A/N: The continued support for this series of AU one shots is beyond lovely. Thank you so much. This week's offering is something very different and lighter than my last two dark stories. This story sees straight painter and decorator Ste meet and work for openly gay landlord Brendan Brady. I'll be interested to hear your thoughts and I hope you enjoy!
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A Lick of Paint
He hadn't even offered you a cup of tea.
That was your initial thought on that very first Monday of the biggest renovation job you'd had on your books for a good year. It had been a bad time of it for the decorating business, so much so you had a long and difficult discussion about money with Amy over the weekend. She'd wanted to spend the summer holidays from work with your kids, taking them out and spoiling them which she didn't get to do when she was stuck in a grotty classroom term time as a teaching assistant. Instead you managed to get her to agree to taking some part time till work in Price Slice and send the kids to her dad's while you worked the six weeks doing up the property for this gravelly voiced Irish fella.
When you arrived on the Monday, carrying your portfolio of previous clients up the stairs with you – he owned the top four flats – you started to think this wasn't your standard job when he greeted you without a shirt on. It wasn't the welcome you were expecting and you stood awkwardly in the doorway looking at your notes while he stretched a t-shirt over himself. A ruffled bloke had brushed past you on the stairwell and then the penny dropped with a little oh before the Irish man clicked his fingers in your face.
"So – uhm – Mr Brady, what can I do for you?" you asked, lifting the pencil from behind your ear – Amy loved teasing you about your ears being big enough to stash a whole pencil case behind, but she liked stroking them anyway – and you flicked open your notepad to begin.
He didn't seem bothered about a quote, or expenses for that matter, and you figured he must be worth a few quid. You paid attention to his clothes then, you couldn't see the label, but it looked pricey and he smelt like money. His scent was a man who didn't get his hands dirty in emulsion and sawdust at any rate. He wanted all the flats stripped from top to bottom of the tatty wallpaper and painted cream – you had to go neutral for selling them on – and laminate wood throughout, except for the bathroom. You'd heard all this on the phone from one of you employees who'd got them the job and had known Brendan (Mr Brady) from his other business – a local nightclub. He hadn't mentioned that Brendan swung the other way, but you supposed it didn't matter. All the gays knew each other: you guessed that was why Nick knew Brendan in the first place – it all made sense now.
Brendan walked you round all the flats and you made copious notes, working out costing on your pocket calculator, clumsily dropping it a few times at his feet. He watched you pick it up – never offering – and then seemed to want to know more about you.
You pulled your t-shirt down at the back and tried to second guess that his questions about your age and personal life were his subtle ways of finding out if you were up for the job. You weren't no cowboy. You tried directing his focus onto the recent photos of the properties you'd done up and felt under the spotlight when you drilled out the facts. Twenty-one, apprentice decorator at seventeen, own business aged nineteen, twokidsandagirlfriend. You rolled out the last one in a single breath just in case he suspected anything. His smile relaxed you when you made yourself remember he was just like Nick and Nick had never pounced. Even though Nick was the pouncing type, so you'd heard.
You and your small team regrouped on the Wednesday in Brendan's flats and you bought your own kettle this time. You didn't see Brendan as the type to be coming round with the biscuits every few hours. He popped his head in the flat now and again to check up on how you were getting on. His sense of humour clashed with your abrupt ways and you stood, arms folded and affronted.
"Missed a bit," he said, pointing to a stray crumble of wallpaper in the corner.
"I ain't done that bit yet," you said and then remembering he was employing you added, "Mr Brady." You wondered whether you could get sued for accidentally scolding him with the wallpaper steamer. Definitely.
"Crack on," he said. You waited until he left the room to roll your eyes.
He stayed in the building most days and you were growing used to his humour, snipping back and finding your own ways to counter him. It became routine for him to pass comment on your work and for you to banter back about things you were learning about him.
He stopped you one lunchtime when you had a paintbrush in one hand and a cheese sandwich in the other. The rest of the lads had gone down the road for a pub lunch but you and Amy were still saving the pennies and couldn't afford such luxuries.
"That's a cute lunchbox," he said, loitering in the doorway, coffee in hand.
You hopped off the step ladder and sat on one of the overturned crates. "It's me son's."
"And here was me thinking you just loved Bob the Builder, Steven" he said. You were disappointed he didn't have a novelty mug you could mock. "Still, it's nice your girl cut your sandwiches in four for that dainty little mouth of yours."
You rolled your eyes right in front of him now like you'd fallen into the habit of doing. "Amy makes great sandwiches. You're missing out y'know."
He shrugged. "The female species lack a certain something for me." His smirk was overshadowed by the coffee mug.
You coloured, desperately swallowing the lump of bread to clarify. "I didn't mean –"
"I know." He winked, drummed his fingers on the door frame and left you to it.
You and Amy would exchange stories about your days over dinner in the evenings when the kids were tucked up; she about the grouchy customers of Price Slice and you about your little workforce that she'd met and then about Brendan. Every time you attempted to relay a conversation you'd had with him, you'd find yourself pinching at the cheeks with a grin. But the way you told them left Amy with empty smiles and the impression he was rude and blunt. You'd defend him but Amy's comments would leave you reassessing him the next day.
"I'm still surprised you find things to talk about with him," she said, washing up the plates. "I mean, from what you've said he's rich and old and a bit of a jerk by the sounds of it."
