What Remains

by Garrett Leigh

  As ever, he was surprised at how uplifting it was to complete a bonehead task without a babysitter. Energy buzzed in his veins, and he didn’t feel like going home to an empty flat. He didn’t much fancy another supermarket excursion either, though, and shopping aside, he couldn’t think of anything to do, or anyone he wanted to see. Wait. That wasn’t true. He wanted to see Rupert. Jodi checked the time. It was nearly five; Rupert would be done in just over an hour. Which meant Jodi had plenty of time to retrace his steps and meet him from work.

  It didn’t take much deliberating. Jodi caught the Tube like he’d been doing it all his life, and made his way back toward Camberwell, where the hospital was. He was usually exhausted and dizzy after he’d taken the Tube to the hospital, disoriented from being rocked about for twelve long stops, but today, the surge of energy he’d had on the street outside the supermarket stayed with him, and he emerged in Brixton, a stop before the hospital, feeling like he could take on the world. Whether he’d win or not was another matter, but for now, searching out the fire station would have to do.

  Luckily the maps app on his phone took care of that, and before long, Jodi found himself across the street from the listed building that housed Brixton’s fire brigade. He checked the time again. Five to six. Perfect. Or was it? What if Rupert left through the back? Or finished late? What if Jodi had got it wrong and he wasn’t there?

  Nerves bubbled in Jodi’s gut. Rupert had asked him for some time, but that was just about sex, right? He hadn’t said he didn’t want to see Jodi at all . . . No, of course he hadn’t. He’d told Jodi he loved him and he would see him at home. Except Jodi wasn’t at home. He was camped outside the fire station like a fucking stalker. Damn it. Why was it so hard to be a normal human being? Why couldn’t he just stay at home and cook a pan of pasta like any other stay-at-home—

  “What are you thinking so hard about?”

  “Pasta.” Jodi turned to face Rupert’s warm grin, and all his worries faded away. “I was thinking I should’ve stayed at home and cooked it for you.”

  “You do make the best spag bol. The only thing better to come home to is your beautiful smile.” Rupert’s grin widened.

  Jodi laughed. “Did you read that in the lonely hearts ads?”

  “Nope. Made it up myself. Shoulda been a poet, eh?”

  “Erm . . .”

  “Don’t answer that.” Rupert brushed Jodi’s hair out of his eyes. “Seriously, though. What brings you here? I thought your appointment was at two. You haven’t been waiting out here all this time, have you?”

  “No, I saw Ken, then I went to Sainsbury’s, then I came back.”

  “Ah, you bought milk?”

  “Yup. And bread and butter. Check me out.”

  “Awesome,” Rupert said. “Did you take it home?”

  “No, it’s right—” Jodi looked down at his empty hands. “Shit. I left it on the Tube.”

  Rupert bit his lip, but it didn’t contain the throaty chuckle that washed away Jodi’s irritation at his own stupidity. “Don’t worry about it. Who needs milk anyway?”

  “You do. For your tea.”

  “So we’ll get some more. Fuck it.”

  Rupert slipped his arm around Jodi’s waist, and they started walking back the way Jodi had come. Jodi leaned into Rupert and absorbed his warmth, trying not to wonder if Rupert was touching him because he wanted to, or simply holding him up. Did it even matter? For a little while, Jodi convinced himself that it didn’t. Everything else was either falling into place or carving itself a new one. Why would this be any different?

  “Jodi?”

  “Hmm?”

  Rupert stopped walking and put his hands on Jodi’s shoulders. “Can I try something?”

  “Try something?”

  “Yeah. It’s probably something we should do at home, but everything seems so . . .” Rupert winced. “It gets so heavy there, you know? I just want to . . . Fuck it. I just want to kiss you in a place where you can run for the hills if you need to, and still have a home.”

  “You want to kiss me?”

  Rupert grinned nervously. “I do. Is that okay?”

  It was very okay, but Jodi couldn’t quite find the words to say so. He covered Rupert’s hands with his own and leaned forward, stretching his neck to reach Rupert’s lips. He kissed Rupert once, twice, three times—light, gentle kisses—and then something changed. The air shifted, and Jodi needed more, much more, and he needed it now.

