Fic: The Gravedigger
This is the sequel to Grabbing Hands. Together, these stories start off a potentially ongoing project I'm calling School of the Tiger. I've made it a web page complete with pretty banner, which I won't mess up your friends page with by copying here. So go look. :p Yay, banner! ;)
Because Grabbing Hands was so popular -- popular enough to make me rethink my no more fic posts resolve; I'm nothing if not shallow -- and a lot of the reason for that was, I think, Thom's voice, I feel I insecure enough to give a little warning before this one, which is in Joe's voice. Joseph is very different from Thom -- in personality, erudition and reaction. This story, which takes place a few weeks later on from Hands, has a very different feel to it.
Author: Magpie
Pairing: m/m
Rating: NC-17
Genre: British Contemporary
Words: 8,900
Notes: Thanks go to wolfling, wesleysgirl and tsuki_no_bara for the hugely appreciated betas.
Warnings: angst, Brit slang etc. (Fags = cigarettes!)
The Gravedigger
Fucking bitch.
Look at her, wriggling and giggling on his lap like one of those realer-than-life baby dolls my little sis goes mad over. His hand's in her sodding knickers, I'd swear to it. What a fucking whore... and yeah, I don't know which one of them I mean. Both of them are attention-seeking slags, and I'd say that I hate them both, only I don't know the blonde's name and probably wouldn't recognise her if I saw her again -- 'cause in what way is she different from one hundred other brainless Essex girls I could find just by walking down this one street?
So that just leaves Thom, and claiming to hate him would not only be laughable but also petulant and teenage -- those things I'm not meant to be anymore at twenty-three. Oh, and girlish. I mustn't forget that all-important one.
My eyes feel like bungee jumpers, dragged away by sheer will from the pair's slum performance art and then hurtling back to it, again and again. Thom's nibbling her earlobe. Right, that's the last time he gets to do that to me. Her hand is under his shirt, playing with his belt. I fucking bought him that belt.
I'm not staying here to be made an idiot of.
I stand up, jolting the small table, and immediately feel his hand on my arm. Not the one that was between her legs, thank fucking God. I think I'd puke.
"Where you off to, Joe?" he asks, calling me the private name in public. Her glittery lipstick has given his mouth a reddish sparkle. Just what the hell have I done to deserve tonight?
I look at his hand disdainfully 'til he removes it, only he doesn't. I don't know why not as that kind of look always works in films. Guess it must be 'cause he's got no shame to trigger. I know it's not me getting it wrong. I've practiced this look.
Christ, I hate-- need to get away from him.
"I'm going home." I try to pull away. Waste of effort, of course. He's got a grip like a manacle, which yeah, normally gets me hard. Not right now though.
"No, you're not." He's frowning. "Not on your own, and I ain't ready to go yet." And what he wants is, of course, all that matters. Always has been, ever since we met as boys. We've always played his games, gone where he wants to go.
"Not staying here, Thom," I say, keeping back the cynical endearments I know he hates in public 'cause I can keep a deal even if he can't. I should be congratulated at how calm I'm managing to keep my voice under the circumstances. I deserve a medal, a fucking knighthood. My invite to Buck Palace will be waiting for me on the mat when I get in, I'm sure.
"Why the fuck not? Thought you liked it here." His grip on my arm is almost painful now; I've made him cross. God, what is it with me and bullies? Why do I never learn? I push my hair from my eyes with my free hand.
Can he really not know? Can he really be oblivious to what's wrong with him sitting there with a cheap chav slut on his lap, his fingers in her... In her? She's wearing bubblegum pink boots, for God's sake. No one's that blind, that stupid, not even Thomas sodding Sampson. He knows just why I'm upset, and in fact, I reckon he was aiming for it. This is a lesson, isn't it? He's hot on lessons. This one's to teach me that I don't own him, and that, oh yeah, he isn't fucking gay. Yup, that's it. Of course it is.
As if I didn't already know both of those things far too bloody well. Two fucks and a few hand jobs don't exactly equal gay monogamy forever after.
Anything I say now will just be playing his stupid bastard game. So, ok, no talking. I look back down at his hand, and with a laugh, I whirl my arm around his and then down, joint-locking his elbow and forcing him to let go.
I step back, still laughing at him. "You really shouldn't have taught me that one so well, should you, dear?" Oops, there goes that resolution.
He looks pissed off, but before he has a chance to answer, the slut in his arms is screeching again. That's all she's done since Thom bought her the G&T that started this episode. "Just let him go, sweetie. You ask me, he's a poof anyway. Got that feel to him. I can always tell."
If I had a knife... If I just had a knife... Yeah, right. I wouldn't use a knife if I had it hard in my hand with a certificate guaranteeing its use free from consequences. I hate the things. Hate the casual violence that seems to be soaked into every zombie in this graveyard I grew up in. I don't know why I'm different; I've never known. People sense it though -- that's why I get beaten. They haven't got the intelligence necessary to cope with difference round here. Fuck, they've barely got the intelligence to breathe, most of them.
Thom's been distracted into kissing the bitch again, so I'm off. And no, the pain in my chest isn't my heart breaking. I've just had one bag too many of salt and vinegar, one pint of cheap lager more than I should've. Well, there was nothing else to do while Thom was busy proving to all and sundry that he was still a hetero stud and let no one bloody forget it.
The air outside the pub is cold and heavy. I stuff my hands hard into my jacket pockets as I walk. It's drizzling. Good -- suits my mood down to ground zero. I hate him. I hate him so damn much. So, yeah, guess I haven't left adolescence behind after all. That's something I'm really, really bloody good at, you see -- not letting things go, not moving on. If they awarded prizes in grudges, dependence and obsession, then I'd be the boy genius accepting the Nobel.
Fuck Thom. Just fuck him. If it weren't for him, I could leave this dosshole any time. I could be gone from the dirt and ignorance here where nothing ever flourishes. I could be free.
The shops have their Christmas decorations up already. Talk about dressed mutton. Shoddy tat is shoddy tat, no matter how much tinsel is dumped artlessly on top of it. I hate Rabford -- it's a no man's land, not Essex, not London. Not fucking anywhere. Chavtown, that's what it is. Here, they chuck you out of places if you're not wearing a Burberry cap and hoodie. Nah, it's worse than that -- it's a city of the dead, a cemetery in which the corpses mistakenly believe they're alive.
I hate Rabford, and I hate Rabforders. Especially blond, well built, control freak Rabforders with a fetish for martial arts. I have to get out of this coffin and away from him before I rot on the bone. I've the education to get out, unlike most of the go-nowheres round here, and I can drop my accent at a click of my fingers. I've got my ticket to ride, yet the buses pass me by unhailed.
I turn off the high street, heading down Magdalen Street towards the estates. It's darker now; the shops, what there are of them, don't leave their lights on down here. There wouldn't be much point, what with all the chainlink, shutters, and metal bars the owners erect every night before going home, or simply upstairs. It always feels like a riot zone down here at night, though it smells more like a tube station -- half rotten food, half urine.
The off license I'm about to pass can take a lot of the blame for that. There's always a steady supply of winos and other not quite so down and out pissheads congregated outside.
I button up the top of my jacket and try to walk less like a 'little girl needing a pee'. Yeah, I'm quoting Thom. He's such a flatterer. Don't know how I manage to get by without my head exploding from the ego trip.
My breath comes out in puffs of grey vapour, and suddenly, I'm craving a smoke. Why the hell not? A little rebellion against Thom's stupid rules will do me, if not the world of good, then at least a small country or two. It's my own business what I do with my lungs, and anyway, not as if he's likely to be kissing me tonight.
I think of his glittering lips again and shiver. Cold prickles crawl over my arms and shoulders under my jacket. I'm not wearing enough for November really. Wanted to look hot for him. Yeah, it's a bloody joke.
Sighing, I push through the drunks, ignoring the reek and the begging hands shoved in front of me, and walk into the offy. The Asian bloke behind the grill nods -- what a thankless task his must be -- and I ask for ten B&H. I don't need any more than that, and anyhow, if Thom finds them, he'll only shred them, so no point in wasting too much cash here. I've handed over the money before I remember I need matches too. The shopkeeper just grunts and plonks them on top of the fags.
Back outside, a cop car has turned up. A couple of uniformed blokes are trying to move the loiterers on. I think about staying to watch; one of the cops is nice looking -- toned, good arse, dark soulful eyes -- but I don't want to get caught up in anything that might happen with the winos. Still, in another time and place, I wouldn't mind him handcuffing me for a quick frisk, so I smile his way before I head off again, and he smiles back, dinging my gaydar. That's not a 'reassure a member of the general public' smile, oh no.
Grinning, I walk on up Magdalen Street, imagining I can feel his gaze on my arse when, in all likelihood, he's already been distracted by an obstreperous drunk. I try to walk sexy anyhow, though try as I might, I just can't do the tomcat prowl Thom does so effortlessly. I've got very long legs, and I sometimes suspect that my 'confident lope' looks more like a spider out on the scuttle. I've found it's best to at least imagine I look hot however, Thom's acid comments on my stride and stance not withstanding.
Bastard.
I turn into Rondo Avenue and into the most dangerous part of my journey. Both times I got jumped, it was down here, in the mostly empty space between well lit town centre and densely populated estate. I lurk in a gateway to some offices long enough to open my Benson & Hedges and light one. Good for bravado, fags. Something about the oral fix and vague rebellion of them, I guess. I let my first drag out with a long, soft sigh.
I look up and down the street before continuing. There's no one about. Not a soul. I can hear distant shouts and laughter and the usual sirens wailing across the town centre like a call to prayer, but there isn't even a car heading down this road tonight. The emptiness almost seems worse than threatening groups of chavs or skins for some reason. That's bonkers; do I think aliens are gonna come down and abduct me?
That'd be my best chance for any satisfying anal action tonight, mind you.
Smiling wryly, I inhale deeply... and then cough, of course. There's always too long between my occasional fits of chain-smoking for my lungs to get used to the gunk.
I hold my fag between my thumb and finger, cupping it in my hand to protect it from the slight breeze stirring up the rankness down here. My footsteps sound loud in the empty street, and I feel like I'm in a noir film; all it needs is a touch of mist snaking over the cobbles. I think I'll get pissed once I'm home; put a porn vid in and get mindless. Well, it's that or think about you know who, and I've had enough of that.
