Authors: Avery Cockburn
“What do you mean it’s—” Fergus peered into the wooden compartment. “Where’d it go?”
“I found it last week, then just before bedtime the other night I remembered we’d no condoms, so I took the backup, which we then used.” He gave Fergus a hopeful smile. “I don’t suppose you’ve got a backup for the backup?”
“John!” Fergus clutched his own hair in frustration. “If you’d told me, I would’ve bought them.”
“I’m sorry. Truly.” He tilted his head at the pillow. “Let me make it up to you?”
Fergus sighed and glanced at the clock. There was still time to salvage their morning.
He lay on the bed beside John, who wasted no time kissing his way down Fergus’s chest and abs until he arrived at his cock. With one hand, John gave a long, slow upward stroke, sliding Fergus’s foreskin up so he could work his tongue inside it. There he made tiny, rapid flicks over Fergus’s head, sending a thousand shivers of pleasure racing through him.
Fergus gasped, fingernails scraping the sheets. He wanted to thrust upward, deep into John’s throat, but more than that, he wanted to savor this delirious teasing.
John shifted a little, switching hands so his other one could reach down and cup Fergus’s balls. His warm palm and softly stroking thumb made Fergus squirm, his toes spreading, then curling.
Then John slid Fergus’s sheath down, revealing his swollen, straining head. Gazing at Fergus with utter adoration, he began to feast.
Fergus fixed his gaze on those full lips, how they curved around his cock with such hunger, like they’d been made to consume him. And that tongue, working its way up and down his shaft, then circling his head, delivering so much wetness.
When their eyes met again, John smiled. “I love your cock.”
A wave of heat rolled up Fergus’s spine. “Yeah?” he panted. “Tell me.”
“I love how long it is.” John kept stroking him as he talked, interspersing his words with swipes of lips and tongue. “Even when you’re not hard, I cannae take my eyes off it.”
Fergus closed his own eyes, letting John’s voice wash over him.
“I love how slim it is,” John said. “It fits inside me, and even though it sends me to the moon and back, I can still walk the next day.”
Fergus smiled at the thought of John’s thick girth, which sometimes left him a wee bit wobbly.
“But the thing I love most,” John said, “is that it’s all mine.”
“Yes,” Fergus whispered. “All yours.”
“It belongs in my hands.” John wrapped both palms around Fergus’s shaft. “It belongs in my mouth.” He folded his lips around Fergus’s head for a moment, tonguing just beneath the ridge. “It belongs inside me.” He tightened his grip and pumped faster. “I want to feel it everywhere.”
“Yes…” With quaking thighs, Fergus thrust upward into John’s grasp, every nerve catching fire in an unstoppable chain reaction.
“All of it.”
“Yes.” Fergus’s breath came in short gasps. God, he was getting so close, so fast…
“Right now.”
“Yes!” Fergus thrust again, then stopped when he realized what John had just said.
Wait, what?
John stopped too, staring at Fergus. “Really?” He glanced at the empty box of condoms on the bed beside them, then nodded and reached for the lube. “Aye, why not?”
A surge of panic shot through Fergus, swamping his desire. He blocked John’s hand. “What are you doing?”
= = =
John caught his breath at Fergus’s foreboding tone. He hadn’t really been asking to go bareback—it was more of a heat-of-the-moment utterance. But he’d been
meaning
to ask for it since the end of their previous box of condoms. “Don’t you think it’s time?”
“I don’t—I don’t know.” Fergus curled his legs up, his knees forming a barrier between himself and John. “Is this why you didn’t buy condoms? Because you wanted to stop using them?”
“Of course not.” The accusation stung—perhaps because it wasn’t completely absurd. “You think I’d do that?”
“Not on purpose,” Fergus said, but turned his face away as if he had his doubts.
John fidgeted with the edge of the fleece football blanket, the one their flatmate had made for them, stitching together the blankets John and Fergus had each owned for over a decade, dedicated to their archrival football clubs. Every time he touched the blanket, John thought of all he and Fergus had overcome to be together. Nothing would ever come between them again. Not family, not ex-lovers—not even football.
Now he wanted the last barrier between them gone for good.
John shifted up to lie beside Fergus. “Can we talk about it, though?” He hated to leave his boyfriend unsatisfied, but finishing him off now might seem manipulative. So instead he put a tentative arm over Fergus’s chest. “Please?”
