Chapter 4: Public Performance
The walk to The Gridiron was a twenty-minute funeral procession. Mark—Mia, he had to be Mia—felt the new jeans like a second skin, the v neck shirt showing deep cleavage exposure. Every step in the simple sneakers felt wrong, too light, lacking the grounded thump of his old boots. Ben walked beside him, a solid, silent monolith. His jaw was set, his hands shoved deep in his jacket pockets. They didn’t touch.
“Remember,” Ben said, his voice low as they crossed the final street. The neon sign of the bar, a flickering football, came into view. “You’re from my hometown. Carson Creek. You’re transferring in for spring semester. You’re shy. Let me do the talking.”
“I know the script,” Mark muttered, his throat tight.
“Then act it.” Ben’s gaze was straight ahead. “And for god’s sake, don’t talk about offside traps or scrum formations.”
The burst of noise and warmth from inside The Gridiron hit them like a physical wall. The familiar smell—yeast, frying oil, citrus-scented cleaner fighting a losing battle—was a gut-punch of nostalgia. The big screens were all on different games, the sound a muddle of roaring crowds and commentators. And there they were. His team. A ragged semi-circle around two pushed-together tables littered with pitcher carcasses and baskets of fries.
Derek, the hooker, with his shaved head and perpetual grin, saw them first. His eyes, already glazed from a few post-practice beers, slid past Ben and locked onto Mark. The grin widened, turned predatory. He nudged Liam beside him. One by one, the conversations dribbled away. A sea of familiar faces, weathered by wind and turf, all turning. Curious. Appraising.
Mark’s feet wanted to root to the sticky floor. Every instinct screamed to turn, to run, to hide in the equipment shed where he belonged.
Ben’s hand caught his elbow, fingers digging in just above the bone. It wasn't a gentle touch. It was an anchor, a warning, a command. He propelled Mark forward, into the gauntlet of their stares.
"Well, well," Derek drawled, leaning back in his chair. The wood creaked. "Brains brought a friend. Didn't know you had it in you, mate." His eyes, a pale, beer-fogged blue, traveled over Mark with a slow, appraising leisure that felt like being X-rayed. "Aren't you going to introduce us?"
Ben’s grip tightened. Mark could feel the heat of him through his jacket sleeve. "This is Mia," Ben said, his voice forcibly relaxed, a casual arm sliding around Mark's shoulders. The weight of it was a brand. "She's staying with me. From back home."
"Staying with you, huh?" Liam, a flanker with hands like dinner plates, grinned. A collective, knowing murmur rippled through the group. The assumption was instant, effortless. Ben’s claim, marked by that possessive arm, was all the explanation they needed.
Mark forced a small, tight smile. He tried to mirror the shyness Ben had prescribed, dropping his gaze to the sticky tabletop. He saw a half-eaten basket of wings, a pool of crimson sauce. His stomach, still rejecting the memory of the protein shake, lurched.
"Make some room, you animals," Ben ordered, his tone shifting into the familiar, easy authority he used on the pitch. He nudged Derek's boot off a chair. Ben sat, pulling the chair beside him close with his foot. He didn't let go of Mark's shoulders, guiding him down into it.
Mark sat, hyper-aware of his own body in the small space. His hip brushed Ben's. The contact sent a jolt through him, a confusing mix of familiarity and profound wrongness. He could smell Ben's deodorant, the faint, clean sweat from morning weights underneath the bar's greasy haze.
"So, Mia," Derek said, pouring a fresh beer into a relatively clean glass. He slid it toward her. "What brings you to our thrilling metropolis?"
Ben answered for him. "Transfer student. Starting next semester. Just getting settled." His thumb, resting on the curve of Mark's shoulder, began a slow, absent back-and-forth motion. It was a couple's gesture, automatic and intimate. Every nerve in Mark's body focused on that tiny, grinding point of contact.
"Quiet one, isn't she?" Liam observed, taking a loud sip of his pint.
"Jet lag," Ben said smoothly. He finally let his arm drop, but only to reach for his own drink. His hand settled on the back of Mark's chair instead, his fingers just brushing the fabric of the flannel shirt. The message was still clear: back off.