  He released Rupert’s hands and put his palms flat on Rupert’s strong chest, shoving him back into the wall of a nearby bank. Rupert let out a surprised grunt, then he gripped Jodi’s jacket and pulled him tight against him. “Don’t play with me. I haven’t got it in me to lose you again.”

  “You’re not going to lose me.” Jodi kissed Rupert harder this time, like he could drive Rupert’s doubts away with clashing teeth and bruised lips. “I want this, Rupe. I want you, and that’s never going to change. It’s part of me. I can feel it.”

  “I can feel it too.”

  It took Jodi a moment to cotton on to what Rupert meant. Then he felt it: the mind-blowing sensation of Rupert’s hard dick against his own. “Oh wow.”

  Rupert grinned, though Jodi didn’t miss the flash of relief in his gaze. “Yeah. Wow. We still got it.”

  “‘Still’? This crazy heat isn’t new?”

  “Not for me,” Rupert said. “You’re the only bloke I’ve ever been with, but you blew my mind from the start. It’s always been incredible between us. Couldn’t ask for more.”

  “You blew my mind.” The echo of Jodi’s own thoughts left him dizzy, but the good kind of dizzy: the heady, giddy kind that made him feel lighter than air until a growl from his stomach interrupted a chain of thought that was about to get way out of hand.

  Rupert chuckled. “Jesus. I felt that too. Hungry, are ya?”

  “Guess I must be. Does that mean we have to go home?”

  “Do you want to go home?”

  Jodi shrugged. There was nothing he wanted more than to hustle home with Rupert and let the chips fall where they may, but something—perhaps his own raging boner—told him they both needed to cool off before they hit the ground—the bed—running and fucked everything up all over again. “Can we eat somewhere else?”

  “Sure. Got anywhere in mind?”

  Of course he hadn’t. Jodi hadn’t eaten out in years—five to be exact if his sieve-like brain had its way. Fuck it. He pointed across the street to the first restaurant he saw.

  “You want Moroccan barbecue?”

  “Erm, yeah?”

  Rupert laughed. “That’s good enough for me. Let’s go.”

  The restaurant was dark and warm, and the food spicy and rich. Rupert had never eaten anything like the fruity meat stew that had appeared after he’d pointed at the first word he’d recognised on the menu—“couscous,” as it happened—and he hadn’t had a beer in months.

  “Go on,” Jodi said. “Just have one. Fuck it, right?”

  “Fuck it” seemed to be the mantra of the day. Rupert ordered a beer to go with the water he already had, and a bottle of dubious Moroccan lager turned up a few moments later. With the waiter gone, Rupert leaned forward and swiped some chicken from Jodi’s plate. “Is it good?”

  “It’s lush,” Jodi said. “Can I have some of yours?”

  In answer, Rupert filled his fork and held it out, trying not to drool as Jodi wrapped his lips and tongue around it, all the while wondering how the most boring day in the world had morphed into a day where he couldn’t stop smiling, or thinking about sex.

  He blamed Jodi for that.

  Still, Rupert couldn’t help pinching himself. He’d come to accept Jodi would never be the same, but it seemed to matter less with each day that passed, and tonight? Watching Jodi inhale his food like he actually wanted to eat it while his kiss lingered on Rupert’s lips? Yup. Had to be a dream.

  “Can I smell your beer?”

  “What?”

&nb
sp; Jodi picked up Rupert’s bottle of Casablanca. “I want to smell it. See if I miss it.”

  Sadness threatened Rupert’s bubble of cumin-scented happiness. Jodi had been told that he’d never be able to safely drink again, that his brain would forever be sensitive to anything he ingested—booze, over-the-counter drugs, heavy doses of caffeine. They hadn’t exactly partied the past four years away, but Rupert would miss the late nights sat on the kitchen floor, drinking whiskey, while Jodi ate Nutella from the jar with Indie’s dippy egg spoon. And the morning cuppas, snatched before Rupert left for work, or stretched out on the couch when he came home from a night shift. He’d miss it all. Missed it already.

  But he craved Jodi more than he could ever miss him, especially when Jodi was right there, sniffing Rupert’s beer with a bemused frown that made Rupert want to climb across the table and kiss the shit out of him.

