Then Things Happened - 1. Then Things Happened

It’s amazing that she still picks up when he calls.

‘Hello?’

‘Jen.’

There’s a pause, in which his ex-wife makes a sharp intake of breath. He can see her purse her lips in his mind’s eye. ‘Marcus.’

‘Er, I was wondering . . . Do you think we could switch weekends? First weekend of November . . . Something’s come up.’

‘What kind of something?’

Even after everything, she knows him a bit too fucking well. ‘A friend is coming to visit.’

‘Is this a friend or a friend?’ Her disapproving tone is unmistakable.

‘I don’t actually think that’s any of your fucking business,’ Marcus tells her, and instantly regrets it. He sighs. ‘It’s not one of the . . . We knew each other at uni. I met him again last week, after ten years, so—’

‘Fine. It doesn’t matter. Don’t want to know.’ She clicks her tongue, and there’s the rustle of papers. ‘That should work out. If you can take her the weekend after that, there’s a church thing then anyway.’

‘Yeah, that’s fine.’ He pauses, considers for a moment. ‘Is she still up?’

‘Yes.’

‘Can I talk to her?’

‘Yes, hold on. Meg! It’s your father.’ She never says ‘daddy’ or ‘your dad’. It’s always ‘your father’.

He can hear little running footsteps in the background and then there’s a noise as the phone is passed into new hands.

‘Daddy!’ Meg sounds breathless and happy.

‘Hey! How’s my girl? Have you been good today?’

‘I drew a picture of a unicorn, and I played with Shaun! Shaun is my boyfriend.’

‘Is he now?’

‘Yes, but I’m stronger than he is and I beat him when we played cowboys.’

‘That’s my girl.’ Marcus smiles. ‘I’m coming to get you on Friday. Anything you’d like to do this weekend?’

‘I dunno . . .’

‘Well, I was thinking we could watch a movie and eat ice cream, how’s that sound?’

‘Yay! Ice cream! Can we watch The Lion King?’

‘Again?’

‘It’s my favourite!’

‘Well, go on then.’ He could listen to his daughter’s voice for hours, but he glances at his watch. It’s just gone eight. ‘Now, isn’t it your bedtime, young lady?’

Meg lets out a demonstrative sigh. ‘Yes. Good night, Daddy!’

‘Night, petal. Sleep tight. Put Mummy back on?’

‘Right, then,’ says Jenny, when she is once again in possession of the receiver. ‘First weekend of November, was it?’

‘Yes.’

‘Listen.’ She pauses for effect. ‘I don’t care what you do or who you do it with, I . . . It’s none of my business. But I won’t have you exposing my daughter to any . . . perversion, is that understood?’

‘Perversion? What the—’ Marcus draws a deep breath to calm himself. He keeps his voice low and perfectly steady. ‘Ever the fucking Catholic. You listen to me, you complete and utter—No, I do not intend to fuck men in front of my three-year-old daughter, all right? But if—if I find someone that I want to be with in the long term, then that person is going to be a part of my life and, by extension, my daughter’s life, whether you fucking like it or not. And if you try to stop that, if you try to take her away or turn her against me or tell her that I’m a fucking sinner, then I will fucking sue you for custody and you know there’s not a court in the whole shitting Commonwealth that wouldn’t side with me. Are we clear?’

He can hear her swallow, and feels a perverse sort of glee rise in him with the knowledge that he’s got to her.

‘Yes,’ she says after a moment. ‘We’re clear. Good night, Marcus.’

‘Bye.’

* * *

‘Jacob! You up for drinks later, mate?’ Nat ruffles Jacob’s hair playfully.

‘Nah, I’ve got a train to catch,’ Jacob tells her.

‘Oh? Where you going?’

‘Visiting a friend for the weekend.’

Nat smirks. ‘A friend, eh? Is this a romantic rendezvous or a casual fling, then?’

‘Fuck off,’ Jacob says fondly, rolling his eyes. ‘It’s none of your business, is what it is, you nosy cow.’

