Queermance Anthology, Volume 1

by Queermance Anthology- Volume 1 [MM-FF] (v5. 0) (epub)

  It was going really well. Tully didn’t know how to include his bedroom in the tour without it seeming like an awkward invitation that he, nonetheless, really wanted to make.

  Sean solved that issue for him as well.

  ‘There’s not a lot of light in there,’ he said, making the show of peering in. ‘I can’t quite see…’

  When Tully leaned in to flick on the light switch, Sean reached for his hand and turned him around to face him. A moment passed between them where Sean searched his gaze, making sure this was something Tully wanted to do.

  How was one to describe the glass of water after the drought? How did one describe the feast after the famine?

  The first touch of Sean’s lips against his, and Tully knew he never wanted Sean to leave. He didn’t know where the other man had come from, and he didn’t care. As long as he could have this moment, and another dozen like it, he would be happy.

  Something about their bodies touching for the first time felt right. Tully couldn’t remember the last time he had felt like this. Their clothes were shed in a matter of seconds, abandoned on the floor, as they took to the bed.

  Sean’s skin was cool from the beach. His touch was a balm for Tully’s fevered skin.

  Tully had lubricant, of course, and condoms in the top drawer of his bedside table. He guided Sean’s body down towards the bed, shifting his hips so that it would be most pleasurable for him. Tully’s cock was already erect at the sight of Sean’s left cheek against his pillow, ass arched up. Sean’s hand had already found his own penis, and he was stroking it slowly while Tully sheathed himself with a condom. He ran a hand slicked with lubricant along his shaft once, twice, then kneeled forward and pressed the tip of his head against Sean’s tight hole.

  With a gasp and a shudder, Tully entered the other man, hands clasping and tightening across the skin of his hips. The two men groaned in unison. They’d spoken barely a dozen words between them, but now they shared a common language.

  Tully had to remind himself slow, steady thrusts, even as the sweat beaded on his forehead and he clung to Sean with ever-increasing need. He lifted a hand from Sean’s hip to palm the other man’s cock, working it until they were both in a state of frenzy.

  Sean came first, spending his seed across Tully’s hand and the bed. Tully was not long after. They both fell down on the bed, exhausted and replete.

  ****

  Minutes, hours, days afterwards, Tully and Sean emerged once again from the bedroom. The air was still heavy with the pungent smell of sex. Tully wore a broad grin.

  They wandered into the kitchen without a scrap of clothing between them. Sean’s own relaxed smile was easy on his features as he leaned against the counter. Before, it would have been Tully’s first concern to close the shutters so as not to shock anyone who might pass by. The thought was still there, but rather than rushing to shield potential embarrassment, Tully sauntered across the kitchen, kissing Sean briefly on the lips and putting on the percolator, before leaning across to close the kitchen shutter.

  Then he drew another mug down from the cupboard.

  ‘So Sean, whereabouts are you from?’

  ‘Ireland, actually,’ he answered.

  Tully thought he would have been able to hear the exotic twang of an Irish accent in Sean’s voice. He listened for it, but it was so faded as to hardly be there at all.

  ‘How long have you been here?’ Tully asked as he poured coffee first into Sean’s mug, then into his own. He glanced often at the two mugs, sitting side by side where so often there had been only one.

  ‘Oh,’ said Sean. He gazed off into the distance as though counting the months. ‘It’s been a while. I’ve been travelling up and down the east coast.’

  ‘That is…’ That was something Tully had always wanted to do. It was never the right time. He could never get the time off work. He had the mortgage to pay on this place. He wasn’t sure he wanted to do it on his own. ‘That sounds great.’

  ‘It is.’ Sean slid Tully a sidelong glance. ‘You’ve never seen it?’

  ‘I’ve never been out of Victoria, to tell you the truth.’ Tully rubbed the back of his neck. He felt slightly embarrassed to be admitting that.

  ‘Well,’ said Sean, as he picked up his mug. ‘We’ll have to see what we can do about that.’

  Smiling, Tully lifted his own coffee mug. He couldn’t think of anything to say to that. But on introspection he found, deep inside - where there had only been loneliness and disappointment - a small ball of warmth was in his chest.

