DOUBLETAKE
Dex’s story
m/m, NC17

It was just too late, you know the feeling? Too late in terms of the hour, and too late in many other ways, too. For three nights in a row I'd kept the bar open until gone 2am, and the hard work was taking its toll. OK, so there was money being spent, but I'd also lost a couple of good barmen over the last few weeks, and I was being stretched way too thin, trying to keep up the service on my own, with occasional help from temporary staff. This Friday night was feeling like a night too far.

I had Paolo around, of course, but help wasn't a word you normally associated with Paolo. I sighed to myself. He stood in the doorway right now, watching me sweep up some broken glass on the front step. He was pouting. Hell, that was the only word to describe the way he looked - the hand on hip; the petulant frown. Did it so well, anyone would've known he was a frustrated actor, just waiting for that big break.

"Dex," he said. "Honey. It's so very, very late. Can't you leave that?"

I grit my teeth. "Paolo, honey, this has to be cleared up tonight, it's a hazard, and right outside the bar. Get yourself a drink or get off home." Either way suited me.

More pouting. "I was going to stay over. That's what you wanted, wasn't it?"

Despite my tiredness, I had to smile. Paolo always insisted on being such a victim of what he considered were other people's demands.

"I'm too tired," I said, bluntly, "if you're looking for a comfort fuck. The bed's not made - the boiler's playing up so it's cold showers upstairs for another 24 hours or so. And I still have to cash up."

I glanced at him in time to see his pert nose wrinkle up. Face of an angel: temperament of a toddler. The customers loved to hear his set, with his breathy voice caressing soft-rock numbers, accompanied by his plaintive acoustic guitar playing. And plenty of them had followed him to a bed or a couch - or just a reasonably supportive surface - because he was a good fuck, too. Uninhibited; indiscriminate; enthusiastic. The bar was a pick-up place for many customers, but that suited me fine so long as it was a happy, hassle-free arrangement. Paolo and I had slept together off and on, when he had no better offer, when we'd got on well for the evening, when the bar takings were good and we felt like celebrating, when... well, just when. But I had no need of any favours tonight.

He sighed. And again, running his hand back through fine, dark hair. It was a look I liked - but not that much. "I'll be around tomorrow then, for the eight o'clock set." He stretched gently, teasingly. "I'll have to find another haven for tonight. Maybe that guy you had working the weekends for you... the blond one..." He looked around, as if this hapless student might suddenly appear, coming back just so that I could fire his lazy arse again.

I grinned. "A music lover, was he?"

Paolo frowned. "Honey, please. He had two rooms and hot water, that's good enough for me. And he had time to fuck. Said to call him any time..."

I nodded, too weary to be insulted. My back hurt. Even ignoring Paolo's romantic needs, it had been stupid of me to sack the student temp before this weekend's delivery had arrived, with stock to be unloaded and the bar to be restocked. There were still a couple of extra pallets left in the back yard, waiting to be unpacked and the boxes stacked up in the cellar. I'd been worn out before the evening shift even started. I stood up and groaned at the sound of joints cracking. I felt like an old man, which I'd hoped was far from the truth. "Paolo..."

"No way," he said, swiftly. "Don't ask again. And I won't ask Blond Boy either. Your bar - your staff problems." He picked up the guitar case at his feet and walked carefully - and deliberately - around me and the broom. An airy wave of his hand back over his shoulder and he walked away.

The street was quiet and shadowy this time of night, as a couple of the street lamps weren't working. I'd turned off the neon sign over the door because the damned thing kept flickering on and off and it was driving me mad: it looked like the bar was starring in a cheap porn movie. The only other light came from occasional warm-window squares in the block of flats over the road. I stared at the flats and - not for the first time - wondered about the wisdom of living 'over the shop'. I was here at the bar 24-7: if there was work to be done, it ended up as mine, more times than not. I thrived on the noise and liveliness and the astonishing, outrageous, fast-moving clientele - but if I didn't, there wasn’t anywhere I could go to get away from it. I’d tried life as a teenage track star and fallen short of the grade: by then I’d left it way too late to go back to college without losing a lot of the freedom I’d grown so fond of. So I’d taken my grandfather’s money when he offered it, mortgaged myself to the bar for the rest of my natural life and then some, and happily mixed my work in with my social life. It hadn’t been a bad decision: just lonely sometimes.

I stared at the notice I'd put in the window, asking for staff. I never took it down, nowadays. This was a good part of town to attract the drinking customers, but a bad one to tempt staff to stay. Sighing, I crouched down to pick up a last shard of broken bottle. The street was damned quiet, too, since the last clubs had closed their doors, just the sound of the occasional laugh or call, and the patter of distant footsteps. I listened casually to the sound of boots on the pavement, some meandering, some striding - until suddenly one set of steps came to a halt behind me.

