Strong - 1. Strong

Jacob elbows his way to the counter of the crowded hotel bar. When he finally gets there, all three bartenders are busy and he leans his elbows on the counter and sighs. He’s had a long day, and part of him just wants to go home and sleep, but a few drinks with colleagues never hurts. Why they had to choose an upscale hotel on a Friday night is beyond him, though.

He glances to his left and for a moment he doesn’t quite comprehend what it is he’s seeing. Then he blinks, taking in chestnut curls and a long nose and thin lips, and everything seems to pause as the man next to him notices him staring and fixes his green eyes on him.

‘Jacob?’ The man cocks his head to one side. Jacob swallows.

‘Marcus,’ he says. ‘I, er . . . How have you been?’

Marcus shrugs, taking a sip of his whisky. ‘All right, I suppose. You?’

Jacob doesn’t have time to answer because right then one of the bartenders, a lanky youth with ginger hair and freckles (a bit too similar to one of Jacob’s exes), asks, ‘What can I get you, mate?’ and Jacob is forced to take his eyes off Marcus.

‘Er, I’ll have two pints of lager, one red wine, a white russian and a Hemingway daiquiri, please.’

‘Here with friends?’ Marcus asks casually.

‘Yeah, co-workers.’

‘Who’s the Hemingway for?’

Jacob glances sideways at him and smiles sheepishly. ‘Me.’

‘Well, things certainly change,’ says Marcus, taking another sip. ‘Back when I knew you you wouldn’t be caught dead in a rent boy’s arse drinking a fucking cocktail.’

And just like that, with a simple expletive, it feels almost like the last ten years haven’t happened. Jacob laughs.

‘Yeah, things change.’ He looks Marcus up and down. He’s wearing a very fancy grey suit, with a silver shirt and purple tie. The thing is immaculate, clean and crisp. His hair is greying prematurely at the temples, but the look suits him. He looks more like he’s in his forties than his early thirties, but then Marcus always did look much older than he was. He is just as fucking skinny and emaciated looking as he always was, and Jacob makes sure to tell him so.

‘Yeah, and I see you still haven’t learned how to handle a fucking razor, either,’ Marcus retaliates. ‘What is going on with your facial hair? You look like a fucking half dead hobo junkie.’

There’s something nostalgic bout being insulted by Marcus Allen, and Jacob can’t help but smile. The bartender brings Jacob the drinks, and he pays for them. ‘Are you by yourself?’ he asks Marcus while typing in his PIN.

‘Yeah. Staying here tonight, thought I might as well have a fucking drink.’

Jacob nods, carefully considering his next words. ‘Wanna come sit down with us?’

Marcus grimaces, glancing around. ‘No, thanks,’ he says at last. ‘Too many fucking people.’

‘All right.’ Jacob takes his daiquiri off the tray and places it next to Marcus’s whisky. Then he pulls up the nearest free bar stool, takes off his jacket and folds it sloppily on top of the seat, and picks up the tray of drinks. ‘I’ll just bring the drinks over. Look after my Hemingway, yeah?’

Marcus looks surprised, but he doesn’t argue. Jacob manoeuvres the tray of of drinks carefully through the rabble, puts it down on his friends’ table and bids them goodnight, before making his way back to the bar where Marcus is waiting.

‘So!’ he says brightly. ‘What have you been up to, you twat?’

Marcus shrugs one shoulder. ‘Not an awful lot, really. I work for a law firm. Mostly I defend stoner Internet pirates from prosecution and prosecute evil corrupt fucking fat cats.’

‘Living the dream, then.’ Jacob smiles. ‘They must be paying you well. What is this, fucking Armani?’ He plucks at the sleeve of Marcus’s suit jacket.

‘Did you pull that out of your arse?’ Marcus asks with an elevated eyebrow. ‘It’s Savile Row, actually.’ He sips his whisky and studies Jacob. ‘What about you? What do you do? Are you getting paid for fiddling prostates in public loos?’

