Smoking Hot Ch. 02

'Congrats on 3 days. You did, right?'

'I did. Thanks.'

'Want a coffee tomorrow morning? I can come down.'

Hell, yeah! 'That'd be great. 11?'

'See you then.'

I go to sleep semi-sozzled and content. Having dick to look forward to, for the first time in, like, years. Dan's definitely a proactive chap who can use his little grey cells. He's not thick... except where it's good...

On Wednesday, I work quite cheerfully until Dan comes down for his 11 am blow-job. I work cheerfully at that, too.

"Wotcha doing the rest of the week?" he asks.

"I've plans to see my mate Will and his wee wife on Thursday night; out with work on Friday. That should be keeping me busy."

"Will you be OK for tonight?"

"Eh, I've got the telly and my golden delicious friends..." I wave at my whisky collection.

"Just wondering, like, cos Max's having his girl round again, so I was thinking of going up the pool hall down towards Peckham, if you'd be interested? Pool and snooker, they've got."

I should have had a cigarette so I could take a slow, calming inhale and release it smoothly, but I did my best with plain air as I replied, "Yeah, I like a bit of pool. Don't play snooker much, though." Pubs have pool tables; no space for anything four times the size.

As it happens, I spent a fair bit of my teens mitching school, ending up down the local pool hall. Not to mention a goodly number of evenings - it's rainy most of the winter in Norn Iron. Why do you think most snooker champions have been Scottish or Irish?

On the other hand, Dan might have done the same. It's not like the weather's that much better in Birmingham.

We play a few games of pool as a warm-up, swap with a few other guys, give them a once-over. You'd think, pool halls being solidly male establishments, you'd find some gay talent, but never seems to be the case. Opposite feelings, more like. I'd made the mistake a couple times as a student of not being subtle enough, eyeing a guy up after a few bevvies, and getting lamped in the face instead. Anyhow, I'm staying reasonable sober tonight after last night. All sensible in my middle age, me. I nurse my drink slowly.

"So where you from, Adrian? Northern Ireland, yeah? Outside Belfast?"

I'm impressed he's got that much right. 'Irish' is as close as most Brits get.

"I am, aye. North of Omagh, I guess you've heard o' that there."

Since the bombs that proved to the world we weren't all living in fluffy happily-ever-after land after the Good Friday Agreement, everyone's heard of fucking Omagh. My folks' house is nearer Strabane, really, but no-one's heard of that dive.

"Right. Near Newtonstewart way?"

It's New-town-stewart, but I'm not correcting what's probably his Brummie accent. This man's dead-on. Which can mean only one thing. "You've lived over the water, then?"

"Yeah. I worked in - Derry, for a bit."

That tiny pause as people calculate whether to say Derry or Londonderry. Most locals, his age or younger, just call it Derry, now, but of course the English grew up with Londonderry on all their news reports, and the most Proddy types stubbornly stick to it. He's cottoned on. Sound man.

Dan gets the drinks in after I thrash him in our first snooker game. I go for another vodka and orange. I ease off and let him pip me on the next; he clearly suspects as much, but I want to have an excuse for another frame, best of three. I buy, same again, while he frames up.

Just as I've snookered him good and proper, he concedes it's a fine mess he's in, and trots off for a wee piss. I admire my handiwork and knock back the last of the drink.

The guys on the next table were playing pool with us earlier and have just finished a frame. "We're nipping out back." He gestures, 'for a fag'. "Wanna come with?"

I tense up. Obviously it's not a good idea, but no-one's here, Dan's faffing about in the gents, I could make friends with these guys, I don't have to have a smoke myself...

Out back, in a dingy prison-like yard ten foot square, I inhale everyone else's smoke. It's pure air of heaven, going straight to my lungs. There's no point in me not having one, really. So when one man proffers his packet, I fall on it like a starving man and take one.

I'm just holding it out towards his lighter when I hear a yelled, "Adrian, you fucker! You a fucking moron?" The fag is knocked out my hand with a slap.

I try to pick it up and push the bastard away, but I find myself efficiently shoved round, headbutted between the shoulders to make me bend over, my feet kicked apart to make me stay in place, and the sod putting my arm in a half-Nelson is snarling in my ear, "Which part of fuckin' giving up fuckin' smoking do you not fucking understand?"

The yelling, the practised restraint, him living in the dive that is Derry...

"You're fucking Army!" It's more of a mumble. "Ya skittering cunt!"

He's a calm one, I'll give him that. "Hey, I left the army six years ago. I were just a kid when I joined up." He stands up, not letting me go, and attempts to sound more casual. "So, mate, we finishing our match, or what?"

That's 'mate' growled the way only the English can do it. The 'or what' isn't actually a question, unless I want my face bashed in by a professional.

I let him frog-march me back to the table, him just behind to the side, my arm bent behind my back, pretending to be subtle. Guess the training never really goes away.

He drops me, takes his shot and misses, and returns to nonchalantly chalking his cue, only with the same watchfulness and upright posture as any border sentry bastard.

