DOUBLETAKE
m/m, NC17

When I asked for another beer, the barman frowned, though he still served me. Maybe he was worried about the small treasure trove of bottle caps on the counter in front of me, a record of the time I’d spent here so far. But after all, that was my problem, not his. I’d lost track of the time I’d been sitting on my stool at the bar, but that didn’t really matter in a place like this, did it? Away from the bar, the lights were deliberately dim; the jukebox compensated for any poor quality music with excess volume; the patrons passed through noisily and carelessly, arriving either in couples or as ever hopeful singles. There weren’t many who left alone – and there were plenty who left as a different couple, too. It was that kind of bar.

When the man slid on to the stool beside me, I stifled a groan. I don’t think I’m any more or less rude than the next guy, and maybe I was asking for this kind of trouble, sitting here on my own. But I’d drunk too much by now for tonight to be conducive to either picking up, or being picked up. And I had no inclination for chatting with the proverbial loony on the bus, if you know what I mean. I twisted my stool around, turning my shoulders away, showing I didn’t want to connect with him at all. Sometimes the body language works.

Sometimes not.

“You could do without being hit on, right?” His voice was husky and threaded through with amusement. There was a slight American accent, though nothing jarring. Despite myself, I found the sound attractive. “Yeah, I know how that can be,” he continued. “But then, let’s be honest, this isn’t the place to be if you want a quiet night in on your lonesome, is it?”

I felt the first prickle of annoyance: I wasn’t aware my honesty was in question. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see his boots balanced on the base of the stool, his legs snug in tight black jeans, his knees nudging against the front panelling of the bar. Looked like he was settled here for the duration. I grit my teeth and tightened my hand around the beer bottle. A bead of condensation trickled down over the edge of my thumb.

He sighed. The bar towel underneath my bottle tugged gently: he was resting a hand on the other end of it. “OK,” he murmured. “So it’s the silent, piss off, treatment. The, let’s pretend I’m not interested, treatment. The, I’m just sitting in the only bar in town with notoriously relaxed licensing hours and an anonymous and often unruly clientele because I thought it’d be the best place to contemplate in solitude the meaning of life, the universe and everything, treatment. Right?”

The alcohol must have loosened up my inhibitions too much. I wanted to smile.

“And maybe I’m not hitting on you,” he muttered. His tone was suddenly sharper. “Maybe we’ve already met.”

Startled, I twisted back around. His face was only a foot or so away from mine, and his eyes were fixed fiercely on me, like he’d been waiting ever since he arrived for me to look at him. The shine from the cheap neon lights behind the bar flickered across his pale irises. He was good-looking - slim and blond, and I suspected he’d be taller than average when he stood up. His arm was stretched out over the counter: its bare flesh was white in contrast to the dark, tight tee shirt he wore over his jeans. He looked like he’d be pale in sunlight, not just in this sickly, Saturday-night, pseudo-disco shine. But the grin on his face was healthy enough.

I peered at him more closely. “And you are…?”

“Shit,” he said, slowly. He raised an eyebrow, a little theatrically. “Cancel the autograph session. I’m obviously less than memorable.”

I frowned. “I’m not here to play games…”

His eyes narrowed. “Unlike last time?” His gaze flickered to the bottle caps in front of me, then back up to my face again. “You remember, the last time you came in here, looking to get drunk? The night you came in, no jacket, soaked through to the skin from the rain, stripped off your wet shirt in the gents’ room and tried to wring it out over the sink? The night you protested loudly that of course you were fucking OK, and you didn’t want any fucking company harassing you, but then you were pretty damned eager when-”

“Stop!” I held up a hand: my throat felt suddenly tight. Shit. “That was -?”

“Me? Yeah.” He was frowning, too. His hair had looked short but now I saw it was caught at the nape of his neck in a short ponytail. That might have given me the final clue, but then so should the wide, pale eyes; the fair skin; the generous mouth…

I drew a deep breath. Then another. “Look…I’ve had a few too many tonight, I’m not very alert. I’m sorry.”

“For what?” he asked. His expression had softened. “For the few too many? For wishing I’d piss off? For not recognising a guy who helped you dry off your clothes then dropped to his knees and sucked you off – rather enthusiastically, though I say so myself – in that very same gents’ room?”