I have to wean myself off him, like any drug.
I was doing all right 'til that incredible afternoon in his basement. After that, after what followed in the shower and then again in his bedroom; after I'd tasted his come and had his cock slip-sliding on what felt like a whole tube of lube inside of me -- an accident, he claimed -- after the kisses and the serious chats and all that shit about me being beautiful... Well, yeah, after all that I thought I could relax. I didn't need to resist him anymore, at bloody last, after so damn long. So many wet dreams, so many hopeless wanks -- years of them. I should have given him up long ago.
Hell, I did give him up, so I thought, when I went to uni. I had a fun time there -- learnt a lot and not just about literature. But afterwards, and I still don't really know why, I came back to Rabford.
Mum had taken Chris and Cass up north (where it isn't, in fact, all that grim. At least not compared to down here) and all that was left for me in this dump -- bar the far from stellar memories -- was Thomas Sampson, the boy who'd stood by me in his own head stag way when I came out, and who'd punched the lights out of anyone who made me miserable.
Well, apart from the teachers. I was always careful not to tell him about them as fuck knows what he would've done.
It's heady stuff, having your own scary-arse bodyguard keeping an eye over you like you're royalty, and he was a bloody gorgeous bodyguard at that. He always has been enough to bend me double with lust. At school, I learnt quickly to avoid going into the showers until he was done. And since I've been back from uni, fuck knows what he's been thinking during our weekly evenings together -- about my many extra-long trips to the bathroom, that is.
He knows now, of course. I confessed to that quite quickly, probably 'cause I've always been vaguely worried that he might think I have some gross bowel disorder or something. As he wasn't having one of his 'oh shit, people might think I'm gay 'cause I fuck my mate up the arse' freak out sessions when I told him, he instead opted for his other now standard reaction to such confessions from me. This being to get as smug as a cat who's successfully blackmailed the local milkman and will now have double cream with every meal for life. Don't think he stopped grinning for an hour.
Git.
This is what I came back for, what I'm still staying for, doing time in Rabford. Thom is my crime, my sentence and my jailer. He'll probably be my grave too. Fuck him.
I stop to get out another fag. Why not fill my lungs with the poison? Not like I've got a fucking future anyway. I light it while walking and keep dragging on it 'til I feel light-headed.
Suddenly, I'm aware of rapid footfalls behind me. Before I can even think about how to react, there's an arm around my neck pulling me back against a hard body as another hand grabs my wrist and twists it painfully.
I freeze. Then I struggle like something insane. Not again. No, not again. I'm not going through this shit another time. "Get off me!" I yell, not that there's anyone to hear bar my attacker. I try to kick back, to rip myself from the manacle grips. "Get the fuck--"
"You know, I really thought you'd learnt better than this," a very familiar voice says by my ear.
Shit. I slump, deflated and defeated. "You utter fucking bastard."
"Oh, that's nice," Thom says, not letting go of me and talking low by my ear in that way he learnt so damn quick makes me hard. "And here I am to keep you safe, giving up a perfectly good shag to do so, and you call me names."
"You scared the fucking life out me, Thom." I lean back against him, more because my legs feel so weak than because I crave contact. God, what an arsehole. I cup my fingers around my fag, miraculously kept hold of during my struggles, and the smoke heats my palm like dirty money.
"Yeah, well, you deserved it," Thom growls. "Walking like Julian bloody Clary down Rondo of all places. And where the hell was my training when I grabbed you, eh? You'd be pulp by now if I'd been a real attacker. You're a stupid bloody tosser, Joe."
"Joseph," I say, sounding sulky to my own ears.
"Why? No one here but us, is there?" He lets go and moves around to look at me. His gaze falls immediately to the trail of smoke drifting up like a sigh from my cupped fingers. "You can put that out for a start."
"For a start of what, dear?" I ask and deliberately take a long drag.
He whips the cigarette from my mouth and grinds it into the pavement with his Nike. "What the fuck's got into you tonight? You're being a complete wanker."
I snort, but don't trust myself to actually say anything. No point in getting out a new cigarette and lighting it; that'll only result in him destroying the whole packet. I hate him. I let my face show it; let the hate shine out like black sunshine.
I don't really expect him to notice. After all, he gives new meaning to 'oblivious', but he pulls back a little when he sees my expression and has the gall to look affronted. "Right. Ok, I get it. So what have I done then?"
Snorting again, I look away, and then wonder why I'm still standing here with him. I start walking home once more, but inevitably, he walks with me. I knew he would. Even when I've pissed him off, he still takes care of me. It would offend his overblown sense of chivalry not to do so.
I think he blames himself a little for my last fun encounter with gay-bashing. We'd been avoiding each other after I'd tried to take advantage of his blood alcohol content and kiss him. Stupid, I know. Anyway, I paid for it when, as a result, he wasn't there a few nights later when I went out in a self-destructive daze.
It's weird, you know, but the pain of the attack has already faded from my mind. I know it hurt all right, but the way in which it hurt has gone, leaving just a stain of memory behind. The sounds though, they're still crystal -- the things they said and the way they said them, the sound of my flesh crunching, splitting against my bones. Remember the fear too, the conviction that, this time, they were going to kill me.
Thom came to see me in hospital. I admitted to him that I'd thought I wasn't going to survive that one, not with the things they'd been saying. Not that I told Thom about the latter, just the former, and even that was a mistake. I could see him hearing the unspoken 'because you weren't there to protect me', which I hadn't said and wouldn't ever say, but I could see him hearing it all the same.
I feel bad about that even now, though I'm embarrassingly grateful for the protection. But shit, not like I'd be in Rabford needing protection if it wasn't for him, so maybe it's just my due. Yeah, I know that's a load of old bollocks too.
At the end of Rondo, Thom suddenly speaks. "You didn't like my bird, did you? Well, your disappearing trick took care of her, so you got your own way, as per usual, and can stop this stupid fucking hard-done-by act, alright?" It's a miracle really that he's even worked out that much. He must be trying extra hard. I should give him a lollypop.
"Don't worry, my dear," I say, deliberately camp. "You can buy another one just like it from any high street toy shop."
It seems to take him a few moments to realise I mean his cheap Barbie rip-off. Then he snorts in apparent good humour. "Yeah, she was a bit, weren't she? Still, bloody nice tits."
I shake my head and sigh loudly, pushing the hair back from my face. Maybe if I got myself some implants... Nah, that'd be utterly disgusting. I don't even enjoy dragging up. "Did you even know her name?"
He shrugs. "Might've got told it. Can't remember now. Hardly matters, do it? Weren't like she was an innocent I was taking advantage of; she wanted just the same as me -- a nice bod to play with for a few hours."
"In public."
He shoots me a look like a sharply aimed kick for the goal. "To start with, yeah. Is that what's got up your nose then?"
I shouldn't answer this one; I know that, yet here come the words all the same. "It's bad enough you feel obliged to prove something with these cheap slags without making me a witness to it all. It's degrading, darling."
I don't define who it is that's being degraded, and there's silence while he -- presumably -- digests my words. We walk down the Westside Bypass together, my estate now a visible goal, and yet still far too bloody far away. Cars speed past us on the dual carriageway, on their way to anywhere-but-here. I've heard it's nice there. I should visit sometime.
I'm over-aware of his presence at my side, the unknown quality of his reaction to my last comment looming. "Dunno what you're making such a bloody fuss about, mate," he says eventually, sounding... hurt? "Ain't like you're a stranger to one night stands, is it? If anything, you're worse than me."
"That was before--" I manage to stop myself, but it's too late. I've said way too much anyway.
"Before...?" He turns and grabs my arm, stopping me walking. "Before we started screwing, would that be?"
I don't answer and stare over his left shoulder, seeing little. I'm standing here 'cause I feel like it, that's all. When I'm ready, I'll get going again.
"Well, well, well," Thom says, and I want to slap him one for the sarcastic tone. "You wouldn't have been thinking we're -- what, boyfriends? -- since we started sharing bodily fluids, would you? Now why would you think something like that?"
Silent as a mouldering corpse, that's me. The estate's so close now. If I can just get him to let me go...
"Did we," he continues, "perhaps have a conversation in which we expressed a, uh, mutual desire for -- what's the word? Means like loyalty, something to do with dogs?"
It should come as no surprise that I can actually translate this, supplying, "Fidelity."
"Yeah, that's the one. So did we agree to that then? 'Cause if so, it seems to have slipped my memory."
"Fuck off, Thom." The glitter's still on his lips; it's glinting in the street lamps. Maybe if I kissed him, he'd shut up.
"Did we in fact discuss it at all?"
I return to silence; should never have left it. He makes me as stupid and verbally graceless as he is; I hate him.
"Thought not," he says, releasing my arm to push his hands over his shorn head.
The motion lifts his t-shirt, revealing his abs and capturing my attention 'cause I'm nothing if not predictable as far as his body is concerned. He stretches, making a four-course meal with coffee and after-dinner mints out of it. I'm certain it's deliberate, that he's using seduction as a tool to win the argument that I'm stubbornly not having with him.
As his arms drop, he says, "So why you acting like I've offended you by behaving in the exact same way I've always behaved, Joe?"
I'm released now, I remind myself. My refuge is in sight. I turn and head up the road again, walking a lot faster than before.
"Answer me," comes from behind me. Then, "Joe, if you don't bloody talk to me about this, so help me, I'll--"
I turn and glare at him. "You'll what? You'll bloody what?"
"Don't." He's close behind me, but he looks away now, looking almost ashamed. He looks like a little boy. "You know I'll never hurt you."
Too late. So very much too late that I laugh loudly.
He seems to understand what's going on in my head. "I meant physically," he says a little sulkily. "Don't know how to not hurt you other ways 'cause you never bloody tell me what's bugging you, do you? You lie, act a role, avoid, have stupid fucking tantrums like this one -- all sorts of idiot shit to stop me knowing the real you."
Oh, that hurts. That really bloody hurts. "You know me better than any other person alive." Or he could, anyway, if he paid attention.
He shakes his head, and I can finally see how much I've upset him with this in the ragged shape of his lips. "If that's true, then all I can say, Joseph Kelly, is that you must be one of the loneliest buggers on this earth."
His words are fuel, powering my feet as I whirl around and start to run, across the road to a chorus of horns, heading home to where I can lock the door, keep him outside where he claims to be already.
