Havin' It

Ben knocked back the dregs of his pint, lifted his empty glass then stood back and waited for his refill. The clock above the till confirmed he’d been in the pub for over an hour. 

He guessed he was wasting his time the moment he stepped into the pub’s neon-lighted puffery. Noticing that shirts and ties had started to mingle in with the low-life casuals he tugged at his leather jacket, drawing it close over chest. 
A barman asked: ‘No Jon tonight then?’ 
‘I guess.’
‘It’s the traffic.’ 
‘Yeah, right.’ Ben sipped at his beer. ‘Traffic!’

Another ten minutes, that’s all, fifteen at most, then Jon could go to fuck. After all meeting in the Coleraine was Jon’s idea. And Ben was happy to oblige. But he wasn’t going to let anyone or anything spoil his night out. He worked too hard for too little to let that happen. He’d made that much clear right from the start, so Jon could have no cause to complain.

'Tone! Here,’ Ben hailed his barman, ‘if and when he does decide to show -’
‘You’re not goin’ on without him?’ Tony was shocked.
‘Why the fuck not! We’re not joined at the hip, are we?’
‘No.’
‘Any rings been exchanged?’
‘Well, none as you’d show off to this gorgeous public house. I hope.’
‘So?’
‘So, bella Ben, dear, bad attitude and good looks are a bad mix, in my little book.’
‘Meaning?’
‘Meaning this: you can screw Jon around, just don’t ask me to do your dirty work.’
‘Tell him I was in, that’s all. He’s bound to ask.’ Ben finished his drink.
‘Poor bastard as he his.’
‘He knows the score, Tone, so don’t make out that I’m dishing up any crap.’
‘Darling! Me? Wouldn’t hear of it..’
‘Tell him.’ Ben started to walk off. ‘Right?’

Tony shrugged and waltzed away to serve another more elegant customer.

Ben didn’t dislike suits, some of his best lays had been business men, but he preferred the no nonsense manners of his own kind. If Jon wanted to drag himself up-market that was his concern. Forcing Ben into it was worse than a mistake, it was courting disaster.

An evening passed listening to money talking made him nervous. Spend it, don’t talk about it; that was Ben’s motto. Since the only people who really knew how to spend their money without making a sham of it seemed to be blokes like himself, he blanked out a good deal of the available population. 

As he flicked up the thin collar on his jacket he laughed. He didn’t have many friends. That’s exactly how he liked it. A select few, the ones he could truly rely on. All of the rest of them he could take or leave. Jon alone was the exception. 

Jon had money and he knew how to spend it. No palaver, just a good show with an open hand, that was Jon. He’d always been neat though, even as a boy. Now that Ben thought about it, that was one of his most telling sissy factors. But he hadn’t sold himself over to the rag mag brigade. Until now. And the vamped up Coleraine was definitely in that league. Pretty, not sexy, just pristine. The music was the same, the dank musty smoke too, only the accepted dress code had altered. So why Jon wanted to meet there was beyond him. 

Jon had never done ‘clean’. There had to be an element of the unsavoury in any sexual encounter for Jon to get a wad off. Maybe that’s why they’d always been firm friends. Hell, Ben laughed into himself. He could remember when Jon used to sneak out of school so he could suck off some local workmen. The ranker they were the better for Jon. 

One day, after he’d disappeared for longer than usual, he came back with soiled shorts and a pair of someone else’s sweat-hardened socks. He wanked himself stupid in the toilet all that afternoon. Then he wanked again in his bedroom as Ben stood above him and spunked a load over his face. Jon sopped up the mess with the stolen socks and shorts. He kept them still, as relics.

It didn’t make sense to hang around with polish when there was little hope of getting any decent spit. Not with an obsession for filth as strong as Jon’s. But then, who’s to say?
Ben looked in a window full of stylized models, twisting goodness knows what sort of fashion out of shape. He shivered, hugged his coat tight, then quickened his pace away.