I didn't feel any of that prickling at the back of the neck that might have warned me of trouble: besides, I could usually look after myself. “Sorry, we’re closed,” I said, trying to sound more upbeat than I felt. I was used to people turning up at all hours and I didn’t like turning custom away, but hell, tonight I needed my bed – and some sleep. I started to straighten back upright again. “Move along now and come again tomorrow night, OK?”

“Sure.” The voice was low and a little startled. "I'll make a note in my diary, shall I?"

I whirled around because that voice was damned familiar.

We stared at each other for a moment, just two guys on the pavement in the small, quiet hours of the morning. He was on his own, wrapped up in his jacket with his hands in his pockets and his chin down under the collar, like he was on his way to a warm, comfortable home and not looking for any distraction. Well, he had been, until he'd almost fallen over me. He was a few inches shorter than me, with wavy dark hair that fell awkwardly over one side of his forehead. I imagined he spent a lot of time pushing it back. Cute gesture. He was dressed in smart trousers and shirt, as far as I could see, and with good shoes: I like a guy who takes care with what he wears on his feet.

"Shit." I grimaced. It’s you. "Me and my big mouth, right?"

He flushed bright red.

I groaned, realising what I’d said and how it could be taken as really, really crude. "No, that's not what I meant... hell, it's damned late, and it's not like I expected to see you around here again, and..." I stopped talking and shrugged. What the hell. "Shall I just dig myself in deeper, or will you at least say something in return?" Like, so we meet again, it must be fate? Or, shit, not you again, you some kind of stalker? Whatever…

He was still flushed. He stood there, still silent, gazing at me with bright, liquid brown eyes, a tear of moisture at the corners from the cold night air. I was surprised I remembered those eyes so well. Though maybe not such a surprise, if I were being honest with myself...

"Look," I said, sighing. "I was going to say no hard feelings, but maybe that'll be misconstrued as well, right? But then, I think I remember telling you what a careless bastard I am, I just say what comes into my head and damn the consequences. How about a drink to apologise?"

Well, what do you know, he was smiling back at me now, shaking his head ruefully. "It's my fault," he said, slowly. "Blushing like some kid at a double entendre." His gaze flickered down my body and up again - I don't think he knew I saw him do it. "Guess that answers the question as to whether you... remember me."

I grinned. "Marcus, right?" Remember him? God, but he was delicious when he smiled! He'd been in a dark, dismal mood when I'd seen him last and I'd wanted to change that. But then, he hadn't felt the same way. My tough luck, right? I wasn't one to dwell on it, after all, there were always plenty of other opportunities.

But those eyes...

"So.. the drink?" I leant on the broom and hoped I didn't look too sweaty and dishevelled. But then he frowned and I felt something inside me clench up with disappointment and annoyance. "Ah yes... the boyfriend. OK, so I guess you're not free to stop off and be corrupted by a promiscuous bar owner like me."

"Dex," he said, quite sharply. I was stupidly pleased he'd remembered my name, though not hearing it in that tone. "Twice - you've met me twice, that's all. So we had a drink; so you helped me out; so we shared something casually sexual. But that doesn't entitle you to pass judgement on my life."

Hell. "You know what?" I sighed. "It's past 2am and I'm fucking tired, and I think you got it right last time, ducking out on me. It's good to see you again but I really don't have time to waste on this." I nodded goodnight with as much pride as I could muster and turned to go back into the silent, empty bar.

That’s when it happened: a sudden, sharp creaking noise and the rushing whine of something heavy falling down past my back, and then the most god-awful crash on the pavement below. I whirled around at the same time as I leapt back and so did he. There was a shattered mess on the ground of glass and wires, and a strong smell of burned plastic. The neon sign had apparently winked its last.

“Shit,” I gasped. “I’m sorry… are you OK? Didn’t get cut or anything?”

He looked shocked, and was brushing off his jacket, but he didn’t seem to be injured. “I’m… fine. Shit.”

I nodded. Neither of us had the words for the shock of it, I guess.

“It was an accident waiting to happen,” he said, slowly. “It wasn’t fastened securely enough, you could see the loose brackets. And the wiring looks cheap and worn.” When I stared at him, he smiled, hesitantly. His pupils were still dilated. “Sorry. It’s… I fix up the interiors of clubs and offices. Can’t always shake off the work life.”

I smiled back. My heartbeat was slowing, gradually. “Hey, don’t apologise. I appreciate the advice. I never liked the damned thing, I inherited it with the building. Sorry you had to run the risk of being sliced to ribbons just to see what crap it actually was.””

“That drink?” He was still smiling, not so cautiously now.

I grinned back. “Yeah. Reckon we need it.”