"Joe!" He calls out behind me. "Fucking hell, Joe!" I can hear him running after me. Bastard never knows when to let anything drop.
"You've got issues, Thom," I yell back, loud enough for them to hear me in the estate, which is approaching fast. "You've got issues so vast they dwarf Canary Wharf."
"I have?" I hear him laugh. He's close behind me. "You're the one having the jealous hissy fit, love."
Love? Nah, it means nothing. He calls all his girls 'love'. Guess I'm just one of them now, not his mate anymore, just a particularly difficult shag. Well, he's been trying to make out I'm at least half-girl for a long time now, so I shouldn't be surprised. Maybe that's how he explains this all to himself, all what we've been doing together -- I'm just a girl with a cock.
I sprint into the estate. My lungs are starting to hurt from the cold air and exertion. Not much further now.
He catches me just as I slam through the door to my building, barrels me inside and pushes me against the wall amongst the rubbish and bundles of old papers that are piled up down here. Pressing against me, he growls softly into my ear, "Am I gonna have to fuck you senseless to get you to calm down and talk straight with me?"
Straight, ha! And of course, my cock starts filling immediately. Stupid damn thing. "Fuck off." I'm breathless, gasping in great gulps of the stale air down here. "Let me go."
His breath is hot on my neck as he snorts, bull-like. "You don't really want me to do that."
I hate him; hate his arrogance, his innate alpha superiority, and his assumptions of entitlement. I hate that he's right. I hate that struggling will just make me look an idiot unless he chooses to let me go, and I really bloody hate how that fact turns me on. He starts to grind into me now, and a pathetic little noise comes out of my mouth -- a girl's noise.
Shit, at least I'm not screeching. "Thom, please..."
"Please what?" He scrapes his teeth across my neck, and I clench my muscles. Something, an empty syringe maybe, cracks beneath my feet.
"Please don't."
"Don't what?" One of his hands curls around under my arse, and he jerks my hips tight to his.
"Don't... don't stop."
He laughs and rubs his erection against mine. "Don't you think it'd be a better idea to go upstairs where I won't have to fight off your prattish neighbours for our sins against the ever after."
I nod 'cause I know he's right, but when he pulls back, I think I'm going to fall over. "Sec," I mutter.
"Want me to carry you across the threshold?"
That straightens my backbone. I glare at him and then stalk to the stairs. Well, the stalking leaves a little to be desired, mainly because a good half of my entire blood supply is currently attempting to take up residence in my cock, but I get to the stairs anyway and start to climb.
I feel his hand on my arse as he follows me. "Good job you're so pretty," he says as we reach the second flight. "All this running around you make me do has to have some pay-off."
Bastard. "Don't call me that." To think I was pleased the first time he called me pretty. But I can see now -- it's all just a part of making his hard-on for me acceptable in his dichotomised worldview, isn't it? Bugger that. "I'm not a girl."
"Noticed that," he says, his hand dropping away from me. "Your dangly bits dangle in the wrong place. You're doing a damn good imitation of one though."
I stop him in the middle of the stairs. "What the fuck does that mean?"
He widens his eyes at me in obvious exasperation. "Means you're acting like a girl, as per bloody usual."
Do only girls get jealous? Do only girls have emotions at all? Or is it that only girls are allowed to want the great macho samurai god of Rabford; only girls are permitted to be wanted by him in turn? I have to be a girl by virtue of the fact he's heterosexual. Yeah, how's that for 'straight talking'? "Fuck you."
"A particularly foul-mouthed bint of a girl, apparently."
I thump him. Yeah, I really do. Not a girlie slap nor a limp-wristed anything, but an honest-to-the-mythical-him-upstairs punch in the gob. I lack his strength, but he was unprepared and takes the blow full on, his head getting turned to the side by it.
My brave sensei, my nationally competing sportsman, clearly never expected anything of the sort from sissy old me. I feel euphoric... for a moment. Then he turns back to me with his face full of the kind of anger I've only ever seen him direct at others before, and I think I'm in for it.
I'm not, of course. He'll just leave if the alternative is to hit me. I know that really. Don't know why I'm suddenly so scared.
"What was that?" he asks. "Proof you've got balls?" He rubs his hand over his lips tenderly, and I wonder if I've split them. My hand hurts.
"I'm not a girl," I say shakily. "Maybe I don't meet up to your high standards of what makes a man, but it's what I am anyway, and if you can't handle the fact that you're fucking a man, you're the one with a problem here, not me."
He's silent. I can't look at him so I stare down at the stairs, half-focussing on a Snickers wrapper. My bravery's all shrivelled up, much like my hard-on. I just want to get into my flat, get pissed, maybe slit my wrists... Yeah, I know, he's not worth it. Only he is. He really bloody is, and I've just bollocksed it up forever.
"Joseph?" he says very quietly.
"Yeah, I'm sorry." I turn and walk up the remainder of the stairs. My flat's only two doors down the corridor, and I stand in front of it, fumbling for my keys.
Suddenly, he's by me again. "If I help you look for them, will you kiss me again? Or does that only work when we're stonked?"
He's trying to make a joke, I realise. I hate myself for the relief that surges through me like a shot of something illegal, for the eagerness with which I grab hold of him, for the inadvertent jerk of my hips when we start kissing. Maybe it's been me I've been hating all along. He tastes of blood and lipstick. Our tongues fight for dominance, and this once, he gives in and lets me control the kiss.
This is new... and interesting. Could this be the start of a new Thom? It's not impossible. But do I want a new Thom? Wouldn't that just be one more reason to stay, to give myself up, to dig my spiritual grave? Fuck that, fuck questions, just let him stay here tonight.
When he pulls back, he has my keys in his hand, and he opens my door, stepping back to allow me to enter. I turn the light on and look back, and he's still corridor side. "Aren't you coming in?" I try to make the question sound casual, which is a joke after the last however many minutes, but still.
"Haven't been invited," he says, smiling and then play-snarling like a vampire refused entry. One side of his mouth looks extra red, extra full. Who's the daddy, eh?
I swallow down a giggle and say, "Come in, shut the door, and I believe, dear Thom, there was something said about fucking me senseless."
"Yeah?" he says, stepping inside. "Don't you want to fuck me senseless then? After what was said..."
"Like you'd let me." I reach behind him and shut the door, trying to trap him in my lair, and he catches me with an arm around my waist.
"Don't see why I wouldn't. You seem to enjoy it well enough, if all that swearing and yelling my name is anything to go by." He nuzzles into my throat again, and I decide not to bother to offer a drink until later.
"You'd really let me do it?"
"Yeah. Be good, wouldn't it? Balance the books, stop you thinking that I-- well, whatever it is you are thinking." He pulls me closer still. "You stink of fags."
"I only had one." Well, one and a half, I suppose. "It's the pub you're smelling, and you stink of it too."
"Better get clean then, ain't we?"
That doesn't come as a surprise. He's had a thing about showering with me ever since the first time at his, not that I exactly lack a 'thing' in that area myself. A body like his, covered in slippery suds, rubbing against mine... "Come on," I say and pull him in the direction of the bathroom. Maybe if we have sex, all the rest of this shit will get lost and forgotten. Buried.
My shower's a real shower, not an ugly curtain round a tub. That's only because the building owner couldn't fit a tub into the cupboard he decided was to be the bathroom of this flat when he was splitting a larger one in two. Still, it suits me. The shower was one of the main selling points when I was deciding on a place.
We cram into the narrow space between sink, loo and the frosted glass sides of the shower. Thom's pushed against the sill of my little window in here, and he puts his hand to the window frame. "You still not got your lazy bastard of a landlord to fix this seal?"
"It's one of a long list of things I run through with the maintenance bloke every time I manage to catch him. You know, as he dashes through the building at the speed of light, wearing a false moustache and a big hat." I move forward a step and stroke over Thom's chest, feeling the firm rise and fall of his pecs beneath his clothes. While there's still a nervy kind of buzz at the edges of everything, I'm a little more relaxed now. All the crap from the stairs and before doesn't belong here. Here it's just me and Thom, like it should be.
"Dunno why you waste your salary renting if you can't even get the one advantage of doing so -- free maintenance." Thom pushes my hair back from my face and smiles wryly, acknowledging, I think, the many times he's said that to me before.
"I don't want to get buried under a mortgage," I say, as I always do. I don't want yet one more thing trapping me here in nowhere-land. He's right though about the draught. I reach up and pull the switch for the electric heater. "I don't think he likes being seen talking to me," I say, meaning the building's caretaker. "Think he spied my porn collection last time he was in here fixing something, and it's traumatised his orthodox soul."
"Probably." Thom grins. "Traumatises me alright."
I raise my eyebrow and say archly, "Not enough tit for you, my dear?"
"Something like that." He kisses me softly, probably to stop further interrogation, and I'm happy enough to shut up. Then he suddenly draws back and says, "I'd watch porn with you in it."
"Doing what?"
He shrugs. "Pretty much anything that involves you naked and hard. Can't get enough of you like that. 'Specially when you're really gagging for it."
I level a hard stare at him. "Gagging for it?"
"Yeah, you know, like we all get. Don't mean nothing dodgy by the phrase, so don't get huffy again. I just like it when you're off your head on lust; that's all."
People don't really get like that in any porn I've seen, more's the pity. "What is it that you like about that then?"
Thom fidgets, and I laugh. It's not often I make him uncomfortable. "You'll thump me again if I tell you."
"I won't." I can say that with confidence; my knuckles are still throbbing.
More fidgeting and then Thom turns his face up to meet the hot air blasting down from the heater. "Just the way you look when you're too far gone to know or care what you look like, alright?"
I hate to think how my raging hormones must twist my... but then suddenly, I get it. "Indisputably male, you mean?"
"Yeah, guess so. Don't really think you're a girl, y'know. Have to be blind and stupid to think that."
Blind and stupid sounds a pretty good description of Thom to me, but I'm not going to argue. There's altogether too much talking happening as it is. I shake my head, trying to clear it. "Shower now?"
He gives me a funny little smile. "Right, yeah. Enough with trying to communicate, eh? Sometimes I think you only want me for my bod, y'know -- my muscles to protect you, my cock to get you off..." For a few moments I actually buy it; I actually start feeling a little guilty. Then I spot the twitch he seems to have developed in the corner of his mouth.
"Fuck off, dearest, and get naked."
