Category: Not Safe for Work

“What is this, Starsk? Huh? Well?”

Starsky peered through his thick lash­es at the small, fes­tive box he’d placed on the cof­fee table in front of Hutch. “S’noth­ing. Just open it.”

Hutch rubbed his chin. “If it’s noth­ing, why should I open it?”

“Okay, okay. It’s noth­ing big, is what I meant to say,” Starsky told the box.

“If it’s ‘noth­ing big,’ why are you talk­ing to an inan­i­mate object instead of me, you rule break­er?”

Starsky’s gaze snapped up and fixed on Hutch’s baby blues. “I’m not—I did­n’t break—”

“How is this not break­ing the rules? Did you not get me, in a moment of lust-induced insan­i­ty, to agree to exchange one Christ­mas present?” Hutch held up his hand, palm toward Starsky. “I’m not fin­ished. If this box isn’t a sec­ond present, what is it? Because it sure seems like a sec­ond present to me.”

Starsky ran a hand through his hair. “Oh, for cry­ing out loud. It’s more of a—of a sym­bol than a present.”

“A sym­bol?” Hutch wrin­kled his nose in a way Starsky always found both annoy­ing and cute as hell. “What kind of sym­bol?”

“You’ll see when—or if—you ever open it.”

Look­ing as though he’d been asked to han­dle fresh road­kill with bare hands, Hutch picked up the box and shook it near his ear. “Cof­fee mug?” he guessed.

“Uh-huh,” said Starsky, nod­ding slow­ly. “Because every­one knows that a cof­fee mug is a sym­bol. Of a cof­fee mug.”

“Feels like it could be a cof­fee mug,” Hutch mut­tered while tear­ing off the can­dy cane-pat­terned wrap­ping paper. “If I lift this lid and some­thing jumps out at me, so help me—”

“Not gonna hap­pen, Blondie. After that blind­fold thing, I promised there’d be no more pranks, did­n’t I?”

“Yeah, but you also promised only one gift. You’ve also been act­ing awful­ly squir­re­ly today, and not just because it’s Christ­mas. For exam­ple, you took what­ev­er this is out of the fridge.”

“Maybe I should put it back in there.” Starsky reached for the box. “Bet­ter yet, in the trash.”

“Oh, no you don’t!” Hutch bat­ted Starsky’s hand away. “I’m way too curi­ous now. Maybe a lit­tle scared, but more curi­ous than any­thing.”

Starsky exhaled nois­i­ly and wiped his hands on his thighs as Hutch reached into the box.

“Um. Okay. Is this—is this what I think it is?” Hutch exam­ined the cold glass jar, which held a sin­gle small red sphere float­ing in thick, match­ing-col­ored liq­uid.

“Yup.”

Hutch scratched his head. “A cher­ry?”

“Not a cher­ry.” Starsky start­ed wor­ry­ing an imag­i­nary hang­nail. “My cher­ry.”

“Your ch-ch—”

“They’re not in sea­son, obvi­ous­ly, so I had to set­tle for the maraschi­no kind. And I only need­ed one—I fig­ured giv­ing you a bunch of them would ruin the, uh, symbolism—so I had to eat the oth­er 74. The first 30 or so weren’t bad, but chok­ing down the rest near­ly made me sick, not to men­tion they turned my teeth bright pink and I had to brush twice to get—”

“Babe?” Hutch touched a fin­ger to Starsky’s lips. “This is—I nev­er would’ve expected—I don’t know what to say.”

“How about ‘thank you?’ ” Starsky stud­ied his per­fect cuti­cles. “Unless you don’t want it.”

Hutch gath­ered Starsky in his arms. “Of course I want it, dum­my. But just because I gave you my, uh, maraschi­no—” His heart swelled when Starsky chuck­led against the side of his neck. “—does­n’t mean you have to rec­i­p­ro­cate.”

“I know that,” Starsky said, pulling back enough to make eye con­tact. “Since when have I done some­thing I did­n’t want to?”

“Okay, you’ve got a point, but—”

“But what?”

“Starsk, I don’t—”

“Think I’ll sur­vive my first time? I guar­an­tee you that I will. You did, right? In fact, the more we do it, the more you seem to like it.”

“Oh, yeah. I like it.” It was­n’t the tem­per­a­ture of the apart­ment that was turn­ing Hutch’s cheeks rosy.

Starsky leaned in and kissed him sound­ly, then sprang to his feet. “Stay right there. I have to get some­thing from the kitchen.”

Hutch enjoyed the view as his fine-assed part­ner dashed off but frowned when he heard a draw­er being opened and met­al rat­tling. “What are you up to now?”

Starsky bound­ed back to the sofa and plopped down beside Hutch. “Need­ed this,” he said, bran­dish­ing a tea­spoon.

“What for?” Hutch asked, tak­en aback.

