Chapter 4: The Kitchen Light Left On
The key was still in his pocket when he reached the car, and he felt it press against his wallet every time he shifted on the seat. He sat behind the wheel a while without starting the engine. Somewhere up the block a dog barked twice and quit.
Home was the plan. Shower, sleep, eight hours at the office tomorrow. By morning the whole night would wear the face of a man he knew by sight and not by name.
He started the car. At the bottom of the hill he turned left.
The drive to Michael's took twelve minutes. He knew it without thinking, turn by turn, the way a man knows the inside of his own mouth. He'd done it sober and drunk and half asleep, in the truck with the ladder strapped to the rack, at four in the morning the night Michael's mother went into the hospital and again at seven the morning she didn't leave it.
Michael's street was dark. One window lit at the back of the house, the kitchen, yellow through the blind. Everything else was shut down for the night. Marc parked across the street and killed the engine and sat with both hands on the wheel.
The side gate gave with a push. Trash cans by the fence, the row of dead basil in black pots on the windowsill that Michael never remembered to water. Marc put his hand on the kitchen door knob expecting a catch. It turned.
Michael was at the island with two cups of coffee in front of him.
Both had gone cold under the pendant light. The pot sat on the warmer behind him, a quarter full, which meant the second cup had been poured a while ago and left to sit. His phone lay face up beside it. Marc could see the call log from the doorway. Three outgoing calls, all his name, and under them the little tape icon of a voicemail nobody had listened to.
"You didn't knock," Michael said.
"Door was open."
"It's always open."
Marc shut it behind him. He came around the island and took the stool at the end, and his knees felt loose, like a chair with a screw going. His shirt was buttoned one hole off at the bottom. He kept his hands in his lap.
"Where were you?" Michael said.
"Driving."
"An hour and forty minutes of driving."
"Yeah."
Michael turned his cup a quarter turn on the granite. He didn't drink from it. He hadn't touched either one in a long time, by the look of the rings the coffee had left on the stone.
"Three calls," he said.
"I know."
"Not one of them." Michael looked up then, and his face wasn't angry, which was worse. It was patient. It was the face he used on vendors and drunk customers and once, years ago, on Marc at his father's funeral. "I sat here and watched that phone light up the whole counter every time it rang."
"I know."
"Was it something I did?"
"No."
"Because if I pushed it. Last night." Michael's hand flattened on the granite. "You can say so. I'd rather hear it than sit in this kitchen all night guessing."
"You didn't push anything."
"Then give me something."
Marc looked at the cold coffee. He would have drunk both cups if Michael had handed them to him. He wanted to say the true thing, which was that he'd stood outside this house an hour ago with his keys in his fist and walked away, because he couldn't work out how to be the same man twice in two days.
Michael got off his stool.
He came around the island at an angle, unhurried, and stopped close enough that Marc had to look up at him. From the stool, Michael was taller than usual, and the light behind his head left his face in shadow.
"Are you drunk?"
"Not much."
Michael reached down and took his wrist and turned it over, fingers on the inside where the pulse sits. He held it there like a man checking a watch he already knew the time on. Then he pulled, and Marc got up, because staying seated made the whole room lean.
Two steps back and the edge of the counter caught him across the spine. Michael kept him there, one hand flat on his chest, fingers spread, and leaned in at his collar.
Not a kiss. He put his nose against Marc's throat, under the jaw, and breathed in. Then again lower, at the shoulder, at the collar of the shirt, where the fabric had been breathing bar air for two hours.
"You smell like a bar," Michael said.
"I had a drink."
"You smell like cigarettes and somebody else's soap." He stayed close. His mouth was near Marc's ear, and he wasn't whispering, just quiet. "You don't smoke, Marc."
"I didn't smoke."
"Then what is it?"
Marc's hands were flat on the counter at his sides. The granite was cold through his palms. Somewhere past the window a car went by and threw a stripe of light across the fridge and was gone.
"Who is he?" Michael said.
Marc looked at the curve of his jaw and the two days of stubble on it and the way his chest was moving under his T-shirt. He could lie. He could say he stopped for one whiskey at a quiet place and drove around the neighborhoods with the radio off, and Michael would let it go, or he'd pretend to. In three days they'd be back on the couch with a movie and neither of them would ever bring up tonight again.
"His name is David," Marc said.
Michael didn't move.
"He tends bar. I walked in around ten because I couldn't make myself come here." Marc heard his own voice flatten out, the way it did in meetings when the number was bad. "He closed up early. I let him fuck me in the back room over his desk."
The hand on his chest closed into his shirt and pulled it tight across his collarbone. Michael stayed right where he was, so close Marc could feel the heat coming off his face, and for a long second he didn't say anything at all. The pendant light hummed in the quiet. The second cup of coffee still sat there going colder.
Then Michael spoke, low, and Marc felt it in his own sternum more than heard it.