He grins and starts to strip. "Yes, sir. Right away, sir." He doesn't have to put any effort into making it sexy, not like I'd have to. Any move that results in more naked Thom appearing is a guaranteed success for him. I take my own clothes off hurriedly, not wanting to miss any of Thom's show. He pauses as the last of his tops drops to the loo lid. "So no more calling you a girl or saying you're acting like one, yeah?"
Fuck, isn't he meant to be the taciturn, brutish one of the two of us? "Or a nancy, poof, queen or... or Julian bloody Clary."
"Most of the time it's only 'cause I'm worried you'll get walloped again, mate," he says. "That's all it is. All about advertising, see? You act like you're a deadly weapon with more balls than Wimbledon Centre Court, and homophobic prats will steer clear of you. But if you act like..."
He stops and frowns, and I just know he's getting his thoughts in a twist trying to find a way of saying 'like Graham Norton on ultra-queer juice' that won't offend me. There's not a way, of course, but the fact that he's even trying to think of one means we've made unprecedented progress here. Half the time I don't think he's even aware he's said the things that do make it through his lips.
"Yeah, I know," I say, helping him out grudgingly. "Walk like man, talk like a man, quack like a goose."
"Geese don't quack, do they?" he says, and I shake my head at him in fond exasperation. He snorts and adds, "Maybe the gay ones do."
"Yeah, so that all the sub-lit bastard geese will know to gang up against the one that quacks and put him in goose hospital. Am I really that bad, Thom? Do I mince or something?" I haven't dared ask him that outright before, but I'm remembering how even his bit of blonde squish on his lap earlier knew me for what I am. Bitch.
It's his turn to look exasperated, pausing with his jeans undone but still on. "How'm I meant to answer that without getting in more shit with you? No, you don't mince. Nothing like it. You're just too..." I see in his face the moment he thinks he's cracked the terminology problem, a quick flash of smug delight. "You look like you know people are watching you, and you're uncomfortable about it. Self-conscious, like you're on stage, putting on a show."
Cold fingers of air reach me from the window, pulling over my now naked flesh and leaving tightened skin behind them. I shiver. "Please can we have our nice hot shower now?"
He nods and finishes undressing. "You did ask."
So I did, and don't I feel better for knowing? No, I bloody don't. I push past him, opening the shower and stepping inside to get the water running.
"See, you're being all arsy again now," Thom says reproachfully, following me inside and shutting the door. I'm turned away from him, so he doesn't see my closed-eye smile as the hot water hits me straight on, feeling blissful and blissfully simple. He probably does hear the little noise I make as he steps close and tugs me back against him. I feel his cock, half-hard against my buttocks.
This is what I want. No talking, no words, just heat and wet and Thom wrapped tight around me.
So of course, he carries on talking, low in my ear. "Don't want you to change, Joe, not when it's just us and you're safe. I like all your... quacking, don't I? Don't think I'd fancy you half as much if you honked."
We're really stretching the metaphor like silly putty here. I decide to drop it, leaning back wearily against my chatterbox of a lover. "Yeah, I know. I get the privilege of having you in my arse because I'm just a girl with a cock, and you're not really gay."
I don't have to see his face to know it's now doing an Oscar-perfect performance of the 'huh?' expression. "Thought we'd agreed you weren't a girl," he says slowly. "And that I was bi."
I groan. "Thom, darling, if you've got any regard for me at all, will you please just shut the fuck up and just fuck me?"
He snorts, the air blowing against my neck. "Thought you were gonna fuck me."
"That was your stupid idea."
"And you don't fancy it. Fair enough. No need to be a git." He turns me round and pushes me back against the cold tiles to kiss me fiercely. Finally, he's getting the idea. His tongue is hard in my mouth, his cock hard against mine, and his grip hurts where he holds me. This is what I want, why I need him, and why, even though it's killing me, I'll stay here in this necropolis.
Hell, I'll even help dig my grave if this is my thirty silver pieces.
See, the thing is, I wouldn't want to be an all-man, action hero type of bloke like Thom even if I could, and I don't want to top, not when there's a perfectly serviceable manly stud around to top me anyway. I've never been comfortable being one of the lads, and no, not one of the girls either. I'm just me. Just Joseph Kelly. I'm an educated man amongst heathens; a man who grew up in a desperately poor, one-parent family on the dodgiest Council estate we have round here, but who doesn't like to fight; a man who is 'straight-acting' but somehow sets off every gaydar in Rabford. I'm a man who likes nothing better than to be fucked hard by someone stronger than him... and if that doesn't make me much of a man, well, so be it.
It seems, in the privacy of our own homes, I'm man enough for Thom, at least.
He pushes his hand between us and grabs my prick, jerking it roughly. "This what you want?" I consider my moan answer enough and bite his shoulder, sucking the water from it. He pushes me firmly back against the tiles again. "Tell me. Is this what you want?"
"Yes, dear," I say, just a little flippant.
He snorts. Then suddenly the grip on my cock is released, and I'm being turned to face the wall again. A finger rides a torrent of water between my buttocks and is pushed roughly inside, making me grunt. "How about this?" he growls.
"Bastard," I say, quickly followed by, "No!" as he starts to withdraw his finger. "I mean, yes. This is what I want."
He finger-fucks me for a little while, playing me and my reactions as I press the side of my face into the blue and white tiles and try and hold on to... something. How can he have learnt how to do this so quickly? Oh hell, the same way I know to read him, I guess, when I have his cock in my gob and am making him lose all control. We're not that different really, not at heart, and we know each other far too bloody well.
But oh, Jesus Christ, he understands angle.
He presses against me to rumble by my ear. "Tell me what you want, Joe."
"Told you. This."
"Just this? Nothing more?"
"Well, some cock'd be nice," I manage.
"'Kay. Pass us a jolly bag then."
His finger still working me, I reach up to the cup thing on the top shower shelf and grab the first little packet that meets my blindly groping fingertips. I pass it back, and I'm suddenly empty as he rips it open. While I wait, about as patient as a five year old with a full bladder, I reach for the special lube and pass it back towards Thom too.
"Should make you do that yourself," he says with a leer in his voice, but he takes it anyway.
I'm rebreached by his finger briefly, but he doesn't mess about, and twenty seconds or so later, he's pushing his cock inside me as I hold my breath, my legs spread and much of my weight leaning on my arms. "Yeah," I say, letting it out with a gasp. "Fuck, yeah."
The rain of the shower beats my back almost painfully. He holds my hips and uses his cock much how he was just using his finger in me -- as a tool to make me writhe and swear.
"Should... should put a mirror here, dear," I say, remembering his words earlier, "in front of me. So... oh fucking Christ. So you could see my face."
"Shit, yeah, that'd be good. Would like that." His breath is coming harder now. He's like some big alpha animal behind me, all muscle and force and instinct. Nah, I'm wrong about the instinct; he's in firm control here, a fact made obvious as he halves his pace when what I need is faster, not slower. "So, this what you want, Joe?"
What the fuck is it with that question? "Didn't I just say so?"
"Is this wh--"
"Fuck it, yes. Yes, this is what I want."
"Nothing else then?"
I'd be doing my own perfectly adequate variant of the 'huh?' face right now if I wasn't gasping for breath. "What... what's on offer?"
"Dunno. Don't know what to offer, do I? 'Cause you never bloody tell me what you want, do you, you tosser? You just expect me to guess, and when I fail to be bloody psychic, act like I've abused you or something. Fucking fed up with it, Joe, to tell you the truth. Need it to stop. Gotta tell me what you want, mate."
Shit. Not now. Please not now. There's a time and a place for this sort of thing, and that would be any time but now, any place but here. "Tell you... one thing... I don't want."
"To have this little chat. Yeah, get that. Having it anyway though, aincha? You want me to shut the fuck up and fuck you? You tell me what you want."
It's finally sinking in that he's talking about more than sex. I try for sweet reason. "Thom, I can't possibly have this conversation now."
"Yes, you fucking can, my lad. S'only time I ever get to see the real you anymore. Thought I'd lost him altogether 'til we started screwing, and I found my old mucker was still there 'neath the poncing about. Tell me what you want from me, Joe. Grow some gonads like you did back there on the stairs and tell me."
Bastard. Utter fucking bastard. I try to straighten but he pushes at my back, forcing me to stay in position as he slow-screws me. "You know what I want," I say miserably. "You have to know."
"Me."
I can't really accuse him of arrogance under the circumstances, though I feel like it. "Yeah."
"Yeah, I'd worked that one out. But what of me? Just this? Just what we're doing here? Sex, me in control."
I could easily live the rest of my life and never repeat what we're doing here, but I know what he means. "Don't you like it too?"
He makes an exasperated noise, and for a few moments, fucks me harder, pummelling the breath from my body. When he slows again, I want to cry. "Course I bloody like it. Stop avoiding the sodding question, you little weasel."
"I can't... I can't tell you, Thom. I just can't."
He stops moving altogether. "Why the fuck not?" His voice sounds strung tight. "What the fuck d'you think I'm gonna do if I find out?"
Give me what I want, of course, and then I'll never leave here, never get away. I guess I lied to myself when I said I'd dig my own grave. I just can't lift the shovel. "Thom, please," I beg, head down between my arms. "I'm sorry I hit you, sorry I shouted at you. I can't take anymore of this conversation, and I'm sorry about that too."
There's silence, long and painful, as the shower pounds on my back. Then suddenly, Thom starts moving again, fucking me hard, harder, viciously even.
"Fuck." It hurts, and I don't care. Pain is good if it's physical, if it comes with silence. "Jesus, fuck." Heroin isn't meant to ask you what you want. It's just meant to give it to you, again and again, as your dreams wither and die, and slowly, you do too, and the shovels of earth fall on top of you, covering you up, but you don't even feel them 'cause you're flying. "Jesus fucking Christ." Flying 'cause you've taken it inside you, and you're becoming insubstantial, drifting, fragmenting, just another ragged ghost in a town of ragged ghosts.
"Just wanna make you happy, Joe," speaks my syringe, my gravedigger. "Just wanna give you what you need."
And he's deep inside me, deeper than he'll ever know, and I'll never get him out 'cause it's not the grave that's swallowing me, but me that's swallowed the grave, and there's nowhere I can go to escape it now.