“Watch,” Starsky instruct­ed. He grabbed the jar, twist­ed off the lid, and used the spoon to fish out the cher­ry before pick­ing it up with his thumb and index fin­ger. “Open that sexy mouth of yours.”

With a know­ing smile, Hutch obeyed, first suck­ing the morsel of fruit, fol­lowed by Starsky’s fin­gers, past his lips. Once he released the deli­cious dig­its, Hutch chewed the cher­ry and swal­lowed it.

Eyes twin­kling, Starsky wiped his wet hand on his jeans. “That’s one down,” he said, “and one to go.”

“One wha—? Oh. Right.” Hutch’s grin fad­ed. “I hope you’re in as good a mood lat­er, when I’ve had my wicked way with you.”

Starsky grabbed Hutch by the wrist and stood. “Would you quit wor­ry­ing and defruit me already?”

With a snort, Hutch let Starsky help pull him off the sofa and into a brave new world for them both.

“Oh, my god.” Starsky was still breath­ing hard.

Hutch was, too. “So you keep say­ing.”

“That was—you were—” Starsky slid off Hutch’s slick chest and rolled on his side so that they were face to face. “The actu­al, uh, you know, was great and all, but what—where did you learn how to do that oth­er, uh, thing?”

“When we first start­ed sleep­ing togeth­er, remem­ber all that time I spent in the library?”

“In the dirty books sec­tion, you mean?” Starsky snick­ered.

That got him his nose tweaked. “We should both be grate­ful for those dirty books,” Hutch mock scold­ed, “espe­cial­ly the ones that talk about gay sex. Any­way, one of the things I dis­cov­ered was that ‘oth­er thing’ you men­tioned. It helps get a per­son ready for, um, pen­e­tra­tion, but everyone—including women—can use it as part of fore­play.”

Starsky propped him­self up on his elbow. “What do they call it, Pro­fes­sor Hutchin­son?”

Hutch cleared his throat and tried to look seri­ous and schol­ar­ly. “The for­mal name is analin­gus, but in infor­mal terms it’s known as rim­ming, eat­ing ass, and—and so on.”

“And you’ve nev­er done it before or had it done to you?”

“No! Why? Have you?”

“What do you think? Of course not. But I’d like to know why you’ve nev­er asked me to do it to you.”

Hutch flopped onto his back. “I guess—I guess I thought it might be ask­ing too much.”

“For such a smart guy,” Starsky said, pinch­ing Hutch’s nip­ple, which elicit­ed a lit­tle shriek, “you’re pret­ty dumb.”

Hutch rolled back to his side and pulled the sheet up to his neck. “Maybe you’re right.”

“Oh, there’s no ‘maybe’ about it. Why would you think I would­n’t wan­na do some­thing to you—for you—that feels so damned good? Jesus, Hutch.”

“Okay, okay. You can do it to me the next time I’m on the receiv­ing end. All right?”

“Fine. I will.”

“And Starsk? That was the best Christ­mas present ever.”

Starsky sat up some­what care­ful­ly and leaned against the head­board. “Thanks, Hutch, but I know you too well. So, don’t you dare say we should stop giv­ing each oth­er gifts just because I’ll nev­er be able to top this year’s.”

Hutch sighed dra­mat­i­cal­ly. “Had to try.”

“I’d be shocked if you did­n’t.” Starsky yawned.

“Have I worn you out?”

“Some­thing like that. I’m gonna take a hot bath before I crash. Wan­na join me?”

Hutch did.

An hour lat­er…

“Hutch?” the big spoon whis­pered into the lit­tle spoon’s ear. “You asleep?”

“Sor­ta. Wha’s’it?”

“I have a great idea for next Christ­mas.”

“ ‘Course ya do.”

“Wan­na hear it?”

Hutch grunt­ed what sound­ed like his gar­bled con­sent.

“I was think­ing—” Starsky nib­bled Hutch’s right ear­lobe gen­tly. “—we could do stock­ings for each oth­er. Plus the one present. Would­n’t that be fun?”

“Sure. Now lemme sleep.”

“Absolute­ly.” Starsky plant­ed a line of kiss­es along Hutch’s jaw­line. “G’night.”

“ ‘Night.”

Starsky set­tled his head back down on the pil­low, lis­ten­ing to Hutch drift off to dream­land. “Well, how about that?” he said qui­et­ly. “Seems you also suf­fer from fatigue-induced insan­i­ty, you big, beau­ti­ful putz. Best Christ­mas ever.”

Click on the image to view it larg­er.

It had been a long week. Christ­mas week and as always, Starsky and Hutch were on duty. They appre­ci­at­ed it was a time for fam­i­lies, but the last few years work­ing ‘round Christ­mas taught them one thing. There were plen­ty of emp­ty hous­es in the city as peo­ple vis­it­ed and stayed with loved ones out of town. Bay City became split, shad­ow and light. Bur­glar­ies spiked every year, but Starsky and Hutch were deter­mined not to allow them to ruin peo­ple’s mem­o­ries of their Christ­mas.