"Why did you come here?"
Marc didn't answer. He looked at Michael's mouth and felt the counter edge dig into his spine and knew the only honest thing left was to say nothing at all.
Michael's hand came off his chest. He turned, took the two cold coffee cups, and slid them down the island out of the way. The second one tipped on its side and left a brown ring spreading across the granite.
"On your back," Michael said.
Marc got up on the island. The granite was cold through his shirt, and colder when Michael shoved the shirt up to his armpits. He lay there with his head at the far end and the pendant light straight above him, and Michael stood over him with his hands working at Marc's belt with no hurry at all.
"You want me to taste him on you?" Michael said.
"No."
"Too late."
He got the jeans down Marc's legs and off one boot and left them on the floor. Then he pulled Marc's boxers down and left them there, hooked around one ankle. The air in the kitchen moved across Marc's bare cock and he was already half hard and hating that he was.
"You let him bend you over a desk." Michael said it flat. He walked to the counter and came back with the bottle of olive oil from beside the stove. "I gave you my bed."
"I know."
"And you drove over here with his soap on your collar." He poured oil into his palm, a lot of it, and set the bottle down with a thump. "So why did you come here?"
Marc said, "Because you were the one I wanted."
Michael's jaw moved. His hand closed on Marc's ankle and hauled him down the island until his ass was at the edge, and then two wet fingers went into him at once, no warning, no slow.
Marc's whole body came off the counter.
"Whose desk?" Michael said.
"David's."
"Say it again."
"David's." Marc's heels found the cabinet doors and slid. Michael's fingers curled inside him and pushed, steady, and there was nothing gentle in it. "Michael. Fuck."
"You want me to stop?"
"No."
"Then tell me the rest."
Marc told him. He talked with his head back on the counter and Michael's fingers moving in him, he told him the back office, the frosted door, the key in his pocket, and Michael listened to every word of it with his thumb pressing flat under Marc's balls.
"Key in your pocket," Michael said.
"Yeah."
"You're keeping it."
"Yeah."
Michael pulled his fingers out. He wiped them on the towel hanging off the oven handle, and then he unbuttoned his jeans and shoved them down his thighs, and his cock came out thick and red and already slick at the head. He got more oil and worked it up the shaft with two strokes and stepped in between Marc's knees.
"Look at me," he said.
Marc looked. Michael pushed in. He didn't ease it, he just drove forward until his hips hit the backs of Marc's thighs, and Marc grabbed the far edge of the island with both hands and groaned loud enough to fill the kitchen.
"Fuck. Fuck, Michael."
"There he is."
Michael fucked him on the island. Slow at first and then not, one hand flat on Marc's sternum holding him down on the cold stone while the counter took every stroke. Marc's cock slapped wet against his own belly and left streaks there, and he couldn't get a hand to it because both arms were pinned above his head.
Michael got his other hand around Marc's throat. Not hard. Just resting, thumb on one side of his windpipe, and leaned down close enough that Marc could smell coffee on his breath.
"You let him have you," Michael said. "Fine. But you came here, so you're mine tonight."
"Yes."
"Say what you are."
"I'm yours."
Michael pulled out almost all the way, then slammed back in. The island scraped an inch across the floor. The bottle of oil wobbled and rolled and he caught it one-handed without looking and didn't lose his rhythm.
Then he let go of Marc's throat and got his fist around Marc's cock.
Marc made a sound like he'd been hit. Michael's hand was wet with oil and he stroked him hard and fast, punishing, thumb dragging over the head every time, and he fucked him at the same speed, hips snapping, the slap loud against the tiles.
"You like being used like this," Michael said.
"Yeah."
"Say it."
"I like it."
"You let a bartender fuck you and then you came here for more." He jerked him harder. "You're a slut, Marc."
"I know."
"Whose?"
"Yours."
Michael's rhythm broke up. He dropped his forehead against Marc's and fucked him through the last of it with his breath coming out rough and unguarded, and Marc came first, hard, all over Michael's fist and his own chest, hips jerking off the stone. Michael pushed in once more and came inside him and stayed there, shaking, one hand still holding Marc's softening cock.
The pendant light swung a little. Oil was running down Marc's ribs toward his ear. He lay there with his eyes open and Michael's weight on him, and somewhere on the far counter the second coffee cup finished draining into the granite.
Michael pulled out slow and stepped back. He grabbed the towel and cleaned himself off, then Marc, rough and quick, and threw the towel in the sink.
"Shower," he said. "Then bed."
Marc got off the island and his legs took a second to remember the job. Oil was drying tacky on his chest. He walked to the stairs with his shirt still bunched under his arms and Michael switched off the pendant light behind them and the kitchen went black.
The bathroom was off the hall upstairs. Michael got the shower running first, hand under the stream, testing it, and Marc watched him do it and thought about how many years he'd watched him do small things like that. The room filled with steam fast. The mirror went white at the edges.
