by Lutra Cana (06/12/2000)
He'd run screaming.
Well...maybe not screaming. But he did run. Fast and as far away as he could. Climbed out of that bed, fled like a thief in the night and caught the first plane to New York he could. Called his captain from the airport claiming a family emergency and left with no more explanation than that.
On the long flight home, Starsky thought about what had caused this sudden exodus. Thought back to the night before when his entire world changed. Fell around his feet with a clattering, shattering sound. When his best friend in the world turned into someone he didn't know at all.
When he became someone he didn't know either.
*****
The evening had started out innocently enough. A long day, nothing too dramatic other than the arrest of a felon they'd been pursuing for longer than they liked. Came back to Hutch's place to have a dinner of whatever his partner could scrounge out of his fridge and to drink a few beers. In other words, a normal evening for the two of them.
They'd eaten the salad and eggs Hutch fixed. Shared a laugh or two about nothing in particular. Sat on the couch drinking the beer and watching a ball game. A perfectly normal pastime for two normal men. Then something happened and he still wasn’t exactly sure what. But it happened and they went from being two normal men who were just friends to two men who needed to make love to each other.
Shifting his legs in the too small space, Starsky tried to remember the sequence of events. Tried to pinpoint the moment when his life stopped. For that's what it felt like. Between one heartbeat and the next, he'd stopped being David Starsky, macho lady-killer to become his male partner's lover. Something he couldn't deal with. Staring out the window, it was as if every moment of the night before played out in slow motion before his eyes.
*****
Sitting side by side on Hutch's couch, they'd cheered for their team as the Lakers ran the ball from one end of the court to the other. Starsky almost knocked over his beer when the player with the ball leaped up and sunk it in the net. He'd thrown his arm around Hutch's shoulder and squeezed him in, what he meant as, a companionable hug. Turning his head, he'd been slightly surprised to find Hutch's face only inches away from his. For a moment longer than time itself they stared into each other's eyes.
Then Hutch leaned in and kissed him. Caught his lips in a sweet and gentle kiss that caused shivers to run up and down his spine. And caused him to kiss back. The kiss intensified until they were moaning in the need to taste each other. To mingle their breath in heated passion. Parted for a brief second and then moved closer together to touch lips, catch the other's tongue in a mouth. To whisper endearments against each other's skin.
He couldn't remember how they came to be lying on Hutch's big brass bed. Naked. Pressed together as if they'd been doing this all their lives. Hands searching, lips tasting, and then...and then...Hutch took him in his mouth and his mind exploded. He stopped thinking, stopped being a sentient being, and became a creature of pure passion. Lust. Desire. Call it what you will, but it was no longer him. He was no longer Starsky, Hutch's partner. He was now someone else, something else that he had no words to describe.
They thrashed against each other on that brass bed. Hutch attached to him as if he'd never let go. And he never wanted him to let go. The feelings, the electric sensations grew until he almost blacked out from the need to come. Then Hutch let him go and he lay panting, crying with want.
Hutch hovered over him, dropping tiny kisses on his face, his neck, and down his chest. Hutch's hands roved over his body. Stroking gently here, more urgently there, until Starsky was sure that he'd die from the beauty of it.
And then.... And then, Hutch's hand touched him where he had never touched him before. A finger entered him and he almost threw both of them off the bed with the shock of it. The shock of the thrill that ran through his body leaving him breathless and wanting more.
Starsky's arms seemed to move of their own volition as they snaked around the man doing things to him that he'd never in his wildest dreams thought of. Pulled him closer, demanding more. Kissed the blond hair falling against his heated skin, licked the sweat from his lover's cheek. And Hutch had complied with that silent entreaty. A second finger joined the first. It hurt, by the pain seemed to heighten the desire, the need, until he lay panting under those skillful hands caressing his body. A body that was rapidly overloading on sensation.
Again, Hutch stopped. Only this time he propped himself so that he could stare down at the man below him. His voice, so low and sultry that Starsky had to hold his breath to hear him, whispered. "What do you want? Tell me what you want, David, tell me." He leaned down and kissed him so hard and so deep that Starsky almost slipped into orgasm right there. "Tell me." The voice demanded of him.
And all he could reply...all he could say...was the one thing he'd always wanted. "You."
With a moan of pure hunger, Hutch fell on him. Kissing his way back down Starsky's body until he took him into his mouth again. Licked and kissed the straining cock, rolled the scrotum with his tongue and mouthed the space where the fingers had just been. Then he rolled away to reach into the nightstand's drawer and pull out a small jar of petroleum jelly.
Starsky watched in near blindness as Hutch scooped a small amount of the jelly onto his fingers and reached for him. He panted in barely repressed desire as they entered him, preparing the way for something much larger. Starsky reached out to hold his partner's member in his hand, marveling at it. Marveling at the terrible want that burned through his veins for the thick shaft that pulsed in his hands.
Gently, Hutch reached down, extracted himself from Starsky's hold, and quickly anointed himself with the jelly. Then, equally as gently, he rolled the pliant form beneath him onto its stomach. Starsky whimpered as he felt the velvety head of his lover's cock prod at the entrance to his body. Whimpered partially in returning sanity...returning fear at what they were doing. But mostly with longing to be filled by Hutch. His partner...his friend...his lover.
