Flux - 20. Chapter 20

June 24, 2002

Chicago, IL

Matt

“This place is pretty dead,” Will said, as we stood by the bar, drinking watered down cocktails. They were so bad; I was determined to switch to beer when I was done with this one. Not only that, they were freaking expensive. That would have been OK if there were people here, but it was seriously dull. There was this huge room with a big dance floor, and not many people. Not only that, but the few dudes that were here were pretty lame.

“That’s how Circuit is,” Josh said, talking about this club. “It won’t pick up until after midnight.”

“Then why are we here now?” Will asked. It was actually funny to see him test Josh’s patience by being a smart-ass.

“I wanted you to see this place when it wasn’t jammed with people,” he said in a matter-of-fact way. “That way you know what the bones look like.” We walked around a little bit and he pointed out the lighting, and the sound system, and spent a lot of time telling us how it was set up for live performances. That was interesting for a little bit, but neither Will or I were really into the mechanics behind running a club. Josh finally figured out that we were bored, so he decided it was time to move on.

“Where are we going now?” Will asked.

“The Manhole,” Josh said.

We laughed. “That sounds like my kind of place,” I joked.

Manhole seemed like more of the same thing. We stood at the bar, kind of annoyed that there weren’t many guys there. I knew Will wasn’t impressed with these clubs, and neither was I. Then again, it was a Monday night, not exactly the best time to go out and party. We had a few drinks, which were just as watered down and just as expensive as they’d been at Circuit. I was about to throw in the towel, and call it a night, when Josh grinned. “You ready to dance?”

“Where?” Will asked.

“The backroom,” he said. “No shirts allowed.”

“Really?” I asked. Josh nodded. “Cool.”

We took off our shirts, and definitely got some looks. Josh looked really masculine, which he managed to do without having any hair on his chest or his abs. He had the body of a gym rat, one that was almost ‘designed’ to look a certain way. I always found that less attractive than a guy who had a good body because he played sports; it just seemed more natural. For me, working out was part of conditioning for hockey or other sports, but doing it to look good was sort of a secondary goal or a side benefit. Josh was the kind of guy who worked out just to look good.

Will wasn’t a slouch either, and even for someone at his level of development, he had some nice muscle tone. But again, he was more like me, where sports helped shape his body, and it gave him more of an organic look. His movements were really smooth and fluid. We followed Josh to the back room, and found a bunch of people dancing, all of them topless, most of them hot. “I’m liking me some Manhole,” Will joked, making me laugh. We danced into the crowd, and sort of lost ourselves in the music. I was surrounded by half-naked, sweaty, writhing bodies, and it was incredibly hot, especially when I felt a hand or two brush across my ass.

But even though I was in this crowd, I was dancing with Josh. I turned around and let him rub up behind me as we danced. I could feel his hard cock through his pants and mine, and adjusted myself so it slid along my crack. His hands were on my stomach, sensuously tracing their way up to my chest, where he gently played with my nipples as we danced. I reached around and grabbed his cute ass, urging him on. I was so horny I was crazed, but we kept on going, dancing like fiends.

I saw Will over toward a corner, dancing with a cute twink, and he was pretty much in the same position Josh was in. I almost laughed when I wondered if that made me a twink too. I watched as the twink turned around and began rubbing against Will, crotch to crotch, then he moved to the side a bit so he could play with Will’s huge dick through his pants. I looked at Will’s expression, and started laughing. “What?” Josh asked.

“That twink’s about to make Will blow,” I said.

“Fuck,” he said. “We’ll be leaving soon.” He didn’t sound disappointed by that, and neither was I. I watched the look of alarm on Will’s face as he suddenly realized he was at the point of no return. He grabbed the twink roughly and thrust against him as he shot his load in his pants. Josh and I were laughing our asses off at his facial expression. He must have felt us watching him, because he turned and saw us laughing and flipped us off, which just made me laugh harder. He hurried off the dance floor, with the twink giving him a snarky look.

