by Box Set
“I research medicinal uses for a variety of tropical plants.”
“Wow! That sounds…” Jasper makes an ‘Oh!’ face. “It sounds very important.”
“I’ve been instrumental in isolating a couple of compounds that show promising signs of improving things for certain groups of people with psychiatric disorders.”
“My nan had dementia.”
I never know what to say to admissions like this. It’s why I avoid mentioning my own family. People find it awkward. They don’t know what to say or else they ask too many questions and dish-out unsolicited advice.
“Bad?” Lorne asks.
Jasper wrinkles his face in that uber-expressive way of his. “She wasn’t herself anymore. That was really tough on my grandad. They’d been together for sixty years, never spent a night apart, and then she couldn’t remember who he was. Kept thinking one of my young cousins was him, because he was the age she remembered my granddad being. I guess Shane did look a bit like my granddad in his youth. They used to go dancing together. My grandparents, not Shane. He has two left feet.”
“I bet you don’t.”
“I’m no Gene Kelley, but I can hold my own.”
He improvises a few moves, enough to impress both Lorne and I with his obvious talent. “Okay, let’s get on with this, now I’ve finished embarrassing myself.”
Somehow, I suspect he has that back to front. I think he realises that too. He paces across the room to the window, then when he turns, his expression has changed. It’s like he’s pulled on a mask, and even though the script is in his hand, and he has to remind himself of the words, I’m drawn in by him and his intensity.
Lorne is no less compelling when he intrudes on Jasper’s monologue. The dialogue zips back and forth between them, while their actions and expressions layer the words with additional complexities. The emotional ties between them spring to life. I’m dragged in to the minutiae of their argument, hurt by each stinging retort, and with them sighing in relief when Jasper finally grasps the front of Lorne’s shirt and pins him against the side of the chimney breast. I understand in that moment why Lorne picked this scene over another. It’s Jasper who’s leading the performance. He’s the one who gets hands-on first, and the one responsible for jamming their hips together, and who licks the sweat from Lorne’s throat.
Oh, lordy! I’m totally sold. This is definitely going on my must watch list. I haven’t been this compelled to see a show since I heard Professor Brian Cox was doing a series on the natural world. Love me some rock and roll physicist, especially now he has bits of silver flecking that dark hair. But getting back to the performance happening right now, I realise they’ve paused and are both staring at me.
“What do you think?” Jasper leans towards me, his dark eyebrows twitching. He bites his lower lip.
“That you need to fuck.”
He recoils, eyes wide.
A grin flashes across Lorne’s face so fast, that I’m not sure if it was real or I imagined it. “I mean your characters. It’s obvious they’re both desperate for each other, and the tension is like way high.” I raise my hand as high as I can reach to provide a visual guide. “If there’s any more smoulder you might both spontaneously combust.”
“Neither of us will be getting any if that happens.” Lorne drawls, voice still the husky purr his character talks with. “Do you wanna see what comes next?”
“Nah,” I drawl back, while shaking my head. “Fuck it, of course I do. It is sex, right? Or at least a kiss?”
“Lana doesn’t swear,” Jasper mumbles.
“She’s not Lana, pickle brain.” Lorne cuffs Jas across the back of the head. “Pick it up again from Page 64?”
“She is.” Jasper flicks over the pages, “’kay.” He plunges straight into his next line of dialogue.
“Hold up, hot stuff.” Lorne peels off his shirt, and inches his pants down his hips so that I can see every ridge of his impressive abs. “Now we’re ready.”
I understand the significance of the striptease a moment later, when it becomes apparent that Lorne’s been injured. He sticks his fingers in my wine glass and draws them across his chest so the red droplets trickle over the ridges of muscle, symbolising blood. Not that his new injury dampens the blaze burning between them. A couple of paragraphs later and Lorne has Jasper bent over the arm of the empty fireside chair and is grinding his hips against Jasper’s arse.
“Is dry humping what I get to see in the finished product, or is it going to be skin on skin?”
