Title: Masquerade
Author/pseudonym: Tinnean
Fandom: JAG
Pairing: Clark Palmer/Clayton Webb
Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: Oh, please! If they were mine, I'd be
watching these gorgeous guys! Since they aren't, and since I'm not, I guess they
still belong to Bellisario. L
However, William Matheson and Theo Bascopolis are mine. So are The Boss, Ms.
Parker, Browne, Stanley, that shit Sperling, and Max Futé.
Status: new/complete
Date:
Series/Sequel: Part nineteen of the Mind Fuck series,
and follows It's Time.
Summary: A day in the life.
Warnings: m/m, harsh language
Notes: This takes place shortly after the events of
It's Time. Gail, Athea, and Tim wanted more Mind Fuck and were so patient
waiting for it. Gail beta'd and kept me on the straight and narrow with Palmer
and Webb, and for that, many thanks. The movie that Porter gave
Masquerade
Part 1/1
Clayton Webb was my lover.
My lover. Sometimes I wondered how the fuck that happened.
Oh, not that I had gone to bed with a man. I'd done that
before, whenever I'd wanted a change of diet. I scratched whichever itch itched
the most.
I didn't believe in heterosexuality, homosexuality, or
bisexuality. Letting yourself get labeled was for wusses.
What confounded me was the fact that I'd taken a CIA spook
to my bed. Not to a 'no tell motel', not in the back seat of my car, but to
my bed, as in the bed in my apartment, the bed I slept in when I came home
from working at the DSD.
It wasn't a smart move on my part, and I blamed the
champagne Webb'd brought over to celebrate my promotion.
But I didn't have that excuse when I accepted his
invitation to stay with him after my apartment had been destroyed in an
explosion, and I'd not only slept with him in his bed, I'd let him fuck me.
I never had an affair that lasted longer than a night, and
I didn't do relationships. I used the opportunity of having to travel to
He came after me. No one had ever…
I decided to humor him, to relax and enjoy it for as long
as it did last.
Only Clay had been kidnapped during the course of an
assignment, and it was my turn to go after him. I'd killed a man for him, no big
deal, I'd killed other men, but afterwards, I took him to a doctor to make sure
his injuries were all as superficial as I'd thought. I took him to a hotel so he
could regroup before the flight home. And on the flight home, in spite of the
almost twenty hours of sleep he'd had, he dozed on my shoulder.
After that…
After that I had no intention of ending it.
****
I was awakened in the early hours of the morning by lips,
teeth, and tongue industriously working my cock.
Clayton Webb's lips, teeth, and tongue.
I decided I could get used to this lover thing, having
someone who knew what I liked and who didn't have a problem giving it to me.
He teased my cock with his tongue. He tormented it with his
teeth. The rippling of the muscles in his throat caressed it. He eased a couple
of slicked fingers up my ass and found my prostate. I groaned and arched up, and
he took more of my cock down his throat.
Clay might have been CIA, but he had one talented mouth.
Who'd have thought? If all my brain cells hadn't been concentrated on what he
was doing to me, I would have laughed at the idiots who labeled my lover as
cold.
As it was, all I could think of was the hot, wet suction on
my cock, those clever fingers stroking in and out of my ass, and in a shamefully
short amount of time, he tipped me over the edge and made me come.
"Clay!" I barely had time to groan out a warning,
but it didn't matter. He swallowed.
I lay sprawled on the bed, my lungs pumping like bellows,
trying to catch my breath. Since the first time he'd blown me, on my birthday,
he'd had this effect on me.
"Nice to know I haven't lost my touch,
"That'll be the day." I reached for him,
intending to repay the favor, but he flipped me over, got me up on my knees, and
slid into me. "How'd you…"
My prostate was already sensitized from his manipulations,
and his cock targeted it for a steady pounding, and I didn't care two shits how
he'd managed to take me unaware. My cock twitched, in spite of the fact it had
no hope in hell of getting hard so soon.
I rested my head on my folded arms, spread my legs wider,
and closed my eyes. "Hit me with your… with your best shot, spook,"
I taunted as I let him have his way with me.