I kind of expected Will to come and get us, but it had been a while, so we went back into the main bar to look for him. He was standing at the bar, next to a really dorky guy who was arguing with the bartender. We walked up and I stood on the other side of Will. “Hey,” he said, and then turned away, telling me he was involved in their conversation.

“Your credit card didn’t go through. You got another one?” the bartender asked acidly. He was really being a dick.

“It has to work,” the dork said, clearly desperate. “Can’t you try again?”

“I tried it twice, and it didn’t work,” the bartender said.

The dork pulled out his wallet. “All I have is $50.”

“You owe me $300, not counting tips,” the bartender said.

“Dude, if you drank $300 worth of booze, shouldn’t you be hammered?” Will asked. “I mean, I know the drinks are watered down, but not that bad.”

“Why don’t you mind your own fucking business?” the bartender asked him in a snide way.

Will adjusted his posture away from the dork and toward the bartender, his eyes drilling into the bartender’s. The bartender actually flinched a bit; I knew that look, and it was pretty intense. “Look, douchebag, you can fuck with him, but you can’t fuck with me. Don’t even think about it.” He pulled out his American Express Platinum card. “Put his bill on this.” When Will and Brad stood next to each other, it was totally obvious that Will was Brad’s son. They looked a lot alike. But this was the first time I’d seen Will throw power around like Brad. It was actually pretty impressive.

The bartender gave him a dirty look even as he snatched it out of Will’s hand. “What are you doing?” the dork asked Will.

“How did you run up that big of a bill?” Will asked, ignoring his question.

“I was buying drinks for these guys I was hanging out with,” he said.

“They played you along so you’d cover their bar tab,” I said knowingly, having figured out his situation. Some hot guys had tapped this sap for a bunch of drinks, and then bailed on him.

“I guess,” the dork said, and looked pretty depressed.

“I got your back on this one,” Will said. The bartender came back and handed Will his card and the receipt to sign off on. “You want to leave this asshole a tip?”

The bartender ignored him, but was seething. “He was pretty cool. Can we go 15%?”

“We’ll go 20%. Maybe it will help his attitude,” Will said, as he glared at the guy. He signed off on the receipt, and turned to me. “Let’s go.”

“Thanks,” the dork said, wide-eyed. Will just winked at him, and we walked out of the bar and hopped into the limo.

“Dude, you smell like cum,” I said to him, and started laughing all over again.

“Fuck you,” he said, then looked at his pants. “I cleaned it up as well as I could.” I couldn’t stop laughing, at least not until we were at Josh’s car.

“You going back to the condo?” Josh asked Will.

“That’s my plan, since I’m wearing semen cologne,” he said, making me laugh again.

“You want to hang out with me?” Josh asked me.

“You asking me to spend the night?” I asked, flirting.

“I am,” he said, like it was a vow.

“See you tomorrow morning,” I said to Will, as we got ready to hop out of the car. “And by the way, that was a nice thing you did for that guy.”

“Thanks,” he said. “See ya.”

Josh had a 1970 Mustang, with a monster engine and dark tinted windows. It was like new, and seemed to fit him perfectly. “Nice car,” I said.

“Thanks. I like ’60s muscle cars,” he said. “What do you drive?”

“Don’t have a car right now. I had a GMC Yukon, but I totaled it, so I need to get a new car.”

“Cool. What are you gonna get?”

“Don’t know,” I said. That conversation occupied us long enough to get to Josh’s apartment. He had a studio in a more western part of Lakeview. It was nice, nothing fancy, but he kept it pretty neat. He didn’t waste any time, moving in fast and kissing me. There was no spark, but it was a nice kiss.

“What do you like?” he asked as he broke off the kiss.

“I’m flexible,” I said in a sultry voice.

“I’m pretty much a top,” he said.

“I can work with that.” Evidently Josh thought that being a top meant being totally in charge. Guess he’d never met a power bottom. He had a nice dick, about six inches but pretty thick, and he definitely knew what he was doing, but it frustrated me that he had everything so choreographed that when I tried to do something different, he kind of ignored my cues. In the end, I had a nice orgasm, but he wasn’t all that impressive.

