"No. The Holiday Inn sounds like Shang-ra-fucking-la." James leaned close, touching Michael's arm, bringing in his face for a kiss. Shocked, Michael jerked back, more from pure fear and surprise than revulsion. James only smiled.
"Sorry, I forgot. Heterosexual. S'all right, mate, every man likes a good blow job. Close your eyes and imagine a page three girl and you'll have nothing to complain of. Lead the way."
***
Hotel rooms always felt a little magical to Michael. Anything that took him away from his daily life had a sparkling, supernatural quality he couldn't distill into mere words. And this was a brand-new hotel, with flat screen TVs and streaming video in every unit. They even offered a buffet breakfast each morning. When traveling with Frannie, she always selected tiny bed-and-breakfasts, where a single bathroom was shared with three other couples and breakfast was determined by the owner.
"This is a palace! Bet it doesn't charge by the hour," James said, throwing himself on the king-sized bed and bouncing happily. "We don't have to leave until—when?"
"Eleven o'clock tomorrow morning." Michael said. Something about James's pleasure in the room delighted him. It was like offering a gift and being rewarded with an unabashedly enthusiastic response.
James laughed. "Don't suppose there's any booze?"
"Probably. In the mini-fridge," Michael said, indicating the small unit near the telly.
"Fancy a drink?"
Michael shook his head. He'd never seen the point of alcohol. All it did was erode control. And the few times he'd imbibed, he'd felt no happier. In fact, he'd felt markedly sadder.
"And I suppose this is a nonsmoking... oh!" James chirped as he discovered the ashtray on one bedside table.
"Thought you might appreciate a smoking room."
James already had a cigarette out. Lighting it, he took a drag and stabbed a finger at Michael.
"Know what? I like you. You're considerate. Polite. There aren't enough considerate, polite people in the world. Believe me."
"You meet a lot of the other kind in... in your chosen pursuit?" Michael asked, uncertain how else to phrase it without giving offense.
James lit up. He was even more beautiful with that light in his eyes, a sly, coquettish creature with a core of real vulnerability. "In my chosen pursuit," he repeated, choking back a laugh, "I meet the very worst people in the world. And a few of the best. I felt kind of lost, wandering around fucking Brixton Park, wondering how many geezers I'd have to fuck to get back to London. Thought I'd sleep on a bench till the rozzers poked me with their batons. But I met you and I'll sleep here tonight. Can't complain."
"Shall I open it for you?" Michael asked, pointing at the sealed mini-fridge with its pay-as-you-go list attached.
James shook his head. "I don't need a drink to do you, love. I'm ready right now."
Michael went erect. He didn't let himself question the strength of his own response, the throb of need from root to tip. It was like his daily masturbation—possibly wrong, possibly juvenile and borderline deviant, but something he required to keep from going mad. Other men received oral sex, but Frannie refused to administer it. Was it really so wrong to obtain such attention secretly, without harming her? And why not from a beautiful boy? What difference did it make if the mouth was male or female?
James patted the bed. "Lie on your back. Undo your belt. I'll do the rest."
Michael took a deep breath. Removing his suit jacket, he draped it over a chair. Pulling off his shoes, he stretched out beside James, trying to modulate his breathing. "Should we turn out the lights?"
James shook his head. "Watch. You'll enjoy it more if you watch."
Hands trembling, Michael managed to unlatch his belt, unbuttoning his trousers and unzipping his fly. Then James took over, pushing down Michael's shorts and pulling out his fully erect penis. James gave a low whistle.
"This is no cock. This is King Dong," he grinned. "You're gifted, you know that?"
Frannie had always complained Michael was freakish. Michael, sexually inexperienced beyond the hell of his youth, had never been sure. From what little he'd seen of pornography, he considered himself average.
"You don't mind?" Michael whispered. James's hand on his penis was startlingly erotic.
"Mind? I'm impressed." James gave Michael two slow strokes from base to head. Then he parted those red lips and took Michael in his mouth.