‘Well, long as I’ve got that review on my desk by Monday morning, you’re golden. Shag safely!’ Nat gives him a nod as she leaves the office and Jacob waves her off.

The whole editorial team know him as a notorious fucking flirt. And he is, he definitely is. He flirts with everyone, including the women. His flirting has little to do with his sex life. It had been a while, when he met Marcus again those weeks ago, and he hasn’t been with anyone since. It didn’t take them long to schedule this . . . meeting.

Jacob feels a stupid little flutter in his stomach, which he tries to ignore. He said a lot of really stupid shit that night, shit that makes him feel like some stupid little ponce. Shit that makes him want to tear out the memory centre of his brain so he doesn’t have to ever think about having said them. And he’s excited—giddy like a fucking school girl—about seeing Marcus again, and he hopes to fuck that Marcus won’t be able to tell.

* * *

Marcus picks Jacob up at the train station. He feels more nervous than he has any fucking right to on the way there, and he tries to bury it deep in the back of his mind. Traffic is fucking horrible, and by the time he gets there Jacob is already waiting out on the pavement. His dark hair is as messy as always, but he appears to have actually shaved. In the style of a true man’s man he has an overnight bag slung over his left shoulder. He looks a bit cold in nothing but a (really rather fetching) leather jacket over jeans and a t-shirt in the cool northern November evening.

They don’t hug. Instead, Marcus tells him, ‘I told you to dress warmly, you silly cunt. Did you at least bring a fucking scarf?’

Jacob shrugs, grinning, and Marcus throws his bag in the backseat, next to his own briefcase.

‘Flash car,’ Jacob remarks. ‘I knew you were doing well for yourself, but fuck me!’

‘Later,’ says Marcus, smirking slightly as he gets back in his vehicle. Jacob gets in the passenger side. ‘Anyway, you haven’t seen my flat yet. Jen got the fucking house. Don’t really need a huge place, so I could afford to splurge a bit on the car.’

They spend the short drive mostly in silence. It all feels a little bit awkward, now. Marcus occasionally throws a glance at his passenger, who sits staring out the window at passing red brick building and old factories-turned-shops, illuminated by yellow street lamps. The town hasn’t changed much since Marcus was a kid, really, though he lives in an arguably better neighbourhood now than he did back then.

Marcus reflects that he may have been a bit modest about his three bedroom (one is for Meg for when she stays over and the smallest one is a study) flat, and Jacob confirms this by loudly calling him a fucking wanker and shaking his head while he looks around the sitting room. Then his eyes fall on a collection of framed photos on a coffee table and he picks one up, examining it.

‘This your kid?’ he asks.

‘Yeah.’

Jacob nods. ‘She’s cute. She looks like you.’ He smiles. ‘I have a niece and nephew now. I’m Uncle Jacob. They fucking worship me, and my sister keeps telling me off for swearing in front of them. Kids are fucking great when they’re other people’s. I’m not a very good uncle.’ He puts the photo back down and turns to Marcus.

A second later, they’re attached at the lips, tongues deep in each other’s mouths, trying to touch as many parts of each other as they possibly can at once. Marcus considers moving this to the bedroom, but in the flurry of Jacob’s busy hands and wild dark hair he’s not sure it would even be possible. So he steers Jacob towards the couch instead, and they sink down onto it, undressing each other, and Marcus worries for the buttons on his rather fine shirt until Jacob moves his lips to his neck and tongues the hollow at the base of his throat and he stops thinking much at all.

In the end they don’t even bother getting properly undressed. Jacob still has his socks on and his t-shirt is bunched up under his armpits. Marcus’s shirt hangs open and his trousers are around his knees as he pushes slowly inside his lover from behind (and the clever fuck must have known this would happen because he carried condoms and lube in the pockets of his jeans). Jacob groans and reaches back to pull Marcus down by the hair so he can kiss him. It doesn’t take long. That’s okay. They have plenty of time to do more of this later.

Afterwards, Jacob disappears into the bathroom. Marcus disposes of the condom, pulls his pants and trousers back on and despairs over the wet stain Jacob left on the backrest. He considers it for a moment and then turns the cushion around. No one will notice the difference.

