The Breaking Point: M/M Mpreg Alpha Male Romance Read online

  It sounds so easy on paper. Vinny wants to make sure he’s always a self-made man, someone who calls the shots in his own life, but in doing that he’s denying himself what he wants (Lance) for fear that what he wants will bring destruction on him. He and Lance in public the way they are would bring down everything they’ve built together, and the secret behind those kids is just a bomb waiting to explode, but how can Vinny worry that keeping away from Lance will let him keep all that Lance brought him in the first place? His confidence, his good luck, his stardom? Their act?

  He talks about this, very carefully, with Frankie. Frankie knows enough to know they fuck, and Vinny doesn’t want him to cotton on to any more layers to the relationship than that, but at long last someone does finally know, and doesn’t like him any less for it. And for heaven’s sake, Frankie was willing to bend his own rules to try and know Vinny better—if that’s not a hell of a friend, what is?

  “Did that get started right away, you and him, is that how you met? Or were you partners first and then partners with benefits later?”

  He and Frankie both spent some of their movie money on a new wardrobe, have started dressing natty and nice, and drinking out of crystal instead of just any old cup in the cupboard. This is a lifestyle Vinny knows he wants to get used to, but never so used to that he takes it for granted and loses it again.

  “Both happened on the same night,” Vinny says. Their living room is still shabby but their clothes and their drinks—it feels like they’re on the rise when he and Frankie sit down like this. “He’s got such stage presence, and we started dreaming big and planning an act right away, and I think that magic, you know, that sort of intoxication of a big idea, that made us both just wild for each other.”

  “What went wrong?”

  “Nothing, not really, that’s what’s so weird about it all. I don’t want people to know about us, though. I didn’t want you to know either.”

  “Yeah, that’s why you didn’t say boo about it,” Frankie says. “I talk about girls, you just Mystery-Man stare off into space and make a vague noise that means nothing.”

  “Well, at least I’m not a liar,” Vinny says.

  “Just a bit of a mute, that’s fine, that don’t bother my feelings at all.” Frankie’s got a pretty good mysterious smile of his own these days. He might be learning that from Vinny, studying him to get it right. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, way more so than a kiss.

  “I wish I knew how to hide in plain sight, wish I had some guarantee that my career would never suffer for the life I live around it.”

  “You can’t have that, brother, that’s not at all how show biz works,” Frankie says, sitting up quickly out of a kicked-back position, his electric blue eyes alive with zeal. “What you have, all the glory and money and fame, comes with the sword of Damocles hanging over your head, it’s the price of being a king.”

  Vinny smiles now to see Frankie so lit up—he’s got that show biz bug bad, that’s how they understand each other so well. Lance does not care about the heights of achievement in show business, he doesn’t care if it ever makes him rich or wins him an award, he’s like his parents, just happy to be alive and well and in front of any audience no matter how small. He’s got this sweet, humble, pure streak that Vinny hardly understands, but it’s what drew him to Lance in the first place: the stage is his home and the audience can feel that. They work well together because they are two sides of the same coin, the love of the art and the drive to take it to the heights of its potential. Now if only that were easy! More of a rocket and less of a tight-rope walk. Oh well.

  Vinny knows he’ll be back with Lance eventually, but as he’s proven before, he finds it so easy to be alone. Eventually could mean Christmas (he wouldn’t go home for the holiday to Steubenville, obviously; he might try to join in with the Hershkowitzes and get schooled about the Jewish people’s reason for the season). Eventually could also mean not until the premiere of Un-Expecting! It could easily mean just long enough that Lance isn’t waiting for him anymore. He knows that’s a danger to himself and unfair to Lance and himself, but he’s too afraid to force the situation to a crisis. Something drastic has to happen first.

  What happens is that little Paul takes a big fall. Vinny gets a phone call from a shaky-voiced Ma Hershkowitz telling him the bad news.

  “We were packing up, getting ready to leave the set,” she says. “Paulie got away from all of us in the confusion and climbed up on some dolly. We didn’t even know he could climb like that, but kids always learn faster than you think they will . . .”

