Heart Brake - 1. Heart Brake

If not for Russell Brannigan’s brake cable, none of this may ever have happened. If that stupid kid had just taken his car to the shop when it started making a funny squealing noise upon applying pressure to the brakes, I would not be here, alone at midnight, sitting on the narrow footbridge over the dark swirling waters of the river, drinking what remains of a bottle of honey-whiskey I had previously been saving for something special. Because of Russell Brannigan, and his faulty brakes, I now sit dwelling on the worst events of my life.

*

I braked and pulled the Land Rover to a halt at the junction, waiting for the car in front of me to seize his moment, turn left across two lanes of traffic, and join the stream of commuters going home for the evening. I had timed my day badly, which I could have avoided, but I hated going into the city and had waited until the store was about to close before jumping into my car and heading out to get groceries. If I had been smarter, or if I hadn’t lost myself in the soothing motion of planing a piece of cedar into the arched curve of a chaise-lounge, I would have avoided rush hour and would not have spent the last hour in stop-start traffic, staring at the red taillights of the car in front.

Something slammed into the car from behind, shunting my decrepit, aging Land Rover against the car in front. There was the squeal and crunch of metal twisting and bending in ways for which it was not designed, a horrible growl from my dying engine, and the honking horns of other cars, both behind us and passing along the main road in front, as people witnessing the accident warned others of what had happened. For a while I simply sat behind the wheel, watching steam pour out from under the now rumpled hood of my car, and sighed. The Land Rover had been on its last legs for years, and as I climbed out of the driver’s side window, I stared at my car, squashed at either end by other vehicles.

“How fucking fast were you going?” A very angry man in a business suit leapt out of the car in front of me and began advancing. He must have been very secure in his manliness, because not many people stride up to a six-foot-four carpenter and try to jab him in the chest with one skinny finger. I stepped back with a scowl, and turned to look at the car that had rammed into us both. Behind the wheel was a kid, no more than seventeen, and he was clutching the steering wheel with white knuckles, obviously terrified.

“Hey…” I opened the door, bending down to smile at him, “are you OK?”

“I braked,” his voice shook like a leaf in the wind, “I saw you and I tried to brake and nothing happened… and- and- and-,” the tears came, overflowing down his cheeks. I sighed gently, because yet again I seemed to be the person everyone needed to cry on. “My father is going to kill me! Oh my god…. My insurance! What am I going to do?”

Both the other cars could still start: the angry man in front of us had nothing more than a damaged tail light and a dent on his rear panel, the car behind was a bit dented on the front bumper, but coasted softly to the side of the road. The kid stopped it by pointing it at a hedge. The Land Rover refused to do anything other than turn over with a crunch. The kid who had hit me helped me to push the dead Land Rover to the side of the road, and as the traffic flowed past us we stood and watched the angry business man shouting down his phone.

“My parents are going to be so mad,” the boy sighed, “though maybe not as mad as him.”

“Don’t worry about him. We should trade details; but I have this feeling my car is beyond saving.”

“I’m so sorry.” The boy looked up at me with genuine sadness, “it was a nice truck. My name’s Russell… er, Brannigan.”

“Malcolm Turner,” I shook his hand, miniature in my own, “I hope your parents don’t kill you.”

*

“It’s fucked, Mal.”

I stood with Dave in front of the wreck that had been the Land Rover we had been keeping alive with duct tape, epoxy metal resin, and hope, and I sighed at his verdict. Dave had sent one of his boys out to tow the crumpled Land Rover back to the garage, and had delivered me back to my cottage where I had slept fitfully for six hours, before hitching a ride into town with the middle aged woman who owned the plant nursery across from my house. The back of her estate car was full of boxes which, upon inspection, I found held a number of large white and cream ducks. Having driven six miles in the company of random loose feathers and incessant quacking, I was all too pleased to climb out, thank her, and walk over the narrow footbridge towards the back of the light industrial estate that housed Dave’s garage.

“Really fucked?” I asked softly.

“Pretty much. The kid must have hit you at some funny angle: every panel on the entire thing is bent out of shape. Your fan belt came off, it was about to bite the dust anyway, and the rear shocks snapped. One of them punched a hole in your fuel tank – which was practically empty by the way, how were you going to leave home again tomorrow? On fumes?”

“Dave…” I groaned at my friend and mechanic’s disappointed tone. “What do I do now?”

“The insurance bloke called this morning, wanted an estimate; I told him it was a write-off and sent him the pictures. He decided not to come and investigate further.”

I stared at the Land Rover. It had been third hand when I got it: used hard by a farmer and his son to haul hay and play off-roading. But the clunky old beast had served me well: we’d driven to Cumbria and back for an artisan furniture show, driven all around the south delivering commissions, I’d taken the Land Rover to France, through Belgium and northern Germany, and though I had always spent a certain amount of time sitting at the side of the road with it, trying to force life back into the old machine and spending all my hard earned cash on spare parts and duct tape, it had been a faithful companion. Dave rubbed my shoulder.