  “I don’t get it.” Jodi put the bottle down. “It smells like piss.”

  “You must remember drinking it before you met me.”

  Jodi shrugged. “I do, but none of that seems real anymore. It used to feel like it had all just happened yesterday, but now it doesn’t even feel like me. I’m not that interested in what I used to do.”

  “Yeah? Then why the sniff test?”

  “To see if I’m really not that interested, or wallowing in denial.”

  Rupert didn’t dare ask what Jodi had concluded by sticking a beer bottle up his nose. Sometimes, it was better for his sanity if he didn’t know every little thing that filtered through Jodi’s recovering brain. “Okay, so if we’re leaving the past alone and staying in the present, how am I going to answer all the questions you want to ask me about our sex life?”

  “I have a loophole.”

  “Which is?”

  “Haven’t thought of it yet. Fuck it. Tell me everything.”

  Jodi set his fork down. Rupert wanted to coax him into eating a bit more, but the truth was, now that the conversation had returned to sex, he didn’t feel much like eating either.

  Rupert pushed his plate away and swigged his beer. “I don’t know where to start. You’ll have to help me out.”

  “Who’s the lube for?”

  “What?” Rupert choked on gassy lager. “What lube?”

  “The lube in the bedside table. The arse lube.”

  “Erm, it’s for both of us, I s’pose, but that’s not what you’re really asking, is it?”

  “Not exactly.”

  Rupert kind of wanted Jodi to spell it out so he knew for sure he wasn’t about to jam his foot in his mouth, but this wasn’t the time to be coy. If they wanted to move forward, those days were over. “The lube’s for you, boyo. Always.”

  “We don’t switch?”

  “Never.”

  Jodi flushed. “That scares me.”

  “It would scare me too. In fact, it did—it all did, until you taught me how to do it right.”

  “Taught you?”

  “I’ve never wanted to bottom, and for a long time, even after I left Jen and came out, I thought that made me, I don’t know, not gay enough to call myself gay, or some shite, but you showed me otherwise. You showed me how loving a bloke was about far more than who put what where.”

  Jodi traced a pattern Rupert couldn’t decipher on the jade-green tablecloth. “I’ve been trying not to think about that bit. I think I knew, on some level, that I was . . . that you . . . Fuck’s sake. I knew I was the bottom. I just couldn’t handle what I thought it meant.”

  Rupert raised an eyebrow. “What did you think it meant?”

  “Probably everything I taught you it didn’t. Or maybe I was scared. You’ve got a big dick, haven’t you?”

  As ever, Jodi’s ability to swing a conversation like a waltzer made Rupert’s head spin. “I guess you’ll find out, soon enough, if you ever want to, but it doesn’t matter. I’d never hurt you like that, or any other way. You have to know that.”

  “I do,” Jodi said. “I’m still scared of it, but I want to do it, if you want to?”

  They’d barely kissed. Talking about fucking felt surreal. Rupert reached across the table and took Jodi’s hand, absorbing his tremble. “How about we just go home and share a bed? Sleep. Breathe. Be together. The rest will come in its own time.”

  Jodi nodded slowly. “Yeah. Let’s do that. Let’s go home to bed. You’ll stay with me, won’t you? Like you said?”

  “Every night till you ask me not to.”

  Rupert took Jodi home with every intention of coaxing him into bed, tucking him up, then watching over him while he fell asleep. And perhaps Jodi let most of it happen with the same good intentions, but like everything recently, things changed in the blink of an eye. A rustle of clean sheets and a heated gaze. A brush of lips and bare skin on bare skin. Then clothes disappeared and suddenly Rupert found himself half-naked and on top of Jodi, on the verge of doing all the things he’d told himself he wouldn’t do.

  “Stop thinking.” Jodi gripped Rupert’s face and kissed him fiercely. “Just let it happen.”

  Rupert kissed Jodi back, pressing him deep into the mattress. “What do you want?”

  “I don’t know . . . I don’t care. Please, I don’t want to stop.”

  Rupert didn’t want to stop either. Couldn’t, even if he’d tried. He rolled over, taking Jodi with him so Jodi was above him, and raised his arms over his head, gripping the headboard and ceding control. Jodi met his gaze. Rupert nodded. Take what you need. I’m yours.

