A Walk Along the Promenade - 10. Scene Three, A Hotel Lobby on a Summer’s Evening, Part 2

“Our floor,” Harley said. “Are you good to walk on your own?”

“Yes, I’m good,” Shaun replied. He would have loved to have walked along that corridor with Harley’s strong arm wrapped around his waist, Harley’s almost intoxicating masculine presence right next to him, pushing up against his own body, but in all honesty how could he ask Harley to do this just to give him a cheap, sexual thrill.

Harley walked along, next to him, as they wound their walk along the narrow and twisting corridor down to his room. As they walked along it again Shaun wondered whether this corridor was an original feature of the hotel, if so the hotel was truly an example of bad Victorian design, or was it a product of when the hotel’s rooms were divided down into the numerous smaller rooms it was made up of now. Shaun pushed his mind into any thought he could find, trying to distract his mind from Harley’s attractive presence next to him and the pain that remained throbbing away in his leg. Harley had grown strangely silent as they walked along that corridor.

When they reached Shaun’s room, he’d pulled his key out of his pocket and pushed it into the door’s lock. As he pushed the door open, he remembered the crumpled newspaper lying next to his bed and the gay listing magazine lying under it. He needed to get to them before Harley saw them. Embarrassment rose up inside of him as he rushed into the room and made to grab for the crumpled newspaper, and the magazine underneath it. Hobbling on his walking stick, Shaun bent down to grab both of them but in bending he over balanced himself, his fingers snatched at the newspaper, but only seconds before his whole body tipped forward. He struck out with his walking stick, pushing its foot as hard as he could into the carpet, pushing his body to his right-hand side but still not keeping enough balance, and he was falling again. But his fall was broken by the room’s bed and he found himself sprawled across it.

“Are you all right there?” Harley’s voice cut through his muddled thoughts.

“Yes, just lost my balance,” Shaun mumbled his reply as he tried to push himself up from the bed.

“Let me give you a hand,” Harley said.

Suddenly Harley’s large, strong hands were again on his body, giving him that momentary flush of pleasure, and helping him to sit up on the bed. In a few moments, Shaun was sitting upright on the bed, leaning against the bed’s headboard, with his legs stretched out in front of him.

“Let me give you a hand with that jacket,” Harley said. And in the next moment he was helping Shaun off with his light, canvas jacket, actually slipping it off Shaun’s shoulders for him, for a brief moment it felt so seductive, and then Harley tossed the jacket onto the room’s sofa, stretched against the opposite wall.

Though now comfortable on the bed, the pain in his leg hadn’t eased, those electric shocks of pain were still rushing up his leg, making the muscles there twitch against it and him hiss through his teeth against the pain, he hated to cry out with the pain because that always brought him unwanted attention.

“You okay?” Harley asked him.

“I need to take a pain killer,” Shaun said as he reached around and took out the plastic bag containing all his pain killers from the nightstand next to his bed.

“Do you need a drink,” Harley asked him.

“Thanks, there’s some diet coke in the fridge, over there,” Shaun said. He opened the plastic bag and took out his box of codeine phosphate tablets, he needed his strongest pain killers now, screw the side-effects, he just had to have relief from this pain.

“Here you go,” Harley said, handing Shaun one of the cold cans of coke out of the room’s tiny fridge. “I hope you don’t mind but I took one for myself too.”

“That’s okay,” Shaun replied. He couldn’t begrudge the man a drink when he’d helped Shaun so much.

“What’s this?” Harley said as he picked up the crumpled newspaper and the gay listing magazine under it.

Shaun went to protest but he didn’t know what to say, any excuse would have sounded childish and suddenly it was too late, Harley had hold of the magazine.

Harley tossed his own leather jacket onto the sofa, almost next to Shaun’s jacket, and then he sat down the bed next to Shaun, though Harley sat with his back to the foot end of the bed and his feet pointing towards the pillows.

Hoping Harley wouldn’t see what magazine he had hold of, Shaun quickly swallowed his pain killer and washed it down with a gulp of diet coke. The codeine phosphate tablets were so small that he barely noticed swallowing them, unlike some of his other tablets. The Gabapentin tablets were so big that they often caught in the back of his throat as he tried to swallow them.

“Canalside!” Harley explained as he found the gay listing magazine. “I get this every month. I liked it best when it was a weekly magazine, but that was years ago.”

“You read it?” Shaun said as he watched Harley flick through the magazine.

“I live in Manchester. This is the best listing mag, well the best gay listing mag.”

“I picked it up when I changed trains in Manchester,” Shaun explained. “I thought there would be something about Scarborough in it.”

“In Canalside?” Harley explained. “They don’t recognise anything outside of Great Manchester. I don’t even think they know that Scarborough exists.”

“I couldn’t find anything in it about Scarborough anyway,” Shaun said.

“I am glad you bought this,” Harley said.

“Why?” Shaun asked him.

“I was hoping you were gay,” Harley said, as he placed his hand on Shaun’s right calf. Shaun could feel the heat from Harley’s hand through his trousers, the warm and exciting feel of Harley’s hand pressing down onto his leg. “I’ve seen you around the last few days and I was hoping you were gay.”

“Oh, right.”

“I was hoping to ask you to come out with me tonight, but you don’t seem well,” Harley said.

