidying
his room and smoking through all of his cigarettes. He’s genuinely surprised
when Arthur shows up at his place by eleven, dressed to the nines in another
pair of beautifully tailored slacks and a matching waistcoat, a black bowler
derby hat tilted rakishly to one side of his head.
 
He’s grinning like the Cheshire Cat when Eames opens the door and says
excitedly, “Have you heard, did you hear?”

“Hear what?” Eames asks, perplexed.
 
“There’s a riot. In New York, on Christopher Street,” he answers, breathlessly
happy. “The gays are taking over Greenwich Village, it was on the news.”
 
“Really,” Eames is at a loss for anything to say as Arthur walks over to his tv
and switches on the 11 o’clock news, plops down on the couch. Images of gay
men, lesbians and drag queens screaming down armed NYPD and getting arrested by
the dozen flash across the screen.
 
“Incredible,” Arthur whispers, a look of pure pride on his face.
 
Eames turns to him and takes his hand, says, “Happy birthday.”
 
“This has been the most incredible day. I’m not even kidding, Eames. It’s been
– it’s been perfect,” he says. He looks blissfully content. “And now I’m here,
and I’m with you, and it’s only going to get better.” He shakes his head in
wonder at Eames and grasps him by the chin, kissing him slowly, deeply.
Thoroughly.
 
Eames’ heart feels impossibly large under his ribs when he wraps himself around
Arthur and guides him to his bed.
 
++++
 
Late August is hot and sweaty and beautiful and fucking perfect in Berkeley,
Eames thinks. Though he suspects everything is probably hot and sweaty and
beautiful and fucking perfect when you’re in love.
 
Arthur will be living with his parents for at least his first semester of
college, most likely – and then he’s kicking around the idea of finding a place
of his own. Eames is considering maybe shacking up together at some point, but
– they both want Arthur to have the college experience. They’re taking it one
step at a time.
 
Nowadays he spends most nights at Eames’, however. If it’s hot enough and
clear, they’ll take Eames’ mattress up to the roof and sleep there.
 
They’re doing just that one night, smoking a joint and cuddling on Eames’
mattress, looking up at the stars, when Arthur turns to him with a smile so
wide and genuine that his dimples are practically craters and says, “I fucking
love this place. Holy shit, Eames – I love this place, I love this summer. And
I love you. Christ, I love you so much.”
 
“God, Arthur,” Eames says, his throat constricting with emotion. “I love you so
much there are times I feel like my chest might burst.”
 
Eames pauses for a moment, just looking at this person next him, and says, “Can
you do that? Can you fall in love with a place, like you can fall in love with
a person, do you think? Can you love them both at the same time? Are we allowed
to love this much?” Eames asks.
 
Arthur smiles and smiles, squeezes his hand. He knows the answer. “Fuck yes, we
are. Eames. We are.” After a bit he whispers, “You know what? I wish I could
make a bed of stars for us to lie down on, Eames. We could dream together like
that. It would be so nice.” He pulls Eames closer to him, arranges him so his
head is pillowed on Arthur’s chest, kisses Eames’ hair. “I’d make a bed of
California stars, in a big mound, all soft and glowing. Just for you and me.”
 
They sleep peacefully up on the roof, the soft brilliance of the Milky Way
unfolding above them like a pair of cradling arms.
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