A gay sex story: Tag-along
It’s fair to say that Lindsey doesn’t exactly bring out the best in me. But when she messaged offering me a ride home, seeing as she was coming to get James anyway, I was thankful. Especially given the alternative was waiting an unspecified amount of time on a windy station platform for some replacement buses which might or might not show up while listening to folk around me debate whether the continual track failures were principally an infrastructure problem or an underinvestment problem or a climate change problem…
I was thankful, but…the first thing she said to me as I tucked myself into the economy-sized back seat of her Toyota Starlet behind James was;
“Gawd. You need to get that hair seen to yesterday, Jezza. You’re into hobo territory by now…”
I felt my shoulders rise. Jezza. I just can’t cure her of it. And yeah, okay, Lindsey…maybe I actually realise I need a haircut and maybe my barber has a broken wrist at the moment and maybe I’m not comfortable with just anybody touching my head…
I couldn’t say that of course, because she’d come back with some version of hey you don’t seem to have a problem letting just anybody touch your… Yeah. Nah. Don’t need to hear that from my sister. And what the hell does she know? I’m practically celibate now I’m not living in town anymore…
I shoved my laptop bag into the tiny crevice in front of my knees, willed my shoulders to relax, reminded myself I was grateful. Then she wound down her window, leaned out, and bawled;
“Goin’ to Waikanae! I got one seat free to Waikanae! Any takers?”
Ahhh, come on, Lindsey! I wailed internally. There isn’t any room! And if I wanted to sit cheek-to-cheek with some rando I could’ve just waited for the bloody bus, couldn’t I? Why do you always have to-
A body filled the space by her window and I heard a voice ask;
“Any chance you could let me out at Paekākāriki? Just by the crossing would be fine.”
“No probs, matey,” Lindsey brayed, “no probs at all. I gotta drop Jezza off there anyway. Hop on in.”
It was unfortunate, bad timing – super bad timing – that that was the last ‘Jezza’ which finally broke the camel’s back. As the door opposite me opened and the body lowered itself in, I hissed;
“I prefer Jeremy actually…”
It was said, and I couldn’t un-say it, so it just hung there for several moments, like a levitating turd in the small awkward space between me and…goddamnit…quite possibly the most beautiful man I’d ever laid eyes on, before he murmured;
“Ahh…good to know…”
Fuck, he was stunning. Broad shouldered and well filled out beneath, solid but not fat, square jaw, loose dark curls, big expressive eyes and full lips that right now were slightly…bunched…tensed, trying not to laugh. At me. At my precious, fussy, old-fashioned demand to be called by my whole name. I didn’t blame him. I blamed myself. And Lindsey.
He got his amusement under control and turned to me fully. “I’m Quinn,” he breathed.
As usual, Lindsey barged in before I could do anything to repair the situation. “Hey, Quinn! Welcome to the world’s crappiest limo service! I’m Lindsey and this is James. How long’ve you been living up the coast?”
I got the sense he didn’t necessarily want to chat, but she managed to wrangle a sentence or two out of him. He’d been living in town until a couple of months ago when his flatting situation kinda went nuclear, causing him to need somewhere else to stay – fast – and there was nothing available, just nothing.
“I mentioned it at work,” he said, “and one of my colleagues told me her sleep-out had recently come free and I could sublet it if I wanted. I like the place, but the commute’s…uhh…a pain in the arse.”
“Yeah, Jezza’s real down on it at the moment too,” Lindsey quipped. “I keep saying to him, remember the accommodation’s free at Mum and Dad’s! Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, little bro…”
I buried my head in my hands. Thank-you, Lindsey. Not only for the gift of yet another Jezza but also for announcing that I’m living at home without clarifying that actually I’m house-sitting…Through my slitted fingers I could see Quinn watching me, wearing that cautious little must-not-smile face again, and I died a bit more inside.
How does it matter? I asked myself. He’s almost certainly straight anyhow. Let’s face it, most people are. But what if…
He was wearing a pink shirt. Gentle pastel pink, and it looked great on him, it was evidently a considered choice – a perfect fit, and it really accented his skin and those big brown puppydog eyes. And his pants, they were the darkest charcoal grey, not default black. Thought gone in there too…
Get a grip, Jezza! Knowing how to dress isn’t an indicator of queerness, and pink shirts are-not-signalling! Stop buying into the sort of crappy heteronormative stereotyping you know you hate!
I tried. I tried to stop buying into the…etc., but my mind wouldn’t let it go. It made me kinda tongue-tied and awkward – even more tongue-tied and awkward than I usually was around Lindsey – and by the time she pulled over to let us out into the blustery dusk, I was annoyed at everything and ready to consign this whole wreck of a day to the bin. Go home, feed my parents’ overindulged Burmese cats, heat up some leftovers, jump into bed and press the reset button.
