Role Play

by Alison Hendricks

  "Shit, sorry. I wasn't thinking..." I said, moving to the other side of the couch.

  Thinking even that might not be enough, I stood, trying to discreetly adjust myself as I did so.

  "Neither was I," he admitted, panting. "That can't happen again. Not here."

  "Agreed." Once the lust began to clear from my mind, I took sharper notice of what he'd said. "...Just here? As in, it can happen someplace else?"

  He looked at me, and for a moment I thought he was going to turn me down completely.

  Then he said, "That feels inevitable, don't you think?"

  A tingle moved through my whole body and I had to will myself to think of any and everything else so my dick didn't start making its presence known again. It should have been a warning flag. I'd never been this excited about the chance at a repeat performance. I rarely even did repeat performances.

  For the chance to get my hands on Elliot again... fuck, I would've broken all my rules a thousand times over.

  I opened my mouth to say something when a familiar voice came from outside the door.

  "Uncle Reuben, can we go home? I want to import this map so I can take a closer look at it."

  "Yeah, bud, of course," I managed, somehow not sounding like a complete idiot. "Give me just a sec."

  Turning my attention back to Elliot, I made an effort to avoid glancing at his lips which were already a little red and plump from that frantic make out session.

  "So uh... I guess we'll see you Friday. And I'll see you some time outside of that."

  "Yeah," he croaked. "Sounds good. Nice to um... nice to meet you, Reuben."

  "Likewise."

  Then, like I was just walking out of any other business meeting, I turned and headed for the door, adjusting myself one last time to make sure I wasn't obvious.

  I could already tell this was going to be a hell of a balancing act.

  13

  Elliot

  If I'd been asked what I thought Reuben might be like after spending one night with him, I definitely wouldn't have described the man who showed up at Horizon that next Friday.

  It's not that I thought he wasn't capable of being patient and caring, of trying his best to understand his nephew's interests even if it was clear he didn't. I just hadn't seen that side of him. All I saw was a take-charge guy who'd made me feel like I was the sexiest person on the planet. Which... maybe there were some similarities. I'd felt valued with Reuben; validated as someone who actually mattered as a man instead of just some frumpy teacher.

  Watching him with David, I got the impression he was used to making people feel like they mattered without singling them out. He didn't coddle the teen. Whether he'd done so in the past, he'd learned by now that David needed space and he'd let Reuben know when that changed.

  "It's nice to see a guardian who respects boundaries," I told him after the session.

  David had been reluctant to play, and Reuben hadn't pushed him. I had to rein in the other kids who were being a little pushy in encouraging him. He did share a character he'd created for the campaign, though, and we all brainstormed a way that character could join the group next time.

  "That sounds like the lowest possible bar to clear," Reuben said with a sharp laugh.

  My lips curved, a spark of sadness marking the expression. "You'd be surprised how many people can't even manage to trip over it."

  "Eh, maybe not. It took time for Ruth and I to quash that instinct to try and shelter him."

  "Is Ruth his mother?" I asked.

  "Oh, no. Different sister. Both of David's parents were killed in a car accident when he was four. I don't think they even understood at the time that he was on the spectrum. He wasn't diagnosed until after he'd started school."

  "I'm sorry to hear that," I said, my brow furrowing. "So you're his legal guardian now?"

  "Ah, well. My sister is, technically. I was still completing my degree when the courts decided. She had the more stable home environment at the time and the more stable income. But the legalities have never been a thing outside of official paperwork and school pickups and whatnot. Ruth and I... I guess co-parent is the best term for it."

  His demeanor changed somewhat as he described the situation. I could tell the question had put him on edge and there was more there he wasn't saying. I decided not to pry. Sleeping with the guy once definitely didn't give me free license to ferret out every secret he kept close to his heart.

  It wasn't like he knew everything about me, either. In fact, I think he knew even less about me than I knew about him, because his concept of me was based on the role I'd played when we were together. A role he probably thought was my true self; the person I let myself be when I wasn't tied down by the need for professionalism.

  Oh, if he only knew.

  The more we talked, though, the more I realized he should know. Especially as the conversation veered dangerously close to planning something outside of these D&D sessions. If we hooked up again, I knew I wasn't going to feel comfortable pretending to be something I wasn't. It'd been fun to escape into a totally different personality, but it wasn't sustainable.

  My heart thudded in my chest as I grappled with telling him. What if he hated me? What if this colored his entire perception of me and he rightfully thought I was as deceptive in everything else as I had been with that? It wasn't true, yet I couldn't expect him to know that.

  What's the alternative? Keep gradually acting like more of a milquetoast square in bed until he eventually catches on?

  No. It was better to just rip the bandage off right away. If we were going to see each other regularly, I needed to come clean.

  "So, uh... I'll probably have some time this weekend, and Ruth has David both days..." Reuben started, the implication obvious.

  Now was the perfect time.

  "Why don't I... walk you guys out to your car and we'll talk more about it."

  I let the director know I was just going to be a minute and accompanied Reuben and his nephew on the short walk to the parking lot. I talked with David about the session, right up until the point where he got into the back of the van, buckled in, and turned on the TV in the back.

