Queermance Anthology, Volume 2

by Queermance Anthology- Volume 2 [MM-FF] (retail) (epub)

  ‘Thanks. I guess I’ll just have to grow up all over again.’

  ‘If you say so,’ David said. ‘Give me a holler when you hit puberty again. That should be fun.’

  ‘What, I can’t just raid your skin cleaning drawer again?’

  ‘Cleansing, Pat, it’s skin cleansing. And I only have about three products in that corner of the drawer now.’

  ‘But I can borrow them, right?’

  David rolled his eyes. ‘Yes, you can borrow my cleanser. Just don’t forget to moisturise too.’

  ‘That I already do, thanks to your Christmas present,’ Pat said. ‘I think Li Ling was more upset about leaving the moisturiser than she was about leaving me.’

  ‘I’ll get her fake tan version one for… Do you think she’s even going to talk to me now?’

  ‘Maybe. I don’t know.’

  ‘Why did she…?’

  ‘She said I wasn’t going anywhere.’

  ‘Clearly she hasn’t watched The Block then.’

  ‘Dave, I’m not going on The Block.’

  ‘Well, okay, no, but have you seen the paychecks you can make as a kick-ass builder?’

  Pat laughed and drained his beer. ‘How do you always know what to say to make me feel better?’

  ‘I know you,’ David said, passing Patrick another bottle. ‘Beer.’

  ‘You know, at this rate, I’m not going to make it home.’

  David shrugged. ‘The couch pulls out into a double bed,’ he said. ‘I think I might even have almost clean sheets somewhere.’

  ‘Oh, be still my heart,’ Patrick said. ‘Clean sheets. I don’t know how I’ll cope.’

  David Zhang woke up feeling strangely warm - and strangely constricted. His room was still the same, meticulously neat, and the open curtains allowed him a view out over Albert Park. It also allowed the sun to shine right into his eyes as it was currently doing, and his head pounded. Too much beer. Once again he made a mental resolution to switch to light beers, rather than buying into the whole low carb craze. Sure, low carb tasted good, but it didn’t change the fact that most of the carbs in beer were actually in the alcohol.

  Reaching down to toss off the covers, he instead encountered a moderately hairy arm, which was wrapped around his midriff. Then he realised the stale beer breath he was smelling wasn’t coming from him and there was someone else’s morning wood pressing up against his ass. Either he’d had a really good night, or something was wrong. He didn’t remember picking up anyone on Grindr, or via any of the other usual channels. And yet, and yet… and yet Patrick was on the couch. Had he really picked up a guy and allowed him to stay over when his best friend was sacking out on his couch, post-breakup?

  David turned his head carefully, but his neck and shoulders rotated too, and a shift in breathing told him the other man was waking up. Blinking the sleep from his eyes he twisted around, trying to work out the most tactful way of saying “get out quickly before my straight buddy sees you”, only to look into a pair of sleepy blue eyes set wide in a familiar, bestubbled face.

  ‘Well, this is different,’ Patrick said.

  ‘Yeah,’ David said. ‘It really is.’

  ‘You’re hard.’

  ‘So are you.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘One of us should be freaking out right now,’ David said.

  ‘I think one of us is,’ Patrick said with a grin.

  ‘We didn’t… I mean, you and I…’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Patrick said. ‘But I’m starting to think it might be an idea.’

  David pulled back slightly to stare at his friend. ‘Are you still drunk?’

  ‘Probably,’ Patrick admitted. ‘I’m serious though. I’ve always wondered.’

  ‘What it’s like?’

  ‘Yeah. I mean, Li Ling and I had a few threesomes with a second girl, and I did suggest a one with another guy but she was always a bit “eh” about the whole thing. So I was a bit “okay, backing off if it’s not your thing”. I thought she’d love the idea.’

  ‘Clearly not.’

  ‘No, but, I always… I want to know.’

  ‘Want to know what?’

  ‘You’re going to make me say it, huh?’ Patrick said, reaching out to trace David’s jawline with his thumb.

  ‘Under the circumstances, yes.’

  Patrick tapped him on the nose. ‘I want to know what it would feel like to be with a guy. Sexually.’

  ‘So go put a post up on Craigslist or something.’

  ‘What, you’d give my very first time and possible life changing experience to a creepy old man or stranger behind a glory hole blow-and-go?’