But no. I didn’t even get to do that, because approximately three seconds after we left the shelter of the car, the sky let rip. We sprinted toward the meagre shelter of a storefront awning, as a mad gust of wind came following, whipping the rain nearly sideways. Even plastered against the gritty wall, my lower legs were exposed to it.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” I roared into the void. “What is this dickfuckery?”
“Just keeps getting better, doesn’t it?” I heard Quinn murmur beside me.
I dropped my head in my hands again. Great. Now I’m the guy who yells at the sky. It does indeed keep getting better…
The lightest touch on my shoulder made me jump. “I might get a beer, meantime,” Quinn said as I looked up, gesturing toward the ‘Bar’ sign dangling from the awning, see-sawing in the wind. “You on?”
Well, yeah. I only agreed to get out of the rain, of course. Not because I wanted to be able to survey his gorgeous topography some more, or to talk to him without Lindsey getting in the way and fucking everything up. Kidding. Kidding. I had a feeling already that Quinn was somebody I’d find it very difficult to say ‘no’ to. If only he’d ask…
Unfortunately everything he asked was totally standard conversational stuff, but my bad mood ebbed away as I covertly mapped him out while we drank – the wings of dark hair along the outer edges of his hands, the way he unbuttoned his cuffs and folded them back once, twice, past his thick wrists, leaving his forearms erotically exposed-yet-concealed…
He wore a watch. Not a FitBit or an Apple Watch, not a piece of technology, but an actual watch, the chunky brushed silver once again a perfect fit for his overall aesthetic…surely…?
“I love your watch,” I told him. He’d caught me staring anyhow.
“Thanks,” he said, glancing briefly down at it. “My parents got it for me for my twenty-first. I know it’s kinda old fashioned, but they have some fixed ideas so it was pointless protesting. The girls get a bracelet, the boys get a watch, that’s how it’s done, y’know? And they live pretty simply mostly – the farm tends to eat up all the spare money – but these things are important to them so they plan ahead, they save, they make it happen.”
He shrugged. “My sister’s getting married next year so they’re at it again. Never ends I s’pose. Anyhow, at the time I’d definitely rather have had some money toward a better ride, but now…yeah, they were right.”
I was just at the point of getting excited, thinking, wow…this isn’t chat, this is sharing – when Quinn seemed to realise the same thing. He blinked, squared his shoulders, cleared his throat, re-setting…
“So anyhow, what do you do, Jeremy?”
Damn. Fuck.
I shrugged, grimaced. “Work for the government. Who doesn’t?”
“I don’t,” he said, putting away the last of his beer.
I was rapidly running through a list of other possibilities in my head that fit with the level of dress – not insurance or law, no tie…consulting? medicine? real estate? menswear? – when he added; “I work in retail…kinda.”
So…menswear.
“Where at?” I enquired. Because I will for damn sure start getting my stuff from there, even if I can’t afford it…
He raised his chin a little. “I asked first,” he said.
Ooh. A pushback. Delivered with a sly little smile, but definitely a pushback. Answer the fucking question, Jeremy..I had sudden visions of him ‘pushing back’ at me for real, us wrestling on the couch, the floor, winner takes all – would I want to win? Or lose…?
He was staring now, one brow raised. Right. Answer the fucking question, Jeremy.
“I, uh, work for the Ministry of Health,” I stuttered. “Forecasting. Before that I was at the Ministry for Social Development. Also forecasting.”
“You’ve got a degree, then?” Quinn prompted.
“Ahh, yeah?” I replied, shrugging. I mean, obviously. “Economics. Nothing fancy, just a bachelor’s…”
Quinn was nodding thoughtfully. “So you’re a numbers guy, basically?”
“I guess…”
“I’m not,” he said decisively. “Not a letters guy either, unfortunately. I’m dyslexic. But there was nobody to diagnose something like that at a tiny country school. I always just figured I was dumb, and I think probably everybody else thought the same. It wasn’t until I got to high school…and by that time it was a bit late to start catching up on shit. I left when I was sixteen and started a plumbing apprenticeship instead…”
* * *
When I finally got home it was close to ten – it had rained for ages and by the time it quit I’d stopped noticing the weather. I fed the cats, who were a whole other kind of demanding by that time, then changed into pyjama pants and sat looking out the window seat with my chin on my knees, watching car headlights winking along the highway northward, the fat crescent moon sinking toward the sea. And I thought.
[zilla_likes]