Snow Angel

by Sharon Maria Bidwell

  “Don’t touch me.”

  That was an ironic order, coming right after Jay tried to kiss him.

  “Are you hurt? I didn’t mean to do that. I’m sorry about the shirt. You ... You shouldn’t have done that. I can’t do those things with you.”

  “Dean, please.” Jay’s voice dropped to a whisper. He lowered his head and closed his eyes. After a moment, he opened them but didn’t look up. “I did it to teach you a lesson. I know we’re just friends and I’m fine with that. I just can’t stand it when you ignore my feelings in general, when you act like a ...”

  “Wanker,” Dean finished for him, and finally received a smile. The grin remained small, but it lingered at least. Of course, Jay lied about the extent of his feelings, or maybe he just wanted to avoid the issue. Either way, Dean failed to see what he could do about it.

  “I have to go.” Jay wiped at his shirt with Dean’s napkin, and then shrugged, apparently giving it up for a lost cause. “Sorry about the plate, and the carpet. Maybe we can do this again sometime and invite April. She’ll never believe you can cook.”

  Realising he stood there with his mouth open, Dean brought his teeth together with a light snap. A protest lay on his lips, but what seemed like a great idea earlier on in the execution now struck him as strange. Maybe it would be for the best to let Jay just leave if he wanted. Despite the peculiar end to the evening, they had a foundation here.

  Dean went with him to the door. Of course, he would usually show a date out at a later hour than this, or she would have cooked him breakfast in the morning. Either way, when she left he would have kissed her. He didn’t know what to do with Jay other then say ‘See you’ and that didn’t seem to fit, so he ended up saying nothing. He just nodded and watched Jay walk off. The shirt caressed Jay’s hips and flared out a little, emphasising a certain part of his anatomy. Perhaps that was the reason he never saw Jay in the shirt nowadays. Perhaps the garment was his date shirt and Dean had inadvertently picked it, not to mention possibly ruined it. From the back, it drew the eye down to the gentle curve of his friend’s backside. Dean closed the door and leaned against it. “What the fuck is wrong with me?” he whispered.

  * * * * *

  Two streets away, Jay broke into a run. It lasted only for a short sprint, but he relished the movement. He only stopped when he grew breathless from crying. Wiping angrily at his face, he swallowed down his tears before anyone could notice them. Damn the man! Damn him to hell!

  Was he vindictive? Did he know what he was doing? Jay kicked an empty drink’s can into the road. The metallic clank, hollow plink, plink, plonk, skittering noise sounded too loud. If anyone saw, they said nothing. Jay wanted to hit something and he never felt like that. It wasn’t only his stature that made him shy away from violence. It just didn’t sit well with his nature. Right now though, he was furious.

  His anger warred with his distress, but he didn’t even know who to be more upset with ‑‑ Dean or himself. If he wasn’t sporting a hard-on that had Dean’s name displayed all over it, maybe he wouldn’t feel so belligerent. What he couldn’t figure out was Dean’s thinking. If he didn’t know him any better, he would believe the man deliberately set out to hurt him.

  That bastard! He wanted to punch something. He wanted to drive his fist into Dean’s face. Pity he’d have to stand on a chair to do it. The bubble of laughter that came with the thought eased his hatred. It wasn’t Dean’s fault that he loved him. Fall for a straight guy and this was what you got ‑‑ an ache in your heart and an ache in your cock; and the one thing that would cure both, was the one thing you couldn’t have.

  Chapter Four

  Dean sat in the dark. Food grew cold and congealed on the plates. What smelt enticing and delicious now would assault the nostrils in the morning. Already the tomato sauce took on a sharper, acidic tang, but he couldn’t make himself move to clean up the dishes. He finally forced himself briefly up out of the chair to turn off the stereo. Then he sat back in the chair in the dark.

