It was late, almost 10:00 at night, by the time Brad had gotten back from his interview. On the way back he had stopped at the Kovar's house to pick up a CARE package for them from Mike's mom, and this combined with rush hour traffic and a late interview start meant he was much tardier than he had hoped. He had spoken to Mike briefly on the phone, relaying his initial impression that the interview seemed to have gone well but that he didn't want to make any predictions.
Before he had met Mike, late evening returns like this meant an exhausted Brad coming home to an empty apartment, having to fend for himself. If he was lucky, he would have had the foresight to prepare something, which he often did. But many times the cupboard was bare and the welcoming committee non-existent.
But that was before. As soon as he walked in the door there was something warm and tight and firm wrapped around him, before he could even get his jacket off. There weren't even words exchanged, just the most incredible embrace. Being exhausted from long day, he barely had the strength to return the favor. Knowing Brad's condition, Mike made sure that his grip was more than enough for both of them.
Feeling a strong grip to his shoulders, he was then guided to his seat in the kitchen. Waiting was a warm, albeit re-heated meal. No one would argue that Brad's cooking skills had rubbed off on Mike yet. In fact, they seemed to positively avoid him. But he did learn to at least pay attention to reheating things properly and the meal before Brad smelled as good as if he himself had reheated it. Who says that he wasn't a good mentor?
"Pup, thanks, how'd your day go? Did you get..."
"Eat, babe!" I'll tell you soon as you tell me what you want to drink." Mike ordered. "As you know, we have a wide selection of tap water and milk, with a cold beer available after the meal. Could I take your order now?"
Taking his cue to eat first, and being completely famished anyway, Brad dove into the veggie lasagna. The first big mouthful prevented a quick answer, but he finally got out a "milk, please" to complete the order.
"OK, but I'll tell you about my day first while you're eating, then tell me more about the interview. But you have to keep eating, OK?" Mike poured him a tall glass of milk and placed it in front of him on the table.
"No problem there, I'm starving." Brad took a swig of the milk, then put the glass down and continued slicing up the lasagna.
"I got a call from GPF. They want me to come back for a second interview and meet some other..." As Mike spoke, Brad was swallowing a big bite of the lasagna but getting out of his chair at the same time.
"Sit! Finish your meal, babe! You need to eat, you can give congratulations later, OK?" Mike had quickly moved behind Brad, putting his hands on his shoulders as he gently pushed him back into his chair.
After getting assurances that Brad was back into the eating mode again, he continued on about the firm. "They want me to start right after school ends. The money isn't' great, less that the big corporate place, but I don't care. I'm just really happy to have a chance to work there."
"I feel so lucky that they called today. There was only one more day left of my "finessed" answer to that other place. I guess neither was a bad choice, but I'm really glad this worked out. Well, at least I'm glad now. I hope it's the right choice."
Brad put down his fork and wiped stray tomato sauce off of his face. "Can I get up now? I'm done. I've cleaned my plate. Look!" Then he gave Mike his best impish smile, holding his the empty dish out for inspection.
Mike took the plate and examined it closely, putting it up toward the light, turning it over, rubbing his finger against it, like the white glove test, totally focused on the plate, until it was Mike's time to feel Brad's grip, when two strong arms wrapped around his waist.
"Did I pass?" Brad's cheek rubbed his ear.
"Yes, ummm....." he was about to continue when be felt a hand on his crotch.
"Here's that congratulations I wanted to give you." Brad said.
Gently removing the wandering fingers with one hand, Mike reached back and scratched the head behind him.
"Thanks, Babe, but tell me more about the interview, first. OK?"
Brad laughed, and, parting with a big lick to Mike's neck, poured himself more milk and took his seat back at the table. "Well, it was about as I expected, in terms of the job description. Really an administrative job, helping to check-in people, take care of records, orient wanderers, general stuff like that. I might have even have a chance to help out in the Emergency Room itself."
Gesturing at Brad for a last chance at more lasagna, Mike proceeded to start cleaning up and putting things away. "Do you want that? I mean, do you think that you can deal with the stuff that goes on in the ER if you get assigned there?"
"I've thought about that." He said this with a slight hesitation in his voice, betraying some doubt that he had. Jeeze, I've probably thought more about that than the part of the job that I'm much more likely to do. I guess my answer is `I don't know.' I think it could be really fascinating, but I hope I don't wimp out when I see blood. But I don't think I will."
