Deep in the Act

Translator: Kotoni

Editor: Isalee

First Published on Chaleuria

Chapter 27.1 (NSFW)

Outside room 3705, Zhang Zhun planted himself before the door. Chen Hsin stood before him, shamelessly refusing to budge from his spot. "Aren't you going to open the door?"

"Aren't you going back to your room?" Zhang Zhun retorted, his back pressed tight against the door.

"But I don't have any medical stuff in my room." Knowing that Zhang Zhun kept his keycard in his left trouser pocket, Chen Hsin lunged forward to reach for it. Zhang Zhun pushed his arm away and dodged his advance at the same time, shrinking into the narrow shadows from the wall lamps. After darting his eyes up and down the corridor, Chen Hsin hugged the other man and pecked him on the cheek with a pop.

"You're out of your mind!" Covering his cheek in shock, Zhang Zhun raised an arm across his chest in defense. But Chen Hsin released him instead. Before the older man could make sense of what had happened, he heard a click from the door as it unlocked behind him.

Then, Chen Hsin tucked the keycard back into Zhang Zhun's hand and turned the handle. "Come on in," he said with a suave lift of his eyebrow.

Zhang Zhun did not move from his spot. He remained rooted in the doorway for a long time, until someone came down the hallway, luggage in tow, and gave him an odd look. Inside the room, Chen Hsin was digging through the drawers as if they were his own. "Where did Xiao-Deng keep all that stuff?"

Wringing his hands in unease, Zhang Zhun asked, "You're really injured?"

"What do you think?" Chen Hsin found a tube of medicated ointment, uncapped it, and gave its contents a sniff. "That punk kicked me. Several times. If I didn't have to worry about hurting my face, I'd have done him in." As he was speaking, he pa.s.sed the ointment to Zhang Zhun with a casual toss. "You got kicked as well when you tried to stop me, didn't you?"

The youth had indeed landed a kick on Zhang Zhun during the scuffle. Judging from the force of the impact, the youth might have undergone some kind of dance training before. "Where are your injuries?" he asked, lowering his guard. As he began making his way to Chen Hsin, however, the younger man slipped off his s.h.i.+rt with a lift of his arms. "My back, my a.s.s, and the front of my waist."

Zhang Zhun felt his hackles raise. Like a leaf shaken off its branch by the wind, or a still pool broken by sudden eddies, he looked away in a hurry. Chen Hsin continued to undress himself, his movements deliberate, as if he had set his heart on teasing the other man. He reached for his belt and unbuckled it with slow, drawn-out motions. Then he dropped his trousers. He allowed them to slide down the curve of his a.s.s before climbing brazenly onto the bed. Lying on his front, he called out to Zhang Zhun, "Come on now."

Before Zhang Zhun lay the tantalizing expanse of a naked, well-built back. Its firm muscles, though lacking a little in definition, were lean and powerful. Zhang Zhun's throat tightened, and the hoa.r.s.eness in his voice was marked by a note of unexpected bashfulness. "I'm not good at giving ma.s.sages…" he replied, so tense that his voice began to quiver. "I usually receive them from others instead."

Although Zhang Zhun was referring to therapeutic ma.s.sages, Chen Hsin could not help but think of another type of ma.s.sage - one that involved scented oils rather than medicated ones. He hardened a little at the thought. "Hurry up. I'm really in a lot of pain right now."

At this, Zhang Zhun walked over and sat down on the bed. He squeezed out some ointment, cool against his skin, and warmed it between his palms. "Where?"

"Left shoulder," Chen Hsin answered, his mouth watering a little as heat began to spread through his nose. "And just above my waist, on the right."

These spots had indeed reddened. Afraid of hurting Chen Hsin any further, Zhang Zhun began by testing his strength on the shoulder. Being somewhat of an expert, he kneaded the inflamed area with the heels of his palms instead of his fingers, each exertion eliciting a moan of pleasure from Chen Hsin.

Zhang Zhun blushed in embarra.s.sment. "Can you just… stop making so much noise?"

"Why? The last time your senior offered his service," Chen Hsin retorted with unmistakable emphasis on the innuendo, "your cries were far louder than this."

At the very mention of Wu Rong, Zhang Zhun knew that the topic had to be dropped immediately. He had no choice but to continue with his ministrations in silence. Several moments later, upon further instructions from Chen Hsin, he started moving downward. Alternating between pressures, his hands inched down the young man's back, following the fine lines of his muscles and bones. Although medicated ointments were more easily absorbed by the skin than essential oils, most of Chen Hsin's skin still glistened in the light with a wet, enticing sheen.

With great effort, Zhang Zhun made it to the small of Chen Hsin's back at long last. When Chen Hsin insisted that he continued going lower, however, Zhang Zhun refused his request. "I've reached the end," he replied, awkward and reluctant.

At this, Chen Hsin yanked down his underwear impatiently. "Hurry up and give it a few rubs, won't you?"

Zhang Zhun's eyes fell on the exposed flesh - the cheeks of a man's a.s.s, full and firm, their well-defined muscles flexing with urgency as they ground hard into the sheets. At the sight before him, Zhang Zhun's embarra.s.sment intensified almost to the point of fury. Without thinking, he pulled up the piece of fabric again. Yet, at the very same moment, Chen Hsin latched onto his wrist and thrust his hand under the waistband in a blatant act of indecency. Zhang Zhun tried to break away. Twice. He tried to shake off the younger man, but his efforts were in vain. He had no one but himself to blame for his failures, he knew: his body had become too limp to put up a fight anymore.