“You’ll spend more fixing it than you’ll get for the scrap value from the insurance company. He said he’d give you one thousand six.” Dave and I both knew it was not enough to buy anything useful. “Come into the shop and have a cup of tea, eh? We’ll go for a drink later and I’ll drop you home.”

*

I clinked my glass with Dave’s and exhaled heavily.

“I had rather hoped that the night we went drinking again would be under happier circumstances,” I tried to smile at my friend, “though I suppose the death of a car is a much more legitimate reason to get drunk.”

“See,” Dave knuckled my forearm, “that’s the right attitude to have. Shame about the Land-ie, but he was on his way out.”

“I’m going to have to dig into my savings to get something else,” I glanced across the rough wooden table at Dave, “can you keep an eye out for me? Something cheap I can put furniture in?”

“I’ll see what’s about Mal, but I can’t promise you anything.”

“I know,” I drank another inch out of my cider bottle, “I have the shittiest luck.”

“Hey now, you’re not injured, no one died: it’s not that bad.”

“I have to remind you I now have no vehicle, and live in the middle of a field way out in the sticks and, there isn’t a bus service within six miles of my house?” I refused to dwell on the fact that, not even two months ago, the man I had thought was the love of my life had walked out on me after three years of happily not-married bliss.

“OK, that sucks,” Dave admitted, “but bad luck goes in threes, so you’re all clear.”

“For a smart man who does his own tax return, you’re shockingly bad at maths,” I retorted, “bottoms up!”

“So, is there any progress on the bedroom front?” Dave inquired, one eyebrow raised. I shook my head, and drank some more.

I was very lucky to have met a good friend in Dave, a stand-up guy who liked his cars and his gym rotation, and was straight as an arrow but as accepting as any man I knew. For a while, we had avoided talking about our relationships and sex lives, too wary of making the other uncomfortable, but over more than ten years of drinking together, we had developed an understanding, and our conversation went right up to, but did not enter through, the bedroom door.

“None?” Dave sighed. “You have at least been out, right?”

“I’ve been busy,” I snapped. It was true, and with Christmas only a month and a half away, I was due to finish only three more pieces which had been ordered well in advance of the holidays. Custom furniture wasn’t like going shopping in the mall, and most customers had ordered large items, such as the cedar chaise-lounge, way back in August and September. However busy I was though, it was not really an excuse for my hermit-like behaviour.

“Mal, the perfect guy is not going to fall out of the damn sky, y’know. Or come packaged with your next order of timber.”

“I know.”

“You’ve got to get out there.”

“Yeah,” I agreed with my best friend, and smiled ruefully, “but first of all, I’m going to need wheels.”

*

Dave dropped me home after four pints and a shot of Jack Daniels, though he had only had a shandy and followed that up with lemonade. Once and only once had Dave driven home after three beers and ended up with his front bumper wrapped around a tree: that had been nine years ago, and now he was one of the most responsible drivers I knew. I waved my friend off from the front step, and let myself into the little cottage I called home.

Since my teenage years, I had always required a lot more green space in my life than most other people I had been friends with, and the three years I had spent living in the city completing my degree had been both wonderful: in terms of learning, design, dancing, and interesting sexual experiences, and completely hellish. When it had become time to move out and get a place of my own, I had rented a converted barn as part of a bigger, and still working farm, and from that day on had scrimped and saved, and worked damn hard producing lovely and commercially viable furniture, so I could buy a place of my own. The cottage was set back from the road, and I had a single whole acre to myself with nothing on it but the tiny house, the much larger workshop and timber store, and a chicken coop. Unlike most of the men I met when I was out, I actually liked being surrounded by the wilderness, enjoyed looking after the chickens and collecting their eggs, and was happy for the hunt to come through my land, jumping over fences and scaring all the foxes back into their dens. As I shut the front door, I glanced along the line of the hedge I had spent the last year learning on and working out how to construct properly, and decided that car or no car, a weekend of hedge-laying was indeed in order.

There was a single flat envelope under my foot, and I flicked it onto the big kitchen table as I wandered through the house. The entire cottage was built around the kitchen, and the big cast iron Aga that heated it. I dumped my clothes in the hamper before walking back across towards the bathroom. I glanced back at the envelope, and paused.

It was emblazoned with the logo of the National Savings and Investments Company, and even though it was sort of chilly standing naked in the kitchen on the way to a nice hot shower, curiosity got the better of me. I tore the envelope open with one calloused finger, mostly expecting it to be another leaflet about a new savings product, or a letter notifying me of a slight change in the terms and conditions. I blinked through a haze of alcohol at the folded sheet.

I had won a prize on my premium bonds. My father had bought them for me for my graduation: all the money I had ever paid my parents in rent had been saved up, invested and added to, and with it my father had purchased premium bonds. I had won before, fifty quid here and there, once a hundred pounds, but never anything big. Normally I just reinvested the money automatically, since it earned slightly more interest staying where it was, but now there was a letter.

Prizes of five thousand pounds or more are not automatically re-invested. Your winnings will be transferred into your linked account after seven business days.

