by Anna Martin
The campus was fairly busy as we made our way toward the cafeteria, and Chris stayed close to me although refrained from holding my hand. I couldn’t quite decide if I was relieved or disappointed by that.
I wanted to ask him what he thought of my lecture, or the parts of it that he’d heard, at least, but I was far too nervous for the response, so I kept my mouth shut. Chris didn’t dole out praise for the sake of it, and if he thought I was an idiot, he could keep that opinion to himself.
We both chose hot soup to take away in little covered cartons and a sandwich to share. And coffee and chips and cake because I was dining with Chris, after all, and he could eat an incredible amount and never seemed to put on any weight.
“Do you want to stay here or go back to my office?” I asked him. “It’s not far.”
“I want to see your office,” he said.
“It’s not that impressive,” I warned him as we walked back.
“I know, but you won’t let me poke around in your office in your apartment, which has provoked my natural curiosity.”
“Natural curiosity my arse,” I said with a snort. “You want to look at porn on my computer.”
“That too,” he conceded.
Unlocking my office, I took a moment to be grateful that the usual piles of paperwork that covered my space had diminished in recent weeks. It was a nice feeling, smug, almost, to be on top of my game.
“Nice,” Chris said with a low whistle as he turned a full circle in my office. “Posh.”
I rolled my eyes and shut the door behind us.
“I usually go for ‘sophisticated’ or ‘charming’,” I corrected him.
“It’s that too. Can I have the big chair?” He meant my office chair, the one that spun around in circles. “I’ve always wanted to have a go on one of these.”
“Knock yourself out,” I said and set the paper bags of food out on my desk. “Don’t make yourself sick, though.”
“I won’t. Daddy.”
“Don’t start,” I warned him, but his sunny smile made my chastisement fizzle out to nothing.
I opened all the containers of food and took the chair traditionally offered to guests and students. It felt odd, sitting in the wrong seat.
“Tell me about your ex,” he said with a delicious sort of glee as he pulled a pot of soup toward himself.
In a fit of what could only be described as post-coital lack of memory function, the previous weekend we’d confessed to each other the number of lovers we’d both had. Chris called it his “magic number.” It was significantly higher than my own, but I’d prepared myself for that possibility.
“Oh, don’t,” I groaned and dropped my face to my hands. This only made him laugh around his spoonful of soup and reach for his half of the sandwich.
“Go on.”
“You would have hated him,” I said. “He was just so—and this is coming from me, mind you—he was just so dull.”
“I don’t think you’re dull,” Chris said.
“I do. Brett was very conservative and an upstanding citizen. He was a teacher too—we met at a conference one year.”
“And?”
“And after six months of serious, intellectual, culturally enlightening dates, we decided to cohabit. Which lasted for about two years. Shit.” The memory of the man just made me angry now, for some unfathomable reason. “We hardly ever had sex.”
“Hold up,” Chris interrupted. “That’s one of my favourite things about being gay. All the dirty, horny man sex.”
“I know,” I said. And I did know. “It just never happened between us. We’d give each other hand jobs or blow jobs sometimes, but I suppose he bottomed once every couple of months.”
“And he never topped you?”
“No,” I said. “Never. I didn’t want that, so I told him I was saving myself for my wedding night.” Chris snorted in appreciation of that. “You have to understand, Brett was the sort of man who aspired to being part of the only gay couple in the suburban neighbourhood. He wanted to be the token minority, where he and his—and I quote—"life partner” would be invited to dinner parties with the Joneses and exchange tips on how to make the perfect soufflé.”
“You’re right,” Chris said, deadpan. “I hate him.”
I laughed. “Good.”
“So why did you break up?”
“I never loved him,” I said with a small shrug. “He was convenient, a warm body to sleep next to, I suppose. We both made good incomes and had a nice life together. There was just no spark. Barely any intimacy. And I didn’t want more children and he did.”
“Ah,” Chris said knowingly.
“Ah?” I repeated.
“I know you think you don’t have a good relationship with Chloe, but she clearly means the world to you.”
“She’s my daughter,” I said, feeling slightly awkward. “Do you want kids?”
“I don’t think so,” he said. “To be honest I haven’t given the idea a whole lot of thought. I like children. My brother has a couple, and they’re great. But to have kids means you give up on the whole young and free lifestyle, and I like that. I like my independence, and I’m so totally not ready for that yet.”
“How do you feel about Chloe?” I said. It was a question that had been burning in the back of my mind for weeks now, but I’d yet to pluck up the courage to ask.
“She’s cool,” he said in the most offhand, nonchalant voice I’d ever heard. And I worked with college students.
“She’s my teenage daughter,” I told him, exasperated. “She’s anything but cool.”
