by Anna Martin
“Are you vegetarian?” I asked.
He laughed shortly. “No. You think I got a body like this without a healthy amount of protein in my diet?”
The little wink at the end of his sentence made me smirk right back at him.
“Do you like sweet and sour?”
“Mmm.”
When Chris asked for a beer, I followed his lead this time and hoped the alcohol would soothe my nerves. Normally I’d drink wine but was slightly fearful of appearing prissy. And beer was fine. The server who took our order scribbled the words on a tiny notebook and Chris hooked his foot around mine under the table.
“So how long have you been in Boston?” I asked as our drinks were delivered.
“Um,” he said. “About ten days?”
“Really?” I said with a laugh.
“Yeah. Lexi—Alexis, she’s backing vocals and rhythm guitar—she arranges where we’re going to stay in each city. Since we’re planning on being here a bit longer than we normally camp out, we got a house this time, down over on Mansfield?”
“I know it,” I said.
“Yeah. I told you before that John went to college here, so we knew we’d stop by for a while. His grandparents are here too, so I applied for a guest spot with the symphony and got it.”
“The symphony? That’s pretty great.”
“Thanks.” He grinned at me and accepted his beer from the server. I tried not to stare as he sipped from the bottle.
“So Alexis and John, they’re in the band with you?”
“Yes. And a guy called Danny too. We play under a couple of different names. Ice on the Tracks for our own stuff, and sometimes Dark Side of the Spoon.”
“Pink Floyd?” I said, laughing.
“Yeah. We don’t just cover Floyd tracks, but it just so happened that one of theirs was the first song we learned to play as a group. John came up with the name, and it sort of stuck.”
“Are you any good?”
A platter of starters arrived then with soup, and we took a few minutes to rearrange things on the table to make room for it all.
“We’ve got a gig the weekend after next,” Chris said, looking up at me from under his pretty blond eyelashes. “You should come.”
“I’d like that,” I said.
Conversation with Chris felt smooth and natural as we talked about the area and the various things there were for a newcomer to explore, weighing these against the naturally beautiful sights of touring this part of the world and the cities along the East Coast that we’d both visited. Every little thing he told me about himself I savoured, piecing the nuggets of information together to start to build a more three-dimensional picture of this wonderfully contradictory man.
“Tell me about your family,” I said after our starters had been cleared and the main course was served.
“I’m the middle child of five,” he said with a wry grin. “Two older brothers and two younger sisters.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah. And my youngest sister is only nine. My mom and dad had a surprise when Molly was born ’cause I was twelve at the time. Then they had Brianna two years later.”
“They know you’re gay?”
He raised an eyebrow at me and grinned in what I was starting to learn was an often repeated gesture. “My mother likes to tell the story of how I told her at eight years old that I was going to marry a boy, because girls were ‘gross’. It was probably a bit young to be coming out of the closet, and neither of us mentioned it again, but since I was eight, it’s sort of just been understood in my household that I’m not straight.”
“That’s amazing,” I said softly.
“Are your folks not cool?”
“Not really.”
“That sucks,” he said sympathetically. “Come on, I’ve given you the lowdown on my family. Spill.”
“Well,” I said, and took a mouthful of really good fried rice. “I have one sister. Her name is Jillian, but we call her Jilly. She’s two years younger than me.”
“Married?”
“No, she says she doesn’t have time for a boyfriend. She works in advertising. My parents moved us over here when I was sixteen; my father was working for an international shipping company in Edinburgh, and they have offices here too. My mother never worked.”
I fiddled with a napkin on the table as Chris cocked his head to one side, clearly interested in my story.
“My mother, ah, she’s a complicated woman. They don’t really accept me.”
He shrugged. “So fuck ’em,” he said. “My band are my family. Even though my folks are okay with who I am, if I was their only son, things would probably be different. The fact that both my older brothers are married and having kids means they can afford to have one son who breaks the mould.”
If only it were that easy. I didn’t want to push him though, not when his attitude was exactly what I’d been trying to adopt for years. Chris was right. He didn’t need me and my negativity pulling him down.
“So, tell me about your favourite bands,” I said, hoping to turn the conversation away from the melancholy.
“Oh, man. Where to start.” Chris plucked a piece of chicken from his plate with his chopsticks and made a truly sinful noise as he ate it. “I like classic rock. And 90’s rock—you know, Foo Fighters, the Chili Peppers, Rage Against The Machine, Queens of the Stone Age, Smashing Pumpkins….”
“Nirvana?” I suggested, thinking back to my impression of him when we met for coffee.