"He's alright," you said, remembering how intimidated you were of him to begin with and how you'd overheard him on the phone scaring the wits out of someone. But the guys in your team didn't really seem to get him; you were the only one who laughed at his bad jokes and dared banter with him. But then with two kids and a business, you'd lived more than they had. In some ways you were closer to a thirty year old man than they were.
When you told Amy he was gay her perspective changed and she clapped with excitement over the thought of setting him up with Nick.
"I dunno," you said stretching to put the dishes away. "I don't think they'd really go for each other."
She gave you a little squeeze. "Oh come on, it'd be great if Nick settled down and found someone!"
"I don't think he's the settling down type."
"Who, Nick or Brendan?"
"Both." You'd seen a few men leave first thing in the morning in crumpled clothes and never the same face twice. "Comes with the culture, dunnit? They always say that about gays."
"What's he look like, this Brendan?"
"Tall. Brown hair. He's got a moustache," you said, doing the action. You'd exhausted all your tache jokes on him and he pretended not to have heard them all a hundred times.
She grimaced. "Ugh. Is he good looking, though?"
"How am I meant to know?" Girls always asked this as if you had an opinion on other men or even looked at them beyond comparing. Brendan was taller, hairier, paler, more muscular, more masculine. You didn't know if any of that was considered good looking, but you would have preferred a body like his. Shirts didn't bag around his chest and trousers didn't hang off his body and lose the shape of him.
"Well Nick's gorgeous."
"Oi you!" You laughed and threw your arms around her tiny waist. She put her rosy lips against yours.
"Such a waste," she said with a smile. He always flirted with her and you wondered if that was allowed or expected if you knew your sexualities would never cross. Harmless they called it.
The next day of work you almost collided foreheads with Nick as you whistled your way up the stairs to the flats. The whistling kept running out of steam when your smile interrupted it, Brendan hated your whistling and constantly ribbed you about it, saying you were tone deaf and who let the cat in. You'd arrived early to collect paint swatches you'd left behind and planned to head to B&Q before the day started, but you met Nick coming in the opposite direction. His shirt hung out at the back.
A nervous laugh wisped from your nose. "What you doin' here?"
He flicked his eyes upwards and then leant on the railings of the stairs, licking his top lip. "Overtime," he said, posture puffed out smugly.
"What?"
He smiled from the side. "Spent the night with Brendan."
You felt pinpricks of heat on your cheeks making your jaw solid. "You did what?"
"Oh come on Ste!" he said, elbowing you in the side. "It was just sex. No harm in that."
Little pockets of anger smacked together inside you, fixing you to the spot. You couldn't believe he was treating it so meaninglessly, so unprofessionally. You didn't think you had to set rules like he was some sort of animal, you thought it was clear that those lines weren't crossed. It was typical of Nick, typical of a gay man, not being able to settle for one partner and not being able to think of anything else but sex.
He watched your face steel in coldness as you kept check on your violent temper. "Come on mate," he said.
You shook your head. "I don't want you back here on his job. You can piss off and find some other boss to make a fool of, you hear me? I don't care about you shagging about in your personal life, I know it's what you lot do, but I don't want it brought into work under my nose. Do one, Nick."
"You're an uptight wanker, Ste." Nick pushed past you, throwing his jacket on.
You threw paperwork across the room, hot fists, as you tried to find the paint charts you'd lost. Brendan strode into the room and span you around by the shoulder. The force of his expression silenced you.
"I won't employ bigoted pricks, you hear me? Not in my flat." He shoved your chest lightly and you'd have walked out on a different contractor for less. "I thought you were better than that, Steven."
"It weren't about that," you said, stepping up to him.
"Oh yeah? What was it about then?" You could see a stretch of vein on his forehead raised in anger and his chest swelled, muscles stretching the expose of where his shirt lay unbuttoned.
You pressed your hand to your forehead and looked to the dust sheet spread out over the sofa in the corner. You'd look there next for the chart. Brendan was still a closer proximity than you'd like.
"It was about him being unprofessional. I don't go around sleeping with the people I work for and I don't expect him to either. It's not right." You looked him in the eye even though you know the blush on your neck had spread. "It's not about you and him being gay, okay? I've got no issue with that."
Brendan eyed you cooly for a long few seconds. "I want you to rehire him," he said, invading your space. He dug his hand into your back jean pocket and pressed your phone into your hand. "Call him." He closed your palm around the phone and looked you squarely in the eyes like you were under the microscope.
He waited for you to fumble for Nick's contact before leaving, pausing to say, "And you needn't worry about it happening again. I ain't interested in him," – he started walking out the door – "Just so you know."
::: :::
It became worse when it was his own flat you'd started painting. He seemed to make it his mission to kiss a guy in front of you and watch for your reaction. You couldn't confirm his suspicions, that it made your stomach twist, so you'd stare on and fake indifference. He'd flaunt it, his sexuality, leaving you to see the unmade bed and walk about shirtless or in a pair of boxers. You'd couldn't ignore it, he wouldn't let you. Like he was proving a point. Even if you retreated to another room he'd make an excuse to walk through the one you were painting. He shut down any attention Nick gave him, but made more effort with the other decorators, joking and flirting with the other lads, sometimes at your expense.
"Lads how about a calendar? You know, paintbrushes and rollers for your modesty." He leaned up against a sheeted chest of drawers, looking up at Rob on the ladder. You could hear their chuckles and playing up to his attention. "Better not tell the boss." He looked at you and then back at the guys, indicating a cut throat and you turned up the radio to block them out feeling more isolated in your thoughts than ever.
