Winter Trial

They were taking a break before a final round of sets between just Carl and Jason, on the one hand, and Halem and his willowy assistant, Selena, on the other. Clyde Seeley was huddled with Carl and Halem down in front of the stage and was asking them both more detailed questions about what they expected and could give in a deal if they were hired.

Jason was standing beside one of the flying curtains at the edge of the stage when he felt his waist being encircled by a strong arm and he was pulled back into the dim light of the backstage and pushed up against a cinderblock wall. A man was standing behind him, pressed into his body, covering him close, with one hand holding Jason's wrists together and over his head. Jason could feel the hard need of the man at the small of his back. He turned his head to see that it was the lighting technician, who had been called Bud and who Jason had been not too subtly flirting with across the footlights.

"You've been teasing enough," the technician, who didn't seem much older than Jason was, growled in his ear. "You just a tease, or you wantin' it?"

Jason was breathing hard, but he didn't answer. A hand snaked around his belly and sank under the waistband of his shorts.

"Yes you want it," the man growled, his hand cupping Jason's balls and the root of his cock. And, indeed, Jason was hard. He'd been hard most of the day. The inside of his pouch was slick with precum. A finger was pressing into his cock head, working on worrying his piss slit open, and Jason shuddered and moaned.

"The question is whether you want it from me."

Jason didn't hesitate. He'd been in heat all day. Halem had taken him beyond the barrier of noble denial the previous night. Carl need never know. He'll actually be relieved that, unable to stop himself, Jason wasn't after him for sex that went beyond a hand job.

"Yes, but when?"

"Now," the man growled as he hauled Jason away from the wall and shepherded him out the stage door, down a dark hall, and into an unused classroom. Bud perched on the edge of a desk, trousers, socks and shoes off, legs spread and the soles of his feet leveraging off the linoleum floor while Jason, naked, his nipples covered by the palms of Bud's hands, sat in the young technician's lap, facing away from him, legs bent, calves on either side of Bud's hips, leveraging his knees off the surface of the desk, as he bounced up and down on Bud's buried cock.

Before they had finished, Jason had swiveled around to where he was facing Bud, still lapped. His shoulder blades were resting on Bud's thighs, and Bud was pulling him on and off the cock. When they had both come, Bud pulled Jason's chest up to his, embraced him with his arms, and the two kissed and whispered to each other as Bud's cock went flaccid inside Jason. He'd worn a condom and Jason somewhat regretted not being able to feel him skin on skin and the flow of the semen inside him. But he appreciated the technician's thoughtfulness. Neither Carl nor the Turk had had such a concern for the future.

"That was good. No, it was great. You're a great lay," Bud whispered.

"Thanks. You are great too," Jason answered.

"You wanted it bad, didn't you?"

"Yes, I want it bad," Jason admitted.

"Give me a couple of minutes and I'll do you again."

"We should be getting back. The conference will be over. Carl will be looking for me."

"I want to do you again."

"Later maybe . . . don't take that wrong. I want you do fuck me again."

"I'm afraid there may not be a later," Bud murmured. "Your act is going to lose. Surely you know that."

"Yes," Jason asked, his voice full of regret. "I can see that."

"He's not well. Your old man isn't well. You can see that."

"Yes, I can see that. More the reason for me to stick with him, though."

"He doesn't satisfy you anymore, does he? I can tell. You responded to me with hunger for the fuck."

"There's more to a relationship than sex."

"But I can tell that you need the sex. I can make you happy. I'm young; he's old. I can fuck you again and again."

So could Halem, Jason thought. And he wasn't old either. But, yes, the technician was rising inside him again already. And he had a very nice cock. Not as thick as Halem's, but thicker than most. Nice enough that Jason was panting and squirming on the reengorging cock.

Bud was rising off the desk and turning Jason without losing the purchase of his cock inside the small blond to where Jason was bent over the desk with his belly against the surface. He raised his arms over his head and gripped the opposite edge of the desk with his fists to hold himself steady as Bud began pumping him hard and deep and rapidly.

"Yes, yes, yes," Jason cried out in a gaspy voice. "Fuck me, fuck me hard. Just like that."

"You want it. You want me. Just like this," Bud growled, as he reared his hips back and then thrust. And then again and then again.

"Yes, yes, yes," Jason whimpered.

"I could take you home with me. You could stay with the circus."

"He needs me," Jason moaned.

* * * *

"If you come back to my trailer and . . . talk with me, I think I could help your cause."

Clyde Seeley had pulled Jason aside and whispered this in the young blond's ear after the last set of magic acts had been performed and Seeley had declared that he'd give his answer the next day on who got the slot in the circus's summer run.

It wasn't going to be much of a surprise unless there was a dramatic change in circumstances in some way. Even Carl seemed to be resigned to the inevitable—or at least cognizant of what it likely would be. The day had taken a big toll on him. He had stumbled through his last set, with Jason having to whisper to him what he should do or say next at several points. In contrast, Halem the Magnificent was sparkling and magnificent to the end.

The Turk had moved toward Jason after the last discussions with Seeley and was giving Jason triumphant and knowing looks. Jason knew he'd go with Halem again if the opportunity arose—if he could do it without Carl knowing—something that he earlier would have thought he'd never do again even though he'd told Halem he would. But the night with the Turk and what Bud had just done with him in the classroom made Jason admit that he couldn't do without sex like that. It didn't mean that he wouldn't stick with Carl, though. There was much more to their relationship than sex. But Jason knew now he'd have the sex whenever he thought he could get away with it.

Hadn't Carl told him he needed to get what he needed? But not necessarily when Carl was still around.

