Accepting It

When I'd asked why not, she'd turned to me and said, coldly, "Because, if you want me to be brutally frank, Seb, it stunk of his bum and your cum. I don't think we need to say anymore about it, okay?"

I'd been stunned; speechless. I think I'd just nodded with my mouth wide open and had willingly obliged her by never mentioning it again.

I must admit, though, that I'd seen Nathan, the estate agent, a couple of times on the sly for a repeat of our "bum and cum" antics.

There'd been other examples. Like the time I'd fucked the AA guy who'd come out to fix the car when Melissa and I had broken down near Barnard Castle. Melissa had been asleep in the passenger seat and so he and I had taken a walk into the forest for half an hour, but somehow she'd worked out what had happened. Or the time we had a visiting junior doctor from Stoke-on-Trent staying with us, and I'd pay him and his eager-to-please arse a few nocturnal visits.

She seemed content to let me know she knew what had been going on behind her back - like she wanted me to know she wasn't stupid - but then would drop it. There'd be no recriminations; no further references to it.

She once told me that if ever I cheated on her "with another woman", as she'd put it, she'd never forgive me. And she'd added, slowly as though choosing her words carefully, "I'm not like some women - I understand if you need to do... you know... solitary stuff, or stuff that's... well... purely for sexual gratification... but not with other women, Seb. I wouldn't be able to stand that..."

I'd been going to ask her to elaborate but then I'd thought it best to leave it. I thought I knew what she meant - suspected I detected an oblique reference to the "bum and cum" incident - and so decided to just smile and nod.

But as I walked towards the bar to pay for our meal, I wondered if maybe my covert extra-curricular interests weren't beginning to take their toll on her.

And I asked myself: if they were, would that be enough to stop me? I wasn't sure of the answer that.

While a middle-aged woman ran our meal through the till and fed my credit card through the machine, I saw the lad I'd been trying to bag chatting to the barman around the other side of the bar.

When I looked over at them, they looked away from me quickly, as if the lad had been telling his colleague about my attempts to get into his trousers. The barman couldn't resist a second look at me and sneered over at me.

"Fuck you," I thought.

My attention was drawn back to the woman and her curled slip of paper. "Could you sign here, please?"

After signing, I returned to Melissa.

"Aren't you going to order a coffee or something?"

She said it before I'd even sat back down.

She looked even more irascible by now.

"I've already paid the bill."

Her expression didn't falter. "I'm sure you can order one at the bar. I understand - but correct me if I'm wrong - that it's the civilised way to end a meal, Sebastian."

Again I found myself thinking, "Fuck you."

But I smiled and said, "Of course, darling."

If she was in the mood to call me Sebastian, I was in the mood to call her darling.

I went back up to the bar.

I didn't know why she was being like this. She'd known I was into this kind of thing for over a year; why was it becoming such a big deal this evening?

Once she'd insisted on going through my wallet to throw out all the crap I tend to hoard. She'd asked my permission - she isn't deceitful - and I'd agreed, grateful that she'd sort out what was becoming difficult to fit in my pocket.

When she'd come to the couple of condoms I always keep in there, she'd paused and held them between her finger and thumb for a few seconds. She knew they couldn't be there for the two of us; she's been on the pill since I met her.

After those few long, silent moments, she'd said, "Ah well. It pays to be safe, eh?"

And I'd said, casually, "Yeah. You know how careful I am."

She'd looked at me warily and put them back in my wallet.

Then she'd muttered, "Well make sure you always are."

Then she'd got on with sorting the rest of my wallet out.

Another time she'd found a pair of grey boxer briefs under the passenger seat of the car. I'd claimed they were mine but we both I knew I didn't wear that kind of underwear.

She'd said, testingly, "Would any of your mates have left their underwear in your car, Seb? Pete, maybe..."

I'd retorted, "Of course not."

I knew that they belonged to a rough-looking guy who'd come to fix the coffee machine in the surgery. We'd got talking, then flirted a little, and had driven off to Ilkley Moor to find a quiet layby. He'd surprised me by the way he'd feasted on my cock with his firm, hairy arse; the way his cock had throbbed to full size only when he was riding mine on the back seat of the car. For a straight-acting guy he was extraordinary.

I think his name was Stuart but I can't really remember.

I just remember the way he'd whimpered and writhed when he'd climaxed with me inside him.

His briefs had gone missing, but I'd thought they'd fallen out of the car. Neither of us cared much; we were pretty contented after the fun we'd had and, in any case, he'd said they were from Primark.

She'd said, again trying to provoke a reaction, "Well, do you want to keep them? So you can give them back to someone?"

"No. I told you. They're mine - and old pair from years ago. Before I started wearing briefs."

She'd looked sceptical. "Really?"

"Yeah. They must have fallen out of my gym rucksack - you can throw them away."

She'd stared at them for a few seconds, as though expecting the name of their owner to suddenly materialise on them, and had then thrown them into the kitchen bin.

I walked up to the barman.

He wasn't sneering now. Just staring at me.

I said, "Can I order two coffees, please? One decaf."

He nodded, maintaining eye contact. He was in his mid-twenties, by the look of him, and had tipped light brown hair and a small silver stud in his earlobe.

After a couple of seconds he turned to pour them.

When he turned back to me, putting the drinks on the bar, he said, as though we were old friends, "Do you ever go over to the nature reserve on the Ottley Road?"

I was dumfounded at the question. I just managed, "Er..."

He smiled, calmly. He looked like he could be pretty hard when he wanted to be. Hard enough to work behind a bar and double up as the bouncer for the place if it were needed.

He said, "It's just I'm going out there tomorrow night..."

Again I was thrown off-guard by his remarks. I wasn't sure why he was telling me this.

I said, "Yeah?"

He smiled more broadly. His eyes were friendly right now but I saw that they could just as easily be menacing with a slightly different smile attached to them.

He said, "Yeah. About seven."

I paid him for the coffees, noticing that his name badge called him Paul, thanked him and went back to Melissa.

She continued being prissy but by now my thoughts were on what the barman had said and, more importantly, why he had said it.

The possibility that the barman, on being told that I'd tried to flirt with the younger guy, might want to propitiate an attack on me was obvious. His motives could be a simple case of queer-bashing or he may have more complex reasons: an attraction to the younger guy, for example.

But on reflection, that seemed unlikely. He didn't know I'd show up, for a start, and even if I did show up, he didn't know I'd bring friends or other reinforcements along with me.