Marc pulled his shirt the rest of the way off and dropped it on the tile. Michael was already under the water, head down, letting it run over the back of his neck and down his spine. Soap bubbles slid off the drain plate.
Marc stepped in behind him. The water was hot enough to sting and he didn't move back from it. He put both hands on Michael's shoulders and just stood there a second with his chest against Michael's back, and Michael didn't turn around. He tipped his head forward and let Marc wash him.
Marc took the soap off the shelf, worked up a lather, and ran his hands down Michael's shoulders and the flat of his back. Down the sides where the ribs go. He got a handful of Michael's ass and held it, and felt Michael laugh, low, through his back.
"You're taking your time," Michael said.
"I'm getting clean."
"Uh huh."
Marc pressed his mouth against the back of Michael's neck. Salt and sweat and the soap. He slid one hand around to Michael's front and closed it on his cock, which was soft and getting heavier by the second, and Michael's breathing changed against the tiles.
"Turn around," Marc said.
Michael turned. Water and steam ran down his face and he wiped his eyes with the heel of his hand and looked at Marc the way he'd looked at him across the island an hour ago. Marc got the soap again and washed his chest, his arms, his belly. He crouched with one hand braced on the wall and washed Michael's legs down to his feet, and Michael put a hand on his head and kept it there.
When Marc stood up, Michael's cock was hard and standing against his belly, and Marc's was too, and neither of them reached for anything.
"You sure?" Michael said.
"About what?"
"Whatever you're about to do."
Marc reached past him and turned the water down to a lukewarm needle. He put a hand on Michael's chest and pushed, easy, and Michael went back against the far wall of the shower, shoulder blades flat on the tile, and let him.
"Turn around," Marc said.
"You ever done it before?"
"No."
"Then don't." Michael's mouth was close to his. "Not if it's a first you're going to hate me for."
"Turn around."
Michael turned.
Marc put his forehead between Michael's shoulders. The tile was cool where the water didn't hit. He got the soap bottle and poured a slick line down Michael's back and worked it down with two fingers, past the top of the crack, into it, and Michael spread his stance on the wet floor and put both hands up on the wall like a man about to be searched.
Marc worked him open with the soap and the water and his fingers. One first, slow, curling. Michael's hips moved once and quit. Two fingers and he was breathing through his teeth, saying nothing, and Marc watched the water run down the back of his neck and knew he had never once in his life seen Michael like this, quiet, head down, letting somebody have the whole thing.
"Okay," Michael said.
Marc pulled his fingers out. He spat in his palm and worked his cock up with soap and his own spit, and it was crude and thin and he didn't have anything better, and it was going to have to do. He stepped in close. One hand on Michael's hip, one on his own shaft, and he pushed the head in.
Michael went tight fast and made a sound low in his throat that wasn't quite a word. Marc stopped with maybe an inch in and waited.
"Keep going," Michael said.
Marc pushed in by inches. Michael's back arched and his knuckles went white on the tile and he shoved his hips back like it would be easier that way. Marc got all the way in and stood there with his mouth open against Michael's shoulder blade and his own stomach shaking.
"Fuck," Michael said. "All right. Okay."
"You good?"
"Move."
Marc moved. Slow at first, one hand flat between Michael's shoulders to hold him on the wall, the other on his hip. The shower was loud and the wet sounds were worse and Marc heard every one of them. He pulled almost all the way out and pushed back in and Michael's head dropped and his breath ran out of him in one long note.
"That's it," Michael said. "Harder."
Marc got hold of his hips with both hands and fucked him. Not the way Michael had done it on the island, not careful, not punishing. Just deep and steady and all the way. The tile made Michael slip a half step and Marc hauled him back and Michael braced himself wide and took it.
"Say the rest of it," Michael said.
"What else is there?"
"Tell me you wanted this. Him, me. All of it."
"I wanted it."
"Say you want it now."
"I want it now."
Michael reached back with one hand and found Marc's thigh and held it, dragging him in. Marc sped up and his rhythm went sloppy and he was making noise now, grunting on every push, and the water ran over both of them and gathered in the drain. His balls slapped wet against Michael's ass and Michael's whole body rocked toward the wall each time.
"Don't stop," Michael said.
"I'm close."
"Come in me. Bare, like this."
Marc came. It took him by surprise and pulled everything tight for a second, and then he was jerking into Michael with his hands clenched on his hips, forehead on his back, mouth full of steam. He stayed in until it went soft and Michael had to steady himself on the wall.
Marc pulled out. Michael turned around and the water had gone cooler and he pulled Marc in by the back of the neck and kissed him, once, hard, and let go.
"You didn't get yours," Marc said.
Michael looked down at himself, wet and hard and untouched. Then he took Marc's wrist and put Marc's hand on it.
"Breakfast will keep," Michael said. "Turn the water off."