  Jodi ran his hands over Rupert’s bare chest. “I don’t know what to do. I mean, I know what I’d do if you were a woman, but I haven’t got a clue where to start with you.”

  “Maybe it’s the same.” Rupert drove his hips up gently. “Just do what feels good, like you taught me.”

  In answer, Jodi leaned down and blew warm air over Rupert’s chest, then closed his lips around Rupert’s nipple.

  Rupert gasped and threw his head back. Jodi had always had a way with his lips and tongue and—fuck—his teeth. Closing his eyes, Rupert groaned, long and loud, thankful he’d seen the downstairs neighbours head out for a night at the bingo earlier.

  Jodi moved down Rupert’s body, exploring and reacquainting himself with Rupert’s sensitive spots. He found every one with no guidance from Rupert—his ribs, his appendix scar. Then he reached Rupert’s waistband and froze briefly, before he fumbled with the button of Rupert’s jeans.

  He pulled them over Rupert’s hips, taking Rupert’s underwear with them. “Wow.”

  Heat flooded Rupert’s cheeks. It felt like he’d had a perpetual boner ever since Jodi had first let slip that sex was on his mind, but he’d done everything he could to ignore it—cold showers, thinking of his bloody mother. He’d even gone as far as to pretend he didn’t have a dick at all, and he hadn’t had a wank in . . . damn. He couldn’t remember. Since the accident, pleasuring himself had been the last thing on his mind, and before . . . Jodi had always done that shit for him.

  And done it so well just the sketchy, surreal memories of those heady encounters were enough to make his cock jump.

  Jodi jumped too. “Jesus. It’s fucking huge.”

  “Piss off.” Rupert hooked his hands under Jodi’s shoulders and pulled him up the bed in one smooth movement. “Leave my dick alone if it scares you so much. We don’t have to do anything—”

  Jodi silenced him with another bruising kiss. Rupert took the hint and reached for Jodi’s jeans, undoing them and sliding them over Jodi’s slim hips. He left Jodi’s boxers in place, but Jodi had other ideas.

  “Fuck that,” he said. “I want to be like you.”

  Rupert snorted. “No, you don’t.”

  “I do.”

  “Why?”

  Jodi wriggled out of his remaining clothes, then fixed Rupert with a shrewd stare. “Because you’re a good man.”

  What that had to do with getting naked, Rupert had no idea, but coming from Jodi, a man Rupert had idolised as much as he’d loved . . . Jesus feck
ing Christ, could they do nothing without Rupert wanting to bawl his eyes out?

  Apparently not, but Jodi straddled Rupert’s chest before Rupert could dwell on it.

  “I wouldn’t do this to a woman,” Jodi said. “Unless she asked me to.”

  Rupert eyed Jodi’s cock as it carved a gentle rut in his chest. “Perhaps she would. I can’t imagine anyone not wanting this.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. How does it feel? Do you like it?”

  Jodi sucked in a breath. “Fuck yeah. It feels amazing. Can’t believe I forgot about something like this. How does that happen?”

  Rupert could picture how it happened all too well, but it wasn’t the time for morbid imaginings. This was beyond what he’d dared hope for, and he wasn’t going to let the shadows chase it away. He closed his fist around Jodi’s cock, squeezing, lightly at first, but then harder as Jodi’s eyes widened and rolled into the back of his head.

  “Oh God, yeah.” Jodi thrust his hips forward. “Don’t stop, don’t stop.”

  Rupert gave into Jodi’s whispered plea, for a while, at least. He’d missed this side of Jodi—the uninhibited, sexual side of him—untamed, and a little wild. From the very first time he’d laid a hand on Jodi, he’d been enthralled by the way he moved his body, the sounds he made. Jodi was beautiful.

  But eventually, as Jodi’s thighs trembled and his gasps caught in his chest, Rupert pushed his luck and pulled Jodi closer . . . close enough to flick his tongue over Jodi’s dick.

  Jodi’s eyes flew open. “Shit.”

  “Is that a good ‘shit’?”

  “What the fuck do you think?”

  Rupert grinned. “I think you want more.”

  Jodi shuffled forward on his knees and pushed his cock into Rupert’s mouth. “Then give me more.”