Mike was not a stranger to emergency rooms. Because of his early history of seizures, he had seen his share of them as he grew up so he knew what Brad might be in for. And without his partner even saying it, he also knew that Brad liked to help and take care of people. Mike had no doubt that if Brad could deal with the scene that he would be great there.
Brad continued his musing. "I wonder if there could be other kinds of problems there, too. For example what if some hunky doctor tries to take advantage of me. I mean, you know, impose himself on me, a young, naïve college student. He'd have power over me, you know. I could be helpless."
Mike didn't react. Getting things ready for tomorrows, dinner, he pulled a salami out of the refrigerator. "Did you want to make this for tomorrow, babe.?"
Taken a little by surprise at Mike's seeming lack of appreciation for his joke, he just shook his head and acknowledged him. "Yea, sure, that will be OK."
Make sat back down and placed the flaccid meat on a small plate between them. Brad just kind of looked at Mike, a bit perplexed as to why Mike had suddenly focused on tomorrow's dinner and placed the meat onto the table. He should have left it in the fridge.
"You know, " Mike started, "imagine that this was a guy's penis. Maybe a boyfriends penis, for example." He started to stroke the meat gently as he continued. "you can treat it real nice, if he's good, but if he's not good, bad things could happen to it. Especially if he's not careful."
The light stroking of the meat was becoming rougher, pushing it around the plate, rolling it tightly between his fingers. "This would probably be a bit uncomfortable, no? Of course, if he's real bad, it could even get a tad worse." Mike moved his hand to the end, gently but firmly peeling open the resistant casing. "Do you think this would hurt?" He asked innocently, but with a sly edge to his voice.
Brad's mouth was getting dry as he stared at the abuse Mike was heaping on the meat. "um..." He gave a meek smile. "uh....yeah, uh that would hurt bad. I can't even imagine what some guy would do to deserve that um....uh....well.."
"Think, babe," Mike said as the continued to roughly poke at the meat, after he had stripped the casing completely off. "I could never mention the kind of unspeakable behavior that would lead to this, but I think you know what I mean." He looked up at Brad with his most mischievous grin.
"Um...OK...it's a Catholic hospital...maybe I'll only speak to the nuns."
It took a week for the hiring officer to get back to Brad, which was lightning speed for a bureaucracy like a large hospital, but they finally offered him the job. The guys were ecstatic -- they had both lined up the jobs that they wanted for the summer, and were anxious to start a life together outside of school. Though the pay wasn't great and they'd have to be careful about money, they each knew that it was the best situation that they could have hoped for.
By mid-July, both of the guys were exhausted after a grueling finals week. For Brad, his transcripts were a critical issue, and he was anxious about keeping up his grades for law school. As was typical for him, he expressed guarded confidence but wouldn't speculate about the results until he actually saw them.
As for Mike, he had shared his hopes for Grad school with a couple of faculty members who he'd hoped for recommendations from. He felt some relief as they generally supported his strategy, that he should focus his effort on his portfolio of work rather than his grades. This wasn't to say he would blow off his grades -- he was just a natural solid student. He just didn't put his extra focus there.
During their first weekend living together at the Kovar house, Brad had decided that Mike needed to go to his first gay club. Outside of their friends and activities at school, the guys were a closed system unto themselves. It was fuck, sleep, school, gym, study, intramurals (for Brad,) the woodshop (for Mike,) dinner, more studying, more fucking and then back to sleep. Both of the guys had met each other's straight friends, like Pete and Kate, but except for Todd and one friend of Brad's, Mike knew no other gay people nor anything of the gay world.
"Pup, you ready?"
Mike was just pulling a yellow tee shirt over his head. "yea, I think so. How do I look? Think I can snag anything with this." He teased Brad. His newly developed pecs clearly showed through the fabric.
"Yes, of course. But remember, they're just for show." Mike was just wearing jeans, sneakers and the tee shirt, with his brown hair combed carefully with a part on the side. Just standing there he practically had Brad salivating. Not able to resist the temptation to playfully `keep his boy in line,' he reached over and gave a tweak to the right nipple. Mike giggled as he recoiled from the slightly aggressive touch, but Brad didn't release him yet.
"OK...yup. I get the picture. Now let it go or none for you tonight!" Mike declared. Brad reeled his hand in fast.
Primping for these nights out used to be almost a day long affair for Brad. He liked to work out and get his muscles pumped, especially his chest and arms; made sure he took a nap so that he could stay awake late and fuss and fuss over his clothes. Now, he couldn't care less how he looked, as long as he looked good for Mike.