The pleasure was indescribable, a warm, wet heat enveloping Michael like nothing before. He felt himself squirt a little pre-ejaculate, felt his anus clench, endured an agonized trembling in his belly as James took every inch of him between his lips, allowing that erect penis to snake down the back of his throat. The mental image was unbearable. Pressing his hand into his mouth, Michael bit into his own flesh to hold back a moan. Then James began to tug with his lips, up and down, up and down, and Michael felt the planet shift, felt the cosmos wheel overhead. Biting his fingers hard, clenching until he tasted blood, Michael ejaculated without a sound, sending a hot gush of semen down the back of James's throat.
"I'm sorry," Michael heard himself say when he could manage to speak.
James's head came up. He was grinning, licking those red lips like an angel relegated to purely sexual duties. "Why?"
"It was too fast," Michael whispered.
James winked at him. "I'll take that as a compliment, mate. Besides—you're the client. By definition, you can't do wrong."
"I can't?" Michael knew he sounded pathetic, but he had to ask. There'd never been a circumstance in his life where he couldn't be blamed.
James kissed Michael's flaccid organ. Then, crawling up, he kissed Michael's closed lips, looking pleased when the other man offered no resistance.
"You're perfect," James grinned. "I always say that, but in your case, it's true. You're polite, you're generous, and you don't need a freak circus to get off. Call me anytime and I'll come running."
"I... I enjoyed that," Michael whispered. It didn't seem enough, it didn't seem to capture what he really meant, but it was all he could manage. "What—what do I owe you?"
James sucked in his breath. "Sometimes I hate believing in karma. But I think there's really something to it," he sighed. "Mate. You paid for the room. I had nowhere else to go. You've paid me already."
That struck Michael as wrong. "You need to get home. I'll give you tube fare. It's the least I can do."
"No. The least you can do is nothing. I promise you, I'm correct on that score." James kissed Michael again, unoffended when Michael flinched a little. "Is it too much on your lips? Uncomfortable for a heterosexual?"
Michael didn't know how to answer.
"S'all right. I know what you'd like. Turn over and lie on your stomach."
Michael looked alarmed.
"Not so I can fuck you," James laughed. "Keep your trousers on, mate. Take off your shirt. I just want to rub your shoulders."
Michael did as he was bid. A tiny part of him, almost too miniscule for acknowledgement, was disappointed James only wanted to massage him. But what did such disappointment mean? Was he a latent homosexual? Did he crave anal penetration to fulfill some secret urge?
"You belong to a gym," James said admiringly, running his fingers along Michael's well-muscled arms. "Lift weights? Run?"
"Both."
"Why?"
"Because I need the relief. Besides. Only the strong can defend themselves."
After that, Michael wasn't sure when it happened. At some point he was completely nude, all his clothes wadded up on the floor, James's nearby. Strong fingers dug into his shoulders, pressing, caressing, sending sizzling impulses into Michael's spine. It felt so lovely he wasn't surprised when his long-neglected penis stiffened again. Understandably desperate, it engorged with blood, eager for the attentions it could never receive at home...
"I like your ass," James murmured.
"Go on," Michael gasped.
"Sure?" There was a rip like a small plastic package opening. "Michael! You're sure?"
"Please." His erection was pressing against his navel, anus trembling. When he felt James's condom-encased penis press between his buttocks, Michael obeyed what he'd read, bearing down as if defecating, not clenching as if maintaining continence...
A hot iron forced into him, pressing past the ring of muscle and lodging deep within. Michael shuddered, ignoring the pain and overcome with pleasure. He'd never dared put anything into his anus, not even his own forefinger, much less asked Frannie to pleasure him with tongue or toy. But as James thrust, Michael envisioned the other man inside him, bollocks to buttocks, penis buried inside Michael's intestine and head pushed into feces. That image—James withdrawing a brown-stained member—made Michael seize up all over again. This time he bit into his left hand, climaxing after only three hard thrusts.
"You came again?" James asked. He, too, had come, crying out softly.
"A little." There was hot stickiness against Michael's belly. "Felt so good..."
"Oh, love." James kissed Michael's cheek. "You needed this, didn't you?"
Michael realized he was close to tears. Then they were spilling over, sliding down his cheeks, proving the depth of his satisfaction. Ordinarily shame came naturally to him, but not this time. Tonight Michael felt nothing but gratitude.
