Hipster Brothel (contemporary gay romance)

by K. A. Merikan

  No answer.

  For a moment Jo wanted to turn around and leave, since there was no light inside, suggesting that Mr. B was out. But then he noticed B’s bicycle. Unless he took an Uber, B had to be somewhere around, and if Jo waited long enough, his estranged friend would eventually show up, unable to once again deflect Jo’s questions with excuses. The talk would happen, no matter how unpleasant it was likely to become.

  Jo sighed and smacked the gate until it rattled before taking a seat on one of the smooth stones Mr. B had brought here from the nearby river. Nestled between the fence and a bush, he was unlikely to be spotted from the road, which was more than okay with him. If Mr. B didn’t want to be open about what happened, he’d get a taste of his own medicine.

  If Mr. B had in fact gone out for the night, to have sex on Friday night, then Jo would just sleep here. He knew the cars weren’t locked.

  He took his time looking through his phone, and a hundred different selfies he’d taken with Mr. B only depressed him more. There were so many photos from just a few months ago when they went on a week-long bike ride and camping trip in early spring. Jo had already been crushing on Mr. B so hard he could barely hide his morning wood, and he’d been happy that they both took separate sleeping bags. Even then, Mr. B would snuggle up a bit to Jo when it got cold at night, like a giant cuddly worm in his sleeping bag and the hood pulled tightly over his head.

  Jo couldn’t find peace since Mr. B’s rejection. The way he’d evaded Jo’s kiss still stung like a fresh wound whenever he remembered it. Did Mr. B consider Jo a liar for not telling him about his gay side, or was he simply not attracted to Jo and was now uncomfortable to be around him? It was as if Jo had broken some unwritten code, and Mr. B would make him suffer for it.

  He put the phone back in his pocket and rubbed his face, increasingly bitter. He couldn’t believe that the one guy he ever dared to approach sexually ended up just cutting ties after years of friendship.

  The light went on in the train car, making Jo frown and instantly pay attention to its windows. It could be some kind of glitch, but then he noticed a shadow moving behind the curtain, so someone was definitely in there. Had Mr. B… hidden from him?

  Jo just sat there with his mouth open in shock when Mr. B opened the door and walked down the steps, unaware of Jo’s presence in the darkness. In the faint light coming through the window, Mr. B gathered a collection of dirty cups onto a tray.

  Despite his muscles aching far more than right after the training, Jo forced himself to stand up and moved toward Mr. B in quick strides that matched the furious beating in his chest.

  As soon as he approached, Mr. B yelped, dropping the cups as he stumbled back. “Jesus fucking Christ!” He stared at Jo, frozen with the cups scattered at his feet and the tray held in front of his chest like a shield.

  “Are you hiding from me?” asked Jo, still in disbelief even as he spoke. This hurt even more than the rejection of his kiss had.

  “I… N-no. Why would I be hiding from you? What are you doing sitting around in the darkness? What the hell?” Mr. B scooted down to pick up the cups, but Jo stood so close Mr. B needed to lean back to avoid pushing his head against Jo’s thighs.

  “Look at me.”

  Mr. B licked his lips and stood up, leaving the tray on the ground. Their eyes finally met, and Jo had no idea what to do with all the apprehension he saw in Mr. B’s. “There. I’m looking.”

  “Good. Now tell me why you’ve been avoiding me. You don’t even come to Crossfit anymore.”

  “What? I haven’t been avoiding you. I’ve been busy here. Look, I’ve dug up a fire pit.” Mr. B pointed to somewhere behind Jo’s back. “And I wasn’t feeling like doing Crossfit lately, because I’ve eaten a truckload of pretzels, and everyone will be talking about the next paleo cookout, and I’ll feel like I have to lie. So I thought I’d just take it easy for a while.”

  Jo spread his arms. “Stop lying. I’m fed up with this. It’s been a week, and you refuse to see me, or talk to me. What the hell happened? What did I do?”

  Mr. B ran his fingers through his beard, only making Jo focus on it and reminding him how good it felt to touch it. How good it would surely feel against Jo’s face if they kissed. “I’m sorry. It’s not your fault. I just… I really need to focus on this place right now. It needs to be perfect so I can start the thing.”

