Misbehaving

I didn't doubt it; after all, my own instinct had been to confide in her. But she needed some serious schooling.

"Okay," I replied, "so you know I'm gay, because I told you so myself, and you know Zac's gay, because he told you so himself. But what you don't know is whether I know Zac's gay. For all you know, you just outed him to me."

I saw her eyes go very wide, her mouth form a silent 'O' of horror.

"It's okay," I reassured her. "I actually did know. But amazingly, we're still not fucking! Just because we're both gay, and, whoa, we hang out together sometimes, you shouldn't go and assume shit, alright!"

She swallowed. "Sorry, Michel. I uh...obviously I was out of line there. But it wasn't...I hadn't concluded you two were involved just because you're spending time together. It was more because Zac's stopped going into town in the weekends. I thought it must be because he'd...um...found something better." She sighed. "I really hoped he had found something better."

"Oh well," I shrugged. "Sounds like we were both talking past each other some."

I walked off, frowning to myself as I attempted to process all that. Especially the last bit. Zac's stopped going into town in the weekends...but he hadn't been coming to the pub. He hadn't said anything about it to me. Though why would he? Perhaps he's a bit short of cash at the moment, I thought. Or maybe his car's getting unreliable. If it failed its warrant, he might not want to risk taking it somewhere it could actually get stickered. Maybe his car failed its warrant and he needs to save up to get it fixed before he can be taking it anywhere it might get stickered. Or hey, maybe he's fucking taken up knitting. Whatever. Not my business.

Did that stop me from obsessing over it? Did it hell. I wasn't comfortable with this missing piece, because I felt that the more Zac visited, the more I was getting to know him, his likes and dislikes, his moods and his rhythms. Like me, he was restricted to fairly retro forms of entertainment when not in town, by a lack of quality internet. I'd given up my Netflix subscription when I moved because it just wasn't worth it, and online gaming was similarly out, but sometimes Twitch or YouTube would play semi-decently. Over time, I came to understand that the objects Zac was holding when he showed up outside my door were an indicator of his current internal state. If he had his playstation, he wasn't interested in talk, and he'd be all surly and monosyllabic if you tried to engage with him outside of the game. On the other hand, if he was carrying a six-pack or some junk food, he was feeling chatty. Actually, chatty was probably pushing it. More like not totally opposed to the idea of talk...

And then very occasionally, he'd arrive empty-handed, seeming kinda amped up, almost lit from within, sneaky and playful, continuously baiting me, giving me shit . Thank god it didn't happen too often, because...because it was kind of torture. A good kind of torture, maybe, but...he was like that one evening when we were working our way through a box of beers and watching stand-up on YouTube - I spent more time laughing at the stuff Zac was saying than at the guys who were being paid for it.

Then he got us onto the feed of some crazy band who played metal covers with a hillbilly twist. They were really bizarre, and kinda funny and also - possibly because I was four beers deep - also quite good. I hummed along discreetly through 'Thunderstruck' and 'Paradise City', but when we got to 'Run to the Hills' I just let go and belted it out.

Zac, possibly to punish me for the auditory assault I was subjecting him to, started in on me about one of the band members. "How about that big lad on the left, eh Michel? Plenty to grab hold of there. You like that? You'd be down for a bit of that, huh? I bet he's right up your street..."

I couldn't believe he was going there. We'd stayed really, really wide of...that kind of thing.

"That's right," I said sarcastically, "I've actually always had a bit of a fetish for guys in dungarees wearing dead animals on their heads, and the accordion is just...mwah! The finishing touch..."

He laughed and started flicking his spent bottle caps across the room at me. "He's got some nice side-boob going on as well. I saw, I saw you looking..."

No you fucking didn't..."Jesus, dude, leave the poor guy alone," I told him. And me. I don't wanna do this...

He laughed again. "The poor guy. The poor guy - c'mon, admit it, you're into him!"

I raised my brows. "Uh-huh? You sure you're not projecting here, Zac?"

Instead of answering he started throwing more stuff at me. There weren't any bottle caps left so it was pens, my phone charger, a couple of remotes, a book.

"I'm just gonna put all this in a nice pile beside me," I said, "and when you've run out of ammunition I'm gonna throw the whole fucking lot back at you. You realise that, right?"

He leaned back into the couch, spread himself, lifted his chin in defiance. "Bring it!"