Fergus turned over with a sigh and rested a hand on John’s hip. “Go on, then. Talk.”
John took a deep breath. “We’ve been together five months, living together for three. We’re as committed as we can be.” For now, at least—Scottish same-sex marriages wouldn’t start for nine weeks, on New Year’s Eve.
“That doesn’t mean it’s safe.” Fergus drifted his thumb over John’s waist. “Loads of committed people give each other HIV. I read somewhere that it’s the most common source of new infections these days—allegedly monogamous couples where one person’s cheating.”
John felt like he’d been stabbed in the heart. “You think I’ll cheat on you?”
“No.”
“You think you’ll cheat on me?”
“No!” Fergus repeated—but with much more conviction, which told John all he needed to know.
This was about Evan. Fergus’s ex-boyfriend had ditched him last spring after a four-year relationship, leaving the country with another man he’d been seeing for months. Evan had returned in July, repentant, and was once again playing for their all-LGBT football club, the Woodstoun Warriors.
Despite the team’s reconciliation, the name “Evan Hollister” was still never mentioned in a non-football context. Not between Fergus and John. Not even amongst their friends.
Which meant John dared not bring up Evan now, when Fergus was already edgy.
“I’m sorry,” Fergus whispered, then gave John a soft kiss. “I must seem a complete loon.”
“It’s all right. Really.” John let his hand drift forward over Fergus’s abs, wanting to demonstrate, in the most concrete way possible, how much he loved and accepted his neurotic boyfriend.
Fergus jerked and coughed out a laugh. “That tickles.” He took John’s hand off his waist, then kissed it. “I need to head to work.”
John lay his head on Fergus’s pillow and watched him dress. He considered dropping the condom matter, but knew if they ended the conversation on a negative note, it would be twice as hard to raise the topic again later. He felt bad enough for ruining their Thursday morning cum-fest by introducing the sensitive subject.
Instead of changing said subject, he shifted it in a more positive direction. “I’ve never not used condoms. Is it very different without them?”
Fergus gave a crooked smile, to John’s relief. “I’ll not lie, it’s quite a bit better, especially for whoever’s the top.” Fergus drew a cream-colored dress shirt from the wardrobe and slipped his arms into the sleeves. “But even bottoming it’s different. It makes you feel…closer.”
Fergus’s eyes clouded over as he buttoned his shirt, no doubt at the illusion of feeling close to someone who’d been cheating on him for months—and apparently putting his life and health at risk as well.
John tamped down his anger at Evan and gave the topic another micro-adjustment. “I bet stamina can be a bit of an issue at first, aye?”
“Hah, definitely,” Fergus said. “The first few times, it lasts about a minute and a half.”
John gasped. “Even for you, the marathon man?”
Fergus’s ears turned even redder than his hair. “Aye. It’s like being sixteen again, but without instant erection resurrection.” He stepped into a pair of briefs with perfect grace, not even needing to lean against the wardrobe for balance. “Eventually you get used to it. You learn to recalibrate.”
John slid an arm beneath his own pillow and gazed at Fergus. “So how ’bout it, then? We could go and get tested together. Then you’d not have to take my word for it I’m clean.”
“I believe you,” Fergus said, but he’d already turned away from John to choose a pair of trousers.
“This way it’d be official. Ooh—we could make a date of it!” John slapped his palm upon the mattress. “Go to our favorite restaurant afterward to celebrate, maybe order champagne. It’ll be fun.”
“Hmph.” Fergus stepped into his trousers.
“You’re right, champagne’s horrible. We’ll do bourbon. You love bourbon.”
This time Fergus said nothing, not even a grunt. John watched him fasten his trousers, then take a pair of ties from the hook on the wardrobe door. He held up each in turn as he examined himself in the mirror beside the hooks.
“The olive-green,” John said, knowing Fergus was only pretending to be preoccupied with the choice. As an architect/artist, he was far too color-aware to consider the alternative.
“Thanks.” Fergus hung the yellow tie back on its hook.
John gazed at his boyfriend’s image in the mirror as he put on the tie. Watching him dress turned John on almost as much as watching him
un
dress. There was something so assured, so masculine, about the way Fergus tied a necktie, his hands moving deftly about each other, twisting, tugging, fine-tuning.