A bus turned the corner so he dashed to hop on it. Upstairs, sitting at the front, Ben spotted a group of regulars also heading for his kind of pub: the Cobbler’s Last. One of the group, Matty, noticed him as he settled down to wipe away rain from his face.

‘Hi, ya!’ Another body plonked down beside Ben. ‘Wet, innit?’
Ben flashed a dirty look. 
‘I just managed to catch it.’
‘That’s lucky.’ Ben moved up to allow Kirby some room.
‘Wasn’t it though!’ Kirby roared.

Just his luck, Ben thought, Kirby! A nice enough sort, but not an asset. What talk does to money, he did to leather. And talk about talk, Kirby went at it with a vengeance.
Ben sucked air in passed his teeth, trying to think of a way to shut him up. ‘Gum?’
‘Nice one. Ta! I was well surprised not to see Jon with you.’
‘Sorry?’
‘Well, I thought you and Jon were something of an item at one time.’
‘Sure.’
‘So, naturally, I was surprised, seeing you here, alone, and with him there.’ The night hung around Kirby’s lips. ‘Not that it’s none of my business what people do, be they alone or otherwise engaged.’ His fingertips suddenly became enthralling. ‘Are you, then?’
‘What?’
‘An item.’ 
‘Yeah. Right.’ A body pressed in on them as the bus jerked to a halt. ‘So?’ Ben asked Kirby, as his withering look followed the man who’d bumped into him, ‘you were saying?’ 
‘Was I? Let me see. I dried my jeans at the Queen’s. The Harness was chocka.’ Kirby tried to catch Ben’s eye. ‘But no, I saw Jon on the way there. In the Apprentice.’ He wanted to add that Jon was already into a night of heavy cruising. He resisted. Instead he scrutinized Ben’s reactions.

The Local Apprentice had been one of Jon’s favourite pick-up joints until it had been closed down, and not for remodelling. ‘A bit out of your way isn't it?’ Ben asked.
Kirby agreed. ‘I wanted to see the new look they’ve concocted for the old place.’
‘That would explain it.’ 
‘Straightish, but queering up nicely.’ Kirby knew Ben wasn’t interested in the decor, it just helped him to say it: ‘Jon didn’t say he was meeting you though.’
‘You talked?’ For the first time Ben truly paid attention to Kirby.
‘Natch!’ Kirby hid his smirk. ‘Our stop?’ He eased away to get up, then swivelled back a little. ‘We didn’t say too much. It looked like he was well occupied.’

A swell for that ancient gay venue, the Cobbler’s Last, swept them off the bus. Kirby said something over his shoulder to Ben, however the words fell on deaf ears. Ben was dazed.
‘Look,’ Ben snapped when they had some space, ‘I need to catch up with someone.’ He had spotted a friend who’d known Jon for years. ‘Solly!’ Ben hailed as he darted away from Kirby. ‘I had to get free of that.’ They glanced over at Kirby’s sullen desolation. ‘Yak, yak, yak.’

Sol nodded. 
Ben didn’t like Sol. And judging by his reception, the feeling was mutual. He was Jon’s friend, not Ben’s. He had the smell of family prayers about him, candle wax and wine. It made Ben shudder.
As Kirby flounced passed them Ben forced a grimace. ‘Shall we make a move?’
Sol shrugged.

Ben could feel the cold edge of Sol’s shoulder as they took their turn at the door. Even if he had tried to speak, Sol wouldn’t have listened. They inched their way along the entry and finally broke free of its narrow confinement into the pub’s bleak reception area. 

There was no point in prolonging the agony. He stopped Sol at the check-in. And yet it was no use. As he stood there facing Sol’s icy stare, he couldn’t ask what he wanted. There were too many guys and too much commotion to talk. Or so he told himself. 

