Mikey and the Chickadee Ch. 08

Ten minutes later he dropped me at my apartment. "I'll bring a change of clothes with me next time. Don't be a stranger, okay?"

I promised him that I wouldn't. After he drove off I stood alone on the whitewashed lawn in front of my building for a few minutes. I considered that I could have offered Mikey a change of clothes-we each still had in our possession a pair of the other's underwear, after all-but realized he would probably have asked if he'd truly felt like sticking around. I questioned distantly whether my boldness had overwhelmed him, but decided not to speculate on something I could not know.

I trudged up to my apartment, showered and began hunting for dinner. I scrolled down through my contacts, among which were several numbers for restaurants offering takeout, then cast my phone onto the empty couch cushion beside me. If Mikey cooked for himself, then damn it, so could I. Within minutes I left for the grocery store, where I picked up some staple items and also chicken breast, broccoli and couscous. After another hour I ate contentedly in front of the television, frankly shocked at my tenacious conduct.

It occurred to me sometime after finishing to text Mikey some of my writing. I sent it in the form of three files, one containing a poem in which I took discernible pride, the other two being the first and second chapters of a longer, novel-like project. "Please do not feel obligated," I added once they had transmitted.

I did not hear back from him for nearly two hours, as the minute hand on my wall clock plunged to nearly thirty minutes after eight. "I read everything. Loved it all. Probably need to let it soak in for a while. Maybe I'll go back and read again later."

"I am flattered," I wrote. "Please don't give it too much time or consideration."

After a few minutes he replied, "I was thinking...do you want to come over tonight? I know it's kind of late but I can come get you. We could talk about your writing and/or watch a movie. Let me know if you just want to do your own thing, though."

"I am bored and lonely, to be honest," I texted. "But I insist on taking the bus. There is one leaving in fifteen minutes. See you soon." I donned a black hooded jacket, changed into long pants and was out the door, hurling myself down the hill and into the pedestrian tunnel.

Half an hour later I knocked on his door and he opened it just a few inches, peeking playfully through at me. "Come in, come in," he said, throwing it open. "You never know who could be roaming the halls at this time of night." He made no indication that I should take him seriously.

I trailed him once again into the heart of his home, where we sat together on the couch. "Your writing," began Mikey quietly. "It's like poetry all the time. Even when it's technically not. And I enjoyed the two chapters but I don't have much to say about them. I just really want to know what happens to Charlotte after she leaves for the bridge. I want to believe she doesn't go through with it."

"I don't know if she does," I said. "I don't think I would know unless I actually wrote it." My attempt at finishing a novel had stalled out not long after it had begun; the speaker contemplated suicide and my indecision regarding her fate was probably to blame for the whole story's demise. How should that crucial millisecond of resolution be dispensed? In what capacity would the narrative continue if she went through with it? These questions tumbled around in my head at the time, the answers for which I had not sought with sufficient enthusiasm. The book died with them.

"I can see why it would be hard to pick that back up, without knowing."

"Yeah," I said. "It's weird. Anyway, I'm glad to hear that you liked what I wrote. I've never really had any feedback like that."

"Who else had read your writing?"

"Nobody," I said.

"Oh. Sorry, I don't know why I assumed." He sat back and looked down at the floor. "Wow."

"I mean, no one else really knows about it, so, you know." I guarded my passion for writing with the same uncompromising secrecy that some reserved for a smoking habit or extramarital affair. This mostly unexamined behavior was atypical of me and felt hopelessly peculiar now that I answered for it aloud.

"Thanks for telling me. That's really cool of you."

"I don't know why I've never told anybody else," I said, taking off my jacket and stuffing it down at my side. "It's not like I think anyone would judge me."

"It's okay. I think sometimes it's hard to know why we do the things we do."

I smiled at this.

"Well, I have been appeased," said Mikey, laughing a little. "Want to watch a movie? All I have is whatever's streaming. I guess I also have some DVDs. Haven't looked through them in a while, though. Who knows what we might find?"