Bring it. Bring it. Yeah, don't issue invitations. Especially not when you're in that kind of pose, or I'll...I needed to draw a line under this. It was Thursday and ticking past eleven, and the marmite on toast had worn off quite a while ago.

I stood. "I'm getting the munchies. Think I might make some pikelets. You in?"

Zac scrambled up as well. "Oh shit, yes! Totally!" He followed me out to the kitchen and leaned against the fridge, watching as I put a pan on to heat and got to work on the batter.

I remembered something. "I don't know if it's a dealbreaker," I told him, "but I don't have any maple syrup. Or any golden syrup. Don't really do sweet spreads. Though I might have jam, maybe?"

He made a face. "Jam? What for? You make them with butter, you cook them with butter, and you eat them with butter. End of."

I grinned. "Seems like we agree on something at last."

We didn't agree about how the person who isn't the cook should behave in a kitchen. Zac kept nipping in behind and around me to poke his finger in the batter and lick it off. It was a bloody pain. I didn't look, I did-not-look, but I didn't need to. I got the visual in my mind anyway, and it really felt like the absolute top of the list of things I didn't need to be dealing with at that moment.

"Would you fucking stop that?" I hissed, the third time he went in. "Seriously, what is your problem? You want me to pour some into a bowl for you so you can lap it up like a cat, is that it? Well, just say the fucking word and I will!"

He rolled his eyes, like I was the one being unreasonable, and retreated back to the fridge. But not for long. Instead he grabbed a freshly cooked pikelet off the rack, wrapped it around a hunk of butter, and, took a huge bite.

"Hey, that's not fair," I protested. "I'm still working here!"

"Thucks to be you, I guess," he mumbled around his mouthful of pikelet.

Yeah, no shit. It sucks really quite a lot to be me, today...the next time he went to try it, I saw him coming and slapped him with the spatula I was using to turn the pikelets.

"Fuck! Ow!" He hopped out of reach and looked down at his leg. "Oh, you dick! You got butter on my jeans!"

I looked. He was right. There was a greasy, obviously spatula-shaped mark on his outer thigh. I shrugged. Guess it sucks to be you now...

He was rubbing it with the heel of his hand. "Not to mention you basically fucking branded me!"

I opened my mouth - then closed it again, because really you can only jokingly say, 'ohh sweetums, show me where it hurts and I'll make it all better' to someone you haven't tried to get with. Instead I said, "Well, how about you stop?"

He didn't stop. He got in around me, evading the spatula, three more times, while the pile beside me grew and the kitchen filled with bluish, toasty-smelling butter smoke. It wasn't that I cared particularly how many pikelets he ate - there were still gonna be plenty for me - it was the teasing, taunting way he was going about it. He was doing it because I'd told him to stop, and doing it increasingly suggestively. It was misbehaving dialled up to eleven. He obviously felt fairly safe over by the fridge, as he waited to catch my eye before eating the latest one. It was rolled up tight like a cylinder around it's serving of butter, and leaking, dripping from its greasy glans onto his palm. Holding my gaze, he fed the entire thing into his mouth, then licked up the mess on his hand in a single swipe...

Something inside of me snapped. It was too much. I switched off the stove, put down the spatula and glared. Zac glared right back, daring me to make something of it. The situation reminded me of the staring pissing-contest we had at the bar the night of the floods. It reminded me of bringing him back here, of the way I had him up against the wall, the way he was loving it, until he wasn't, until he said 'I want to back out now', and I stepped away and gave him space...

You know what? I thought, I've been giving him space, and giving him space, and actually I'm sick of giving him space. If he needs space so much, then why is he always around at my fucking house? I stepped forward, right up into his face.

"Zac," I growled, "you've just used up your last get out of jail free card. In about ten seconds, I'm going to start kissing you, and I'm not prepared to guarantee that's all I'll be doing. And if you have a problem with any of that," gesturing with my arm, "well, I think you know where my bloody door is by this point!"

He stared me down, because of course he did, because if there was one thing this guy didn't know how to do, it was lose.