As I lay there in bed, I couldn’t help but compare sex with him to sex with Wade. I chided myself for that, telling myself that wasn’t fair, since Wade and I had been close on an emotional level, and because we’d had sex for years so we pretty much knew what got the other one going. But I moved on, and thought about other guys I’d been with, and while some of them had been a lot worse than Josh, I guess I expected him to be a player, and to be a lot better. He had all the right tools: great body, handsome face, and nice cock. He just didn’t have the moves down, at least not with me.

June 25, 2002

Chicago, IL

I woke up and was momentarily disoriented, as I tried to figure out where I was. I looked around at the apartment, and then looked at Josh sleeping peacefully next to me. He was on his back, snoring gently. I started messing with him, kissing and sucking on his nipples. He moved around in a frustrated manner, even though he was still asleep. I worked my mouth down his abs, and almost laughed when he tried to bat me away because I was disturbing his slumber. But when I got to his dick and inhaled it, he didn’t try to slap me away anymore.

“Good morning,” he said, and I looked up to see him smiling down at me. Only now that he was awake, he took charge again, and damn near duplicated exactly what he’d done when we’d been together last night. And just like last night, if I did something different, like tried to change the position, he’d pretty much maneuver me back to where I’d been before. I actually had to work at it to even have an orgasm.

He let me take a shower first and didn’t join me, which was nice, since I didn’t really want to spend anymore naked time with him. I frowned when I noticed that I only had my nasty bar clothes with me. I was going to borrow something from him, but he was slimmer than I was, and borrowing clothes seemed like something you’d do with someone you’d had a good time with. I settled for stealing some of his deodorant and cologne.

I looked at the clock and it was 9am by the time I was ready to go. “Can you give me a ride to the condo?” I asked him.

“I can’t,” he said, giving me an apologetic look. “I have to go to the airport and pick up my boyfriend.”

“You have a boyfriend?” I asked, pretty stunned. I stared at him, my mouth wide open in surprise.

“Yeah,” he said dismissively, like it was no big deal.

“He know you mess around with other dudes?”

He gave me a dirty look. “No, but that’s my business, not yours, don’t you think?” His tone was pretty aggressive, and pretty nasty, like he was worried that I’d say something, and he was determined to shut me up.

“No, I think it’s my business too,” I said, not backing down. That chilled him out a bit.

“It’s not like you and I are going out. If we were, then I’d have told you, and I’d have told him. But it was just a hookup, so it goes in the column that doesn’t count.” I just blinked at him and his twisted moral code. I was going to argue with him, but realized it would be futile.

“Whatever,” I said, which annoyed him until he realized that meant that I was dropping the subject.

“I’ll call a cab for you,” he said.

“Thanks, but I got it. We’ll see you at the bar around noon?”

“Sounds good. We can do lunch and talk about the plans,” he said.

“I decided I’m going to renovate that apartment and live there,” I told him. He didn’t like that, but it wasn’t his building.

“I guess that works,” he said in a grumpy way.

“Look at the bright side,” I said. “At least you’ll get a new elevator out of the deal.”

“True,” he said gamely, shooting me a fake smile. He probably realized that the deal wasn’t done yet, so there was no reason to cause himself problems by pissing me off.

“See you at noon,” I said. I went downstairs and got lucky, managing to flag down a passing cab. I got to the condo around 9:30, and found Stef waiting for me, looking mildly irritated.

“You are not an early riser,” he grumbled.

“I like to stay in bed for a bit after I wake up,” I said with a leer.

“Dude, you have the same clothes on you wore last night,” Will said. “Slut.”

“Yeah. So?” I challenged, cracking him up. “Give me a couple of minutes to change.”

I quickly threw on some business garb to match what they wore, and found them waiting by the door for me. “We have an appointment with an interior designer in thirty minutes,” Stef said.