  Vinny’s heart feels cold when he asks her, “What happened to him?” He wonders if that’s how he’ll feel from now on, depending on the news: cold inside, dead inside, forever.

  “He’s okay! He has the tiniest little cast on, is all. It was a bad fall but he didn’t hit his head, he didn’t break the arm too badly, it just…” she sniffles and has to pause for a moment, then comes back with a waver in her voice. “I just cry every time I see the little cast, it could have been so much worse, it was scary for a while there. Babies that young almost never break bones, they’re too rubbery still. If he’d fallen that hard on his neck, I’d be calling you for a…for a funeral. I think Lance wants to strap the kid to his back and keep this next one inside of him forever, no one’s allowed to go wandering off ever again as far as he’s concerned.” Next she laughs a tiny bit and says, “That’ll make going to school pretty interesting, I guess. We haven’t really planned that far yet.”

  “He’s still…” Vinny says, and then trails off because Frankie’s in the other room and can hear what he’s saying. He wanted to ask if Lance was still growing that second kid, is there enough time to come back for the birth, but he doesn’t need to ask any questions. It’s time to go back to him and little Paul right now, no matter where they are. “So you’ve left the set, where are you staying? Are you still in L.A.?”

  “Sure we are, kiddo. Should we expect you for dinner?”

  “Yes,” Vinny says.

  She laughs a little bit more and gives Vinny the address. Vinny just has to grab a few things and tell Frankie something that makes sense.

  “Lance’s…little brother broke his arm, he’s pretty upset, so…” Vinny says as he scrambles around packing at least a basic overnight bag, but he’s not really thinking logically. He thinks he might have packed an ashtray and a spoon, he’s not really got a grip on practicalities right now. “That was his mother, so I’m just gonna go see him, right now.”

  “Okay,” Frankie says. “Gonna bring the guy a little sexual healing, is that the plan?”

  “Funny,” Vinny says without cracking a smile. “Guess we better watch out, you’re coming for the comedy act next, huh?”

  Vinny’s at the door and Frankie follows him, handing him stuff he would have otherwise forgot: keys, phone, shoes. Frankie’s a good friend to help.

  “I’ve never seen a guy who had the love bug as bad as you, brother. Good luck with that,” Frankie says.

  “Thanks, brother. Good luck finding a new roommate who dresses as nice as either of us.”

  Frankie starts laughing as Vinny leaves. The sound of laughter earned makes him feel a bit better. He must really be a showman down to his bones, and if that’s so, maybe he doesn’t have to worry so much about losing the magic. He can’t help the magic.

  Vinny gets a taxi to where Lance is, a tiny sublet with only one bed and one couch. Vinny doesn’t know who gets the couch and who shares the bed with Lance so full of a kid, but it’s not the most pressing question he has right now. His first question is, is everyone okay? He second is whether Lance can forgive him for wandering off like this.

  Lance waves him over to the couch, and when Vinny sits down, Lance lays his head in Vinny’s lap and practically falls asleep right that moment.

  “I’m so tired,” he says. “Keep an eye on everything while I sleep.”

  Vinny smiles as he pats Lance’s head thinking, Everyth
ing? Is that all? But he knows what Lance means, and he can handle it. He lets Lance use him as a pillow for the rest of this second baby incubation (that’s what Lance calls it). And this time Vinny is there getting his hand squeezed hard when this one emerges (it’s a Gus!). And he’s there the day that Lance is no longer feeling tired, and says, “Hey, what do you say we hit the stage again with our act, just some open mics or something, just to get the rust off?” And Vinny agrees to that. Ma and Pa Hershkowitz clear a night for them regarding baby duty, and they go to the dumpiest dive they can find (so about a block; it’s Los Angeles).

  It’s more fun than Vinny ever could have believed. Maybe it’s just been too long since they only played for each other, or maybe it’s because it’s just a really solid day in their relationship because they both mean to be here and wouldn’t rather be anywhere else, or maybe it’s because they’re both really horny, and that gives them an extra pep in their step.