As I come, I tell the tiles silently that I love them. As he comes, he calls me 'love' again, and it means even less than what I didn't say. We heave for breath together as the shower starts to run colder. Neither of us says a word.
I'm not really sorry that I hit him.
Because Grabbing Hands was so popular -- popular enough to make me rethink my no more fic posts resolve; I'm nothing if not shallow -- and a lot of the reason for that was, I think, Thom's voice, I feel I insecure enough to give a little warning before this one, which is in Joe's voice. Joseph is very different from Thom -- in personality, erudition and reaction. This story, which takes place a few weeks later on from Hands, has a very different feel to it.
Author: Magpie
Pairing: m/m
Rating: NC-17
Genre: British Contemporary
Words: 8,900
Notes: Thanks go to wolfling, wesleysgirl and tsuki_no_bara for the hugely appreciated betas.
Warnings: angst, Brit slang etc. (Fags = cigarettes!)
The Gravedigger
Fucking bitch.
Look at her, wriggling and giggling on his lap like one of those realer-than-life baby dolls my little sis goes mad over. His hand's in her sodding knickers, I'd swear to it. What a fucking whore... and yeah, I don't know which one of them I mean. Both of them are attention-seeking slags, and I'd say that I hate them both, only I don't know the blonde's name and probably wouldn't recognise her if I saw her again -- 'cause in what way is she different from one hundred other brainless Essex girls I could find just by walking down this one street?
So that just leaves Thom, and claiming to hate him would not only be laughable but also petulant and teenage -- those things I'm not meant to be anymore at twenty-three. Oh, and girlish. I mustn't forget that all-important one.
My eyes feel like bungee jumpers, dragged away by sheer will from the pair's slum performance art and then hurtling back to it, again and again. Thom's nibbling her earlobe. Right, that's the last time he gets to do that to me. Her hand is under his shirt, playing with his belt. I fucking bought him that belt.
I'm not staying here to be made an idiot of.
I stand up, jolting the small table, and immediately feel his hand on my arm. Not the one that was between her legs, thank fucking God. I think I'd puke.
"Where you off to, Joe?" he asks, calling me the private name in public. Her glittery lipstick has given his mouth a reddish sparkle. Just what the hell have I done to deserve tonight?
I look at his hand disdainfully 'til he removes it, only he doesn't. I don't know why not as that kind of look always works in films. Guess it must be 'cause he's got no shame to trigger. I know it's not me getting it wrong. I've practiced this look.
Christ, I hate-- need to get away from him.
"I'm going home." I try to pull away. Waste of effort, of course. He's got a grip like a manacle, which yeah, normally gets me hard. Not right now though.
"No, you're not." He's frowning. "Not on your own, and I ain't ready to go yet." And what he wants is, of course, all that matters. Always has been, ever since we met as boys. We've always played his games, gone where he wants to go.
"Not staying here, Thom," I say, keeping back the cynical endearments I know he hates in public 'cause I can keep a deal even if he can't. I should be congratulated at how calm I'm managing to keep my voice under the circumstances. I deserve a medal, a fucking knighthood. My invite to Buck Palace will be waiting for me on the mat when I get in, I'm sure.
"Why the fuck not? Thought you liked it here." His grip on my arm is almost painful now; I've made him cross. God, what is it with me and bullies? Why do I never learn? I push my hair from my eyes with my free hand.
Can he really not know? Can he really be oblivious to what's wrong with him sitting there with a cheap chav slut on his lap, his fingers in her... In her? She's wearing bubblegum pink boots, for God's sake. No one's that blind, that stupid, not even Thomas sodding Sampson. He knows just why I'm upset, and in fact, I reckon he was aiming for it. This is a lesson, isn't it? He's hot on lessons. This one's to teach me that I don't own him, and that, oh yeah, he isn't fucking gay. Yup, that's it. Of course it is.
As if I didn't already know both of those things far too bloody well. Two fucks and a few hand jobs don't exactly equal gay monogamy forever after.
Anything I say now will just be playing his stupid bastard game. So, ok, no talking. I look back down at his hand, and with a laugh, I whirl my arm around his and then down, joint-locking his elbow and forcing him to let go.
I step back, still laughing at him. "You really shouldn't have taught me that one so well, should you, dear?" Oops, there goes that resolution.
He looks pissed off, but before he has a chance to answer, the slut in his arms is screeching again. That's all she's done since Thom bought her the G&T that started this episode. "Just let him go, sweetie. You ask me, he's a poof anyway. Got that feel to him. I can always tell."
If I had a knife... If I just had a knife... Yeah, right. I wouldn't use a knife if I had it hard in my hand with a certificate guaranteeing its use free from consequences. I hate the things. Hate the casual violence that seems to be soaked into every zombie in this graveyard I grew up in. I don't know why I'm different; I've never known. People sense it though -- that's why I get beaten. They haven't got the intelligence necessary to cope with difference round here. Fuck, they've barely got the intelligence to breathe, most of them.
Thom's been distracted into kissing the bitch again, so I'm off. And no, the pain in my chest isn't my heart breaking. I've just had one bag too many of salt and vinegar, one pint of cheap lager more than I should've. Well, there was nothing else to do while Thom was busy proving to all and sundry that he was still a hetero stud and let no one bloody forget it.
The air outside the pub is cold and heavy. I stuff my hands hard into my jacket pockets as I walk. It's drizzling. Good -- suits my mood down to ground zero. I hate him. I hate him so damn much. So, yeah, guess I haven't left adolescence behind after all. That's something I'm really, really bloody good at, you see -- not letting things go, not moving on. If they awarded prizes in grudges, dependence and obsession, then I'd be the boy genius accepting the Nobel.
Fuck Thom. Just fuck him. If it weren't for him, I could leave this dosshole any time. I could be gone from the dirt and ignorance here where nothing ever flourishes. I could be free.
The shops have their Christmas decorations up already. Talk about dressed mutton. Shoddy tat is shoddy tat, no matter how much tinsel is dumped artlessly on top of it. I hate Rabford -- it's a no man's land, not Essex, not London. Not fucking anywhere. Chavtown, that's what it is. Here, they chuck you out of places if you're not wearing a Burberry cap and hoodie. Nah, it's worse than that -- it's a city of the dead, a cemetery in which the corpses mistakenly believe they're alive.
I hate Rabford, and I hate Rabforders. Especially blond, well built, control freak Rabforders with a fetish for martial arts. I have to get out of this coffin and away from him before I rot on the bone. I've the education to get out, unlike most of the go-nowheres round here, and I can drop my accent at a click of my fingers. I've got my ticket to ride, yet the buses pass me by unhailed.
I turn off the high street, heading down Magdalen Street towards the estates. It's darker now; the shops, what there are of them, don't leave their lights on down here. There wouldn't be much point, what with all the chainlink, shutters, and metal bars the owners erect every night before going home, or simply upstairs. It always feels like a riot zone down here at night, though it smells more like a tube station -- half rotten food, half urine.
The off license I'm about to pass can take a lot of the blame for that. There's always a steady supply of winos and other not quite so down and out pissheads congregated outside.
I button up the top of my jacket and try to walk less like a 'little girl needing a pee'. Yeah, I'm quoting Thom. He's such a flatterer. Don't know how I manage to get by without my head exploding from the ego trip.
My breath comes out in puffs of grey vapour, and suddenly, I'm craving a smoke. Why the hell not? A little rebellion against Thom's stupid rules will do me, if not the world of good, then at least a small country or two. It's my own business what I do with my lungs, and anyway, not as if he's likely to be kissing me tonight.
I think of his glittering lips again and shiver. Cold prickles crawl over my arms and shoulders under my jacket. I'm not wearing enough for November really. Wanted to look hot for him. Yeah, it's a bloody joke.
Sighing, I push through the drunks, ignoring the reek and the begging hands shoved in front of me, and walk into the offy. The Asian bloke behind the grill nods -- what a thankless task his must be -- and I ask for ten B&H. I don't need any more than that, and anyhow, if Thom finds them, he'll only shred them, so no point in wasting too much cash here. I've handed over the money before I remember I need matches too. The shopkeeper just grunts and plonks them on top of the fags.
Back outside, a cop car has turned up. A couple of uniformed blokes are trying to move the loiterers on. I think about staying to watch; one of the cops is nice looking -- toned, good arse, dark soulful eyes -- but I don't want to get caught up in anything that might happen with the winos. Still, in another time and place, I wouldn't mind him handcuffing me for a quick frisk, so I smile his way before I head off again, and he smiles back, dinging my gaydar. That's not a 'reassure a member of the general public' smile, oh no.
Grinning, I walk on up Magdalen Street, imagining I can feel his gaze on my arse when, in all likelihood, he's already been distracted by an obstreperous drunk. I try to walk sexy anyhow, though try as I might, I just can't do the tomcat prowl Thom does so effortlessly. I've got very long legs, and I sometimes suspect that my 'confident lope' looks more like a spider out on the scuttle. I've found it's best to at least imagine I look hot however, Thom's acid comments on my stride and stance not withstanding.
Bastard.
I turn into Rondo Avenue and into the most dangerous part of my journey. Both times I got jumped, it was down here, in the mostly empty space between well lit town centre and densely populated estate. I lurk in a gateway to some offices long enough to open my Benson & Hedges and light one. Good for bravado, fags. Something about the oral fix and vague rebellion of them, I guess. I let my first drag out with a long, soft sigh.
I look up and down the street before continuing. There's no one about. Not a soul. I can hear distant shouts and laughter and the usual sirens wailing across the town centre like a call to prayer, but there isn't even a car heading down this road tonight. The emptiness almost seems worse than threatening groups of chavs or skins for some reason. That's bonkers; do I think aliens are gonna come down and abduct me?
That'd be my best chance for any satisfying anal action tonight, mind you.
Smiling wryly, I inhale deeply... and then cough, of course. There's always too long between my occasional fits of chain-smoking for my lungs to get used to the gunk.
I hold my fag between my thumb and finger, cupping it in my hand to protect it from the slight breeze stirring up the rankness down here. My footsteps sound loud in the empty street, and I feel like I'm in a noir film; all it needs is a touch of mist snaking over the cobbles. I think I'll get pissed once I'm home; put a porn vid in and get mindless. Well, it's that or think about you know who, and I've had enough of that.
I have to wean myself off him, like any drug.