  David paused, his mouth half open in shock.

  ‘Okay, I’ve looked more than once. I just… never actually replied to any of the ads.’

  ‘What if you hate it?’

  ‘I don’t think I will,’ Patrick said, gently rolling his hips up against David’s leg. ‘But I know that if I do, I’ll still love you in the morning.’

  ‘I thought you were after a once-off experiment?’

  ‘I am,’ Patrick said. ‘Doesn’t mean it can’t be special, right?’

  ‘Don’t take this the wrong way, Pat, but I have a killer beer headache right now.’

  Patrick chuckled, and then winced. ‘Me too. And I don’t think you want to kiss me given that I smell like a pub gutter right now.’

  ‘I don’t want to kiss anyone right now,’ David said, closing his eyes and letting his head fall back onto the pillow - or rather, Patrick’s bicep as it turned out. ‘Right now I want it to stop being so bright.’

  Patrick tightened his arms around David, pressing their bodies closer together. ‘Okay.’

  Then the arms and warm body were gone, and the mattress sprang back as Patrick left the bed. ‘Oh, headrush,’ the other man muttered.

  Then there was the sound of curtain rings scraping across metal railings and the light mercifully dimmed to a less headache-inducing level. As he stretched out into the warm patch that smelt slightly like the inside of Patrick’s closet, David drifted back into sleep to the sounds of water running in his bathroom.

  David came around to the smell of fresh coffee and the sizzle of grease. Stumbling into the bathroom, he splashed water onto his face and made a cursory attempt at brushing his teeth. He fared better with the mouthwash, and managed to find a pair of shorts to pull up over his briefs before he braved the living area in his apartment. The beer bottles from last night were still present, lined up at the foot of the coffee table. Across in the kitchen corner, a shirtless Patrick was at the stove, wearing David’s novelty apron and frying bacon, from the smell of things.

  ‘Coffee?’ he asked hopefully.

  ‘On the counter,’ Patrick said cheerfully, and David’s nose drew his attention to one of his red mugs that was perched on the living area side of the breakfast bar.

  ‘Black and bitter like my soul,’ he said with a smile as the caffeine hit his bloodstream.

  ‘Your soul is hardly bitter,’ Patrick said, turning back to the stove, and David reassessed “shirtless” to “naked”.

  ‘You’re naked in my kitchen?’ he asked incredulously.

  Patrick paused, his shoulder muscles stilling in their dance beneath his skin before he answered. ‘How is this different to last week exactly?’

  David tore his eyes away from Patrick’s ass and stared down into his coffee. ‘Feels a bit awkward.’

  Patrick dished out bacon, eggs and hashbrowns onto two plates and placed them on the counter. ‘It’s only as awkward as you make it, Zhang. Why don’t you just kiss me already and get that part over with?’

  ‘Kiss the man wearing nothing but a Kiss the Cook apron?’ David asked.

  ‘I could take it off, if you like,’ Patrick said, as he absently opened the kitchen drawers and pulled out knives and forks. ‘But after breakfast okay?’ he said quickly, before David could think up a reason to say no. ‘I’m starving.’

  Patr
ick slid the plates across to the other side of the bench and walked around to grab a stool. David glanced up from the obvious bulge in the apron to Patrick’s amused gaze.

  ‘Sorry,’ he muttered and turned to his breakfast.

  ‘Don’t be,’ Patrick said, sitting up beside him. ‘You caused it.’

  ‘Where’d you find the bacon?’ David said, changing the subject. Thankfully Patrick went with it.

  ‘Back of your freezer underneath the bag of peas you use as an ice pack,’ Patrick said. ‘I stashed it there two months ago when you refused to believe that bacon was the food of the gods.’

  ‘You were talking about ice-cream.’

  ‘Everything’s better with bacon,’ Patrick said with a grin.

  ‘What about the hashbrowns? I’d have seen a box of those.’

  ‘Yeah, but you had potatoes, a grater, flour and eggs. It’s not deep fried so it’s really more of a rosti.’

  ‘You could make a fortune selling these,’ David said happily crunching through the outer fried crust.

  ‘Maybe,’ Patrick said. ‘I don’t like commercial kitchens though and I can’t afford to open my own place. It’d be scary, managing anything of that size.’

  ‘You still finished your apprenticeship though, you could do it.’