  Yet another lie. Jo rubbed his face and then pushed his fingers into his hair, all the way underneath the bun on top of his head. Oh, God... was he so bad at giving head Mr. B was embarrassed to tell him the truth? “I was offering my help.”

  Mr. B put his hands in his pockets, avoiding Jo’s gaze as if it could give him the plague. “Okay, so do you wanna help make leaflets?”

  “Mr. B said, eager to send Jo as far away as possible,” Jo stated, unable to hold back the bitterness that crept into his voice. He kicked a stone and looked to his feet.

  “No, Jo… It’s not like that.” Mr. B stroked Jo’s arm, and it felt so good, and so painful at the same time that Jo wasn’t sure what to do with himself. “I really need them. It’s true. There’s this big sex party at The Tauron next week, and I thought I could do a launch there. But everything is still unfinished. I still have to get some outdoor blankets. For sex by the fire pit, if someone wanted that.”

  Jo sighed, feeling even more humiliated that Mr. B would rather fuck strangers than him. He kicked yet another stone. “I don’t know. What more do you need? The place looked fine to me when I was here last time. It’s like you’re pushing the launch back on purpose.”

  Mr. B took his hand away, and Jo had no idea if it made things worse or better. He could hardly remember ever being such an emotional wreck. “Why would I push it back? I’ve invested so much into this already.”

  Jo looked up, straight into Mr. B’s eyes, which were still visible despite the darkness. “I don’t know. Maybe you don’t really want to do it. It’s okay if you don’t. I wouldn’t.”

  Mr. B glanced toward the road, and the way he was evading Jo was more infuriating by the second. Especially since he’d never acted that way before, never ignored or gaslighted Jo. “No, I wanna. I’ve been with Mr. A for five years. I need to change. I can’t be this clingy marshmallow forever. I want to experience more, dip my toes into all that casual sex A always claimed was good for his health.” He clenched his fists.

  Jo shook his head. This was just beyond stupid. “Well, maybe it isn’t for everyone. You’ve never had any casual sex in your life, and now you’re gonna kick it off by renting yourself out? That makes no sense, Mr. B. You’ve got to see that,” he said, feeling increasingly urgent to save his friend from a disastrous decision. Mr. B was sensitive, maybe overly so, and Jo didn’t want to see him hurt because of some dumb ideas his former partner had put in his head.

  Mr. B groaned. “So that’s what it is. You just don’t like the idea. It’s not like I’ll be selling myself in the street. It will be fun and unusual, with a lot of added value. I think I really need to take a big step or I’ll never move on from where I’m at.”

  Jo chewed on his lip. As much as that paralyzed him, it was time to be serious. “No. I don’t like this idea, and I’m sorry I didn’t say this sooner. Don’t you think that maybe you should start slow after all? How do you know you’ll be able to handle this job?”

  “Well, how do I know if I don’t try, Mr. Judgy?”

  Jo exhaled in frustration. “You clearly couldn’t handle me, and you think you’ll be able to do it with a stranger?” His mouth went dry, but he stood his ground, watching Mr. B’s face with increasing difficulty as darkness dimmed his features.

  “Because it would be different with a stranger! How can you not see that?” Mr. B took half a step back. “You came at me out of the blue, and you never even told me you weren’t completely straight, and we’ve known each other so long. And now you decided to experiment on me when I’m trying to focus on this new thing? It’s like you’re trying to sabotage me.
”

  That stung. Jo shoved at Mr. B’s chest, trying to keep down the howl that choked his throat. “Fuck you.”

  Mr. B growled like an angered grizzly, but didn’t push back. “If you’re so gay now, maybe go to The Taurus next week, and work out what you even want. A whole buffet of guys will be waiting for you to sample. I’m not ready after— I need to work out my own stuff first, and I need to do this brothel thing. You clearly don’t get it, because you’ve hooked up with new people all the time, for years.”

  “I’m not gay,” Jo said like a robot, instantly tense. With his relationship with Mr. B crumbling, the last thing he needed was more gossip. “You had all the time in the fucking world when you opened up your relationship with A. That was your time to experiment. Clearly you didn’t feel like it.”