Mark picked up the beer Derek had pushed toward him. The glass was cool. He took a small sip. The bitter, hoppy taste was a relic. It was his taste. But drinking it now, in this body, in this moment, felt like stealing. He set it down.
The conversation lurched back to rugby, to the upcoming match against State. The familiar cadence of insults, play critiques, and loud laughter washed over him. He was inside the circle, but utterly outside of it. A decorative object. He watched his own hands, smaller and smoother now, trace a watermark on the wooden table.
Then Ben’s hand moved from the chair back. It landed on his denim-clad thigh, just above the knee. The warmth and weight of it were a shock, a five-alarm fire through the fabric. Mark stiffened, his entire frame going rigid.
Ben’s fingers squeezed, a quick, warning pulse. His face was turned toward Derek, laughing at some crude joke about the State team's scrum-half. But the grip on Mark's leg was iron, commanding him to relax, to accept this part of the performance.
The heat from Ben’s palm seemed to bleed through the jeans. Mark forced a breath, tried to unclench his jaw. He picked up the beer again, just to have something to do with his hands. Across the table, Derek was watching them, a speculative gleam in his eye.
"Getting along well already, I see," Derek said, nodding at Ben’s hand on Mark's leg. "Quick work, Brains."
Ben just smirked, a cocky, effortless expression that didn't reach his eyes. "What can I say? When you know, you know." He gave Mark's thigh another pat, this one almost brotherly, before removing his hand to grab a fry. The relief was immediate, and then somehow emptier.
The noise level rose with each new pitcher. Mark felt himself receding, a silent satellite orbiting their boisterous planet. He watched Ben slip back into his role—the smart, solid player, one of the guys. He told a story about a blown physics midterm, and the table roared. This was his world, and Mark was just a temporary, pretty visitor.
Then Ben leaned in close, his breath warm against Mark's ear. The scent of beer and Ben was overwhelming. "We need to sell it a bit more," he murmured, his voice a low vibration. "Derek's not buying the shy act. He thinks it's weird you haven't said two words."
Before Mark could process this, Ben’s arm was back around him, but lower this time. His hand settled on Mark's waist, pulling him a fraction closer on the chair. The contact was different, more deliberate. Ben’s face was inches from his, a practiced, affectionate smile on his lips for the benefit of the table.
Mark’s heart hammered against his ribs. The sensory input was too much: the loud bar, the watching eyes, the firm pressure of Ben’s hand on his waist, the faint scratch of Ben’s stubble near his temple. A hysterical, defensive joke bubbled up from the panic, a stupid attempt to reclaim some sliver of their old, wordless shorthand.
He turned his head slightly, his lips almost brushing Ben's ear, and whispered, his voice a strained imitation of lightness. "We haven't practiced kissing, babe."
The effect on Ben was instantaneous. The affectionate mask shattered. His body went rigid against Mark's side. The hand on Mark's waist clenched, fingers digging into the soft flesh above his hip bone with a force that was beyond acting. A sharp, shocked inhale hissed through Ben's teeth.
He pulled back just enough to look Mark in the eye. His gaze was a torrent of fury, betrayal, and something else—raw, unvarnished panic. The easy smile was gone, replaced by a line of pure tension. Every part of him screamed a silent, violent rebuke.
He didn't whisper back. He just stared, his eyes holding Mark's in a vise of promised reckoning. The noise of the bar seemed to fade into a dull, rushing static. The performance was crumbling, and beneath it, something far more dangerous was cracking open.
The frozen silence between them lasted only a second, but it stretched like a deep crack across a frozen lake. Ben’s furious grip on Mark’s waist was the only real thing in the blur of noise.
Then Mark’s survival instinct, a raw, jagged thing, kicked in. He couldn’t take the words back. So he leaned into them, into the character, turning the unbearable tension into a different kind of performance. He shifted on the chair, turning his body fully into Ben’s rigid side, and slid his arms around Ben’s neck in a clumsy, close hug. He buried his face in the space between Ben’s shoulder and jaw, inhaling the stark scent of cheap soap and simmering anger.