  What was wrong with him? He glanced towards the clock and saw it displayed the time as a quarter to nine. They had started eating a little after six with Jay staying for around two hours before he left. The longest two hours of his life, as it happened, and probably, the longest of Jay’s too. Still, he had settled things between them. With a bit of work and perseverance on his part, they could be friends again, all three of them, and not just friends as they’d been the last couple of years, but friends as they used to be. April agreed with him and promised that if he could be civil and patch things up with Jay, she would go out of her way to repair bridges, too. He didn’t know how he had managed it, considering the way he bungled through it all today. Yet somehow, he’d done what he set out to do.

  Why then was he sitting in a dark room? Why did the house feel empty and worse still, why did he feel so alone? It was a Saturday night, not too late to call up a girl and invite her out on a date. He hesitated. He couldn’t think of anyone he wanted with him and truth be told, any of the girls that would be sitting home alone, he didn’t want to call. That was a selfish, uncharitable thought, but true. What didn’t ring so true was the idea that he couldn’t think of anyone he wanted to be with, but he could hardly blame Jay for calling it an early night. Could it have been any more awkward between them?

  Well, yes, it could, but he didn’t want to think about that at all. Yet the idea ... For some reason he started comparing Jay and April, their appearance, their mannerisms, their personality, and other little things that made up a whole person. He pictured them standing side by side and although they shared many things in common that he liked about both of them, he quickly realised that the list of what he liked about Jay was the longer one. He’d always had it in mind to jump April’s bones one day, but the crush he suffered so badly when young eased with age. Still, give her a couple of the things that made up Jay’s personality traits and he probably would have tried harder. If she smiled the way Jay did, with her head tilted, eyes gazing shyly out from under her brow, or if she was as sweetly natured, or if her laugh was as warm.

  In truth, Jay possessed a softer side to his character. The siblings might look alike, but there were differences in their personalities. April could close up and bring a shutter down over her feelings in an instant. She hadn’t truly been angry with him the other day. He would have known it. She didn’t lose her temper often, but when she did, it happened quickly. Jay almost wore his heart on the proverbial sleeve by comparison.

  Dean rubbed his hands over his eyes and dry washed his face. The thoughts didn’t go away. How often did he find himself smiling just because Jay smiled? How often did he slap him on the back, or put an arm around his shoulders or even around his waist because he couldn’t hug him the way he would a girl? The first time he had kissed Jay it was a mistake, but until he realised the figure in his arms didn’t have breasts, he had been well away with it. The second kiss was full on, as if he needed to prove something. The fact was, he had wanted to leave Jay staggered, gasping, even longing for more. Why would he do that? Was he that vindictive without realising it? Did he want to hurt Jay because he was gay?

  That made no sense at all. He had known other gay men. He never gave their lives a second thought. He’d been to college. He’d seen things. Sometimes those things happened right there in the room with him. He’d watched, but not participated. He didn’t tease them. He certainly didn’t touch them, at least no more than he touched any other man he knew. Sure, there were times you accidentally bumped into a mate or when you slapped someone on the back or shoulder to say hello or goodbye. Or you might put a hand on someone to show them how cold you were on a winter’s day, though with Jay he would always put his icy fingers right around his neck, even a little into his top or down his back. Why did he always touch Jay without even thinking about it? Why did he like to have him around so much? What was so special about him that got under his skin?

  Dean sat in the dark, hopeless and helpless. He just didn�
��t understand why his stomach churned this way. He slept with women; he put it around. April once told him that, no doubt, he would put his dick in any available orifice, but she said it only to annoy him. Didn’t she? He only laughed at the time. Think about Madeleine, Jackie, Trish, Dawn, or Beth, and there you were, instant stiffy. So what was his problem? He hadn’t suddenly turned gay. He didn’t believe that anyway. That was how you were born, not something you chose. Some people believed you were born naturally bisexual and only social conditioning made you choose. The truth was probably somewhere in between, but even if some part of him liked Jay in more than just a friendly way, it wasn’t as if he could do anything about it. He wasn’t about to have sex with him.

  So, why the big seduction act? Why had he thought cooking a meal for Jay would be a good idea? Well, probably because he was gay and it was something he’d do for a woman, which might have been fine in its way, if he’d done what Jay suggested and invited April along as well, or if their friendship was what it used to be. Of course, then it probably wouldn’t have occurred to him to cook a meal at all. They were right. He possessed two sides to his personality, one intelligent and thoughtful, the other selfish and loutish, willing to do anything to get his own way.