  ‘You can stay here,’ Tully said, and for once he didn’t feel awkward saying it. Sean’s gaze swung around to him and emboldened Tully. ‘For as long as you’re around, I mean. You can stay here.’

  Sean winked at him. ‘I might just take you up on that.’

  ****

  The weekend passed in a flurry of sex, coffee and rest. Marathons in the bedroom were broken only by ventures to the kitchen for food and coffee behind closed shutters.

  On Sunday night, Sean left the bed. Tully only knew because he woke up as the other man was crawling back into bed. Still half asleep, Tully rolled into Sean and promptly returned to unconsciousness.

  On Monday morning, Tully’s alarm went off. Sean didn’t stir on his side of the bed. Tully’s lips curved at the idea that Sean already had a side of his bed.

  It was difficult to force himself out of the room and into the shower. He felt like he should say something to Sean, but didn’t want to wake him. In the shower, it struck him that he was afraid that Sean would disappear by the time he came home from work, as though he’d never been, as though their weekend together had been nothing but Tully’s imagination.

  When he strode back into the bedroom for some clothes, his hair wet and flopping over his forehead. A few droplets of water trailed down his neck. Sean opened one eye, but the rest of his face was all but buried in the pillow.

  Tully kneeled beside the bed. ‘I’ll be home at around 5.30 tonight,’ he said. ‘You going to be okay around here on your own?’

  Sean smiled, and nodded slowly, before closing his eye and going back to sleep.

  Tully considered not going into work that day: calling in sick, fake-coughing down the phone, putting off the inevitable. Somehow, integrity won out. Or maybe it was the fear that if he called in that day, he would call in for the whole week, and the next, for however long Sean decided to stay.

  He caught the bus to work. He paid his fare and sat directly behind the driver as the bus pulled out into the Monday morning traffic. The weather had cleared after the weekend, and the sun was already out from between the clouds. Tully barely noticed. It was an hour-long trip between Ocean Grove and Geelong, and Tully was miserable the whole way.

  He knew it was transitory, just a “beach romance” for Sean. While he was at work, stuck inside his cubicle and fencing demands from irate customers, Tully allowed himself to pretend he would have someone to go home to for longer than that.

  ****

  When Tully came home from work, Sean had dinner ready. It was the first meal they ate in front of the TV before cuddling on the couch. When they headed into the bedroom, Tully saw that Sean had even made the bed.

  Lying in bed together, with Tully’s head in the curve between Sean’s shoulder and collarbone, Sean said, ‘I feel like I should tell you, I went into your other room today. The one with all the posters on the walls.’

  Tully tensed. ‘Okay.’ he said.

  ‘I was wondering…’ It was the first time Tully had heard Sean sound anything other than completely sure of himself. ‘What’s the movie called Jaws about?’

  Tully pushed himself up. ‘You’ve never seen Jaws before?’

  Sean shook his head.

  Tully couldn’t believe it. ‘Well, we’ve got to fix that!’ he said.

  ‘Like we’ve got to fix that you haven’t been outside of Victoria yet?’ Sean asked curiously. He was still lying back against the pillows looking deliciously kissable.<
br />
  ‘Exactly,’ Tully answered decisively. He bent to sneak another kiss from the man in his bed. ‘Only easier to do.’ Lifting himself out of the bed, Tully crossed his bedroom utterly naked. He felt unabashed, even proud about the way he looked. When he glanced back at Sean, it was to see Sean’s gaze following every step he took. He wasn’t bland, he realised. He was sexy.

  Tully hid a little smirk at this less-than-humble realisation, and dug out a DVD from the case next to the bedroom TV. Of course he had a copy of Jaws close to hand. He had a copy of every movie pictured on his study walls.

  Only later, when Jaws was attacking on screen for the first time, did he realise that Sean had seen every part of his life in this house, and he hadn’t had a problem with any of it.

  It wasn’t until the end of the second week that Tully started to wonder.