Brad knew most of the clubs in town pretty well, but since the Mike era arrived he had been completely out of circulation. Making Mike's sensitivity to flashing lights his primary criteria, he chose a club, luckily one of the best, which didn't have a fancy light show.
It was a new world for Mike. He'd never seen so many gays in one place, at least not in person. He hardly even knew so many gay guys existed They came in all shapes and sizes and colors, just like everyone else in the `real' world, but they were gay! They're were even a few that he thought he recognized from high school, or his college, which gave it a bit of a familiar feel. Brad watched his boy's amazement. While Mike was blown away by just being with other gay people, for Brad it was all too familiar. He used to just hunt for one night stand sex at these places, but that seemed like another lifetime ago. What was really special was being here with Mike. And he couldn't be happier.
Brad nodded over at the corner of the lobby as the entered. "johns over there. But enter at your peril. The cruising is the worst in there. Your big meat will be very popular."
"I think that my meat, big or not, is already spoken for. But thanks for the warning."
For the newly initiated Mike, it seemed like one big wild party, and who wouldn't like that? Guys were dancing, hugging, kissing, drinking, and generally carrying on. A lot of cuties, too, though none could compare to Brad.
But some things about it were a bit of a rude awakening as to the status of the gay world. As large and populated and animated as the crowd was, the venue itself was really a dive, and in a crummy part of town. The low lighting and dark paint was supposed to give the place a cool and trendy underground atmosphere, but neither could mask what was essentially a wreck of an old warehouse building, especially to a budding architect like Mike. It practically screamed `fire trap' to him. Something seemed unfair about it.
Straight people had dives, too, but they also had nice places, and Mike knew that if they were straight Brad would take him to the best place in town for their first formal night out. It didn't diminish the fun they were having, but being the person he was, contrasts like this didn't just float by, unnoticed.
Looking at the crowd, one other thing struck him about his own feelings in this new world. It was that it didn't seem remarkable that it was just guys. It seemed like it should have seemed weird and strange but it didn't. He had spent practically his whole lifetime doing couples dancing with Jules, and he thought that he should have found it odd here. But he didn't. It just felt right.
With the volume of the music at dialed up to maximum intensity before aural damage would result, Brad brought Mike's head close to his face to speak. "Dance?"
Mike just leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. "I'd be honored." He replied, actually leading the way and pulling Brad out onto the floor.
Though it would have been more like the rest of the crowd to dance apart, the guys danced together, Mike leaning his head on Brad's shoulder. The lights changed only slowly here, and it wasn't a danger for him, so he just reveled in the deep beat of the music and the embrace of Brad. Life could hardly get better.
They started off just holding each other, rocking to the beat of the music, just lost in each other's arms. But as the music beat on their intensity gradually increased. They kissed and probed and writhed their bodies together, at first gently, almost flirtatiously.
The action built slowly, gradually. But as the beat progressed they were like the pokey milk run that becomes the runaway train, the passion took control as they came to claw at each other with utter abandon, oblivious to everything around them. Brad pulled their heads together in almost violent kisses, while Mike's hands were practically pulling Brad's ass apart. It was almost like having sex vertically, Mike thought. The heat of the other bodies and thunder of the music was intoxicating to both of them.
At the end of the music, with one last deep tongue kiss, the guys separated, looking into each others eyes in the dim light. They were both breathing deeply, the sweat beads dripping from the tip of Brad's nose onto his half-soaked shirt. Mike was about to reach up to touch that beautiful face when suddenly some big guy got roughly in between them.
Momentarily, he was shocked. Some jerk, he couldn't tell much about him except that he was pretty well built, was pushing Brad back. He'd shove him, then yell, then shove again.
"Oh my God!' Mike thought. `What is happening? Who the hell is this guy?' It reminded him of that first night, back at that company party, only this time Brad might be the one in trouble. He was about to grab at the guys shirtless, sweaty back when he noticed that Brad was laughing and smiling each time the guy pushed. And as the reverberations of the loud music were finally dying down in his ears, he could make out what he was yelling.
"He's not gay,! he's my friend!" Then a shove. "How could you think he's gay. I only put my tongue half-way down his throat!" the voice said, as the hands gave Brad another playful shove . Whoever it was obviously being sarcastic. It was a familiar voice.
Then the big guy turned around to face Mike. It was Archie, the guy from that night at the restaurant, the guy who had outed Brad.
"And you! Little Miss Straight Boy! He shouted at Mike, wagging his finger, then gave Mike the same mocking treatment.. "I don't put my hands up the crack of any guys ass. He has to be special, a gentleman, since I'm not gay." Even in the dark, Mike thought that the whole place could see him blush.