His voice, when he spoke, was muffled against Ben’s skin but deliberately loud enough for the table to hear. It wasn’t the shy whisper from before. It was brighter, performatively affectionate, a total contrast to the storm in Ben’s eyes. "I missed this guy so much," he said, the words vibrating against Ben’s neck. He pulled back just enough to smile at Derek and Liam, a wide, convincing grin that felt like it might crack his face. "Home hasn’t been the same without him."
The table erupted in a chorus of "awws" and mocking, good-natured groans. Derek’s suspicious look melted into a leer. "Get a room, you two!" he bellowed, slamming his pint down for emphasis.
Ben was statue-still, his arms hanging at his sides. Mark could feel the hammering of Ben’s heart where his own chest was pressed against him. It was a frantic, trapped rhythm. Then, slowly, deliberately, Ben’s hands came up and settled on Mark’s back. The touch was flat, heavy, devoid of any real affection. It was an actor taking his mark.
"That’s my girl," Ben said to the table. His voice was a rough approximation of warmth, sawdust-dry. He gave Mark’s back a single, hard pat—the kind you’d give a teammate after a decent tackle—and then firmly pushed him away, creating a few inches of breathable space between them on the chairs.
The performance stabilized, but the foundation was now poison. Mark picked up his beer again, his hand trembling slightly. He took a larger gulp, the bitterness a fitting anchor. Ben engaged Liam in a loud debate about line-out strategies, his voice overly forceful. He never looked at Mark.
But his left hand returned to Mark’s thigh under the table. This time, the grip was different. It wasn't a possessive claim for the audience. It was a punishment. His fingers dug into the muscle of Mark’s inner thigh, high up, where the denim was tight. The pressure was intimate and vicious, a silent, furious communication meant to cause a wince, to assert control where his words could not.
Mark didn’t flinch. He stared straight ahead at the glowing TV screen, watching incomprehensible football highlights, and endured it. The pain was a clear, clean sensation in the hurricane of everything else. He deserved it. He knew that. The joke had been a bridge too far, a grenade tossed into the fragile ceasefire.
He finished his beer in two long swallows. The buzz came on fast, softened by the new metabolism the doctors had warned about. The edges of the room smudged slightly. The pain in his leg began to feel distant, a problem happening to someone else.
When Ben finally released his grip to stand up and get another round, the absence of pressure was its own shock. Mark subtly rubbed the spot, feeling the certain promise of a bruise beneath the fabric. Ben leaned over him, one hand on the back of his chair, his body blocking the view from the table. His face was close again, but this time there was no pretend affection.
"That?" Ben whispered, his breath hot with hops and malice. "That was you being stupid. Again. Follow my lead or this falls apart. You don't get to improvise." He didn't wait for a reply. He straightened and walked to the bar, his broad shoulders cutting through the crowd.
Mark sat in the hollow space Ben left behind. The team’s conversation swirled around him, but he was locked in the feedback loop of that grip, that whisper. He watched Ben at the bar, leaning casually, ordering, laughing at something the bartender said. He was so good at shifting gears. Mark felt like a single, stuck noise—a scream folded into the shape of a person.
Derek slid into Ben’s vacant seat, his chair scraping loud. He smelled of sweat and amber ale. "So, Mia," he said, his voice a conspiratorial rumble. "He treating you right? Our Ben can get a bit… in his head."
Mark looked at Derek’s familiar face, the crooked nose he’d seen set in the locker room after a bad match. The concern in his eyes was real, and it was meant for a stranger. It was the final, perfect twist of the knife.
"He's perfect," Mark heard himself say, the words automatic and hollow. He forced another smile, channeling every vapid, pretty girl he'd ever passively ignored. "Just takes a little getting used to, you know? All this." He gestured vaguely at the bar, the team, the entire fabricated life.
Derek nodded, buying it completely. "Well, you let me know if he gives you trouble. We'll sort him out." He winked, a gesture of buddy-bro solidarity that now felt like a threat.
Ben returned with fresh pitchers, his eyes immediately noting Derek’s proximity. He set them down with a thud that made the table jump. "Poaching my girl, Derek?" The question was jocular, but his gaze wasn't.