He thumbed toward the main bar at the Cobbler’s Last, but Sol merely pouted and nodded sideways toward a dark corridor. Ben laughed. That was the only good thing about Sol, he knew what he wanted and he wouldn’t stop until he got it. With no more than a sniff, Sol turned and headed toward the black door at the end of the passage. 

Ben wondered what Jon had been telling these people about him to warrant all of this shitty behaviour. Tony at the Coleraine was a sarky bitch at the best of times. Ben could dismiss him that easily. And Kirby. He had the hots for Ben, that was all. Kirby would have to dream on. But Sol, now that was different. He wasn’t just frosty, his cool reaction was calculated to be mean, which wasn’t like Sol. A hypocrite he might be, but to be a calculating little bastard was well out of character. Jon had definitely got to him. 

A snotty runt demanded to know if Ben was going to stand there all night. Ben moved away and only when he had moved did he think to flick a middle finger in the runt’s direction. The runt blew him a kiss and mouthed that he’d be available later.

Ben bought a bottle of lager and cruised around the bar area. There wasn’t a lot of talent to his taste, at least nothing that struck him forcefully. Then he saw Matty. He was with the two guys from the bus. They were talking. Matty, however, was staring candidly at Ben. The message was clear; he was after more than a grope. Matty was hot stuff. He could give Ben a hard-on with no more than a look. His dick was already swelling under the influence of the lad’s steadfast inspection.

Matty’s gaze was coming at him hard, the pale flesh of his face serving to accentuate the mysterious darkness of his eyes. Twenty, twenty-one tops, with a loose-crop flat top that couldn’t hide the natural wave of his hair. His direct eyeball to eyeball contact said he knew he could have anyone he wanted, but at the moment he wanted only Ben. 

‘Neat!’ Ben whispered to no one in particular.

Ben moved yet continued to send glances in Matty’s direction. He allowed his sight to roam from Matty’s cocksure face to his curls, then down across his chest, finally digesting the display made by his tucked-up leg. That was him sized up. Ben looked on. He gave a you’ve-got-to-work-for-it stare, one of his best. It puzzled, it intimidated, but it never failed. A minute or two later Matty was ready to move in. His mates called ‘See Ya’ and ‘Later’ after he’d committed himself to heading toward the bar and Ben. Matty squeezed in beside Ben, set his empty lager bottle down and waited for service.

‘All right?’ Matty peered into Ben’s face.
‘Sure.’ Ben smiled from ear to ear, an infectious smile which Matty caught.

With his drink to hand Matty winked and turned to walk off. Ben watched, he gave him a few seconds lead then followed. The curve of Matty’s arse filled his jeans with a seductive arch, high and taut. It captivated all of Ben’s attention. It was worth anything to get his hands on those cheeks and bury his face in that tight crack. As soon as possible was his only concern as he stole through a fresh onslaught from the entrance. He had to haul up for a few moments to let the body mass subside, although Matty was never far from view. Then the snotty little runt from earlier in the evening popped up in front of him again.

‘Come for me, have you, darlin?’
‘That’ll be the day.’ 
‘Ooo! Get Miss high and mighty.’ 
‘Piss off.’

Ben had lost sight of Matty. Nowhere in the entrance or reception areas, and no obvious sign in any of its offshoots. Matty had vanished into the crowd. Ben pushed his way through the heave of bodies for no particular reason. He had no idea which way Matty had turned. He was heading toward the stairs last he saw him. But Matty wouldn’t go up there, that was the chill out area, it was just too soon for that. A door was being held ajar and it closed gently as Ben approached. It was the back access to a warren of small rooms. Matty. It had to be. The choice was perfect.

The area was dark, deliberately so. The subdued lighting added to the backroom effect and it help to hide the need for a radical make-over. The rooms weren’t really rooms, not as such, they were alcoves and boxed-in areas, there merely to suggest privacy not to give it. 