You stopped talking about work with Amy and she'd taken on some late shifts at the shop. You stopped looking forward to work without its joviality. You started recognising the little stings you felt as something greater than annoyance, something under the skin. The paranoia that you'd lost him as a mate started to rile you and the days stretched out ahead to endless loneliness on the job. It was your fault and he continued to punish you for it.
He caught you on another Friday with your lunch, the other lads having gone to the pub. He played with a roller in the magnolia on the floor, sighing as he crouched down there.
"So how is life in the 1950s at home with the missus, Steven?" Brendan rolled up his shirt sleeves to avoid dripping any paint on himself.
His vibes seemed bitter now like lemon in a cut. "Fine," you said.
"Only 'fine'?" He hummed, ahhing as he got to his feet with the roller and applying it to the wall. "How's my hand action?"
"Needs work," you said flatly.
He cocked his head to the side. "Come and show me how it's done then." You touched a hand to his forearm and directed down to his wrist, steering his movements. You puppeteer'd him for a few more strokes and took a step back, narrowly avoiding your trainer in one of the overturned paint lids. "No wonder it's taking you so long with those little chicken arms of yours."
You crossed them. "Missed a bit," you said and watched him smile. He turned and flicked the roller at you until you were freckled white. You picked up a loaded brush to retaliate and started backing off. You thought he was stepping down until he only paused to take off his shirt and recoat the roller.
Squirming you raised your hands to cover your face and flicked the brush until a smattering of white covered his bare chest. You both went back to restock the brushes with paint, firing and ducking and crab-walking over the dust sheets and between paint tins. You ducked under a ladder and when he reached out and swiped, the roller striped your face white.
"That's it!" You wiped your face with the back of your hand and laughed with revengeful glee on picking up a second brush.
"Cheat," he said, crouching behind a covered table.
You sprayed a row of dots over his shoulder blades and he flinched at the cold, standing with such speed that knocked one of the brushes out of your hand and under your feet. You stumbled over it, dislodging your stepping and knocking against the pine wardrobe of the guest room. He pinned you with the roller under your chin and a manic grin. You panted with laughter, brush hovering across his chest ready to sweep right across him. He blobbed your chin and in retaliation you coated his nipple.
His skin bumped with the cold of the paint. "That felt good," he said and you felt the breaths shrink in your chest when he looked at you. His eyes were a dark navy on you in the warm light from the bay window and the speck of paint on his brow had smudged into an oblong. He placed the palm of his hand on your chin and smeared the paint across your cheek, leaving white finger streaks, pleased with himself. It was the first time in ages he'd smiled at you for that long and the warmth of it kept you still and quiet.
"Body paint, huh?" he said, putting a stop to the breathy silence and inspecting his painted torso. You looked as the paint began drying around his hairs. "I'll leave it to your expertise, Steven." He pointed to the walls and you stood there gormless as he unbuttoned the black jeans and motioned towards the shower, heading there. He'd forgotten the shirt so you picked it up in your hands, still warm, and moved it somewhere safer.
::: :::
You couldn't settle during EastEnders. And it wasn't because you hated soaps; or that Amy was so entranced she didn't want to be cuddled up; or because you thought that the two gays in it kissing was a bit much for seven-thirty; or because Lucas had wet the bed and you had to go and sort it. It was because Brendan had restarted your narky banter and was extending it beyond work hours via text. And you kept smirking behind your hand-covered-mouth until he told you he was heading out and he'd see you in the morning. And then you acknowledged it, let the word ring out in all its green and miserable glory.
You were jealous.
And you wouldn't push it, because it had started with this low ache in your belly when the world outside of the jealousy was blurry and distant, and you knew the fixation would pour into each crevice of your brain until something had to give. And there was no sense it in.
You craved friendship was all and you made plans with Darren for the weekend. He'd be glad of the break from the home life with his wife Nancy and you needed the company of someone that wasn't filling your headspace.
And just to be certain you watched porn, two blonde girls going at it, on your laptop when Amy was on a late shift and made love to her when she came home.
You stayed awake until sometime around four.
When you got to work he was kicking out last night's catch. He had a type and you didn't let it pass you by. You were opening the tins of paint to start the bathroom when he came in and leaned in the doorway. In a few hours that'd be wet and he'd have had a white line covering him.
"Anyone'd think you get here early just to have a perve on me in the mornings," he said. He wasn't to know you'd shifted moods in the night. The last he'd heard from you, you were still joking around about tiles and grouting. A topic only he could make entertaining.
You had your back to him as you crouched low mixing the paints. His eyes were hot on your lower back.
"You sent him packing already?" you asked not turning around. The paint swirled gloomily.
"I don't think he's The One," Brendan said mockingly.
"So you're just shagging anyone until you find him?" Your head bowed when you realised the mark you'd overstepped.
"We can't all be lucky enough to find our Amys, Steven," he said, making you stand, fists clenched and saw his posture stiffen. "I'm having fun, maybe you should try it some time."
You scoffed. "I don't need to try it. I'm happy with what I've got."
He nodded, arms folded across his body, mouth downturned. "That's good, that's good. Cos I'd hate to think you were going home unsatisfied." You saw the lick of his tongue under the row of his upper teeth.
"I'm satisfied."
"Good." He nodded and he left the flat almost immediately.
