Smoking Hot Ch. 05

"Mm." I scrape up a lazy smile. "Aye. That was quare craic, that was." I suddenly think how on earth to explain 'quare' - originally meaning queer in the sense of odd, now means 'very, remarkable, amazing'. Craic, of course, is the first word anyone learns about Ireland. It was probably covered in his Army training: 'One. It's pronounced crack. Two. Half the kids you deal with are just lobbing shit at you for the craic, that means, having fun. You are not here for the craic.'

"Thought you might've passed out."

"Maybe. Just high on it, more likely, out of it for a wee moment. Wouldn't worry." I check the clock. Only been a few minutes since we came in.

"Like I was saying, you don't do things by halves, do you? So you don't work weekends, you don't drink alone before eight -- what's your rule for sex?"

"Natural elasticity, I think." He chuckles. "Seriously, though, guys get tired or get brewer's droop, saunas and clubs close by 2 am... it's not like I have it on tap... like tonight, I can keep up with you, it's not like you're a whole rugger team, or trying to fist me or anything daft -- just two guys fitting together nice. Tell you what, though, I'm not doing anything tomorrow -- after a great go-round like that, my arse wants a day off to just enjoy the feelings. Two, probably. Let's just say I never hit the clubs or saunas more than twice a week. Keep it feeling good... That answer your question?"

"You been fisted?"

He's clearly curious, eyeing up his own long-fingered hand. Not too wide, but certainly not small.

"Told you, I've done practically everything."

"Yeah, but was it any good?"

One side of my mouth crinkles up. "Oh, god! Aye, it felt great, lying back in a leather swing, arms and legs in stirrups..." I mime, on my back like a stranded beetle. "Just, it would have been better if I'd actually liked the guy doing it..." Or the next guy, or the one after that. Or myself.

"You mean, you want a bit of emotional connection with your sex after all?"

"Fuck off." I don't want my feelings manipulated..

"OK, OK. I'm not gonna therapy you."

"Good." Maybe I should, though? Go back for more therapy?

"Come here, though." He gets me in his arms, like I used to do with Diane, and says nothing. Wise choice.

His skin's nice, and his scent. Even when it's not his spunk or mine. I turn my cheek into his chest, just the slightest bit of golden hair there on his warm smooth skin, and the next thing I know, it's morning.

And Dan's there, still in my bed, doing something on his phone.

"Er... I fell asleep?"

"On me, he confirms. I didn't like to shift you, so eventually I just closed my eyes too. Woke up a bit ago, let Max know I was still alive and all. Don't even think about kissing me -- I must have the worst morning breath ever!"

"Should be a coupla spare toothbrushes under the basin." A single guy should always live in hope of such need, right?

"Thanks. Back in a sec." I admire his body and his stiff cock leaving the room.

I put the kettle on and think what the hell do I do, now? I do, actually, feel incredibly rested. More surprisingly, I don't have that desperate urge to get rid of him. Not that I'm up for more for sex this day -- I can feel my pulse in my arse, and it's delightful, throbbing away with every heartbeat, but not something to push. He comes back, squeaky clean teeth, morning wood disposed of, and I go clean up my own face.

He's chucked clothes on and made me tea. "Didn't know how to make your coffee."

"Nor do I until I've had this caffeine," I joke. "Thanks. Um, breakfast? I've got eggs, toast..."

"Sounds good. Let me help."

He starts while I stick some clothes on. He moves round me remarkably smoothly, and we end up with a grand fry, me having found some old mushrooms, drying-up ham and wrinkling tomatoes in the back of the fridge. Sometimes, there are more important things than Tesco's on a Friday night. He's a dab hand at the slicing and cooking, so by the time I've sorted proper coffee, long-life milk not being a problem with that, he's dishing up like a pro.

"You worked in a caff?"

"No. Sort of. BHS café. Saturday job as a kid."

"People eat in BHS?" They were always a second-rate department store, for cheap nylon jumpers and socks.

"Staff, mostly. It was cheap. Met health'n'safety regs. About all I'll say for it. Paid OK and left me free from 11 am on the weekends. You? What was your first job?"

"Me? Got roped into fruit picking and such on relatives' farms. Bit of newspaper delivery, that kind of thing. Then summer jobs doing computer coding." He's looking interested, so I go on, "Once I came over for uni, some proper engineering placements, and then got jobs as a materials engineer. Industrial design engineer, specialising in fire safety, for the first couple years, and with conversions being a boom area, I've done more and more."

