Love and Tea Bags

by C F White

  Rolling onto his front, noticing how dirty the carpet was and how it unfathomably smelt of stale smoke, he attempted to lift himself up. He retched, releasing a sickly-sweet tasting glob of putrid bile into his mouth. Grimacing, he swallowed it back down. Why, he wasn’t sure. It wouldn’t have made a difference to the carpet. If there was ever a moment that Mark wished he lived with someone to make him his morning cuppa, this was that very time. But, alas, he lived alone. Which, on further reflection, was probably a good thing, considering the state he was in.

  He shook his head—another mistake as the pounding just got louder—and contemplated calling in sick. He was, technically, sick. But then remembered he was supposed to be in charge of the office today and that wouldn’t be his best move as far as management went. Nope, he would just have to get up and get on with it. Keep calm and carry on.

  Grunting, he stood, wobbled a bit on his toes and placed the heels of his palms to his temples to rid it of the Stomp re-enactment that was going on within his frontal lobe. The shower made far too much noise with its electric whirring, but Mark couldn’t forgo the daily wash, what with smelling like a brewery mixed with the contents of a neglected lunch box. So he made light work of showering, every movement that of a new born foal. Why do hangovers mess with balance? He groaned all the way through dressing, opting for a lightweight shirt minus the tie as he wouldn’t remember how to knot the thing at this point anyway.

  Every step down the stair case was like tackling Everest. He didn’t bother to make himself a tea. He planned to demand a cuppa from the bloke who had caused all this mess of a Tuesday morning, so shoved his keys in his pocket and bolted out into the fresh air.

  Arriving at Macy’s shop front, Mark cursed. A couple of old dears walking their dogs frowned, but he didn’t have his usual immediate apologetic response. Blasted Bradley and his laissez-faire attitude to self-employment. The shoppe was closed. Whipping out his mobile phone from his pocket, he immediately hit Dial. No answer. The bastard.

  With a firm press of the red button, he wished that mobile phones came with the ability to slam them down on the receiver like the good old days. It was simply impossible to end an angry phone call on a mobile. He slid his thumb along the screen and opened up a new message. Composing one with angry thumbs, he tapped so hard he thought he might add another few cracks to the screen. The whoosh indicated that the text hadn’t just sat there in his Outbox like so many others—mostly to his mother. He shoved the phone back into his pocket and headed to work.

  “Morning, Yvonne.”

  Yvonne glanced up from her computer screen, nodding in response, disapproval already sweeping across her face. Mark ignored it and went straight through the office to the end kitchenette. Flipping on the kettle, he groaned. His usual mug, all washed up on the side of the draining board, did manage to lift his mood a tad. He was a simple man after all. Black lettering wound around a silhouette face of Lionel Richie asking Hello? Is It Tea You’re Looking For? Not only was it a great play on words, but it was also quite right.

  He sighed, searching through the cupboards for where the cleaners had hidden his tea bags this time. His own-bought Twinings were nowhere to be found, so with a firm huff he added one of the dangling triangular bags into his cup. The water trickling into the porcelain gave Mark renewed energy, like an early morning hug would have, until he noted there was no milk. Bugger!

  Mark slammed the fridge door with such force that it didn’t actually shut. Go figure. Such was his life. Mark was now fairly certain the world was against him. It always had been. Breathe, count to ten. Before he reached five, his phone buzzed in his pocket. Yvonne entered and plonked her own mug down on the surface next to his with no accompanying words other than a tap of her pointy nail to the emblem. It emulated her personality too. The work logo.

  “Sadly no milk, Yvonne.” Mark attempted a combined pleading and pressuring look that suggested that she might want to pop out to the shop to go get some

  She hummed then opted for a green tea. Mark held in the huff and waved his phone away from his face, squinting to decipher the message.

  “Cute puppy.” Yvonne peered over his shoulder, masking a chuckle. Something Mark wasn’t ever sure he’d witnessed before.

