Jay ran down the stairs and out across the square through the cold black drizzling rain. Phil opened the door and immediately demanded to know where he'd been, Ben lurking anxiously in the background. Both silently asking the same thing. Did you keep your mouth shut? Are we safe?
Jay shot them a furious look, aided by the contempt he felt towards Michael, which seemed to unnerve even Phil.
"I ain't told anyone anything, don't worry. Now get out of my way please." Jay said boldly. Phil held his hands up exasperatedly.
"Fine. I can't deal with you at the moment. Go to bed. We'll talk in the morning." He growled and went upstairs. Ben followed him timidly.
Jay shut the front door and leaned back against the cold glass panel. He was furious, with Michael, with himself, with Phil and Ben for making him lie for them. He felt like he couldn't breathe, like he was being pulled in so many different directions he couldn't tell up from down. Why were people so complicated? Why did everyone have to keep themselves hidden by lying and keeping secrets?
He clung to the anger. It was easier than admitting how much he hated himself right now.
What had he imagined Michael would do? He had known from the start it was a onetime deal. Michael had even warned him:
You know I don't care about you, right?
I'm not exactly the type to kiss and cuddle.
"Dammit!" Jay clutched his head and started to cry.
He just hadn't anticipated the speed at which Michael had turned from being the fired up, passionate lover, to an icy indifferent stranger. He had so desperately craved warmth and comfort he'd let himself believe that Michael Moon could be the one to give it.
Michael. He'd lost his virginity to Michael Moon.
He laughed stutteringly between sobs. No one would believe it. He barely believed it.
His hand crept down to the dried-on stain Michael had left on his thigh. He reached up with his other hand to touch the sore red marks on his neck.
His breathing steadied and he stopped crying as he remembered that moment in front of the mirror. The anticipation and dread. That's when he realised he wanted more.
"Dammit." He said again, wearily.
He supposed he shouldn't have been surprised that Michael ignored him completely the next day, but it still hurt.
Jay got up at six. He lived so close to the garage he didn't need to be up so early, but he wanted to avoid having breakfast with Ben. Looking into the eyes of a murderer while eating your toast was not an enjoyable start to the day. Spending all day in the garage alone with Phil was bad enough.
The first time he saw Michael that day he and Janine were coming out of their house, on their way to work. They looked like they were arguing, but Michael was laughing and Janine was beginning to laugh too. He put his hand on her arm to assist her down the stairs and Jay's stomach hurt with jealousy. They looked like the picture perfect family, loving husband and wife. No one would ever guess that Michael had just stuck his hands down the pants of a sixteen year old boy and then kicked him unceremoniously to the kerb.
Jay leant on the stone wall outside Phil's house in pyjamas, drinking coffee to keep himself upright even though he had always hated the taste, never understood why grown-ups drank it all the time until he joined the ranks of the nine to fivers and truly appreciated the value of caffeine. He willed Michael to look up and see him. He wanted to see some shred of guilt or embarrassment from him, but the man looked straight through him as if they'd never met before. Forget guilt, he wouldn't even show Jay recognition. It made him furious all over again.
He stared at Michael until he disappeared round the corner, then went back into the house to change for work.
The second time he saw him he was smoking and texting on his phone outside the Queen Vic. The smell of smoke reminded him of the taste when they kissed. He didn't look up from his phone as Jay walked past him into the pub where he was meeting Lola and Abby for lunch. Jay thought he saw him smirk to himself but it wasn't clear whether it was at Jay or at something he read in a text.
It was proper messing with his head. He was starting to doubt whether it had actually happened. Michael was scarily good at acting.
He was watching Michael so intently that he failed to see Kat Moon, the landlord's wife open the door, and the hand he'd put out to push the door open grabbed her in a rather inappropriate place.
"I'm so sorry Kat! I didn't see you…I'm really sorry!" He stuttered, flushing bright red and wishing the earth would swallow him. It was made a thousand times worse by the fact that Michael's shoulders were now shaking with helpless laughter.
Kat had looked annoyed, but seeing Michael's tickled reaction convinced her it was a genuine accident and seemed to put her in equally good humour.
"Oi bit young for that aint'cha? Just you watch yourself womanizer or I'll tell Alfie you've been trying to grope his missus!" she laughed.
"Sorry." He said again sheepishly. She ruffled his hair and walked off. Michael still appeared to be dying against the wall, gasping for air and wiping tears of laughter out of his eyes. It was the happiest Jay had ever seen him look. He supposed at least he now knew for certain Michael hadn't miraculously suffered memory loss if he found his misfortune that funny. He glared at the older man and entered the pub, looking where he was going this time.