His gaze faltered, flickered - he looked decidedly hesistant as I murmured, "Three...two...one..." but he let me do it. He didn't run. There was a split second of...something...right at the beginning, a tiny give like a bubble bursting, and then, god...then that tension again, that fucking runaway freight train, picking up speed, picking up speed...he was sweet-smoky-buttery and warm and alive and urgent against me, unhinging himself, allowing me in, letting me devour him...I knew I'd get too fast, too much, too quickly if I didn't take a breather.

I broke away to look at him, holding his face in my hands. His pupils were huge.

"Wow," I whispered. Just fucking wow.

He laughed shakily. "Yeah. I didn't...didn't know it would be like that."

"Oh, c'mon," I said. "You had to, you had to know it'd be good between us. You felt it...that other time."

He shook his head, still between my palms. "No, I mean...kissing. I didn't...realise..."

My jaw dropped. "Um, what? You never kissed anybody before? No way!"

He frowned fiercely. "Yes way! You don't kiss hook-ups! And I already told you I don't...I don't...I mean I don't usually..."

"Misbehave with people you know? Yeah, I remember. Are you gonna be making an exception for me, though?"

He swallowed audibly, looked down. "I think...I already did."

"Good," I said, swooping in on his top lip, near the corner, drawing it between my own, nipping lightly, "because this is not a hook-up. This is not a once-er. And Zac?"

"Uh-huh?" he said breathily, distractedly, as I worked my way along his jawline, headed for his ear.

"I don't want to share."

"I - I get it," he stammered. His hands had snaked their way up my arms and were now clutching my biceps, the first joints flexing in time with my nuzzling.

"And you know what else?" I breathed, right into his ear, blowing across the wetness I'd made, "I guess in some ways I kind of am your first..."

He snorted. "That was a pretty lame joke the first time you made it."

"Not joking," I mumbled, lifting one of his legs, holding it up against my hip, my lips working their way down to his neck. I kissed all the way down the lovely ropy length of it, and when I got to where his t-shirt was hindering me and went to move it aside, I remembered...

I remembered we'd done this before. I peeled him off the fridge, turning him away from me. Slowly, this time, I walked us over to the patch of wall beside my ranchslider. Gently, this time, I came up behind him, put his hands up, pressed in, held.

"One day," I told him, "one day, we're gonna finish what we started here..."

He moaned. Long and low and oh, so needy, and the feeling it gave me? - I knew he was at least as helpless in the face of this thing as I was. I brought my mouth to his ear and my hand to his neck and squeezed as I growled;

"Yeah, I know, I know. But not today."

It wasn't very far to my room, but it took us a while to get there, due to the fact we had to basically shuffle, because neither of us was prepared to detach from the other, and I was trying to coax his t-shirt off as we went. We stumbled for the third time on our entangled feet just inside the bedroom door and Zac pulled away, peeling the clinging fabric up and over his head with a static crackle, letting it fall.

"There, dipshit! Happy now?"

I grinned. "Yeah. But not satisfied." He'd given himself a mild case of bed hair and it made him look painfully fuckable. My dick actually ached just from watching him. I stepped forward, zeroed in on his button, his fly, but he knocked my hand away.

"Nope," he hissed, reaching for me instead, and then...fuck, I should've known - I'd watched him work, after all...I felt like I barely had time to blink, he was so deft and quick...my t-shirt was gone, over there somewhere, my jeans were undone and he was kneeling down, fingers hooked in both waistbands, yanking everything clear and away...

He sat back on his heels, whistling through his teeth. "Uhhh, Michel? I've been living like a freakin' nun for the last three months - how am I supposed to take that?"

I lifted his chin, stroked his cheek. "Slowly, I guess," I said. "Or...not at all. I'm not gonna try and make you do anything you're not comfortable with, okay?"

His eyes narrowed and he grabbed my thighs, hard. "Oh, hell no! Did you not just hear me say it's been three whole months? You'd fucking better fuck me! You are going to fucking fuck me!"

"Okay. I guess I fucking am."

"Now we're clear on that..." He lunged forward, and I thought...well obviously I thought...but no, instead of trying to swallow my dick, he face-planted into my groin and started to kinda weave his head about. I didn't get it at first, but then he tilted his face and moved lower, down under my balls and across, and...oh god. He was rubbing my junk all over himself, coating his skin in my musk, forehead, cheeks, chin, nose and neck, silent and focused, over and over again...I watched entranced. There was something so base, so animal, so absolutely unfettered about it - like he was a dog, ecstatically rolling in some sublime pile he'd found, existing on a visceral, instinctive plane, surroundings irrelevant, if not entirely forgotten...