  On his phone display, for all to see, was Bradley’s face, a huge pout with dog ears, nose and a slurpy tongue waggling with a written message sprawled across the middle, Pouty Puppy Pologises.

  Mark fumbled with it for a moment then, deciding on black tea, trudged over to his desk and lowered carefully to sit. No movement, so he composed his reply.

  I can see now why you didn’t open the shop. Is this what happens when you drink after a certain time of night? Paw thing.

  He chuckled, then logged in. His phone buzzed a returning text and Mark went to offer his apologetic expression over at Yvonne. She hadn’t moved from her screen, clearly getting her fix of the online gossip pages now the boss wasn’t in.

  I need to rest to fix your woof

  Several little images bounced in after the message, none of which Mark could fathom the meaning of. The art of conversation lost to yellow faces and primates. He stuck to the use of words for his next reply.

  Macy will pound your arse

  Clicking into his emails, he swiped through the various correspondence from clients and the one massive essay from his boss providing all the rules and procedures for whilst he was away and reminding him that the work experience kid due in that morning was the son of a personal friend. Mark wasn’t sure why he needed to be reminded that the child must be treated with the utmost respect. His phone vibrated on the desk surface.

  She’d be barking up the wrong tree. I prefer hounds on my arse

  A smile curved on Mark’s lips. Shaking himself out, he gave himself a stern talking to. Bradley was Macy’s cousin. Mark was not meant to be engaging in flirtatious exchanges of text messages with the expat. Mark was several years Bradley’s senior. Old enough to be his father. Was he? Mark was too hungover to do the maths on that one, so decided to accept that he was. Besides, Bradley was an Adonis. And Mark was not. This would only end one way, and Mark was not setting himself up for that sort of nonsense at his age. He shouldn’t have done it at any age, to be honest. But that wasn’t a story to dwell upon. He had work to do.

  Sliding his chair under his desk, he clicked his mouse and fired up the Guardian online, then went to stalk a few old school “friends” on Facebook, along with checking if anyone had responded to his question of how to make a pivot table from a bunch of data in Excel on the online forum chat. No one had. Either no one knew or everyone thought he already should.

  His phone buzzed again and his gaze trailed over to the lit-up screen. He dragged it in front of him, trying not to draw attention to the fact he was still texting whilst at work.

  Do you have a personal email?

  Mark furrowed his brow. Why would Bradley want his email? He shrugged and thought it was possibly to show him some roof tiles. He whooshed off his Hotmail address.

  Cool. I sent you an email. It’s NSFW. Need opinion.

  Mark stared at the message, focusing on the four-letter word that contained no vowels. Text speak, right? Mentally putting various vowels in between the consonants like he was on a game of bloody Countdown, he came up stumped. He threw his phone on his desktop and typed into his Hotmail account. One bold email from a BradSum1998 sat unopened at the top of the list of the usual junk mail. Mark shut his eyes. 199-bloody-8. He bit down the revelation that he would have been eighteen the moment Bradley popped out into this world. Mark had been a grown man when Bradley had been in nappies. Ironically, that had also been the year that Mark had left Marsby, middle finger in the air and flicking his hair over his shoulder like some diva and announcing he would never return to this small seaside town. Insert yellow embarrassed face, perhaps?

  Sighing, he clicked open the email and his eyes widened to the size of saucers. Not his grandmother’s china saucers, but more likely the on
es that Costa now offered with their ultra-sized mugs of tea in order to stamp out the pot-for-one option. Bradley, phone in hand as he had snapped an image of himself in front of a mirror, filled Mark’s computer screen. Which, yes, Mark found odd. Why would one need to photograph oneself if standing in front of one’s own reflection? But what was far more of a conundrum was why Bradley stood there stark-bollock naked. His meat and two veg were out on display for all and sundry, the meat draping a little to the left as it hung down over his ball sac.

  Mark had to query this closer, quite possibly gaping open-mouthed, and he wouldn’t have been surprised if a little drool didn’t dribble from his salivating lips. And he completely forgot why he had been sent this image in the first place, or for what purpose. Until Mark leaned in toward his screen. Involuntarily.