"Just looking out for her, mate," Derek said, holding up his hands in mock surrender before returning to his original seat.
Ben sat back down. This time, his arm went around Mark’s shoulders with a practiced, natural ease that made Mark’s skin crawl. He pulled Mark close, his side a hard, warm line against him. He dropped a kiss, quick and dry, on the top of Mark’s blonde hair. The gesture was for the table. A re-staking of his claim.
Mark froze. The casual intimacy of it was a different order of violation than the punishing grip. It was a lie performed flawlessly, and it sickened him. He felt the ghost of that kiss like a brand.
He didn't pull away. He let his head rest against Ben’s shoulder, the picture of contented coupling. He stared at the mirrored wall behind the bar. In its reflection, he saw the two of them nestled together, a handsome couple amid the rowdy crowd. He saw Ben’s face, angled down, the false smile not reaching his eyes which were dark and focused on the mirror too. And he saw his own reflection—a beautiful girl clinging to her boyfriend.
The face in the mirror was a stranger’s. But the expression in its eyes—lost, furious, trapped—was all his own. Ben’s hand squeezed his shoulder, a silent command to keep playing the part. The chapter of their old friendship was burned. This was the new text, and they were both learning to read it by force.
This was the new text, and they were both learning to read it by force. The dry kiss on his scalp burned like a brand. Every laugh from the table, every clink of glass, was a needle sewing him tighter into this costume. Ben’s arm around him was a steel bar, both cage and claim. The fizzy, alien warmth of the beer in his stomach twisted into a hard knot of rebellion.
He couldn’t breathe inside this performance. He needed to shatter it, to force Ben to feel even a fraction of this dizzying, humiliating wrongness. The punishing grip on his thigh under the table had been a message. Fine. He’d send one back.
Mark let his hand, which had been resting on his own knee, slide casually into the shadowed space beneath the scarred table. The din around them was a blur of shouts and game commentary. He focused on the textured wood grain beneath his fingers, on the steady, heavy warmth of Ben’s body beside him. Ben was leaning forward, arguing a referee’s call with Liam, his free hand gesturing with his pint.
Taking a shallow breath, Mark moved his hand. He laid his palm flat, then curled his fingers, pressing the entire cup of his hand firmly against the stiff denim of Ben’s jeans. He felt the solid, familiar muscle of Ben’s inner thigh, the seam of his jeans, and then, the startling, distinct firmness beneath.
He didn’t just grab. He applied a slow, deliberate, seductive pressure, his fingers curling in a possessive knead. He watched Ben’s profile, waiting for the reaction.
Ben’s sentence about a penalty kick died mid-syllable. His entire body seized, a sudden, total paralysis that locked his joints. The hand holding his pint froze in mid-air. Mark felt the denim twitch under his palm, a involuntary muscular spasm. For three full seconds, Ben was utterly, profoundly still amid the bar’s chaos.
Then, with a terrifying slowness, Ben turned his head to look at him. His eyes were wide, the pupils dark and swallowed by shock. The color drained from his face, then rushed back in two sharp blotches high on his cheekbones. He didn’t look angry. He looked eviscerated.
Mark held his gaze, his own fingers still curled in that intimate, claiming shape. He gave one last, faint squeeze, a punctuation mark.
Ben’s hand shot down under the table, fingers like iron prying Mark’s off him. The force was brutal, desperate. He flung Mark’s hand back into his own lap as if it were a venomous thing. A single, ragged breath hissed out between Ben’s clenched teeth. He turned sharply back to the table, a convulsive motion, and threw back the entire remainder of his pint in one continuous, shaking gulp.
He set the empty glass down with a sound like a bell tolling. His breathing was all wrong—shallow, irregular hits. The confident slope of his shoulders had collapsed inward. Mark watched, a cold, sick triumph curdling in his gut. He’d broken the performance. Finally.
“You good, Brains?” Derek’s voice cut through. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
Ben managed a stiff nod. He couldn’t speak. His eyes were fixed on the sticky rings on the table, seeing nothing. The hand that had thrown back the pint now gripped the edge of the wood, knuckles bone-white. Mark could feel the fine tremor running through the body pressed beside his.
