It was nearly midnight and Michael Moon was finally locking up the gym to go home. He was exhausted and fed up. Recently Janine and her bitch pregnancy hormones took every opportunity to undermine him and remind him how unmanly he was, how she was the one providing for them. He didn't understand why she even wanted to marry him, since she evidently didn't trust him or even seem to want him near her. And good god, he hadn't been this long without sex since before he hit puberty. A fact which he was planning to change tonight.
Except his plan to pick someone up in the R&R had failed because he caught some kid who belonged to the gym stashing a bloody sack full of heroin behind the lockers and had to stay and sort him out. After he and Jack roughed him up a bit the kid spilled the beans. It turned out to be a Mitchell business venture, which pissed him off since this was his patch, and this explained why his own small network of minions were suddenly losing business.
He didn't want to go home where the bitch walrus would demand him to massage her flippers. He was gloomily walking through the square contemplating a night on a park bench when he realised it was already occupied. That skinny ginger kid Jay Mitchell who used to go boxing at the gym was sitting staring into space, a black sports bag between his feet. Though thinking about it he wasn't a kid anymore really. He'd left school and was working full time at Phil's garage, had a steady thing going with that irritating niece of Jack's.
He smirked. He suddenly remembered the smack and syringes in his jacket pocket he'd taken on impulse from the stash at the gym, and smirked harder.
He felt his evil mojo returning with each moment.
Jay was cold inside his navy overalls, but he was always cold now. He couldn't eat or sleep without waking up covered in sweat. He couldn't stop thinking about the look in Ben's eyes as he smashed that photo frame into poor Heather's skull. It was driving him insane, the tense atmosphere in the house, all the secrets, Shirley's constant crying, Phil watching him like a hawk, Ben's terrifying lack of any concern for anything other than his own wellbeing. It made him sick to call him his brother.
He apologised to Heather over and over in his mind like a mantra.
He felt so alone. He wanted his real dad so badly it physically ached.
"What's up with you?" came the vaguely familiar voice. He looked up, it was Michael, Janine's sharkish boyfriend who always wore suits and seemed to get on everybody's bad side.
"Nuffing." He replied absently as had become a reflex.
"Then why aren't you at home playing video games or something?"
Jay shrugged, "Don't feel like goin 'ome. You?"
"Oh I'd love to be able to go home but it's currently being occupied by a rather bad tempered mammoth. Why don't you want to go home?"
Jay shrugged and looked at the ground.
"Alright fine, just thought you looked like you needed somewhere to stay. But…" Michael turned to leave.
"Wait." Jay said. Michael smiled.
"Come over to my old flat with me if you want. But you'd better hurry up. Phil's just come out of your house to look for you."
Michael shoved him up against the door of the empty flat the moment they were through the door.
"What the 'ell're you doing?" Jay looked more curious than alarmed.
"Your old man's been poking his nose in where it don't belong." Michael finally murmured, deliberately leaning forward so their faces were right up close. To his pleasure, he saw that Jay's mind immediately went there at the speed characteristic of teenage boys, as his nervous blue eyes flicked from Michael's eyes to his mouth, unable to concentrate on what he was saying. Gay or straight, he was evidently not adverse to Michael's proximity.
"So? Ain't got nuffing to do with me. I'm a mechanic not a criminal." Jay could not take his eyes off his mouth. This was fun.
"Maybe so, but chances are anyone living with Philip Mitchell is hardly pure as the driven snow."
Jay looked away and clenched his jaw.
"You want to work on your poker face boy. You look away every time you're hiding something, people will be able to read…" he poked his pale forehead multiple times "…your… every…thought."
Jay looked back at him defiantly.
"No matter what you have or haven't done." Michael smiled. "The point is, technically, you are my enemy." He raised his eyebrows at his own comment. The last part of his sentence inadvertently took a surprised tone, as he not only realised that this was the case, but also that this increased his enjoyment tenfold.
"Look, I don't want any trouble alright? I don't care about Phil, or Ben or anyone so just back off." Jay said angrily and pushed Michael off, finally seeming to decide there was no longer an excuse for them to be standing that way.
"All right, all right." Michael raised his hands. "In that case let us be reacquainted as equals"
He offered a hand. Jay shook it, though his glare said he knew Michael was taking the piss.
"Good. Drink?" Michael offered, walking through to the kitchen. Jay looked surprised and suspicious, but nodded. He could practically hear the kid wondering why a strange man was giving him alcohol in an empty apartment, and whether or not he minded if it was a sex trap.
