Chapter Twenty-Five
Giles
When I open my front door to Marcello on Sunday at roughly the same time he arrived last week, I see him holding another bottle in his hand. But this one is not like the last.
It’s a bottle of lube. A big bottle of lube.
“Have you been holding that like that that the whole way here?” I ask as he gets closer, my eyebrows high.
“No.” He waves a hand at me and I think, not for the first time, how much I like how he talks with his hands as much as his words. “I turned it around so they couldn’t see the label of course.”
I make a guffawing type of noise. “Because you’re worried it’s a bad brand?”
He looks down at the bottle. “Is it?”
“It’s fine,” I say and I pull him and his giant bottle of lubricant into my apartment. “Although did they not have a bigger bottle?”
His face falls. “Is it not enough?”
I hope my laugh is kind as I rest a hand on his forearm. “I’m being sarcastic. It’s more than enough. I mean, you do plan on letting me go to sleep tonight, and to work tomorrow?”
“If you’re a good boy,” he says with a wink and my body shouldn’t light up like wildfire, nor should it feel just as hot. Not from that teasing comment. But it does.
“You want a beer again?” I offer. “Or a glass of wine?”
Marcello shakes his head as he toes off his shoes. “I feel a bit more confident today,” he smiles, “and I want to be clear-headed. Besides, I already feel like I’m close to vibrating out of my skin.”
“Oh?” I ask as I pull a beer out for myself.
I don’t need the courage as such, more the calming effect of the alcohol.
I wasn’t quite as bad as last week – I didn’t clean my windows but I did go over my kitchen, three times, and washed, dried and ironed my bed sheets – but I’m not exactly as relaxed as I’d like to be.
I want to recapture the magic of our shower fun on Friday.
I want to feel spontaneous and lost in the moment and out of my messy, messy head.
“Well, I figured we could go for it, today.” He nods like a dog who just heard his owner suggest that they go for a walk. I take a pull from my beer. “You know. Anal. Let’s do anal!”
My throat burns as I choke on my beer. I bring my hand to my mouth, worried it’s all going to come splashing out, and turn to the sink just in case. When it’s all safely swallowed down again, I turn back to Marcello who still looks like an over-enthusiastic puppy.
“You okay?”
“Yeah, just wasn’t expecting… that.” I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand.
“Is it not a good idea? For lesson four, I mean. Did you have something else in mind?”
I shake my head. “No, I didn’t… I didn’t really have anything in mind.
” Which is a lie. I’d indulged many fantasies about our time together, but most of them featured us doing more of what we’ve already done.
More of his cock in my mouth, more of my hands getting us both off together at the same time, more of us kissing and grinding our dicks together.
They had not been lacking fantasies. Not at all.
I never imagined Marcello would be ready for more.
“Shit, you don’t want to.” Marcello looks crestfallen, like that puppy just had walkies taken away from him. “I didn’t even think. I just assumed it was… on the table.”
“It can be,” I say quickly. Probably too quickly. “I am not saying no. I’m just checking it’s what you really want to do.”
A little composure returns to Marcello’s face and then a shy smile emerges. “Well, I was hoping I could put the letters in the postbox, if you know what I mean. I don’t think I’m ready to be…”
“A letterbox?” I offer and take a little bit of pleasure in watching Marcello turn as bright red a Royal Mail letterbox.
He’s wearing a white cotton T-shirt and jeans that have worn thin at the knees.
The T-shirt has a faded Italia 94 logo, telling me it’s older than possibly anything else in my flat, bar the items I still have from my parents.
But it looks clean and fresh and I can’t wait to press my nose into the cotton and smell it, smell him.
Jesus. It’s been two days since I last saw Marcello – I couldn’t run with him yesterday as I had to work – and I’m already eager to pounce on him.
“Yeah, that.” Marcello looks down at his feet. “Is that okay? With you?”
“That’s okay with me, but still, I want to know if it’s really what you want.”
Marcello’s shoulders sink and he places the lube on the countertop before leaning his weight against the marble. “I’ve done it before you know. Anal. Lots of times actually. With women, I mean. It really isn’t that big a deal for me.”
As his confession sinks in, I realise then that while it may not be a big deal for him, it is a very big deal for me.
“Good to know,” I say before swallowing.
“I mean, can it be that different? A butthole is a butthole, right?”
