Hard - 1. Hard

Marcus slams down a blue binder of material for next week’s edition on the desk and glares around at his team. ‘All right, then, my little cumbuckets! This week’s issue is out. What bits of journalistic fuckery have you got for me today? Glenn!’

‘Er . . .’ The second year IT student shuffles his notes nervously. ‘I was, er, I was thinking of maybe writing a piece on, er, you know, the state of the, er, cafeteria food—’

‘Fine, good, go for it. Fucking own those dinner ladies. Sami?’

‘Head of Music’s retiring once the year’s out,’ says Sami, brushing back a strand of her red hair. ‘I thought I might try and get the scoop on his replacement.’

‘About fucking time. How old is that twatwaffle? Ninety? Give it your best shot, see what you find. Now, has anyone got a nun’s fart of a clue about what to put in the political section? Jacob, give me something.’

Jacob is leaning back in his seat, playing with a pencil. He meets Marcus’s gaze with a small smile, and Marcus crosses his arms over his chest and raises an eyebrow pointedly.

‘Government’s war on the Internet? The whole porn issue?’ Jacob suggests.

‘Yeah, good. Write that up. Give it some fucking edge, yeah?’

‘Excuse me,’ says Fiona, raising her hand, ‘but shouldn’t a woman write that one? There’s a really important feminist angle to this and—’

‘Yeah, yeah.’ Jacob waves a hand dismissively. ‘I’ll get the fucking feminazi angle, don’t you worry your pretty little head with it, darling.’

As Fiona splutters in red-faced indignation, Marcus feels secretly proud. ‘All right, you two, quit flirting. Don’t wanna get cum all over the floor. You, cuntflap, I want a word.’

He grabs Jacob by the arm and drags him along out into a deserted stairwell. Jacob leans against the railing and looks cockily up at Marcus, who is standing rather a bit closer than he needs to. ‘Yes?’ he says, questioningly, a small smile playing on his lips.

‘All jokes aside, Fiona is right. You have to address this issue from every angle, cover the feminist perspective, cover the religious perspective. I don’t want it to sound like you’re just some guy who doesn’t want his easy access to fucking fapping material taken away, yeah?’

‘I don’t even watch porn anymore, mate,’ says Jacob. ‘Don’t fucking need to, do I?’

Marcus leans a little closer and murmurs, ‘Well, do this right, and I might just reward you by fucking you over that desk after everyone’s gone home.’

‘Mm, promises, promises,’ Jacob purrs. ‘It shall be done as you command, Master Hard Cock McArsemuffin.’

* * *

‘He loves you really. You know that, don’t you?’

Marcus grips his mobile phone tighter, clenching his jaw. This is not a conversation he wants to be having. A fucking orchiectomy would be preferable to having this conversation. ‘Yeah? Well, he’s had a funny way of showing it!’

His mother sighs. ‘I understand that you don’t want to . . . But, please, just think about it. Come up for a weekend or something. Just to see him, yeah?’

‘Yeah, I’ll think about it, okay? I’ll . . . I’ll think about it.’

‘That’s all I ask, love.’ His mother pauses. ‘How’s . . . How’s everything? Are you working hard? How’s the paper?’

‘Fine. It’s all fine. Look, I have to go, okay?’

‘All right, sweetheart. Take care!’

‘Yeah. You too.’

Marcus drops his phone on the desk with a clatter. Then he leans forward, resting his face in his hands. He hasn’t spoken to his father since he found out about the cancer, and one might say that the words exchanged then were none too friendly. The bastard must be doing very poorly indeed for his mother to call and beg him to come visit.

There’s a knock on his door. ‘Fuck off!’ Marcus calls automatically.

‘It’s me.’

Marcus sighs and stands up, running his hand through his hair, and goes to open the door. ‘What do you want, you twat?’

Jacob grins at him. ‘Just felt like dropping by.’

Against his better judgment, Marcus steps aside and lets him in, closing the door behind him. Then he rubs his eyes and goes to sit down at his desk again, resting his chin in the palm of his hand.

