Dar Clouds Mounting

Sadjams [Making Do in the Rustbelt]

Ch.4

Dark Clouds Mounting

[Marc and Ian]

I, very deliberately, did NOT slam the door, but I closed it quick and firm into the muffled steel frame, and threw the deadbolt. Then the knob lock. Then the chain.

I lean my forehead against the cool, painted steel and squeeze my eyes tight shut. My eyes are dry, throat too. Meanwhile, black tar is boiling hot up out of my guts.

It's not going to escalate. It has never escalated before. These things don't usually escalate. I sounded like a child trying out a new word in context. Escalation. Or maybe I was trying to ward something off, having the knowledge of the name of This Fear.

I've been living here for two years. Mostly without more than minor irritation... and a little harassment usually doesn't get worse. Until it does. I choke on the statistics from criminal justice reports and the anecdotes from friends, all racing behind my frozen face.

It's Ed. The neighbor. Ed wants to know what my problem is. The problem is that I don't have the problem; Ed does. Ed who is friendly, a little too buddy-buddy, even, with the uncomfortably specific questions sometimes when he's drunk. Ed who has recently quit drinking - whether he's running out of money or running into Jesus, or just running out of liver cells, I'm not sure. Ed, whom, I'm discovering, is not as nice when he is sober. He's aggressive, actually. Snide instead of curious.

Frankly, I think about sex a lot, but I'm starting to suspect that Ed thinks about my sex at least as much. Or at least 'my kind' of sex. Maybe more. I really don't want to move again. I'm so sick of moving. Of barely scraping together a stupid deposit.

I lean against the wall, slide into the corner and down to plop my bony ass on the floor, trying to imagine myself going completely lax, but my muscles stay tight like over-wound guitar strings on one long, vulnerable neck.

For the time being I am a discarded marionette, still made of wood, slightly too thin, in life-torn jeans and half-shaved black-dyed hair, still in boots that looked tougher than I felt. A show tune drifts by on fancy "He'll beat you every night, but only when he's sober, so you're alright."

Thanks I hate it, Neighborhood Matchmaker, and the world of Genteel Poverty's Limited Options Apartment Guide.

I just renewed the lease.

Lady Goddess, but the fees to break the lease are outRageous...

This is a spiral. Spiraling into speculation, into next week. -- Was that a sound on the stairs outside? I am still leaned against the wall behind the door waiting for my slick palms to stop shaking. Spiraling into hyper-vigilance.

Probably adaptive, my inner monologue reflects.

I need to be safe tonight. That's practical; There's a rod of truth and a firm action item if I ever grasped one.

I don't want to go back out, to walk past the mean dog-man's porch again. No going out. Better get help by delivery.

I fumble the little black rectangle out of my hoodie pocket and bump it awake to show me my contacts and recent texts. The list is quickly narrowed by friends who have cars at this post-bus hour of the small city evening... Bless this crumbling century.

The Perfect Match is out of town... No manicures and taquitos tonight, my sweet friend. I hope you are enjoying your hiking on the dizzying mountain trails. I escape into the postcard worthy sunset photo for a moment, then hear or hallucinate another scuffling noise outside that probably doesn't have anything to do with me but could.

I'm down to one likely number, as far as a spotter for the dark hours go.

My gut drops and my heart leaps to stick on the ceiling. It still has some flecks of black tar, and splatters.

I promised myself I wasn't going to call this week though. I was going to wait and see how long it took for you to contact me, for you to let me know if you still wanted to be friends.

Last week.

Last week you learned I'm terrible at hiding things and an impossible liar.

Last week you came over to hang out. To play my outdated (and therefore cheap) video games and eat whatever you dug out of the IGA store freezer on the way over.

Last week when I, an idiot, asked if you were dating.

After a familiar quiet pause I snorted a laugh, eyes locked on the busy screen, thumbs clicking and swiveling on gamepads "I can't hear your head rattle."

"No," You chuckled softly, "You?"

I paused, shrugged. How was it I didn't anticipate you turning the question around on me?

"I mess around with friends, but not really dating. Sometimes it's love, but not that kind of love. I mean, they're like days on the calendar. I mean, good days, I think. Mostly. I flip through Spark sometimes, maybe go out, but..." I trailed off and had to pay attention instead of just button mashing for a minute.

"but?"