Clay gave a breathless laugh. "My intention,
Palmer."
The thrusts were relentless. He drove into me, measuring
his length again and again.
"After last… last night, how do… do you have
the… the energy?" I panted.
"I… am a man… of vast… unexplored
resources."
"I've ex… explored you, baby."
He growled in my ear. "And I'm… going to be feeling
you… inside me all day."
"So this is revenge?" I was usually the one who
fucked him. I sometimes wondered which of us was more surprised by the fact that
Webb liked my cock up his ass.
"Sweet revenge." He paused long enough to lean
forward and lick my ear, then blew a hot breath into it.
Sneaky bastard. "Think that'll make me follow you
anywhere?"
Clay gave a choke of laughter, shuddered and gasped his
climax open-mouthed on the side of my neck. Long seconds passed before he
relaxed on my back, and I sprawled under his weight. His cock was still inside
me, but it was softening, and I knew it wouldn't be long before it slid out. I
was asleep before it did.
****
"I won't be able to stop by after work," he
mentioned casually while he was knotting his tie that morning. "I'm going
out of town, Clark "
He didn't tell me where he was going, and I didn't ask. I
also didn't ask why he hadn't mentioned it the night before.
"Watch your ass, Webb," I told him, brushing his
hands away and using the tie to pull his body against mine.
"I thought that was your job, baby." His hazel
eyes were almost green with deviltry. He threaded his fingers in my hair and
brought my face down to his.
"Damn straight," I whispered against his mouth.
"Just remember, I won't be happy if I have to haul the CIA's bacon out of
the fire again."
"You talk too much,
"Sure, baby." I ran my tongue over his lips, and
Clay's mouth opened under mine. I shivered at his husky moan.
The fingers that weren't flexing in my hair were flexing on
the curve of my ass, long fingers tracing the crevice, probing through my
trousers to find my hole, and when they did, and I jumped unexpectedly, he
laughed.
"Spook," I growled.
"You like me anyway. Admit it, Palmer."
"What makes you say something like that?"
"Oh, I don't know." Clay ran his fingertips over
my ear. "Maybe the fact that you came looking for me when that madman from
Prinzip kidnapped me?"
I didn't tell him that I couldn't see where I'd had much
choice.
His mother had someone fairly competent lined up to go
after him, but fairly competent was not the best.
As for the CIA… I didn't think he was aware that if I
hadn't gone looking for him, the CIA wouldn't have. One of their best officers,
and they'd have let him go, let him become a star on that goddammed wall.
"
"Well, she wouldn't have."
"Of course not." He smiled at me, and I wondered
how many other lovers had seen that particular smile. And if they had, how could
they have let him walk away from them?
My gut tightened. "Webb." I breathed through my
reaction to the thought of someone from his past coming back and trying to take
him away from me. It didn't matter. They had blown it; I had him now.
"Think you know me so well?"
"Well enough, tough guy."
I followed him out of the bedroom. "I can make you
some coffee."
"Thank you." He came back to me and kissed me. "Another time?" He waited until I nodded, then kissed me again. "I'll see you in a few days."
I stared at the door as it shut behind him. "Damn
straight you will," I repeated to myself.
****
The morning went downhill from there.
The Boss, back from wherever he had been, called me into
his office, chewed on my ass for not delegating the Prinzip matter, then
informed me that Browne was being assigned to my department. He didn't say it
was punishment, but I got the message.
I was in the middle of writing up an expurgated report of
the incident with Prinzip, the rogue antiterrorist organization that had been
headquartered in
"Yes?"
"Mr. Palmer, I have Browne on line two."
Well, he hadn't wasted much time.
"Thank you, Ms. Parker." I glowered at the phone,
then punched two. "What can I do for you, Browne?"
"It's Browne. Oh, uh… you knew that. Uh… look,
Palmer,
I'd heard through the grapevine that Browne had been
calling him every day trying to get reinstated. I'd also heard that
I cradled the phone between my ear and shoulder, crossed my
legs, and relaxed in my chair.
"That's right. The Boss has said you're mine
now."