"My god, that's hot," I breathed.

It broke the spell. He stopped, but when he looked up at me, I forgave him. His expression, his eyes...fuck, he looked drunk. No, stoned. On me. I reached down and finally - finally - took a handful of that tantalising hair, tilted his head back further, and he let his mouth fall wide open.

"Oh yeah," I whispered, "yeah, you know how it works, baby. Don't you?"

He made an 'uhhhh' sound down in his throat, which was about all he could manage in the way of communication with his jaw hanging like that, but it was definitely a noise of agreement, so I gave him what he was looking for. I kept hold of his hair and made a pretence of guiding him back and forth on my length, but actually, from the moment he sealed himself around me, I understood I wasn't running this particular show. Zac might have been on his knees, but he was also in his element, and I was the guy who was having it done to me. God, was I having it done to me...I already knew how skilled, how ardent, how strong his lips and tongue were, because my mouth felt used in the best possible way, and uggh, now, uggh, my dick was getting a similar head-spinning workover...

Seeing as we'd established that fucking was compulsory, I couldn't let it go on for too long. Regretfully, I hooked my hands in his armpits and hauled him to his feet. He stared at me with those same clouded eyes as I wiped his slobbery chin, chastely kissed his wet soft lips and gently laid him down on the bed, following close, hovering over him, forehead to forehead.

"So what's this?" he said, sounding vaguely amused. "You're gonna handle me like some fucking piece of antique china now?"

I nuzzled my nose against his. "I thought I'd start off that way, yeah, and work slowly up to the pile-driving. That okay with you?"

I could see his lip quirking, trying to pin down a smile. "Long as you get there," he muttered, trying to sound grumpy.

"I'll get there," I promised, fumbling with his button, tugging his jeans down, "we'll get there."

In jarring contrast to his general leanness, his dick was stubby but...mmm...thick. Almost choad territory. I was thrilled, seeing as I adore having my mouth stuffed full of meat, but I don't feel the same way about my throat - that shit hurts.

"You don't have to do that," he whispered urgently as I descended on him, "Michel! You don't need..."

I let go and rested my chin on his shaft, staring up at him, propped on his elbows regarding me worriedly.

"Umm, hello? Did you maybe miss the part where I'm gay? I love doing this." A thought struck me. "Please, please tell me you've had your dick sucked?"

His ears went a dull red. "Course I have. Couple of times. Just not..." he trailed off.

"Just not...?"

"Oh god...not in bed, okay? Not - I haven't...haven't fucked in a bed either..."

I raised an eyebrow and grinned. "Damn. All these firsts piling up here..."

He scowled. "Shut up, asshole!"

I shut up for a little while, while I enjoyed his fantastic chub, and he rocked his hips and drew slow deliberate breaths, then I let it plop out with a lovely wet slap, and raised my head.

"So...if not in a bed, then...?"

He shrugged with his face. "Doesn't matter. Storeroom, loading bay, wherever. So long as its quiet." A pause. "Disabled toilets are good. Plenty of room, usually fairly clean. Plus they have rails to hold onto while you're bent over getting hammered."

Well. Okay. That was, broadly, what I'd expected to hear, and yet...something about it felt off.

"And did you get to come during these encounters? Any of these dudes who bent you over and hammered you also lend you a hand?"

The redness from his ears populated his whole face, as he closed his eyes to me. "I can take care of myself...just...I mean, anytime," he mumbled.

I felt like I might cry. I crawled up the bed, straddling him, and took his face in my hands. "Jesus christ, Zac! Why would you allow yourself to be treated like that?"

His eyes opened again, flashing and furious. "I enjoyed it, okay?" he spat. "I never felt like I was missing out on anything, until you showed up and made me feel like, like I was...missing out on something."

"Sorrynotsorry," I told him.

He wrenched my hands away from his face. "You should be fucking sorry! I had a system that worked for me for ever, and then you ruined it!"

And that's why you stopped going into town...totally not sorry.

I took his hand and moulded it to my erection. "Poor baby, I ruined your system. How's that? Not satisfied with just any old dick anymore, it's got to be this dick?"

He snatched his hand away like it was burnt. "Stop fuckin' hassling me!" he hissed.