"Let's get them out," I said. "I want to see what kind of movies you like."

Mikey went over to his bed and dragged two small cardboard boxed out from underneath. I joined him and peered down into them after he'd removed the lids. We sifted together through the contents.

"You have a lot of old movies," I said. I recognized many of them as being mid-century films, some even older.

"Yeah. They were my mom's. I watched some of them with her. This was her favorite," he said, handing me a copy of All About Eve.

I looked it over. "Actually, my mom and I do the same thing. I like this one. Haven't seen it in a long time. We could watch it if you want to." I stopped myself. "Shit. Sorry. Would it make you sad to watch it now?"

He took the movie from me and examined it. "Sure, we can watch it. I've seen it since she died. It didn't make me sad."

Mikey made popcorn for the occasion and after he was finished we settled in on the couch. Throughout the movie we commented periodically on the idiosyncratic elements of the time.

"I love how he just assumes the women are so frail that they should stay in the car while he goes and gets help," Mikey said about halfway through.

"Look at that massive fur coat she's wearing," I said. "They should have sent her."

Mikey laughed.

After it was over we lay on Mikey's bed, once again basking in the cool air that tumbled downward from his vent window.

"Really, though," he was saying. "I can't shake that urge to romanticize everything about the time. They way they spoke, the clothes...the social etiquette for every situation, and it was followed so carefully, too. 'Many happy returns of the day'-how come no one says that anymore?"

I turned to him and grinned. "I don't know."

"Sorry. I tend to go on about this stuff."

"It's fine," I said. "I feel it, too, sometimes. I just don't think it's based in anything real. Those days were just...not so different in the way they seem like they were. And they were very different in some other ways that aren't so good. At least that's what I think."

"I think you're right," said Mikey.

"Don't get me wrong. People dressed better. I'm not arguing with you there."

He looked over at me. "Can you imagine two of the male characters kissing in an old movie like that?"

"No. I can't. It would have been caught by the censors long before it got anywhere near the audience."

"Yeah, things have definitely changed for the better," he said.

"So you like seeing guys kiss?" I teased.

He grinned. "I'm not sure that I have much of a reaction to it."

I held my tongue for a moment, wondering whether or not to ask. "So I take it you and that guy never kissed."

"Oh. Definitely not. Yeah, it wasn't that kind of thing at all."

"Okay."

"I don't see that as something I would ever be into."

"Alright," I said. "Yeah, it's definitely something more tied with emotions and romance and all that."

He laughed. "And yet I'm fine with a guy touching my dick. It's confusing, I know."

"It's okay. We're all different."

Mikey turned onto his side. "Actually, I'm kind of curious about touching yours. Would that be too weird?"

"You mean, right now?"

He nodded, looking suddenly very self-conscious.

I smiled. "Of course not. Go ahead." I lay on my back, looking down, silently offering him freedom to explore.

At this, he became very excited. "I was feeling so nervous earlier in the car. But now..." With little fuss he undid the button on my pants and tugged the zipper gently downward.

I had already begun to grow, but was not yet fully hard.

Mikey wondered at this through my underwear and asked, "Can I feel it when you're still soft?"

I moved my pants down around my legs to ease his access. He lay his head back on the pillow next to me and cautiously slipped his hand underneath the elastic band.

As I felt his fingers tremble slightly, brushing over the upper part of my shaft, I exhaled sharply.

"Does that feel good?" He asked.

"Yeah."

He sat up and worked my underwear down toward where my pants still masked my legs. He then remained there, gaping at my cock for a moment before falling once again to rest at my side. Looking down, he placed his hand on my now thoroughly hardened self.

"Fuck," I said. "Sorry, couldn't stay soft for long."

Mikey rested his chin gently on my shoulder so that his fine stubble just barely grazed my skin. "It feels...fuck. It just feels so great in my hand," he said. He tightened his grip, prompting me let out the smallest whimper and tilt my head toward him. He looked straight into my eyes, concerned. "That's okay?"