I pretended to focus on the game, but the silence grew with expectation instead of sliding by like forgetful styx, seeming I couldn't just ignore the question.

"I've just got a thing for somebody. Sometimes I look around, but no one else measures up. And I'm not even that interested in looking around. Too busy being into them. You just don't find REALLY good quality people AND also feel the chemistry, you know?"

"Yeah. That's good. Anyone I know?"

It took me a long time to get back to you on that one. Like, most of a level. "It doesn't really matter. I don't think it's mutual anyway."

I went to raid the kitchen and mentally list the things that are wrong with me:

Basket case, promiscuous slut (ok, maybe that's not objectively bad), actually JUST several metaphors in a trench coat, a penchant for soft drugs, a sort of burnt out sense of will, no career, forgets birthdays

Pro's: Some golden ratio in the face, owns his own car, doesn't use racist slurs, a couple useless but passing interesting talents

I came back with chips that neither one of us ate.

You bailed half an hour later, pretty close to usual time.

Neither of us said anything.

Last week, when I, afore said idiot, stumbled over my own conversation and let the 'I'm Into You' cat out of the 'Don't Tell Your Straight Friend' bag and disclosed that weed-killer resistant attraction to my straight buddy.

Who always makes time for me.

Who pushes the loneliness out into the corners, even out the window sometimes, like a warm fire drying out the oppressive midnight dew of my melancholy, and spooking the anxiety monsters that slink around with so much laughter that they go hide behind the furniture.

No matter how many layers of cynicism I wrapped myself in I couldn't keep from catching feels for you.

Headline: Local deviant degenerate artist falls in Like then Love with subtly handsome and virtuous straight friend.

If you find a more gross cliché, or a way to dissolve my baggage like the corpse was never there, let me know.

Anyway, if you didn't come around, at least there would be no more of those kind of hot-but-mostly-awkward boner concealment maneuvers.

But back to today, and how physical safety is extenuating circumstance. I could wish I was dead later, but right now I had a neighbor who was throwing big wanna-hate-crime-you vibes my direction. Honestly I would prefer to die by different means. So I mashed the green button next to your number.

"Hey, Marc"

"Hey."

"How's stuff."

"S'okay. Tired."

"Yeah. Me too. Didn't wake you?"

"Dozing. Not really."

"Ok, sorry. Tired too, but, like, wired? Because my neighbor is giving me some murder vibes. He's always been a jerk, you remember Ed? But since he quit drinking he's like... angry."

There's a quiet time as words like 'Drink' and 'Angry' slot solidly into place in a way that 'lol murder vibes' skates over. Special slots worn in by the hard jolts of violent scenes that burst into young lives trying to flower on family trees that fester with generations of choking poverty, and leave bad dreams on the petals.

"Can you, would you, come over? Just to be another person here? I wasn't going to bug you"

"... You're not bugging me. When did you eat?"

"I don't know."

"Be there in a bit."

And that was all it took.

I kill time. Open a beer. Turn on some music to drown out the world. Turn it back off so the world, which refuses to just drown, can't sneak up on me.

Not Too Long later, thick work boots pad blunt, yet balletic, up the motel-approach apartments.

Marc caught the eye of the gaunt, stubbly neighbor at the top of the stairs, and held eye contact, with the still power of a summer pond at noon, even pausing at the top of the stairs, effortlessly balancing the hot box of bread and grease in one hand. The gawker said nothing, just looked away and sucked noisily on his cancer stick.

"'Evnin" Marc said, without malice, nor warmth, and moved on, to rap at my door with a thick knuckle.

I see none of this but dream about it later.

You're just here, in work stuff. Clean but with that oil smell and the stains that never wash out of the jeans. It always makes me feel for a second like I could be into cars, work with my hands, take things apart, make them better, put them back together, like you do with my day.

And you brought a fucking pizza. A goddamn saint. Sentimentally I want to cry, but I did most of that already, so I just nod.

"Thanks for being here."

"Of course."

We attempt some small talk. Your drive over was fine. You admit Ed was outside but say he didn't bother you. I get quiet, start to see terrific spiraling could-situations of assault and housing instability again.

I look back up from the carpet, not sure how long I was 'gone'.