The shame was indisputable: it swamped me. At the same time, so did the nausea that comes with common or garden embarrassment. I glanced around quickly, but it didn’t look like anyone was listening in. “Christ. You don’t mince your words, do you? I just meant -”

Then his hand landed firmly on top of mine, halting my stuttering speech, cutting off whatever it was I was trying to say. “Forget it.” He smiled, almost as if to himself. “Ignore me. You don’t have to say a damned thing.” He glanced away from me, lifting the hand to wave for the barman’s attention. “Let me get you another drink.”

“After I just said I’d had too many?” I sounded sharp, even to myself.

He laughed. “Sure, I know. But from what I remember of your performance last time, I’m assuming you can hold your drink well enough – despite the occasional memory lapses.” The beers arrived, though no money changed hands. I took another surreptitious look at him as he grinned over at the staff. He knew the place, and it knew him.

We both took a drink and put the bottles back down on the counter. I was being deliberately awkward, I know, but I didn’t know what the hell to say to him.

“You make a habit of it?” His voice broke into my disturbed thoughts. “The having too many beers?” He was smiling again, though he looked quizzical.

“That’s none of your business,” I said.

He shrugged his broad shoulders, the dark tee shirt stretching over the muscles of his back. There was an easy grace to all of his movements: I wondered if he were an athlete. “Sure.”

I bit my lip. “God… sorry, again. That was bloody rude. I made it your business last time, right?” I stared back down at the fresh bottle as if it held my answers. I’d realised at an early stage of the evening that was never going to be the case, but for some masochistic reason I kept trying. “I think I probably do, nowadays,” I said. Kept my voice quiet, though. “Same old story. A guy. You know.” I was pretty sure the man beside me did, but he also kept quiet, encouraging me to ramble on. “It’s not the same as it used to be. We’re not the same. I have a drink or two to… let off steam. To think things over: calm myself down. We argue a lot. Stupid things like that. Just the usual.” It was my turn to shrug.

He was laughing again, though very softly. “Judging by the state of you last time, I’d say that was a hell of an understatement. You don’t talk much about it, do you? About your life; about yourself.”

I shook my head, like I was trying to dislodge his low, throaty voice from my ears. “Of course I do, when it’s called for. With friends.”

His body tensed up beside me. “Ouch. Point taken.”

I looked back up at him, ready to apologise again, but he was also shaking his head. His smile was rueful, but it was still a smile.

“No problem. I asked for that. I don’t bother thinking first - just say what comes to mind. It pisses plenty of people off: confuses a whole bunch more.” He held out a hand to me. “The name’s Dex. I think we ought to be introduced formally.”

I stared at his hand. Shit, again. “You mean I didn’t ask…?”

He grinned, but his tone sharpened again. “Guess it wasn’t the right time, just then. But I think a guy who’s fucked my mouth owes me a name, right?”

“Right,” I said, weakly. The shame wasn’t going anywhere else, soon. I shook his hand: despite the sweaty heat of the bar, his palm was cool and smooth. “I’m Marcus. Marc.”

“That’s Marc to your friends, right?” he asked. He made a slight tutting sound. “I’m not asking for that, Marcus. Just something civil. Tonight you look OK, but that last night, you were …” His gaze was very intense. “What was it about that night in particular?”

I glanced away again. I stared down at my drink, knowing my face was hot. “It was… I was… beside myself.” He was right, of course – I did usually find it difficult to talk about myself, for all kinds of reasons, in all sorts of situations. Maybe tonight was different because of the drink. Maybe Dex had surprised me into it, somehow. “Allan. My… boyfriend. Friend; mate. Whatever he wants me to call him. He told me he was going out alone: that he’d be seeing someone else. Staying over at theirs. Seemed to think this was quite acceptable.”

Dex shifted beside me. “Some people have an open relationship like that.”

I grunted, angrily. “Yeah, if they both buy into it. I’m not…” My words tailed off. Too much information.

Dex cleared his throat, quietly. “He’s done it before.” His words were statement, not question.