Fergus gave one final adjustment, then his eyes flicked down to meet John’s in the mirror. His gaze was filled with tenderness but etched with pain.
John slid out of bed. In two steps he was at Fergus’s side, taking his hand. “I won’t cheat on you.”
Fergus’s face softened. “I know. It’s not that I don’t trust you.”
“Aye, it’s that you don’t trust men, and I’m a man.”
Fergus sighed and pulled away to retrieve his shoes, which already contained a pair of dark-brown socks, tucked there the night before. “Aren’t things fine the way they are?” he asked as he sat on the bed. “Aren’t we happy?”
“Of course.”
“Then why mess with it? Why fix what’s not broken?” He pulled on his left sock, giving the toe seam more attention than it warranted.
“You’re right.” John fought to keep his voice calm and light as he turned to the wardrobe and pulled out his own clothes. “Forget I mentioned it.” His jeans caught on the inside edge of the hanger, but he didn’t yank them free like he wanted to.
“John—”
“Seriously, it’s fine. Go or you’ll be late for work. There’s a smoothie for you in the fridge to drink on the way. I hope banana with frozen raspberries is all right?”
“It’s wonderful. Thanks for making it.” Fergus stood and gave John’s temple a lingering kiss. “I love you.”
John wanted to lift his chin to meet Fergus’s mouth, but he knew his face would reveal his fear. So he wrapped his arms around Fergus’s waist and buried his face against his collarbone. “I love you, too, ya big numpty.”
Later, during his damp, dreary walk to university, John tried to turn his thoughts toward his nine o’clock History of Political Thought lecture. But all he could think about was how Evan—that treacherous bastard—was coming between him and Fergus again.
E
ACH
TIME
F
ERGUS
stepped beneath the red metal arch leading to the Barras market in Glasgow’s East End, he told himself,
I’m prepared for anything
. And each time, the place blew him away.
A hundred sights, sounds, and smells threw Fergus into sensory overload as he and John entered the open-air market, accompanied by Liam and another Warrior, Liam’s lifelong friend Robert McKenzie. A cacophonous chorus of “Two furra pound!” and “Cigarettes, tabaca!” rang out against a background of blaring dance music.
The brightly colored stalls lining the street had no apparent order. Halloween fancy-dress costumes flapped in the steady breeze across from a homemade-soap peddler, whose stall was flanked by two hawkers of bootlegged DVDs. A middle-aged couple to their left seemed to be selling all of the above and more. Few of the vendors sported a business name, since anyone could rent a spot at the Barras. Fergus estimated that roughly forty percent could have been named “Crap from my Attic.”
The Barras was nothing like the sedate markets of Fergus’s genteel Highland town. Back in Pitlochry, one could browse an organized assortment of quality wares—all acquired legally and sold at nonnegotiable prices—without having to guard one’s wallet from pickpockets.
The Barras was utter chaos, and Fergus loved it.
“You know what I could go for?” Robert asked.
“A blowjob?” Liam deadpanned. It had been a running joke ever since Robert—the Warriors’ only straight player—had quit smoking last month. Liam himself had quit at the same time with relative ease and had grown weary of Robert’s constant whingeing about craving a cigarette.
“Thanks, but nah, I’d rather have one of those.” Robert pointed to the doughnut shop to their right.
“Oh yes,” John said, “there will be doughnuts.” He looked up at Fergus. “Sorry, love, but Sunday is carb day. So are Monday through Saturday, but especially Sunday.”
Fergus balked at the scent of fat-soaked flour. The lard seemed to coat the very air he was standing in. “You go on. I’ll stand back here so I don’t need a shower afterward.”
As Robert and John went for the doughnuts, Liam stayed behind with Fergus. “I’ll just nick a bite of Robert’s.”
“You think he’ll let you?” Fergus asked. “You two seem fallen out all of a sudden.”
Liam darted a glare at him. “What makes you say that?”
“Yesterday’s scoreline, for starters. You and Robert were a mess. You used to be the most reliable part of our team, with your center-back telepathy or whatever.”
“It’s not telepathy, it’s just…knowing each other.” Liam shrugged, hands in his front jeans pockets. “Comes from all those years on the pitch together.”
Fergus often felt jealous of the closeness Liam and Robert shared. He’d lost touch with most of his own childhood friends after moving to Glasgow eight years ago for university, then coming out shortly thereafter.