  “Listen, I don’t need your approval of my sex life, or my new, exciting business venture. I thought you were all in it with me, and that we’d be doing the jams once I’m done with it, but we clearly don’t see eye to eye on this.”

  Jo clenched his teeth, his confidence bleeding out through the gash that last comment left. “Maybe you should just do it then instead of constantly talking about it. Go to that orgy and fuck as many people as you want. Good test ride.”

  Mr. B took a deep, hoarse breath. “That’s exactly what I’m planning to do! Give out fucking freebies and a leaflet. Go away!”

  Jo didn’t even try to argue anymore. He turned away from Mr. B and rushed past the gate, grabbing his bike and urging it down the dirt road. It was too dark to ride now, with not much to light the way. This wasn’t the Mr. B he knew. The Mr. B he knew was a cuddly, smily teddy bear of a guy who didn’t even look much at other guys when he was with Mr. A. He had a friendly personality and never raised his voice, like the kindest, sweetest man on the planet.

  Nothing made sense anymore.

  Damn Mr. A for constantly suggesting there was something wrong with Mr. B’s sexuality. It was him who triggered this weird change, and clearly Jo wasn’t important enough for B to listen to him.

  He stopped and looked back at the lights of the train car peeking through the leaves, but he couldn’t hear Mr. B calling him to come back or following him to apologize.

  It would be a long ride home.

  Chapter 5

  Jo couldn’t remember being this nervous at a club. Maybe when he was eighteen and got into one with a fake ID, scared shitless that cops were going to bust him any minute. The anxiety was very different this time. He was dipping his toes into a world unknown to him other than from Mr. B’s stories, and he hadn’t even been to a straight sex party before.

  Initially, Jo didn’t want to humiliate himself further, but another week without texts from Mr. B, without chats, bike rides, and having deep, drunken conversations until morning had him crawling up the walls. He wouldn’t be at peace if he didn’t give their friendship one last shot, even if he’d never get to feel that furry face pressed against his dick again. He could live with that if it meant he’d get his friend back.

  He missed Mr. B, and just thinking of him casually fucking someone else had Jo aggravated. So he put on his best fake smile and came to the club dressed for the occasion, in edgy black pants that didn’t hinder his movements and a sleeveless top that showed off his arms, but he very quickly found out that for many of the men gathered in the dark space with disco lights flaring up the darkness, the dress code was ‘underwear’ or ‘naked’.

  Jo decided to stick with his textile armor, as he supposed many attendees wouldn’t approach him, assuming he only came to watch, but he still kept his back to the wall, uncomfortable with the idea of someone grabbing his ass. Even if that would be the end of it. He doubted a straight sex party would have made him feel so overwhelmed and cornered, but cocks were somehow more intimidating than tits.

  Mr. B’s cock hadn’t been intimidating though. Thick, hard, uncut, hiding in a bush of dark blond hair. As ridiculous as it would sound, Jo would even go as far as calling Mr. B’s dick ‘playful’. It was as cute and hot as all of Mr. B, so warm Jo wanted to just lay his head on it and breathe in its scent.

  His gaze darted to the far off corner where a trio of men tried to outspeed the sharp rhythm of the music with their hips. Jo licked his lips, unsure whether the sight turned him on or intimidated him more. He had such a lousy relationship with his gay side, never even having seriously considered dipping his toes into having sex with a man before. He’d watched gay porn since he could remember, and he did have fantasies featuring hot men, but actually getting into bed with them? No way.

  Jo liked girls a lot, so why would he risk a significant percentage of the population hating him, and worrying his parents, if he could have as much straight sex as he wanted with no adverse consequences? And, well, then came Mr. B, with his sweet smiles and sunny personality, and a body that just begged to be touched and hugged... and Jo fell hard. For the first time there was a guy he actively wanted to pursue, and he’d be damned if he’d let Mr. B hurt himself because of some stupid fantasy he now had about how his sex life was supposed to look.