I bit my lip and nodded, anyway. The bottle of beer continued to be the most fascinating sight my gaze had ever latched upon. “Plenty of times. But this time, it felt like one step too far – this time, I yelled back. Told him to fuck off if he felt so bad being around me, if he didn’t want to be thought of as a couple. Told him I was sick of his games and his arrogance, thinking he could come and go at whim and I’d still be there. Told him I could go out and find my own entertainment, he wasn’t the only one could play around…” My words tailed off.

There was a brief silence between us. In the background, there was a loud burst of synthetic music from the fruit machine, then the chug chug of coins spilling out. The babble of voices from the other customers in the bar was a blur in my head.

“Which you did,” Dex said, almost cheerfully. “Play around.”

I looked back up at him, startled. His voice had a cool lilt to it. He didn’t sound judgemental: it was actually quite comforting. “Yeah. Yeah, I did. Well, no, it wasn’t meant to be like that. At first I just wanted to get out of the flat and find somewhere I could be amongst other people, and drink, and…” The rather pathetic explanation went the way of my other, halting sentences. “I didn’t plan it through like that.”

Dex sighed. He shifted on his stool again, swinging slowly away from me, then back. His knee nudged against mine. “I’d say you were stoned before you even got here. You were soaking wet – you were loud.” Maybe he saw me wince, because he smiled that rueful smile again. “Pretty obvious you’d brought your bad mood out for the night. Mind you, I didn’t think you were going to be trouble, but when you staggered off into the gents’, dripping rain water all over the tiles, I thought you might need a hand.”

“I would have managed -” Even as I spoke, I could hear the aggression in my tone.

Dex raised that eyebrow again. Seemed I was getting to know his gestures way too swiftly. “Sure. You made that clear to me at the time. Tried to lock the door on me: kept pushing me away, shouting you wanted to be alone. Until you slipped on the wet floor and I caught you from falling on your arse and hurting yourself, and then suddenly you turned from Mr Angry into Mr Needy. Couldn’t keep your hands off me. I only just got you into a cubicle before anyone else came in.”

“Christ,” I groaned. “I don’t know what to say...”

Dex’s hand landed on my arm, gentle but firm. “Hey, don’t get me wrong. You didn’t bully me into anything – far from it. Maybe I was needy too, that night. You were cute: you tasted really good.” He started to laugh again, but bit it back. “The kissing did, as well.”

I shook my head, mortified. I stared at his hand, the long, slender fingers curled over the fabric of my shirt. “I don’t make a habit of it. The coming on to strangers thing…”

“The oral sex in the public toilet thing…” he murmured.

“Oh God, are you always so blunt?” My cry was heartfelt. “I feel bad enough about it already.”

Dex gasped. He twisted his stool around fully and his grip on me tightened. “Shit, it’s my turn to apologise, right?” His eyes were wide now, and shocked. “I forget how I sound – I joke for the sake of it, interfere for the hell of it. You were right to think I should piss off.” He lowered both feet to the floor and started to stand up.

“No. Wait.”

He stood there, looking down at me. I’d judged him right – he was quite tall, taller than I was. The broad shoulders tapered to a relatively slender waist, and long legs. He seemed to be breathing quite heavily, though it was difficult to see in the fractured lighting of the bar.

“We’re all adults here, right?” I tried to smile, though it came out a little lopsided. “I’m being coy, it’s stupid of me. Guys do this all the time - and especially here. It’s known for it – for being a pickup place.”

Dex nodded. He leant back against the seat of the stool. There was an odd expression on his face. “Sure. You’ve heard the rumours. They come here to link up – to find some fun. Boys and girls, in whatever combination they like. Everyone’s meant to feel relaxed here, so long as they’re honest with each other. So long as they don’t abuse the place, I don’t mind what they do.”

“You don’t mind?” I was puzzled. “You…?”

He watched my eyes widen as the penny dropped. “Yeah,” he said. “It’s my bar.” There was the twitch of a wry smile at the side of his mouth. “You think I should get some booths set up around the back of the food counter? Maybe I should hire out the garden shed by the hour. Put up cards in the phone boxes.”

“Shit,” I said, aloud this time. I wasn’t sure how my humiliation factor could get any higher. “I didn’t mean to imply… I didn’t know.”