"I'm serious. It really hurts." Chen Hsin thrust his hips upward, frantic and stubborn in his attempt to press his flesh against the other man's palm. Zhang Zhun, however, kept his fist tightly clenched.

"If you refuse to help, it'll bruise by tomorrow, and I'll have to put up with the pain at work for the whole day."

Despite knowing that his words should not be trusted at all, Zhang Zhun could not help but give in. He no longer knew his own mind. Like a shameless wh.o.r.e who never meant the words she said, he relaxed his fingers of his own accord and cupped them against the curve of Chen Hsin's a.s.s. Then, feeling the life and vigor pulsating under his hand, he gave the handful of flesh a half-hearted squeeze.

A sigh of immense satisfaction escaped Chen Hsin at once. "You're so good at this!"

"Let go," Zhang Zhun muttered as he eyed the hand around his wrist, a note of shyness quivering in his voice.

Pretending not to have heard him, Chen Hsin continued, "I think I'm gonna get hard…"

But Zhang Zhun was well aware that the younger man had been hard for a long time. Just as he was about to yield to the suggestive mood between them, however, Chen Hsin held down his wrist and began to turn around. Trapped within the confines of Chen Hsin's underwear, his helpless hand started moving along the contours of Chen Hsin's lower body. He watched as it slid across the round cheeks of the younger man's a.s.s and climbed the prominence of his angular hipbone. Then, right before his eyes, it made a downward turn, trailing over the ridges of his abs, dipping lower and lower, until…  

Zhang Zhun flinched and retracted his hand as if he had been scalded. Lying on his back now, Chen Hsin gazed up at him, a roguish grin on his face. Leisurely tucking an arm under his head, he reached out again for Zhang Zhun's hand with the other. After holding it for several moments, he forced it open without any sense of shame, slid his fingers between Zhang Zhun's, and locked their hands together. Zhang Zhun lowered his head. He did not dare to lift it, for fear of meeting the explicit desire burning in Chen Hsin's eyes and losing himself in those depths forever.

"Your hand's really greasy…" Chen Hsin remarked as he rubbed his clean hand against Zhang Zhun's ointment-covered palm. The more he pressed their hands together, the greasier they became. Even the skin between their fingers became coated with the grease. Mimicking the techniques used in certain types of nightclubs and ma.s.sage parlors, Chen Hsin kneaded Zhang Zhun's palm rhythmically, making their hands squelch with every squeeze.

The s.e.xual allusion, vulgar and obscene, overwhelmed Zhang Zhun with shame. "Where… where on earth did you even learn to do this?!" he blurted out, his lashes trembling in distress.

In response, Chen Hsin gave his hand a light tug. As if he were plucking a ripened apricot from the topmost branch, or a falling star from the edge of the sky, he pulled Zhang Zhun onto the bed, right next to him. "You liked it?"

Lying cheek to cheek, their lips only a finger's distance apart, they gazed into each other's eyes. "Are we… just acting?" Zhang Zhun breathed out his question, bewildered and afraid. "Or are we doing this for real?"

Chen Hsin's gaze was calm as he began to reply at a slow, steady pace, "I was trying to seduce you… wasn't I?"

Zhang Zhun recognized the line at once: it was Gao Zhun's question to Fang Chi. "Nonsense," he continued the exchange in a mechanical fas.h.i.+on, "You were just feeling unstable. You didn't know what you were doing."

"No. I did know," Chen Hsin refuted with certainty. "That was exactly what I was doing - seducing you."

Although Zhang Zhun already had the next line on the tip of his tongue, he was unwilling to say it out loud. Chen Hsin closed his eyes and waited for him to continue. At last, with great reluctance, he muttered, "You're straight, and so am I. There's no such thing as seduction between us."

Chen Hsin opened his eyes and smiled as he leaned even closer to Zhang Zhun. "See, it's just an act. We're just practicing. There's no need to get so stressed out." Then he kissed Zhang Zhun, his tongue savoring every inch of flesh within that mouth while he thrust his hardness again and again between Zhang Zhun's legs. Really? - Zhang Zhun's mind went blank - Were they really just practicing for their act? There Chen Hsin was, undoing his belt, pulling down his pants as if he was going to do him for real… and all he wanted was just to practice?

"It's been too long…" Lost in desire, Chen Hsin pressed his lips against Zhang Zhun's skin and breathed into his ear. "It's too long since we both got any…"

So be it. Zhang Zhun made up his mind all of a sudden. What promises would two men need from each other anyway? What kinds of promises could they give? Like a s.e.x-starved woman seeking the embrace of a mysterious lover, he threw his arms around Chen Hsin with wanton eagerness. Images from that dream resurfaced in his mind: their bodies grinding together like there was no tomorrow, their waists bucking unstoppably in unison as they rutted against each other without end… Everything in his 'dream' was about to come true now, he realized, and he was only a step away from the point of no return. He began shaking at the thought. Then, casting aside every last shred of shame within himself, he reached down with trembling hands and removed his own underwear.