Then everything shatters:

In the interim, the pizza has gone somewhere else, and with a step you vanquish the distance between us to fold me into a warm hug. After a startled moment I just melt. Your raw brawn is as perfectly careful as it is in overwhelming evidence, packed close with a little cushy survival-stuffing.

I register distantly that I am probably somewhat touch-starved. You smell like walked-outside-in-the-summer sweat, that pizza, and the oil again. I just hug you back. That seems okay. I let things be okay for a while.

"You're a good friend" I mumble, "Thanks."

"Don't want to see you hurt." you rasp softly, then very deliberately and without rush kiss the shaved side of my head.

I officially do not know what is happening, or which way is up. I try to let that be okay too. Like something delicate and beautiful has landed on me, a rejected d*sney prince. I try not to stir and fuck everything up.

"It might be nothing."

"Maybe" You reply, still in no hurry to back away.

But then you do. But not far. You just hold me back and look at me. I stare back, trying to read your inscrutable black pupils shifting in those glinting and murky every-color irises. You're looking for something.

Then leaning close again, tilting your chin a little, and everything becomes slow. One millimeter at a time, we negotiate 8 inches like lining up two air locks in the infinite uncaring vacuum of space, and together concoct the lightest of kisses, warm and dry, brief, but perfect in itself.

Then you're looking at me again. Decidedly quizzical, with one dark brow cocked. It takes me a minute to come back from fully stunned and realize what you're looking for. With a deep breath, I'm internally running into a back closet and clawing lock-boxes off of shelves - yes, no... yes, here it is... I spill the contents of the box in a warm rush of adoration, letting my eyes indulge for once, softening and tender as they flit across your solid features, your thick, simple-cut beard. I pull you close and turn my mouth to yours again.

We taste and test each other, warm and hot and back again. You can be gentle, and passionate and back again, with such control. I follow as you lead until you feel lost, then lead you deeper. I want more of your lips, or at least for you to know without doubt. I want a kiss for every batted glance since I met you, and you give... and then teach me about your tongue stud. That's a treat. I pull you back against me, against the wall. I want a teasing bite for every night I stroked to a dream of whatever universe you could want me in.

I mess with your shirt hem, then a long minute later both your redneck tabard and my ragged black concert tee are across the room without us. I am drunk on your hot thick chest pressed against mine and pulling you closer by the jeans pockets. Your musk, like ceder and fine cured meat, is stronger than the background smells now as your libido, and surely mine, begin sounding on all frequencies. I dig into your pockets to tease your hips, navigating around pocket knife, wallet, change. You grunt and press close. If you were straight, the rod you're prodding me with now is evidently not of a heterosexual persuasion.

Soon I'm leaning back against the wall, and our exchange is progressing into a series of soft grapples and grips. My thin fingers climb like spiders up your back and caress and tangle in fine shag of hair at your nape while your lips find and claim each inch of thin trembling flesh across my neck and throat. You grip me tight like a prize, or like prey, and for a while I let everything slip away, including disbelief, and fancy very quietly and under something, where cynicism might not hear, that you hold me like I'm yours.

I don't know how long passes that way, but I come to as your weight shifts, your mouth moves down, not rushing, but moseying like a stoned tourist across the new terrain, eventually setting off fireworks from my nips, and clawing white hot tracers down my sides with your blunt, callous fingers. You could bruise my washboard on a whim, but everything you do is just hard enough to telegraph the meter of your hunger. Two locked knees and one wall are all that hold me up.

Everything loses focus again when you grip my hips and nuzzle and kiss my beltway through denim. Then you carefully take the fly of my jeans and unzip my reality. A mad chorus of moans starts as you start, gingerly at first, to kiss the throbbing heat testing against my black jock.

I realize faintly that the panting and want-whispers are coming from my own loose lips, but not from my mouth alone. My faint fingers drift across your shoulder, the others restless just behind your ear. For just half a moment you pause, then kiss harder, mouth open, hot breath soaking through like a boiler draft on my livid prick. I am blind.

"H-," I gasp, all air and no noise; "h-Hey," I try again. I try to smile with hornt-thick lips, and drag your hand over my twitching hardon as an affirmation, "just a sec."

Deep breath. Careful eye contact.

"I care about you. A lot. Let's be safe. Ok?" I husk out, still panting a little. "Barriers now talk later, or talk now, fuck later?" For some reason I immediately tinge with regret for using the word fuck. I am unsure why. Fuck is my favorite word in the terrible thieving language that is English.