Jacob cocks his head to one side and studies him with intelligent brown eyes. They’ve been fucking for a couple of months now—angry, unsentimental and sometimes quite violent sex. Sometimes Marcus thinks that Jacob must be fucking psychotic to want it, to want him. Occasionally Jacob stays over, sneaking out in the wee hours before any of Marcus’s flatmates have time to see him. Occasionally, Marcus wakes up alone and wishes that he wasn’t. Not that he’ll ever, ever tell anyone that, least of all his lover.

‘You all right?’ asks Jacob.

‘Fine. Fucking a-ok.’ Marcus doesn’t meet Jacob’s gaze. Sometimes he just doesn’t know how to deal with the little shit. Not when he stares him down and sees right through him, making him feel naked and vulnerable. He doesn’t like feeling vulnerable. Marcus almost trusts Jacob. Almost. But not enough.

‘Okay. Good.’ Jacob runs a hand through his dark hair and smiles. ‘I finished the story for the politics section. I’ve e-mailed it to you, so you can look it over.’

Marcus rubs his chin with his fingers. ‘The porn thing?’

Jacob nods. Then he runs his tongue across his bottom lip. Takes a small step closer. ‘So, speaking of porn—’

‘Yeah, maybe not tonight, eh?’ Marcus forces himself to look at Jacob. Forces himself to glare. Hopes to fuck that Jacob will get it, that he won’t fight him. ‘I’m just, I’m bone-dead fucking exhausted and I have a fucking deadline to meet—’

‘Fine, yeah. Tomorrow, maybe.’

‘Working tomorrow.’

‘Oh, right.’ Jacob nods. ‘I’ll . . . I’ll fuck off home, then.’ He turns to leave.

‘Jacob.’ Marcus swivels his chair around a bit. ‘Come by Friday?’

‘Will do.’

They don’t kiss. They never kiss unless they’re fucking. Nor do they touch, though they usually do that any chance they get. But the look they share just before Jacob leaves the room somehow feels more significant than any kiss or touch could.

* * *

Jacob is gasping beneath him and Marcus slows down, just a little, listening to his breathing. Confident that Jacob’s asthma hasn’t flared up, he picks up speed again, pushing into him, very nearly crying out because fucking Jacob feels like the good kind of dying, but managing not to by biting his lip. Jacob shudders and comes in Marcus’s hand, and Marcus kisses him, hard, swallowing his moans. Then he comes himself and groans, ‘Fuck . . .’ through gritted teeth before he collapses on top of him.

The sound of Jacob’s heartbeat is comforting, and for a moment Marcus thinks he could fall asleep here, but then he remembers who he is, and who Jacob is, and he rolls off him with a sigh.

They lie there in silence for a little while, Jacob still breathing heavily and Marcus trying to calm his pulse.

‘I’ve been editing that article that Glenn wrote, on the cafeteria food,’ Jacob tells him after a while. ‘It’s the most horrendous piece of shit I’ve ever read. It reads like someone put something by Stephanie Meyer through a blender and then shat on it. That fucktard has no business writing anything.’

‘I’ll have a word on Monday,’ says Marcus with a sigh. ‘I’ll tell him either he comes up with something better or he’ll be out on his fucking arse blowing old men in back alleys.’

Jacob laughs. It’s a welcome sound, and Marcus almost smiles.

Then his mobile rings. ‘Fucking hell, what now?’ Marcus mutters and leans over Jacob’s chest to reach the phone on his bedside table. It’s his mother. ‘Shit . . .’ He stares at the screen for a few moments before answering. ‘Yeah?’

‘Marcus, darling . . . Listen, things aren’t going so well with your father.’ Her voice sounds shaky. She’s been crying. ‘The, erm . . . The chemo isn’t taking. And they haven’t found a donor, so . . . He probably hasn’t got long.’ Marcus makes a grunting noise to let her know he’s still listening. ‘Please, will you come up? He might not . . . I just don’t want you to regret—’

‘You don’t want me to regret not seeing him. What if I regret seeing him, you ever think of that? It’s nothing less than the fucker deserves!’