"If feels amazing, Mikey."

"I think I want..." he paused. "I want to try to make you come. Do you want to take off your shirt?"

I nodded and did not hesitate to pull it up over my head.

He ran his hand with deliberateness down my chest, fingertips brushing finely over my nipple. He reached my cock and gave it three resounding strokes. "I'm sorry. I'm not sure if I'm doing it right without the foreskin. I want to make sure it feels good for you."

"Don't worry. That is exactly the way to do it."

He grinned and bit his lip. "Okay," he said, providing a few more tentative jerks.

"Oh, shit. This will not take long," I warned.

"It's okay. You're already lasting longer than I did in the car."

I laughed.

He began to tow my rigidness upward, then pull it back down, allowing his hand to slip slightly toward the base. He then continued to tug, faster now, and already I could hardly stand it. I felt his measured breaths land close to my ear; I understood that it brought him new and curious satisfaction to provoke this kind of pleasure in me. And most of all, the thick, solid muscles of Mikey's arm hardened to the task; its dark tones fell starkly against the pale flesh of my chest and stomach.

I exploded, the initial string of myself spanning my upper- and lower-lip, then trailing down my chin. Subsequent bursts fell relentlessly against my neck and then snaked halfway down my chest. Finally my event subsided and I was aware of my right hand, which clenched inside it his other wrist. I let him go brought it up to wipe the come away from my mouth. "Thank you," I said. "You are really, really good at that."

Mikey looked extremely pleased. "Fuck. That is a lot of jizz." He hovered, unabashedly gawking for a few seconds before springing into action. "I washed your underwear from the other day," he said. "You can use the ones you were wearing to wipe yourself up and put on the ones you left here."

I removed my underwear and pants completely and did as he suggested. "You're really looking out for me, aren't you?" I said, cleaning up the mess.

I heard him laugh quietly with his back to me as he rooted through his dresser drawer. "You're my guest, Chickadee." He brought the fresh pair over to me and insisted, once again, on washing the dirty ones.

"I'm glad we have a system going here," I told him.

Once I was dressed again and Mikey had returned to my side, we talked softly as the sounds of the night crept through his window. He'd turned off the light in the living room so that now only the streetlamp's glow clambered dimly inside.

Eventually he asked, "Do I have to take you home?"

"Not if you don't want to."

"You could stay if you wanted."

"Sure. I'll stay on the couch," I said.

"You'll take the bed. What if...I don't know. Is it okay if we both take the bed?"

"I have no problem with that."

"Alright," he said.

Mikey offered me a new toothbrush and after a short time we found ourselves undressing to our underwear and slipping between the covers. The double bed did not feel especially spacious now, a fact that did not bother me. We lay shoulder-to-shoulder, propped up somewhat on our pillows. He had pulled a drawing book from his nightstand and flipped through its pages. Sketches of all manner of bird stood in various, illustrative stages of completion.

"I picked this up the day after we met. I've been wanting to practice drawing them for a long time. It was great to finally get to it."

"It's really cool, Mikey."

He closed the book and moved slightly away from me, abandoning his sitting position for something more conducive to sleep. I followed him. He turned his head to look at me. "I've been meaning to tell you this." He paused for a minute to collect his thoughts. "I meet a lot of people because of my job...all these chances to get to know people and maybe connect with someone, you know? Anyway, nobody is like you." He stopped, heaved an immense yawn toward the ceiling and looked back at me. "What I'm saying is that you're a really good friend."

"Thanks," I said. "You are, too. I hope you know that."

Mikey smiled back at me.

It was in this way that we came to sleep soundly, no longer alone, but at each other's side. In my mind, we shared his bed in a capacity unique to us, perfectly different from when I shared with Marie or any other close friend. If I had been asked to articulate this disparity, I would absolutely have failed. But I slept disengaged from worry, and we dreamt tranquilly, inches from one another.