The Polaris Effect Ch. 02

Chapter Two- Wayward Days

He checked his rear-view mirror as he pulled his two-year-old Honda out into traffic, glancing at his face momentarily as he drove. The lines across his brow and puffiness under his eyes were there again today. He attributed them, as always to the stressful work conditions he lived with as a computer programmer for a large law firm in Seattle. He refused to consciously admit to himself that there were deeper issues that he kept locked away inside, never to be dealt with in the light of day. To Jeremy Sandler, his job was the source of all of his stress.

He flipped the radio to the local "classic rock" station. Classic Rock, HA... that always made him laugh! These were songs that while he was growing up made people do stupid things like squirming around on the floor of the gym, under the pretense of actual dancing. Songs like "Rock Lobster" and "Attack of the Fifty Foot Woman." Classic Rock was just a hook to make people turn to that spot on the dial and then stay there out of nostalgia. The songs made him feel good though. They reminded him of a simpler time in his life when everything seemed clearer and the future was always bright. Of course, there were the innumerable occasions when they played Air Supply until he thought he was physically going to gag, but then he could always slip in that CD he kept in the compartment next to the seat, hidden away in case of an emergency.

He pulled up next to her in the parking lot at Sharkie's. He could see his friend, Alicia Tarentello inside "the bomb" with the rear-view mirror practically wrenched from its moorings on the windshield, while she adjusted her make-up. The 1963 White Chevy Impala she drove was her pride and joy. Restored and repainted by her brother Tony and her cousin Lenny in Vancouver, she told him the story many times of how she found it in the paper five years ago. She went to check out the ad and found that it had been garaged for more than thirty years by an older couple who had actually bought it new. The blue leather upholstery inside was pristine and shiny with attention, even if the paint on the outside was not. That was what sold her on it in the end, the feel of the soft worn leather.

Jeremy loved to tease her about her "fetish for leather."

Her black polyester skirt crackled as she slid across the bench seat and out of the door to meet her boss. He leaned over and kissed her cheek gently, as not to disturb her earlier grooming.

"Mornin," he said with the cheesy grin that always managed to ruffle her feathers. Alicia was definitely not a morning person. They met every morning at Sharkie's, around the corner from their building to have coffee. This was only so that Alicia would be awake enough not bite the heads off of the live chickens that the partners sacrificed up to them every morning with their latest "schemes and ideas" for new tracking programs for their case loads.

She flipped the door to the Impala closed with her hip and sneered at him.

"Do you always have to be so damn cheery in the morning?"

Towering over her petite five foot two frame, he rested his arm around her shoulder and whispered in her ear.

"I do my dear, for if I wasn't, I would be no more." He giggled finally, knowing how much she hated it when he went drama queen on her.

She playfully smacked his ribs with the back of her hand. They both knew he was secretly miserable, but it wasn't the time for that conversation now. They had a full day of facing the legal minds at Helsby, Lowen and Rubenstein in front of them and they would need all their wits and as much energy as two latte's could provide just to get through the morning.

***

Jeremy kept pretty much to himself at work. Alicia was his savior because he could always be himself with her. There were no façades with her. The mask he pulled down around most people lifted immediately when she was in the room. It's not that he was afraid that anyone there would find out that he was gay. Seattle was definitely the most accepting city beside San Francisco on the West Coast when it came to that, one couple in five here was openly gay. However, he didn't want to unveil his personal life to anyone he worked with. Years of disappointment and broken promises had left Jeremy slightly bitter and worn around the edges.

Their office was in the basement of HLR along with the company gym and lounge. It was the hell of all possible places for them because of the combination of smells that lingered in the gym and the kitchen of the break room. They had glass doors that enclosed their area, but if they kept them closed, the temperature and the humidity combined to create an indoor rainstorm. Something you really didn't want in place designated for computer servers and repair. This along with the fact that there was no visible light source, save the haunting hum of halogens, led the programmers to nickname their office "the dungeon."

Alicia had gone up to the fourth floor to do an intro class for the firm's latest guinea pigs in the typing pool. They hired ten to fifteen new temp workers every month to process the thousands of letters, research documents and legal briefs that came out of the paper mill that was a law office. They never lasted long. The long hours and volumes of monotonous work burnt them out in record time. Alicia was the poor soul who was in charge of getting them up to speed on the company databases and computing policies. A task she detested more than anything in her job description!

Jeremy sat at his desk thumbing through a new issue of Comp World. A slight breeze ruffled the pages of the magazine causing him to look up from another article about the pros and cons of Instant Messaging in the work place. Presumptuous though it may have been, a young smooth hand reached across Jeremy's desk and stroked his hand softly. Jeremy's skin sizzled as though electrified. Robbie Helsby had the hots for him and he knew it. What he couldn't abide was the fact that he was the boss' son and a spoiled glamour boy who got absolutely everything he wanted, everything except Jeremy that was.

Robert Archibald Helsby, III was being groomed to take over the family business. With a recent Master's Degree from Stanford, Robbie had come to the firm six months ago as a junior partner, a position that any other lawyer would have had to scrap, kick and claw to get. The one little glitch in his daddy Robert's plans was that Robbie could have given a rat's ass about the firm or the law. All he cared about was that he had enough money to party, bar hop and seduce twinks from San Francisco to British Columbia with his stunning good looks and bulging bank account.