You look up at me, flushed, with lurid gaze focused, gently gripping me at hip and nethers.

"Mm, maybe just talk now..." I hiss through my teeth, as I grind into your palm, twisting in anguish.

"Fuck, though..."

With barely a beckon you come up and drink my mouth. We pull away from each other slowly, with all the gravitas drag of two heavenly bodies swollen across each other's horizon.

Faces are splashed with cold water. Pizza is nibbled. A couple beers are cracked and tentatively sipped.

We sit close to each other on the couch. Touching from the knees down. Companionable though still charged, like sitting on the porch swing together while thunderheads loom over the soybean fields.

There's savoring, the ready made pizza tastes like ambrosia after two skipped meals, on a stomach that finally has unknotted enough to take something in. Something about your shin pressed against mine shin unlocks the iron maiden that so often cradles my spine. I am a meat-person again instead of vibrating pins and needles.

There's energy in the air, but relief too, like knowing it's going to rain soon. "We needed that," we'll say after the downpour, when everything is soaked through and sated.

We talk a little, a few words at a time, about material things like work, and schedules, leases, shitty neighbors, and also dating statuses, of yesterday and maybe tomorrow, of STI testing and histories.

We do go to bed. Slowly, with teeth brushed and plans to stay there all night. We lay close but barely touching. My arm over your shoulders, yours over my hip, and just talk, quietly and unrushed in the lamp light. Still the air is electric, hairs on end, the edges of the moment glinting and sparking.

You know how I feel already. I tell you it's okay to experiment, but I need to know if it's experimentation, if we're not playing for keeps, or if we're friends with bonus perks or something. Honesty is all I ask for; The water and bread of my ascetic heart.

Silently I start to question whether I could really do that in light of the feels that I've caught, but that's when you pull me close by the small of my back and wrap both arms around me. I lose a little breath as you squeeze, burying your face in my neck.

"Don't be a dumbfuck, Ian" you grunt.

When I run my hands up your back, hug you close, clench a fist in your hair, the storm finally breaks over the fields.

You rear back to descend on my shoulder, kissing and teasing with your teeth, communicating directly through ancient modes of the spine.

Jeans get tight, then tighter, until it's unbearable and we both shuck them. Your plain scarlet boxer briefs flatter. My black jock an ode to my defiant sensualism. I throw down the comforter. Just you, me, and the worn grey sheets. I realize you're staring at me. I stare back. For a little bit we just take each other in. Briefly I wonder how long you've wanted me back. Questions for later.

With an outstretched palm and a flutter of fingers, and, most of all, the raw and happy hunger in your eyes, you coax me back to my own bed.

It's the happiness that strikes me, the joy and satisfaction in the moment that visibly pours out of you. So much more than achy libido and the hungry wounds of neurosis.

With the smoothness of someone who wheels around a half ton tool box on the daily, you pull me down over you, deftly gripping my waist. Our swollen cocks slide past each other, and again, with groaning accompaniment. I lean down and we kiss, light at first, then like a play-fight, then ravenous. Soon you roll me over and make me your mortar stone, my mouth a slut for your probing tongue.

Whoever came first, the other followed shortly. I've recorded your whimpering, choking, gasping orgasm on part of my memory that is granite. We lay panting in our jizz-splattered skiv's, a little sweaty, still twitching against each other in post-climax sensitivity. And laughing a little.

Nothing killed my pain like the way you played with my hair.

With no particular rush we rose in the middle of that night with a golden glow that could have rivaled the sunrise. Just to clean up.

It was my high honor to return to see you in fully naked splendor, the leaner muscle of your legs and utterly round ass, and to present you with a warm washcloth. Thus cleansed we returned to the bed, pulled up the old comforter, and curled up close together, comfortable and scented unique of you-and-I-fucked.

I drifted, mumbled some sweet and completely genuine affirmations to you. You husked back with sincerity, squeezed my shoulders, snored a little.

Sometime rather later, in the place that is neither night nor morning, you woke me with a stiff cock nuzzling against my ass. My ass nuzzled back and I dragged your hand down where you clawed at my thighs and fondled my eager bone. But I needed your kisses, and so twisted to hunt your lips in the darkness, cupped your bollocks, pulled with gentle insistence on your length.