by Anna Martin
We were assigned to the same dorm building in our first year and bonded over being outsiders, immigrants in America, as it was. Elias had both the body and the looks of a privileged European upbringing. He was from Switzerland, a small town not far outside Zurich. We’d made promises that one summer I’d take him back to Edinburgh and act as his tour guide around the city and he’d do the same for me in his hometown. The trip had never happened. Chloe had arrived instead.
Now, close to six or seven years since I’d seen him last, time had treated my old friend well. He still wore his dark blond hair long, to his shoulders in impossibly shiny, thick waves. His eyes, piercing blue, now had a few laughter lines around them. He wore a grey shirt with plenty of buttons undone and dark leather pants, which cleared up my last few questions regarding his sexuality.
Maybe Chris had helped me refine my “gaydar”, or at least have some confidence in it.
“I thought you went back to Switzerland,” I said after accepting his offer of a drink, now I knew who he was.
“I did,” he said, “for a couple of years. My mama was sick for a while. She passed back in the spring.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. He nodded.
“Thank you. My sisters are still there, but I decided to come back for a while. I was going to look you up, but then I run into you here, of all places.”
I laughed. “Yes. It’s not one of my usual haunts, I’ll admit.”
“You’re looking good, Robert,” he said, unashamedly looking at me. “Time has treated you well.”
Through the crowds of men (hot, sweaty, some nearly naked men), I could see Chris bopping around on the dance floor looking happy as anything, so I led Elias over to one of the booths at the other end of the bar and sat opposite him.
He asked about Chloe, remembering her by name, which pleased me endlessly. He was theatrically dismayed to learn that she was a teenager now.
“A little lady?” he asked.
“A little madam is more like it,” I said. “She takes after her mother rather than me, which is an endless relief to all three of us.”
“Are you wanting more?”
His halting English served to remind me that he had been out of the country for a long time.
“Children?” I asked. “No.”
Elias nodded knowingly. “She was a blessing, no, but an unexpected one.”
“Exactly.” I laughed. “I wouldn’t change her for the world. But I’m done with raising children. Luisa has another daughter now, though, and she’s pregnant with her third.”
He pouted and tilted his head to the side. “Lucky Luisa.”
When our conversation found a natural dip, I offered to buy the next round of drinks. Accepting, he offered to keep the table for us while I went back to the bar via the men’s room.
Chris was in there, washing his hands as I passed him.
“Are you having a good night?” I asked, placing my hand on his sweaty lower back and kissing his shoulder.
“Yeah,” he said, smiling broadly. “Come dance with me.”
“Later, maybe,” I said. “I’ve just found an old college friend, and we’re catching up. You can come join us if you like.”
He made a face. “Nah. I’m gonna keep dancing. Burn some calories. Do you mind that I’ve ditched you?”
“Not at all,” I said. “I’m glad you’re having a good night. I’ll see you later.”
When he kissed me again, it lingered long enough to elicit several wolf whistles from the room’s other occupants.
“Later,” he said and patted my cheek as he left.
I ordered our drinks and was offered table service from an alarmingly hairless young man wearing naught but a pair of silver shorts (very tight silver shorts) and a lot of glitter. All I could think was that I hoped he didn’t get any in my whiskey.
My conversation with Elias turned to our careers. He was somewhat surprised to learn that I was still in Boston after all this time. I’d had a dream, a long time ago, to return to the U.K. to teach there. As much as I’d wanted to—and the opportunity had been there had I wanted to take it—I found plenty of excuses to stay. They were obvious ones, and things that I could have easily worked around should I have so wished.
But the university in Bath had remained without a Professor McKinnon while I continued to grace the halls of the college with my presence.
Elias, I learned, had taken his five languages and taught them all over the world. I knew that there was a strong need for intelligent, committed people to teach English as a foreign language, and he’d done it in places from Jakarta in Indonesia to Shanghai in China and Hanoi in Vietnam, and back again. Of course I was jealous. This man had taken all the ideals and plans we’d made at eighteen and fulfilled them.
Despite his upbringing, I learned that he’d spent the better part of a decade helping raise the fortunes and futures of children around the world. But then again, I’d always gotten the impression that Elias wasn’t going to follow in his family’s footsteps.
“Romance?” I asked him, emboldened by the liquor.
He smirked and raised an eyebrow at me. “I’ve never been one to be without a man around the house, Robert,” he said with a lazy grin. “Or several men. The Thai are surprisingly open-minded about these things.”
I couldn’t help but roll my eyes at him. In college, I’d always thought of him as a terrible flirt and something of a lady’s man. At least I’d been half-right.
