“You can’t get the staff,” I muttered. “That’s what they say, don’t they?”

The guy beside me on my bed grunted. I knew enough to remember his name was Marty, and he was built like a construction worker should be: thick thighs and solid torso. Naked on my mattress, he dented it with his weight. His half-empty beer bottle was balanced precariously on the side of the nightstand and his hand rested comfortably around his cock, having already come once into my mouth. It was still a very creditable size.

“He’s meant to be my colleague. He’s meant to support me.” I was naked too. I’d probably drunk more than I should, that was my only excuse for rambling on in my dimly lit bedroom. “Dammit, we started the whole thing together, we were the pioneers, we took the risks. And we’re friends, too. Best friends. When he couldn’t get across state for his sister’s wedding, I was the one hired the car to take him, and got him the fucking suit to wear. When he was going to be evicted from his apartment, I was the one lent him the money and got the landlord off his back. We’re friends. Did I say that already?” We were way more than that.

I knew that Robbie had nursed me through some tough times, too. I didn’t always give those memories much breathing space, I realized. The encouragement he always gave me in my fitful novel-writing ambitions; the many, many times he helped re-word my resume; the night he got me seen immediately at the hospital when some punk in a bar knocked out my front tooth; the early hours of many mornings when he’d held me tight on the couch, talking me through another bad, bad day…Those were the things that shaped your life; that added the layers to your maturity; that established friendships and loyalties that couldn’t easily be replaced.

If at all.

“And now what? Now he looks at me with a disapproving expression and tells me it doesn’t suit him anymore. That I don’t suit him anymore.”

Marty grunted. “Come here.”

I rolled over so he could slide his spare hand between my legs and cup my balls. He belched quietly and started to fondle my cock. “Want to fuck now?”

“Yeah,” I said, huskily. I grabbed out at him – thick, short-cropped blond hair; thick, solid muscle. But my mind played tricks on me, sending me images of longer, darker hair, soft curls between my fingers. Robbie’s hair. A slimmer body, arching and shuddering – Robbie’s body. Laughing; gasping; frowning. Jokes and pleasure; complaints and bitter arguments. The arguments were the things I remembered most vividly, like the day I said we should cool off, stop seeing each other; the day I said that stupid thing about exclusivity. I remembered that, and then I’d turned away, unable to meet his eyes…

“So?” A sudden snap across my thoughts, Marty’s voice was gruff and careless.

“Sorry?”

“You going to get it up any time soon?”

A chill shuddered through me that owed nothing to the temperature in the apartment. I looked down at my groin, and my cock nestled deep inside his fist. He’d been jerking me off for a while now, his breath coming in short, concentrated gasps and the palm of his broad, tanned hand damp from its activity. In contrast, my cock was pale and totally limp.

“Shit,” I said. “I don’t know what the matter is.”