“Of course,” he said with a laugh. “I like modern stuff too. Do you know Ares? They’re British.”
“No,” I said honestly.
“I’ll send you some links,” he promised with a sincerity I appreciated. “It usually surprises people when I say I like classical music too.”
“Why?”
He shrugged. “I don’t look like a classical music fan.”
“That’s bollocks,” I told him with great sincerity. “Classism has no place in music.”
Chris nodded slowly and pushed his empty plate away. “I agree.”
When Chris excused himself from the bathroom, I paid the check without his knowledge so he wouldn’t try and split it with me. I didn’t have any problems with equality. In fact, I couldn’t imagine a relationship working without it. But I held the belief that since I had been the one to invite him to dinner, I should be the one to pay.
The table was cleared by the time he returned, and I had his jacket brought over for him.
“Thanks,” he said in a soft voice as he shrugged it on.
I led him from the restaurant and turned to him in the cool night air, struggling for the words to keep this going for just a little bit longer.
But Chris spoke first. “I had a really nice time tonight.”
I had to stop him somehow, so I blurted out the first thing that came to mind.
“Would you like to come back?” I asked, desperately nervous. “To see my place?”
He smiled, warm and easy. “Of course. I’ll follow you, since I’ve got the bike with me.”
I nodded and chewed my bottom lip. “Okay.”
“Hey. Rob.” I met his eyes and watched as he reached up and used his thumb to tug my bottom lip from between my teeth. “If you’re not okay with this, then it doesn’t matter, I promise. I can come back another time.”
“No, no,” I said. “I want you to.”
I tried to drive slowly, to give him a chance to follow me but not so slowly that he thought I was a total loser. It was a difficult balance to try and maintain. I watched him parked up under the glow of a streetlamp, and admired his self-awareness.
On a completely impulsive move, I reached for his hand as we silently walked up to my apartment block. Chris didn’t say anything, just slid his warm, dry palm against mine and curled his fingers to fit in between my own.
I lived on the second floor of the building and had developed a habit of taking the stairs, only because the elevator so often smelled of stale sweat a
nd spilled milk for reasons I could never quite fathom. Chris let me take the lead, and I got the impression he was checking out my arse, not that I was bothered by that. Not at all.
“Here,” I said, holding the door for him as he entered the flat. I moved quickly to flick on the lamps in the main room that the front door opened on to, preferring their soft light rather than the harsh, industrial feel of the overhead light.
“Nice place,” Chris said as he shrugged out of his jacket. It sounded like he really meant it, he wasn’t just trying to be polite.
I’d been living in the flat in the Roxbury neighbourhood of Boston for a few years now. It had been an ideal place when I’d first purchased it; near enough to Boston University, where I’d just accepted a teaching position, and a friendly enough sort of area.
Flea jumped down from where he’d been hiding on top of a bookcase, purring loudly and winding his way around my feet.
“You want feeding, hmm?” I said to the cat as Chris bent down to scratch under his chin.
“What’s his name?”
I grinned. “Flea.”
He cocked an eyebrow at me. “Seriously?”
“Yeah. From the Chilis.”
Chris laughed. “That’s actually awesome.”
“Thanks,” I said, walking through to the kitchen. Predictably, Flea followed me, still meowing. Chris followed too.
“Does he mind that you live on the second floor?”
“Nah,” I said and dumped cat biscuits and water in his tray and left him to it. “He gets in and out through the kitchen window. I couldn’t keep him in if I tried. Luckily for me he isn’t much of a mouser.”
When I turned back from the cupboard, Chris was so close I almost startled. Almost. He had what was becoming a familiar smirk on his face as he took another step closer and, with a hand on the counter either side of my body, effectively trapped me in my own kitchen.
Our height difference was only a couple of inches, if that. Nevertheless, I liked the way he tilted his head up to me as he ran his nose along the edge of my jaw.
“I want to kiss you,” he said in a soft voice that belied the straining tension elsewhere in his body. In his arms! His arms were all tense from pressing against the counter and… oh fuck.
I nodded, and Chris closed the short distance and pressed his lips to mine. I was expecting him to be rough, to demand and then take, but he was whisper light as his soft lips skimmed over mine, then caught my bottom lip between them.
I was sure he could feel my racing heartbeat as I kissed him back, wrapping my arms around his waist to keep him pressed close to me. Tentative tongues flicked out to taste the other, and I could feel Chris smiling, not mocking me but just enjoying this slow, easy kissing.