Jacob fingers the stem of his cocktail glass. ‘Actually, I’m an editor. For a lit magazine. I write book reviews and editorials on literature trends . . . That sort of thing.’

‘Stuck with the media, then, did you?’ Marcus almost smiles. ‘Good for you.’ He sighs and rubs his face with both hands, and Jacob notices for the first time that he’s wearing a wedding band on his bony finger. Jacob swallows and looks away.

‘Who’s the lucky bloke?’ he asks, heart pounding in his chest.

‘Sorry?’ Marcus looks at him.

‘Your ring,’ Jacob clarifies.

Marcus looks at his hand as though he’s never seen it before. Then he slips the ring off his finger and sticks it in his breast pocket. ‘Not talking about that,’ he murmurs.

‘Oh, fuck off, Marcus! Don’t leave me hanging here!’ Jacob elbows him playfully.

‘Look, I told you I don’t want to fucking talk about it, fuckface!’ Marcus growls and glares at him. ‘It’s nothing. It’s over. I don’t even know why I wear the fucking thing anymore, so . . .’

‘Don’t waste time, do you?’ Jacob takes a long swig of his bitter cocktail. ‘Ten years since I last saw you, and you’ve had time to get married and get divorced?’

‘And have a kid,’ Marcus mutters, looking away.

Jacob’s eyebrows vanish into his hairline. ‘You’re a dad?’ Then he frowns. ‘Marcus . . . Did you marry a girl?’

Marcus shuts his eyes for a moment and sighs. Then he drains his glass. ‘Jenny,’ he says at last. ‘My mother introduced us, shit spiralled out of hand. Good fucking Catholic girl, you know? We have a daughter, Meg. She’s three.’

Jacob shakes his head. ‘That is fucking fucked up,’ he tells Marcus. ‘Are you stuck in the sodding fifties or something? No one stays in the closet and fucking marries their beard anymore, you moron!’

Marcus looks at him, and lowers his gaze to his chin. ‘You seem to have married yours,’ he says with a smirk, and despite his outrage, Jacob laughs.

‘Christ, Marcus . . . Do you never change?’

Marcus orders another whisky (Laphroaig, twenty-five years) and takes a large sip. ‘I cheated on her, with men. In the end I told her, and she divorced me. It was only finalised last week.’ He stares at the glass in his hand, studying the pattern of light in the amber liquid. Seeing the skinny fucker like this gives Jacob an overwhelming urge to look after him. ‘What about you?’

Jacob shrugs, ignoring that familiar feeling in the pit of his stomach. ‘Nothing, really. A couple of on and offs, mostly just casual. You know.’

‘The more things change the more they fucking stay the same, eh?’ Marcus chinks his glass against Jacob’s. ‘Cheers.’ He drains the whole thing in one gulp. He gives a slight hiccup and puts the glass down on the bar a bit harder than necessary. ‘Do you still like men who hurt you?’

Jacob frowns. ‘How many of those have you had?’ he asks slowly, eyeing the empty glass.

‘Not enough,’ Marcus remarks bitterly, and raises his hand to order another one.

‘No, I don’t think so,’ says Jacob, grabbing hold of his wrist. ‘Come on, you silly cunt, you’re off to bed.’

‘Like fucking hell!’

But Jacob has made up his mind. He stands up, puts his jacket back on and grabs Marcus firmly by the upper arm, dragging him off his stool and out of the bar.

Usually, back then, it was Jacob who was drunk and Marcus who was relatively sober. Now Marcus is draped over his shoulder like a barely walking corpse, and Jacob is reminded of an instance nearly eleven years ago when their positions were reversed. Now Marcus is the one insisting that he’s not drunk. His warm breath as he protests wildly (he’s not that drunk, and he wants more whisky, and Jacob’s not his fucking keeper, how dare he tell Marcus what to do and if he doesn’t let him go back to the bar he’ll fucking tear out his spine and beat him to death with it) makes Jacob shiver. Where does the fucker get off being so irre-fucking-sistable? He manages to coax Marcus’s room number out of him anyway, and presses the button for the lift.