“Lady, you’ve got a dirty mind,” Lorne says.
“No dirtier than yours, and I’m not the one with a hard-on.”
He raises his head and zaps me with his piercing gaze. “Is that right?”
God, that expression! I swear he’s capable of eating me all up, and if I wasn’t moist before, I sure as hell am now. The more time I spend around Lorne, the more tempted I am to curl up on his lap, or rather, drape myself over it. I wonder if he actually savours pussy with the same zeal he clearly does a nice hard cock?
“So, your pussy’s not purring for attention, and it’s the padding in your bra that’s sticking up, not your nipples?”
If he wasn’t interested, he wouldn’t flirt back, right?
I cover myself with both hands, which is laughable because all it does is prove him correct.
“You know, Jas, I think we’re turning your idol on.”
I expect a quip of sorts from Jasper, but all I hear is a grunt. Then he shakes Lorne off, and stalks towards the door. “I’m going for a piss,” he snarls.
More like a wank. I’m sure Lorne is thinking that too, but we both keep our lips zipped.
Once Jasper is gone, Lorne pulls his T-shirt back over his head, and it feels like a cloud drifted across the moon. Suddenly the room is dingy rather than seductively lit, and I’m shivering despite the heat of the fire.
Lorne crosses in front of me, heading for the same exit Jasper used. “I’m going to step outside and cool off for a minute. Back in a bit.”
I’m not sure any of those words were true expressions of his intentions. I know he went after Jasper, and I don’t anticipate him coming back until they manage to clear some of the tension between them.
It hardly seems fair that I don’t get to be witness to that.
Chapter Eight
Lorne Everett
When I leave the fireside, I’ve some vague notion in my head of catching up with Jasper and forcing him to be honest about what the hell it is we’re both feeling, but then he’s already slipped on his coat and boots and disappeared into the night. I step in the puddle of melted snow on the tiles where his footwear was.
Bugger!
Having covered the wet patch with a sheet of old newspaper from the stack by the door and dried my foot, I pull on my own boots and jacket.
Outside, the night wind howls as it races along the southern façade of the house, and the air is thick with snow. I pause under the umbrello to zip up my coat. The bathroom lies no more than ten metres away, but all I can make out is a blocky outline. If Jasper’s in there, he hasn’t bothered to turn on the lights.
I get it, the poor bastard’s conflicted. He likes what he feels when we’re together, but there’s a part of him that’s shouting out that it’s somehow wrong, or at least not who he is, and now Mikayla’s turned up to further complicate things.
It’s never easy when your fantasy date appears in real life. I know, I lived with mine for the best part of a decade.
I find myself straining my eyeballs peering into the polka dotted sky. If he hasn’t taken refuge in the bathroom, then I hope to God he has the sense not to venture too far into the wilderness surrounding this place. It’s not walking weather, and I don’t want to have to call out search and rescue, assuming I could even get a signal.
My fingers stray idly over the surface of the wrought iron table, seeking out a glass of the good stuff that isn’t there. That or a smoke. Jeez, I haven’t thought about lig
hting a fag in years, and lord knows, there have been some seriously stressful occasions during the years living with Dare.
I stub out the imaginary cigarette in between my fingers on the table-top and consign thoughts of Dare to the back of my mind. There’s too much here-and-now tension to get mired in ancient history.
Light spills over the flagstones, and Mikayla joins me under the umbrello. She stomps her feet and jiggles on the spot despite the thickly padded coat she’s pulled over her slim form. It’s the one that was hanging by the door in the kitchen. The one Jas and I mistakenly assumed had been left behind by a previous resident. She’s pulled the hood up, presumably to keep her ears warm, and the fur-edge frames her narrow oval face. Her nose turns pink after a second or two, and her breath mists in the air as her feet continue their tattoo.
“Guess you really needed to cool down. It’s fucking freezing out here.”
She pulls out the remaining wrought iron chairs from under the table, but doesn’t sit.