When you showed up the next day you made sure you were later than usual, hoping he'd be dressed and whichever sap he'd taken home would be long gone. As you let yourself into the flat there was no sign of him and relief mingled with disappointment. You entered the half-tiled bathroom and realised you'd left the extra tubs of grout in one of the other flats.
The key was in the door and your foot midway into the hallway of the flat when you saw him. Long seconds dragged out as you pieced together the scene in front of you before you realised your intrusion. You threw yourself back into the corridor, slamming the door behind you and the keys cutting into your hand. He'd held your gaze. Head to toe naked, fucking some guy over the arm of the sofa, contorted into such a way the lad's face was hidden. Brendan's mouth had been slack and red, his eyes dark and allured. He'd looked straight into your eyes and not at the body he was inside.
You called in sick to your colleagues.
The next day when you braved heading in, you didn't look at him. You couldn't even meet his eye when he bought pizza for all of you at lunch. The lads teased him for having an empty bed that morning; he laughed it off and you nearly saw your food regurgitated. Rob talked about his struggle getting over his girlfriend and you were welcome for someone else talking until Brendan joined in when passing,
"When you want something, you can't let anything stand in your way," he said to Rob, clapping him around the shoulders. You didn't look up from your pizza. "But in the meantime, I'm sure there are some girls you can pass the time with."
Rob grinned dorkily. "Speaking from experience?"
Brendan laughed. "Not on the girl front, but yeah you could say that. I'm looking for a good distraction tonight."
You waved goodbye to the guys at five thirty when you were on the phone to Amy as she perused the aisles of Price Slice to pick up dinner.
"Whatever you fancy, I'm not bothered," you told her, ending the call eventually after more mundane chat about what she should buy. You vacuumed the room because you were moving onto the next and final flat on Monday. There was still a glow of pride at a completed room, the perfect white edges and lines of exactly straight beige.
You sighed and then felt his hands on your shoulders.
They were gone almost as soon as you felt them. Turning in the tight space between your bodies with your breath held and you head ringing with paint fumes, you kissed him. Your lips combed his with an open mouth, dragging across the soft hairs of his moustache. The delayed moan that circled through your locked mouths came like a confession. But you ended it before his arm slipped around you, deserting his lust and chasing your doubts out the door.
At home you floated above the routine like a ghost, passing through each stage with habit and practice. You stared at her over dinner and thought of the path that took you to her, the one that lead to your future. You could second guess her next question, what you'd watch on TV tonight, what she'd wear to bed, how your third child would look, how you'd spend the summer in three years' time.
You stood in the bathroom, eyeballing your reflection and not a face or a longing you recognised. Under your hands you gripped the sink and the heat filled you, choked you, hammered you. He owned you now.
::: :::
The awareness that he had company only came after you clocked the bare feet and the dressing gown wrapped around himself. He watched you linger on this discomfort, this throbbing jealousy, and knocked the door back until it was open.
"Steven," he said as you began to walk away, causing you to stop in your tracks.
"Forget it," you said like a child. "You're obviously busy."
"You can come and check if you want," Brendan said, stepping back from the door. "There's just me."
You backtracked on your convictions and entered the empty flat, sulkily. One whiskey glass on the kitchen table, one dinner plate. That didn't mean anything, he wasn't the type to wine and dine after all, was he? He watched coldly as you checked the bedroom. Empty. Your body slackened with embarrassment and you skidded past him to make a quick, mortified exit, but his hand on your chest stopped you.
"Stay for a drink," he said.
Silence slugged out between you, his pouring of the drink and you perching on the sofa like it was made of needles. He made you uncomfortable by sitting beside you and clinking his glass against yours. He said something in Irish but you wouldn't let it fill your head.
"So now that we've established – and triple checked – that I'm alone, are you going to tell me why you're here? Or is it just the paintwork in the bedroom you wanted to see?" His mocking rang less humourlessly than you expected, instead beckoned like a flirtation.
You were grateful that the whiskey burned a little and your cough meant he wasn't expecting an answer immediately. "I thought you were going out."
"And you came all the way over here, thinking I'd be out?" Brendan placed his glass down and took yours out of your hand. You were surprised to find yours empty already. He rested his arm back on the sofa, the v-shape of the dressing gown exposing the silver edge of his cross pendant. "I didn't fancy it."
"I thought you were well up for it," you said. You remembered the exact tone of his voice when he'd talked about it, it had clattered around your skull like unwashed dishes in the sink, begging to be attended to. The clock on his wall gave a loud tick. Everything became easier to look at than his face. You noticed where the paintwork had been the victim of your daily distractions.
"I am," he said. "There's still time to pick up a bloke before the night's over." You picked at a thread of your clothes, hating how predatory he sounded, how cold.
"Why doncha then?" Your jaw felt heavy and you wanted to reach for that empty glass and hide behind its rim.
His arm stretched inches away from your neck as it rested on the back of the sofa. "Cos what I want ain't some easy low life sitting in a bar."
His thumb traced your hairline like a stray feather from a pillow. You daren't look at him. Another drink. You wanted another drink. You desires blurred and your eyes caught the fold of robe across his thighs. How long had you been aware that he was naked under it? The thought didn't terrify you. His thumb tracked to the half-moon of your bottom lip.
"What do you want?" he asked, the words seeping into each other because he knew you wouldn't answer if he gave you too much time.