* * *

Marcus stumbles into the darkened hotel room, catching himself on the door handle to the en suite bathroom. Behind him, Jacob shuts the door and turns on the light. Marcus turns around and surveys him.

He is a little older, and looks a little more tired, but ultimately he’s the same. Same wide, brown eyes, floppy dark hair and stupidly long eyelashes. Jacob’s tongue darts out to wet his lips. He always did have a bit of an oral fixation. There’s no hint of the smell of tobacco smoke that used to permeate from his clothes, however. Marcus supposes that must mean he finally gave up the cigarettes in favour of continuing to breathe.

Tomorrow, he will blame it all on the alcohol, he’s sure, but now he closes the distance between them, pushing Jacob up against the door, like he would so many years ago, and pressing their lips together, hard. Jacob makes a strangled whimpering noise before pushing him away.

‘Marcus, you’re drunk,’ he murmurs, but Marcus can see the lust in his eyes.

‘Fuck off, you’ve missed this as much as I have.’

Jacob looks down at his feet. ‘Yeah, I have,’ he says softly. ‘But you’re drunk, and newly divorced and—’

‘And, what, vulnerable? Never fucking bothered you before, did it?’

Jacob shakes his head. ‘Things change, Marcus.’

‘No, they fucking don’t. Not that much.’ He never did this back then, but now Marcus raises his hand to Jacob’s jaw and strokes his lower lip with his thumb, gently. ‘Please. Just—’ He cuts himself off, embarrassed, and lets his hand drop. ‘I’m sorry. I’m drunk. Fuck—Don’t fucking listen to me.’ He turns away.

‘Wait!’ Jacob grabs his hand. ‘I don’t even—I don’t know how to fucking deal with you anymore. But if you want—’

He doesn’t get any further, because Marcus spins around and pins him to the door again, kissing him with as much passion as he can muster. Ten fucking years of anger and misery and regret. Ten years of fucking up in every aspect of his personal life even as he soared towards a brilliant career. Ten fucking years, all released through that kiss, and he thinks Jacob must have understood, because it leaves him breathless (though not in the asthmatic, about to fucking die sort of way).

Either way, he has Jacob’s attention now, and the shorter man pushes his (beautiful, very expensive) suit jacket off his shoulders and lets it drop to the floor, before starting on the tie. At the same time, Marcus starts moving backwards, towards the bed, working on the buttons of Jacob’s blue and purple striped shirt.

When they’ve almost reached the bed, Marcus pauses and stares at him. ‘Have you got a condom? Don’t know where you’ve fucking been, do I?’

Jacob looks at him for a moment, and then he laughs. ‘What do you take me for, you twatweasel? Of course I’ve got a fucking condom!’ Then he kisses him, and pushes him down on the king size bed.

They struggle frantically to get out of their clothes, and then they’re nearly naked and Jacob is on top of him, looking down at him almost fondly. He traces Marcus’s ribs with his fingertips, and Marcus shudders. ‘Jesus, Marc, you’re gonna fucking kill yourself if you don’t start eating.’

‘What about you, are you still living off of fucking curries and chips?’ Marcus murmurs. ‘I’ll bet you fucking are, you’re such a hypocritical fuckarse.’

‘Yeah, well, at least there’s some kind of nutrition in that stuff,’ Jacob shoots back. ‘You can’t live on fucking coffee and whisky, you moron.’ Then he lowers his head and licks a wet trail up Marcus’s throat, and Marcus is unable to argue any further.

After a good while of teasing and licking and biting, Jacob asks, ‘So . . . What do you want? Who’s fucking whom tonight?’

Marcus swallows. He wants it all, wants to feel everything at once, but since that’s not really possible, he murmurs, ‘Fucking do it.’

The condom is lubricated, but they haven’t got any actual lube to use for preparation, so they have to make do with Jacob’s saliva. He takes his time, using both tongue and fingers to slowly stretch Marcus. It’s been a good long while since anyone but Marcus himself has come near his arse, and he grips the sheets, gasping for breath and bucking his hips, fucking back against Jacob’s fingers. It’s deliciously painful.