*

We needed more than one: more like a half dozen. And I got out the good stuff for us. I have a high tolerance for alcohol and I reckoned Marcus did, too: at least, he took each fill-up happily enough, and he didn’t seem to have any problems with speech or motor skills. How did I know that for a fact, you ask? Because I watched his mouth as he spoke and his arse and legs as he wandered back and forth from the gents.

Sad bastard, eh?

I don’t know what it was about him, because I’d entertained plenty of young guys over the years with after hours drinking. I hoped I wasn’t fascinated by him purely because he’d slapped me down that time before. You know – wanting what you can’t have? But he didn’t seem the kind to play hard to get, and I didn’t think that just because I had got him, just that once. No, he had a reserve that was more than shyness, less than superiority. He just kept himself to himself.

My bad luck.

“Dex? What is it?” He pushed the hair back off his forehead and smiled at me, his full lips moist from some stray drops of the beer. Maybe the alcohol was having more of an effect than I hoped. Dammit, I thought, laughing at myself, what the fuck did I think I was playing at? Couldn’t I have a drink with a guy without thinking all the time about licking off those drops; about gripping his hips as I dropped to my knees; about taking him all the way into my mouth, the warm, smooth flesh crinkling against my teeth and the oozing tartness on my tongue…? I shook my head.

“You want to use the ‘phone?” I sounded a bit gruff but he didn’t seem to notice. “To call home, it’s late. Haven’t kept an eye on the time.” I couldn’t remember much of what he’d told me about his man: just about him playing away, treating Marcus as the bedroom doormat. But guys like that are often possessive, too, with that strangely warped logic that lets them do exactly what they like, but makes it some kind of capital crime if their partner does the same.

“No-one there to answer,” he shrugged. When I stared at him, he flushed again. “We’re not living together any more, Allan and I. He moved out. You accused me last time we met of not talking about myself much, and you’re damned right, it’s not usually anyone’s business except my own. But talking to you…” That smile, again. Those widening eyes. I gripped my drink so tightly my fingerprints made smears on the glass. “You make it easier,” he said, simply. He looked surprised, but not like it was a bad thing.

“You deserve that,” I said, swiftly. It was what I’d wanted to say since we came indoors, but I thought if I waited any longer for a better moment, I’d worry about startling him again. “To be able to share your thoughts: to say what you want.” I leant forward slightly so that our knees nudged as we sat at the bar. “To do what you want.”

The kiss seemed very natural, but I was pleasantly surprised when he didn’t pull away. His hand touched lightly at my elbow, but it wasn’t really a hold. He tasted of beer and nervousness: a good combination, in my opinion. My drink was a whisky, but the nerves were – surprisingly - the same.

“You say what you want, don’t you, Dex?” he murmured against my mouth.

I nodded. I caught his lower lip gently between my teeth and my tongue licked along its edge. I’d always been like that: part laziness, part arrogance, part honesty. “I want you,” I whispered. “Since I first saw you. Since you lurched into the bar, since you half stripped in my gents room, and swore at me to get the fuck away. Since you grabbed me back, since you pushed down on the top of my head and begged me to suck harder.”

He groaned, but softly. “You get what you want, too, I imagine.” He sounded sad. Damn, but I didn’t want the alcoholic courage to deteriorate to something more maudlin.

“No,” I admitted. “But I always try.” I slipped a hand around his waist and pulled myself closer to him, to get a better taste. I felt the whole of his torso shudder against me and I was aroused more quickly and fiercely than I had been for a long time. I’d never really rated nervousness as an aphrodisiac, but I’d have to revise that. My fingers pressed at the small of his back, feeling his muscles tighten all the way down from his shoulders. I pushed a knee between his, wishing away the damned bar stools but not knowing how to suggest we take it someplace more comfortable. It wasn’t an issue I usually had trouble with.

Then suddenly he pulled back a little, pushing himself with his foot away from the bar.

“What?” I was still a bit dazed from the kiss. I saw his hand go to his pocket. “Someone calling your cell?”

His hand stayed at his hip, his eyes widening again. Maybe he remembered how we’d been interrupted last time. Hell, I was ready to apologise for the way I’d been then, because I’d been damned rude about his private life, and after all, I had no fucking right to think he’d drop it all just for some fun with me, and to be fair, what the hell did either of us know about each other…

He’d pulled his cell out and was flipping it open. But then I watched him turn it off, close it, and push it back in his pocket. I stared. Must have looked a real fool. But he stared back at me with an unexpected look in his eyes: somewhere between mischief and desire, I’d have said. He leant forward and placed his hand carefully on my thigh: I think he was blushing again.

“What I want,” he said, gently, his smile broadening, “is for you to get what you want, too.”