  “Hey, Mister! Let me up on stage, okay? I wanna talk in the mic!”

  That’s Lance starting from the crowd, pretending to be an audience member with no boundaries whatsoever.

  “Oh, you want to meet my friend here?” Vinny says, holding up the mic. He’s been singing, and now he lays on the crooner’s soothing routine to talk to Lance.

  “Yeah, what’s his name? He seems nice!” Lance crawls up on stage. He’s really learned out to imitate a toddler’s movements since he’s been raising one practically by himself. Vinny’s heart softens as he reaches to help Lance up, but he doesn’t break the bit.

  “Well, this is Handheld Mike, most people just call him Mike.” Lance grabs for the mic and Vinny lets him have it, picking up another off a stand and turning it on.

  “HULLO, MIKE,” Lance says too loud, causing feedback.

  “Whoa, kid, whoa! Mike can hear just fine, you can talk to him quietly.” Some people are already laughing so hard they can’t breathe, a few more people are coming around, the rest have no earthly idea what’s going on.

  “I love him!” Lance claims suddenly.

  Vinny is trying not to smile when he turns to make an aside to the audience. “Well somebody’s been bitten by the show biz bug, huh?” One woman looks like she’s about to pee her pants laughing, most people are just blinking, like curious owls.

  “Hey, if you love the Mike so much, why don’t you marry him? You know just about any old thing’s legal in California.” That gets more of a titter from people too adult for the silly stuff.

  “Well…but how would that work?” Lance asks, his eye googling and his mouth slack and dumbfounded.

  “Well, kid, just look at the shape of Mike there,” Vinny says, getting the laughs from people who like dirty jokes. “I think if you really want to love him, with enough practice and stretching, I think he would fit.”

  Lance is too much of a showman to break character, but he gets the joke too; Vinny can see it in his eyes, and that it turns him on. They’ll have to borrow the right-sized mic for later.

  “I happen to know that there are Object Consent laws! You’d have to ask Mike if he likes me back first!”

  “Huh? You better get to know Mike there pretty quickly, because you’re talking out of your ass, and I can barely hear you!”

  They leave the stage well-liked and high on the applause and all that dirty talk they just got away with in public. Vinny doesn’t even look around once they’re off in the shadows of the wings, he just starts kissing Lance and asking him, “Can we really take home a mic and use it, baby? We could put a condom on one and it would be okay, wouldn’t it?”

  “Nah, forget that, pally, I don’t want anything wired for anything but vibration in there, but hey, I got something else back home. You know what Ben Wa balls are?”

  “Tell me,” Vinny says. He’s got Lance pressed to the wall, he doesn’t know where they’ll have any privacy for whatever this thing is back home, but he isn’t thinking ahead right now, he’s in the moment.

  “Smooth balls, hard, on a string, like a string of beads, but bigger. The point is,” Lance whispers, “that you slip each ball inside of me one by one.”

  Vinny groans just thinking about it, just hearing Lance talk about it like this, his whispering breath tickling Vinny’s ear.

  “One by one, until I’m full of them,” Lance says, sucking Vinny’s earlobe into his mouth without biting it, just sucking on it with his lips. “And then you pull them right back out of me, slowly, and then fuck me in the space you just created.”

  Vinny sucks in a gasp. He’s grinding against Lance’s hip and thigh right now, and picturing doing what he’s talking about: pulling a chain of spheres out of Lance’s hole like a magician pulling scarves out of his sleeve, and then knowing all that can fit inside his baby’s hole, just stuffing him full again of Vinny’s own shaft and filling him with cum. Picturing it, with Lance up against, Vinny manages to cum in his own pants, in this room full of people who can’t see what they’re up to behind the curtains. When Vinny surfaces again from the dizzying cloud of pleasure he’s faded into, Lance is smiling at him, bold as brass, running his tongue over his teeth and wiggling his eyebrows up and down.

  “What, what’s so funny?”

  “As me again how I can cum hands free? Do you get it now?”

  Vinny laughs. “I still don’t really get it, you do it when nothing’s even touching your dick—that should be impossible.”