This year was no dif­fer­ent, four bur­glar­ies already–all emp­ty hous­es. Neigh­bors or friends keep­ing an eye on prop­er­ties had report­ed them.

“Offi­cer, can I take my news­pa­per? The lad always gets our address­es mixed up. See it’s got my house num­ber on it.” The elder­ly lady point­ed to the house num­ber writ­ten on the top of the news­pa­per. “She can­celled her news­pa­per deliv­ery with the shop.” Con­tin­ue read­ing “Decem­ber 18th- The Case Closed, The Heart Opened by Shell007”

“I’m sor­ry, Hutch. I’m so damn sor­ry.”

After the best night of his life, his dreams crashed hard, as Starsky’s regret washed over him. Hutch extri­cat­ed him­self from the bed­ding and sat up on the edge of the bed, his back to his lover of the night before. “It’s okay. I was kind of expect­ing it.” He stood and head­ed for the bath­room. “I’ll just be a minute.” Con­tin­ue read­ing “Decem­ber 16th- The Morn­ing After the Night Before by Jes­si­ca Cel­liers”

Hutch shut off the show­er and grabbed a tow­el, grin­ning as he pulled on the red plaid under­wear Starsky packed for him. He stepped out of the bath­room and paused, caught by the scene wait­ing for him.

The hotel room exud­ed pure lux­u­ry. A king-sized bed stood in the cen­ter, dressed in satin pil­low­cas­es and a crisp blue-and-white striped duvet, giv­ing the room a fresh, coastal feel. Floor-to-ceil­ing win­dows revealed a sweep­ing view of the ocean, its beau­ty mock­ing him with its vast­ness.

How­ev­er, it was­n’t the room or the ocean that stopped Hutch in his tracks.

It was Starsky. Con­tin­ue read­ing “Decem­ber 14th- Make It Snow by SHy­ba­by”

It was fun­ny at the time. Maybe because they were all a bit high on life; the two detec­tives were obvi­ous­ly under the influ­ence. Hug­gy had hung the live-flame lantern to the fire sprin­kler above Starsky’s hos­pi­tal bed—and it was Hutch who first sus­pect­ed the inevitable out­come.

Starsky was feel­ing extra-sen­ti­men­tal because his clos­est friends had come to his hos­pi­tal room that night to feed him a home­made meal, share a bot­tle of fine wine with him, and cel­e­brate his mirac­u­lous recov­ery from a near-death expe­ri­ence. His eupho­ria was also due to the four painkillers he’d tak­en, espe­cial­ly when they were cou­pled with Hutch’s presence—and his partner’s con­ta­gious laugh­ter. Con­tin­ue read­ing “Decem­ber 13th- Sweet Relief by Dan­de­lion”

This is inspired by Dan Sav­age’s new mini-pod­cast After Action Report, where he talks to peo­ple who have tried some­thing sex­u­al that’s new to them. Set in our time, Starsky and Hutch are 80. (And, no, I did not reg­is­ter the domain name men­tioned here so Google at your own risk.)

Mick­ey: “Wel­come to this week’s ‘I Tried It Report,’ where peo­ple like you and me regale us with their expe­ri­ences of try­ing some­thing new in the bedroom—or out of the bed­room, too, if that’s your thing. Hey, vari­ety keeps things inter­est­ing! I’m your host Mick­ey Rivera, and today we’re talk­ing with Dave and Ken from Cal­i­for­nia. Hi, Dave & Ken!” Con­tin­ue read­ing “Decem­ber 12th- The I Tried It Report Pod­cast by Mat­Sir”

“I’m tak­ing him home, Cap.” Dobey was yelling into the phone pressed to Starsky’s ear, but Starsky did­n’t hear him. He was frown­ing at the staff lurk­ing at the ICU cubi­cle, try­ing to get Hutch’s atten­tion. “They used to wor­ry he would­n’t wake up. Now they’re afraid of what he’ll tell them, and they’re treat­ing him like some freak, but they wan­na know. They’re mov­ing him to a semi-pri­vate room, but they won’t let him rest. I’m tak­ing him home. Now. I’ll call you lat­er.” He hung up on Dobey mid-rant and com­man­deered a wheel­chair.

“Out­ta my way!” He pushed through the crowd at the cubi­cle door. “Out! Every­one! NOW!” he roared, and he con­front­ed the order­lies with the gur­ney, mum­bling non-stop ques­tions at his part­ner, and man­han­dling him from the bed like they’d nev­er han­dled a patient before. “You, too! OUT! And take that thing with you.”

One look at the rage on Starsky’s face, and the gun on his hip, and they fled the room, push­ing the gur­ney. Starsky shut the door behind them and opened the bag he’d tossed on the chair. Con­tin­ue read­ing “Decem­ber 7th- The Prophet by Jes­si­ca Cel­liers”