I'm not going to let him think he's got to me. I focus, breathe, realise I don't need to find an ashtray, exhale, and sink the last red, the black, then the yellow, green and a jammy brown, jabbing the cue ball viciously. I can't pot the blue so leave it hidden behind the pink, the white down the other end of the table.

He laughs and comes to shake my hand. "You're a right pool shark, an' all. D'you want a bottle of pop here, or go back to yours for your prize?"

He glances to both sides carefully before looking meaningfully at his crotch.

Well, now. If the bastard is only offering a soft drink here, there's no contest, is there?

"You're on. That you?" He's ready to go.

We mosey back to our block. We're not holding hands or anything queer like that, not round Bermondsey for sure, but I'd be telling a lie if I denied we're walking a bit closer together than most guys do.

He follows me to my flat, and sits down in the chair he used this morning for me to kneel before him. I want something a bit different.

"Ah, shift yourself to the sofa. Beer?"

As he moves, he asks, "D'you keep beers just for visitors, then? You don't drink it, normally, yourself?"

"I do. For guests." He looks like he's expecting something more. I'm a right bastard, but I like to think I'm a decent host.

"Cheers." He clinks his bottle against my tumbler. I set the glass down and sit down next to him, then slide sideways so my face and left arm are in his groin. Means I'm looking away from his face when I ask, "So, you were a soldier boy, keeping us Fenians in order?" I unzip him.

"Your lot and the other lot and everyone in between. Spat on by all sides. Mostly yours! Eh, it was a job, most people were friendly enough. Outside marching season, that is." He makes a disparaging noise that's also a gasp. "Could do without hearing another fucking tin flute in moi life."

"You and me both!" The bloody Orangemen's provocative marches are the bane of NI. "Where were ye based?" I rub his tip that's poking out. "And when?"

"Shackleton Barracks, mainly. Eighth Infantry. We moved there from Ebrington after I went over, thanks to an IRA mortar blowing up half the place. January 2001, that was. I'd trained up, went over early 2000, did my two-year tour, got qualified back in Kent as a draughtsman, quit at the end of my four-year contract."

So he knows Derry well, or knew, rather; Ma said Ebrington's parade ground is becoming a square in the middle of the town, where they're building the new 'Peace Bridge'. Shackleton's further north, by Ballykelly; I've never been near it. "You were only there in peacetime, then?"

He snorts, and his cock-tip arches into my hand. "If you call Holy Cross peace, yeah. Grown men yelling at wee crying five-year-olds, so much they need the army to escort them to school! Tossers. Then the Belfast riots. Those soldiers shot dead in South Armagh." He shrugs. "It got better after that first year."

"Aye. It did."

"Must have been a strange place to grow up, during the Troubles."

I pull out his cock properly before answering. "You never know anything else, growing up, do you though? The biggest shock was comin' over here - me eighteen - and finding out just how much no-one gave a shit."

"No 'flegs' or 'them'uns' anywhere?"

"Course not. Forget painted pavements, it was people not even knowing the Six Counties are part of the United Kingdom! They're all at me, 'How can you be Irish and have a British passport?' 'Don't you use Euros in Ireland?' 'Why doesn't all Ireland be one country?' Hoo boy - I think my mate Will really suffered with that one..."

"Who he? How come?"

"Will? Guy on my course - it's his I'm going to for dinner, tomorrow. Came from a right God-fearing, Presby family. Not Paisleyite - he's too mad even for the Orangemen - but they thought the man had some good points, ye get my drift? He played the flute, and all. So you can imagine the poor sod at eighteen, raised to believe in Norn Iron as an equal partner to England and Scotland and Wales in the United fucking Kingdom, only to find that most Brits either think it already is part of Ireland or that it should be! And the Scots think the English ignore them..."

Enough politics. I focus on his cock, which I'm getting to rather like. Ah, that's better, a full mouth.

It occurs to me I rather like him, too. Sure, he did me over in the pool house yard, but he didn't even actually lamp me one. A guy that could control me, that's kinda hot. And he stopped me going back and smoking a crafty wee fag, which I'm right grateful for, not that I'd like to say it. Almost, like he cares?

He gasps. I can see his face better from this position. I like it.

Whoever thought I'd be sucking off a British soldier?

Not that the fantasy hadn't crossed my mind, growing up. They might have been the bastard occupying force, but they were still a fine set of fit young men in uniform, so they were...

No wonder I kept going for guys who didn't deserve it. Laura keeps refusing to believe I'm a right kinky bastard. I didn't want to tell her about the tossers I've got hot for. Or just gone for, anyway. I've never told her the details of me and Diane getting together, either.

This guy's a bit nice for me, I reckon.

Once he's near, I pull off him and say, "So do I get a prize, too? Or are you welshing?" That's a bit of a cheat - we were clear on who was doing the sucking tonight, but if ye don't ask, ye don't get.