It was totally unlike me, but Chris was totally unlike me in general so I figured I should just go with my instincts, so I insinuated my hands under the edge of his untucked shirt to skim over the hot, smooth skin of his lower back. At this, one of his hands left the counter and curled around the back of my head, threading through my hair and angling our kisses so he could reach deeper.
Chris hummed and ran his hand down my body, blatantly cupping my arse, but I didn’t mind. He rocked his hips against my own, and I didn’t mind that, either. Never before had there been that spark with someone, cliché as it sounds, but he ignited something in me, made me feel something that I hadn’t been sure I was capable of feeling.
When he moved and placed wet, gentle kisses on my neck, I may have whimpered. When his hand went to the buckle of my belt, I hesitated for the first time since he’d started kissing me.
“Let me,” he whispered.
It was fairly terrifying to let him slide leather through metal and metal through denim, over and over until my jeans were open and his hand, warmer than I was expecting, slid into my boxers.
My fingers curled around the edge of the unit behind me as he took a firm grip on my cock and stroked it with firm, even strokes.
“You’re not circumcised,” he said as he ran the pad of his thumb over the head of my cock.
“No,” I croaked. Then again, “No. It’s, ah… it wasn’t that common in Britain in the seventies. Still isn’t, as far as I know. Do you mind?”
It was fairly impossible for me to hold an actual conversation while he did that, and I was appropriately proud of the achievement.
“Not at all,” he said. “I’ll take a closer look later.”
His lips and tongue and teeth attacked my neck and throat as he worked me, teasing me, torturing me with softness and hardness combined, lust and power and submission. I wanted him. I needed him.
Then his fingers pushed deeper into my boxers to gently graze against my scrotum.
“Don’t,” I said, my hand shooting out to grab his forearm.
I wasn’t ready to explain, and my expression must have conveyed that to him. Chris took my hand off the arm that was still half buried in my underwear and placed it on his own back, took a better hold of my cock, and put his lips on mine.
My fingertips stroked the back of his neck as our kisses grew sweeter. He was still pushing me toward orgasm, there could be little doubt about that, but there seemed to be a different reason for it now.
When I grunted the word “Close,” he seemed to understand, and the movements of his hand increased until I was crying out, spilling over his hands and into my own underwear. Chris was hard too, I could feel it against my thigh, but he moved back and shook his head when I reached for him.
“Next time,” he said softly, bringing our lips together again.
In the ensuing silence between us, little sounds started to make themselves known: the cat scratching at his post, the television from the apartment above mine, the clanking of water in ancient pipes.
“I don’t think I’ve come in my pants for years,” I mumbled against his neck.
He laughed—a soft, throaty sound. “It’s a very underrated activity, coming in your own underwear.”
And when he looked up at me, my heart dropped to my stomach.
Oh, no. Oh dear.
“Do you get a day off during the week?” Chris asked as I ran my fingers through his hair.
I shook my head. “If I don’t have lectures, then I hold seminars and a creative writing group too. And I have quite a heavy teaching schedule.”
“How come?”
“Because I’m good?” I said with a smile and a shrug. “I teach because I love it,” I said, and he turned his head to kiss the side of my neck. “I didn’t want to work in a high school where half of the kids don’t want to be there. All of my students chose my courses, and I love mentoring them.”
“I bet you’re a great teacher.”
“I finish early on a Friday, though,” I said, dismissing his compliment. “If you want to come over, I’ll cook dinner.”
“I’d like that.”
I was aware that it was late, that he wasn’t going to stay the night, and that making plans to see each other again in less than a week was probably his cue to leave. I didn’t want him to, though. There was a moment when I thought about asking him, but it seemed inappropriate somehow.
“Can I text you?” he asked as I showed him back through to the hallway.
“Yeah,” I said. “I’ll have to remember to put it on silent during my classes now, though.”
He laughed and reached for the door. “I had a really good time tonight,” he said and reached for my hand. I let him tug me close and kiss me gently. Then, while my eyes were still closed, he let go. I heard the front door click shut, then a few minutes later the roar of his motorbike.
Realising I wanted to watch him leave, I dashed over to the window just in time to see him pull away.
Never before had I been this close to having something with someone. Chris was so different to me, in every possible way. And despite the handful of relationships I’d had before, Chris was different from all of them too.
And all the more perfect for it.
; “There’s not a lot to tell, so far,” I said to Marley, lying my pants off and hoping that the distance the telephone call was creating was enough for her not to be able to tell.
I selected a butternut squash and added it to my cart.
“I don’t believe you,” she said frankly. “Have you had sex yet?”
