AKL AU! - A Love from Down Under - Part 1
Jack had gone to the club that night with one goal in mind. To get fucked.
It had been two months since he and Randall had broken up, two months since he’d had any action that didn’t involve his hand and a magazine or a bar of soap in the shower. The first few weeks had sucked ass, mostly because he was kicking himself for not beating Randall to the punch, hanging around - mostly for the sex - till Randall had dumped him for some tight-assed investment banker he’d met on a business trip to Chicago. One thousand banker types converged on the Hyatt and Randall had to be seated next to the one guy who was even more uptight and more anal and more asinine than he was. It was a match made in heaven, practically love at first sight.
It hadn’t hurt new dude's cause any that he happened to live in an expensive high rise condo overlooking the Tennessee River in downtown Nashville. Randall had been drooling for a place in that very same building for years, or so he said. Ever since Jack had known him, for sure, he’d heard all about it a million times in... what had it been.... six months?
Not long enough to fall in love... long enough, actually, to realize that he’d never be falling in love, but just not quite long enough to get tired enough of it cut the ties, even though they’d only had a few things in common outside of what they did in bed.... They’d enjoyed going running together on the weekends or riding bikes out in the country... Sometimes Jack would hang out at Randall’s place while Randall cooked them a nice dinner, then they'd watch a movie on his top of the line tv.... Yeah, they'd had a few decent moments, but nothing to cry over losing.... And he hadn’t cried for what he’d lost, hadn’t cried at all, but just been furious with himself for the time wasted with someone he was going nowhere with. Realistically though, what did it matter if he wasted some time? What the fuck was he hoping for in the end? It wasn’t like he was going to suddenly quit being gay, meet a nice girl and settle down to make babies.
No, he’d just ticked off his twenty-seventh birthday and he’d been taking it up the ass and liking it since he was sixteen years old. There were some facts in life that just were, regardless of whether they were convenient of not, and him being gay was one of them.
So it probably didn’t matter how he spent his time... his biological clock obviously didn’t get the big picture, that guys like him didn’t get the happy ever after sweet life that other men got. Guys like him were destined to something different, solitary and alone most of the time save for the occasional pick-up that might turn into a short-lived relationship, although even that was doomed from the beginning because it never really counted in anyone’s eyes, not even - in his experience, at least - the people having it.
So he went to the club that night, tired of his depressing thoughts and because, after eight weeks of being alone when he got off, he was ready for some company.
It wasn’t exactly a gay bar, more of a gay-friendly bar, popular with all kinds of people who had one major thing in common.... they wanted to get drunk, they wanted to get loud, and at the end of the night, they wanted to get laid. He hadn’t met Randall there, but that's where he’d met the person who’d eventually introduced them.
Hand on the door, he actually stopped and backed away to reconsider. Maybe somehow this place was cursed for him... although he always had a good time here, nothing good or lasting had ever come from it so far. There were at least half a dozen other bars in the city where he could go to get lucky. This one just happened to be his favorite, and the one closest to his house, the small fixer-upper he’d bought last year, so proud of it, but Randall had sneered the first time he’d taken him there. Fuck him.....
Jack squared his shoulders and yanked open the door. Nothing lasting was going to be waiting on the next stool at any bar - lasting wasn’t in the cards for him - and that was fine, especially tonight because he wasn’t interested in anything more than a one night stand... just wanted to find somebody to take him back to that place where all he thought about was his dick and his ass and he didn’t care any more about the shitty way Randall had treated him or the fact that he was alone and would always be mostly alone.
He hadn’t loved Randall and he didn’t miss him really... more just the idea of him, the idea of having someone to be with..... The thing that was still chapping his ass so bad wasn’t the loss of his lover but more the way that it had happened.... Randall ripping his pride to shreds that last night, meeting him at a bar, taking him home for one last fuck, then that hard smack on the ass as he’d pulled away, saying, “Awesome as always, lover, but I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news... I made a new friend, if you know what I mean, while I was in Chicago a couple of weeks ago, and I’ve got a date with him in thirty minutes. Hate to fuck and run, but I’ve got to get a move on or I’ll be late.”