Before he could return the question, Chris bounced over to us and I realised that we were both leaning across the table. Chris had a little frown on his face. My proximity to Elias was only due to the noise in the club but there was no way of explaining this to Chris without sounding guilty.
I immediately shuffled up on the bench to let him in next to me. For some reason, when he threw his arm around my shoulder and kissed me loudly on the cheek, I was embarrassed and somewhat annoyed with him “branding” me.
“Chris, this is Elias,” I said. “We were at college together. Elias, this is my partner, Chris.”
I felt guilty springing this on him at such a late point in the evening. There had just been other things to talk about, other things to catch up on that seemed more important. And with that thought, the hot embarrassment turned to shame.
Elias raised a sculpted eyebrow and smiled pleasantly, offering his hand to Chris over the table.
“Nice to meet you, Chris,” he said.
Chris’s responding smile was saccharine sweet. “Likewise.”
I took his hand and linked our fingers under the table, squeezing gently. The tension mounted for a moment as I tried desperately to engage both men in conversation and failed dismally. When Chris slid back out of the booth, he didn’t let go of my hand, tugging me with him.
“Will you come dance with me now?” he asked.
Lingering, residual bad feelings made me agree.
“Excuse us?” I said to Elias, who nodded warmly.
“I will see you again, Robert, I’m sure.”
I heard Chris mutter something, but it was too loud to discern his words. I got the idea, though, loud and clear. When he dragged me off and the dance floor really was our final destination, I was somewhat confused.
He gripped my hips and drew me forward against his chest, then ran his hands up my arms to wrap them around my neck.
I wasn’t a terrible dancer, but I certainly wasn’t the best out there. I knew enough to keep my hands on his sides, ribs, waist, hips… and Chris seemed more than happy to just grind up against me. I had no objections.
Despite the erotic sway of our bodies, when I caught Chris’s eye, he was distant, somehow. I lowered my head, leaning in for another kiss, but he turned away at the last moment so I caught his cheek instead.
Fine.
I followed his eye line and couldn’t see anything of discernible interest. Then Elias walked past, right at the edge of the dance floor, and suddenly my mouth was invaded with pliant lips and a h
ot tongue.
Subtle, Chris, I thought to myself.
I made sure to pull away gently. “However much I appreciate your affections,” I said, louder than I would have liked, but it was a necessity over the sound of the music, “there is little need to scent mark me as your property, Chris.”
“Oh, fuck off,” he said and stormed away.
Well. I wasn’t expecting that.
For a moment I stood dumb in the middle of a throng of sweaty, thrusting men and wondered why the hell I allowed myself to get into these situations. Then I decided it was because it made my life interesting, and followed the direction Chris had taken out toward a smoking area.
Sure enough, he was leaning against the brickwork, only his T-shirt, which he’d pulled back on, and portable patio heaters protecting him from the night air. One foot was propped up against the wall, and he smoked in short, jerky movements.
“Do you want to talk?” I asked, deciding to be the one to offer an opening.
“Not to you,” he said petulantly.
I sighed and rubbed my face. “Don’t be such a child.”
“Why not?” he said. “You treat me like a child, you think of me like a child, so I’ll fucking well act like one.”
He threw his cigarette on the ground and stomped on it, then went about rolling another one with nimble fingers.
“Is this about Elias?”
“Duh,” he muttered.
“Elias is a friend, Chris. A friend. One I haven’t seen or spoken to in a long time. I didn’t even know he was gay until tonight.”
“Yeah, right.”
My tolerance level for childish muttering was being sorely tested.
“Is this really about him? Or about your own insecurities?”
“How fucking dare you,” he spat. Inhaled another lungful of toxic smoke. “You’re so fucking superior sometimes, you know that?”
“Not intentionally,” I said. “But you do seem to evoke that reaction when you act like a total brat.”
Chris pushed off from the wall and paced to the other side of the small smoking area and back again. It was enclosed on three sides, opening on the fourth to the parking lot behind. Invisible from the road and the sidewalk, more than one couple had decided to brave the elements and use the courtyard—for want of a better word—as a dark space to grope in. Although I got the impression the groping was giving way to some voyeuristic car-crash argument watching instead now.
“He’s much better for you than I am.”
“What makes you say that?” I demanded.
“He’s all… fuck. Pretty. And European. And educated and shit.”
“You’re pretty. His nationality has nothing to do with it. And you’re a very intelligent man, Chris, although you’re not displaying that side of you to your best right now.”
“You’re not getting it!” he exploded, throwing his hands in the air, and yes, the other men in the courtyard were definitely watching us now, and not even bothering to hide the fact. “Even if it’s not Elias, stupid fucking name—”
“It’s Swiss,” I said, wanting to rile him up now, doing it on purpose.