You didn't look him in the eye when you untied the robe and let it shrug open. Curiosity itched your fingertips raw and soon the gown puddled open by his sides. He smelt of a clean dryness, fresh from a shower. His stomach rippled with muscles when he rolled back into the sofa, watching you with intrigue.
"Steven," he said, lifting your chin. He watched you swallow. His voice was like a lick of pleasure in the dark and the thrill of the moment coursed through you. His cock sat erect against him. Shakily you stole his measure of whiskey and threw it into your throat with abandon, sliding the glass across the table when you were done with it and touched him. His flesh flared in your hand and your fear glued you to him. You were clammy and him hot; he panted and you held your breath. His fist knotted the gown as you began a slow pump of his shaft and you could just about watch as his eyes rolled shut and neck lolled back.
He forced you to stop being so tentative, so gentle. Something about the way he sat, throne'd and alert, neck snapped back upright to watch you that challenged you. Your mouth cocked to the side and your grip harshened, his noise came from his nose like the pressure built inside his chest. You knew how fast you knocked one out in the shower, how your wrist could barely match your lust for it. The broads of his fingers rubbed the shaved back of your head like you'd please a cat, his thumb catching the loop of your ear in a way you didn't know you'd like.
You stopped, leaving him to stare at you wordlessly. He watched you leave and fetch the whiskey, knocking it back neat until tears pooled the rims of your eyes and then return to him, courage'd and on your knees. It wasn't what he expected and he glowed from it, tongue relaxed behind his bottom lip and pawing your cheek, your mouth pulling open. It wasn't like you didn't know what to do, you just never had.
When you'd thought about him, your back away from Amy and eyes clamped shut, you'd thought about this moment the most. The firsts. And surprising him, pleasing him. Being the one to make him cum.
His breath eased like steam from a kettle as your tongue coiled around the head of his cock. Your palms rested flat on his thighs and they stayed there, uneasily still. The bitter taste of whiskey was soon overlapped by the heat of flesh, the sourness of him tinged with sea-fresh soap. He held two fingers at the back of your neck, tapping you like a drum and with it, he drilled your mouth, holding back just enough so you didn't scare away.
You face flushed at his groans, the way his pupils darkened. You'd not managed to imagine this level of exquisite detail: the way his breathing raced and his hips rolled and the little growling curses that slipped between the wetter sounds of your mouth. The way Oh yeah sounded from his lips.
He warned you – hissing it between the snap of his teeth – that he was about to cum and expected you to shy back on your heels and let him finish the job. Instead you let his fingertips squeeze into your shoulders. Your cheeks hollowed and one tide of his strained moan swept through you, swallowing. The adrenaline stopped you thinking.
He wiped your lips with his hand and huffed a relieved laugh at the acceleration of events, slumping back against the sofa. You supped on the whiskey again and handed him the bottle when he was outstretched for it.
"That's fine Irish malt you're knocking back like coke, Steven," he said, flapping the robe back over himself.
You stood and stammered, head bowed. "I'm gonna get off." Your jacket was already pulled on your arm when he stood behind you, hands on your shoulders.
He kissed the dip of skin below your ear. "See how you feel in the morning. I wanna fuck you. I want to show you." You turned to face him, raising up onto your toes, closing the gap between your mouths. He took control for the first time, plunging his tongue deep into your mouth, hands sculpting around your body. You flagged, light on your feet, as he overwhelmed you, leaving your mouth stunned ripe.
When he undressed you in the bedroom, you covered up, sheepish and clumsy. He looked on you like a gift. You felt helpless and lumbered with naivety, murmuring nervously as he kissed you from the knee upwards. Your head swam with a glossy vision when he brushed the length of his cock against yours, swelling as an answer to all your questions.
"Tell me you want this," Brendan said, looming above and making the fear blossom in you like blood in water. His hand caressed the small of your back. You'd never known arousal in submission like this. His tongue felt like silk on your nipples and your fears languished to pleasure.
"I want it. I want you." The words ghosted just seconds before his lips were on yours again, taking command of your body.
You knew, as you'd known weeks ago, how you felt. The presence of him inside you, filling you to breaking point, pushing you into orgasm, just confirmed it. His teeth grazed your neck as you writhed, sweat sheening your collar bone and your limbs failing loose. You trembled powerlessly, mind wrecked by new ideas of masculinity and pleasure, Brendan exploring you like no one else had. He already knew you in ways you hadn't yet discovered yourself.
::: :::
You woke to find yourself squinting at a freshly white ceiling and the space beside you empty. You ran your hand across the rippled bedside and the warmth lingered from his body. There was a clench in your stomach, a roll of anxiety that hit you like concrete blocking your veins. Nausea clogged your throat when you cast your gaze to the right and saw the open packet of condoms on the beside cabinet, three scattered across the wood when the box had been grabbed at in a hurry. The memories of him knelt above you filled your sleep ached brain: rolling it onto his solid dick and holding it like it was about to change everything. Things had escalated before that moment.
A part of you hoped he'd left the flat to go about his business, to let you know your place as a one night stand and to leave without more effort and thought, but the other part…that was more complicated and it didn't bear thinking about. But the door opened and he brought you a mug of tea and had his shirt open, flapping free as he walked. You thought about your nails in his chest hair, his nipples hard when you touched them.
"I put extra sugar in," Brendan said, "for the shock." His eyes lit up gently when he looked at you.
He sat on the bed and you felt suddenly aware of being naked under the sheets. You smiled at him as weak as the tea and thanked him, hands shaking around the cup.