Screamed as the fervent shaft pierced him. Gasping in the sudden pain, he shook with shock and the terrible need for completion. Hutch held still, waiting until the shudders of pain subsided and Starsky moved back to force more of him into the waiting orifice. Then Hutch pushed forward, slowly, gently until Starsky moaned as the cock brushed against his prostate. Pausing as the ripples of pleasure circled out, then thrust himself all the way in.
Starsky was beyond screaming now. A combination of powerful need and wild desire possessed him and he pushed back. Meeting his lover's body as it thrust again and again into him. Together, they made the journey to the other side of the urgent want that owned Starsky.
Shouting in exultation, he spiraled upwards into a soul-shattering orgasm. Heard Hutch cry out his name over and over and knew that his lover followed him. Collapsed on the bed, boneless, breathless. Almost mindless. Hutch gathered him into his arms, kissing him gently as the world swam around him. And together they slipped into a dreamless sleep.
Hours later, he woke. At first, he couldn't place where he was. Figure out what the warmth wrapped around him was. Why his body felt both achy and soothed at the same time. Moving slowly, he turned until he saw the blond hair spread beside him on the pillow.
And he remembered. And his heart almost stopped with the cold fear that clenched around it. The overwhelming desire to flee. To get as far away from the strange creature lying with one long arm draped over his chest. Away from what this man he trusted with his life had done to him.
Away from what they'd done together.
*****
And that's how he came to be sitting in a too narrow coach seat on a pre-dawn flight to New York. The only place he could think of to run.
But how could he run from himself?
He watched as sun rose higher and higher in the sky as they flew steadily eastward. The flight he was on was a direct one and he landed in New York mere hours after he fled from Hutch's apartment. As if he was observing someone else, he watched as he hailed a cab and gave the driver his mother's address in Brooklyn.
Paying the cab driver with the last bit of cash on him, he turned and looked up at the windows of his mother's apartment. The same apartment he'd lived in as a child. The same home he'd watched two people in love live out the short time they were allowed each other. The place he left as a young teenager to travel across the country and live with virtual strangers. The rooms he came back to after his stint in the war and realized that this would never be his home again. The quarters he'd left to go back to California and meet his destiny. The sanctuary he now sought when he ran away from that destiny.
A destiny wrapped up in a big, blond Midwesterner named Ken Hutchinson.
Standing there in the afternoon sun of a late spring day, he stared up at those windows and felt adrift. He belonged neither here...the place where he was born, nor there...the place where he'd been born again.
"David." He looked down and stared into his mother's face. She stood on the top of the apartment building steps with loving concern on her face. "David, come, my son."
Starsky walked slowly up the steps and into his mother's arms. She held him as he leaned against her as he had done so many times when he was a child. Needing to know that someone loved him. That someone cared for him and would care for him forever.
Something he'd always known with Hutch. Until last night.
******
Rachel Starsky pulled her son against her, feeling his shuddering breaths against her neck as she held him. Then she drew him through the doorway and up another short flight of stairs to her home. Sitting him down on the couch, she held and rocked him as he gave into the emotions that hammered away at his spirit. Crooned soft words as he cried hard tears onto her shoulder. Didn't question, didn't push, just loved him. Because she knew that's what he needed.
Finally, David pulled away from his mother and wiped embarrassed hands at his face. Rachel wordlessly handed her son the box of tissues sitting on the coffee table and left him to collect himself. Going to the kitchen, she quickly made coffee and pulled food out of the fridge. Food she had purchased after an almost incoherent phone call a few hours before.
Coming back into the livingroom with the food, the balm of mothers everywhere, she felt saddened to see her son sitting hunched on the couch. Looking for all the world like a puppy that had been kicked one too many times. Setting the tray she carried down on the coffee table, she sat down beside her son and gathered his shaking hand into her two sturdy ones.
"David, tell me what happened. Ken phoned this morning so upset I could hardly understand him." She started when David whipped his head up in alarm at the sound of his partner's name.
"Hutch...Hutch called here?" David's voice was hollow. The fear on his face made her want to reach out again to protect her son, but she knew that wasn't what he needed right then.
"Yes, David. He scared me when he called. His voice sounded so strange, I thought for sure something terrible had happened to you."
David pulled his hand away and reached out for the coffee cup on the tray, almost tipping it over before his shaking hand grasped it. Taking a large gulp of the sweet, milky liquid, he seemed to pull further into himself. "What did he say?"
"Just that you'd left LA without telling him and that you'd told your captain that there was a family emergency. Ken didn't say much other than to tell you he was sorry and to come home." Rachel cupped her son's chin in her hand and forced him to look at her. "David, what happened? What could be so bad between the two of you that you'd lie to your captain and fly across the country without even a change of clothing."
Dark blue eyes <so like his father's> stared at her. She could see a thousand thoughts flying across those expressive eyes. Even though they'd been separated for years, he was still her son. Still the baby she'd held in her arms one bright March morning. Still the little boy coming to her for a kiss and a bandage on a scrapped knee. Still the young man who had wept when they hugged one last time at the airport so many years ago. Still her first born that, if truth be told, she loved more than anyone else in the world. Even her second born.