  He thought of sex between straight couples and of how frantic that could be. He knew what gay sex entailed and to his dismay, he didn’t feel disgusted or put off by it. He wasn’t particularly attracted to it or curious about it either. He just didn’t mind ‘other’ men having sex, but he never thought of doing something like that himself. He knew plenty about it though. He even used it in his stories, using Jay as ... Well, inspiration was too strong a word, but he was his only gay acquaintance now, so he’d thought about him when he needed that angle to work with. Some of the scenes he wrote even made him hard, but he would never put them into practice.

  His friends and family would be very surprised and would no doubt look at him twice if he let them know about the books he sold under a pen name. He hadn’t told anyone about them. Maybe it was simply his imagination making him curious. That would be an easy explanation if it rang true for every writer. The fact was, although no writer could get away without research, you didn’t have to jump out of an aeroplane or be involved in a car wreck to write about one. You just read up on the subject and, if necessary, asked someone to describe his or her experience. Just as you didn’t have to be a murderer to write about a murder, you didn’t have to be gay or even have any interest in the subject to write such a scene. To blame it all on that would be an easy escape route, a nice neat way of lying to himself.

  What would it be like to fuck Jay?

  The idea instantly alarmed him, made him panic. His heart raced. Dean took a deep breath, easing his way back to a relative state of tranquility. Maybe he should let his mind take him where it wanted. They were just thoughts. Thinking about something didn’t mean you would end up doing it. So, what would it be like to fuck Jay?

  For a moment, he didn’t even know where to start, and then he decided to begin with the body. Sometimes you fucked with someone because they were gorgeous. It didn’t matter how liberated or hetero you were, some people made you weak at the knees. Some people made a career out of how handsome or beautiful they were whether they had the talent to go with it. Others, not so obviously attractive people, you still fucked because something else drew you to them. Dean’s wealth of experience covered both scenarios, but the undeniable fact was that gay or straight, woman or man, Jay was one good-looking guy. The man had an athletic sleekness to him. He slid into or rolled out of a chair like a cat stretching after a nap. Jay often escaped drawing attention to himself because only when he left did you realise he moved through the room with an ease of movement that left you bereft in its absence.

  At least, he might have escaped notice if it weren’t for that drape of luscious hair that curved over his shoulders ending at the height of his nipples. It looked like a shroud, or a veil, when it fell in front of his face. Then there was all that unblemished skin. Even with a day’s growth of stubble, his chin looked smooth. Only when you brushed up against it did you acknowledge the rough bristle existed. He looked like something inadvertently shut out of heaven. No wonder Dean once called him Angel.

  Fine. The guy was good-looking. That didn’t translate to fucking him. The idea wasn’t so freaky. Same sex relationships were no big deal in his book and, if someone told him two guys stranded on a desert island wouldn’t end up fucking, or at least giving in to a little mutual stimulation, he would have taken bets on it. Maybe one guy would take the dominant role. Maybe they would give in to a little harmless frottage only, but he couldn’t imagine years of no one’s solid grip on your cock other than your own. Maybe that was just him.

  “Slut,” he said aloud, meaning himself. Sex was not that important. Life without it would suck, but you could survive. He had more important things to consider here; like the consequences, hurting another person, losing a friendship ‑‑ if he hadn’t loused it up already. One thing was certain; no one could call him pious. His devotion led in a very specific direction.

  He was frustrated and one good cure for that was to masturbate, but as his gaze moved across the room and flickered down to a bottom shelf, the idea of how much gay porn he had collected over the last few years suddenly inundated his mind. He owned a fair amount of hetero movies, too, and the gay stuff was research for his books, but he didn’t think anyone would believe him. He wrote as Mary Ann Evans had done, only not as George Eliot, but as Marilyn Manners. He wrote for straight women and gay men. It was purely business, but difficult to explain. He could hear April laughing if she knew. The row of discretely packaged discs suddenly intimidated him.