He smiled. “I think Chloe is more like you than either of you realise. She’s a smart kid but sassy with it, and I know you don’t think you’re a great dad, but she clearly worships you.”
“I didn’t ask that,” I mumbled.
“Like hell you didn’t. If I’m going to be a total bastard, and I might as well since we’re on the topic, I think you could make more of an effort with her. You’re closer to her age than most of her friend’s parents, and I know you don’t like to think of yourself as a father figure, but you’re actually young and cool. For a dad. Plus, you have a super-hot boyfriend, and what with the number of actually cool people who are out and proud at the moment, I think the gay angle is one you should work.”
It was one of the longest monologues I’d ever heard from him, and I wanted to figure out a way of both slapping him and kissing him at the same time. In the end I laughed and shook my head.
“Bloody hell.”
“And fuck me if your accent isn’t the sexiest thing in the world. Wanna fuck?”
“In my office?” I asked.
His eyes darkened. “Oh, hell yeah. I’m up for that.”
“You’re always up,” I said, pleased to be able to turn his words back around on him. I finished the last mouthful of my soup and pushed the carton away. “And however much I’d love to bend you over and fuck you senseless on my desk, I have seminars this afternoon.”
“Oh, really?” he whined. “Come on, Robbie, where’s your sense of adventure?”
“Okay, ‘Rob’ I put up with because it’s you,” I said. “But ‘Robbie’ is out of the question.”
He stood and walked around the desk to sit across my lap, purposefully wiggling his arse as he did so but wrapping himself up in my arms in a manner that could only be described as sweet. I rubbed my nose against his, teasing for as long as I could before pressing our lips together.
His mouth still tasted of spicy tomato soup as I flicked my tongue against his, searching for the taste of him underneath. My hands edged up under the hem of his sweater to gently stroke at his hot skin, knowing how he was so sensitive there on his sides.
It wasn’t a surprise to discover that I liked kissing him. What did surprise me, however, was the sheer amount of time I seemed to spend doing it. Whereas with the ill-fated ex-boyfriend there were casual pecks on the cheek in greeting or goodbye, and the longer, slower kisses that defined our d
ull lovemaking, Chris wanted to kiss me all the time. Proper, deep kisses, and he didn’t give a damn who saw us.
But I laughed when a knock at my door had him springing up from my lap as if he’d been burned.
“Come in,” I called, standing too to start clearing away the remains of our lunch.
A colleague, Annette, stuck her head around the door.
“Oh, sorry, Robert. I didn’t know you had company.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “What can I do for you?”
She launched into an exasperated complaint about the photocopier in the History department being broken and her card not authorising copies on any other machines, not even in the library because of some official mess-up in the authorities department, and just as I started to figure out her point, she asked to borrow my photocopy card.
“I promise I’ll let you use mine when everything’s up and working again,” she finished in a rush.
“Sure, no problem,” I said. “Chris, would you pass me my bag?”
“I didn’t realise you were with a student,” she said guiltily. Then her eyes narrowed at the lunch bag on my desk.
“Chris isn’t a student,” I said calmly. “He’s my partner.”
“Oh,” she squeaked as her cheeks reddened. “Nice to meet you.”
“Likewise,” he said drily, and I had to press my lips together to hide my smile.
Annette scuttled off with the air of someone who knew something gossipy hanging around her, my precious card clutched tightly in her hands.
“Are you out here?” Chris demanded as I shut the door behind her.
“Sort of,” I said. His expression was fairly murderous. “Some people know, others don’t. I’m not too bothered, really.”
“You introduced me to her as your partner,” he said, stepping closer to me again.
“Well, you are,” I said and took hold of his hips. “I’m far too old for a boyfriend. And the word sounds too… flighty for my liking.”
“I’m not flighty?” He wrapped his arms around my neck.
“No,” I said emphatically. “In fact you’re the exact opposite of flighty.”
“What’s that?”
“Permanent,” I said as I touched my lips to his. “If you want to be.”
As much as I might have liked staying in my office all afternoon, firmly locking the door and having sex with my partner, my partner over and over again, I had a seminar to host. Chris was due in rehearsals for the orchestra later in the day, which explained why he was dressed more conservatively than normal.
I walked him back to where he’d parked the bike and just about refrained from kissing him, instead letting him go with the promise that I’d text him before I went to bed. He was likely to go out to a bar for a drink when he was done with rehearsal, and I was okay with that. When I was with Brett, we kept tabs on one another’s every movement, almost without thinking about it. It was something that we’d developed over time, and after a while I thought it faintly ridiculous that I couldn’t even meet up with my friends without telling him beforehand where I was going and what time he could expect me home.