One corner, not far from a sealed-off fire exit, was where Ben would usually head; his special place. But not tonight, of course, he had to find out where Matty had gone.
Hands reached out to tease or coax as he went. None of them were too insistent. After a brief search of the area Ben stopped to look at an exhibition of deep throating. He began to suspect Matty had just been leading him on when he saw it, this guy on his knees enjoying his moment as a star. 

The guy was taking a long dollop of thick black shaft in swift jerky swallows. His hair was close cropped yet curly. In the dim flicker of light, it could have been Matty. 
Ben felt cheated, snubbed, most of all he felt humiliated. Anger surged through him, stunning all his senses as he watched the guy’s head bob. He no longer saw the action, he saw only his own need for revenge. Ben was about to go up and punch at the guy’s head in passing when he realized someone was touching him up. He didn’t want to turn and find the runt there, if he had he’d have flattened him. But a voice beside him shook him out of his rage.

‘I thought you were behind me,’ Matty whispered, ‘I went on upstairs, its quieter there.’
Ben was sick; kicked in the pit of his stomach. He couldn’t speak. He couldn’t move.
‘Come here.’ Matty pulled him close and eased them into a nearby alcove. They kissed, but before the kisses had time to dry Matty was working his way down to Ben’s cock. 
From the start Ben was hard, now this delicious adoration had him straining. He placed a hand behind Matty’s neck and used the other to enjoy the mix of silk and velvet on his crew-cut head. 
Matty peeled Ben out of his jeans, his face bumping across Ben’s belt as he went down. He squeezed the throbbing meat and gagged on Ben’s fat knob as he struggled to take it to the back of his throat. Yet he refused to stop taking it, his sole break came when he asked Ben to fuck him. 

‘Lick my balls!’ Ben snarled.

Matty watched Ben roll on a rubber, stretching it gently to ease over his mammoth knob. Matty greased up his bare arse and played french-kissing with Ben’s balls, then he turned for a full-length penetration. His head bumping against the wooden partition of the open cubicle, and his hole screaming in gagged protest with Ben’s seering thrust.

Ben’s groans mingled with Matty’s gasps, still he drove home with ass-ripping determination.
The end only came when Matty pleaded to finish Ben off by hand. He smiled as great smears of Ben’s cum covered his face and hands and pooled on the floor with Matty’s own load. 

‘Good.’ Ben breathed while Matty wiped himself and hitched up his pants. 
‘Fuck, yeah! S’great.’ Matty drew near to kiss once more, but Ben held back. 
Something had really started to trouble Ben.
‘You OK, mate?’ Matty asked.
‘Sure.’
‘Thanks, Ben, I’ve been waiting for something like this since your birthday party.’
‘Yes, sure.’ Then Ben clicked-in gear again. ‘Birthday!’ 

He said sorry to Matty as he buttoned up, then he pushed his way through the undiminished crowd. It was Jon’s birthday. How could he forget that! 
He ran. And how. He passed Kirby and Sol without a word. 

There wasn’t a bus in sight so he ran again. A present! he thought. Where? At an all-night supermarket. Cigarettes? No. What then! Chocolates? No! 
He spotted a presentation pipe and tobacco pack. Yes! Expensive, but yes; he hastened the assistant as he fiddled with a wrapper. When his bus finally arrived in the dank early minutes of a new day, Ben’s heart eased back on its knocking.

The Apprentice was bright with celebration as Ben stood outside it. The dolled-up windows had darkened but its once forbidding fortress-like door was now aglow. He didn’t dare go in. He thought of turning away but the idea of Jon in there without him forced him to act. On opening the door the first face he registered was Jon’s. It was a sad face suddenly flushed with joy.
‘You been making the most of it?’ Ben’s asked, scarlet-faced. ‘Havin’ a ball, I see.’

‘Not really,’ Jon hugged Ben, ‘a bit,’ he kissed him, ‘but now I know,’ Jon nibbled Ben’s neck, ‘I’m really goin’ to start...’ and he whispered into Ben’s ear, ‘havin’ it.’