"Fancy joining me in the shower?" he said, finger tips wispy on your belly. You froze, dick hardening, and his mouth opened upon you with your surprising automatic acceptance. He melted soft against you in the morning, suckling your bottom lip into his mouth and sliding his hand into your hair. You moaned softly into him and the sound of it snapped you back into the room and what you were doing.
You hand pushed him gently on the shoulder. "I better get off home."
He nodded and freed up the bed. "Your girl Amy'll be wondering where you've been."
You swallowed the knot in your throat and nodded, swinging out of the bed and fumbling for your clothes, trying to ignore the way he looked at you.
You reached home faster than the journey had ever taken and it gave you a chance to park, breathe and get your story settled. The neighbourhood buzzed with familiarity: the postie making his rounds, the neighbour's telly on too loud on account of his hearing aid, the terriers yapping in the front garden. Nothing had changed on the outside.
Leah was in the living room with dolls and lidless felt tip pens spread across the pale carpet, even though you'd argued with Amy over it and she said you'd be able to afford a new carpet now with the pay out from the renovation work. She ran towards you, hugging your legs and you stroked her soft head and tried not to crumble when she said she missed you and why weren't you around to make Saturday breakfast? You made the kids pancakes every Saturday, slathered in Nutella and it gave Amy the morning off. But you found her in the kitchen tidying up cereal bowls, hair scraped back and greying skin from a restless night.
"I was wondering what time you'd show up," she said, harbouring the tone of a woman always abandoned by an unfaithful partner. Except you never stayed out, never gave her cause for worry, never fabricated tales about a heavy night and hiding lipstick on your collar.
You kissed her on her cold cheek.
"Me phone died," you said, weaving past her to stick on the kettle even though you craved a shower more than anything. Even if she couldn't smell it – the musty, manly tang of it – you reeked of sex and you didn't want its reminder.
"I got worried, Ste," she said, folding her arms into one and looking at you like a mother would.
"I'm sorry Ames, I should've used one of the lads' phones but I didn't think, did I?"
"Whose house did you crash at?"
Who wouldn't tell? "I just kipped on Darren's floor," you said, dramatizing a yawn. "Didn't get much sleep." You'd slept like a baby in the lapses between sex, right up against the solid well of Brendan's chest.
"Nancy didn't mind then?"
"Nancy? Nah, you know, she was fine." You placed your hands on her shoulders and squeezed. "I'm just gonna grab a shower."
In the bathroom you shot off a text to Darren. If Amy asks I was with you all night. I'll explain on Monday. The shower felt like a relief, cleansing you head and body. You lathered up, tugging bubbles around your groin but never lingering long enough to let your mind wander. You looked at the cheap plastic shower radio in your pokey little bathroom and wondering how the same man who stood in there yesterday, tweaking its dial, could have done what you did last night. If it wasn't for that dull feeling inside your body, you'd have put it down to a dream.
You rinsed the dirt, watching the water spiral away from you down the plug hole, shaved and walked downstairs to see your girlfriend. Darren had replied: You dirty dog. Expecting the sordid tale on Monday. And then you saw his name on your phone, your cheeks burning with guilt. You left a t-shirt here.
She handed you your tea and you over-compensated with a long kiss, leaving her squirm away in embarrassment because you were never normally that handsy. Lucas giggled and ran away from his smooching parents to go and join Leah.
You steeled yourself. "Ames I've gotta pop round the flats for a bit. Something I gotta sort out with Brendan."
"You've only just got home!"
You shook her off and grabbed your keys, swilling the tea around your mouth so you didn't have to speak much. "I won't be long and then we'll take the kids out – yeah?"
He opened the door to you in a shirt rolled up to the sleeves. "Back so soon?" You'd never experienced what the songs said about eyes undressing you until Brendan Brady stood in his doorway, all eyes and smile drawing you in. His hips curved off to the side and you knew it was wise to keep your gaze somewhere neutral and not at the unbuttoned gape of his shirt or where his jeans bulged prominently. He leaned back, letting you slide into the flat against his body.
Your hands wrung together out in front and he saddled over to you. "Drink?"
"I've just come to pick up my shirt."
"That's all you came for, Steven?" he asked, gaze lowering to your lips. You felt unsteady on your feet.
"Brendan I –"
He spun away from you, not seeing the way you built yourself up, squared your shoulders and stood a bit taller. He sat at the kitchen table polishing his boots. You should have known he'd be cold the morning after.
"Stuff's been going on in my head and I'm in a weird place right now. It's been difficult at home and I really like you, you're a great mate and – I dunno what I was thinkin' really. I'm not like that, I've never cheated and never with a bloke before. And I love Amy, she's my world, last night was just...well, it was wrong, alright? I shouldn't've. I'm not gay anyway, so..."
He didn't look up once, undeterred by your anguished displays of confusion and guilt. He polished harder, the brush making sharp scuffing sounds. "Well thank you Steven for that little insight into your fascinating private life thinking that I'd care. It's flattering, it really is. But I've had you now. A bit of fun. So whatever you are, whatever trauma you're going through I'm not interested in your little scared straight boy routine." His icy smile cut right through you, you'd never seen his expression morph into something so detached and ugly, and you felt scolding tears collect in your eyes.
You grabbed your shirt and pushed out of the apartment. "Fuck you." You didn't hear him throw the shoe across the room.