I peered at the number, and then blinked again a few times. Not quite believing what I had seen, I went to the bathroom and stepped into the shower in order to clear my head. It took a moment to adjust the water to the correct temperature, but just as soon as I had scrubbed my hair, washed out all the soap, and run a wash cloth over the rest of my body, I shut off the water, stepped back out and with a towel around my waist went to go and check the letter again. The numbers hadn’t changed, and I held up the paper with trembling fingers.

Twenty thousand pounds.

I had won twenty thousand pounds, more money in a single transaction than I had ever seen apart from the day I had spent everything I owned on my house. Twenty thousand pounds was a lot of money, and standing dripping on the stone floor of the kitchen, the words looked exactly like they said: new truck.

*

Since the very first time I had ever seen Jeremy Clarkson drive one up a mountain in Scotland, take it through a flood, and then fail to destroy it even when the building it had been parked on was blown up, I had always wanted an indestructible Toyota Hilux. The fact it had been the first and only ever car to be driven to the North Pole had only cemented my love of the truck. The most basic new model started at seventeen thousand pounds, something that had never been within my price range at all, up until now.

I walked around the showroom, eyeing up the latest top of the line Hilux model. The other cars didn’t interest me at all, little everyday things for city dwellers and pseudo sports cars for middle aged men wanting to feel young without breaking the bank. I was already holding a Hilux brochure, opened up to the page for the most practical ‘Active’ model, and now I stood in front of the truck itself, half watching my reflection in the high gloss paint work.

“Hi.” I glanced across the bonnet at the salesman. He was handsome, and his smile was open and friendly. Instantly, I began to imagine what he looked like without any clothes on. It had been three months since I had known any other pleasure than that of my own hand, and for me, it seemed like an incredibly long time. “Would you like to have a sit?”

I popped open the door of the truck. Unlike my ancient Land Rover, this opened smoothly and without squealing, and I stepped up into the clean all black interior and shut the door with a satisfyingly heavy-weight clunk. It might have been shiny and new, but I could already tell this was a proper working truck, not a show pony.

“Looks good on you,” the salesman grinned at me, one eyebrow arched in a manner I found deeply inviting, “I’m Simon. Are you interested in taking a test drive Mister…?”

“Turner,” I smiled back at him, and shook his hand. It seemed so smooth and delicate in my own, though he was far from short, “Malcolm.”

“Well, Malcolm,” he said my name as though we were already very familiar with each other, “I have another of these lovely machines out in the lot, an extended cab in blue, and I think he’s very lonely,” his tone dripped with suggestion, “and would love to be taken for a test drive. What d’you say?”

I stroked down the leather clad steering wheel with both hands and relaxed back into the seat. I grinned at him; I couldn’t help it.

“Sounds like a great idea.”

“I’ll get the keys.”

The Hilux drove like a dream. As I took it around each corner and climbed up through the gears, I kept thinking how wonderful it would be not to feel the crunch and squeal of the engine protesting at what were quite normal revs, how nice it would be to turn on the air conditioning and have the system actually work. Simon talked me through the specs on the truck as I drove, mentioning the optional extras I could have put on the truck; everything from various tonneau covers to scuff plates, front guards, and Invincible branded seat covers. The model I was driving started at twenty-two thousand, the top end of the price limit I had set for myself, but it had a two and half litre turbo diesel engine, four wheel drive, steel front and under guards, and a towing capacity of three tons: for everything I wanted, it was perfect.

As we started heading back to the show room, I glanced down to find Simon’s hand on my thigh, and the touch sent a warm flood of pleasure along my skin towards my crotch. I smiled at him.

“Would you like to come to my office, and we can discuss the particulars you’d like?”

“Sounds good,” I parked the Hilux back into the space and turned the key with a soft sigh. As much as I liked the idea of going to discuss what I wanted in the company of a rather sexy young man, I almost didn’t want to leave the lovely truck. I passed the keys back to him with a sad smile, and he took them from me by deliberately touching my hand.

“Can I ask what you do Malcolm?”

“I’m a carpenter,” I smiled and rubbed my palm, “rough hands, sorry.”

“Oh, don’t worry,” Simon’s eyes travelled up and down my body, “I like a man who knows what he’s doing with his hands.”

We sat across Simon’s leather topped desk, and as we discussed the extras and accessories I might like the most, I found it very hard not to imagine bending him over it and fucking him senseless: the sound of his biro moving against the shiny brochure as he circled different items was strangely erotic. The Hilux could be ordered in with whatever model, engine and spec I wanted, but I liked the one I had test driven, and I enjoyed the deep sea-blue shade: it was apparently the least popular colour.

The extras came to nearly a thousand pounds.

“Wow…”

“I’m sure we can work something out,” Simon arched an eyebrow at me, “if you need some privacy, the bathrooms are just down that hallway.”

“Umm…”

“Some time to think, perhaps Malcolm?” Simon’s tone was thickly spread with implications too erotic to think of. I jumped up as though hit by lightning.