He laughs, hands behind his head, which is brave seeing as his dick's still at my mercy. "I'm no welsher. You can have your pleasure, all right, but don't say you're not enjoying what you've been doing. But serious, mate - you want my mouth, you get it Saturday night, after a week off the ciggies, yeah?"

"Saturday night?"

"Yeah. Why, you got plans?"

Cocky bastard. But I shrug. "I don't, actually." It's the best offer I've had in ages.

"OK. Can I trust you the next two evenings, out with your friends? Or do I need to come down, last thing at night, and sniff you?" He leers at me. That's a come-on if ever I heard.

"Come down if you like." His face next to mine, I could handle that. I'm being all defensive, I know, but it's starting to look like we might be having more than a one-night jolly here. More than three, even. I give him my broad grin, which with a bit of Irish blarney wins me most people I aim to pull. Until they get to know me, that is.

He smirks back down at me. "I'll see. Maybe I'll just call you. Well go on, get back to it, man!"

And I do.

It's not often anyone orders me about.

It gets me hard.

Thing is, since Diane died and our favourite clubs closed, I lost touch with anyone else I trusted for that kind of thing. You need trust, if you're going to let someone else call the shots.

Need trust to get fucked, too. So I've hardly done that since her, either.

I mean, I have fucked a few people, been fucked a bit, mostly in saunas - some women, lots of men - but I stopped when I realised it just wasn't satisfying me. So over the last couple years it's been my own hand shandy, or the odd blow job from or for a stranger.

Mostly giving them. I'm damn good at sucking cock, so there's a kind of satisfaction, there. Pride in a job well done.

I know tomorrow Lindsey will want to know if I'm in a relationship or seeing anyone, waiting until Will's out the room to ask. What's the chances? I couldn't believe my luck having someone love me once - I'm not expecting it to ever happen again. But I've got friends and stuff to do; I'm happy enough.

Even giving up smoking - that'll shock Linz and Will all right! Better take some suitable presents for their kids. Dodgy Uncle Aidy, that's me. Some slime and books with lots of fart jokes, I think. Something annoyingly noisy for the littl'un.

Dan's cock jabs against the roof of my mouth, and I go back to paying attention to what I was doing. He's stretched out his arms along the tops of the leather sofa cushions, owning the space. I wish he was topless. I'll ask him - no, tell him - to take his shirt off, next time.

The thought that there will be a next time gets me both stiff and scared.

God, I want a smoke.

I'll take a cock, instead. I can do this. A lick round the base of his head, a pull on that great loose foreskin, and there, my reward: a hot mouthful that burns with more salt than any Islay malt. I take my time swallowing it.

"Come up here," he tells me, remarkably quickly. Blokes usually take longer to recover after I've given them one. Guess he's got stamina. I climb up and sit next to him.

He puts his hand over my crotch. I'm glad they're my loose cords. My reaction is still obvious.

"Are you going to be good until Saturday?"

Never thought I'd find a Brummie voice sexy. It could be worse; he's not Black Country. I manage to speak.

"What do you mean by 'good'?"

He laughs, runs his hand through his wheat-colour hair.

"All I mean is, no smoking anything. No touching a fag, no going out with other people on their smoke breaks. Too much temptation."

He eyes me sideways, a wee smile on his closed lips. "When you want one, touch your cock, instead."

"Wank solidly for three days, you mean?" It's not just sarcasm.

"Eh, I'm sure you can distract yourself most of the time. You're working in the office next two days, ain'tcha?"

Fuck! I'm glad he reminded me I'm going in tomorrow. I nod.

"And you're out in the evenings. You've managed four days already! Besides - you can think of me when you do it. Look forward to my hot mouth on your cock... I bet you've got a good cock," he adds. Come on, show it me!"

He finishes his beer and his hands rest by his sides.

I'm embarrassed to simply open up my fly for inspection. So I do nothing except drink up the last drops from my glass.

"Put that down! Go on. I want to see what I'm getting on Saturday!"

The cocky cunt. I'm tempted to tell him to fuck off out my flat, but thing is, I kinda like the idea of being looked forward to. He seems totally genuine about it, too. I'm sure it's just my body, not my grumpy personality he wants, but being wanted for myself at all is a huge novelty.

Besides, I like his cock. I'm not ready to admit I like him, too.

I hold his gaze as I pull open the top button of my trousers, tug down the zip, and push my briefs down so my hard cock can leap out.

My cock is distinctly average, but I've made my peace with that. It's mine and it works.

I lift my shirt up so Dan can see it, light brown and smooth, tight foreskin hiding the head until I give it a helping hand to get it to retract.

"Nice."

Without any further comment, the fucker stands up and goes to the door.

"See you for dinner on Saturday, mate. Or before, if you need more distraction. 'Night!"

He's gone, and I'm left on my sofa with my dick out.

Obviously, I lie back and resignedly beat the bishop, spunking straight across the leather seat cushions.

And the bastard is right. I do think of him going down on me while I do it.