  Bradley lacked any hair on his body at all. Mark had been certain when laying eyes on the man’s bare torso yesterday that Bradley had most definitely had hair scattered along his chest. And down his washboard stomach, trailing into the elastic band of his low-hung shorts and into what Mark had envisaged…imagined, no, assumed, yes assumed, would have led to an ample amount of hair on his pubic region.

  Mark edged in closer to the screen, hand hovering over the mouse, and with an accidental swipe of his forefinger zoomed in on the most intimate part of Bradley’s anatomy. Not a single hair follicle resided on those juicy balls. They looked like two perfectly rounded eggs, thick and full and ready to hatch. With some sort of kinetic energy, Mark leaned forward, his own hair rising from the static, and squinted. Cocking his head to the side, he licked his lips. Bradley had done a fantastic job of lathering himself up with oil to acquire the perfect sheen over his tight, stubble-free skin.

  “Mark!”

  Mark jumped in his seat and wiped a thumb along the corner of his mouth. Yvonne stood behind him, her eyes as wide as dinner plates but not quite as oval as those of the young lad next to her.

  “Ah, Yvonne,” Mark spluttered, desperately attempting to minimise the picture. Delete would be an utter travesty at this point. But with all the commotion, he slipped and zoomed in with his mouse. Bradley’s naked and illustrious cock and balls now filled the entire twenty-five inches of Mark’s computer screen.

  Yvonne covered her eyes, then wrapped her arm around the young lad next to her and shoved her hand over his. Mark clicked, clicked again, clicked once more then decided it would be better to just turn the damn screen off.

  “Hello. Yes?” Mark twisted in his seat, clenching his hands together in his lap, and raised his eyebrows. Nonchalance. Works every time.

  Yvonne cleared her throat. “This is Robert. The work experience boy.”

  “Don’t be silly.” Mark waved a hand up at the boy. “He’s barely out of nappies. Sure you’ve got the right kid?”

  “I’m eighteen.” The lad shuffled on his feet.

  “Ah. Of course you are. Sorry, you get to my age and everyone looks young. When policeman and teachers look younger than you do, you know you’ve hit the downhill slide.” Mark stood and held out a hand. “Welcome.”

  Robert took the hand and shook. Yvonne glared at Mark before stamping off to her place behind the reception desk. Mark sat, swiping his sweating palms down his legs.

  “Right, well, first things first.” Mark’s phone buzzed and he trailed his gaze to the screen.

  Well?

  Switching the incriminating phone off, he decided a proper cup of tea would be golden right about now. With milk.

  “Be a dear.” Mark fished out a five-pound note from his pocket and handed it over to Robert, who stood there with a cross between amusement and disgust written over his face. “Run over to the shop and get some milk. Half a pint’ll do. Green top. None of that red top rubbish. Blue top if they don’t have the green. Then I’ll get your desk sorted.”

  Mark breathed a sigh of relief as Robert sauntered out of the office. Rubbing a palm over his forehead, he slumped back in his seat that fell to the lowest rung. He left it there and rued the day he had ever met the Australian, who in twenty-four hours had wreaked havoc on Mark’s normally mundane existence.

  Why on earth would you send that to me AT WORK?

  He composed the text with angry thumbs and whooshed it off.

  Told you it wasn’t safe for work. NSFW. Not.Safe.For.Work. Please don’t tell me you opened that at the office?

  Yes I bloody did. In front of a work experience kid.

  The returning dozen or so laughing faces were all the conversation required.

  Must remember to speak in sentences with you, Granddad. See you tonight.

  Chapter Six

  Like Riding a Bike

  Mark kept his head down for the rest of the working day. Setting young Robert a few laborious and futile tasks such as stuffing envelopes and researching the company’s competition bought Mark the time to get over his utter embarrassment and attempted to make him appear more of a professional. Mark rarely knew what he was meant to be doing himself most days, let alone tasking a new kid.