  “Something’s always touching my dick when it happens, ya idiot, you are! You’re just doing it from the inside.”

  “Ah, baby,” Vinny sighs. “I’ve never even thought of it like that. That makes it so much hotter to fuck you.”

  “I’m glad you like it,” Lance says politely. After that, Vinny and Lance are both laughing their asses off, and they try to make more dirty jokes about it all the way home.

  16. Picture Perfect

  Gus is celebrating his first birthday by the time Un-Expecting! has its premiere and Paulie Junior is nearly three. They’re thinking they’ll let one more kid happen, in the hopes that they’ll get a little Paulina this time, but there’s no big rush to it, because the movie’s such a money-making success they get signed for two sequels—Lance can write their third try for a girl right into the script!

  This deal comes with money, and with the money and the success comes a certain amount of status. People start to seek them out hoping their good fortune will rub off, and Lance and Vinny get to play favorites with that, bestowing attention and vague promises to get people with wealth or charm to hang around while their out. The only person they know for sure they’ll fight hard to get into their movies is Frankie, because they both like Frankie, but Lance needs to stake a claim first.

  When Frankie shows up to their congratulations party, the first Lance has seen of him since Miami, he comes right up and kisses Vinny on the cheek. Says something Italian about it: big hug, kiss kiss each cheek, mangia buongiorno grazie, whatever. Lance speaks up and says, “Hey where’s my kiss?”

  Frankie comes to Lance’s side of the corner booth they’re sitting in at the bar (like kings on a dais, very nice spot) and tries to just shake his hand and give him a very dudely back pat. Lance stands up quick to surprise him, and lays a big kiss right on his mouth, with a little bit of tongue thrown in for good measure. Frankie looks at Lance and then at Vinny, Vinny looks from him to Lance, and all Lance has to say to both of them about it is, “We’re even now.” He looks them both hard in the eye so they get the message. Let that be the last of that tomfoolery. Bro-mance needs to take a back seat to his and Vinny’s show-mance, that’s what Lance believes.

  Frankie’s no huge concern, but the demands of success are upon them quickly after they’re looking at a three-picture deal. They’ve got new work to do, old work to finish, and in the meantime they’ve got to maintain their craft, keep going on auditions, and—oh yeah!—babies. There are still two whole babies around, and a relationship to maintain between each other so they don’t traumatize the little s
uckers. Probably sleeping is something they’ll want to do too, but it’s pretty hard to find the time to fit such a thing into the schedule.

  Suddenly they’re living the L.A. lifestyle full-swing: sunshine everywhere they go, bright and almost intrusive, back and forth for filming scenes on location, half the time learning their lines while they’re on their lighting marks, and the only thing that makes it feel real and not like some surreal dream is the moments they spend together, at least that’s how it works for Lance. Everything else is like a complicated, choreographed dance: child care and phone calls and transport and trying to be anywhere on time in this clogged city (not happening), and then all the moving parts of family and movies, all the people involved and knowing that if one person fucks up, the whole thing could come to a lurching halt and start gumming up the rest of the systems…Lance just doesn’t want to be the juggler who drops the ball, that’s all. He has to trick himself with little rewards to get it all done, he’s not the shark that Vinny can be, moving to live, a machine of precision and stoicism. Lance keeps candy stashed in every bag and every room and cubby that’s his own so he can reward himself with little candy pebbles for every deadline met, like a trained mouse. When people find candy practically falling out of his upturned pant cuffs he blames his kids. Sorry, buckaroos, but daddy’s not trying to explain himself and this weirdness to anyone who doesn’t know him—those kids are the fall guys in this family until they learn how to talk and start making up stories of their own about everybody else. Born in the circus, live by circus rules, that’s how it goes. Still, for how well Lance is keeping his balls in the air, he’s still really desperate for something to break and give him some breathing room. Vinny can tell he’s already tired of being happy, and in fact that’s how he puts it to Lance as they’re falling asleep one night, wrapped up in each other’s limbs and whatnot.