“Yes, excellent.” I smiled at him, praying the glint in his eyes was everything I hoped it was and that I hadn’t imagined it all, and turned away to walk to the bathroom.

There was one stall and one urinal, and it was all very clean. I used the urinal, flushed and splashed water on my crotch before wiping myself down with a handful of paper towels. As I threw them into the trash, the main door opened behind me and Simon locked it behind him, leaving the key wedged in the mechanism. I glanced into the mirror and saw him grinning happily.

“Malcolm…” I shivered when he said my name, and again when he brushed his palm across the front of my t-shirt, “you are very sexy.”

I began opening the buttons of his crisp white shirt with one hand, his tie already pulled askew, and I smiled at him.

“And you’re a tease,” I replied. When his cheeks coloured slightly, I knew I had not missed the mark with my comment. His fingers were light and nimble on the crotch of my thick jeans, but that didn’t mean I could concentrate on anything other than his touch, as he opened my fly and reached into my underwear for my cock. Holding the hard length in his smooth skinned hand, he blinked at me in happy surprise.

“Malcolm,” his voice was rich and syrupy, like honey, “I would like to suck you off.”

“Oh god…”

I felt like the luckiest guy alive as Simon sank to his knees, still dressed in more than half his suit, and stroked his hand down the length of my cock. He licked his lips, and could not resist sliding my hand into his well-styled hair. I didn’t apply any pressure, and he didn’t move. Just as I was about to ask what the matter was, he breathed warmly on my skin and whispered:

“Please sir.”

With a groan I pulled him gently forwards, and half-growled in pleasure as he took the head of my cock between his plump lips. After the initial encouragement, I kept my hand covering the back of his head, but Simon wrapped his hands around my hips and set his own rhythm, combining long, deep bobs with series of shorter shallower ones. I didn’t want to direct him, because the man knew what he was doing, and I was in heaven. I bit my lip to keep from groaning as he began to suck the whole length of my erection into his tight mouth, and there was no sound in the bathroom apart from the erotic wet noise of his wet lips sliding up and down the hard column of my flesh. When he passed his tongue over the exposed head, I growled a warning, and looked down in time to watch him swallow my orgasm. Simon sat back on his heels with a wide grin.

“Holy fuck…” I panted, “get up.”

He stood, his shiny shoes toe to toe with my scuffed work boots, and I grabbed his shirt and tie, then pulled him in for a kiss. We broke apart and I spun us both around to face the single sink and the mirror over it. I held him against my chest, tearing the rest of his shirt open to show his taut skin, and used my other hand to open the thin material of his suit slacks. His cotton underwear showed a damp spot at the tip of his hard cock, and I grinned at him in the mirror as I tickled my fingertips up his partially concealed length.

“Take it out.”

Simon did as I asked him, and I kept him pinned against my chest with one hand over his heart as he pushed down the waistband of his hipster briefs. His cock slapped back up against his tight abs, slim but well proportioned, and throbbing with desire. I met his eyes in the mirror and licked the shell of his ear with the tip of my tongue.

“Touch yourself.”

“Ahh…” he moaned in pleasure as he wrapped his fingers around his cock. My hand traced over his knuckles, echoing the movement, guiding him as he began to jack himself. It was a beautiful sight, watching the sexy man touch himself in the mirror because I’d asked him to, his thighs half revealed by the falling of his suit slacks, trembling as I held him tightly. I raised my hand to his damp mouth, so recently occupied by my own hard cock, and he lapped at my fingers greedily. I groaned.

“Ungh… that’s it, keep stroking yourself,” I removed my fingers from his lips, touched ever so briefly at his nipples, leaving wet finger prints on his smooth skin, and slipped my fingers between the mounds of his lovely arse. He gasped as I pressed against him, but didn’t falter in his masturbation, and with a growl of pleasure, I pushed my wet digits into him.

“Ohhh!” His eyes remained fixed on mine in the mirror as I invaded him, and I moaned in his ear. His body was tight and hot around my fingers, and within a few moments I felt confident enough to move, turn and thrust, and find his sensitive prostrate. “Mal!”

Despite having only just come, my body was ready to go again, and as I stroked Simon into a state of ecstasy, even as he stroked himself, I began to thrust and hump my length dryly in the furrow of his pert bum. We came within moments of each other, and while Simon had enough presence of mind left to point his shooting erection towards the sink as his body clamped down around my hand, I simply came all over his arse and the back of his shirt.

“Unghh… fuck,” I panted, grabbing onto the edge of the sink before my knees gave way completely, “you’re fucking fantastic.”

Simon turned around kissed me happily. He stepped back grinning, and grabbed some paper towels from the dispenser to clean himself up. I tucked myself back into my clothes, and washed my hands while Simon smoothed his hair and straightened his tie. Less than a minute later, we both appeared as though nothing other had happened than a pleasant conversation.

“I needed that,” Simon grinned, “and so did you by the looks of it.” He unlocked the door and half stepped outside. “Did that help you work out what you wanted?”

“Oh yeah,” I licked my lips in satisfaction, “I’ll take it.”