“Don’t let me stop you,” Shaun said.

“I was only going to Saint Tropez Cabaret Bar, I’m not missing much there,” Harley told him.

“What’s Saint Tropez Cabaret Bar?”

“It’s Scarborough’s only gay bar but nothing special,” Harley said.

“What’s it like?” Shaun asked. He wanted to make this conversation last longer and keep Harley in his room. Beyond that his mind had no plans, he just wanted Harley here with him.

“God, the place was straight out of some sad eighties film. It was a real throw-back. It has a glister ball, a stage with a glitter curtain. God it was awful. They even have a Kylie tribute act on there on Saturday night. There was this local drag queen on last night, called Bette’d Cod. She was dressed in what looked like an old M&S dress, and so fucking unfunny. The only decent thing was the blow job I got in the bogs.”

“Blow job?” Shaun grabbed onto to something that could make Harley’s talk more intimate.

“Yeah. It was from this guy called Todd. He looked and talked like he was a real Yorkshire farmer, in town for the one day a week he could be gay. He drags me into the bogs there, pulls my jeans down and he’s on my cock like he was a starving man. God if I hadn’t been horny I’d have pushed him off. But after I’d come he wasn’t interested in me sucking him off, he wasn’t interested in me at all. I’d come and he just fucks off… Oh God!” Harley laughed, throwing his head back. “I sound like a right slut. I don’t usually have sex in club toilets, I’ve never done it before. I was bored, horny and on holiday. I do stupid things on holiday.”

“I know what you mean,” Shaun replied, suddenly remembering his real reason for coming here. He felt embarrassment prickling at the back of his neck.

“How is the pain now?” Harley asked him, a concerned expression marking his face.

“It’s going to take a while but that pain killer always works in the end,” Shaun explained, fearing Harley’s question was his opening to leaving. He’d got Shaun back to his room and now he was off to that gay club again.

“I know what will help you, a massage,” Harley replied.

“What?” Surprise jolted Shaun’s mind.

“Come on, you’ve taken your pants off in front of another man before.”

“Yes but…” Shaun felt his embarrassment catching at his throat. “My leg’s covered with awful scars, you won’t want to see it.”

“I’m the manager of an NHS Walk-In centre. The nurses there are always trying to gross me out and shock me, and some of their stories would turn your hair white.”

“But my leg is really bad, I’ll wait for the pain killer to work,” Shaun said. He didn’t want Harley looking at his deformed leg, he felt embarrassed enough at just the thought of it.

“Don’t worry I won’t laugh. A massage will really help your leg. We’ve got a massage therapist who runs a clinic at our centre for people with chronic pain. It has been really successful, and she’s taught the staff massage techniques too,” Harley said, smiling encouragingly at Shaun.

“I’m not happy with people seeing my leg, it’s not a nice sight.”

“Look I’ll take my jeans off first,” Harley offered.

Before Shaun could reply, before he could offer another excuse, Harley had bounced off the bed and was stood next to it. Harley kicked off his trainers, not bothering to untie them. Next he undid his jeans, quickly undoing the buttons of his fly, not trying to do it slowly in a seductive strip-tease, and then he quickly kicked his legs out of them. His legs were muscular, smooth and curved in a very good-looking way, those muscles giving his legs an attractive definition. Under his jeans he was wearing a pair of white and red, horizontally stripped briefs, which seemed to be designed to lift and display Harley’s cock and balls, making them look so prominent. Feeling a stab of shame for openly staring at Harley’s genitals, Shaun pushed his gaze up to Harley’s face. Harley smiled back at him.

“Fuck it,” Harley said. “I’ll take my top off too.”

In another quick and flowing movement Harley pulled his tee-shirt over his head and off, casually tossing it onto the room’s sofa. Harley’s chest was just as smooth and attractive as his legs. It was broad and finely defined with muscles, that were easily visible under his skin. His pale skin was highlighted with a sweep of pale brown freckles across his shoulders and down his forearms. His nipples were small and pale, barely standing out against his pale skin, while the muscles across his abdomen and stomach formed an easily traceable path down to the tuff of thick, red and very curly pubic hair that poked over the waist band of his underpants.

In another moment of embarrassment, Shaun forced his eyes to focus again his Harley’s smiling face.

“That’s better,” Harley said, as he jumped back onto the bed, causing the mattress to ripple under Shaun for a moment.

“Let’s get these off you,” Harley added as he started to undo Shaun’s shoes, and then pulled them off Shaun’s feet. Shaun still wanted to protest, was still uncomfortable with the idea of Harley seeing his naked and deformed leg, but Harley was now kneeling over him in only his small and very revealing underpants. Harley’s near nakedness had silenced him. It now felt childish to protest as Harley pulled off his shoes and socks.

“Undo your pants,” Harley said, smiling down at him. He smiled back at Harley and then hurriedly unbuckled his belt, and then undid his own trousers. There was no going back now, Shaun thought, he was going to do this.

He raised his buttocks up off the bed for a moment, as Harley took hold of trousers’ legs and pulled them downwards, in a slow and steady movement. Shaun felt a rush of excitement, it had been a long time since another man had taken his trousers off and the simple sensory pleasure of it prickled at him. The material of his trousers lightly caressed his skin as it moved down them, adding to the erotic moment of being undressed.