I was doing all right 'til that incredible afternoon in his basement. After that, after what followed in the shower and then again in his bedroom; after I'd tasted his come and had his cock slip-sliding on what felt like a whole tube of lube inside of me -- an accident, he claimed -- after the kisses and the serious chats and all that shit about me being beautiful... Well, yeah, after all that I thought I could relax. I didn't need to resist him anymore, at bloody last, after so damn long. So many wet dreams, so many hopeless wanks -- years of them. I should have given him up long ago.
Hell, I did give him up, so I thought, when I went to uni. I had a fun time there -- learnt a lot and not just about literature. But afterwards, and I still don't really know why, I came back to Rabford.
Mum had taken Chris and Cass up north (where it isn't, in fact, all that grim. At least not compared to down here) and all that was left for me in this dump -- bar the far from stellar memories -- was Thomas Sampson, the boy who'd stood by me in his own head stag way when I came out, and who'd punched the lights out of anyone who made me miserable.
Well, apart from the teachers. I was always careful not to tell him about them as fuck knows what he would've done.
It's heady stuff, having your own scary-arse bodyguard keeping an eye over you like you're royalty, and he was a bloody gorgeous bodyguard at that. He always has been enough to bend me double with lust. At school, I learnt quickly to avoid going into the showers until he was done. And since I've been back from uni, fuck knows what he's been thinking during our weekly evenings together -- about my many extra-long trips to the bathroom, that is.
He knows now, of course. I confessed to that quite quickly, probably 'cause I've always been vaguely worried that he might think I have some gross bowel disorder or something. As he wasn't having one of his 'oh shit, people might think I'm gay 'cause I fuck my mate up the arse' freak out sessions when I told him, he instead opted for his other now standard reaction to such confessions from me. This being to get as smug as a cat who's successfully blackmailed the local milkman and will now have double cream with every meal for life. Don't think he stopped grinning for an hour.
Git.
This is what I came back for, what I'm still staying for, doing time in Rabford. Thom is my crime, my sentence and my jailer. He'll probably be my grave too. Fuck him.
I stop to get out another fag. Why not fill my lungs with the poison? Not like I've got a fucking future anyway. I light it while walking and keep dragging on it 'til I feel light-headed.
Suddenly, I'm aware of rapid footfalls behind me. Before I can even think about how to react, there's an arm around my neck pulling me back against a hard body as another hand grabs my wrist and twists it painfully.
I freeze. Then I struggle like something insane. Not again. No, not again. I'm not going through this shit another time. "Get off me!" I yell, not that there's anyone to hear bar my attacker. I try to kick back, to rip myself from the manacle grips. "Get the fuck--"
"You know, I really thought you'd learnt better than this," a very familiar voice says by my ear.
Shit. I slump, deflated and defeated. "You utter fucking bastard."
"Oh, that's nice," Thom says, not letting go of me and talking low by my ear in that way he learnt so damn quick makes me hard. "And here I am to keep you safe, giving up a perfectly good shag to do so, and you call me names."
"You scared the fucking life out me, Thom." I lean back against him, more because my legs feel so weak than because I crave contact. God, what an arsehole. I cup my fingers around my fag, miraculously kept hold of during my struggles, and the smoke heats my palm like dirty money.
"Yeah, well, you deserved it," Thom growls. "Walking like Julian bloody Clary down Rondo of all places. And where the hell was my training when I grabbed you, eh? You'd be pulp by now if I'd been a real attacker. You're a stupid bloody tosser, Joe."
"Joseph," I say, sounding sulky to my own ears.
"Why? No one here but us, is there?" He lets go and moves around to look at me. His gaze falls immediately to the trail of smoke drifting up like a sigh from my cupped fingers. "You can put that out for a start."
"For a start of what, dear?" I ask and deliberately take a long drag.
He whips the cigarette from my mouth and grinds it into the pavement with his Nike. "What the fuck's got into you tonight? You're being a complete wanker."
I snort, but don't trust myself to actually say anything. No point in getting out a new cigarette and lighting it; that'll only result in him destroying the whole packet. I hate him. I let my face show it; let the hate shine out like black sunshine.
I don't really expect him to notice. After all, he gives new meaning to 'oblivious', but he pulls back a little when he sees my expression and has the gall to look affronted. "Right. Ok, I get it. So what have I done then?"
Snorting again, I look away, and then wonder why I'm still standing here with him. I start walking home once more, but inevitably, he walks with me. I knew he would. Even when I've pissed him off, he still takes care of me. It would offend his overblown sense of chivalry not to do so.
I think he blames himself a little for my last fun encounter with gay-bashing. We'd been avoiding each other after I'd tried to take advantage of his blood alcohol content and kiss him. Stupid, I know. Anyway, I paid for it when, as a result, he wasn't there a few nights later when I went out in a self-destructive daze.
It's weird, you know, but the pain of the attack has already faded from my mind. I know it hurt all right, but the way in which it hurt has gone, leaving just a stain of memory behind. The sounds though, they're still crystal -- the things they said and the way they said them, the sound of my flesh crunching, splitting against my bones. Remember the fear too, the conviction that, this time, they were going to kill me.
Thom came to see me in hospital. I admitted to him that I'd thought I wasn't going to survive that one, not with the things they'd been saying. Not that I told Thom about the latter, just the former, and even that was a mistake. I could see him hearing the unspoken 'because you weren't there to protect me', which I hadn't said and wouldn't ever say, but I could see him hearing it all the same.
I feel bad about that even now, though I'm embarrassingly grateful for the protection. But shit, not like I'd be in Rabford needing protection if it wasn't for him, so maybe it's just my due. Yeah, I know that's a load of old bollocks too.
At the end of Rondo, Thom suddenly speaks. "You didn't like my bird, did you? Well, your disappearing trick took care of her, so you got your own way, as per usual, and can stop this stupid fucking hard-done-by act, alright?" It's a miracle really that he's even worked out that much. He must be trying extra hard. I should give him a lollypop.
"Don't worry, my dear," I say, deliberately camp. "You can buy another one just like it from any high street toy shop."
It seems to take him a few moments to realise I mean his cheap Barbie rip-off. Then he snorts in apparent good humour. "Yeah, she was a bit, weren't she? Still, bloody nice tits."
I shake my head and sigh loudly, pushing the hair back from my face. Maybe if I got myself some implants... Nah, that'd be utterly disgusting. I don't even enjoy dragging up. "Did you even know her name?"
He shrugs. "Might've got told it. Can't remember now. Hardly matters, do it? Weren't like she was an innocent I was taking advantage of; she wanted just the same as me -- a nice bod to play with for a few hours."
"In public."
He shoots me a look like a sharply aimed kick for the goal. "To start with, yeah. Is that what's got up your nose then?"
I shouldn't answer this one; I know that, yet here come the words all the same. "It's bad enough you feel obliged to prove something with these cheap slags without making me a witness to it all. It's degrading, darling."
I don't define who it is that's being degraded, and there's silence while he -- presumably -- digests my words. We walk down the Westside Bypass together, my estate now a visible goal, and yet still far too bloody far away. Cars speed past us on the dual carriageway, on their way to anywhere-but-here. I've heard it's nice there. I should visit sometime.
I'm over-aware of his presence at my side, the unknown quality of his reaction to my last comment looming. "Dunno what you're making such a bloody fuss about, mate," he says eventually, sounding... hurt? "Ain't like you're a stranger to one night stands, is it? If anything, you're worse than me."
"That was before--" I manage to stop myself, but it's too late. I've said way too much anyway.
"Before...?" He turns and grabs my arm, stopping me walking. "Before we started screwing, would that be?"
I don't answer and stare over his left shoulder, seeing little. I'm standing here 'cause I feel like it, that's all. When I'm ready, I'll get going again.
"Well, well, well," Thom says, and I want to slap him one for the sarcastic tone. "You wouldn't have been thinking we're -- what, boyfriends? -- since we started sharing bodily fluids, would you? Now why would you think something like that?"
Silent as a mouldering corpse, that's me. The estate's so close now. If I can just get him to let me go...
"Did we," he continues, "perhaps have a conversation in which we expressed a, uh, mutual desire for -- what's the word? Means like loyalty, something to do with dogs?"
It should come as no surprise that I can actually translate this, supplying, "Fidelity."
"Yeah, that's the one. So did we agree to that then? 'Cause if so, it seems to have slipped my memory."
"Fuck off, Thom." The glitter's still on his lips; it's glinting in the street lamps. Maybe if I kissed him, he'd shut up.
"Did we in fact discuss it at all?"
I return to silence; should never have left it. He makes me as stupid and verbally graceless as he is; I hate him.
"Thought not," he says, releasing my arm to push his hands over his shorn head.
The motion lifts his t-shirt, revealing his abs and capturing my attention 'cause I'm nothing if not predictable as far as his body is concerned. He stretches, making a four-course meal with coffee and after-dinner mints out of it. I'm certain it's deliberate, that he's using seduction as a tool to win the argument that I'm stubbornly not having with him.
As his arms drop, he says, "So why you acting like I've offended you by behaving in the exact same way I've always behaved, Joe?"
I'm released now, I remind myself. My refuge is in sight. I turn and head up the road again, walking a lot faster than before.
"Answer me," comes from behind me. Then, "Joe, if you don't bloody talk to me about this, so help me, I'll--"
I turn and glare at him. "You'll what? You'll bloody what?"
"Don't." He's close behind me, but he looks away now, looking almost ashamed. He looks like a little boy. "You know I'll never hurt you."
Too late. So very much too late that I laugh loudly.
He seems to understand what's going on in my head. "I meant physically," he says a little sulkily. "Don't know how to not hurt you other ways 'cause you never bloody tell me what's bugging you, do you? You lie, act a role, avoid, have stupid fucking tantrums like this one -- all sorts of idiot shit to stop me knowing the real you."
Oh, that hurts. That really bloody hurts. "You know me better than any other person alive." Or he could, anyway, if he paid attention.
He shakes his head, and I can finally see how much I've upset him with this in the ragged shape of his lips. "If that's true, then all I can say, Joseph Kelly, is that you must be one of the loneliest buggers on this earth."
His words are fuel, powering my feet as I whirl around and start to run, across the road to a chorus of horns, heading home to where I can lock the door, keep him outside where he claims to be already.
"Joe!" He calls out behind me. "Fucking hell, Joe!" I can hear him running after me. Bastard never knows when to let anything drop.