  "I'm just going to talk about a few things with Mr. Harris, alright? I'll be right over here if you need me."

  Reuben shut the door, but wisely walked a fair distance away from the vehicle.

  "Good call," he said with an almost shy grin. "Probably not the best idea to plan a hookup in there."

  "No, definitely not. But, ah... there's something you should know. About me, I mean."

  His brows lifted, and he took a step back from me. It was the most obvious manifestation of wariness I could imagine, and my stomach immediately sank. My mind started to backpedal fiercely, urging me to just let go of this crazy need for transparency.

  I tamped that knee-jerk response down and instead said, "Um... so this is probably going to sound weird, but when I first joined Grindr, I had no idea what I was doing. I didn't know how to talk to guys or how to do the whole... hookup thing. So, I got some advice on how I should act."

  "...Advice? What kind of advice? From who?"

  "Well, my friend Keith, at first. But honestly no one with any sense should follow his advice, so..." I was rambling. And not looking him in the eye. I cleared my throat and tried again. "It was this service I found. Dear Lonely Guy? I don't know if you've heard of it..."

  He shook his head, still watching me as if he were keeping his eye on a snake that was about to lunge at him.

  "It's this guy... or maybe multiple guys, I'm not sure..." Dammit, Elliot, get it together! "He gives advice. For dating, sex, those sorts of things."

  "And what advice did he give you?"

  "To pick a role and play it up. Just find something I could be comfortable with and push that to the extreme. So I did, and... that was the result." I reached up and rubbed at my jaw. "I wasn't intending to deceive you--"

  "But you did."

  The steel in his voice gave me pause. I fel
t something shrink inside of me, my stomach plummeting even further. "Yeah. I did. I understand if that changes things. I mean, I'm sure it does..."

  "I know this is bullshit after-school special talk, but you don't need to take advice from some random guy. Just... be yourself. Whatever that is."

  I laughed at that, my eyes turning up toward the sky for a moment before I looked at him once more. "'Myself' is an anxious thirty-something who has no idea how to have a casual relationship because he's never been in one before."

  "Yeah, well." He shrugged a little. "From what I've seen of that guy, he's cute. So be that."

  As soon as he said it, he started to walk toward the van, hands in his pockets. Completely casual, as if he hadn't just sent the world spinning about me.

  "Wait, so does that mean...?"

  "I'll send you a text later with the info," he said, his lips curving in an almost devious smirk that made that single dimple pop.

  All I could do was stand there as he got into the car, closed the door, and drove away.

  14

  Reuben

  Leaving that Friday, I wasn't sure how I felt about that revelation. It wasn't a huge deal. He'd been nervous so he looked for outside help. I would never have really known if I hadn't seen him again, and neither he nor I planned on that happening. It would've been a bigger deal if we were starting a relationship and he'd pretended to be something he wasn't, but the most this would ever be was casual sex.

  Still, something about it made me think of the kind of shit my ex used to pull. He was always good at being a chameleon. His thoughts, his opinions, his beliefs were malleable, based on whoever he was with at the time. When it was no longer useful for him to agree with me on basic human decency, he suddenly believed something else. I had no idea if even that was who he really was. I think he just decided to mold himself to fit the guy he ended up cheating on me with.

  My gut told me Elliot wasn't like that, but my gut had been wrong before. My cock probably had more say in the matter, because it reminded me that we weren't trying to build a future with the guy. If he wasn't going to take bad advice again, what did it matter?

  That sentiment won out, but just as I was about to text him Saturday night, Ruth gave me a call. She'd taken David not an hour earlier, and the three of them had headed to Gators Dockside to eat on the terrace the way David liked.

  When I saw heard her custom ringtone, my stomach clenched. Had something happened? I didn't want to think of my sister getting him into two shitty situations in the same month, but if she had, I was ready to come out swinging.

  "Hey," I said warily, my jaw clenched. "Everything okay?"

  "What? Oh, God. You thought... no, everything's fine, Reu. I just wanted to sort out what we're going to do for David's birthday."

  "And... we have to sort that out right now? You couldn't text me later?"

  She scoffed at that. "You know I'll forget, and then it'll be this whole thing and you'll tell me I didn't give you enough time to prepare."

  I wasn't sure how that was my fault, but I wasn't going to fight with her.

  "Well, I've got something planned. With... the whole Horizon thing. We can do dinner after if you guys want to come over. Just make sure Marcus doesn't invite anybody this time, okay?"

  "That was one mistake years ago, Reuben!"

  I waved this off, even if she couldn't see me. "Look, I don't have all the details yet. Once I do, I'll text you."

  That mollified her at least enough to keep her from prodding me any further. After a brief exchange, we hung up and she immediately texted me a reminder. I rolled my eyes, but the truth was I'd... made it up on the spot.

  It wasn't that I'd forgotten. David just didn't like celebrations, especially not for his own birthday. He didn't understand the logic of it, and I couldn’t blame him. It wasn't like you suddenly aged a year on your birthday. It was just an arbitrary marker that definitely didn't require a whole thing.