For the first time he got a proper look at the apartment. Large living room with a leather sofa and a flat-screen TV, walls painted white, wooden floorboards with a black rug in front of the small fireplace. Next to it there were bookshelves with a dizzying number of large difficult looking books on it, and a well-stocked liquor cabinet. It was scarily clean and ordered like a show home meant to demonstrate the idea of a room rather than somewhere a person truly lived. To the right was what he assumed was the bedroom, to the left an archway which led into an equally neat kitchen. Jay suddenly felt out of place and dirty in his oil stained overalls.
Michael poured them both a scotch and sat down on the sofa. Jay followed him awkwardly, sitting at the far end.
"So. What brought you to a bench in the middle of the square at this time of night?" Michael asked.
"Dunno."
"Phil?"
"Sort of. It's just…not much fun being in our 'ouse at the moment."
"Right. That Heather woman. I'm sorry. She seemed nice."
"She was. She was the nicest person I ever met."
"Do they know who killed her yet?"
Jay shook his head and stared at his glass.
Michael was silent. He could sense that Jay wanted to talk about something.
"Are you okay?" he finally asked with his best approximation of a kind smile, the one he had to practise every morning in the mirror to stop himself forgetting how to do it.
Jay looked up at from his glass, seemingly startled by the question.
"Um I…I don't…yeah I'm fine"
His voice cracked and his eyes filled with tears. He stood up and set his glass down.
"I got to go. Thanks for the drink." He turned to leave. Michael stood up and caught his arm. Wordlessly he pulled the young man into a hug. Jay flinched, caught off guard. At first he seemed to be fighting against it, but the desire for comfort evidently outweighed his distrust and he wrapped his arms around Michael. He stopped crying immediately though, to Michael's relief.
Michael rested his chin against the short light-ginger hair. It was soft and clean, not laden with hair gel like many teenage boys.
The offer was on the tip of his tongue. I have something which will make you feel better, relax you.
The beautiful image of Phil's face when he found out that Michael had taken revenge by seducing his own adopted son into the 'clientele' they both catered to was irresistible. He would regret poaching Michael's business as he watched Jay's life self-destruct. Not to mention Jay would be unable to resist (or even recall whether or not he had tried to resist) Michael's advances once he was high.
But before he could make the offer Jay did something surprising. He lifted his head, gave Michael a dirty look, and then kissed him. Michael jerked away.
"Did you just…did you just try and kiss me?" Michael said, as if the idea was so unbelievably ridiculous and appalling that he couldn't comprehend it. Inwardly he chuckled. The kid had played his hand too early.
Jay glared at him defensively.
"Ain't that why I'm here?"
Perceptive.
Michael let the silence drag on. He downed the last of his drink, his cold black eyes never leaving Jay's. He set the glass down.
"Teenagers." He said to himself, shaking his head. "You couldn't think of a single innocent reason I could have wished for your company?"
"No."
"Smart kid." Michael grinned, and kissed him violently, passionately like he'd never ever be kissed by lukewarm teenage girls like Abby Branning. He used his hands to direct Jay's head, get his tongue as far into his mouth as it could possibly go. Jay was strangely passive for one who had practically demanded it. He just stood still with his hands in his pockets while his mouth was thoroughly tongue-fucked.
Michael released him with a final sucking kiss in the tense silence. Watching, studying.
Jay subverted him annoyingly well by appearing disappointingly unruffled. Maybe he wasn't such a bad player after all. He'd allowed Michael the upper hand, but he knew instinctively that this was a dangerous man. He wasn't going to fall at his feet.
He didn't mind. He liked it that this boy held his own.
"Are you some sort of paedo?"
"How rude."
"Are you?"
"That depends. Are you a child?"
"No."
"Then evidently not."
A pause.
"Happy?" Michael said impatiently.
Jay thought for a second then nodded.
They kissed again. Michael let his hands go where they pleased this time. It'd been so long since he'd felt hard male torso in front of him, that forbidden flatness resisting against squeezing hands, the sculpted muscles, concave chest. He unzipped Jay's navy blue grease-monkey jumpsuit overalls and slipped his hands underneath the thin white T-shirt he wore underneath. Jay kissed him back now, or rather moved his mouth in order to better accommodate Michael's, (he was learning fast) but he still did nothing with his hands. Still resisting, overthinking, attempting to stay in control.
He was going to have to fix that. He broke off from the kiss and started nuzzling the soft white skin of the young man's almost femininely slender neck. Jay closed his eyes and smiled. Michael kissed one side and stroked the other with his thumb, and Jay tensed and clutched the lapels of Michael's jacket, like he was ticklish and was resisting the urge to raise his shoulders. Jay moaned quietly, stop, and started trying to find Michael's mouth for another kiss. Michael had other plans. He sank his teeth into Jay's neck a couple of inches below his left ear and sucked at it like a vampire.