“You know, I’d have happily helped you blow off some steam another way. You didn’t need to stick yourself in the outdoor freezer.”
She’s-matter-of-fact. I like that about her. I’m used to women playing games. That’s not to say I don’t think she has an agenda, she does, but she’s prepared to be straightforward about it.
“Right now that’s the sort of complication I don’t need.”
Her gaze drifts over me, and I know she perceives more than I like.
“Yeah, I get it. This is far more than rehearsal time for you and Jas. You came here in the hopes of shagging him until he couldn’t stand up.”
Perceptive and cuts to the chase. I shake my head a little, because despite my continuing frustration over her presence, she’s bulldozing her way into my good books.
Finally, she sits. “You know, it doesn’t have to be complicated between us.”
“That isn’t the complication.”
“Hm.” She fusses with a strand of hair that’s escaped her hood. “Jas. He’s cute when he’s not blathering on about shit I haven’t got a clue about. Do you know, I haven’t played any one of those blasted games, but half the male population thinks I unearth lost treasures for a living?”
“I think he thinks he discovered the best treasure of all in the bathtub, only he’s now at risk of losing it.”
A frown briefly wrinkles her brow. “The it in this case was never his to start with.”
“I never claimed it was your reality. I said it was his perceived reality. Don’t tell me you wouldn’t act the same if your favourite fantasy presented itself.”
“What’s to say it hasn’t?”
I’m not sure I want to delve into that rabbit hole, so I keep my mouth shut.
She scrapes the chair she’s perched upon away from the table and rises after a few moments. It’s made of metal. It’s probably given her a numb bum.
“Look, I’m sorry I screwed up your weekend,” she says. “You’d probably have accomplished what you came to do by now, if it wasn’t for me.”
Maybe that’s the case, and maybe not. I don’t have a crystal ball to be able to tell.
“There’s nothing to say I wouldn’t have screwed it up myself. My track record’s not exactly stellar.”
“You mean with Dare Wilde?”
Hearing his name, gives me a jolt. I haven’t mentioned him to her, so she’s taking a wild stab. Nevertheless, she hits bull’s eye.
“You needn’t look so astonished. I read the papers. I know you two were close and now he’s off playing lovebirds with that girl…” She winds her hand in a circular motion. “Felicity Caine. While you’re here trying to secure yourself a new playmate.”
“Is it the papers you read or the gossip mags?”
She lifts her narrow shoulders. “There’s a difference?”
Good point.
“He never realised how much you wanted him, did he?”
“We’re just friends. Don’t presume to know what’s what.”
“He didn’t.” She answers her own question. “And now you’re terrified you’re going to end up in the same position of frustration with Jasper.” A little furrow appears between her eyebrows as she thinks hard. “I don’t suppose it’s occurred to you that you might be more successful relationship-wise if you hit on guys who are naturally inclined to forming relationships with other men?”
That was a long-winded way of saying, “Hey mister, stop hitting on the straights.”
“I don’t just do gay relationships. And for the record, the sparks between Jasper and I were there the minute we met. The casting director saw it. It’s how we both ended up with the roles.”
“But he’s definitely straight, or are you saying he’s closeted?”
“I’m saying he’s conditioned to think of himself in a particular way. And I really fucking hate labels.”
She quietens, this time for several minutes. It’s actually too cold out here to stand still for long. I want to go and look for Jasper, but I don’t want her following me.
“Say, Lorne, I don’t suppose you’ve heard the best way to get a “straight” guy into bed with another guy?”
“I expect you’re about to tell me.”
Her face creases into a grin. A really spectacularly cheeky grin, that fills her cheeks with additional blush. “You propose a threesome with a woman he fancies.” She pauses, teeth pressed into her lower lip, to allow me time to weigh up the idea, and realise she’s volunteering. Only when I don’t respond, does she add, “Maybe you weren’t paying attention to his expression when you teased him about the sleeping arrangements earlier, but I was.”