Jack had lain there, face down on the bed, until he felt the shift of the mattress, then heard the shower start up and he knew Randall was gone. Once he was alone, he’d picked himself up off the bed, wiped his ass good with Randall’s thousand thread count sheets. By the time Randall emerged from his bathroom, there was not one thing left of Jack in his apartment except for two smears on his bedding.... one creamy white like the sheets and smelling of semen, the other dark brown, rank and bitter.
Jack had seen him twice since then... Nashville was just a big small town, after all, and although he still carried some hate for the way he’d been treated, it was obvious the new guy was a much better fit for Randall. They looked like a matching set, dressed in their Brooks Brothers best... Jack was more of a Wal-mart and Old Navy kind of guy, shorts or jeans and t-shirts in the summer, jeans and flannel shirts or sweatshirts in the winter.
Seeing him with his new man, Jack had wondered what had held them together so long. For Randall, it was fairly obvious... he’d liked the sex well enough to overlook Jack’s country-boy nature and his manual labor job, at least at first. Jack was less certain about his own reason for letting it drag on.... the word loneliness flitted at the corners of his mind but he pushed it away, hated to think he was so desperate to have somebody the he’d let himself be used in that way.
It had only been for a few months though, and Randall had only really been an ass towards the end... They’d done a few cool things that Jack had never done before.... he’d discovered a bit about himself in the process. There was no point in beating himself up over it forever... live and learn... that was one of the rhythms of life. And one of the other rhythms of life could, hopefully, be found on a barstool inside this bar. As Jack pulled the door open and headed into the dark, smoky place crammed tight with Friday night singles on the make, he determined one thing... for now at least, soft-hearted, needy Jack was going back into the closet and staying there. For tonight and the foreseeable future, he was a one-night stand kinda guy.
***********
Jack woke up the next morning in a strange bed, the sunlight bright in his face. His head was pounding and his mouth tasted like the bottom of a pig farmer’s boot, and he needed to take a piss something fierce. There was even a warm body snuggled up behind him, an arm draped across his hip. The only thing missing was the ache in his ass that would tell him “mission accomplished.” As his brain got going at last, a few vague, drunken memories stirred... he glanced down at the fingers dangling in front of his boxers... the nails were long and painted hot pink, with tiny black hearts. Memories started coming clearer.... Fuck! He was in bed with Wendy!
Wendy was one of his best friends from college and they’d slept like this together on more than one occasion. They’d only fucked once, right after she’d broken up with her boyfriend during their sophomore year and she’d begged him, desperate to wipe away ever last memory of that “motherfuckin’ sonofabitch asshole cheatin’bastard!” It must’ve worked, because she seemed a hundred percent better the next morning and their friendship went on as before, like nothing out of the ordinary had happened. In the end, Jack wasn’t totally convinced that she even remembered it, since she’d been pretty wasted on tequila when he’d finally given in. He never brought it up, just in case.
He rolled away from her and sat up, running his hands over his stubbly face and up through his hair as he waited for the dizziness to pass. After a minute it did and he got up... he was still in his boxers, thank God, not great for traipsing around in someone else’s place, but the bathroom was just across the hall.
And it was occupied... shit! The door was only half closed and just as Jack reached out to push it open and go inside, he heard the scrape of the shower curtain - opening, then closing - followed by the groan of the pipes as the water came on. Fuck!!! He was about to bust a kidney and of course Wendy lived in an old mid-town apartment - heavy on the atmosphere but light on the mod-cons like working appliances and extra bathrooms. His choices were to piss in the kitchen sink, which would totally gross her out if she ever found out, or wait for whoever this was to get done. Wendy had mentioned something the night before about a roommate, but that had come late in the evening, well after midnight, and it was all a vodka blur to Jack.
He fidgeted outside the door... his bladder ached... he could actually see the toilet from where he was standing. If this person was anything like Wendy, they’d be in there for at least twenty minutes. He’d be done and back to sleep by then. Jack gave the door a gentle shove and it opened silently.... No bells went off, no alarms sounded, and there was no indignant squeal from behind curtain number one. Fuck it! He was goin’ in.