"Oi!" Jay said indignantly. He shoved Michael's head away and placed a hand over the lovebite. Michael couldn't help smiling.
"How the 'ell am I gonna explain this to Abby? To Phil?" Jay lamented, turning to study it in the mirror.
Michael took Jay's distraction as an opportunity to give him another one.
"Fuck off! I'm serious!" Jay swatted at him, but then laughed good naturedly. "Cor you don't 'alf have a bite on you."
"If I do enough it'll look like you've been strangled." Michael stood behind him in front of the mirror and placed a hand around his neck semi-playfully. His reflection stared back at him, a jealous monster, possessively guarding the innocent youth. No wonder Jay had asked whether he was a paedophile. He certainly looked the predatory type.
"Right. Cos that'd be way easier to explain." Jay rolled his eyes.
"Just making an observation." He placed more slow, feather-soft kisses on the young man's neck, still watching himself in the mirror.
"Oi I'm serious, no more alright? I'm gonna have to wear a scarf or something as it is."
Michael looked at Jay in the mirror.
"You know I don't care about you right?" He said softly, brutally honest, while stroking lazy circles on Jay's flat stomach. He felt the boy stiffen up in shock.
"I know." He said finally. He sounded hollow. Empty. Dead behind the eyes, just like Michael. It turned him on.
He turned and they kissed backwards. Clumsy, frantic and desperate but it didn't matter. They may have been ten years apart in age, but life had spat on them both leaving them cold and self-destructive. He had finally found someone who understood that he just could not love. And still wanted him.
In an ironic way that sort of warmed his dead empty heart.
He let his fondling hand sink lower, clamping his fingers around Jay's groin and massaging it. Jay didn't react like he should have done. Didn't gasp or flinch in either anger or pleasure. Didn't react at all. He seemed to deal with uncomfortable sensations by pretending they weren't happening.
Taking this as a challenge, Michael pushed it further and slid his hand inside Jay's overalls so he could touch him through his underwear. Here Jay stopped him and turned away from him, biting the side of his thumb.
"What?" Michael asked, irritated.
"I dunno."
"You're not enjoying it?"
"I don't know."
"Bullshit." He turned Jay back to face him, gripping his shoulder and pulling him up close. "You need to decide, now, whether you want this, because I'm not a teenager, I'm a man, and I can't guarantee I'll stop. Maybe that's wrong, I don't particularly care. Since you're new to this I'm warning you. The moment you give me permission, I will take what I want. And I'm not exactly the type to kiss and cuddle."
Jay glared at him. He looked properly angry now. Michael wondered for a moment if he'd leave.
"Oh yeah? What kind of man are you then, cheating on your pregnant fiancée with a guy half your age?"
"Uh Pot. Kettle. Black. What was her name again? Oh yes. Abby. Dear, sweet, trusting Abby. When did you turn your eye to blokes eh? When you were given shelter from Phil in their house, a roof over your head, accepted into the bosom of their family were you secretly eyeing up her daddy's arse?"
Jay punched him in the face.
Michael laughed, even though it hurt like a bastard.
"So you're violent in bed are you?" he gripped Jay's wrist, hard. "Don't take your frustrations out on me boy, I can guarantee I'll be able to return them ten times worse. Trust me, you don't want to open that door."
"Shut up!" Jay yelled, breathing heavily, regretting what he'd done.
Michael closed the distance between them and pushed Jay's overalls off his shoulders, peeling them down to his waist. Jay was ignoring him again, looking away, jaw clenched, which meant he wanted it but couldn't admit it. Michael took his chin and turned his face towards him.
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make you angry." Voice soft again. Seductive.
"Didn't you?"
"Well maybe a little."
"Prat."
"Yeah."
They started kissing again. Michael dropped to his knees and kissed down Jay's chest and stomach, hands holding his hips. He didn't normally give blow jobs but when he looked up and saw the hunger he'd kindled in Jay's eyes, he decided this was a special occasion. He kissed and mouthed at his crotch, getting the cheap navy material wet with saliva and heating the skin beneath it with his breath, dragging his teeth across where the teenager's eager cock sat waiting for him to kiss it happy.
Jay breathed in sharply and placed a hand on the back of his neck, but instead of asking for more he knelt down so they were face to face, giving up the chance to be the dominant partner. Did he have something else in mind?
He reached for Michael's hand and placed it on his chest, timidly. Michael laughed softly. He knew Jay didn't really want it there, he wanted it between his legs like every other horny boy, but was trying to express himself politely. He was saying he was ready to pick up where they left off. It was a surrender.