*

The moment the truck was delivered, I had to take it out for its first drive. I had already ensured my mp3 player was charged and had moved all of my favourite driving music onto it. The blue Toyota Hilux sat on my driveway, gleaming, freshly polished and valeted, and it was with glee that I removed all of the plastic covers from the seats and the dashboard and threw them into the trash. I needed an excuse for my excursion, so I decided that as well as filling up with fuel, I would stop off at the local timber yard and pick up some more stock supplies.

With country music pouring from the speakers, the truck drove like a dream, smooth and calm, but I could feel the turbo diesel engine ready to snap and growl the moment I put my foot down. There was a long straight section of road between my field and the town, and it was happily empty of all traffic. For half a mile I let the Hilux off the chain and roared down the highway. Everything about the truck delighted me, and it was as my favourite track started that I decided to name him Chase. No doubt Dave would tease me for naming my truck, but he was such a beautiful machine I felt he deserved a label of his very own.

At the filling station I parked up next to the pump and jumped down from my rather high seat to flip open the cover and unscrew the filling cap. As I started to fill the near empty tank with fuel, I could feel people watching me, and it felt great. There I was, in blue jeans and a checked red shirt with the sleeves rolled up to my elbows, a stub of a pencil behind one ear and work-rough hands, with my huge, hulking, shiny new truck. I leant with one elbow against the side of the open back as I filled up, and nodded to those who passed, slack jawed, on their way to pay. The girl behind the counter grinned at me as she passed over my receipt.

“New truck?”

“How could you tell?”

“’Cause everyone is staring; have a nice day.”

I drove around town with the windows rolled down and the speakers very slightly louder than I would usually have them, one bare forearm leaning on the window ledge. I thought I looked cool, and pulling up on the industrial estate outside the timber yard where I was well known, stepping down from the truck to hear a small chorus of appreciative whistles for my new vehicle, felt awesome. I greeted the guys I knew, nodded to the others, and went inside the main office to negotiate prices and machining sizes on some top quality oak and some pale birch planks for a sample drinks cabinet I had designed.

As I was walking through the shop, payment slip in hand, to go through to the yard and collect my order, I saw a young guy holding a flat head screwdriver, staring blankly at the array of woodworking screws on the display rack. He looked in his early twenties, with a blond crew cut and a clean put-together sort of look that make me smile. He picked up a packet of dome headed, chrome capped decorative screws and his smooth brow furrowed in the most adorable manner.

“Are you putting up a mirror?”

“No,” he turned to look at me, his expression one of a lost puppy. “Is that what these are for? I don’t know…”

“What are you building?”

He scowled.

“A bed. It came flat packed and my housemate, in her infinite wisdom, tidied up the packaging and threw all the screws away. And I have no idea what kind I need. Currently all I have is the frame and a bunch of slats stacked up on my floor.”

“Here,” I selected a packet of three quarter inch brass counter sunk wood screws. Those will do you fine. Is that your only screwdriver?”

“Yes.”

“Take this.” I handed him a Philips head screwdriver in a useful utility size. It was a good brand, and would last even me nearly forever. I waved to Paul behind the counter, “put it on my account!”

“No, I can’t!” the boy looked stunned, and I smiled at him. Even after my win on the premium bonds, I wasn’t exactly rich, but it seemed like a nice gesture to make for a lost townie kid. And it was only twenty quid; I wouldn’t miss the money.

“Don’t worry about it.”

“Thank you,” he still looked like he wanted to refuse the gift, “is that your truck outside, the Hilux?”

“Yeah,” my grin broadened.

“It’s a great truck. I saw you at the petrol station.”

“What do you drive?”

“A Vauxhall Corsa with a broken sunroof and a red bonnet,” he sighed, “the rest of the car is blue. It used to belong to my idiot brother.”

“Good luck with your bed.” I turned away to leave, not wanting to push my luck, but found the young man reaching out to grab my wrist. His hands were smooth and warm.

“Hey, um… At least let me buy you lunch? I might be a student but I’m not totally poor.”

“I have to collect my timber order,” I jerked my thumb over my shoulder towards the yard, and his face fell, “but alright. That’d be nice.”

*

His name was Tommie Hoban, and I followed him in his slightly beat up, mostly blue, Vauxhall Corsa through the centre of town, over the river and out the other side to one of my favourite pubs right on the edge of the countryside. I parked up next to him in the little rough gravel lot, and I was sure I hadn’t imagined the mixed expression of lust and jealously as he got out of his little car, staring at the bold shiny lines of my truck. We took a table in the corner with a view of the fire and the big chalk scrawled blackboard menu, and Tommie smiled as he went to the bar to fetch drinks. We were both driving, so I simply asked for a pint of cola, and the ice tinkled gently in our glasses as we toasted to our meeting.

“So what do you do?” I asked him. “You said you were a student?”

“Third year food sciences major,” he beamed with pride. Just as before, the smile transformed his face, and I tried very hard not to visualise stripping him out of his clothes. My imagination furnished him in a chef’s uniform, bare chested under the double breasted jacket: I gulped. “A bunch of us moved out of halls into cool student housing in the city, but living with students is fucking shite. “Sorry,” he glanced around guiltily, “shouldn’t swear in public.”