“Well, actually I believe there are some important differences, anatomically speaking.”
“Really?”
“Yes. Well, there’s the prostate, of course, which can make it more pleasurable for those with one. Not for all, of course, but some. And apparently biologically male… holes are tougher.”
“Tougher?” The whole left side of Marcello’s face gets pulled up with his eyebrow.
“Apparently so. More… durable.”
“So I can fuck you hard?” he asks as gently as I believe it’s possible for someone to make such a request and yet it almost hits me like a physical slap. Or maybe more of a spank, because it doesn’t feel bad, not at all.
“Let’s just start at the beginning,” I say and take another big swig of beer, suddenly very grateful I decided to have one.
“Which is where?”
“Well, first I need to check that I am ready to bottom right now.”
Marcello’s forehead breaks into a smile. “Ready?”
“Yeah, like…” I really shouldn’t be struggling so much with this conversation. What am I teaching Marcello if I can’t even talk about this frankly? “I need to check I can give you the all clear.”
I’m grateful when realisation very obviously dawns on Marcello. “Ah, okay. That makes sense.”
“And if we have the all clear, then I need to do a bit of preparation. And while I do, maybe you should really think about if this is what you want to do, or if it’s something you feel you have to do. Because not all queer men have intercourse.”
“They don’t?”
“No.” I finish my beer and put it in the sink, meaning that I step a little closer to Marcello. I inhale a whiff of his creamy, buttery warm scent and find my eyes closing, as if to savour it.
For fuck’s sake.
“Some queer men don’t like anal play so they stick to, well, whatever else they want to do. They’re called Sides.”
“That’s a strange name.”
“One of many,” I admit. “Although slightly better than letterbox. By the way, for that you would say Bottom. So today, I’ll be the bottom.”
“Bottom,” Marcello tries the word in his mouth. “That’s a bit obvious isn’t it?”
“Well, it’s actually paired with Top. You’re the top.”
“Okay, that makes more sense.” His mouth stays open and I wait a moment for him to say what he clearly wants to.
“Do you… What’s your preference? To ‘top’ or ‘bottom’?
Wait, do people ever do both? Obviously not at the same time.
Unless I guess there’s more than two people involved but…
shit, sorry, my mind wandered. So yeah, are you a ‘top’ or a ‘bottom’? ”
I smile. “You don’t need to use air quotes every time you say those words. As it happens I do both. I’m vers, short for versatile. But honestly, I prefer bottoming.”
“You do?” Marcello’s whole face lifts and maybe it’s the afternoon sunshine filling my living room and kitchen but it looks like his eyes become brighter too.
“Yeah.” I hold his warm stare.
“Well, I got that wrong,” Marcello says, almost to himself. “I imagined you as the bossy, dominant type.”
“Oh, bottoms can still be dominant. You’ve obviously never heard of a Power Bottom either.”
“A what now?”
“Relax,” I say and put my hand on his forearm again, sparks tingling my palm as it brushes up against the thick dark hair there. “Forget about names and labels. For now, just make yourself at home while I go and get ready for you. But again, no pressure.”
“How are you… How exactly are you getting ready?” Marcello looks confused.
“I need to douche,” I say after the briefest moment questioning how I should answer. But I guess if I really am going to give Marcello queer sex lessons, this is an important one. “Did your previous partners not do that?”
He shrugs. “I don’t know. I guess they must have. But wait… What do you actually mean by douche?”
Oh, Jesus.
“It’s a way to clean out your… passage,” I say as levelly as I can and I’m quite proud that my voice doesn’t wobble at all. “You flush it out with water. So it’s ready for… penetration.”
“Oh, so inside?”
“Yes.”
He nods thoughtfully. “I guess they must have done that. The women I was with, I mean.”
“Not everyone does it the same way. Some douche. Some just clean thoroughly. Some just eat a certain way and hope for the best. Whatever the individual wants, I guess.”
“But you like to… to douche?”
“I do, yes.”
“Okay, but don’t go to any trouble on my account. I mean, I’m well aware of what we’re doing and what the primary use of a bumhole is.”
Marcello speaks with so much ease, I feel like an idiot for struggling, especially when I’m the more experienced man between us.
But I actually can’t remember the last time I spoke about these things with such frankness before, even with another queer man.