"Right." He's interested. "So what did your college mates go on to do?"

"Lots of things. Let's see, now -- Gareth went into law, became a barrister, but found a role where science is crucial -- disputes between developers, councils getting ripped off for renovations, that sort of stuff. Stu did some engineering but ended up in the civil service. He did housing policy for a while, used to rant about councils not listening to people like me. Or was it their developers? Can't recall. Laura, the one you met... she does sales for some polymer manufacturer -- not just sales, she'll negotiate them making parts on behalf of large companies, that kind of thing. Will's your proper civil engineer, contracted to TfL. So's Linz, when she's not looking after their sprogs. Um... Ali went to work at BASF and then anyone who'd pay him to invent cool new compounds. He was working for a Formula One team, last I heard of him. Lotus, I think."

"You still in touch with all of them?"

"Them in particular. There was thirty to forty of us on the course, a few joined for a couple modules from Chemistry or Engineering, and we ended up as this real tight-knit bunch. Minus a few arseholes, obviously; a few guys made more of their friends elsewhere, but about a dozen of us meet regularly. Including tonight, as it happens." Phew, managed to get that in without lying. "As many more stay in touch, as and when."

"That's really good."

"Aye. They're kinda family, now. You, stayed in touch with college mates? Or from the army?"

He shakes his head. "Nah. Kids at school were yampy scrotes and was happy never to see them again. I wagged school a lot, anyhow -- couldn't learn anything there with everyone arsing around. But you change a lot after sixteen, anyway. Ended up at army school in Harrogate, which was mostly cool, then you get split up into regiments and next thing you know, you're the youngest in the unit in the delightful metropolises of NI."

"Family feel?"

"Kinda. I mean, you know they'd kill for ya. Literally. And in other ways, really not. Sort of mates, had some mates, but then I left. Only ever see a couple of them, once a year or so."

I wonder why he left the army, not just NI. But he's carefully not saying.

"Made some friends back in Brum, living back at home -- Mom and Dad weren't too chuffed, but I wasn't earning much and it was their idea I should save my rent, then buy somewhere. Then I lived with Louise for over a year until the end of that, none of us were happy with me back with the 'rents... Max went to junior school with me, he wanted to buy in London, so we went for it -- idea was I'd move out and he'd get a tenant in if we didn't get on, but actually it was mostly great -- until he met the screech-hound..."

"You've only lived in London what, a year, then?"

"Year and a half. You've been here a while, right?"

"Moved here after uni, never left." That's seventeen years, which is scary enough for me. I stay quiet and let him do the maths himself.

"Practically a Londoner."

"I am a Londoner! Most Londoners come from somewhere else. That's what I love about it."

"And being a big city?"

"Not tripping over rellies and neighbours every five minutes, any gossip getting across the family before you get home, random biddies going 'ooh no, the state of ye' if they see you coming home early in the morning and then telling your ma..."

"Cramps your style, yeah."

"Too right. Did you escape that in Brum?"

"Once I was back home and working, yeah -- I'd go to the clubs in the city centre. Met Louise in one, friend of a friend, you know the thing. But growing up, we was skint and all went to the local dive what didn't look at ID too closely..."

"Didn't we all! Not that they ever asked me for ID until I was well over age, even over here in the clubs where you needed to be twenty-one." A token demand to see fake ID gave them plausible deniability for any under-age gay sex occurring on the premises.

"Were there even gay clubs in Belfast?" Dan asks. "I'm sure there must be by now, but obviously I couldn't investigate when I was there."

"Hoo boy. Army wouldn't be the easiest place to come out, specially still a teenager!"

He looks at me funny, as if he's suddenly turned a decade older than me instead of younger. "Hardly an option," he remarks drily. "It was illegal to be gay in the army until 2000. Even then, no-one was sure if the law change meant it was OK to join, but serving personnel mightn't still be done for a crime, for having existed."

Heavy stuff. "And you were how old when you came over?"

"Eighteen." Same as me, when I came over the water. "But joined up at sixteen, that's why doing GCSEs and Basic in their college. No way I was coming out, even if I'd convinced myself it was a definite deal at the time. Even once it couldn't get me fired, it weren't like it were exactly gay-friendly..."

"Army or Norn Iron?"

We both know, both. I give him more coffee.