::: :::
You made a real effort at home, took the kids out, spent more time with Amy instead of on the X-Box. You panicked she was suspicious of your motives but you brushed her off when she teased you. All four of you went to dinner with her dad and he joked about engagements (he must have warmed to you after all these years) and you started to think about it as a real possibility. The thought of Monday and seeing him again hurt you, but maybe proposing to Amy might be the way forward.
You had sex with her that night and the differences between the sensations you felt, compared with him, wedged into your brain like a thorn. When you came you locked your gaze with her and mustered that connection, even if there seemed to be a distance even in her eyes which you were sure you were just imagining.
Sunday night she went to the supermarket still wearing her new earrings that she'd bought the other week and came back having forgotten half the items on the list. She sat in the kitchen watching you cook with a large glass of wine. You got the sense she wanted to say something but the doorbell rang and she watched over the pasta while you headed for the door, kicking the kids' toys out of your route.
You saw his outline through the frosted glass, feeling your stomach churn like a car rolling over in a crash. Pulling the porch door to, you opened the front door and glared straight at him.
"How dare you come here?" Your whisper came out raspy with fury.
"I came to check on you," he said, palms open. You'd never seen him in a t-shirt and hoodie before. It looked odd, like he wasn't comfortable despite their obvious softness.
You scoffed and dragged him out of earshot from the doorway. "Check on all your one night stands, do ya?! That must take up most of your day."
He rocked his head to the side, layering on the sarcasm. "That stings Steven, it stings."
"Oh go fuck yourself, will you? You made it clear already. You only wanted me cos I was a challenge. Well you won, didn't you? So give yourself a pat on the back!" You shoved his shoulders, hobbling back a little where the paving slab met the lawn and you wanted to escape him.
He caught your arm. "I ain't after a game, Steven. I ain't celebrating if you're in there living the Good Life with your missus. It's messy."
You flared, teeth gritted and trying to keep a lid on your volume. "You started this, you confused me!"
Brendan scoffed and started walking away from you. "Yeah, I made you come onto me, did I? Forget it. I don't do confused guys."
Despite yourself and the neighbours with their windows open, you called after him. "You can't just walk away! It's cos of you all this! You can't just start up these feelings and then leave me to deal with them on me own. It's is all new to me, this."
You couldn't second guess his next move. He turned, grabbed the front of your polo shirt in his hand and pulled you round the side of the house where the wheeliebins stood waiting for the Tuesday collection. He pushed you up against the wall of your family house and thrust your back hard against the sharp pebbledash, slamming his mouth against yours. You staggered into the weight of his kiss, relenting and your nose folded into his cheek. The ferocity of the kiss hurt from the inside out. It clawed away until your uncomfortable and forbidden thoughts rose to the surface, the shell of estate-bred homophobia and the casing of a 'normal' man fractured and you were left with only one overriding thought.
Next door's cat eyed you when you broke apart, your lips felt inflated, obvious, just as you heard Amy's call.
"Ste? Who's at the door?"
You straightened up and rushed round to the front to answer her, hoping you were more together than you felt. Your shirt cheated awkwardly at the back, mossy from the wall.
"It's just Brendan," you called through the hall.
"Well invite him in then!"
She popped her head around the door and smiled brightly. "Hello! We're just serving up, we've got plenty to go around."
"That's kind of you – Amy – but no, I better be off. I just came to speak to your boy Steven here."
The look you exchanged made you feel sick.
"Oh okay," she said. "All sorted, is it?"
He looked at you and rocked on his feet. "We'll see." There wasn't a hint of light or a tease in his face and he left without another sentence. Your feet felt leaded as you carried them through the house and sat down to eat. You were grateful that she wanted to watch a movie because the disconnect you felt meant you couldn't even scrape together small talk.
::: :::
The morning routine was like any other, except you hadn't slept and the tiredness felt like a noose as you lifted yourself out of bed earlier than usual. Amy was out of bed when you'd showered and she sat reading the messages on her phone. You looked at the clock in rapid bursts before the minute hand had even shifted. She noticed your agitation and sat with her knees drawn up to her chin. You resented how childlike she looked when you were about to break her.
"You look a bit peaky," she said, smothering you with her care. You stood by the window and the natural light shrunk around you.
"Ames," you said, covering your face as you breathed. "I can't – and I'm so sorry, more sorry than I can say – but, I've met someone."
Your words pierced the air and you watched her make sense of them, mouthing them in disbelief. It felt like a whole hour had dragged between your dialogue. "What do you mean, 'met someone'?"
The coward's way out would be not to look at her and you didn't, fidgeting with the rougher skin on your fingers. It was a nervous habit you'd picked up as a boy and worse now when your job meant your hands grew weathered and sore. You didn't' answer – couldn't – you allowed her to piece together graphic details of her own imagining.
"You've slept with someone else?!" she asked, unfolding herself from the bed and pacing tearfully. Usually it was your kids who padded the carpet barefoot in their pjammas.
"Yeah." It came out quiet and fast, like it would mean less at speed.
She exhaled clutching her shoulders and tears sliding down her cheeks. "Who?" She asked, almost deafened by her sob-clogged voice.
Your own tears fell. "Brendan."
"What?!" She faced you, almost beyond recognition with her puffy cheeks and red shot eyes. The last name she expected. It hardly sounded like a name to her. He could see her think back to yesterday evening, how blind she'd been to it all, the long hours away from home working in this man's house. This stranger with his overbearing posture and rough voice. The calm older eyes and the menacing facial hair of a man with too much power and too much bite. "Brendan?!"