In the past it’s usually been a few grunts about who’s going to top, a hurried ten or fifteen minutes in the bathroom and then we just carry on as if nothing happened.
“You know I once saw a Drag Queen say, you can’t eat Caesar salad and not expect some croutons,” I recall out loud with a soft laugh. “Is that what you’re saying?”
“Yes, exactly that. And funnily enough Caeser salad is my favourite kind of salad.”
“With or without croutons?” I let my voice sound as suggestive as I feel.
Marcello leans a little closer to me. “I guess I’d prefer without but it’s been a long time since I had Caeser salad so I’m not going to turn it away for having croutons.”
We share a moment of laughter together and somehow, through it, our bodies creep closer together.
“I will do my best to serve it without,” I say and I feel brave when I slide my hand up his arm and grip his bicep. “I’m feeling some gains here.”
“Really?” He flexes.
“Definitely.”
“I’m relieved we’re no longer talking about croutons,” he says. “Or, let’s be real, shit.”
“And on that note.” I lean all the way over and kiss his beard.
It feels so domestic, so natural, so fucking delusional that I’m pretty sure I’m blushing as I pull back.
But Marcello doesn’t seem to notice, or mind.
In fact, he grabs me by my hips and pulls me against him so he can kiss me properly, his warm mouth on mine.
When I feel the rigid edge of his dick through both our trousers I feel redundant saying what I say next when I pull back, but still I say it.
“Think a bit more about if this is what you really want. Or maybe, how you want it to happen.”
Marcello’s eyes darken, his pupils dilating.
“Okay,” he says, his voice a low rumble and I almost expect him to say more.
To crack a crouton joke or to reaffirm that this is what he wants to do, but he doesn’t.
He just watches me as I pull away and make my way to the bathroom and I could be imagining it but I feel his gaze on me, or very specifically, my arse the whole way.
*****
It doesn’t take me long to douche. I showered very thoroughly before Marcello arrived and after my cleaning frenzy was over.
I pride myself on good hygiene and one advantage of eating regular meals that are consistent in their macros is that it means my other rhythm is very consistent, and regular too.
So after little more than ten minutes, I’m dressed again and ready.
At least, I am physically.
Mentally, I’m very much undouched. I’m clogged up. Backed up with unwanted thoughts. Not that the thoughts are unpleasant. Some of them are concerningly pleasant.
Like how excited I am to bottom for Marcello. Like how much I want this, to feel him inside me, to be fucked by him. Like how I hope this will help bring us closer together. Like maybe this is what will make him realise he’s falling as hard for me as I am for him?
There go my delusions again. At least they’re marginally better than floods of intrusive thoughts.
Or are they? At least with intrusive thoughts I’m dealing with the possible negative, while these new delusions of mine are bringing a new awareness of the possibly good, the possibly happy, a possible love? Fuck, why does that seem so much more terrifying?
Knowing that Marcello is waiting and knowing that the longer I take, the more chance there is that my thoughts will spiral, I reach for my toothbrush and squeeze a small blob of toothpaste onto the bristles. I bring the brush to my mouth and begin.
One, two, three, I brush the teeth on the bottom left side of my mouth.
One, two, three, I switch to the other side.
One, two, three, I turn the brush over and move it around the top left side.
One, two, three, I repeat on the right.
One, two, three, I clench my jaw together and brush my front upper teeth.
One, two, three, I brush my lower upper teeth.
And I repeat. I repeat this nine times and then spit.
I run my tongue along my top and bottom teeth, three times each, and then I use a cup of water to rinse. Three times.
It’s laborious. Even the more rational part of my brain knows how stupid it is. How pointless it is. But it’s one thing to know that, it’s another to feel it. And I don’t feel it’s pointless. Especially when it actually makes a difference.
By the time I’m flossing, I’m calmer. My chest isn’t tight with anticipation – not anticipation for the physical act of bottoming but the emotional one of being connected to Marcello in that way – and I can breathe easier.
I feel able to go out there, find Marcello and actually do what I promised. Give him a lesson in queer sex.
So that’s what I do. I roll my shoulders back, and open the bathroom door. I switch the light on, then off and then on again, and I walk down the short corridor to my bedroom.
And there I find Marcello completely naked, lying in the middle of my bed, stroking his slick-with-lube hard cock.