It’s true that trick always worked like a treat on Dare. Seriously, every single time. Of course, with him it never progressed in the direction I wanted it to. It always ended up being about the girl and any touching between us was incidental. But it did get him into bed with me.
I turn away from Mikayla and stroll out from under the shelter of the umbrello onto what I presume is the lawn. The snow reaches to mid-calf level and its icy grip chills my lower legs. It used to snow like this when I was little. Everything would be pure white. Me and my friends would take our sledges out and ride down the big hillside at the back of our houses. In the city, all we ever really see is a light sprinkling of the white stuff, like someone got a bit heavy handed with an icing-sugar shaker.
“You’re not convinced.” She wades over to my side. The drift reaches much farther up her legs, soaking through her festive leggings, so that she’s gritting her teeth against the cold. “It is fucking bitter out here.”
“It’s an arrangement that’s skewed in your favour. You get a shitload of kicks out of being sandwiched between us, and I risk getting ripped raw from watching him get all doe-eyed over his fantasy woman and freaking the fuck out if I so much as touch him.”
“I don’t think he’s going to do that. He wants you, he’s just afraid of what it’ll mean if he gives in to it.”
“That is so just a bunch of fucking crap. It’s not like a hole is going to open and he’ll get sucked down to hell.”
“Maybe he thinks it will. How well do you actually know him, Lorne? You said you’ve only just met. Maybe he has ultra-right-wing lunatics for parents who’ll disown him if he brings a boyfriend home.”
“It’s unlikely that he’d have accepted the role in this show if that were the case.”
“Then maybe he’s just nervous because it’s his first time.” She peeps up at me from inside the depths of her enormous hood.
“In which case, you being around to witness it ain’t gonna help.”
“Or maybe he’d find comfort in the fact it’d be my first time too.”
This woman has an answer for everything.
“Is that even the truth?”
Somehow she inveigles a grin out of me.
“Are you calling me a liar?”
“Is it the truth?”
Her lips pucker. “I’m assuming all the times
in my head don’t count?”
“They don’t.”
“Then I have absolutely not ever had a bloody good rogering from two gorgeous men at once, or even just got to snuggle under the same duvet while they rogered each other, and it’s not through a lack of willingness to be gloriously dirty on my part either.” A little nervous laugh escapes her throat, and she covers her mouth with her hand. “Oops, now I’ve over-shared.”
I have to admit, she’s irritatingly tempting.
Mikayla is no longer looking at me, but off into the horizon. Her shoulders are slumped, and I guess she’s figures she’s blown the opportunity. “I wish it was otherwise, believe me,” she sighs. “Seriously, two hot guys and me—gimme, please.”
Dour is not where I’m at. I admit I’m emotionally riled at the moment, but I don’t wallow over circumstances, and I don’t like making people sad. Fuck it, what have I to lose by saying yes? It’s not like Jasper’s mine and I’m going to screw an established relationship up.
“So, you’re saying you think I’m hot?”
Her head whips back around, and she stares at me, mouth open. Then the sass comes back. One hand lands upon her hip. “You know you’re hot. You don’t need me or anyone else to spell it out.”
If only Jasper could be this refreshingly straightforward and honest.
“Jas thinks you’re hot,” I tell her.
She draws her lips into another succulent pout in response. The sort of pout I’m tempted to remove from her mouth by kissing her. I like the way her eyes flash.
“Jasper. But not you?”
I make a show of giving her a good look over. She’s hot in a carefree way. Her clothes are chosen for comfort rather than fashion, and while she’s polished and neat, there’s nothing overtly styled about her. I don’t think she put more than a wisp of lipstick on before emerging from the bathroom to face us. It’s a massively refreshing contrast to the regular world I inhabit, where women are expected to wake up looking like Barbie-dolls. Mikayla actually reminds me of the girls I use to hang out with on the beach during the summer, before Sunsetters swept me off to a different universe. Girls who were fun and had their own plans for the future that didn’t involve charming me into their pants, and then living as a socialite off my earnings.