He was silent for a minute as he mulled that over.
There were two things that the people in the DSD knew about
me. One was that I hadn't reached the position I now held by getting on my hands
and knees for any of my superiors. Two was that no one who worked under me would
ever be in that position in order to obtain a promotion.
"Okay, fine, but you have to let me come back to
work!"
"Last I heard you weren't given medical
clearance." I studied my nails. One of them was getting ragged, and I
wondered if I'd marked Clay's back the night before. He hadn't said anything,
but…
"C'mon, Palmer, you can override that! I'm going
stir-crazy here!"
"And that's supposed to affect me how?
"But Max says I'm fit to go back to work."
'Max' was Max Futé, the doctor who had kept him alive by
any means available when Browne had been taken captive by Prinzip.
"I doubt that. He may be French, but he's not stupid.
Aside from that amputation of your finger…"
"But it was just my fucking pinkie finger!"
I shrugged, even though he couldn't see me. "You still
need to recover from dehydration and malnutrition before he'll clear you."
Futé had brought what food and water he could without
drawing attention to his actions and getting himself cancelled, and he'd gone
short on rations himself.
Browne was too pigheaded to realize it, but the little
Frenchman had done that because he was in love with him.
At first I'd thought it was attraction to Clayton Webb that
made Futé willing to leave his home country behind. It would have bothered me a
bit to kill him, since he'd taken such good care of my lover, but I still would
have done it.
No one poached on my territory.
But I'd realized almost immediately which way the wind was
blowing, and offered the Frenchman a position in the medical sector of the DSD.
"Palmer…"
"Browne, what part of 'no' don't you understand?"
"Max gets to go in to work," he said, his tone
almost sulky.
"And…?"
"I'm home all alone; I've got nothing to do. I'm
bored." There was shocked silence. "Jesus, that was whiny. I'm sorry,
Palmer."
So was I. I'd never been out on medical leave, not even
when I'd been injured in the line of duty. The DSD doctors had dealt with me
before. They knew it wasn't worth the grief I would hand them if they tried
taking me out of the game.
"Your request for reinstatement from medical leave is
denied."
"Palmer…"
"Just between the two of us, I'd suggest you find
another way to amuse yourself than calling me. Isn't one of the cable stations
running a James Bond marathon?"
"I don't have cable. I'm not home long enough, usually,
for it to be worth it."
"Then order it for Max. You owe him."
"Yeah, but Palmer…"
I had grown tired of the conversation. "Have a day,
Browne."
I disconnected the call and turned back to my computer. I
still had that report to finish.
****
It was after six when I left the DSD to go home to an empty
apartment. I glanced around the open space that was my living room. Faint
sunbeams angled through the windows that faced to the west; it was Daylight
Savings Time, and although the sun was sinking, it hadn't set.
I felt antsy. Eat first, then shower? There was some
General Tso's Chicken in the fridge.
Shower, then go out for dinner, maybe take in a movie?
Where did I want to eat, and what did I want to see?
As I hung up my suit jacket, considering my options, there
was a tap on my door.
I pulled my Glock and checked the peephole. It was Theo
Bascopolis, my landlord, wrestling with an awkward, rectangular box. I slid the
pistol back into my shoulder holster and unlocked the door.
"What's up, Theo?"
"Some guy left this for you." He thrust the box
toward me. "And don't have a cow. Wills wasn't happy when I told him I'd
accepted a package for you, and he checked it out to make sure it wasn't a
bomb."
"It's called being careful."
"Yeah, well, he nearly took my head off for not
being careful, and it's going to take some work to get him in a better
mood." He touched the tip of his tongue to his upper lip. A faint flush
colored his cheeks, and the look in his eyes became…
I'd never seen that look before. It was obvious that he
wouldn't mind in the least doing whatever it took to get Matheson into a better
mood.
"Took your head off, how?" I took the box and
placed it on the floor in the foyer; I'd run some tests myself to make sure it
was harmless. Being paranoid had kept me alive. I scowled at him. "Did he
throw your having been a rentboy in your face?"