*


I often woke in the night: it wasn’t my way to take more than a couple of hours sleep at a time. Sometimes I slept more when I had a lover beside me. I stirred now and glanced over at the clock with bleary eyes: it was still a while before I had to get up for deliveries, but time I should be getting up and dressed. I pulled myself up to sitting, the sheet draping casually across my nakedness.

Marcus stirred beside me and his breath slipped out from his mouth on a soft sigh. I felt a shiver all down my spine.

It had been fantastic.

I mean, it’s not like the violins played when we kissed, I’m no romantic like that, you know? There’d been some clumsy groping in the bar itself and all that stuff that happens when there’s a new lover and you don’t know how he’s going to hold you and you need to fit in with each other’s height and size, and you bump teeth a couple of times…

Anyway, when we stumbled up to my room, I’d already got his jacket and shirt off, and his hand was stroking my arse, I could feel the heat of his palm through the denim. We were laughing too – it’s been a while since I laughed at lust, I can tell you. Then the light in my room gave a pop and died when I switched it on, and he started to say the wiring of the whole damned place probably needed checking. So I unzipped his trousers pretty swiftly and he went quiet after that.

Naked, he felt good: really good. A body less muscled than mine, but thicker set: darker skinned than me - because I’m as pale as anything - and with a soft down of brown hair on his chest, running down between his nipples and over the mound of his belly. And such a fine, fine arse that I might have spent a little too long nipping and licking at it, though I’d say it was time well spent because of the moans he made into my pillow when I slipped my fingers in and out of him.

He whispered my name when I replaced the fingers with my cock, sinking slowly into him. He arched up underneath me, I grasped him around the chest and we fucked slowly and very deeply. I’d like to say we came together, gloriously and with gasps of shocked delight, but it wasn’t quite as neat as all that. Instead, it was full of breathless grunts and half-muttered instructions and more laughing, before I groaned loudly and let go of all the hot, clenched anticipation in my groin, and then he shuddered in reply and spat cum over my fingers and my bedding.

But the shocked delight part was damned right. We took a couple more practice runs before we finally fell asleep, exhausted and not caring how tangled we were in the sheets. And they were pretty neat, is all I can say.

“Morning?” Beside me, Marcus sounded confused – after all, it’d been morning already when we went to bed.

I grinned. “Yeah, I’ve got to get up to book in the next delivery. The disadvantage of a job that’s 24:7, I’m afraid. Whereas you can get to do leisure for the whole weekend…”

His hand slid over under the sheets, between my thighs. “I’d rather do you.”

I laughed – it was a good feeling. “I’m pretty keen on that myself. You can stay as long as you like, I’ll make us some breakfast in a minute. Just let me check the guys into the cellar, then I’ll leave them to it.” I felt stupidly nervous around him, it was a weird feeling for me. I swung my legs over the side of the bed and sat up, groping around on the floor to find my jeans, and pulling a clean tee shirt from the drawer in the side cupboard.

“I meant it, about helping out with the wiring,” he said. He yawned, and wriggled around to settle back down in the bed. I felt the mattress dip beneath me and enjoyed the smell of another skin, warm and sweaty in the air of the bedroom. “You could do a lot with the interior, too. I’ve got some contacts. Some ideas.”

“Sure.” I stood up, peeling the tee shirt on over my head. “That’d be good. But you don’t have to – like – you don’t owe me anything, Marcus. This was just for fun, because we both wanted it, right? We don’t even have to meet up again, if you don’t want.”

Dear God, I was thinking. What the fuck nonsense was I saying?

He sighed behind me: I don’t know why I didn’t turn around. “Dex, I know what you’re saying. You said it before but I didn’t understand. I was a prick, I know – I had such trouble with Allan… and yet I kept going back for more. You were right to be angry with me. And maybe what you said – what we did in the bar that first time – maybe that helped me see sense. You’re right, sex should be fun, it should be easy – there shouldn’t be strings, not just for this.”

“Should be easy…” I echoed. Sure.

He sounded muffled, like he’d turned over to huddle back down into the pillow. “I want to come back and see you. I’d like to fuck again, if you want to as well, of course. You called me Mr Needy last time, and I know now that’s what I was. Not like you – not honest like you, not free like you are.” He yawned again and I turned around at last. I could see his tousled head half under the pillow and the shape of his body as it stretched out on the bed, underneath the flimsy sheet.

“Come again,” I said, softly. I laughed, but it sounded brittle. “In all senses of the word.”

He laughed as well, but more sleepily. Downstairs, someone was knocking on the yard door, and I could hear the rattle of barrels on the concrete floor. “Great.” His words slurred: he was drifting back to sleep. “I’m going to enjoy freedom to the full. Say what you like, do what you like – that’s it, right?”

“Right,” I agreed.

“No strings,” he murmured.

“No,” I said. The hammering on the door had to be answered. I turned away from the bed to leave him sleeping there and go downstairs. “No strings at all.”