He was cheered up a bit when Lola and Abby found his story hilarious and spent the rest of their lunch breaks buying him food and randomly bursting into giggles whenever the conversation reached a pause.
Abby. He'd forgotten how nice she was. How pretty and cute and warm she was when she hugged him. She would never leave him feeling empty and cold, never bring him so close and then drop him five minutes later.
That was when he realised that he was gay.
He supposed it should have occurred to him before, it should have been obvious. He'd known straight away what would happen between them, from the moment Michael stood in front of him and casually invited him home. He was normally clueless about that kind of thing but some hidden instinct had activated and warned him. But he'd not really questioned his decision to play along, or the fact that he was attracted to the man. Michael projected a dominance, an innate arrogance which had held his attention for a long time. Jay had always secretly wanted to be him, to have that power. So it hadn't surprised him, the urge to submit to him when he first sensed the man's attention.
But now he realised that although he loved Abby, his best friend, the sweetest, kindest girl in the world, he felt absolutely no interest in what was beneath her clothes, while when he was with Michael that was all he could think about. When he wasn't with Michael it was all he could think about, even though he hated the man.
For some reason the discovery comforted him in some ways. Phil would do his nut when he found out both of his sons were queer, but tough. Jay had too much power over the man to be scared of his fists any more. It made some sense of what he and Michael had done. It made him feel like he had a choice, like he wasn't alone.
But it made him feel bloody awful when Abby was looking at him like he was her prince charming. He could never bring himself to tell her. He loved her, he really did. She was the best thing in his life at the moment and he needed her desperately. And it wasn't like they had to do things like that together. They hadn't before. Abby wasn't ready anyway.
They were about to say goodbye when to his horror he caught Lola staring one of the bruises on his neck, eyebrows raised. She looked like she was about to laugh and make a joke about it when she saw the look of panic on his face as he shook his head and tugged the zip of his overalls even further up his neck.
She rolled her eyes and looked exasperated. Boys. He could practically hear her sigh. But luckily she and Abby weren't that close, and with her illegitimate and probably illegally conceived baby on the way she was hardly in a position to give him a lecture on fidelity.
He cursed Michael in as many ways as he could think of on the way back to the garage, then nearly had a heart attack when he opened the door to find that very man making pleasant conversation with Phil.
What the hell is he doing?
"So you're saying you can have this done by tonight?" Michael said, ignoring Jay.
"Yeah…like I said, it probably won't take long to sort out." Phil sounded suspicious, "I've got to pop home to sort out some paperwork, but Jay'll take a look at it for you won't you Jay?"
Jay didn't reply, he was too stunned.
"I'm sure I'll be in safe hands." Michael kept his face deadpan.
Phil gave him an odd look, then nodded and left.
Jay's heart sped up. He didn't know why he was so scared all of a sudden. He'd never felt like such a kid, all mixed up in these adult games he didn't understand.
Michael smiled at him pleasantly, doing a perfect imitation of a polite customer.
Jay felt like he had no choice but to play along, and went to look at the car. It was a gorgeous black Mercedes belonging to Janine. He'd never had the chance to work on such a beautiful car before.
"What's the problem?" he asked, trying to sound professional.
Michael smiled and scratched his head.
"Uhh I'm not sure, the oil pressure light won't go off."
"You ever changed the oil before? When the filter element gets clogged up you can lose pressure."
Jay propped the hood up and bent over to inspect the engine, more for his own pleasure than because he needed to. He could feel Michael's eyes burning into the back of him, and suddenly felt very aware, and smug that perhaps Michael wasn't as indifferent to him as he was pretending to be.
"Sure. Sure you know I tried that but it didn't work. The filter element thing looked fine to me."
"That's odd." Jay smirked and let the hood back down with a snap.
He straightened up and wasn't at all surprised to feel Michael pressing against him. The older man ran a hand down his thigh.
"Since this model of Mercedes doesn't have a filter element." He grinned, turning round.
"Oops." Michael smiled not looking at all sorry to have been caught out.
Jay knew he should have resisted, played harder to get. He had a thousand angry questions he'd wanted Michael to answer about what the hell he'd been playing at all day, why the hell he thought he could act like he didn't exist and then suddenly start flirting with him again, but somehow he couldn't bring himself to ruin the moment when Michael was kissing him to death against a beautiful Mercedes. He had to bite his tongue to keep from telling Michael everything, how much he'd missed him, how he couldn't stop thinking about him, how he couldn't bear it when he thought they were over.