"So yeah, had a few flings I didn't tell the folks about, a few I did -- the girls. Moved in with Lou until it really didn't work and she threw me out -- well, not threw really, she were quite sweet once she'd stopped screaming about me wasting her life -- she'd been trying to convince me to have kids with her..."

"Ah."

"She was explaining body clocks and all, I felt so guilty... She's expecting, now. Seems to be a good guy she's found. It's a weight off the mind."

"Diane didn't want kids. History of women dying young in her family; she didn't want any part of it." So much for that. I knew I wasn't any sort of paternal role model, anyway, so I've never wanted children either. "One reason, at my age, to look for guys, not girls. My sister's got a girl, about to have a boy -- the family name's not gonna die out... What's your family like, then? How did they take you moving back in -- or did you not tell them why?"

Dan closes his eyes a moment. "I had to tell them. They said the right things, y'know, 'we love you', 'you do what you have to do', but you could tell they were disappointed, and really didn't want to know." He gives a rueful laugh. "Not sure they really believed me, actually, til I brought this lad back when I thought they'd gone for the weekend..."

"Oh, no!"

"It could have been much worse. I was in the kitchen just in some old cut-offs, tea-towel flipped over me shoulder like a front cover model, he was on the settee in his jeans, just looking all real freshly showered, you know? And they came in... Oh god, Mom insisted on making him a cuppa and offering biscuits and asking him how he knew me and all, and here's me desperate to remember what his name was..."

"Excruciating..."

"More than! Cringe-making politeness all round. After that, I never brought anyone home, but I leapt right at Max's London plan a couple months later. Purchase went through in a couple months, amazingly -- s'pose they were selling twenty at a time so there was a full-time solicitor on the job?"

"There was. It went from just me and the caretaker in the building, and the various carpenters and all, then sudden one weekend half the flats got filled, and the rest over the next month or two. A couple stayed empty a while, but then they got rented out, too. Right pain if I wanted the lift from the car park, I tell you. I might have to wait a whole minute, now."

"You've got a car?"

"No, why would I? I keep my bike there though, sometimes take it shopping with a rucksack and the panniers. I rent out the space. Two-twenty a month, would you believe?"

"I would so, because we do the same for two-thirty!"

"Maybe I should use your company!"

"Nah -- we keep our bikes on the balcony. In the corner of the space, we've got a locker for Max's kayak and my surfboard -- though to be honest, I might as well just sell it, the amount I don't use it."

"I did think, surfer dude, the first time I saw you."

"Blond hair, yeah, but the pink skin?" He exaggerates -- his arms are pretty brown.

"This is Britain, not California! Suntan is overrated. Never had one in my life. I tell a lie, my teenage farm-work years I got a pretty fair tan down to my waist..."

"Nice."

I shrug. "There wasn't anyone to appreciate it at the time."

"Shame. Did you want another pot of coffee?"

He's really asking, fancy another fuck, or whatever. Thing is, I want the place looking good when Laura comes over. And not to be walking funny. She'd notice.

"Eh, need to get cleaning." Though that sounds prissy and camp, so I try to dial back, "Don't suppose you could give us a hand changing the bedding before you go? Seeing as you helped make it necessary."

When he says, "Only if I'm allowed to mess it up again," I realise this can't be just a one night stand after all.

"Coffee break on Monday again?"

There's this pause. He's right. We're a bit beyond that, now. Can I cope with that? He's clearly wanting more than just a quickie. So I add, "Or Monday night? Make sure I don't work too late?"

That sunshiney grin spreads over his face, and I know I've said the right thing. Just need to deliver on it, now.

"Where's your clean linen, then? I promise not to mess it up today."

The bed looks great, darker shade of navy, and I'm sorely tempted.

Until he pushes me out the room, plants a kiss on my lips once he's opened the front door, and says, "See you on Monday. Seven?"

"Sure."

If his game is to leave me wanting more, then fair play on him -- it's working.

Whoa. Don't panic.

I eye up my whisky, but no, before midday would be the work of an alkie. I catch sight of the pic of me and Diane, above it.

I can hear her voice, as I do so often.

'Don't go fucking this up now, you daft sod.'

If only she'd add some advice on how to do that.