The bathroom was small and narrow. Jack tiptoed across the black and white tiled floor, barely kept from brushing against the blood red curtain as he crept between the sink and the tub. The shiny black lid of the toilet was down. He eased that up, along with the seat, resting them silently without even a click against the tank. At fucking last, he pushed down the front of his boxers, pointed his dick at the bowl and let go...... Aaaaahhhhhhhhhh......
But just as relief settled in, oh shit took over as the pipes gave another painful creak and the water shut off suddenly, the world’s fastest shower over with already.
It was too late, there was absolutely nothing he could do, no possible way to cut off the flow now.... He was trapped. He’d just have to keep on going and deal with whoever when he was done.
The shower curtain slid back, chrome rings grating loudly again on the metal bar. Jack squeezed his eyes shut. It seemed like the only courtesy he could offer. Thanks to the room length mirror spanning the wall he was facing - which he’d helped Wendy install to ‘make the room seem bigger’ - her roommate was about to get an eyeful of his equipment. At least this way, she’d have an opportunity to re-close the curtain before he got an eyeful of hers as well.
“Who the fuck are you?”
Jack’s eyes flew open at that, because it wasn’t the outraged squawk of an indignant female like he’d been expecting... It was the low, rich, slightly accented baritone of an unperturbed and only semi-curious sounding male.
Faced with the image in the mirror, Jack forgot all about courtesy and modesty and such as his eyes roamed over the tanned, naked man on full, dripping display. Whoever he was, he was about the hottest thing Jack had ever laid eyes on, tall and muscular with broad shoulders and a healthy sprinkling of light brown hair across his chest. It mostly disappeared as Jack’s gaze wandered downwards, but then showed back up in a heavy thatch around the man’s cock...... oh Jesus!
Jack squeezed his own cock helplessly, almost shutting down the flow of pee for a second. He dropped his eyes away from the man and eased up on his dick. He needed to finish pissing and get the hell out of there before dude with the big-assed cock... whoever the hell he was... started freaking out.
He didn’t seem freaked yet..... Jack watched under the cover of his eyelashes as the guy climbed calmly out of the shower, grabbed a towel from the rack and started drying himself, like finding strange men in the bathroom with him was nothing worth worrying about.
“So... what’s the deal? You married or something?” the guy asked after a few seconds of nothing but the sound of his piss hitting the water. Jack finally felt the end of his stream getting close... thank God.
“What?” Of all the questions Jack might’ve expected, that wasn’t one of them.
“I said, ‘Are you married?’ You’re fucking my sister, won’t even tell me your name.... Gotta be some reason for all the secrecy....” Dude ran the towel over one long arm.... Jack saw some marks around his wrists and bicep... tattoos..... His pee eased up to a dribble....
“No. I’m not married, and I’m not fucking your sister!” Fuck... this must be her brother Ennis. Jack had never met him before, but he’d heard plenty about him from Wendy, who thought he was the most awesome guy ever made..... wild and crazy and just about fearless to hear her tell it. A real man’s man, and not in the kind of way Jack liked. He’d been living in Australia for the past few years, shuttling the flying doctors around all over the continent. Was he the new roommate? Jack would’ve sworn she’d said the name Marley.
Jack gave his dick a quick shake, then tucked it back into his blue and white striped boxers. He looked up in the mirror to find Ennis watching him curiously as he dried his ass and the backs of his thighs.... Jack felt a twitch in his cock.... soooo not good.
“Well, you weren’t on the couch when I came in twenty minutes ago, and you weren’t in my bed.... her bed’s the only other place to sleep around here.”
“I didn’t say I didn’t sleep with her, just that I’m not fucking her. There’s a difference, you know. We’re just friends.” There was zero space to leave the room unless he walked through the bath tub, which Jack refused to do. Ennis was taking up all the floor space between him and the door, and since Jack wasn’t in the mood to try shoving him out of the way.... and who was he trying to fool, this was the floor show of the century.... he leaned back against the wall, crossed his arms over his belly and propped one foot flat against the wall, prepared to wait.
“Oh. Hmmm... ,” Ennis considered him for a few seconds, watching him in the mirror, letting his eyes run up and down Jack’s well muscled, hairy reflection. “You must be a fag then,” he said at last with a tiny, almost invisible smirk.
