Calum walks into the living room silently, watching the back of Stephen as he throws CD's onto various piles in some sort of system.
Stephen looks up briefly, his jaw pulsing, when he hears Calum's footsteps before turning back to the sorting process. "I was worried about you," he says lightly.
"Well you could have called..."
"I did, your mobile was off."
Calum ignores the tone that Stephen's sending his way and instead asks, "What are you doing?"
"I'm reorganising CD's. Before that I did the DVD's, I did the books, I did the medicine cabinet, and I did the cupboard where we keep all the glassware. Where the FUCK have you been?!"
"Out," Calum says calmly, looking down at the back of his boyfriends stiff frame, realising how wound up Stephen is. He doesn't want to give him any leeway, Stephen brought everything upon himself by going to the baths and getting his dick sucked.
"With the boys? At the movies?" Stephen asks quietly, dreading the answer. He's stopped throwing CD's onto piles, but can't bring himself to turn to Calum or look at him. After his revelation much earlier he deserves everything that's thrown at him but he just can't stand the thought of someone else being with his man.
"I was with someone," Calum replies, infuriatingly calmly. Stephen visibly slumps in front of him as soon as he hears the words, it's his nightmare come true. He deserves this, deserves Calum to cheat on him with someone else, he's surprised he's even here... "There was this man a couple of nights ago at Arq that I didn't tell you about."
Stephen shuts his eyes, hoping against hope that Calum hasn't paid him back for his slip up. Calum can see a nerve pulsing in Stephen's neck but carries on regardless.
"He gave me his phone number. He was really hot and I was attracted to him so I figured what the heck?"
Stephen berates himself, he deserves everything that Calum's done and more. He was the first to stray after all, and for what? A quick hook up in the turkish baths that didn't mean anything? At least Calum's chosen a person that he was attracted to and was attracted to him.
"So I called him up."
"You don't have to give me all the details Calum."
"Yeah I do."
Stephen slumps again, knowing he has to take his punishment.
"We hooked up and went back to his place. And we started fooling around..."
Stephen's brings his knees up so he's sitting in a ball, his arms moving involuntarily to hug himself, to try to protect himself from the wounds that Calum's words are inflicting on his body and heart.
"He was giving me a blow job..."
Stephen shuts his eyes, lying his chin on his knees. He doesn't want to think of anyone's lips except his wrapped around Calum's cock. Why the fuck did he go to the Baths that night? What was he expecting? He's the one who insisted that Calum move in for fucks sake! And now he can't commit to him?
"When I suddenly realised I didn't want my dick in his mouth. So I told him to stop and I left and I came home..."
Stephen blinks, did he just hear right? He moves to look at Calum and then stops, "Why? I mean, why did you tell him to stop?"
Calum looks at Stephen's handsome profile, he still can't fully look at him but he has turned to the side. It's the most he's looked in Calum's direction since he arrived home.
"Because it didn't mean anything, it was just sex," Calum shrugs, he doesn't know how else to explain it. "And with us it's always been more than that..." He finishes quietly.
Stephen sighs and turns around on the floor, looking up at Calum still perched on the back of the sofa. "I promise I won't go there any more, you have my word."
Shaking his head at his boyfriend, Calum spells out some truths for him, in a much more kindly tone that he deserves, "I don't want you to promise, it may not be a promise you can keep! And the same goes for me, I can't promise you that someday something won't happen. We're guys and guys slip up. All we can do is be realistic about it. And know that it doesn't mean we don't love each other. And we'll just take it from there."
Stephen understands what Calum wants from him, and wants for himself, and he looks at his lover with a new, deeper, respect. "Want to help me get things back in order?" He asks, as he hands Calum a stack of CD's.
~~~
Luke sits in the only lit corner of his bedroom at Joy's house in a plan white tee and a comfy pair of boxers waiting for a letter to appear out of his printer.
Sitting back on his desk chair he props one foot up on a stool next to him and reads back what he's written;
Australian National University Office of Admissions
Dear Sirs,
This is to inform you that I will be attending the Australian National University at the end of February to commence my degree in business, politics and law.
Yours faithfully
Luke Hemmings
Luke blinks a couple of times as he check it over and then places it quickly on his lap, looking up as he does so.
There, opposite him, hanging on the back of his bedroom door, is one of Michael's denim jackets that he borrowed a couple of weeks ago to get home in when the night turned out to be colder than he'd anticipated.
He brings the letter up to his face, breathing in the scent of the paper as he bats it gently against the tip of his nose, thinking as he glances at the jacket again.
Swapping the letter for a sketchpad on his desk he props one foot up and rests the pad against his knee, eyeing the jacket up through the gloom of the room. Taking up a pencil from the desk, he takes in the lines of the jacket, the shading, how it looks against the white of the door, before he puts pencil to paper.
He starts sketching, getting the outline and the lines right before filling in and putting the details in. The more he sketches, the most lost in his art he becomes. The exact likeness of the coat flows onto the paper from inside him, his fingers the conduit to make the drawing come to life.
Luke's pencil flies across the sheet as his eyes flick up and down, making sure the scale is correct and he smudges the lines to make the shading just right. A smile creeps onto his face as he's drawing and his back straightens and heart lightens the more the paper is filled. It's the first time in days that he felt like himself again and his lips curl up in a smile as he feels once more like laughing with the joy and freedom his art brings him.
YOU ARE READING
Queer as Muke
أدب الهواة"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...