  There had been no further texts, picture or otherwise, from Bradley and Mark found himself both relieved and disappointed in equal measures. He’d kept refreshing his emails, just in case another urgent message would fly through, but, alas, he received only the usual junk. His phone, which he kept at a convenient thumb’s-length away, only displayed the photograph of the sun setting over the white cliffs of Dover that Mark had taken some years back.

  So as the work day approached its bitter end, Mark had a slight spring to his step. This evening he would have a visitor. Anticipation rushed over him as he paced the pavement beside the pebble beach, much like the onslaught of early evening joggers from the Marsby Running Club who clearly had far too much energy for a Tuesday. Stupid thoughts kept poking at his mind, like wondering if Bradley might offer to show him the 4D version of his email. He rather hoped not. Mark didn’t much fancy staring and drooling whilst Bradley was present to witness it. The image of Bradley’s slick, firm and hairless body hadn’t been one Mark could shake all day. He needed that image gone. Or at least a few moments alone with it.

  Realising he should probably get a ladder if Bradley was to climb his roof again, as the last thing Mark needed was an insurance claim indicating that he allowed workmen to scale his house in a thong—thongs!—he popped next door to borrow the lovely Mr Cooper’s stepladder. Mr Cooper didn’t cause a fuss—he rarely did—and hardly left his house. He was a decent bloke, didn’t get involved in any of the neighbourhood complaints and kept himself to himself. The perfect neighbour. On second reflections, wasn’t that what people usually said about their neighbours when the news crew turned up to inform them that the police had uncovered several dead bodies under next door’s patio? Mr Cooper did like to do a heck of a lot of gardening. So Mark carted the ladder through to his back garden and made a note to not cause himself any undue attention. Like having an Australian hunk free-climb my house!

  His rickety shed at the end of his garden hadn’t been opened in years either, but he fought his fear of spiders to check if there was anything within that might aid Bradley’s roof-fixing mission. After two glances, he realised he had no idea what one would use to fix a roof, nor if said implement would reside in a shed. Plus he was fairly certain he hadn’t ever bought such an apparatus, device and implement for such endeavours, anyway. Leaving the shed door open, he made his way back into the house and popped the kettle on. Not long into his after-work ritual of tea and a spot of local news on the telly, the doorbell rang.

  Behind the front door, Bradley creased up laughing. It wasn’t a casual laugh, either. Mark could tell the bloke had been having trouble keeping that snigger under wraps for the best part of the day. With setting eyes on Mark, Bradley was set free to erupt into a fit of childish giggles. Mark folded his arms and waited.

  Sucking in a breath, Bradley at least attempted to regain some composure. But one look at Mark and the Aussie belted out a belly-laugh that reminded Mark of that
old-style Drunken Sailor machine that used to be at the pier penny arcade.

  Bradley swiped his eyes, tears trickling down his cheeks, and on clutching his stomach, the thin material of his RipCurl T-shirt inched up, revealing the smooth sheen of his washboard abdomen.

  “Quite finished?” Mark tutted.

  Bradley nodded. Then burst out laughing again.

  “Oh, for goodness’ sake.” Mark slapped Bradley on the back of his arm. “Shut up. My neighbours’ll complain about the noise pollution. And one of them is a serial killer, FYI.”

  “You know that abbreviation, then?” Bradley’s smile even looked like it hurt his jaw.

  “I am also aware of F, O and D,” Mark deadpanned.

  “That won’t get your roof sorted.” Bradley arched one delightful eyebrow. And Mark gave in to it and Bradley’s ability to save him two hundred paaand by ushering him into the hallway.

  “Did you…” Bradley started up with the silent giggling again. “Did you really show some kid my picture?”

  “Well, no.” Mark flapped a hand. “I didn’t show him, per se. I hadn’t realised he was behind me whilst I opened your delightful correspondence that then zoomed in on your uncovered manhood.”