Suddenly, the image faded with the glitter of a mirage. Marek cried out, not yet ready to let the other man go. His too-hard cock ached and pulsed in his hand, and his balls sat lodged snug against his body, but no matter how fast or hard Marek yanked on his dick, release would not set him free.
“Please.” His voice raspy, Marek blinked at the agonized, base picture he made in the mirror, in pain with the need to come. “Help me.”
When Marek opened his eyes again, a phantom image of Colin leaned over the sink, his lust-filled gaze finding Marek's in the reflection. Bent over, Colin had one hand on the steamy bathroom mirror, fingers wide open, making streaks in the foggy glass. He had his other in a reach around with two fingers buried in his own ass, working himself open with a scissoring motion. Before Marek could salivate over the hot spectacle, Colin withdrew his digits from his pucker, pushed back, and rubbed his crease right along the length of Marek's rearing cock, pushing him over the edge.
Marek rammed his penis into Colin's willing ass, mounting him in one deep thrust, and took Colin's burning passage to the hilt. He covered Colin's hand on the mirror, found equal wanting in the other man's stare, and got lost in it. With a surge of emotion, Marek lost control of his body and dumped his seed in Colin's tight ass. He pumped his hips, one, two, three times, filling Colin with cum; on the fourth, Marek's legs weakened. He blinked…and found himself braced against the mirror over the sink alone. His semen pooled on the counter and dripped over the lip, a line slowly streaking the wood as it made its way to the floor.
Disturbed by the power of his orgasm, and by how naturally his thoughts sought out Colin, Marek cleaned up the bathroom and washed his spent cock without looking in the mirror again. Moving into his bedroom, he gathered clothes and dressed himself on routine, never much changing up or worrying about what he wore. As he fastened his belt, the brushed silver surface of the buckle itself weakened his legs and had him stumbling to the bed.
Not long after they met, Payton had teased Marek mercilessly about the one ratty brown belt in his wardrobe, something Payton had the advantage of seeing very closely on the first two occasions of them meeting. Marek insisted he wouldn't waste money on a new belt when the one he had held his jeans up perfectly fine. After they started seeing each other, Payton had given him a gift: two new belts, one black and one brown, but told him he had fond memories of undoing the old one and not to throw it away.
Today, Marek wore the brown one Payton had given him. The old one was six feet in the ground in Pittsburgh with his dead lover.
Staggered by thoughts of Payton, stronger than any Marek had experienced in quite some time, Marek's head started to spin with possibilities. “Christ, Pay,” he whispered, “I know you would want me to be happy again. Are you making Colin have those dreams? Did you bring him here to me?”
Silence encapsulated Marek's bedroom. No breeze drifted in through the open window, and no birds or bugs chirped in greeting the day. It felt like Marek sat in a void. No spectral soul hovered in the room; it was just Marek, alone.
He rubbed his face and scratched his beard, and the grit of tired irritated his eyes. Payton wasn't here guiding him or magically manipulating his and Colin's lives from the grave. Marek knew the man wouldn't hide from him if he did still wander this earth as a ghost. More than that, Marek would feel Payton's lighthearted, easy presence surrounding him if he were here, and right now, Marek could not.
Not this time.
Right after Payton's death, mired in grief and guilt, Marek believed Payton visited him, once, in his old place back in Pittsburgh. Drunk off his ass every night for almost a month, Marek had opened his eyes in the pitch-black darkness and saw Payton kneeling before him. Smiling sadly, Payton had taken Marek's face in his hands and brushed the flow of tears away from his eyes. His familiar, lopsided smile tore a sob out of Marek, but Payton only pulled him close and pressed a kiss to his forehead. He had whispered, “Find peace for yourself, my sweet man. I don't want to head home knowing I destroyed you.” Marek brokenly promised he would, for Payton. With that, Payton's vow of “I love you” resonated deeply in Marek's heart, and his lover disappeared.
After that vision, Marek sold the scrap metal company and got out of Pittsburgh. Peace would never come to him in the place where Payton had been murdered. Where Marek's own selfishness and fears had kept them from being the couple Payton so wanted them to be.
Sitting in his bedroom, right now, Marek knew Payton was not responsible for Colin's dreams. He did not guide Colin to Fiji and Marek's home; Marek felt that truth powerfully in his gut.
But if it's not you, babe, then who? What?
Another picture of Colin filled Marek's head, and his near physical perfection stoked the embers inside Marek that responded to men. Colin's eyes lit up when he smiled, and his infectious laugh fluttered butterflies in Marek's stomach. More than that, Colin's sheer tenacity and sincerity scratched at the slammed-shut door inside Marek, getting