  Patrick shrugged. ‘Probably not.’

  The rest of the meal was spent in silence, and it wasn’t the comfortable silence of two friends that David was used to. Instead, it was the silence where knives on plates were too loud and the birdsong from the park sounded far too loud, given how far away they were.

  ‘This is stupid!’ he said finally, pushing his plate away.

  ‘What? I’m sorry, I thought you liked crispy bacon.’

  ‘No, the food is great as always. It’s this,’ David said, gesturing at the space between them. ‘It’s awkward. I don’t like it being awkward. It’s like I’m on a first date and I don’t know what to say because I don’t know the person sitting next to me!’

  ‘You do know me,’ Patrick pointed out.

  ‘Yes, but not like this,’ David said. ‘I don’t know the you that’s suddenly interested in making out with me; who sleeps in my bed and gets a hard on because of me, and-‘

  Suddenly Patrick’s lips were on his, tasting of salt and fried egg and fatty meat. ‘Newsflash Zhang, you’ve always given me a hard on. I’ve just never done anything about it.’

  Then they were kissing, and David’s blood roared in his ears as his hands gripped the solid muscles of Patrick’s shoulders, trailed down this back to the firm mounds of his ass. Patrick’s hands were slipping up under David’s T-shirt and one slid into the back of his trunks and Patrick was kissing his throat and along his jaw and-

  ‘Pat, stop.’

  ‘Dave, I want you,’ Patrick said, his teeth gripped David’s ear lobe. ‘I really want you and-‘

  ‘No, seriously, stop.’

  Patrick’s hands stilled, and he snatched his hands back almost as if burnt. ‘I���I thought you were enjoying that.’

  ‘I���I can’t���’ David started, and trailed off. Suddenly the small distance between their seats yawned like a massive gulf.

  Patrick’s shoulders slumped and he swivelled on his seat to face the bedroom before walking off. ‘Okay, I get it. Sorry,’

  David sat there in stunned silence for a moment before striding after him. He found Patrick with his back to the door, t-shirt over one shoulder and fumbling with the top button of his denim shorts. Forcing his feet into his still tied sneakers, Patrick turned around, phone in one hand and apron in the other, and paused when he saw David in the doorway.

  ‘Please move,’ he said, his tone hard.

  ‘No.’

  Patrick sighed. ‘David, you don’t get to reject me one moment and then stop me from leaving the next, okay?’

  ‘Patrick, I didn’t. I just don’t-‘

  ‘I get it,’ Patrick said. ‘I’m not good enough for you. I know. I don’t have a degree or even a job really and I’m the big bogan uncultured oaf who’d be an embarrassment to be on your arm and-‘

  ‘Will you shut up?’ David snapped. ‘And don’t ever call yourself a bogan oaf again!’

  ‘So I can still be the uncultured bogan oaf?’

  David rubbed his eyes. ‘I don’t want to fuck this up, all right? You’re the straight guy who I talk guy stuff with. What happens when we do this and it freaks you out and you want to stop? We won’t be able to go back to “just friends” after that, will we?’

  ‘You’re “just friends” with some of your exes,’ Patrick pointed out. ‘Although if you don’t think we’re going to be able to go back in the future what makes you think we can go back now? And Dave?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’m not and never have been ‘the straight guy’. I’m the bi guy who’s been too chicken to make a move on any guy I find remotely interesting. I’m the bi guy who’s been in a relationship with the same girl since I was old enough to think about relationships and never explored my attraction to men. I’m the bi guy who you talk to about guy stuff and I’m the bi guy who’s always been insanely jealous of every single one of your boyfriends.’

  David stood there, jaw open and staring at his best friend. ‘Seriously? That’s what the big scary tough guy act was all about?’

  ‘In hindsight, probably. Yes,’ Patrick said, flushing. ‘Li Ling always said that I was overprotective of you and was scared that the new guy would become more important than me in your life. I hate it when she’s right, but she was definitely right about that.’

  ‘What if it doesn’t work?’

  ‘What if it does? I happen to think you’re worth it. Heck, I know you’re worth it.’

  ‘You’re rebounding.’

  ‘Possibly,’ Patrick agreed. ‘Tell you what, come over on the 14th. I was planning a big dinner and have food on order anyway. It’d be a shame to waste it.’

  ‘You’re not going to propose to me, are you?’