After a few moments he hears Jacob exclaim, ‘Holy fuck!’

Marcus sits down on the couch and picks a magazine off the coffee table. ‘What?’ He puts his reading glasses on.

‘Is this your fucking toothbrush?’

‘Yes?’

‘This is not a toothbrush!’ Pause. ‘This is a sex toy.’ Pause again. ‘From fucking outer space. How does this thing even work?’ There’s a whirring noise. ‘Oh. That’s how.’

A moment later he appears in the doorway, naked from the waist down and looking thoroughly debauched, and Marcus wishes he could get hard again right this minute and do it all over again. He pretends to be terribly interested in what he’s reading instead.

Jacob plops down in the couch next to him and runs his fingers through Marcus’s hair in a post-coital daze. ‘So,’ he murmurs, ‘have we got plans for the weekend or are we just going to stay in and shag?’

Marcus lets the magazine drop to the floor and leans into the touch, very close to purring like a fucking cat. ‘Mm, I don’t know. What do you want to do?’

Jacob stops moving his fingers and instead slaps him lightly on the back of the head. ‘Hey, I’m your fucking guest, aren’t I? Never been in your town before. Entertain me!’ he demands, crossing his arms over his chest.

Marcus growls and turns on him, pushing him back into the couch and biting into his neck. Jacob laughs. Then Marcus glances at his watch. It’s already gone half past eight.

‘We should get some dinner,’ he says, sitting up again. ‘Did you bring anything half decent to wear?’

‘Yeah?’

‘Put it on. We’re going out.’

* * *

Jacob was worried at first when Marcus told him to dress up, but the restaurant they end up going to serves ribs and chips and beer. There is no graceful way to eat a full rack of ribs, but then Jacob has never really cared about grace. Marcus sits picking at his steak and rolling his eyes, occasionally telling him not to be such a fucking pig, but Jacob can tell he’s secretly enjoying this. Their feet touch under the table. Neither man moves his away.

Preoccupied as he is with eating his ribs without dripping barbecue sauce in his lap, Jacob still spends much of the meal observing Marcus.

Afterwards, they stay for a couple of drinks (Marcus drinks single malt whisky; Jacob is back on the Hemingway), trading insults and swapping stories about their respective professions. Then they get a cab back to Marcus’s flat and retreat into the bedroom.

What follows is more tongues and teeth and hands, more hard, desperate fucking that hurts Jacob just the way he needs it to. No one else has been able to do this to him, not in this way, not in the right way. Over the past ten years he’s shagged more men than he can properly remember, working through them like a connoisseur at a fucking wine tasting, searching for one who will leave him with that feeling, and none of them ever could. He sometimes thinks Marcus ruined him, made him even sicker and crazier than he already was so that nothing else would do. And then he realises that he ruined himself. That if it’s anyone’s fault, it’s his own, because he started this insanity in the first place.

Now, with Marcus inside him, Marcus’s teeth at his throat, Marcus’s long fingers digging into his skin, Marcus’s hot breath in his mouth, everything is finally right again. This is a true thing. Marcus is whispering obscenities in his ear, and that alone would probably be enough to make him come, because Jacob has missed this. Marcus comes first, with a long, drawn out, ‘Fuck!’ just like he always used to, and then he strokes Jacob until he comes too, his intense green eyes never leaving Jacob’s, and right at the last moment, Jacob pulls him down towards him and kisses him.

They drift off to sleep, tangled up in the sheets and each other, and Jacob’s last memory before sleep claims him is of Marcus’s lightly stubbled cheek and soft breathing against his forehead, his fingers tangled in Jacob’s hair, and Jacob thinks that he never wants to leave.