"You've got issues, Thom," I yell back, loud enough for them to hear me in the estate, which is approaching fast. "You've got issues so vast they dwarf Canary Wharf."
"I have?" I hear him laugh. He's close behind me. "You're the one having the jealous hissy fit, love."
Love? Nah, it means nothing. He calls all his girls 'love'. Guess I'm just one of them now, not his mate anymore, just a particularly difficult shag. Well, he's been trying to make out I'm at least half-girl for a long time now, so I shouldn't be surprised. Maybe that's how he explains this all to himself, all what we've been doing together -- I'm just a girl with a cock.
I sprint into the estate. My lungs are starting to hurt from the cold air and exertion. Not much further now.
He catches me just as I slam through the door to my building, barrels me inside and pushes me against the wall amongst the rubbish and bundles of old papers that are piled up down here. Pressing against me, he growls softly into my ear, "Am I gonna have to fuck you senseless to get you to calm down and talk straight with me?"
Straight, ha! And of course, my cock starts filling immediately. Stupid damn thing. "Fuck off." I'm breathless, gasping in great gulps of the stale air down here. "Let me go."
His breath is hot on my neck as he snorts, bull-like. "You don't really want me to do that."
I hate him; hate his arrogance, his innate alpha superiority, and his assumptions of entitlement. I hate that he's right. I hate that struggling will just make me look an idiot unless he chooses to let me go, and I really bloody hate how that fact turns me on. He starts to grind into me now, and a pathetic little noise comes out of my mouth -- a girl's noise.
Shit, at least I'm not screeching. "Thom, please..."
"Please what?" He scrapes his teeth across my neck, and I clench my muscles. Something, an empty syringe maybe, cracks beneath my feet.
"Please don't."
"Don't what?" One of his hands curls around under my arse, and he jerks my hips tight to his.
"Don't... don't stop."
He laughs and rubs his erection against mine. "Don't you think it'd be a better idea to go upstairs where I won't have to fight off your prattish neighbours for our sins against the ever after."
I nod 'cause I know he's right, but when he pulls back, I think I'm going to fall over. "Sec," I mutter.
"Want me to carry you across the threshold?"
That straightens my backbone. I glare at him and then stalk to the stairs. Well, the stalking leaves a little to be desired, mainly because a good half of my entire blood supply is currently attempting to take up residence in my cock, but I get to the stairs anyway and start to climb.
I feel his hand on my arse as he follows me. "Good job you're so pretty," he says as we reach the second flight. "All this running around you make me do has to have some pay-off."
Bastard. "Don't call me that." To think I was pleased the first time he called me pretty. But I can see now -- it's all just a part of making his hard-on for me acceptable in his dichotomised worldview, isn't it? Bugger that. "I'm not a girl."
"Noticed that," he says, his hand dropping away from me. "Your dangly bits dangle in the wrong place. You're doing a damn good imitation of one though."
I stop him in the middle of the stairs. "What the fuck does that mean?"
He widens his eyes at me in obvious exasperation. "Means you're acting like a girl, as per bloody usual."
Do only girls get jealous? Do only girls have emotions at all? Or is it that only girls are allowed to want the great macho samurai god of Rabford; only girls are permitted to be wanted by him in turn? I have to be a girl by virtue of the fact he's heterosexual. Yeah, how's that for 'straight talking'? "Fuck you."
"A particularly foul-mouthed bint of a girl, apparently."
I thump him. Yeah, I really do. Not a girlie slap nor a limp-wristed anything, but an honest-to-the-mythical-him-upstairs punch in the gob. I lack his strength, but he was unprepared and takes the blow full on, his head getting turned to the side by it.
My brave sensei, my nationally competing sportsman, clearly never expected anything of the sort from sissy old me. I feel euphoric... for a moment. Then he turns back to me with his face full of the kind of anger I've only ever seen him direct at others before, and I think I'm in for it.
I'm not, of course. He'll just leave if the alternative is to hit me. I know that really. Don't know why I'm suddenly so scared.
"What was that?" he asks. "Proof you've got balls?" He rubs his hand over his lips tenderly, and I wonder if I've split them. My hand hurts.
"I'm not a girl," I say shakily. "Maybe I don't meet up to your high standards of what makes a man, but it's what I am anyway, and if you can't handle the fact that you're fucking a man, you're the one with a problem here, not me."
He's silent. I can't look at him so I stare down at the stairs, half-focussing on a Snickers wrapper. My bravery's all shrivelled up, much like my hard-on. I just want to get into my flat, get pissed, maybe slit my wrists... Yeah, I know, he's not worth it. Only he is. He really bloody is, and I've just bollocksed it up forever.
"Joseph?" he says very quietly.
"Yeah, I'm sorry." I turn and walk up the remainder of the stairs. My flat's only two doors down the corridor, and I stand in front of it, fumbling for my keys.
Suddenly, he's by me again. "If I help you look for them, will you kiss me again? Or does that only work when we're stonked?"
He's trying to make a joke, I realise. I hate myself for the relief that surges through me like a shot of something illegal, for the eagerness with which I grab hold of him, for the inadvertent jerk of my hips when we start kissing. Maybe it's been me I've been hating all along. He tastes of blood and lipstick. Our tongues fight for dominance, and this once, he gives in and lets me control the kiss.
This is new... and interesting. Could this be the start of a new Thom? It's not impossible. But do I want a new Thom? Wouldn't that just be one more reason to stay, to give myself up, to dig my spiritual grave? Fuck that, fuck questions, just let him stay here tonight.
When he pulls back, he has my keys in his hand, and he opens my door, stepping back to allow me to enter. I turn the light on and look back, and he's still corridor side. "Aren't you coming in?" I try to make the question sound casual, which is a joke after the last however many minutes, but still.
"Haven't been invited," he says, smiling and then play-snarling like a vampire refused entry. One side of his mouth looks extra red, extra full. Who's the daddy, eh?
I swallow down a giggle and say, "Come in, shut the door, and I believe, dear Thom, there was something said about fucking me senseless."
"Yeah?" he says, stepping inside. "Don't you want to fuck me senseless then? After what was said..."
"Like you'd let me." I reach behind him and shut the door, trying to trap him in my lair, and he catches me with an arm around my waist.
"Don't see why I wouldn't. You seem to enjoy it well enough, if all that swearing and yelling my name is anything to go by." He nuzzles into my throat again, and I decide not to bother to offer a drink until later.
"You'd really let me do it?"
"Yeah. Be good, wouldn't it? Balance the books, stop you thinking that I-- well, whatever it is you are thinking." He pulls me closer still. "You stink of fags."
"I only had one." Well, one and a half, I suppose. "It's the pub you're smelling, and you stink of it too."
"Better get clean then, ain't we?"
That doesn't come as a surprise. He's had a thing about showering with me ever since the first time at his, not that I exactly lack a 'thing' in that area myself. A body like his, covered in slippery suds, rubbing against mine... "Come on," I say and pull him in the direction of the bathroom. Maybe if we have sex, all the rest of this shit will get lost and forgotten. Buried.
My shower's a real shower, not an ugly curtain round a tub. That's only because the building owner couldn't fit a tub into the cupboard he decided was to be the bathroom of this flat when he was splitting a larger one in two. Still, it suits me. The shower was one of the main selling points when I was deciding on a place.
We cram into the narrow space between sink, loo and the frosted glass sides of the shower. Thom's pushed against the sill of my little window in here, and he puts his hand to the window frame. "You still not got your lazy bastard of a landlord to fix this seal?"
"It's one of a long list of things I run through with the maintenance bloke every time I manage to catch him. You know, as he dashes through the building at the speed of light, wearing a false moustache and a big hat." I move forward a step and stroke over Thom's chest, feeling the firm rise and fall of his pecs beneath his clothes. While there's still a nervy kind of buzz at the edges of everything, I'm a little more relaxed now. All the crap from the stairs and before doesn't belong here. Here it's just me and Thom, like it should be.
"Dunno why you waste your salary renting if you can't even get the one advantage of doing so -- free maintenance." Thom pushes my hair back from my face and smiles wryly, acknowledging, I think, the many times he's said that to me before.
"I don't want to get buried under a mortgage," I say, as I always do. I don't want yet one more thing trapping me here in nowhere-land. He's right though about the draught. I reach up and pull the switch for the electric heater. "I don't think he likes being seen talking to me," I say, meaning the building's caretaker. "Think he spied my porn collection last time he was in here fixing something, and it's traumatised his orthodox soul."
"Probably." Thom grins. "Traumatises me alright."
I raise my eyebrow and say archly, "Not enough tit for you, my dear?"
"Something like that." He kisses me softly, probably to stop further interrogation, and I'm happy enough to shut up. Then he suddenly draws back and says, "I'd watch porn with you in it."
"Doing what?"
He shrugs. "Pretty much anything that involves you naked and hard. Can't get enough of you like that. 'Specially when you're really gagging for it."
I level a hard stare at him. "Gagging for it?"
"Yeah, you know, like we all get. Don't mean nothing dodgy by the phrase, so don't get huffy again. I just like it when you're off your head on lust; that's all."
People don't really get like that in any porn I've seen, more's the pity. "What is it that you like about that then?"
Thom fidgets, and I laugh. It's not often I make him uncomfortable. "You'll thump me again if I tell you."
"I won't." I can say that with confidence; my knuckles are still throbbing.
More fidgeting and then Thom turns his face up to meet the hot air blasting down from the heater. "Just the way you look when you're too far gone to know or care what you look like, alright?"
I hate to think how my raging hormones must twist my... but then suddenly, I get it. "Indisputably male, you mean?"
"Yeah, guess so. Don't really think you're a girl, y'know. Have to be blind and stupid to think that."
Blind and stupid sounds a pretty good description of Thom to me, but I'm not going to argue. There's altogether too much talking happening as it is. I shake my head, trying to clear it. "Shower now?"
He gives me a funny little smile. "Right, yeah. Enough with trying to communicate, eh? Sometimes I think you only want me for my bod, y'know -- my muscles to protect you, my cock to get you off..." For a few moments I actually buy it; I actually start feeling a little guilty. Then I spot the twitch he seems to have developed in the corner of his mouth.
"Fuck off, dearest, and get naked."
