"Apparently he's this twelve year old jazz playing, juggling, web master!" Calum moans to Michael as they sit in a booth in the Diner watching as the posters for this weekend's Leather Ball get put up all around them. "What if he hates me?"
"Who?" Luke asks, wandering over with a tray full of used glasses, coming into the conversation late.
"Stephen's son."
"Fuck him, he's just a kid..." Michael tells him, unimpressed with how poncy the child sounds, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.
"He's not just a kid! He's Stephen's son! And you know what that means?!"
"You're the wicked stepmother!" Luke takes great glee in whispering it to Calum in an evil cackling voice.
"What?!" Calum asks, looking frightened to death.
"You're the wicked stepmother!" Luke repeats, really getting into the role of evil voiceover man. Michael laughs at Calum's stricken face. "Like in the fairy tales!"
"Well, why don't you get your fairy tail back over there? Isn't there a toilet you need to spit shine?" Calum splutters, still freaked out by the thought of being Stephen's son's evil stepmother.
"You're so pathetic CalPal, he's not going to hate you..." Michael intervenes before Luke can think of a retort.
"What makes you so sure?"
"Well, I'm crazy about you..."
Calum takes a long drink of water, hoping Luke's fingers haven't been in it, and nearly chokes, he's that worked up.
"What is up with you?!!" Michael asks him, taking the glass away.
"He's right. I am the stepmother..." Calum says in a small voice. "Me, a stepmother..."
"Who's a step mother?" Joys asks, coming over to coo over Gus in his car seat who's sitting on the table between Michael and Calum, oblivious to all Calum's worries.
"CalPal..." Michael supplies in the same voice Joy uses every time she sees Gus.
Calums rolls his eyes. "Stephen's son is coming over for the weekend." He explains in a flat voice to his mother.
"What do you think of that?" Joy asks Gus, in her cooing I'm-talking-to-the-baby voice, all but ignoring Calum as she moves him up into the corner of the booth so that she can tickle Gus and hold his hand at the same time. "I swear to God Michael he gets to look more like you every day!" She says, taking off Gus's beanie hat and uncovering him a little.
"Well, we're still working on the hair..."
"Where's Geordie?" Joy asks, rubbing Gus's dimply knuckles and round soft cheeks.
"She's at a teachers conference so I'm watching him for the weekend."
"You?! I'd be afraid to let you water my plants! Do you even know what a Huggie is?"
"I'll give you a hint, it's not a sexual position," Calum offers from his seat in the corner.
"It's er....a....er...."
"It's a nappy!" Joy and Calum and Luke tell him in triplicate all at once.
"I know all about nappies!" Michael exclaims irritably, "I was fucking this guy for a while, a CEO of a big corporate company..."
Joy covers Gus's ears up with her hands.
"...He used to like to wear nappies when I spanked him!"
"Gross," Luke says, looking slightly sick.
"Kinky," Joy says, still with her hands around the baby's ears. "Isn't the Leather Ball this weekend? I would think that your dance card would be full..."
"I know it's tempting but this year I'm trading in my leather jockstrap for rubber pants!" Michael tells everyone, picking Gus up out of his seat and jiggling him in the air. "Isn't that right Sonny Boy?" He asks, bringing his son to his chest.
Whilst everyone's looking at Gus, Michael gets distracted by a guy walking out of the diner dressed in leather chaps, waistcoat and cap. The two of them catch sight of each other and meaningful eye contact follows. Maybe, he thinks reluctantly and a little bitterly, giving up the Leather Ball this year was a mistake.
~~~
"Calum, he's here!" Stephen says excitedly spotting his son coming through the doors into the terminal. "Hey!" He greets his son as he takes over his care from the airline ground staff. "I want you to meet someone...Calum this is Oliver, Oliver this is Calum."
"It's nice to finally meet you Oliver."
"Wow. You're young," Oliver tells him, looking Calum up and down.
"Yeah, well," Calum really doesn't know what to say to that.
"I've got a whole list of activities to do!" Stephen says, taking his sons bag and hand.
"Cool huh?" Asks Calum.
"Yeah. Cool."
~~~
"Gus, come on! Look. Look!"
Michael pops Gus's dummy in his own mouth and sucks on it appreciatively showing his crying son how it's done. His heart sinks a bit when more tears roll down his chubby cheeks, this is impossible! How's he supposed to pacify him when he won't even stop crying to listen or accept the dummy from him?
"This is your dummy, you should be sucking it!" He tells him, brandishing the Winnie The Pooh dummy in his face.
Just then his intercom sounds and he trips over three separate toys on his very short journey from the kitchen to his front door.
"It's about fucking time I ordered it an hour ago!" He barks into the speaker not even waiting for the other person to speak. Pressing the buzzer to let them in, he walks back to Gus taking care not to fall over the toys again.
"Gus..." He wheedles in a calmer tone, bending over the boy, willing himself to be more patient, "Think nipple, think cock, whatever gets you there. Come on, come on..."
Gus decides, for whatever reason, to take the dummy Michael offers him and he breathes a sigh of relief, wiping away his son's tears with a fresh tissue. "Your old man's not so bad at this!" He smiles to Gus, forgetting all about the previous thirty minutes when he couldn't get him to stop crying.
Going to answer the knock at the door, he mutters to himself, "You'd better not have forgotten the fucking Singapore noodles this time..." as he slides open the door expecting to see his take away delivery.
"Hey Sonny Boy!"
"Jesus!"
YOU ARE READING
Queer as Muke
Fanfic"The thing you need to know is, it's all about sex. It's true. In fact they say men think about sex every twenty-eight seconds. Of course that's straight men. With gay men it's every nine." Twenty nine year old advertising executive Michael Cliffor...