‘Marcus!’ says his mother sharply. ‘Please.’

Marcus takes a deep breath and runs his free hand through his hair. Then he lets it drop and it comes to rest on Jacob’s hand, and unthinkingly he squeezes the other man’s fingers. ‘Yeah. All right. I’ll get a train up in the morning.’

‘Thank you. I love you.’

‘Yeah. Me too. Bye.’

Marcus hangs up and moves his hand away from Jacob’s, suddenly aware. Jacob props himself up on his elbows and studies him.

‘You all right? Was it . . .’ Jacob trails off, looking away.

‘Yeah, it’s—he’s not doing well. My mum wants me to come up and see him in hospital.’

‘Oh.’

Marcus discovers that the hand holding his mobile is shaking, and he puts the phone down, hoping Jacob hasn’t noticed. He wants to hit someone, destroy something. Scream and shout. He wants to fuck, or be fucked. He wants to kiss Jacob or beat him to a pulp. At this moment, he doesn’t trust himself not to do one or all of these things, so he says, ‘You should probably go home, I . . . I just, fuck, I need to think.’

‘Yeah. Okay.’ And because they’re in bed, and they’ve just fucked and it seems natural, Marcus doesn’t push Jacob away when he kisses him, a bit less forcefully than usual. Marcus stays in his bed, staring at the mattress, while Jacob goes to the bog and gets dressed.

‘See you on Monday, then?’ says Jacob.

‘Yeah. Now get the fuck out, you wanker.’

‘Laters, twat.’ And then Jacob is gone, and Marcus has only himself and his mind to contend with.

He gets out of bed, tosses back some cheap vodka, puts on some music. He wishes, for a moment, that he still smoked, but he quit two years ago and there are no cigarettes in his room. No drugs either. He feels like he needs to do something destructive. In the end he settles for tearing up some lecture notes. It’s just contract law, he knows it, he doesn’t need the fucking notes. Later he’s going to remember that there was some important information among those notes and curse himself for it.

He doesn’t cry. He hasn’t cried in years. He suspects his fucking tear ducts have shrivelled up and died a long time ago. But he lies in his bed on his stomach, heart pounding in his ears, gripping the pillow so hard his hands hurt. Then he gets himself off, twice, because it feels like the thing to do, and eventually falls asleep in moist sheets, wishing he had asked Jacob to stay and terrified of what he might have done to him if he had. And anyway, he would rather stab himself repeatedly in the face than let anyone see him like this, least of all Jacob.

* * *

Marcus’s mother hugs him tightly. ‘I’m so glad you’re here!’ she mumbles into his chest. She seems so small. It’s been many years since Marcus was smaller than her, able to take refuge from the world in his mother’s arms. Now she smiles at him, though her eyes are sad and wet, holds his lightly stubbled face in her hands and gets up on tip-toe to kiss his cheek. ‘Come on, I’ll take you to him.’

The room his father is in is stark and white. There’s another bed, but its occupant is fast asleep behind a white curtain. Marcus approaches his father’s bed, slowly. On the bedside table lies his father’s glasses, and his rosary. His mother lingers in the doorway for a little while, and then scurries off.

The old man in the bed looks a lot like Marcus. Same long, pointy nose, same sharp cheekbones, same disapproving green eyes. He’s not that old, really, only in his fifties, but just then he looks like he’s eighty.

He coughs, wheezes and says, ‘So, you decided to show up.’ His voice sounds like gravel and tobacco ash.

‘I’m not here for you. I’m here for ma.’ Marcus works his jaw and swallows. ‘How are you?’ he asks after some moments.

‘Dying. You?’

‘Not too bad.’

Brian Allen almost laughs. Then he coughs again. ‘You could . . . pretend you’re sorry.’