"Yeah."
Her mouth twisted like knotted rope. "You had sex with Brendan? But, he's – he's a man."
"Yes." A sob heaving your chest. You felt selfish crying, but you couldn't prevent it and even when she pounded you with her fists in your chest desperately, you couldn't stop. She stumbled to the bed, too exhausted to hit you any longer even if the force was minimal. You crouched beside her. "I'm so sorry."
"What good's a sorry, Ste?" She wiped her face with the back of her hand, eyes glassy when you made contact. The sun went in outside and you were left with the greying haze of your bedroom and a car alarm breaking through your silence.
She spoke again, quieter. "I don't understand. You're not gay. How can you be gay?"
All you could see was the bowed crown of her head, the way it trembled as she breathed through her crying. You tried to touch her hand but she flinched away.
"I think I am," you said and it rushed out of your lungs and washed back over you in a cool breath.
Her eyes squeezed shut. Of course she was imagining the pair of you twisted together like some sort of perversion. Her head brimmed to the top with all the ignorance paired with gay men that you'd both been brought up believing. The camp, the diseased, the unnatural. "So it's my fault?" Her lips shook and you could feel the anger sheathed around her teeth. "I made you gay, is that what you're telling me? That I forced you into this – YOUR children out there?!" She jabbed her arm in the direction of where your oblivious blondes slept.
You gulped. "No! I love the kids," faltering, "I love you!"
You'd never heard her scream. It vibrated through her throat and stung the air. You thought of her late sister and how she'd cried the same tears over the same betrayal – a twist of fate that life could be cruel twice to the same family.
"Get out! Get out of this room, get out of this house! I don't want to look at you!"
She flung a photo frame at the wall behind you and it smashed, obliterating the glass in an instant, the photo sliding out pathetically limp. You left her, calling Nancy – and apologising for the time – and asked her to come over and look after your family. You checked on the kids, kissing them softly and told them their mummy was unwell and they should play in their rooms if they can't head back to sleep.
Nancy arrived in just fifteen minutes, shooting you a look of pity when you greeted her tearfully as you sat on the steps of the house.
"Are you okay? What's gone on? Are you ill?"
You felt even worse telling her, knowing any sympathy she had ready to unleash would be ripped out from the root and thrown in your face. You looked at her soft pixie features and already imagined them contorting into hard, venomous lines.
"I've just told Amy that I'm gay." You inhaled like you were tackling a climb. "And she doesn't want me in the house. And course I'll go but I wanted you to look after the three of 'em while she calms down."
Nancy's eyes had widened, white and gleaming. "Gay?! That's ridiculous. What do you mean you're gay?"
"A man. I've. I've met a man." You picked up your jacket and shook your head, buried in your hands and pushed past her to the car. "I'm so sorry," you said, choking back the sob as you hid away in the vehicle and drove away. You hadn't known back then, not until days later, that Amy's outburst was also laced with guilt. She'd been wondering for days how to tell you that she had also fallen for someone else. Only then, she hadn't slept with Mark.
::: :::
The steering wheel had dented a leathery imprint on your forehead when the tap on the window made you sit up and look out of it. He'd lowered himself, eyes just under the rim of the window edge and flicked his eyebrows up, imploring. You made no real attempts to move and after a moment of waiting, he saw you'd unlocked the doors and he climbed in the passenger seat beside you.
He released a dormant puff of air and drummed his fingertips on his knees, clearing his throat several times to make space for the words that were supposed to comfort or reassure you.
Your lips were swollen and wet when you kissed him and a sob made your throat close and stutter. The new loose tears made his cheeks damp and you pulled away embarrassed. His hand was locked over yours on an open stretch of his chest. Your fingers curled away from the wiry hair there. When you opened your mouth to speak, your breathing tumbled like a child's hiccups and you had to stop several times so you could make sense of what you were saying.
"I've not come here because…" you paused, "I'm not here cos I'm expecting anything." You were ungainly as you wiped your face over your forearm; you could see the state of yourself in the mirror. "I know you don't do relationships and I'm just some confused bloke with two kids and a-" You sighed long and hard with your palms over your face. "I don't even know why I came here."
You didn't expect him to sweep you up into a passionate kiss and dry your eyes, telling you that he loved you the moment he saw you. And he didn't.
He sat looking out the windscreen with you whilst you rubbed sleeves under your eyes and waited until your breath slowed to silence. "I'm willing to give it a go, if you are."
You looked up, blinking.
"A relationship, Steven." He looked at you once, you thought you saw a half-smile under his moustache, and then back straight ahead at the cars parked in front of yours. You thought about how many decisions were made in the front seats of a car: turn left or turn right. Like a crossroads, the okay you gave him carved out a very different path and erased the route that came with a no.
Months on from this moment, you'd remember sitting in the car with the pine air-freshener dangling in your view like a cat with a ball of string when he told you he loved you for the first time. You'd remember sitting next to the man whose legs were too long for the seat position and who had changed everything. Back then, he was the man who'd never believed in love and you were the doomed man who'd fallen for him.
The dent from the steering wheel was fading and you moved your gaze to look at Brendan. He stared straight ahead still. You weren't sure what was on that horizon that kept him fixated for so long - you looked - but maybe it just wasn't in your eye line yet.
::: :::