“You work quickly,” I said.

“Not all of the time,” he said, making me laugh. Now that we were on our way, he was much more relaxed.

“So how was Josh?” Will asked.

“Boring,” I said. “It’s like he had a routine for sex, a plan, and that’s what was going to happen, regardless.”

Will frowned. “I like to be more spontaneous.”

“Me too,” I said. “I should have come back and slept with you.”

“Your loss,” he joked.

“I have been with men like that,” Stef said. “Unless you can find a way to derail their plan, that is what you are stuck with.”

“Well, after we fucked again this morning, in exactly the same way we fucked last night, he told me that he had a boyfriend,” I said. Stef raised an eyebrow.

“Dude, that is fucked up,” Will said. “You sure you want to go into business with a guy who cheats on his boyfriend?”

“If we limited our business deals to only men who were faithful, we would have no business deals,” Stef said, making us chuckle. “I think we must evaluate his performance as a businessman separately from his performance as a boyfriend.”

“If you say so,” Will said dubiously.

“This is one of those things we have spoken of before,” Stef said to him, only he was using his serious voice. “This is a gray area, not a black and white situation. You must learn to adapt.”

“Fine,” he agreed.

We got to the bar and only had to wait a few minutes before the interior designer arrived. This guy was totally flaming; a walking stereotype. “Geoffrey Ayres,” he said, introducing himself. “Geoffrey with a ‘G’,” he emphasized, as if that made all the difference in the world. We shook his hand, and he had one of those gross, noodly handshakes. He was attractive enough, and I didn’t mind that he was flaming, but the handshake was a real turn-off for me.

“I’m Matt, with an ‘M’,” I said, giving him shit, but I said it with a smile, so he responded appropriately with a snarky look.

“Thank you for meeting with us on such short notice,” Stef said.

“Are you kidding? Pass up a chance to work with Stefan Schluter? Honey, I’d clear my whole month for that,” he said. Will looked at me and rolled his eyes.

“Thank you,” Stef said. “I am looking forward to helping Matt with this project.” It was cool how he made sure Geoffrey knew it was my project.

“So am I,” he said, flirting with me. He was in his late twenties or early thirties, and cute if you were into guys that had absolutely no muscle tone. “Show me what we’re working with.”

I started to unbuckle my pants then stopped. “Oh, you mean the apartment?” I asked suggestively, making Will chuckle. Geoffrey and Stef ignored me.

We led him into the bar and he looked at it dismissively. “I remember being here in better times.”

“It is going to be revived,” Stef said. “So since there is a club directly below the apartment, significant sound insulation will be needed.”

“Got it,” Geoffrey said, and began making notes on his pad.

We got into the freight elevator, and I expected him to be annoyed, but he seemed fine. “This needs some work,” I said.

“It needs faster and smoother machinery, but the open caged freight elevator style is very chic. It sets the whole tone for a loft apartment. If you don’t go that way, we need to change it out,” he said.

We got to the actual apartment and took him in. “This is pretty gross,” Will said.

“That is an understatement,” he said, and this time he showed real disdain. He spent some time walking around, and got me to help him measure rooms and ceilings. “I’ll come back and get more detailed measurements later.”

“Sounds good.”

“How many bedrooms do you need?” he asked.

“Two,” Will said, cracking me up.

“I think two would be good,” I agreed. “Each with its own bathroom.”

“Can you give me the rest of the day to work up a sketch, sort of an outline?” he asked, like that was taking too long. I was pretty surprised he could work that fast.

“Certainly,” Stef said. “We can meet with you again tomorrow morning?”

“How about here, at 10am,” he said.

“If these two can wake up in time, that works,” Stef said, gesturing to Will and me.

“I can get up for Geoffrey,” I said in my deep, husky voice.

“Honey, all men say that,” he replied gamely, cracking us up. “I’ll see you then.”

We shook his hand again, even though his limp handshake gave me the heebie jeebies, and then went into the bar to wait for Josh. “I’ll bet he’d let you take charge,” Will joked.