Jacob fucks him slowly, in long deep thrusts, and Marcus grasps at his arms and shoulders, hard enough to bruise. He comes with Jacob’s name on his lips, mere seconds before Jacob does the same and collapses on top of him. Then he rolls off him, disposing of the condom, and presses up against his side with his hand on his chest and his nose in the crook of his neck.

‘I’ve missed you,’ Jacob murmurs. Ten years ago, Marcus would have called him a fucking girl and told him to go fuck himself. Now he feels the ache in his chest and knows how true those words are for both of them.

‘Me too,’ he says. ‘Fuck me . . . How did we end up like this?’

‘Well, first we graduated and then you fucked off to fucking Cardiff for your bar training shitting course thing, and I never fucking heard from you again. Because you’re a big stupid twat with commitment issues.’ There’s no accusation in Jacob’s words. Only honesty.

Marcus smiles and pokes his shoulder. ‘Hey, I committed. I got fucking married. How come you never settled down with anyone, Mr. I’m-too-good-for-fucking-relationships McWankface?’

‘They weren’t you.’ The stark honesty of Jacob’s reply takes Marcus by surprise, and makes him feel a little bit guilty.

This is another thing Marcus will blame on the alcohol tomorrow, even though he feels quite clearheaded now. He turns his head and kisses Jacob’s forehead and whispers, ‘I loved you, you know.’

Jacob draws a sharp breath, holds it for a few moments and lets it out again, warm against Marcus’s cooling skin. He kisses his throat. ‘I know.’ His voice sounds slightly choked. ‘I loved you, too.’

Then they kiss again, and there’s a familiar flutter in Marcus’s stomach, a tightening in his gut and all he wants is to be as fucking close as he can get, so he rolls on top of Jacob and kisses him deeply, willing himself to get hard again.

It doesn’t take long.

He fucks Jacob the way he used to—hard, furiously and with total abandon—crushing his wrists into the mattress, watching him squirm beneath him, moaning and whimpering and, finally, begging for his touch, which Marcus happily grants. He gets Jacob off in fast, tight strokes, watching his face as he loses himself, whimpering and gritting his teeth.

When it’s over, Marcus stays just as he is, listening to Jacob’s heartbeat, and then Jacob laughs, and Marcus props himself up on his elbow and quirks an eyebrow at him.

‘Christ, what are we fucking like, eh?’ Jacob murmurs. ‘Ten years. Over ten fucking years, if took us to say that.’

Marcus smiles. ‘Yeah.’

‘We are seriously fucked up.’

‘We always were.’ Marcus hesitates. ‘But we were stronger together. When I was with you, it—it didn’t matter that I was so fucked up . . .’

‘Yeah, same.’ Jacob runs his fingers through Marcus’s hair, and Marcus closes his eyes and rests his head on his chest once more. He’s missed this intimacy—the intimacy that used to scare him to death. He’s missed being so close to another human being. He’s missed having a companion, a lover. Jenny was his friend, and he did care for her, but she was neither of those things.

‘Marcus?’

‘Mhm?’

‘Can I—’ Jacob seems to hesitate. The hand in Marcus’s hair is trembling and his pulse is racing. ‘This time . . . can I keep you?’ It’s barely more than a whisper.

Marcus pulls himself up into a halfway sitting position. Earnest brown eyes stare up at him from under a sweaty, dark fringe. Marcus pushes the hair out of Jacob’s eyes, stroking his cheek with the back of his fingers. Then he kisses him again and wonders, not for the first time tonight, how he could ever have given up these gorgeous fucking lips. How he could spend a whole decade without feeling them pressed against his own. Without seeing them red and raw from kisses and bites.

‘Fuck off, you twat,’ Marcus murmurs fondly, resting his forehead against Jacob’s. ‘Call me when we’re both sober.’