That was my old lady's favorite method of getting rid of a
guy. He'd look like he'd be willing to stay with us, and she'd tear into him
about something he'd said or done, or hadn't
said or done, and then he'd be out of our lives.
Theo looked surprised. "No. Wills has never done that.
He… Palm, he said he's…" There was a brief pause, and no one else would
have picked up on it. "He loves
me!"
He'd met Matheson, the agent I was training to become my
replacement in the field, a few months previously, in
This had been at the time my apartment had been destroyed.
Everyone, including Clay, thought I had bought the farm. Matheson came up with
the bright idea of calling my cell phone to see if I'd answer. When I did,
laying to rest the possibility of my demise, it depressed any number of deputy
directors and quite a few of the senior ones.
I was kind of sorry I hadn't been there to see that.
Still, there was a dead body that wasn't mine that needed
identifying. Matheson had met me at the morgue where we'd conducted a cursory
investigation.
Clay had been at the morgue also, and the expressions that
had flashed across his face… I felt bad that he'd thought I was dead.
Matheson had followed me in his car to the hospital on the
misguided assumption that I might need looking after.
When it became obvious that he wasn't going to back off, I
brought him with me into the ER.
Theo had looked up, relieved to see it was me. He ran his
gaze over Matheson, and it had gone from mildly curious to seriously intent in
two seconds flat. Matheson had flushed to the roots of his hair, and Theo began
to flirt with him.
I'd known the rentboy for more than ten years, and
unbeknownst to him, I had seen him when he'd been out with a john and in full
rentboy mode. He could make the man feel as if he were handsome and witty, a
raconteur on par with Noel Coward, and above all, skilled in the art of
lovemaking, all the world's greatest lovers rolled into one.
This was nothing like that. He was more than just
interested in a presentable male; he seemed… hungry.
I thought it would be intriguing to see how Matheson
responded to a come-on from another man.
He went to bed with him that first night.
Now they were living together.
The agent and the rentboy. It almost sounded like bad gay
porn.
I shook my head and looked at the box. "What can you
tell me about the man who gave this to you?"
"Average height, average build. Nothing remarkable. He
asked if you lived here." I went cold and could feel my game face slipping
into place. "He didn't look too dangerous…" Those were usually the
most dangerous ones. For instance, I didn't usually look dangerous. "…and
neither did this older woman he had waiting in the car for him. She was a really
classy-looking lady, Palm."
I was more concerned about the man just then. "Did he
happen to leave his name?" Not that he couldn't have lied about it.
"No, but I heard the woman call him Markov."
Markov? Mrs. Webb's… butler?
Yeah, I guessed it kind of made sense. She'd want to see
where her son was spending his nights when he wasn't at home. I wondered if she
thought he was slumming. The area had been slated for gentrification, but this
building still looked in need of an overhaul.
But why would she have Markov drop off a package for me?
"Listen, I've gotta get back. Wills was making noises
about teaching me the error of being so trusting." Theo shoved his hands
into the pockets of his jeans, pulling the material snug over his groin,
unintentionally drawing attention to the bulge there.
It was apparent that he was looking forward to it.
He strolled out into the hall, winking at me over his
shoulder.
I shut the door behind him and turned to study the box on
the floor.
****
When I was satisfied that it contained nothing lethal, I
took out a pen knife and slit the brown paper wrapping. An envelope was taped to
the top of the box. I opened it and removed the sheet of pale green writing
paper.
//My dear
//This is nowhere
near what my son's life is worth to me, but I hope you will accept it as a small
token of my deepest gratitude.
//Porter Webb//
Well, fuck me. It was a top-of-the-line DVD player.
There was more writing under the elegant curlicues of her
signature.
//PS I don't presume
to know your taste in movies, but the one I've enclosed was one of my husband's
favorites. It isn't available to the general public at this time. I hope you'll
enjoy watching it with my son.//
I picked up the slim, plastic case with the image of John
Wayne in a battered cowboy hat. At his heels was a scruffy mongrel.
"Sam."
I put the case on the coffee table and set about hooking up
the DVD player.
~End~