Michael seemed equally pleased to see him, but not strictly in the emotional sense. Jay put his arms around his neck and pulled him closer. Michael pushed him gently, indicating that he should lie back on the bonnet of the car.
"We can't!" Jay laughed between kisses, "What if Phil comes back?"
"He won't. Besides this is my car. I can have sex on it if I want." He ground his crotch against Jay's.
"He uhhhmight! And ain't this Janine's car?" Jay panted, even as he felt himself doing what Michael wanted.
"Well we'll have to be quick then won't we? Come on…I've always wanted to do it on a car." Michael gave a mischievous grin and for a second Jay could see exactly what he must have looked like as a teenager. Not sarcastic or condescending or trying to flatter. He felt his heart give way and knew he couldn't resist him. Didn't want to resist him.
"Okay." kiss "Mmmm-quickly."
The conversation turned into sloppy kissing and groping and grinding, and trying desperately not to slip off the shiny hood of the car, which unfortunately did not serve the practical purposes as well as Michael had imagined.
He wished he could say the novelty wore off after the first time, that this orgasm was less satisfying or addictive than the first, but it wasn't. He wanted it again and again even as it was shuddering out of him. He turned his face into Michael's neck and whimpered, determined not to scream while they were in public. He felt ridiculous when he realised he'd lasted less than a minute.
"Sorry…" he panted. "Are you…?"
"No." Michael sighed "Not even close."
Jay panicked. If he disappointed Michael sexually he knew he may not get another chance. He looked at his watch.
"Shit." He said. "Phil must be on his way back by now."
"It's fine. I'll just find somewhere to-"
Jay cut him off by putting a hand over his mouth. Michael looked at him inquisitively.
"Do as I say." Jay said, smiling, his heart racing. He took hold of Michael's black silk tie and tugged on it enticingly. He led Michael to the rear door of the car and opened it.
"Get in." he said. Michael raised his eyebrows, but did as he requested.
Roughly five minutes later Jay climbed out of the car looking extraordinarily pleased with himself, his ginger hair sticking up slightly more than it had previously. Michael followed behind looking equally content, doing up his belt and staring at Jay's arse.
"Well…that was unexpected." He said.
Jay smiled uncertainly. For a moment neither of them spoke.
Michael reached out and wiped the last traces of their activities from around Jay's mouth with his thumb, then pushed it into Jay's mouth, getting him to suck it off. Jay felt a little bit sick but he did it anyway, curled his tongue around his thumb and licked it clean, their eyes locked the whole time.
"Can I 'ave a cigarette now?" he asked breathlessly, to break the strange tension. Michael laughed.
"Yeah alright. You've earned it." He said, a hint of approval in his voice.
He took two out of the pack in his jacket pocket and passed one to Jay.
They leant against the car, looking at each other and smoking and occasionally sharing a dirty smirk.
"I almost forgot." Michael said and reached through the open window into the front seat. "you left your bag at my place." He chucked it at Jay.
"Oh." Jay said.
"You were rather over-prepared for a tumble on the carpet."
"You looked."
"Of course I did."
Jay looked down.
"So. Where were you going to go?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.
Jay's dealing-with-Michael-instincts told him not to play this game. For once he listened to them.
"That" he said, dropping his cigarette and grinding it into the ground with his trainer. "ain't none of your business."
"No. I suppose not." Michael smiled, the type which didn't reach his eyes.
"So what happens now?" Jay asked.
"I leave."
Jay's heart sank.
"I ignore you."
He took the zip of Jay's overalls down and fingered the bruises. Jay had to fight the urge to kiss his hand and beg him not to go.
"We go back to normal."
"Until your filter element gets clogged again." Jay tried to make it sound like a joke, but he couldn't stop the bitterness he felt coming across.
"I told you, I-"
Jay smacked his hand against the car with a loud crack.
"Fuck off! Just fuck right off alright! Go back to your cosy house an' wife. And don't come near me ever again. I've learnt my lesson."
Michael nodded at that for longer than seemed necessary, as if resigning himself to it. Then he pushed himself off the car and got back into the driver's seat. He turned the key in the ignition and it started up with a majestic purr which in spite of himself made Jay feel feelings which weren't quite appropriate to have towards a car.
"Look at that." Michael grinned. "All better. You're a man of many talents, Jay Mitchell."
"Go fuck yourself." Jay retorted.