"Hey Jem, what's the haps?" Robbie's smile graduated slightly on his lips, making it resemble more of a smirk. It was closer to a sneer in Jeremy's mind and he shuffled his hand out from underneath that of the pompous, young stud. There was no denying the fact that at twenty-nine, Robbie was indeed not hard on the eyes. Dark curly hair cut close, soft hazel eyes and the face of something resembling a classic Italian masterpiece didn't hurt Jeremy's sensibilities much. The personality and years of privilege though, did not appeal to his sense of decency.

"Please Mr. Helsby, don't call me that." Jeremy answered him. Helsby was used to Jeremy's rebuffs.

"What is it Jem, that makes you so cautious of me?" Robbie sat down on the edge of the desk like an old friend cozying up for a long awaited heart to heart.

"I know you're gay, you know I'm gay. I know you don't have a boyfriend. The only person I ever see you with is that bitchface Alicia." Robbie's arrogance only served to infuriate Jeremy even more. In his book, you just didn't talk that way about people, even people you didn't like. Jeremy's mother had always instilled the tired old cliché on her children...if you don't have something nice to say, don't say anything at all. It stuck with him.

Jeremy knew he was walking a fine line. If he blew up at Helsby for insulting Alicia he could lose his job without so much as a blink of an eye. Not that it was a job that he saw himself in forever, but it helped to keep him in the style of which he had grown accustomed. Unpacked boxes and a smattering of ill-chosen antiques that he kept telling himself he was going to "decorate around." He gathered his composure and let Mr. Helsby III know in no uncertain terms that he was not interested in him. Well, that was what he intended to do anyway... what came out was something a little weak and weary and oh so much the way Jeremy felt about his life in general.

"Look Robbie, I know you're interested, but I really am not the person that you want to be spending time with, okay. Besides what are you going to do if your father finds out you've been hitting on the company computer guy?" Jeremy rolled his eyes as he used the term that the senior Helsby continuously adopted to diminish Jeremy's importance to the law offices. Robbie seemed to get the hint and made for the elevator doors outside of Jeremy's office.


"Never say never, Jem!" His brow arched as his face broke in a lecherous smile.

Jesus, did that man ever think of anything but sex?

***

That night as he sat alone on the sofa in his sparsely furnished living room, Jeremy thought back to all of the relationships he had experienced over his thirty some years. When he left his first love as an uncertain young man, he told himself that he wanted marriage and a family. That he wanted stability and a home. In his naiveté, he imagined that he couldn't have those things with the boy he had fallen in love with at summer camp when he was just fifteen. Even though he hadn't talked to Archer in ten plus years, he could still see him in his mind's eye. The height of a small tree, the golden red spirals of his auburn hair trailing down his back like autumn leaves threatening to escape the tether of their branches in a brisk wind. His lips were always so soft pink and were eternally imprinted in Jeremy's memory with the taste of honey.

His eyes became heavy and his head lolled back. He pulled a blanket down off the back of the couch and hastily covered himself, letting the memories flood into his mind, a thick fog of emotion settling in to encompass him for yet another night of dreams. Dreams of long ago...

He drifted in and out of sleep, still very aware of his surroundings. In the dream, the skin on his back was warm with the intimacy of an established mate. He was relaxed in both body and spirit, a gentle contentment he savored with reverence. He was filled with warmth and contentment that only a genuine lover, a life partner or spouse would give. His mind swirled with thoughts of security, of having finally found his one true soul mate.

Tendrils of golden red hair tickling his cheek confused him. At six foot one, there weren't many of his lovers that were able to enfold his body with their own, but he was cognizant of a sprawling presence behind him; someone tall and thin, but with muscular arms and fine-boned hands. A surgeon's hands or that of an artist caressed his flank. And yes, a distinct masculine feature pressed against his buttocks, demanding its rightful attention. Full lips softly kissed his shoulder blade up and across the expanse of his back with a tenderness that he had rarely ever known, save one.

Only one lover in his lifetime had been this attentive to him. Only one partner had given him his heart and soul, but that lover was gone now. His confusion remained. The sensual assault continued on his shoulder and neck grazing the secret spot that only his first love had taken the time to discover. The velvet lips made a path to his opposite shoulder. Time melted as though physics was not possible and they were bound in a passionate embrace, kissing lovingly. The kiss was luxurious, with no attention given to time or breathing. He returned the kiss, not able to understand how or when it was happening; only knowing that he was there with him and a heady euphoria consumed him at the revelation of who was actually kissing him.

The sensations in his body fired with the electricity of impending penetration. He was alive with heat and emotion. Strong arms enveloped his shoulders. The sensitive skin of his neck shivered as though rose pedals were brushing against them, but they were lips softly kneading the crux of his shoulder and neck. Their fever of their lovemaking rose and he lifted his hips, securing his well-muscled calves around the back of this perfect man.

The pulse within him was another mountainous high as the beautiful face before him told him with his expressions what words could never say...

"I'm here Jeremy. I've always been right here with you."

This couldn't be. Questions spun in his brain muddling it with uncertainty. He knew he wasn't nineteen anymore. If he wasn't dreaming, this was impossible. At that moment, he snapped awake. He could no longer feel the warmth or the euphoric love. He was a grown man now and he didn't have a lover, he knew in his heart that no one was there. Weeping silently, he glanced at the empty space around him.

"Alone... I'll always be alone." He whispered to no one in the dark and although he knew that physically he was not with Archer anymore, the imprint of his soul would retain that love, those feelings and overwhelming emotions until the day he died. Archer was a part of him. He had tried to hide from that fact for years now, but his sub-conscious refused to acknowledge it and slowly it was filtering its way through to his every day reality.