“I’ll bet he would,” I agreed, laughing. “So we’re here at least until tomorrow?”

“That appears to be the plan,” Stef said.

“Maybe we can go out tonight,” I said to Will.

“I’m all over that.”

“You can join us if you want to,” I said to Stef.

“We will see,” he said. “It would be nice if you two were chipper tomorrow morning.”

“I’ve got a deal for you,” I said to Stef.

“Go on,” he said with faked cautiousness.

“I was thinking that after our meeting with Josh, we can hang out and do whatever you want. Go shopping, do dinner,” I said. “Whatever you want.”

“Dude, you are so buttering him up,” Will joked.

“Shut up,” Stef said playfully. “And what do I have to do?”

“What do you want to do?” I asked, raising my eyebrows. He stared at me waiting for me to get to the point. “We stay over tomorrow night so Will and I can go out, then we can pour ourselves onto the plane the next morning.”

“And this arrangement is acceptable to you as well?” he asked Will.

“Absolutely,” he replied. “Besides, I need to get some new pants to wear tomorrow night.”

“It seems that every time you go to a gay bar, you ejaculate,” Stef said, reminding us of the summer before last, when Will had done a strip tease in Rome. I started laughing, and couldn’t stop even when Will gave me a dirty look.

“Well isn’t that what you’re supposed to do?” he asked, and laughed at himself.

Josh showed up after that and we took him to lunch and went through his plans. Stef had made a few changes to the budgets, but there weren’t any big issues with that. On the actual lease, though, Stef had made one change that caught Josh’s attention.

“You pulled the freight elevator out of the lease?” Josh asked, as he looked at the changes.

“I did. You do not need it for Spartacus, but Matt will need it for the apartment. It makes sense that he should be responsible for the expense of maintaining and repairing it, and not the bar,” Stef said.

Josh hadn’t thought about that; he’d just seen it as something we’d taken away from him. I marveled yet again at how good Stef was at dealing with people. “That makes sense,” he said. “You still want the door to the bar there?”

“Oh yeah,” I said, winking at him. He chuckled, and that seemed to thaw the coolness that we’d had toward each other since this morning.

“I’m assuming that you’re going to need to do some plumbing and electrical work,” Josh said. “We should coordinate that.”

“That’s a good idea,” I said.

“Perhaps we can offset the cost of giving Matt and his guests’ free access to the bar by paying for the plumbing and electrical work for the whole building,” Stef offered.

“You got a deal,” Josh said enthusiastically. That would give him some extra money in his budget, and it would ensure that he wouldn’t have any major electrical or plumbing problems, since we’d be able to spend the money to do it right.

The entire afternoon was spent negotiating and signing agreements. Josh had asked for a one year guaranteed contract, which made sense since he didn’t have a controlling interest in the bar. So when all was said and done, Josh had his bar, I had my apartment, and we seemed to have a relatively good understanding between us.

June 26, 2002

Chicago, IL

Will and I were back at the Manhole, hanging out at the bar, checking out the guys. I was having a blast with him; he was a lot of fun to go out with, and he was just as big of a wolf as I was. Only he hadn’t followed through and gone off with a guy yet, even though he had all kinds of chances.

We’d gone out with Stef last night and had a really fun time. Away from the business world, Stef let himself go and returned to his playful persona, so the three of us spent most of our time laughing. We were very different people, but our extraversion and joie de vivre made us boon companions.

“I’ll have vodka on the rocks,” Will said to the bartender, the same guy whose balls he’d busted a few nights ago.

“Fine,” he grumbled, and poured the watered down vodka over ice.

“You going to pout all night?” Will asked, raising an eyebrow. The bartender scowled at him. “Dude, I tipped you really well.”

“I’m not a whore,” he said in a smarmy way.

“Fuck,” Will said, acting disappointed. “There goes my plan to get laid.”