Jack’s jaw dropped open at those mildly spoken fighting words, and he felt his face begin to burn with an angry flush. Where the hell did he get off saying something like that? “How the fuck do you come up with that just because I didn’t fuck her?” Jack asked angrily, staring back at him in the silver glass.
Ennis gave him a quick shot of his ass as he tossed the towel over the shower rod, then turned back towards the sink. “Dude... chill out... I’m not trying to get you all in a tizzy. It’s just kind of obvious, you know? I’m her brother - I know how she rolls, and even I know she’s one of the hottest babes going.... You’re just her type, man. If you didn’t hit that, there’s gotta be a damn good reason.”
Jack glared at him as he grabbed a purple toothbrush out of the holder and squeezed a long line of blue gel onto the bristles. Business as usual....... “There is. We’re friends. We don’t do that.”
“Must be damn good ones to be sleeping together, almost nekkid, and not screwin’,” he said and shot a glance down at Jack’s boxers.... They were almost new, thank God, not thin enough for him to see through, which was a good thing since this argument wasn’t discouraging Jack’s dick at all. It was getting all plumped up and excited, running on fumes since it’s last bit of action and obviously unable to see past all that warm, tan skin and long, lean muscle to the asshole running the show. Shit!
“We are. We’ve been friends since college.”
“And you’ve never once boinked her?” he asked, his mouth foamy white with toothpaste.
“Jesus... What difference does it make? I’m not doin’ her now, which is what we were talking about! What are you, the fuck police?”
He shook his head. “Nope. Just bein’ nosy!”
“Well damn... maybe it’s none of your business who she sleeps with!”
“Yeah, I know. That’s what she says. That’s why I’m asking you.”
“Well quit asking me stuff about her.”
He spat. “Hmmph. I was asking you stuff about you, but you freaked out about that too, remember?”
“Oh yeah, about me being a fag!?!?”
“Sorry, guess I should’ve said gay. We use fag a lot more over there.... not quite the ugly word it is back here.”
That turned the fire down on Jack’s temper some, that plus the fact that Ennis bent over and cupped a handful of water to rinse his mouth, and while Jack wasn’t standing directly behind him, it still gave him a good side view of one of the nicest asses he’d seen in a long time. His dick was on the rise in a very obvious way... He really needed to get the hell out of there...... Unless........
It suddenly occurred to Jack how incredibly strange this whole situation was. Yeah, he was hung over as hell and probably still a little drunk from all the martinis he’d sucked down till three in the morning when they’d closed down the bar. Lucky for them it had been within walking distance to Wendy’s apartment, since driving had not been an option and cabs at that time of the night were a total hassle.
And maybe Ennis was still lit too.... He said he’d just gotten home. He didn’t look wasted, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t feeling the effects of some booze... But still... Why were they even having this conversation? Why hadn’t Ennis wrapped his towel around his waist once he was done drying off with it? Who stood around naked, talking to strangers they caught pissing in their bathrooms? Unless.....
Jack narrowed his eyes for a closer look, trying to read between the lines, or in this case, maybe the ears. Ennis had propped his butt on the counter and was flossing his teeth, on full frontal display like one of those casual, at home pictures they sometimes put in nudie magazines. Jack always liked those pictures better than the hardcore dick and ass shots, because they made him think that maybe it could somehow be that way for him someday... That he might meet a nice guy and just have a life with him, like people did.
Ennis didn’t have a woody, but his cock wasn’t oblivious to what was going on either, and even in this early state of semi-arousal, it was something to see. Jack swallowed hard, figured there was only one way out of this bitched up situation, and that was to ask...... “Are you?”
Ennis finished with the floss and tossed it into the toilet.... It swirled in the yellow water.... Jack had forgotten to flush. “You all done with that?”
“Yeah,” Jack nodded, still studying Ennis’ face. Wendy had never mentioned that he might be gay..... She’d never talked about that aspect of his life at all, just raved about his adventures as a bush pilot down under or what the fuck ever... Jack had actually been a little bit jealous hearing about how amazing he was.... Made his life as Mr. Fix It seem so fucking boring.....