"You're perfect," he whispered to James.
James caught Michael's mouth with his, kissing him first with closed lips to closed lips. Michael wasn't good at kissing—he'd hated it as a teenager and fought it as a young man, fleeing to Frannie only to have her tell him he was incapable, inadequate, too slobbery, too intense. So he'd given up, stopped kissing altogether, accepting it was something he couldn't do, like dancing in public or speaking Spanish fluently. But James kept pressing with his tongue until Michael responded, trying his best, using his tongue as he wanted to, hoping it wouldn't be too disgusting. And to Michael's surprise, James slid his arms around him, kissing him back, sucking on his upper lip and joining tongue to tongue.
"I like you," James said again when they pulled apart. "I'll write down my number. Call me anytime, Michael. I mean it. Anytime."
***
Michael turned up at home around 2 a.m., slipping through the front door and creeping upstairs. Fourteen-year-old Edward and twelve-year-old Vivian were both in their rooms with the lights still on. Michael entered the master bedroom ready for a row, or his and Frannie's version of a row: Frannie enumerating his transgressions, speculating on what others would think of a husband like Michael, and setting down her expectations for the future. Michael tended to go silent. If he felt seriously rebellious, which was rare, he would walk away while pretending not to hear. It was his only viable weapon. Frannie couldn't bear to be ignored.
To his surprise, he found her asleep with her pink satin mask in place, the telly on and blaring some American crime show. Her prescription
du jour
, a sleeping tablet called Ambien, was on the bedside table along with a glass of water. Michael had wondered why Frannie felt the need for such a drug—he was the one who often couldn't sleep nights—but whatever her friends tried, she tried. Probably she just wanted to sleep on command. Frannie liked things to happen on schedule. Possibly lying down, closing her eyes and waiting to drop off, was just too inefficient.
That night he slept beautifully. When he woke at his usual time, six on the dot, he headed into the shower for his morning ritual. This time it was different. Michael tended to masturbate by either remembering erotic moments from movies or focusing on a specific image, like a page-three girl's perfect breasts. He never inserted himself into his own fantasies—nothing could make him lose an erection faster than self-awareness. He was always someone else, Brad Pitt atop Angelina Jolie, perhaps, but never Michael Maguire. This time, though, he started by thinking of James's face and ended up replaying that moment he'd felt James's penis stabbing between his buttocks, knowing he was about to be penetrated and wanting it desperately. That made Michael ejaculate so hard he somehow managed to spray semen all over Frannie's rack of scented shower gels. Part of him was tempted to leave it that way, to let her find the bottles contaminated and—knowing Frannie—throw every last one in the rubbish bin. But he had to pick his battles. Besides, it was almost more amusing to rinse off the bottles—not too well—and let them dry with a faint, mysterious glaze. The next time Frannie lathered up, she'd be giving herself a very different skin treatment...
He thought of James all day long. Around half-ten he was tempted to go round to the Holiday Inn and see if the young man had checked out yet. But Frannie needed his help with the grocery shopping, then she wanted the guest bathroom toilet repaired—every time his son's friends used it, one of them managed to clog up its innards. Michael liked working with his hands and was a decent amateur plumber, mechanic and electrician. He'd written textbooks on all three subjects, and in the course of his research he'd learned all the basics. He'd even selected the photos himself and helped the art department with the layout. Germanotti, in charge of keeping the division's science textbooks updated, often accused Michael of being a control freak when it came to his books.
"You need to take that energy and put it into a novel," Germanotti liked to say. Of course he'd been writing his own novel for the last five years, to hear him tell it, and Michael had yet to see any evidence this towering work actually existed. Not that he was any better. He hadn't successfully written a piece of fiction in fourteen years—almost as long as he'd been married to Frannie. But Michael didn't blame her for that. She didn't give a damn about his writing one way or another, and never interfered when he went up to his office to draft a new textbook. The problem was inside Michael. He couldn't name it, couldn't define it, but he knew it arose from within.
By eight o'clock, he was so keyed up by thoughts of James, he decided to try something unprecedented. He begged Frannie for sex.