He grins and starts to strip. "Yes, sir. Right away, sir." He doesn't have to put any effort into making it sexy, not like I'd have to. Any move that results in more naked Thom appearing is a guaranteed success for him. I take my own clothes off hurriedly, not wanting to miss any of Thom's show. He pauses as the last of his tops drops to the loo lid. "So no more calling you a girl or saying you're acting like one, yeah?"
Fuck, isn't he meant to be the taciturn, brutish one of the two of us? "Or a nancy, poof, queen or... or Julian bloody Clary."
"Most of the time it's only 'cause I'm worried you'll get walloped again, mate," he says. "That's all it is. All about advertising, see? You act like you're a deadly weapon with more balls than Wimbledon Centre Court, and homophobic prats will steer clear of you. But if you act like..."
He stops and frowns, and I just know he's getting his thoughts in a twist trying to find a way of saying 'like Graham Norton on ultra-queer juice' that won't offend me. There's not a way, of course, but the fact that he's even trying to think of one means we've made unprecedented progress here. Half the time I don't think he's even aware he's said the things that do make it through his lips.
"Yeah, I know," I say, helping him out grudgingly. "Walk like man, talk like a man, quack like a goose."
"Geese don't quack, do they?" he says, and I shake my head at him in fond exasperation. He snorts and adds, "Maybe the gay ones do."
"Yeah, so that all the sub-lit bastard geese will know to gang up against the one that quacks and put him in goose hospital. Am I really that bad, Thom? Do I mince or something?" I haven't dared ask him that outright before, but I'm remembering how even his bit of blonde squish on his lap earlier knew me for what I am. Bitch.
It's his turn to look exasperated, pausing with his jeans undone but still on. "How'm I meant to answer that without getting in more shit with you? No, you don't mince. Nothing like it. You're just too..." I see in his face the moment he thinks he's cracked the terminology problem, a quick flash of smug delight. "You look like you know people are watching you, and you're uncomfortable about it. Self-conscious, like you're on stage, putting on a show."
Cold fingers of air reach me from the window, pulling over my now naked flesh and leaving tightened skin behind them. I shiver. "Please can we have our nice hot shower now?"
He nods and finishes undressing. "You did ask."
So I did, and don't I feel better for knowing? No, I bloody don't. I push past him, opening the shower and stepping inside to get the water running.
"See, you're being all arsy again now," Thom says reproachfully, following me inside and shutting the door. I'm turned away from him, so he doesn't see my closed-eye smile as the hot water hits me straight on, feeling blissful and blissfully simple. He probably does hear the little noise I make as he steps close and tugs me back against him. I feel his cock, half-hard against my buttocks.
This is what I want. No talking, no words, just heat and wet and Thom wrapped tight around me.
So of course, he carries on talking, low in my ear. "Don't want you to change, Joe, not when it's just us and you're safe. I like all your... quacking, don't I? Don't think I'd fancy you half as much if you honked."
We're really stretching the metaphor like silly putty here. I decide to drop it, leaning back wearily against my chatterbox of a lover. "Yeah, I know. I get the privilege of having you in my arse because I'm just a girl with a cock, and you're not really gay."
I don't have to see his face to know it's now doing an Oscar-perfect performance of the 'huh?' expression. "Thought we'd agreed you weren't a girl," he says slowly. "And that I was bi."
I groan. "Thom, darling, if you've got any regard for me at all, will you please just shut the fuck up and just fuck me?"
He snorts, the air blowing against my neck. "Thought you were gonna fuck me."
"That was your stupid idea."
"And you don't fancy it. Fair enough. No need to be a git." He turns me round and pushes me back against the cold tiles to kiss me fiercely. Finally, he's getting the idea. His tongue is hard in my mouth, his cock hard against mine, and his grip hurts where he holds me. This is what I want, why I need him, and why, even though it's killing me, I'll stay here in this necropolis.
Hell, I'll even help dig my grave if this is my thirty silver pieces.
See, the thing is, I wouldn't want to be an all-man, action hero type of bloke like Thom even if I could, and I don't want to top, not when there's a perfectly serviceable manly stud around to top me anyway. I've never been comfortable being one of the lads, and no, not one of the girls either. I'm just me. Just Joseph Kelly. I'm an educated man amongst heathens; a man who grew up in a desperately poor, one-parent family on the dodgiest Council estate we have round here, but who doesn't like to fight; a man who is 'straight-acting' but somehow sets off every gaydar in Rabford. I'm a man who likes nothing better than to be fucked hard by someone stronger than him... and if that doesn't make me much of a man, well, so be it.
It seems, in the privacy of our own homes, I'm man enough for Thom, at least.
He pushes his hand between us and grabs my prick, jerking it roughly. "This what you want?" I consider my moan answer enough and bite his shoulder, sucking the water from it. He pushes me firmly back against the tiles again. "Tell me. Is this what you want?"
"Yes, dear," I say, just a little flippant.
He snorts. Then suddenly the grip on my cock is released, and I'm being turned to face the wall again. A finger rides a torrent of water between my buttocks and is pushed roughly inside, making me grunt. "How about this?" he growls.
"Bastard," I say, quickly followed by, "No!" as he starts to withdraw his finger. "I mean, yes. This is what I want."
He finger-fucks me for a little while, playing me and my reactions as I press the side of my face into the blue and white tiles and try and hold on to... something. How can he have learnt how to do this so quickly? Oh hell, the same way I know to read him, I guess, when I have his cock in my gob and am making him lose all control. We're not that different really, not at heart, and we know each other far too bloody well.
But oh, Jesus Christ, he understands angle.
He presses against me to rumble by my ear. "Tell me what you want, Joe."
"Told you. This."
"Just this? Nothing more?"
"Well, some cock'd be nice," I manage.
"'Kay. Pass us a jolly bag then."
His finger still working me, I reach up to the cup thing on the top shower shelf and grab the first little packet that meets my blindly groping fingertips. I pass it back, and I'm suddenly empty as he rips it open. While I wait, about as patient as a five year old with a full bladder, I reach for the special lube and pass it back towards Thom too.
"Should make you do that yourself," he says with a leer in his voice, but he takes it anyway.
I'm rebreached by his finger briefly, but he doesn't mess about, and twenty seconds or so later, he's pushing his cock inside me as I hold my breath, my legs spread and much of my weight leaning on my arms. "Yeah," I say, letting it out with a gasp. "Fuck, yeah."
The rain of the shower beats my back almost painfully. He holds my hips and uses his cock much how he was just using his finger in me -- as a tool to make me writhe and swear.
"Should... should put a mirror here, dear," I say, remembering his words earlier, "in front of me. So... oh fucking Christ. So you could see my face."
"Shit, yeah, that'd be good. Would like that." His breath is coming harder now. He's like some big alpha animal behind me, all muscle and force and instinct. Nah, I'm wrong about the instinct; he's in firm control here, a fact made obvious as he halves his pace when what I need is faster, not slower. "So, this what you want, Joe?"
What the fuck is it with that question? "Didn't I just say so?"
"Is this wh--"
"Fuck it, yes. Yes, this is what I want."
"Nothing else then?"
I'd be doing my own perfectly adequate variant of the 'huh?' face right now if I wasn't gasping for breath. "What... what's on offer?"
"Dunno. Don't know what to offer, do I? 'Cause you never bloody tell me what you want, do you, you tosser? You just expect me to guess, and when I fail to be bloody psychic, act like I've abused you or something. Fucking fed up with it, Joe, to tell you the truth. Need it to stop. Gotta tell me what you want, mate."
Shit. Not now. Please not now. There's a time and a place for this sort of thing, and that would be any time but now, any place but here. "Tell you... one thing... I don't want."
"To have this little chat. Yeah, get that. Having it anyway though, aincha? You want me to shut the fuck up and fuck you? You tell me what you want."
It's finally sinking in that he's talking about more than sex. I try for sweet reason. "Thom, I can't possibly have this conversation now."
"Yes, you fucking can, my lad. S'only time I ever get to see the real you anymore. Thought I'd lost him altogether 'til we started screwing, and I found my old mucker was still there 'neath the poncing about. Tell me what you want from me, Joe. Grow some gonads like you did back there on the stairs and tell me."
Bastard. Utter fucking bastard. I try to straighten but he pushes at my back, forcing me to stay in position as he slow-screws me. "You know what I want," I say miserably. "You have to know."
"Me."
I can't really accuse him of arrogance under the circumstances, though I feel like it. "Yeah."
"Yeah, I'd worked that one out. But what of me? Just this? Just what we're doing here? Sex, me in control."
I could easily live the rest of my life and never repeat what we're doing here, but I know what he means. "Don't you like it too?"
He makes an exasperated noise, and for a few moments, fucks me harder, pummelling the breath from my body. When he slows again, I want to cry. "Course I bloody like it. Stop avoiding the sodding question, you little weasel."
"I can't... I can't tell you, Thom. I just can't."
He stops moving altogether. "Why the fuck not?" His voice sounds strung tight. "What the fuck d'you think I'm gonna do if I find out?"
Give me what I want, of course, and then I'll never leave here, never get away. I guess I lied to myself when I said I'd dig my own grave. I just can't lift the shovel. "Thom, please," I beg, head down between my arms. "I'm sorry I hit you, sorry I shouted at you. I can't take anymore of this conversation, and I'm sorry about that too."
There's silence, long and painful, as the shower pounds on my back. Then suddenly, Thom starts moving again, fucking me hard, harder, viciously even.
"Fuck." It hurts, and I don't care. Pain is good if it's physical, if it comes with silence. "Jesus, fuck." Heroin isn't meant to ask you what you want. It's just meant to give it to you, again and again, as your dreams wither and die, and slowly, you do too, and the shovels of earth fall on top of you, covering you up, but you don't even feel them 'cause you're flying. "Jesus fucking Christ." Flying 'cause you've taken it inside you, and you're becoming insubstantial, drifting, fragmenting, just another ragged ghost in a town of ragged ghosts.
"Just wanna make you happy, Joe," speaks my syringe, my gravedigger. "Just wanna give you what you need."
And he's deep inside me, deeper than he'll ever know, and I'll never get him out 'cause it's not the grave that's swallowing me, but me that's swallowed the grave, and there's nowhere I can go to escape it now.
As I come, I tell the tiles silently that I love them. As he comes, he calls me 'love' again, and it means even less than what I didn't say. We heave for breath together as the shower starts to run colder. Neither of us says a word.
I'm not really sorry that I hit him.