“It’s a pub,” I stroked my palm over the worn varnished surface of the table, “I’m sure no one’ll mind.”

He smiled at me and sipped his drink before continuing.

“I got so sick of coming home from uni to find my housemates in their pyjamas, watching crap TV in the lounge. I’d get back from work to find the entire kitchen filthy, every plate, cup, and pan we owned caked in grease or ketchup. The bathroom floor was sticky from when Darren spilled soda in there and didn’t clear it up before he went to bed: the place was a death trap generally.”

“What made you finally move out?” I inquired: everyone had a breaking point. Apparently Caleb’s had been one gorgeously sunny late July evening when, instead of suggesting we go into the city to go out, get drunk, and dance under electric lights, I had instead agreed to go and help bring in the hay harvest with the farmer and his crew next door. As I had jumped the fence between the properties, Caleb had jumped ship forever.

“I got a date with this really nice guy on the hospitality course: he wanted to be airline host and travel the world. I didn’t know if it was going to go anywhere, but he was just cool, y’know?” I nodded. “So I said I’d cook for him. I cleaned the entire kitchen, hid all the nice pans and crockery in my room, and spent about half my take home pay from the restaurant in the posh supermarket buying a rack of lamb and really nice new season vegetables. I made chocolate fondants and a Bavarian raspberry cream. And then my friend Jess calls me all in a panic because she thought she found a lump on her breast. I drove over to her house to calm her down and feel her up,” he arched an eyebrow, “women; and by the time I got back, my flatmates were trying to barbecue my trimmed rack of lamb over the bare gas hob, and had thrown the chocolate mixture at each other and all over the kitchen.”

“So you and the air-steward…?”

“Oddly enough, we’re not together,” Tommie sighed, “still single.”

“Somebody’ll come along,” I was imagining him naked again, “you’ll see.”

Tommie looked very much like he was about to say something, but the food arrived instead. I had asked for barbequed spare ribs with Cajun sweet potato fries, and Tommie ordered the pub special burger that came with everything and had been stacked with onion rings to a height of about eight inches. Watching the young man take apart his food so he could actually eat it was sort of fascinating, and we traded and shared our deep fried side dishes.

“So what do you, and that lovely truck of yours, do?” Tommie grinned, his even teeth very white against his rose-pink lips.

“I’m a carpenter,” I licked sauce from one finger and wiped my hand before I held it out to him on the table, palm up. Without hesitation, he placed his fingertips in my rough palm, touching the calluses and leathery skin that made up the textures of working hands. “I make custom furniture, all sorts really. Some of it is quite rustic, but mostly I deal in high-end one-off pieces. I went to university for craft and design, and my father is a carpenter too, though he deals almost exclusively in stair cases.”

“Is there a big market in that?” Tommie frowned.

“He does fairly well.”

“And you?”

“Cabinet making is always in demand, and I like doing complicated pieces with inlays. I just finished a multi layered cylindrical end table which was all about exploiting the natural patterns of wood grain…” I paused. “Sorry, I’m being boring. I get a bit carried away sometimes.”

“No,” Tommie beamed, “I like hearing you talk.” His smile was open and honest. “Do you have a workshop here in town?”

“No, I live way out in the sticks,” I gestured in the vague direction of across town and over the hills. “So you’ve just moved here?”

“Three days ago. Jess and I decided to share something. She graduated last year, and her job is out this way anyway: we we’re both sick of the noise and sirens in the city centre. Took us ages to find something we could afford, but we finally got ourselves a really cute little house on Neville Hill. It’s only two bedrooms, everything is narrow and the house is built over four floors, but it’s clean, it’s light, and Jess has given me control of the kitchen: she doesn’t cook.”

“You mentioned a restaurant?”

“Part time commis chef at the White Lion: the money is good and I can fit it in around my university schedule.” Tommie looked me up and down as our empty plates were whisked away. “Do you think maybe I could come and see your workshop sometime?”

“Yeah, I’d like that.”

“Are you doing anything now?” Tommie smiled at me over the table, and I couldn’t help but follow his fingertips as he drew a line in the condensation our glasses had left on the table. The wetness against his skin was somehow… enticing.

I grinned.

“I think I might be.”

*

“It smells amazing,” Tommie ran his fingers over the back of the chaise-lounge and stared around at the workshop. “Your work is beautiful.”

“Thank you.”

I was proud of my furniture, and my workshop; almost as much as I was of my new truck. The workshop had at one time been stables, and so was long and divided into two long strips where the stalls had once been. The wider area was roofed off to create a mezzanine about nine feet high, and where the hay loft once was now housed the long lengths of dry timber, ready and waiting to be used. After having broken in two both a lovely cross section of a giant oak and very nearly my spine, I had rigged up a pulley system, and now I could simply step onto the wooden seat and pull myself up with the rope and ratchet by main force rather than juggle with the ladder.