  My sister wasn't in the same camp as us. She'd backed down from trying to "scale" a birthday party so David could tolerate it, though it'd taken her years to acknowledge that him "tolerating" something wasn't a win for anybody. She still wanted to do something, though, and she fought for it every year.

  For his part, David seemed to understand it was important to her, and she hadn't crossed a line in a while. Even so, I always tried to temper her plans with some low-key ones of my own.

  Unfortunately, I hadn't made plans yet. Horizon had been the first thing to come to mind, and while I could have waited -- his birthday wasn't for a few months, because my sister was insane in her need to prepare -- I had a thought I didn't think could wait.

  So I texted Elliot.

  Reuben: So I know this probably isn't the proposition you were expecting, but how hard do you think it would be to teach me how to run a game of D&D?

  I watched the little dots animate over and over as he prepared a response.

  Elliot: Anywhere from a few days to a few months, probably. It depends on the kind of game you want to run and how quickly you pick up the fundamentals. Why?

  I told him about David's birthday and the fact that I'd tried to learn before calling Horizon but had failed miserably.

  Elliot: It'll take some work, and I don't think there's enough time after sessions.

  Elliot: We should probably meet up throughout the week.

  Elliot: I know that sounds like a proposition but it isn't one. I mean not for anything more than me teaching you how to DM.

  Elliot: Unless you want it to be more, that is.

  I shook my head, unable to keep from smiling.

  Reuben: It's a little late tonight. How's tomorrow at 5 sound? I'll order a pizza.

  Elliot: Yeah, tomorrow sounds perfect. I'll bring everything you'll need.

  Everything I needed turned out to be an armful of heavy, hardcover source books, a bag filled to the brim with dice of every shape and size, a blank notebook, and a package of Post-It notes.

  "Shit, do you lug this stuff with you every time you want to play?" I asked, taking some of the books from him and moving to set them on the kitchen table.

  "Only a couple if I feel they'll be relevant. And that's mostly just to look things up."

  "Don't they have these in digital now?"

  He openly scoffed at that, and I laughed.

  "Don't tell me. You're a purist, right?" A grin tugged at my lips and when he realized I was just messing with him, he returned it.

  "I wouldn't call myself a purist; it's just easier for my brain to process physical pages. Or maybe I'm just one of those guys who likes the feeling of a beat-up book that smells like Mountain Dew and Cheeto dust."

  I snorted at that but couldn't resist the urge to lift one of the books and sniff it. It didn't smell like either of those things, which was probably for the best.

  "I figured the kitchen table would be the best place for this," I said, gesturing.

  He set his own books down atop it and nodded. "We'll need some space, yeah. If you want to order the pizza, things will probably get pretty intense here."

  I stared at him, wondering if he was intentionally saying things that could be taken another way. I definitely wouldn't mind things getting "intense." As much as I wanted the help, seeing him again and catching the scent of his citrus soap made me remember just how long that smell had clung to me after our night together. It was bad enough that I half-expected to pop a boner every time I caught the scent of lemons or oranges in the produce section.

  Elliot was oblivious to any double entendre, a fact that had its own merits. This was who he was: the nerdy guy currently organizing Dungeons & Dragons books by some arbitrary system I couldn't begin to understand.

  We ordered from a supreme pizza from Five Star. It was far from the best pie in town, but it was the cheapest, and we both had a certain nostalgia for it. We spent a good ten minutes reminiscing about dorm life, living on shitty pizza, shitty beer, and the occasional splurge for something in the rec cente
r.

  It was how I found out Elliot actually was a teacher, though not math like I'd assumed. He taught English at the high school level and spoke passionately about how the 10th grade writing aptitude test made students absolutely hate writing of any kind.

  I found myself enraptured by him. He talked with his hands, transforming from this somewhat reserved, shy man to a force that could rival any hurricane. His students must have seen this kind of passion on a daily basis, and I couldn't help thinking again that if I'd had a teacher like him, I might have paid a little more attention in high school.

  Though for a different reason this time.

  Of course, the less-than-pure thoughts didn't exactly leave. Seeing that fire in his eyes made me remember the way they'd darkened with desire. He might have been acting in some ways, but that passion was in there somewhere, and I couldn't help wanting to bring it out.

  "You're sexy when you're ranting about the sorry state of public education," I said.

  I played it off like I was half-joking, but it was the truth.

  "Oh, yeah," he said, rolling his eyes. "That's the whole source of my sex appeal. Stick around and you might even hear me rant about standardized testing in general. Then things will really heat up."

  Rather than tell him I'd be more than okay with that, I leaned forward and claimed his mouth with mine. He let out a muffled sound of surprise but quickly relaxed into it, setting down the slice of pizza he'd been about to eat.

  Reaching down, I gripped the edges of his chair and tugged him toward me, then thoroughly started to explore his mouth. He tasted of green peppers, olives, and oregano, and I knew I must, too. There was something beyond that, though, as my tongue swept into his mouth, stroking his. Something that was unique to him and sharply reminded me of the night we'd spent together.