Happy to accept this invitation, Michael slid his hand back down underneath the overalls, into the clammy heat inside his underwear. Jay reached for Michael's belt with shaking hands, shyly unbuckling, unzipping. Michael reached for the young man's hand and pushed it into his own trousers. Somehow the restriction of clothing, although annoying and never fully satisfying was still a turn on. Retaining the clothing barrier made the exchange interestingly calculated and deliberate, not sweaty and frantic and over too soon.
He pleasured himself with Jay's sweaty hand, and Jay with his other until they found a rhythm and Jay took over and he lost track of whose hands were whose and he didn't care as long as Jay kept making those breathy moans which tickled his ear and somewhere inside his gut. Jay's eyes were closed and he was biting and mouthing against Michael's jaw between moans.
Jay suddenly pulled him down so Michael was lying on top of him, sprawled on the wooden floor across the threshold of the bedroom which they had never quite made it into. He shoved his knee between Jay's legs and they abandoned hands in favour of sharp grinding thrusts. A juvenile imitation of fucking which Michael would have strongly objected to had he not been so close to coming. Coming on Jay's thigh.
Jay suddenly increased the pace, giving loud, horny moans which were immensely flattering, but making it difficult for Michael to hold off his orgasm, and he refused to be made to come first by a teenager. Luckily he didn't have to wait long. Jay pulled him down for a kiss which turned into him shouting his ecstasy into Michael's mouth. Michael didn't even care that he'd been tricked into kissing him while he came, because the way he came made Michael almost want to photograph him.
It was at once honest and vulnerable and euphoric and hedonistic and self-conscious and sad, and the expression of pleasure on his face bore intriguing resemblance to pain. His whole body convulsed and shuddered underneath him again and again for an impossibly long time, and then the strength drained out of him and he collapsed, laughing dizzily. Michael grabbed Jay's hand and wrapped it around his dick again, getting it to jerk him off properly while he was too knocked out to object. He came quick and hard and a lot, getting it all over the young man's hand and between his thighs.
Defiling him before he disposed of him.
He was finished and cleaned up and tucking his shirt in by the time Jay had picked his brains up off the floor. Michael sat on the sofa and lit a cigarette. Jay propped himself up on his elbows and watched him with an expression which was at the same time satisfied and disillusioned.
Michael watched back.
"you look thoroughly fucked." He commented.
"Thanks." Jay said sarcastically. "You don't exactly look like James Bond yourself at the moment."
Michael smiled. "Are you implying that I normally look like James Bond?"
Jay blushed.
"The Bond villain more like." He gave a wry smile. "I can see you twirling a moustache and laughing manically."
Michael found this incredibly amusing.
"Are you planning on getting up off my floor any time soon?" he asked.
"Are you planning on screwing me again?" Jay asked, unusually cocky.
"Oh please. We hardly screwed. I've had more hardcore encounters with the old bird from the charity shop. Not voluntarily mind, but still..."
"I didn't hear you complaining." Jay said huffily.
Michael chuckled. He strangely liked after-sex Jay. The confrontational bravado, the defensive wit and banter. It promised all kinds of teasing and games. Except that they had technically done what they were here for, and already Jay had questioned whether or not there would be another time, albeit subtly. Now was the time to think about getting him to leave.
"Won't your old man be doing his nut right about now?" he asked, blowing smoke.
"Nah he'll be asleep on the sofa or something." Jay said. Michael could tell he was lying.
"Can I have a fag?" Jay asked, finally getting to his feet.
"No."
"No?"
"Very bad for you."
"Seriously?" Jay laughed. "so I'm back to being a child now am I?"
Michael didn't reply.
"Oh I get it. You want me to leave."
Michael shrugged. "If you like."
Jay scowled at him, nicked the cigarette out of his mouth and put it into his own.
"You really are a cold bastard aren't you?" he said through gritted teeth.
Michael gave him a look as if to say, and? Your point is?
Jay zipped up his overalls and left, slamming the door behind him.
Michael smiled complacently, replaying their encounter in his mind. He really had been pleasantly surprised. Jay not only made an excellent verbal and physical sparring partner, but was also fantastically entertaining, and had good instincts and confidence in the sack for a beginner.
The most satisfying part had been freezing him out afterwards. Michael's favourite part of any one night stand. People gave up their mysteries so easily for self-gratification. And then they were boring.
He was about to reach for another cigarette when his eyes fell on the bag Jay had forgotten, next to him on the sofa. Idly he unzipped it and looked inside. He was expecting some kind of gym kit, sweaty clothes and towels, but the bag was packed with folded clothes, toothbrush, soap, passport, money. Too much money for an overnight bag. He had been planning on, or at the very least strongly considering running away when Michael had come across him. It seemed Jay still had a few mysteries of his own.
Don't get involved. You already had sex. It's over.
He glanced at the bag.
"We didn't technically have sex." He reasoned.
Yeah right.