Before Halem could reach him Clyde Seeley was bearing down on them, and Halem veered off. Carl already was limping out of the auditorium. He'd said they'd meet in the dormitory room next—that he needed to rest.

Jason knew there was time for him, for an hour or so now. He'd had sex just two hours ago, but he was aching for it again. If Halem had told him to follow him to somewhere private, Jason would have gone with him.

When Seeley invited him to his trailer to talk then, Jason knew it was for more than talk. The man wasn't ugly and he wasn't even as old as Carl was. He was a bit heavy, but he also was muscular, and Jason had overheard stage hands whispering that he was still proficient in bed. The rationale was there—something that wouldn't be disloyal to Carl, not really. If Jason gave Seeley what he obviously wanted, maybe Seeley would give Carl the job. Wasn't that what Seeley had hinted in extending the invitation? Even Jason knew the job wouldn't last that long. Carl was deteriorating fast. But it would be some form of victory—that he could still win a position. And over Halem the Magnificent.

In the trailer, Seeley sat on the side of a narrow bed and Jason knelt between his spread thighs and sucked the man's cock to a throbbing erection. He really was nicely equipped, Jason had to admit. And Jason had done this maybe a hundred times before he met Carl. It was no big deal considering the favoritism it could get for Carl.

Both men were naked and Seeley was strong, so it involved little effort when he felt that he was ready that Seeley reached down and grabbed Jason's waist and lifted the small blond above him as he lay on his back on the bed and brought Jason down into his lap and onto the throbbing cock. The older man groaned and grunted as Jason leaned his torso over Seeley's chest, dug the heels of his hands into the older man's beefy pecs, and rode the cock.

Afterward, with Jason still saddled, Seeley shocked him.

"You know that I can't give the position to Carl, don't you?"

"But . . ." Jason said.

"You know as well as everyone else does that he's on his last leg. I'm a businessman. I can't make a decision like that just to have you here to ride my cock when I want you."

"I don't . . . why then . . .?"

"I do want you here riding my cock. So I'll give you a job with the circus. A good one. A better one than you have now."

"I'm sorry, I can't leave Carl," Jason said with a choked voice. He climbed off the cock and padded over to where his shorts and T had been discarded on the floor of the trailer.

"Come back here. I'm not finished with you."

"I think I'm finished, though. If you won't sign Carl's act, there isn't anything more to say."

"There's the check I haven't cut to cover you coming down here for the trials, yet. You want me to give that to Carl, don't you. And with a consolation bonus and some comforting words on how hard it was to make the decision, and maybe even an offer of an administrative job for him too. You'll come back over here for that, won't you? I'm not done with you."

Jason stood there, considering. And then he meekly walked back to the bed.

Seeley fucked him brutally this time, Jason on his back, with his head bouncing off the wall of the trailer and the trailer rocking, as Seeley grabbed his ankles, split his legs wide apart, and took him with long, deep thrusts. Jason loved every minute of it.

When he was walking gingerly back to the dormitory, though, the first thing that caught his eyes were the swirling red lights. Lights on top of a police cruiser and also on top of an ambulance.

"Oh, no," he muttered, as he broke into a run.

They were bringing a stretcher down the front steps of the dormitory before he got there. There was a body, under a sheet, on the stretcher. The face was covered by the sheet.

"Carl," he said in a weak voice, knowing instinctively that it was Carl.

He felt hands gripping his arms from behind and he leaned back, knowing from the musky smell of him that it was Bud, the lighting technician. Jason looked around. An old Sebring convertible was pulled up next to the curb, the driver's door open.

"That's—"

"Yes, I know, It's your Carl," Bud said in a low voice. "They called us over at the auditorium. Looking for Seeley . . . and for you." He made no accusation, probably not needing confirmation for what he knew Jason had been doing, trying to save Carl's job—but also because the small blond was so randy.

Well, so was Bud. He was hard again. He was hard for Jason despite the circumstances.

"Come with me. Come back to my place," he murmured. "You need a bit of time to get your head around this."

Jason sobbed quietly. "He needs me."

"He doesn't need you anymore, Jason. I need you. And you need me. Come home with me. We'll take care of last things for Carl later. Both of us."

"He said he'd never retire from the circus. That he'd die in the circus."

"And that he did. He went the way he wanted to go. He would want you taken care of too. Come with me."

Jason didn't resist, as Bud turned him and guided him around to the passenger side of the Sebring. Jason had no illusions about what he and Bud would be doing within the hour. But Bud was right. It's what Carl would have wanted for him. He had told him so just the previous night.

* * * *

It was dark in Bud's bedroom and they had been going at it for hours. Jason was on his back, near exhaustion, all cried out. It was what Bud had said he needed, and he knew Bud was right. Bud was crouched between his thighs, his knees under Jason's raised buttocks, his cock moving slowly in and out, in and out, of Jason's channel. Bud had an arm under the small of Jason's back, raising him, with the young blond's torso arching back, Jason's weight borne on his shoulder blades. Bud was smoothing Jason's brow with his free hand. Their faces were close together, Bud closely scrutinizing Jason's eyes to watch the effect of the slow, deep thrusts of the cock.

"I'll take care of you, baby. You'll always have me."

Jason smiled up at him. That was good to hear. But he knew that Bud wouldn't be enough. He knew he was unlikely to ever have a full relationship again like the one he'd had with Carl. But there would always be the sex. That would compensate to a great degree until he too grew old. And if all of this had taught him nothing else, it had taught him that the sex was important to him.

Bud was nice. But there was Clyde Seeley too—with the offer of the job and a sexual relationship, and—and now Jason grinned—there was Halem of the magnificent cock, who would be getting the magic act position with the circus.

His thoughts went back to Carl. Yes, he thought Carl would approve.