  ‘How long do you usually stick around in a place?’ It was Friday night again. Tully had called home ahead of time to say that he would pick up takeaway, so Sean didn’t have to cook. It was the first time Tully really felt like this thing happening between them was permanent; that they were falling into habits that wouldn’t be so easy to break.

  Perhaps Sean felt the same way, because a spark of amusement lit his eyes even as he quipped in his low voice, ‘Why? Getting sick of me already?’

  ‘No.’ Tully attempted to glare at the other man, but he knew his glare needed work when he was as happy as this. ‘No. You know that’s not what it is.’

  Sean set aside his bowl of noodles. ‘I have no plans to go elsewhere,’ he said.

  It was as unequivocally stated as it could be and, for most of that weekend, Tully relaxed into those words, and let himself believe.

  But there was still the matter of Sean disappearing in the night. Tully didn’t wake up most nights in the beginning, but he started to, more and more often. The nights when he woke up and Sean was gone were the worst. It was the dead of night, when no sound came from the small beach town except for the soft sound of the ocean itself. In those nights, Tully’s worries would rise up to choke him. He couldn’t calm himself, or remember everything that was good between him and Sean, enough to go back to sleep before Sean returned each night.

  Sean must have known this was the case, and yet it kept happening. Tully couldn’t understand why Sean didn’t say something about it. In the end, Tully decided he would.

  ‘Where do you go?’

  ‘Hmm?’

  ‘During the night. When you leave the bed. Where do you go?’

  Sean couldn’t have found another person he was seeing on the side, Tully told himself. What kind of person would accept an affair that could only happen between the hours of midnight and three a.m.?

  An insidious voice within Tully told him that he might have been such a person before Sean came along.

  ‘I get insomnia,’ Sean answered smoothly. ‘I don’t want to wake you by tossing and turning, so I go for a walk along the beach. It sorts me out so I can sleep by the time I get back.’

  As answers went, it seemed reasonable. Certainly, Tully had never seen anything to refute his words.

  Sean touched Tully’s arm. ‘I’m sorry I’ve been waking you anyway.’

  ‘It’s okay,’ Tully said. He wanted this to be true more than it was. For a little while, he managed to make himself accept it.

  It was a bandaid fix, and Tully should have known himself better than that. Whatever it was Sean was doing at night, Tully had to see it for himself. If Sean was just walking along the beach as he said, maybe Tully could join him, since he was awake anyway.

  During their fourth week together, Tully donned his tracksuit pants and discarded tee and set out to follow Sean.

  Shadows were his friend. It was two in the morning, and the air was crisp and fresh in his face as he left the house. Sean was a dark figure ahead of him, and Tully quickened his pace to keep up with him.

  They ended up by the shoreline. Tully paused. It appeared Sean suffered from insomnia exactly as he’d said. Suddenly, it didn’t seem like the greatest idea to step out of his shadows and offer to join Sean on his walk. How could Sean not see the jealousy and suspicion that had drawn Tully out this night?

  Tully huddled in his tee. The air was frigid and Tully wished he’d worn something warmer. He thought longingly of the bed at home that might still hold some of their shared body heat before Tully had left on this ridiculous escapade.

  All of a sudden, he felt remarkably silly at the reality of stalking his partner. He almost turned and soft-footed back to his house right then.

  Sean stopped by a small group of rocks and crouched down. Tully didn’t understand what he was seeing, and the curiosity stayed his step a moment longer.

  It became apparent only a minute after, when Sean stepped into something he’d picked up. It was not seaweed or other refuse that the ocean had brought in. They might have been clothes, though Tully couldn’t think of any fabric so iridescent in texture. Tully blinked, rubbed his eyes and looked out towards the ocean again as Sean crouched down and seemed to shrink into fabric he pulled over himself.

  No. It couldn’t be.

  But that was when Tully realised he had seen this once before.

  ****

  Tully stumbled home as Sean disappeared far out to sea. He couldn’t reconcile what he’d seen. His… boyfriend - for what other term could he give at this point? - had just transformed into a seal before his eyes.

  Shock overtook his body the second he stepped inside the sanctuary of his home. His body shook uncontrollably and, for want of anything else to do, he turned on his percolator and pulled his familiar coffee mug down onto the bench.