‘Why?’ Marcus clenches his fist, trying to keep his voice at an acceptable level, but he really wants to shout. ‘Why should I care about you all of a sudden just cause you’re sick? After everything you—’

‘After everything I what? I never beat you! I fed and clothed you, you ungrateful little shit—’

Marcus talks over him. Oh yeah, he supposes he should be thanking the old fucker for not hitting him, because fuck knows that’s the worst he could have done. Never mind that he’d come home drunk at two in the morning and pass out in a pool of his own sick. Never mind that he would wake Marcus up with his shouting, make him clean up after his father while his mother cowered in the kitchen, making cup of tea after cup of bloody tea for something to do. Compared to what Brian did put his family through, a couple of beatings would have ben a fucking blessing. Marcus is pacing now, shouting, not caring whether it wakes the room’s other occupant (he seems dead to the world, anyway), gesticulating wildly and spewing up every piece of resentment and fucking anger and hate he’s kept inside him since the day he got big enough, and his father smart enough that he left him alone.

‘So no,’ he concludes, ‘I don’t give two shits and a flying fuck that you’re dying! I hope you go to fucking Hell!’ He stands still for a moment, panting, shaking, staring down the old ashen faced man in the bed.

His father fixes him with his cold gaze. ‘Thought you didn’t believe in Hell,’ he rasps.

‘I don’t, but you do.’

‘What d’you know,’ the old man takes a few shallow breaths and leans back into his pillows, ‘you turned into me after all.’

Marcus wants to punch him in the face then, but it occurs to him that that would probably be frowned upon by hospital staff. So instead he takes a deep breath, straightens his back and says, as calmly as he can manage, ‘Oh, by the way, dad, I met someone. His name is Jacob. We’ve been fucking for two months.’

Then he leaves the room, pleased that he at the very least got the last word.

* * *

Marcus spends the night in his old bedroom. He can’t sleep. For a wild moment, he considers texting Jacob, but then that makes it feel like they’re in some kind of stupid relationship. And they’re not. They’re just fucking. Of course, that isn’t what he implied to his dad, in that odd moment of triumphant defiance, and that makes everything all the more confusing. The short, psychotic cannonball that is Jacob has crowded into his space, dug a hole and made itself at home—fucked him royally and mercilessly, figuratively speaking, until Marcus no longer knows where he ends and Jacob begins.

He returns to uni the following day, spends some time writing, and goes to bed early. At 11:03 P.M. he gets a phone call from his mother. At 11:05 he’s lying under his covers, shaking, unable to interpret the sick feeling in his stomach, bile rising in his throat. With eyes wide open he stares into the darkness, listening to his own breathing and heartbeat. Then he writes a short text to Jacob.

Need you to head the editorial meeting tomorrow. I can’t make it.

* * *

No more than three minutes after the editorial meeting is supposed to have ended, someone is pounding on Marcus’s door. Marcus is in his bed, wearing nothing but his pants. Tomorrow, he will board another train and go to his mother to help her with funeral arrangements. Thursday’s tutorial has been postponed until next week, and he’s had the deadline for his assignment extended. He’s had what was left in his vodka bottle, enough that he’s dizzy and a little warm.

He gets out of bed and opens the door, and Jacob comes barrelling inside at roughly the speed of sound. Shutting and locking the door behind him, he stares at Marcus for a few seconds with wild brown eyes. He hasn’t shaved in a few days and his dark hair stands every which way, making him look even scruffier than usual. Marcus doesn’t have to say anything. Jacob, it seems, just knows, and a second later, he’s got his arms tightly around him, and usually Marcus would push him off and tell him not to be such a fucking pussy, but he doesn’t have the energy for it. He lets Jacob kiss him, push him up against the wall, pull his hair and bite at his throat until he is feverish with desire.

‘Jacob,’ he gasps. ‘I . . . I need you to . . .’ He hesitates.

‘Whatever you need,’ Jacob whispers fiercely, and it sends a shiver through Marcus’s body to hear it, even though he knows, has always known, that however much he might keep Jacob at arm’s length, the boy will always be there for him with every inch of his five foot eight.