Ah well, Laura's gonna be here in a bit. I'll get food and get cooking. She's usually good on the advice front. Always non-judgemental and sensible, even when she's not got a clue. Let's face it, I've never fazed her yet! I chuckle, thinking of the time I asked her legal advice when I was being done for GBH of a police sergeant, or the time I thought I was winding her up, asking about dressing up for Torture Garden with Diane. She'd not only heard of it, I'd swear she'd been there. She didn't admit anything, you understand, just suggested that some little black shorts paired with a leather collar might make me blend in nicely. Mesh T-shirt optional. And that Diane really should keep me on a tight leash.

Which she did. Not that she didn't let me do stuff, just that she'd only let me if she was convinced I was doing it because I really wanted to, not just to please them or to distract myself from what was going on in my head. If in doubt, some time at her feet focusing generally helped. My goddess. In some ways, worshipping her makes more sense, now.

Best not get maudlin. I've got a sophisticated bird to impress tonight. I would hit Borough Market again -- hell, it's only one o'clock, let's do that.

The throng of tourists reminds me why I don't come here on Saturdays in the normal way of things, but I pick up some really nice steaks and mushrooms, ready-made sauces, chips ready for a final fry, bread and cheese and olives to start with, and fancy salads. She'll bring more red wine. I'd better have some dessert, she likes her sweet stuff though I'll be fine with more cheese -- ah, place selling ice-cream, near dead in this weather, yes, two cartons of your specials, thank you kindly. My bike survives its hour chained to a lamp-post, and I'm home by three, wriggling the bike into its secure box at the front of my parking space. The car in it is stupidly big for London and hasn't left me much room.

But then I knew the owner was a fool, to be paying for the space in the first place.

I get food ready to go, veg sliced, dishes in the fridge, plates and glasses out, and go have a long hot shower complete with a long, slow wank.

I'm thinking of Dan and of Laura. With Diane watching over my shoulder as she always is. But approving, today.

New nicotine patch -- should have done that this morning. Soft chinos, smart brushed-cotton shirt. Cobalt, the label says. That's the aluminate pigment, not the metal, presumably. Though the fabric's not the colour known as cobalt blue either, far more indigo. Still, it is a nice shirt. Diane said a vivid blue brought out my eyes.

Bit of moisturiser, hair gel, apply comb, should I get my hair cut soon, does this length make me look like a sad case trying to be young... I'm ready, just need a cigarette to calm my nerves...

Oh, feck and feather it!

At least when bloody Laura does turn up, she'll be the right person to give an earful to. She'd better get here soon; should be half an hour but she's always late. I don't think the trains cock up quite as much as she claims. Though, she does live in Southern Trains territory -- maybe I'll give her the benefit of the doubt.

I should have got food that needed more prep, really. I trim and season the steaks to perfection, add butter to the pans, ready, put olives and bread on the table. I'm considering doing a bit of work, even.

The fridge gets cleaned out, shopping list ready for tomorrow. God, I've got organised in my old age. And the doorbell goes. Laura's ten minutes early.

"Is this all right? Not too early for you? I wasn't sure you'd be decent, love." She passes me her long coat and gives me a classic hug and kiss on each cheek. Flirtatious, like she's been for twenty years, and generous black eyeliner drawing attention to her eyes. It does make her look faintly like Morticia Addams, with warmer skin and wavier hair, but that's no bad thing at all.

"Come on in, sit down! What's that wine there? D'you want me to open it for ye now?" She looks fabulous, as always, high-heeled black boots to die for, long swinging skirt, low-cut top putting this evening definitely in the flirt zone, whole outfit showing off her curves. She's not eighteen any more, to be sure, but nor am I. She carries her larger body well. Besides, it's made her tits bigger.

She pulls out a dining chair. "Hell, yes. So, how've you been, sweetie?"

It's good to see Adrian in happy mode, and amazing to hug him and smell him, without that fug of smoke ingrained in him, his clothes. I noticed it as soon as I stepped in his flat, actually -- he'd clearly ventilated the place previously, but now, if the scent is of anything, it's male sweat. It's nice.

He pours a large glass for me, but sticks to ice water for himself while he's cooking. I know from experience he'll just tell me to sit down and get out his way if I try to help, so I don't offer. A good swig of my Merlot, a few olives, a hunk of bread for the wine to soak into, and I'm feeling more in favour of life. I had a depressing medical appointment, earlier.

He grins as he shoves a handful of the olives into his mouth, and returns to his pan to remove the fried mushrooms. He really is one cheerful bunny, and I'm sure it's something more than steak and the prospect of snogging me that's done it.