Watching Tommie move around the shop, skirting around the machines, and stroking pieces of my furniture was strangely arousing. He paused in front of a large half-finished walnut and iroko wood wardrobe, and I couldn’t resist walking up behind him and eyeing up the smooth clean lines of his body.

“What’s this?”

“It’s for me, if I ever finish it.” I reached around him and touched the carved surface of the door, my fingers just inches from his. “It’s sort of a pet project.”

“It’s lovely,” Tommie took half a step back and collided with my sternum, “I’d like to see it when it’s done.” He ran his fingers over the rope work section that ran along the edge of the front panel until he reached my hand. His touch was smooth and soft, and I had the feeling I was half embracing a man who knew what moisturiser actually was.

“Tommie…” I stroked my free hand across his other shoulder in shivery anticipation, and he turned to look at me. It surprised me that we were nearly the same height.

“It’s our first date, Mal,” He slid his arms up over my shoulders, bringing our faces closer. “I’m not sleeping with you.”

I kissed him; it seemed like the appropriate thing to do. He groaned into my mouth, melting against my chest as I wrapped my arms around his skinny torso. The boy kissed like a house fire, hot, hungry and all-consuming, and with little regard for the damage he caused. I could feel my half-hardened, hastily constructed shield crumbling quickly away, and by the time I had him pressed up against the unfinished wardrobe, my heart was exposed and defenceless again. We were both panting hard, drinking down the linseed scented air like wine as we parted, and his palm travelled down my chest, picking at the buttons of my shirt until he reached the leather and pewter of my belt.

“Show me your house?”

We skipped the tour, and entered through the back door, still kissing, struggling out of our boots and shoes, fingers tugging at each other’s clothes. Trying to get his t-shirt and knit-sweater off over his head while walking backwards was apparently impossible, and Tommie got frustrated enough with the buttons of my shirt to simply tear it open. The sound of the plastic discs skittering across the stone floor distracted each of us only long enough to laugh breathlessly at each other. I opened the bedroom door and Tommie pulled off his clothes as he stepped in after me. He had a fabulous body, all taut skin, and hard but not overly enlarged muscles, a little glittery trail of soft blond hairs leading tantalising down towards his crotch. He ran his fingers down my chest boldly, and didn’t seem at all to mind that I did not share his fabulous physique. My father called it carpenter’s gut, a phrase I had never actually liked, but whilst lifting and working with heavy lengths of hardwood all day gave a man excellent arms and shoulders, it did not tone the abdomen. I had never been bothered about going to the gym. Tommie pressed a bold hand over my crotch and whistled appreciatively.

“My, my…”

I arched an eyebrow at him.

“I thought you had rules about first dates?”

“I can look, can’t I?” I groaned at his words. “You’re so sexy Mal.”

“Mmm…” there was something about being told I was sexy by a boy who could only be described as fucking gorgeous that made me feel like a god. “Whatever you like babe.”

Tommie smirked, and then tugged my zipper down, licking his lips, a sudden look of concentration on his face. I stroked his chest and shoulders, allowing my fingers to play over the ridges of his pecs, the line of his sternum and the tight pinkish buds of his nipples. When he wrapped his hand around my erection I gasped with pleasure.

“So not just looking?” I grinned happily.

Tommie kissed me back hard, his tongue stroking against my own as he began to fondle my hard length. I pulled him towards me, one hand cupping the back of skull, the other travelling down his spine to the waistband of his jeans. I slipped beneath them, and the soft cotton of his underwear, and squeezed his tender arse. He shivered against me, and through the material of his clothes I felt his cock swell and twitch. I grinned: technically, we weren’t yet having sex.

Not until we fell back onto the mattress. My bed hadn’t known any action in four months, but as Tommie and I hastily removed ourselves from the remaining fragments of our clothes, I knew that was going to change. The boy lay there, naked and beautiful, his hot erection contrasting against his pink-pale skin, and he smiled as I knelt between his parted thighs.

“Malcolm…” there was exactly the right hint of begging in his voice, and my pulse beat in time with his demands, “please Malcolm?”

I kissed him again, long and deep, filling his mouth with my questing tongue, and used the motion to cover my one handed scrabble for a condom and lube. He reached up above his head, stretching out his body as I knelt back up, and I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the incredible beauty of his soft skin and taut muscles. I stroked his thigh, letting my fingers linger, and when he bucked into my touch, I knew whatever rules Tommie had about first dates no longer applied.

“Anything you want, beautiful,” I purred in his ear as I slid the latex sheath down the length of my throbbing erection, “just say the word.”

“Fuck me,” Tommie gasped as I touched the tip of my lubricated cock to his tight entrance, “oh Mal, please…”

I grinned, grabbed the back of his thighs, and ploughed into him in one smooth stroke. We groaned together, pitch and timbre almost perfectly matched in our pleasure. Tommie reached out, grabbing my forearm, his short fingernails leaving dented red welts in my skin. I growled, and I snarled back as I thrust into him again, working my hips in a hard desperate motion I knew would not make either of us last long. I wrapped my fingers around his cock, surprisingly thick given his skinny frame, and jacked him in time with my thrusting. He rocked back against me, meeting every stroke with equal fervour, and as I bent down to kiss him, I could tell the edge was close. He groaned into my mouth, a noise almost the shape of my name, and I grunted as I flooded the condom with my orgasm. I panted, jerking my hips erratically, and kissed him moments before he splattered both our chins with his seed.