“Even if it’s not Swiss Elias, then it’ll be someone like him, don’t you get that? One day you’ll decide you’ve had enough of playing with the younger man, ooh, he’s dark and mysterious, he has tattoos and is nearly a decade younger than me. And you’ll decide you’re done with your Professor Higgins act and push me back to the gutter, and you’ll go and find a man like Swiss Elias.”
“You’re not a ‘phase’, Chris,” I started, but he interrupted me now.
“Yes I am! I’m exactly that. I’m the type of guy who finds these unintentionally sexy men and brings them out of their shell and makes them see just how wonderful they are… and then they realise, oh yeah, I’m actually too good for this little piece of shit, and they waltz off into the sunset with a guy called fucking Elias.”
I reached for him then and drew him into my body. It was fucking cold outside, and I was still absorbing what he’d unintentionally told me. His breath stuttered for a moment, and then he pushed back against me, palms flat against my chest.
“No. No. I’m still mad at you.”
“I didn’t do anything,” I said softly.
“Were you not listening to me at all?” he said, desperate now. “It’s not what you did, it’s what you’re going to do. That’s what hurts.”
“Will you come inside? We’re going to freeze out here.”
He accepted, reluctantly, but he let me lead him inside, then upstairs, to a balcony where it was marginally quieter than the dance floor beneath us but had the added inconvenience of having another varied group of men mid-coitus around the place.
Bloody gay bars.
I ordered more whiskey from the bar because it seemed to be a night for hard liquor rather than piss-weak Yankee “beer.” At least the Scottish know how to make a fucking man’s drink. There wasn’t a sofa free—they were all full of people having a far better time than I was—but we managed to snag a table with two rickety chairs overlooking the rest of the bar.
For a long time, longer than what was probably advisable, I just stared at him.
To catalogue his features seemed like something of a fruitless task, seeing as how I’d already done it, more than once. But there was something of a touch of sadness in his blue-grey eyes that I’d not seen there before… sadness, and desperation.
“Can we talk like reasonable adults now?” I asked him.
“Dunno. Can we?”
“Clearly not,” I muttered, and tipped my head back to swallow my whiskey in one. It was cheap crap, anyway. “If you want to play the wounded little boy, Chris, then go ahead. But don’t think that you’ll be playing on my sympathies, because to be honest, you’re grating on my last nerve.”
I could see the “Fuck you” on his lips, ready to spring free as he stormed away dramatically, and I caught his wrist before he could manage it. He whirled back around, and for a moment I wondered if he’d smack me—I wouldn’t put it past him—but for some reason he stopped.
His hand twisted and his fingers caught hold of mine, and wordlessly, he led me back down to the dance floor.
I had no idea what this silent communication meant, only that when he wrapped himself back up in my arms, I could almost feel the discontent rolling off him. He needed reassurance. This was one of those few times where the nine years that separated us were really highlighted. Sweetness and gentle touches and it’s you, I promise, only you; well, that I could give him.
“Not going to leave you,” I told him, my words strangely juxtaposed with the electronic thump of the music in the room. “I want you, Chris. No one else.”
He nodded against my chest but made no other indication that he’d heard me. When he did speak, it wasn’t in apology, not that I wanted one.
“Should I go speak to Elias?”
“I don’t think so,” I said. “He’ll already have found someone else to entertain him for the evening. He probably won’t appreciate the interruption.”
“Can I come home with you?”
It was getting late, and I had just about had my fill of gay bar for the night too. Maybe had enough of gay bars for the next six months. Or a year.
“Of course. I’ll get our coats.”
He followed me and asked the doorman to hail a cab for us but seemed subdued when I passed him his jacket. We waited on the street, and I wanted to hold him close to me. This quiet, introverted Chris wasn’t one I was used to—and wasn’t one I liked much either.
I leaned over and only lowered my voice slightly. “Can I fuck you tonight?”
The corner of his lips twitched. “I don’t know. Can you?”
“Yeah.” I smirked. “I can. Do you think you’d like that?”
“I know what you’re doing, Rob,” he said, but took hold of my hips and leaned against my chest. I kissed the top of his head.
“I don’t like you being upset with me,” I
told him quietly.
“Me either.”
I sighed and let my arms wrap around him. When the taxi pulled up, he kissed me quietly on the cheek.
“Come on. I want to scream for you.”
Chapter 7
One might have thought that having the head of my cock poking at the back of Chris’s throat would distract me from certain uncomfortable truths. But when he reached to cup my scrotum in the palm of his hand, I jerked back instinctively.