* * *

Marcus wakes up before Jacob the next morning. Sneaking out of bed and pulling on his dressing gown, he goes to the kitchen and puts the kettle on. He rarely eats breakfast when he’s on his own, but thanks to Meg’s bi-weekly visits he keeps his fridge stocked, and finds bacon, eggs and tomatoes in there. He toasts some bread, makes scrambled eggs, cooks a couple of tomatoes in olive oil on low heat and is in the process of frying the bacon crispy when Jacob comes shuffling out of the bedroom in his pants, yawning and barely awake.

‘About time, you lazy shit,’ says Marcus, poking at the bacon with a spatula.

‘Morning,’ Jacob mumbles with another yawn, and for a moment he looks like he might do something silly like sneak up behind Marcus, put his arms around his waist and kiss him on the neck. He doesn’t. Marcus can’t quite tell if the feeling in his stomach is relief or disappointment.

Instead, Jacob sits down at the kitchen table. Marcus puts the spatula down and pours Jacob a cup of coffee, placing it on the table in front of him.

Jacob takes a sip and makes a sound not entirely unlike one he made in bed last night. ‘This is fucking heavenly! I bloody love you!’

Marcus blinks, turns his back on him and returns to his cooking. Jacob didn’t mean anything by it. He knows that.

He used to, very occasionally, tell Jenny that he loved her, because that’s the sort of thing husbands do. And if he’s honest with himself, he did love her, at least at one time. He tells Meg he loves her, and means it. She’s his daughter. She means the world to him.

He has never said those words to a lover. Not really. Certainly not since he’s been old enough to properly understand what they entail. That weekend, at the hotel, he told Jacob that he had loved him. Past tense. Jacob returned the sentiment. Marcus doesn’t really know how he feels about Jacob now. He’s glad to have him here, even if he’s not going to say it in so many words, and he thinks Jacob knows that. Why should every single fucking thing need to be defined, compartmentalised, explained?

‘Smells good,’ says Jacob, and Marcus relaxes, unaware that he even tensed up in the first place. ‘Didn’t know you even cooked. I mean, you never fucking eat.’

‘I cook!’ Marcus tells him defensively, taking the pan off the hob. ‘I’m a fucking excellent cook, mate.’

‘Yeah? I’m supposed to just take your word for it, am I?’

‘Fuck you!’ says Marcus. ‘I’m cooking tonight. You’ll see what a fucking fantastic chef I am.’

He hears Jacob laugh and turns around, one eyebrow raised in question.

‘You are too fucking easy!’ Jacob is smiling, the coffee having apparently already had its effect, and then he stands up, crosses the floor and traps Marcus against the counter. ‘To hell with breakfast,’ he murmurs into his mouth before kissing him softly. ‘I want to fuck you.’ He rolls his hips against Marcus, whose body responds accordingly.

Still, Marcus pushes him away reluctantly. ‘What, after I went to all this trouble? Eat your bacon, twat.’

* * *

‘When did you quit smoking?’

Jacob looks up from his book and glances at Marcus. He’s sitting in the sofa with a newspaper, but his eyes are fixed on Jacob.

‘Couple of years ago,’ he says. ‘I had a bit of a death scare. I was having a fag, couldn’t breathe. Thank fuck I wasn’t on my own or I really would have died. Doctors told me I could either quit smoking quit living. Controversially, I picked life.’

‘Good choice,’ says Marcus, eyes back on his paper. Jacob smiles. He knows full well that that’s Marcus’s way of telling him that he’s glad he’s alive, and here.

Marcus folds up his newspaper and puts it on the table. ‘If I’m cooking, we need to go shopping.’

Trawling through Mark’s & Spencer’s with Marcus shopping for groceries is one of the more bizarre experiences Jacob has ever had. The man picks his ingredients with care, going so far as to buy a particular kind of red wine that he wants to use in the sauce. When Jacob laughs at him for it, Marcus calls him a cunt and tells him to go get a bunch of asparagus.

Watching Marcus cook is an even more bizarre experience. He’s so calm and relaxed. Jacob has only ever seen him like this in bed, post-coitus, and even then but rarely. He sets Jacob to peeling potatoes while he stuffs whole garlic cloves into the lamb. Then he browns it on all sides in butter before sticking it in the oven. He doesn’t say much while he works, he only exudes an air of contentment and ease, and Jacob wonders if perhaps the fucker should have become a chef rather than a lawyer.