  He didn’t think he was going to get any more sleep tonight.

  After a cup and a half of coffee, Tully had calmed down enough to string his thoughts together semi-cohesively.

  Insomnia. That was what Sean had told him. Walking on the beach. Tully had been overreacting in his fear that Sean might have a secret lover. In truth, this was both better and worse than that.

  How was someone supposed to reconcile that their boyfriend went into the ocean and turned into a seal every night while you slept?

  Tully stared into the remains of his second coffee and tried to think.

  ‘I’ve been travelling up and down the east coast.’

  ‘Ireland. Originally.’

  This new knowledge cast a dark pall over everything Sean had ever told him. Tully ran through his head all the conversations they’d had over the last month, searching for clues.

  ‘What’s the movie called Jaws about?’

  ‘I like to keep my things in particular places too.’

  Things Tully had taken as sweet in the moment took on a more sinister, hidden meaning. He could understand why Sean had lied to him about this. That didn’t excuse it. Now that he knew, he wasn’t sure he could… Tully wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do at all.

  An idea came to him, sudden and stark. It might have been a warning that it came from the midst of such messy thoughts, or that it came when he should have been asleep.

  Tully set his alarm for an hour earlier than usual, despite feeling sleep would be impossible after this. He did, though, fitfully. His dreams were full of Sean and seals and sometimes amalgamations of both, having conversations that he and Tully had previously had over the kitchen counter, or in bed.

  The last one stuck in his mind, making him jolt as the alarm went off, the clock reading 5.45 a.m.

  Tully’s hand landed hard on it to make it stop ringing.

  Sean mumbled something without waking up. He was completely oblivious that his secret was known.

  Tully looked on him for a long moment. He was hardly able to believe that what he had seen last night hadn’t been some intricate dream. Sean’s skin seemed so smooth, so normal. His dark eyelashes fanned across the tops of his eyelids. A few strands of hair had fallen over his shoulder. His hair was dry. Tully’s mind spun. Did that mean Tully really had imagined e
verything?

  Tully steeled himself to find out.

  It was cold on the beach at this time of morning; colder than when he had followed Sean. The wind was gusting in from the bay. Tully stuffed his hands deep in his pockets.

  The landscape was almost completely different by the morning’s dim light, but Tully had lived in Ocean Grove long enough that it would have been embarrassing if he’d been unable to locate the same landmark by day.

  He hurried to the small group of rocks on the shore, glancing occasionally over his shoulder to make sure no one saw him. A pair of joggers were out early. They were talking to each other, though. Tully was sure neither of them noticed him.

  Tully looked before him. Sure enough, there was the dark grey lump of skin, tucked carefully into the base of the rocks where no one who wasn’t searching for it would find it. He picked it up. Although it appeared oily to the eye, the skin felt fine and warm to the touch. Soft, downy hair tickled the palm of his hand.

  Tully shoved the skin inside his jacket, paranoid still that someone might see him. A glance at his watch told him that only if he went now, he would get to the bus stop in time to get to work.

  While they rode to work - Tully and the seal skin - Tully wondered what had made him do it; what had made him take the skin. He hadn’t intended to do it until he was down there. Or had he? Didn’t he want to keep more of Sean to himself? Not have Sean leaving him for places unknown?

  He would only keep the skin until he had come to terms with it, he told himself, rationalising his actions. He’d only keep it until he knew what to do with the fact that his boyfriend could turn himself into a seal by night. Maybe by day, too. Tully realised he hadn’t even the faintest idea of what Sean got up to during the day while he was at work.

  ****

  The work day went by quickly. Tully’s heart beat a mile a minute and his awareness fixed on the seal skin hidden in his locker. Nobody came by his desk and asked about it, nobody even knew it was there, but Tully was scared it would emit a scent, or a sound, and thus give itself away.

  He was skittish and evasive by the time he got home, sure that Sean would already know of his theft. But Sean didn’t appear to know anything was wrong. He gave Tully a look at his strange behaviour, then set out dinner as though it was any other night.