“Obviously,” he said. He sounded calm enough, but his body seemed tense. “It’s OK, it’s not like you’re a regular. But I need to keep an eye on my clients, you know.”

“You should have thrown me out that night,” I said.

“No,” he said, quite sharply. “You were in trouble, not causing it. That’s all.”

“And you?” I snapped back, my embarrassment making me aggressive again. “You help all your clients out by blowing them?”

“Whoa,” he said. He leant in against me, his eyes looking darker. He put a hand to my chest, as if planning to restrain me. “You said it yourself – we’re all adults. Seems to me I’ve as much right to find you attractive at first meeting, as you have to grope me stupid. It was what we both wanted, wasn’t it?”

I stared back. “Yes. It was.” I breathed deeply again, trying to calm myself. I could smell a faint cologne on him: citrus and tart. “Did you have company with you, that night? I didn’t… did I upset anything for you?”

“You mean, what kind of relationships do I have?” He hadn’t moved his hand and it was leaving a warm imprint under my shirt. “No problem.”

“Do you have a boyfriend?” I didn’t know why I was persisting with this.

He laughed. He eased back down on to his stool, still touching me. One of his fingers started to trace a lazy pattern over my nipple area. “That’s a cute word. I don’t really have much time for boyfriends. Or maybe I just have a lot of them. Sometimes I see them, sometimes I don’t. No, you didn’t upset anything for me.” He was holding my gaze and his lips looked moist. “Not anything special.”

I sucked at my lip. “Dex, I have a confession.” His head tilted a little to the side, as if listening to me more carefully. His expression didn’t change, but the pupils of his eyes looked dilated. “It wasn’t a memory lapse,” I started. I coughed: began again. “I remember enough about that night, and I did recognise you. Maybe not when I first came in, but when you sat down – when you started talking to me. I didn’t know it was your bar – for all I knew, you’d just been passing through that night. I just hoped you’d back off if I…” I grimaced. “If I ignored you.”

He nodded. He didn’t look angry; didn’t look pissed off. “It’s a defence thing. If you don’t see me, I don’t see you. Perhaps I’d have been just as happy to forget it happened in the first place.”

I know I was gaping at him. He reached across a hand and tilted my jaw up. “Enough with the goldfish impression, Marcus. I told you, none of this is a problem to me. But I’ve got a confession, too – I wasn’t happy to forget it happened.”

“It was… good,” I said, slowly. I was very flushed. Memories of the flesh are very vivid – particularly with the partner in front of me, his hands touching me, gently but confidently.

Dex grinned. “See? Not so hard to say these things. Not here, anyway. I’m glad you came back here tonight. Not that I’m vain, you understand, but I’m flattered to hear you had a good time…”

My mobile vibrated gently in my pocket – I knew it was the tone for a text received. I frowned.

“What’s up?” said Dex.

“What time is it?” I countered.

He looked startled, but he replied easily enough. “Late. Or early. Depends on the context.” Then he seemed to catch on. “Ah. So tell me why you’re here again tonight, Marcus. For the drinks: for some more fun? Or just escaping again…” He sat back, abruptly, his fingers trailing away from my face. “The boyfriend’s still around, isn’t he?”

I shifted awkwardly on my seat. “These things aren’t black and white. I’m sure you know that.”

He didn’t answer directly. “He’s still playing around. He’s still jerking your chain.”

I was angry, quite suddenly, and I wasn’t sure it was entirely justified. I slipped off the stool, standing up. “It’s time for me to go. Thanks for the drink.”

Dex stared back at me. His eyes were dark again. “Thanks for the fuck,” he said, sharply. “It’ll be a cute memory, anyway.”

I stood there for a frozen second, with Dex sitting on the stool in front of me, his head on a level with my torso. Just like before, he only had to slide down my body to be back in the position that had brought me temporary relief that night – that had made my pulse race and the sweat spring up over my body, eager and fierce. My hands tangling in soft, blond hair; my breath hasty; strong, confident fingers digging into my hips, holding me in place.

Yes, I remembered it very well.

I turned to leave, but he was already standing as well, and moving away from me. “Congratulations, Marcus,” he said. He sounded bitter: the shadows from the back of the dimly-lit bar played across his face, hiding his full expression. “You managed the piss off routine better than you thought.”