He is forced to concede that Marcus really is a rather excellent cook, as well. The meal is magnificent. He’s made creamy mash with garlic, red wine sauce with broth from the lamb, fresh rosemary and shallots, asparagus pan-fried in butter and salt, and a salad of rocket leaf, tiny tomatoes of various colours and green onions with a mustard vinaigrette. The lamb is juicy and succulent and absolutely gorgeous, and Jacob can’t stop himself from uttering some near-orgasmic sounds while he eats. Marcus laughs at him, but he seems content now, almost happy, and it makes Jacob almost giddy to see it. It makes him even happier to see Marcus eating properly.

After they’ve finished eating they retreat to the sofa to finish their wine, and it isn’t long before Marcus has his hand is in Jacob’s hair and his lips to his throat, and Jacob is making some very fucking undignified noises indeed. Soon Jacob is straddling Marcus’s lap, kissing him and rutting against him. He’s missed this. Missed Marcus’s hard, skinny, angular body and his thin, firm lips. Missed his long fingers, pulling at his hair. Jacob dreams of this, sometimes, when he’s in that space between wakefulness and sleep, and dreams are at their most lucid and real.

Jacob reaches down and cups Marcus through his trousers, and Marcus makes a soft hiss and murmurs his name. It makes Jacob’s heart race.

‘Say that again,’ he whispers. ‘Say my name.’

‘Jacob.’ Marcus enunciates the name with precision, the vowels breathy but the consonants hard and firm like Marcus himself. ‘Oh, fuck!’

‘Do you wanna fuck me, Marcus?’ Jacob asks him softly. He knows he should feel ridiculous. They could say stuff like this to each other back at uni, they could talk dirty like it was new and revolutionary and it didn’t feel tired and old and like a fucking porn cliché. But he doesn’t feel ridiculous, and apparently neither does Marcus, because he nods vigorously. Then he places his palm on Jacob’s chest and pushes him off.

‘Bed,’ he purrs. ‘Now.’

Jacob’s done a lot of things in his life, but this is the first time he’s tied to a bed with a silk tie. Marcus ties his wrists together with one end and fastens the other to the headboard. Then he kisses him, hard. Jacob wants to pull Marcus down on top of him, but can’t with his wrists tied up, so he hooks his legs around his thighs instead. Marcus resists and instead kisses, licks and bites a trail from Jacob’s mouth to his abdomen. Then he takes Jacob’s cock into his mouth, and Jacob throws his head back with a groan.

This was always such a rare occurrence, back then. Jacob was usually the one administering the blow-jobs. He always loved the reaction it got from Marcus, who would lose his cool, just for once, relinquish the control he otherwise maintained so carefully and just let it happen. Now Jacob lets himself be carried off, moaning unabashedly, until he feels a cool, slick finger at his entrance and his eyes shoot open and he gasps. Marcus doesn’t press it inside, just teases, and Jacob bucks his hips towards him.

‘Oh, fuck, Jesus!’ he whimpers. ‘Just . . . God, fucking hell, please!’

And that must have been what Marcus was waiting for, because now he presses gently at Jacob’s opening until his sphincter gives way. Marcus stops sucking his cock and focuses all his attention on Jacob’s arse instead. When he considers him to be sufficiently prepared, he poises himself at his entrance and looks down into his face with mischievous green eyes, and says, ‘Say my name.’

‘Marcus!’ Jacob gasps.

‘Beg for it.’

‘Marcus, please! Fuck me!’

It’s hard, and slow, and beautiful. Yesterday, everything was so rushed. They wanted to get as close as possible, as quickly as possible, starved of this for too fucking long. Now Marcus takes his time, hurting Jacob just the way he likes it. Making him feel the way only Marcus can make him feel. Jacob sobs from the pain of being so close to the edge without being granted release, and from the frustration of not being able to reach out and touch Marcus, bring him closer, melt together with him.