The victory tasted like ash. Mark’s own heartbeat was a frantic drum in his ears, louder than the bar’s roar. He’d wanted to shatter the act, to make Ben feel the screaming wrongness of it all. Mission accomplished. But staring at the wreckage of his friend—the pallor, the blind panic—a deeper, colder fear opened up inside him. What now? The script was in tatters on the floor.
Ben suddenly stood up, the chair legs shrieking against the floorboards. “Bathroom,” he choked out, the word thick. He didn’t look at anyone. He just turned and shouldered his way through the crowd, a man fleeing a fire.
Silence pooled at their table for a moment. “Must’ve been those wings,” Liam chuckled, but it was uneasy. Derek’s eyes followed Ben’s retreat, then slid back to Mark. They were sharper now, less clouded by leeriness, more by calculation.
“Everything alright with you two?” Derek asked, his tone deceptively light.
“Fine,” Mark said. His own voice sounded thin, reedy. “Just… a lot of beer, fast.” He grasped for the character of Mia, but she was gone, vanished the second his hand moved under the table. He was just Mark, naked and terrified, sitting in a woman’s clothes in the middle of everything he’d lost.
He needed air. He needed to not be seen. “I should check on him,” he mumbled, pushing back his own chair. He didn’t wait for a response.
The narrow hallway to the restrooms was dim, wallpaper peeling, smelling of industrial cleaner and decades of piss. The noise of the bar was a muffled boom here. Ben was not in the bathroom. The door was ajar, the small, tiled space empty.
A draft of cold air came from the back door, propped open with a brick. Mark pushed it, stepping out into the alley. The contrast was violent—silent, frigid, the sky a smear of urban orange above dumpsters. Ben was there, leaning against the filthy brick wall, head bowed, hands braced on his knees as he dragged in huge, ragged lungfuls of air.
“Ben.”
Ben flinched but didn’t turn. His back, a broad expanse in his jacket, rose and fell. “Get away from me.” The words were guttural, stripped raw.
“I…” Mark had nothing. ‘I’m sorry’ was a laughable insult. He stepped closer, the gravel crunching under his sneakers.
Ben whirled. In the alley’s half-light, his face was a mask of pure havoc. Tears of fury or shock or both tracked clean lines through the bar grime on his cheeks. “What is wrong with you?” He didn’t shout. It was a strained, desperate rasp. “What the actual fuck is wrong with you? In there? With them watching?”
“You were pretending!” Mark shot back, the defensive anger flaring. “You kissed my head! You had your hand all over me! You told me to sell it!”
“I didn’t tell you to… to do that!” Ben’s hands came up, fingers clawing at the air as if trying to rip the memory out of it. “That wasn’t selling it, Mark. That was assault. You assaulted me. In public.” He said the words slowly, as if tasting each one and finding them poisonous. “My best friend just sexually assaulted me in a fucking bar.”
The term landed like a physical blow. Mark recoiled. “It wasn’t… I wasn’t trying to…” The protest died. What had he been trying to do? Punish him. Hurt him. Make him feel as owned and helpless as Mark felt. “You were hurting my leg,” he said weakly.
“And that gives you the right to grab my dick?” Ben’s laugh was a short, shattered sound. “Jesus Christ. Do you even hear yourself?” He pushed off the wall, getting right in Mark’s space. The smell of beer on his breath was sour now. “You think this is a game? You think because you look like that now, you can just… do whatever you want? That there are no lines?”
Mark’s own anger surged, hot and shameful. “You don’t get to talk about lines! You agreed to this! You’re the one who said we had to be a couple! You put your arm around me, you whispered in my ear, you… you fucking consume me with your eyes when you think I’m not looking!” He was yelling now, the words tearing out of him, things he hadn’t even let himself think. “You hated that guy in the mall for looking at me, but you look too, Ben! I see it! So don’t you dare act like some pure, violated victim here! You’re in this! You’re complicit!”