Anxious to put a stop to this public humiliation, Brad put his hand on Archie's' shoulder as he moved the group off of the dance floor into a more quiet area. Archie had in the meantime wrapped his arms around Mike's shoulder, subtly feeling up his muscles in the way lecherous old queens do when they have naïve, fresh meat at hand. Brad noticed.
Pulling Arch close as the group cruised off the floor, he calmly spoke directly into his ear, "If you don't stop fondling him I'm going to break that arm." The tone was not harsh, but the message was clear.
Arch just looked back at Brad and smiled as he slowly released the grip on Mike. But not without a final squeeze of his newly developed bicep. "You're pathetic, Brad North."
They guys found a rare empty seating area in a quiet corner and settled in. But Archie wasn't through with Brad yet. He turned toward Mike. "Do you know that when you went to the john in that restaurant that this big, predatory queer was staring at your ass?" Then Arch just sat back in his chair, letting the thought just sink in.
Mike hardly knew what to see, he just gave a slight laugh. "I didn't think about that. I just had to pee." He was about to tease Brad, but caught himself. One thing that his parents had taught him was that a couple might argue with each other, or tease each other privately, or with close family, but never embarrass the other in public. He just blandly acknowledged the incident for now. Brad would get his grief later.
"North, I knew you were in trouble that night." Archie started. "You didn't even notice me, the guy who was your conscience in being a good, decent, law-abiding queer. I never let you get mixed up with that bad element. But here you were, totally gaga over this guy. And I had never even met him to give my approval. Is that the kind of thanks I get?"
"Why do you say that, how could you tell?" Brad said. He thought that he was being oh-so-subtle that night, that there was no way that anyone could have possibly known that he was gay. Or how attracted he was to Mike. No way. He was way too clever to betray himself like that, he thought.
"You didn't take your eyes off of him all night." Arch said blandly, calling Brad's bluff. Then, turning to Mike, he said, "and you, too. The way that you guys talked and looked and focused on each other. You were in your own world. I'd just assumed that you all had been screwing for a long time. And to think that you didn't tell me, North!" he said as he turned toward Brad.
"Huh. Interesting that you thought that, Arch. Believe it our not, that was our first time doing something together. And it was just as friends. And I wasn't even out to him until you so kindly intervened."
Arch look incredulous and burst out laughing. "What? First time out? Oh man, my boy. You really are in big trouble!" He wrapped his arms around Brad and put him into the big sloppy hug that he gave to all of this good friends. Of course, he also took is as an opportunity to cop a feel of Brad's hard body, too, as he strategically put his big hand on Brad's right pec to push him away after the release. Brad just rolled his eyes. Arch would always be Arch.
Nonetheless, he did like Archie a lot and wanted to see what he had been up to, also. Brad had met him at another dance spot like this two years before, and they'd hung out together for a while, at least when Brad came into town to go clubbing. But they hadn't spoken at all since that infamous night in the restaurant.
"So Arch, what have you been up to? What have you been doing with that sorry ass of yours? Brad asked playfully. Mike looked intently at Arch, also, signaling his own eager interest to know more about him.
He addressed his answer to Mike. "Just working, you know, the usual stuff. In case your boyfriend hasn't told you anything about that big queen who outed him," Arch said as he nudged a smiling Brad, "I'm a lab assistant at the University here. I get to work with scientists, which is fun, but also get to use the gym, where I can cruise the young grad students." He got a smile from Mike about this. "I've been there a couple years, after I graduated with an education degree."
"Education? And you didn't go into teaching?" Mike asked.
"Naw. It was actually going to teach science to junior high kids, but when I did student teaching I realized that I didn't like being in schools so much. The kids were OK, I just didn't like the other teachers. Especially the faculty meetings. Yuk," He said with a grin.
"Someone not let you in their pants? Bitter?" Brad asked, giving Arch a raised eyebrow.
"Ha! I'll have you know that I was the one desperately trying to keeping my honor in that snake pit, Mr. North. But I guess you wouldn't know what her honor means to a girl, would you?" Arch reached over and made a grab for Brad's hard stomach, only at the last second being playfully batted away by a grinning Brad.
As they walked to their car afterwards, Mike's desire to tease Brad melted away. The first few times that he had actually done things with Brad he knew that he got a weird feeling around him, but didn't understand exactly what it was. Like Brad, he was completely shocked that he'd been so obvious that night in the restaurant. How could he have been? He didn't even know that Brad was gay until the very end of the evening!
`Damn, what this guy does to me!' he thought.