  Patrick walked right into David’s personal space, and for a moment, David was tempted to pull back, but then he changed his mind and stood his ground. Patrick leant in close enough to touch him, his mouth just by David’s ear, and David could feel the heat of his body tingling on his own skin. ‘No, but if I still want you, I will be propositioning you.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Oh hell yes. You, me, naked in bed and doing everything,’ Patrick whispered.

  David shuddered and closed his eyes.

  ‘Dave?’

  ‘Mmm’

  ‘You’re sticking out of your fly and if you don’t want me to get down on my knees and start blowing you, I suggest you let me out.’

  David stared into the intense blue eyes of his friend, torn between lust and sanity. For the moment, sanity won and he stepped back to let Patrick pass. ‘What time’s dinner?’ he asked, his voice slightly husky.

  ‘Shall we say six thirty?’ Patrick suggested. ‘See you then, Zhang.’

  The fourteenth dawned bright and sunny and continued into the hot and boiling. By mid-afternoon it had settled into a slow roast and David could feel the sweat starting to seep into the armpits of his shirt, despite the anti-perspirent he was wearing. He’d thought about dressing up a bit more, but it felt silly to bike to Eltham in long pants in this heat. It wasn’t that it was a long ride, really, but still.

  He wore shorts instead, figure-hugging dark denim that he knew showed off his ass. Come to think of it, Patrick had convinced him to buy them for exactly that reason. Arriving at the block of flats, David locked his bike to a nearby street sign that advised parking was allowed for two hours between 9 am and 6:30 pm Monday to Friday and from 9 am to 12:30 pm on Saturdays. After that you needed a residential parking permit. Taking off his backpack, David let the warm breeze find his even warmer and sweatier back. He wouldn’t have brought a backpack normally, but he needed somewhere to put the beer.

  Walking around to the back of the apartment
block he took the faded grey stairs two at a time, avoiding the handrail that was basically bubbling black paint holding together a fine, crackling structure of mostly rust. As he ascended to the second floor, he glanced at the faded white of the stucco, with its hints of laundry powder blue deep in the recesses where colour had hid from the bleaching rays of the Aussie sun. He passed clothes horses heavy with t-shirts, shorts and last week’s underwear and small balcony herb gardens of plastic containers tied to the railing with wire and those thin nylon straps on backpacks that were like luggage straps but smaller. They probably had a name, but David had no idea what they’d be called. It was odd that he thought about it now, but then, his brain was racing ahead of itself and standing awkwardly outside of Patrick’s front door.

  And when his feet caught up with his brain, that’s exactly what he did. Which was stupid. Every other time he’d come to Patrick’s place, he’d just opened the door and walked in. It was one of their unwritten rules that had been in place for so long that it didn’t even need to be discussed anymore. If David was expected, Patrick’s door was never locked. Only there was a weird first date vibe going which was stupid given that they’d known each other forever and it wasn’t like they hadn’t slept in the same bed already. Naked, his mind reminded him. They’d slept in the same bed Naked. Capitalised and in italics and everything. Well, okay, not everything. That was probably the point. David stood there for what was both an age and a few seconds as he tussled mentally with himself, hand poised halfway between opening the door and knocking on it instead. What if Patrick expected him to knock? What if he went to open the door and it was locked? What if-?

  An errant breeze drew his attention to a square of pale yellow paper that was stuck between the door and the welcome mat. Picking up the Post-it note he read the message scrawled in hasty block capitals in a thick black Texta. JUST COME IN ALREADY, ZHANG.

  David wasn’t sure which was scarier, the fact that Patrick knew him well enough to predict what he’d do, or the fact that he didn’t find that thought as scary as he felt he ought to.

  The apartment inside was neat, and rather hot, even with the fans going. Looking through the living area to the corner kitchen, David could see a wok bubbling away on a low steam, a large steamer basket sitting inside. There was the familiar smell of rice starch and ginger and something buttery that he couldn’t quite put his finger on. The dining table in the far corner was set for two, covered with a crisp white table cloth, the woven placemats they’d brought back from Vietnam, and the unchipped (and virtually unused) good bowls that Patrick had bought from Made In Japan when he’d first gone through his wannabe chef phase. There was also a battered blue esky, which would have been out of place if it hadn’t been one of their traditions. Esky plus ice plus a bit of water equalled place for beer.