  He couldn’t sit here all night. The more he thought about his feelings, the more he failed to understand them. He certainly didn’t understand the answer, because he didn’t even know the question. He turned his head and his gaze fell on the box of chocolates. They hadn’t got around to eating them and he had forgotten to give them to Jay. He had also forgotten to give him back the key April had lent him. He hadn’t even mentioned it to Jay, it having escaped his mind. Just in case Jay refused to speak to him, April had given him a spare key to the flat. Yes, there was the question of the chain, but one kick from Dean would have solved that, or he could have waited until Jay went out, gone into the flat and waited for his return. None of that mattered now. Whatever he might have, or not have done, Jay would be livid with her. Dean could give the key back to April without Jay ever knowing; that would be the wise thing to do.

  Even as the thought crossed his mind, some vindictive part of him brought an evil smile to his face. To have Jay mad at April for once, now wouldn’t that be something.

  Giving himself a mental shake, Dean inwardly scolded himself. This was the root of his personal problems. He must be evil at heart, for what else would make him behave in such a way. Just when he had something to work with, bridges he could repair with effort and time, he wanted to upset his friends. He wanted to annoy April and make her mad. Of course, he would play the innocent. If he had used the key this afternoon, Jay would have known about it anyway. She would be in just as much trouble then. So why shouldn’t he return it? Why shouldn’t he let Jay know that his sister had given someone a key to his flat without his permission or even his knowledge?

  Some part of his mind told him that was just an excuse, but he pushed it away. It would be perfectly logical to drop the chocolates off, tell Jay about the key, and then go on to somewhere else. Nine on a Saturday night at his age was far too early to crawl into bed ‑‑ at least unless someone was about to crawl into bed with you.

  * * * * *

  Looking up at the window of Jay’s flat, Dean’s face tightened in a frown. He couldn’t see a light on. Either Jay wasn’t home or there was only a soft light burning. He couldn’t picture Jay going to a pub or a club ‑‑ he didn’t do that much anyway, and he wouldn’t have, not after the evening they’d just shared. He mig
ht have gone round to visit his sister though, providing she happened to be in. Surely, Jay hadn’t gone to bed.

  Dean hesitated, but left with the choice of turning around and going home, or leaving the chocolates and then going home, he couldn’t seem to deter from his original course. He bounced over the steps to the main door of the flats. Beyond the glass door, a bright light lit the hall and stairwell. He ran up the two flights to the floor that contained Jay’s flat. Outside, he lifted his hand to ring the bell but hesitated. Leaning back, he stared down but couldn’t see a light shining under the door. Placing his ear to the door, he strained to hear a sound. Usually, he could hear the TV or music playing. All was silent. Maybe the flat was empty after all. In fact, the more he thought about it, the more it seemed likely that Jay had gone straight to his sister. He was probably moaning about Dean’s strange behaviour and the peculiar dinner even now.

  He turned away, and then glanced at the box of chocolates in his hand. He could at least leave them. Slipping a hand into his pocket, he drew out the key April had given him earlier.

  “Are you sure?” he had asked her when she handed it over.

  April just grinned. “He won’t stay mad at me. You are another matter, and I will only ever do it this once. I’m giving you the chance to talk to him. If he’s got the chain on, at least you can put your foot in the door and plead with those big baby blues of yours.”

  For some reason, April’s certainty remained undiminished that the moment Jay set eyes on him that her brother would be unable to say no. Much to his embarrassment, Dean knew what she meant. He had that effect on women. He wasn’t going to see April for a few days and he shouldn’t walk around with the key. He had meant to give it to Jay at dinner, but forgotten about it. He could put it through the letterbox, but then what would Jay think of finding a key lying on the hall carpet? If he went in and left it with the chocolates, it would explain who left it and he could ring April and warn her. He could even leave a note asking Jay not to be mad. As he turned the key in the lock and stepped inside, it ran through his mind that he was making excuses, trying to find a reason to justify entering. He couldn’t think why. If this was April’s place, he might have gone through her underwear just to see what she wore under all those clothes.