For this was her lost child. The one sent away for his own protection. The one that had carried on in his father's footsteps, much to her fear. The son who had stared death in the eye far too many times and turned it away.
David dropped his eyes to stare down at the floor instead of into his mother's eyes. "I can't tell you. It's too...too horrible. I don't know if I'll ever be able to go back there, Ma. I just don't know." He whispered in a voice that almost made his mother cry with the pain it held.
"Did he do something to you?" She felt the shudder run through her son's body. "David, tell me. I can't believe that Ken would ever do anything to hurt you." He just sat and shook his head. "David, Ken loves you." David pulled himself away from her and stood.
"That's the entire problem, Ma. The entire, damn problem." David started pacing. Rachel's mind rolled that last statement over in her mind as she watched the agitated man walk in tight circles around her livingroom. David never swore in front of her. She had never once heard him use a bad word where he knew she might hear. Not even when he was a boy and ran with the street gang. No matter how bad things had gotten, he'd never been disrespectful to her in his life. The use of the word "damn" was almost as shocking as the tormented look on his face.
But then she realized what her son had said beside the swear word. That Hutch's loving him was the problem. And something seemed to slide into place with a clicking noise and she almost laughed. Would have if she didn't know how close to the edge David was.
Her voice soft and calm, she tried to break through to the man who was now standing and staring out the window overlooking the street. "When has it ever been a problem with Ken loving you, David? Don't you love him?"
A sad and lonely voice answered her. "Of course I do. And that's part of the problem too, Ma. I can't love him. I can't."
If she hadn't figured out before what was bothering him, her son's answer would have made no sense at all. "Why not?"
David whipped around and stared at her in horror. "Because it's wrong to love him like that. I can't." His voice trailed off, "I just can't."
"David, love is love. It's a gift from God and it doesn't matter what form it takes as long as both parties feel the same." The dark eyes widened as David stared at her.
"Ma! You have no idea what you're talking about."
"Don't I? I may be your mother and I may be sixty-odd years old, but I'm no innocent, David. I know how the world works." She moved to stand beside her shocked son. "I know what love is, David. It's precious. It's something that can be so beautiful and so fleeting. If it is being offered to you and you want it, how can it be wrong? Don't make the mistake of throwing it away simply because the form it takes isn't what you always thought it should be." Rachel took his hand once more.
"David, I'd give anything, except you and your brother, to have your father back. Even for only one day. So I could tell him one more time how much I love him. To feel his arms around me and to know that I'm loved in return. I'll never in this life have that love again. You have the chance to have that kind of love, David. Don't throw that chance away."
David's face crumbled. He put his arms around his mother's neck, laid his face against hers and cried again. But this time, the tears were ones of relief and hope instead of fear and despair.
*****
The flight home seemed longer than the first one had. Dressed in clean clothes, courtesy of his brother Nick's left-behinds, he fidgeted in the cramped seat and thought.
Thought about his mother and how she had surprised him. No, shocked him. Never in his life had he known his mother could be so liberal, so understanding. And so accepting of what her son and his partner meant to each other. Never realized that she was so wise. Far wiser than he had ever believed.
Thought about himself and how his world had shifted in only twenty-four hours. How he'd gone from being a perfectly straight heterosexual man to someone who loved, desired, and needed his male partner. The person who meant more than anything in the world to him. Who meant everything in the world to him.
Thought about that partner. About their hurried phone conversation just a few hours ago.
*****
"Hutch?"
"Starsk? Oh God, Starsk." Something that sounded much like a sob. "I'm so sorry, Starsk. I don't...I don't know what happened. I never meant to hurt you. Please.... Oh Starsk, please come back. I won't ever touch you again. I promise. Just please don't leave me alone."
He'd tried to interrupt the flow of words, but had to wait until Hutch's voice broke. "Hutch, listen to me. I'm coming home. You and I have to talk, but everything's going to be okay. I promise." Starsky listened to the sound of breathing on the other end of the line. "Hutch? You still with me?"
"Yes." A single word. But one so full of pain that it seemed to cut him to the heart.
"Good. Because I've just one thing to tell you. Well, two I guess. Are you listening?"
"Yes."
"Okay. I'll be landing about two o'clock in the morning. Will you come and pick me up?"
"Yes."
"And, this one is important, Hutch. Are you still listening?"
"Yes."
"I love you, Hutch. I want to love you for the rest of my life. You got that?"
Silence. Then the voice was back, shaking with emotion. "Yes. And me too. Forever, Starsk, forever."
"Good. I'll see you in just a few hours, buddy. Got to go now. Good bye, Hutch."
"Good bye, Starsk. I love you."
"I know."
*****
Now they were circling LAX and he felt as if he was about to embark on the greatest adventure of his life. Starsky was realist enough to know that there would be bad times, rough spots. Arguments, hurt feelings, and pain. But there would also be love. And the knowledge that he was finally coming home. Home in the shape of one big, blond Midwesterner by the name of Hutch.
And that was all he really needed to know.