The bartender gave him a dirty look, but he was kind of grinning too. “You only like it if you pay for it?” he asked Will, flirting back, and we were so surprised, we both just stared at him for a second, then we started laughing. He grinned and went off to help other customers.

“Dude, that guy is a total stud,” I said. “You may get lucky.”

“Probably not,” Will said. And then I got it. Even though he was having fun, he was pining away for Zach. I don’t think until that moment I realized how totally in love with him Will was.

“Are you guys exclusive?” I asked him. We’d talked about this before, but I figured I’d take this opportunity to clarify things and figure out his deal with Zach.

“What?” he asked, annoyed. He knew damn well what I was talking about.

“You and Zach. Are you exclusive, or can you fuck around with other people?”

“We’re not exclusive,” he said, “so I could fuck around with someone if I wanted to.”

“But you don’t want to,” I said.

“Not really,” he said. I grinned at him, and put my arm around him to give him a sideways hug.

“Love is a really cool thing.”

“It seems like it’s pretty painful,” he said, being grumpy.

“It can be,” I said, being philosophical. “But it’s worth it.”

“Time to sweat,” he said, and pulled off his shirt. The bartender came back and brought him another drink without him even asking. “Thanks.”

“No problem. It’s on your bill,” he said.

“Fine with me,” he said.

“Want me to watch your shirt for you?” he asked.

“Sure,” Will said, and handed it to him with a smile, then whispered in my ear. “I said probably not, not definitely not,” he joked, cracking me up.

We went to the backroom and started dancing, first with each other then with other people. I ended up opposite a cute little blond dude who kind of reminded me of a younger version of JP. I was dancing with my arms over my head, and I’d been so into it there was sweat running down my chest. The dude leaned in and licked it off my chest, in what could have been gross, but was actually pretty hot. But then the mass of people enveloped us, and I got separated from him and found myself dancing with Will again.

“Dude, I need a drink,” he said.

“I’m with you,” I agreed. We went inside and stopped at the bathroom to straighten up a bit. There were a couple of guys fucking in one of the stalls, and Will, in his playful mood, went over and peeked over the top, then looked back at me and raised his eyebrows while his mouth made a surprised ‘O’. We started laughing, so we left so as not to disturb their bathroom fuck.

We walked up to the bar and ordered new drinks, this time from a different bartender. “Where’s the other bartender?” I asked this new guy.

He gave me a brief frown. “He’s on break.”

“He’s in the bathroom fucking that blond twink you were dancing with,” Will told me, and I started laughing again.

“Was it hot?”

“Hell yeah,” Will said. “Your boy was taking it like a champ.” He got his shirt back from the other bartender. “I’m kind of done with this.”

“Me too,” I agreed. “Let’s get back, and then we won’t be dead tomorrow. Stef won’t be as crabby.”

“He would have had fun here,” Will said. “I don’t know why he didn’t come along.”

“How many guys are there in this bar who are over 50?” I asked.

“He doesn’t look that old” Will said.

“How many over 40?” Most of these guys were in their mid-twenties to early thirties.

“He is so much hotter than most of these guys,” Will said, and he was right.

“Yeah, but that’s not the issue,” I said. “It would make him feel insecure, and worse, it would make him feel old.”

Will nodded. “That’s about the worst thing that could happen to Stef. It’s a shame.”

“I think that when Spartacus is up and running, and when he comes for a visit, it will be a different story, because it’s partly his bar,” I said.

“Good point,” Will agreed. “We’ll drag him out then.”

“Let’s bail,” I said. We were almost to the front door when Josh walked in.

“Look who came out to play,” Will said. “Maybe he wants a repeat.”

“I don’t,” I said. There was another guy with him, but he was facing away from us.

“Hey,” Josh said when he spotted us. He seemed pretty nervous. “This is my boy.” He said it in a way that ‘boy’ meant ‘bro’, not ‘bitch’.

“Boy?” I joked, giving him shit about it anyway. The guy turned around and I just about shit a brick.

“Matt Carrswold, this is Cam Heely.”