  Jo’s heart pounded more intensely when in a far-off corner, under dark green lights he noticed a man of Mr. B’s size, with a thick beard, getting tag teamed by two others. Despite being fairly sure it wasn’t actually Mr. B, the knot in Jo’s stomach wouldn’t unravel. He unglued himself from the wall and walked the outskirts of the dance floor, where new short-term couples and teams were being formed as bodies floated together in the dark like a giant school of fish. He came closer to the bearded guy and relaxed when he saw it really wasn’t his friend.

  This guy looked like a pornstar, with a studied expression, and was more defined in terms of muscle too. In contrast, Mr. B was so... touchable. Nothing about him was intimidating to Jo. Nothing but the rift created by this one lapse in judgment almost two weeks ago. And now that Jo knew how Mr. B looked like when he came, face all flushed and lips spread in a slight smile, he could not wipe that cute yet erotic image from his mind.

  Jo arrived at the bar and rested his elbows against it, waiting in line to grab a beer. Once his turn came, the slender bartender with Japanese features leaned over to his ear.

  “That guy with the Noh masks tattooed on his chest will try to fuck anyone Asian. Watch out for him, he’s a creep.”

  Jo gave a short laugh, relaxing into the rhythm thudding under his feet. “Thanks for the heads-up. Anything else I should know? It’s my first time here,” he said and pointed at a wall of beer bottles of his favorite brand.

  The bartender picked one up and opened it for him. “It’s the usual. There are condom and lube dispensers in a few places, and the rooftop garden will open for guests in about an hour. It’s a cool place, with a labyrinth and rattan beds.”

  Jo nodded and paid for his drink before saying his good-byes. It was late enough for Mr. B to have already arrived, as he’d never been much of a night owl, but where was he?

  Jo grabbed his beer and turned around, scanning the room with a scowl to not invite any flirting, but then his body froze as if his own gaze had been reflected at him.

  Mr. A was here. He hadn’t spotted Jo just yet, too busy squeezing the ass of a beefy guy he was talking to, but he was here. If Mr. A saw Jo at this party, the gossip would never end. Jo bet it had been Mr. A who told people about Mr. B’s brothel idea.

  He took a deep breath and let his hair down, hoping it would obscure his face enough to make him unrecognizable from afar, especially with all the flickering light and the deafening club music thundering in his ears. Sipping on the beer, he moved past the bar and made rounds along the open space, still wary of going into the darkroom.

  Mr. B had told him about those, and at the time Jo thought it was an amazing idea—a space in a club where you could fuck or just have a bit of fun with the girl you’ve just met. But he kinda didn’t want to delve into the dark corridors here. Did this make him homophobic or just chicken?

  With all of Mr. B’s grand d
eclarations about sexual freedom, would he really have gone through with anything and fucked three different guys somewhere where people could see and hear him? Jo doubted that was the case, yet couldn’t help but feel uneasy about strangers’ dirty, sweaty hands all over the fuzz on Mr. B’s chest.

  He continued down the path he’d set for himself, discreetly watching strangers make out and fuck, or just talk over beer, when a loud voice cut through the music, crisp enough that Jo’s heart got close to a standstill.

  Mr. A was calling his name.

  Flushed, and with his head instantly drained of ideas, he just rushed forward as quickly as he could without seeming too suspicious. There. He could just pretend it wasn’t really him. That he was just another Chinese guy with long hair and dark clothes of the same style Jo always wore. No biggie.

  He practically stumbled over someone’s calves and rushed to the left, following a sign on the wall that showed the way to the rooftop. If it wasn’t open yet, then there was a fair chance he’d get a quiet moment up there to regroup. Jo could wait out Mr. A and creep back out once Mr. A went into the darkroom... or something.

  So he wasn’t straight. In fact, he’d only ever touched one dick besides his own, and that had been only two weeks ago. But he wasn’t gay either and having gossip about that floating around would have been… What? Would it have been that bad? He wasn’t even sure why he felt that way, but all his brain power was set to work on evading Mr. A, so he blindly headed up the stairs, past a little ‘Staff Only’ sign, and all the way up to a door that reminded him of some horror movie, where behind a similar one lurked a whole pack of zombies.