We collapsed onto the bed, him splayed out, his chest heaving, me partly curled on my side, blinking through a haze of lust and satisfaction, until our heartbeats sorted themselves back out. Eventually Tommie giggled happily, turning only to grab my hand and kiss my knuckles.

“That was fabulous, Mal,” he took a deep breath, “I suppose we’re not so far into the middle of nowhere there isn’t any hot water?”

“Bathroom’s opposite, just go across the kitchen,” I smiled, “you can have the shower first.”

“Oh,” Tommie sat up, smiling. “That’s very nice of you, but I was kind of hoping you would join me in it?”

I arched an eyebrow at the boy. This was going much better than I had hoped, and yet again I could feel my heart opening up to him.

“And what else were you hoping for, babe?”

“Dinner, maybe some rubbish television, maybe more sex later, and hopefully a chance to sleep in this incredibly comfortable bed of yours.”

“Ha!” I reached up, grabbed his wrist, and pulled him back down on top of me. We kissed lazily for a while. “And what’s wrong with your bed?”

“It’s still in pieces.” Tommie hugged me hard, his hands under my shoulders, and I had no option but to embrace him, kissing his hair softly, inhaling his scent. “’Course, we could skip the shower, dinner and TV bit, and just have sex again.”

“And what was all this about not screwing on the first date?” I teased.

Tommie smirked, full of cat-like confidence.

“Well it’s not as if I intend to let you go…”

*

I took another swig of the honey whiskey and stared down the river to the big hulking brick shape of the brewery, its chimney pouring out hop-flavoured steam, lights twinkling all along the flood defences where the property met the river. The river itself was dark, too grimy to reflect the starlight overhead, even if those stars hadn’t been largely hidden by the low, ominous cloud cover. I swung my legs back and forth, watching with disinterest at the sweep of my shadow thirty feet below me. I was tired, cold, hungry, and my head swam with memories I did not want. I swallowed again, pouring the burning alcohol down my throat, hoping I could drown out everything that had happened since that first wonderful night.

I had opened my heart up, again, to a beautiful, funny, gorgeous young man. I had let him into my home and my life, shared everything I had with him, and been gloriously happy the whole winter. And for my love, life had once again torn me up and left me sobbing alone at midnight.

The first droplets of rain sizzled on the concrete surface of the bridge with the fizz and passion of a kiss, and then the rain came down in earnest. I let the bottle slip from my fingers, and watched it fall into the river with a splash and plop: for a moment, I felt very much like following it down.

“Hey Mal,” Dave settled onto the bridge beside me, his thigh warm through the soaked fabric of my jeans, “I thought I might find you here.”

“How’d you know?”

“Chase was parked, well, dumped, outside the garage at a funny angle, and you left the keys in the ignition. I knew you couldn’t be far.” Dave reached out and wrapped his strong arm around my shoulders, “it’s totally fucked, eh mate?”

“Yes.” I wasn’t talking about the truck: Chase was just as perfect as the day I had bought him. “He came and took the last of his stuff this morning.”

“That’s shite, sorry Mal.”

I sighed, and stared down at my feet. Dave was wearing trainers, which meant he had discovered my truck on his way back from a late night gym session, but I was still in my grubby steel toe capped work boots: Tommie had once told me they were sexy, now I doubted everything the young man had ever said. When Caleb had left, I had sort of understood why, even though it still hurt like hell: we had always been sort of incompatible, and we’d grown apart. He wanted to spend more and more time in the city, and I the opposite. I had cried for a week when he left, but I hadn’t honestly been surprised.

Everything had been perfect, and even though I had bought Tommie the tools to put his flat packed bed together the first time we met, he hadn’t needed to use them for slightly over a week, preferring to make the six mile drive out to my cottage after his restaurant shifts and relax with excellent sex before feeding me bits and pieces of amazing leftovers from the kitchen. When he had announced he was applying for a chef’s job in New York, I hadn’t really thought much of it. And now he was gone. He had promised to call, but I knew it would never happen, and I was left sitting on the bridge wondering what on earth I’d done wrong to have my heart stomped on all over again.

“I think probably you should come back and crash on the couch,” Dave said kindly, “I’ll make you bacon butties in the morning and feed you paracetamol: you’re gonna need it.”

I climbed unsteadily to my feet, and leant against the rail to regain my balance and glared down at the rain peppered surface of the river.

“Fuck Russell Brannigan,” I snapped. I stuffed my hands in my pockets, and began making my way towards the river bank, heading for the garage, Chase, and Dave’s Mitsubishi tank. “Fuck him and his stupid brake cables.”

Behind me, Dave frowned.

“Who the bloody hell is Russell Brannigan?”