Ben stared at him, his breath clouding in the cold air between them. The fury in his eyes didn’t diminish, but it changed, mixing with a dawning, horrified comprehension. He took a step back, creating a canyon of space. “You’re right,” he said, his voice terrifyingly quiet. “I am complicit. I helped build this cage. And now you’re biting me through the bars.”
He turned, as if to go back inside, then stopped. His shoulders slumped, all the fight draining out of him, leaving utter exhaustion. “I can’t do this. The contract’s void. Find another way to pay your rent.”
Panic, immediate and absolute, lanced through Mark. “Ben, wait—”
“No.” He didn’t turn around. “You crossed a line that can’t be uncrossed. I’m going home. You find your own way back. Or don’t. I don’t care.”
He walked back through the propped door, letting it swing shut behind him. The click of the latch was final. Mark stood alone in the freezing alley, the sounds of the bar taunting him from inside. He’d won. He’d made Ben feel it. And in doing so, he’d torched the only bridge he had left.
The walk back was a two-mile numbness. The cold ate through the flannel shirt. Every passing car headlight felt like an interrogator’s lamp. He replayed the alley, Ben’s face, the word ‘assault’ ringing in his skull. He’d only meant to shove back, to equalize the power. He hadn’t meant… but intention didn’t matter, did it? The result was the same. He was a monster in a pretty shell.
The apartment was dark and silent when he let himself in. Ben’s door was closed, a solid slab of indifference. Mark went to his own room, shut the door, and slid down it to the floor. He hugged his knees, the new jeans soft against his cheek. The silence was a physical pressure. He’d spent the day being seen too much. Now he felt utterly invisible, erased.
He didn’t know how long he sat there. An hour. Maybe two. The numbness wore off, leaving a hollow, aching shame. He had to fix this. He had to say something, anything. But ‘sorry’ was a worthless currency. Action was all that was left. A reckless, stupid action, to match all the others.
He stood up, his joints stiff. He left his room and walked the short distance to Ben’s door. He didn’t knock. He turned the knob. It was unlocked.
The room was dark, lit only by the streetlight glow through the blinds. Ben was a mound under his blankets on the bed, facing the wall. He didn’t move as Mark entered.
Mark’s mouth was dry. His heart slammed against his ribs. This was the worst idea he’d ever had, and he’d had plenty. But it was the only language he had left—the language of physicality, of undeniable, terrible proof. He walked to the side of the bed.
“Ben.” No response. Not even a hitch in his breathing. He was awake. Mark knew it.
He sat on the edge of the mattress. The springs creaked. Still, Ben didn’t move. Mark reached out, his hand trembling. He placed it on Ben’s shoulder, over the blanket. The muscle beneath was rigid as stone.
“I need you to know,” Mark whispered, his voice breaking. “I need you to see what you do to me.”
His hand slid down Ben’s arm, over the curve of his hip. Ben remained a statue. Mark’s fingers found the waistband of Ben’s sweatpants. He hooked his thumb inside the soft fabric and the elastic of his boxers beneath.
Then, in one fluid, committed motion, he seductively reached into Ben’s pants and stroked his dick.
It was soft. Completely, utterly soft. Not just unaroused, but defensively limp, a visceral, bodily rejection more absolute than any shove or shouted curse.
Mark’s hand froze. The intimacy of the touch, the warmth of Ben’s skin, the coarse hair, all of it was suddenly horrifying. He wasn’t holding a symbol of conquest or a tool for manipulation. He was just holding his best friend, who had gone utterly still in a way that spoke of profound, interior devastation.
A sound escaped Ben. Not a moan. Not a protest. A low, wounded exhale, like the air was being crushed from his lungs by the weight of this final violation.
Mark jerked his hand back as if scalded. He scrambled off the bed, stumbling back until his shoulders hit the wall. He stared at his own hand in the dim light, feeling the ghost of that terrible, rejected touch.
Ben finally moved. He rolled over onto his back. He didn’t look at Mark. He stared at the ceiling, his eyes open and glistening. “Get out,” he said. The words had no heat. They were flat, empty, terminally exhausted. “If you ever touch me again, I will break your jaw. Now get out.”
Mark fled.