There was certainly a freedom with Chris that I hadn’t had in previous relationships, and it struck me that experience would dictate that I was more cautious because of it. But despite all the facts that, on paper, suggested that I shouldn’t trust him, I did.
The flat was a mess.
There was no use in denying it any longer. In my moments of being wrapped up in my new boyfriend and all of the distractions that came with him, I’d completely ignored any kind of housekeeping. Dirty dishes piled up in the sink. I hadn’t vacuumed in days… maybe a week. Or more. My supply of clean clothes had dwindled down to almost nothing.
I had to clean.
Years of living on my own had made me self-sufficient enough to be able to do all the basic household chores needed to keep me alive. I could cook and wash and clean, although they were far from my favourite activities on a bright but cold Saturday morning in November.
It was different from organising things, which was one of the few things that could calm me once I had riled myself up into a foul mood, usually over my job. Organising things meant finding an order where there was disorder and making it aesthetically pleasing at the same. Whether it was the Dewey decimal system or alphabetising my CD collection, order was good.
Mess, however, had no effect whatsoever on order.
I started with laundry, since I could get that going while I tackled things like scrubbing the bathroom, which definitely had not been done in weeks. There was a fair amount in the laundry basket and plenty more scattered around my bedroom. It was only when I was separating colours and whites and darks that I noticed that there was considerably more underwear around than there should be.
And I definitely did not own a bright red jockstrap.
As I worked through the pile that I’d amassed, I became more and more amused, partially because I was doing Chris’s laundry for him, and by the fact that by my finding it all on the floor, Chris must have been leaving the flat either wearing my underwear or none at all.
It wasn’t much of a task to separate out what was his from what was mine. A pair of tiger-striped boxers with RAWR printed across the back? Definitely his. Black Calvins? Mine. Animal from the Muppets? His. Bright yellow with the words “It Ain’t Gonna Suck Itself” on the side? Oh yes. His.
I considered clearing out drawer space for him, but I wasn’t sure if we were at that stage in our relationship yet. Instead I neatly folded a considerable pile of clean clothes that inexplicably contained T-shirts and a pair of sweatpants too and left them on the chair in my bedroom.
When cleaning the bathroom, I found a bright pink toothbrush living next to my blue one. It shouldn’t have come as a surprise since I’d watched Chris brush his teeth many a morning. And I joined him most nights as we brushed side by side before we went to bed together.
His phone charger was plugged in next to the bed. On the nightstand was a nearly empty bottle of Boy Butter H2O and one sad, lonely little condom in the bottom of a 24 Jumbo pack.
A closer survey of the contents of my fridge revealed two different types of beer that I didn’t drink, strawberry-flavoured milk, a jar of face cream, and Out magazine. In the cupboard over the fridge, there was a tub of marshmallow fluff, half a box of Pop-Tarts, and a jar of beef jerky. None of these things had been purchased by me.
I spent about three seconds freaking out, then laughed.
Chris was probably the most unsubtle person I had ever encountered, so it was fairly understandable that it would come as a surprise that he’d practically moved in with me without my noticing. Pink toothbrush and all.
It had been a long, rainy, grey day, which was bad enough, but I’d left my umbrella at home, which meant every time I walked from one part of the campus to another, I got soaking wet. Another downpour had started just as I left my office, and I drove home with condensation fogging up the inside of my car.
The presence of Chris’s motorbike outside the flat was surprising, and I wondered where the hell he was, since the rain was still hammering down and the bike didn’t exactly provide much protection from the elements.
“Honey, I’m home,” I called as I let myself in.
He had clearly found a way in somehow, and I questioned my home’s security as he called out from the kitchen.
“I’d think you’d broken in,” I said as I shrugged off my wet jacket, “if it weren’t for the smell in here.”
“I cooked,” Chris said, appearing in the doorway wearing an apron with an image of a naked man on it and brandishing a spatula.
I gave him a light kiss on the lips. “I guessed that. Why? How did you get in?”
“Because I wanted to. And with your spare key.”
“How did you know I had a spare key?”
“Rob. Seriously. It was in a drawer with a tag on it that says ‘spare key’.”
I laughed and gave him another
kiss. “Okay. You’re clearly a stealthy super-spy with hidden and untapped talents.”
“I am,” he said and preened at the compliment.
“So what did you cook for me?”
He led me through to the kitchen, where the steam and smells converged into a wonderful mess. “Moroccan lamb casserole and couscous and grilled vegetables with halloumi cheese.”
“Wow,” I said. “It sounds fantastic. I didn’t know you had such skills in the kitchen.”
“I like cooking,” he said as he stirred a large pot of what I assumed was the stew. “I don’t get to do it very often because it’s rare that we live somewhere with a decent kitchen. But your place is pretty stacked, so….”