‘Please!’ he says again, the word barely more than a whisper. ‘Kiss me! Let me come . . .’

And Marcus teases him with his lips and his tongue, too light, too gentle, before he finally leans his full weight on him, kissing him properly, deeply. He thrusts into him once, twice, and comes, and then he takes Jacob’s cock in his hand and it only takes a few strokes to finish him off.

When Marcus collapses on top of him, kissing his hairy chest several times before untying his wrists, there are words waiting on Jacob’s lips, so many words, and some of them so very stupid, but it’s not time for that. Not yet. He is spared having to battle himself over that decision by a fit of coughing. Marcus is off him in two seconds flat, getting the inhaler out of Jacob’s trouser pocket and handing it to him. Jacob takes a long puff.

‘Thanks,’ he wheezes after a minute.

‘You fucker,’ Marcus tells him affectionately, brushing sweaty hair away from Jacob’s brow. ‘Don’t let me fucking kill you, yeah?’

‘Well, I’d die happy, at least.’ Jacob licks his lips. ‘Coming, I mean,’ he adds, realising how that sounded. Marcus shakes his head and smiles.

‘Well, I’d prefer to keep you alive for a while longer.’ He takes the inhaler from Jacob and puts it on the bedside table. Then he lies down next to him and puts his arms around him, pressing his lips to his temple. This affection still feels somehow alien, but it feels so good, too.

* * *

When they wake up the next morning they do it all again, only it’s softer, this time. Marcus wakes up with Jacob’s lips in his hair and, pushing him over on his side, takes him slowly and languidly from behind. It’s all just a little bit too blissful.

Then they wake up properly, and both seem to realise simultaneously that Jacob is going back today. They eat breakfast, Jacob showers, and then Marcus showers. When he gets out of the bathroom, Jacob is in his living room, fully dressed and packed, looking at the photos of Meg again. He looks up when Marcus enters and smiles.

‘So, when do I get to meet your kid?’ he asks brightly.

‘I dunno,’ Marcus says hesitantly. ‘I can’t just . . . Introduce new people into her life at the drop of a hat. She’s three. I need to—’ He scratches his head irritably. There it is again. Labels and definitions and all that fucking shit. ‘I need to know that this is something that’s gonna . . . last, I guess. And I don’t want to rush any of it, I just want to—’

Jacob cuts him off with a finger on his lips and then he puts his arms around him, hugging him tightly. Marcus hesitates for a moment, not sure what to do. They never used to hug. Slowly, he wraps his arms around Jacob and hugs back.

‘It’s okay,’ Jacob murmurs. ‘It’s all fine. We’re not rushing anything. Yeah?’ He sighs. ‘I don’t want to go home.’

Marcus feels a little tug, somewhere, in his chest or his stomach or possibly his diaphragm, and then a voice is screaming in his head, Stay with me, stay with me, stay with me! But he doesn’t say that. Instead, he says, ‘We can see each other again soon. You can come back, in a couple of weeks, if you like.’

Jacob lets go of him and takes a step back. He licks his lips and frowns, looking down at the coffee table with the photos on it. ‘I really want to, but I don’t know if that’s gonna work out . . . It’s busy, at work, before Christmas. I have about a hundred reviews to write for the gift recommendations. If I get some free time I’ll come, but . . .’ He trails off, and then looks at Marcus again with his wide, brown eyes. ‘I’ll call you, though. And I’ll definitely come visit for New Year’s or something.’

Don’t leave me, don’t leave me, don’t leave me! screams the voice in Marcus’s head, but he forces himself to smile. ‘Of course,’ he says. ‘Hang on a minute, let me get dressed, I’ll take you to the station.’

‘Cheers.’

Marcus turns to go to his bedroom, but then Jacob calls his name and he looks back.

‘Thank you.’ Jacob is smiling. ‘I’ve had a fucking brilliant weekend. We will do this again, whether you want to or not, fucktard.’

Marcus shakes his head and smiles. ‘That’s my line,’ he murmurs. ‘We should hurry. You’ll miss your train.’