Ennis extended one long finger and depressed the lever...... The toilet whooshed and the water swirled and all the evidence that they’d even been there was whirled out to the sewer sea. Neither moved, and Jack felt a tension in the room where none had been before. Something was happening. He repeated his question.
“Are you?”
“Am I what?” he asked, nibbling on the side of his thumb.
Duh! “Are you gay?”
Ennis stared at him then, head on, dark brown eyes intent, and Jack returned the look full measure. Neither blinked. “I don’t know,” Ennis said at last.
“You don’t know? How old are you? Twenty-eight? Thirty? How can you get this far along in life and not know something like that about yourself?” Jack had known since he was sixteen, when he’d finally gotten up the nerve to make a pass at a boy who’d been staring at him in gym class. Even though they’d had no lube and it had only lasted about two minutes, Jack had known ever since then. At first he’d hoped he was bi, had kept dating girls throughout high school, but by college he’d given in to what he really liked, had no illusions now that he was anything other than what he was... a gay guy who liked getting his ass fucked and who secretly dreamed - even after that asshole Randall - of eventually hooking up with some guy and making a life together.
“You don’t seem to know,” Ennis answered back. He had the heels of his hands planted on the counter either side of his hips, and his long legs were stretched out across the bathroom floor, crossed at the ankles. He had nice feet, big, with long toes. His dick was hanging down his thigh like a fat Italian sausage. Jack didn’t see any tan lines. He must’ve spent a lot of time at the nudes beaches over there.
“I do know... I just didn’t say ‘cause it’s none of your business.” Jack let his eyes run over Ennis’ body again.... damn but he was fuckin’ awesome........ “How can you not know?” he asked again, frustrated.
Ennis shrugged, answered matter of factly, “I guess ‘cause I’ve never fucked a guy before. It’s hard to know whether you like something or not till you try it. Don’t you think?”
Jack leaned back against the wall and swiped his hand over his face, rubbed at his stubbly chin. This was really getting strange... almost like one of those fucked up dreams he had sometimes after a night like last night, but the cold, hard tile behind his back and the embarrassing ache between his legs... front and back.... told him that, odd as it seemed, this was a real live conversation and he wouldn’t be waking up anytime soon asking himself What the fuck?
“If it’s really bothering you, then maybe you ought to find some gay guy who’s looking to get his ass plowed and give it a try.... That’ll probably clear it all up for you.”
Ennis nodded, and there was that little smirk again. “I was basically thinking the same thing. Which brings us back to the original question.... Are you?”
“Jesus! Did Wendy put you up to this?” Jack asked, the surrealness of it all dissolving as suspicion finally welled. He’d talked to Wendy on the phone yesterday afternoon... She’d known what his plans were, that he was looking to get laid last night, but she’d swooped down on him the minute he’d come into the bar and refused to budge, saying they needed to hang out with each other, they could get laid some other time, cute guys were a dime a dozen but good friends... blah blah fucking blah. After the third or fourth drink, he’d figured he probably couldn’t get it up anyway, so what did it matter who he passed out with?
Definite twitch around his wide mouth... he was struggling to keep a straight face. “Oh sure... She called me home from Australia just to boink you.... Didn’t she mention it?” he asked, sarcasm heavy in his voice, and yeah, Jack had to admit that - put that way - it did sound ludicrous. But still, something was fishy about the whole situation.
“Fine. That didn’t happen. But it’s obvious that you know who I am, and it’s also obvious that you know I’m gay. So what’re you trying to do here?” Jack asked, waving his hand in the general direction of Ennis’ nude body.
“Does me bein’ nekkid bother you?”
That was out of the blue and no answer at all, but Jack went with it anyway because that seemed to be the theme of the morning. “You’re not offending me, if that’s what you mean......”
“Am I doing anything to you?”
“Are you trying?”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe.”
In the quiet space that followed that exchange, while they were still trying to figure each other out, Jack heard the front door to the apartment click shut. That one little noise rang out loud and clear in his mind, bringing him right back to reality, telling him everything he needed to know. She’d set him up.