‘Fuck me,’ Marcus murmurs. ‘Just . . . Do it. Make it hurt.’

Jacob utters a possessive growl and attacks his throat again with tongue and teeth. He squeezes and twists Marcus’s nipple, and Marcus winces, throwing his head back against the wall with a thump. Jacob’s bites are going to leave marks. Marcus doesn’t care.

Now he’s being pulled roughly away from the wall and pushed down onto bed. Jacob keeps his eyes fixed on him while he pulls off his hoodie and t-shirt. Then he climbs into bed and peels off Marcus’s pants.

He uses a minimal amount of lube while he preps him. It’s not the first time Marcus has a finger in his arse, and it’s clearly not the first time Jacob is in his current position either. Marcus throws his head back and sees stars as Jacob crooks his finger. It hurts in all the right ways, the pressure against his prostate just a little more than he thinks he can bear, and Marcus holds his breath, eyes squeezed tightly shut, and takes it. He is rock hard and leaking pre cum and he wants to come but fucking refuses to try and touch himself to get his release.

Jacob’s movements are steady and deliberate. Usually, he is fast and impulsive and impatient, a fucking brilliant child on speed, hungry and angry. But now he acts with infinite patience, so giving, and this kindness is a particular brand of fucking cruelty. He is waiting for Marcus to beg. Marcus never begs. And still, now he sucks in a breath of air through gritted teeth and hisses, ‘Fuck! Jacob, fucking . . . I . . . Please!’

Finally, Jacob withdraws his finger and takes off the rest of his own clothes, fishing a condom out of his pocket. Then, hooking one of Marcus’s long legs over his shoulder, he pushes inside, and this time Marcus really does whimper. Jacob holds him down with a hand at his throat, and now he’s in bollocks deep. Marcus pushes back against him. It feels like he can’t breathe. His body is burning, shaking. Jacob pulls out again, almost all the way, and thrusts inside once more with a groan. He leans forward and bites into Marcus’s throat again.

Marcus clings to him, begging him with his body to go faster, do it harder, not hold back. And when he begins to sob—tearless, desperate sounds escaping from his lips against his will—Jacob pretends not to notice, gripping his arm just a bit too tightly, kissing him just a bit too hard, fucking into him with abandon until the both come. To Marcus, every thrust, every bite and every hard touch is like a comforting caress.

Afterwards, they lie on the narrow bed, facing one another. Marcus is much taller than Jacob, but he curls up in the foetal position, and when Jacob puts his arms around him, he feels much smaller than he’s felt in years. Usually this would bother him. Usually, he’d need to be the big man, the one in charge. But not today. It’s only four in the afternoon. It’s raining outside.

‘How did the meeting go?’ Marcus asks after a while.

‘Fuck, who cares about the shitting meeting—’

‘Just answer the question, fuckface.’ Marcus doesn’t have the energy to raise his voice, but his tone seems to get his point across.

‘It went okay. Everyone was as fucking useless as always, but we’ll have a solid issue for next week, I think. Unless Glenn fucks up even worse than usual, and the only way that could happen is if he spends the entire week self-fellating instead of doing any actual writing.’ Jacob pauses. ‘Which is a definite possibility,’ he adds as an afterthought. He rests his chin on the top of Marcus’s head. When he speaks next, Marcus feels his warm breath in his hair. ‘I’m guessing you won’t be contributing much this week?’

‘No.’

‘When’s the funeral?’

Marcus curls up tighter and digs his forehead into Jacob’s hairy chest. His diaphragm feels tight all of a sudden. There’s a pain somewhere that he can’t place. ‘Friday,’ he manages. ‘I’m leaving tomorrow, to help my mum.’ They’re quiet for a few moments, before Marcus speaks again. ‘I’m not sorry he’s dead. He was such a fucking horrible cunting drunk, he doesn’t deserve my pity or my regret or any fucking piece of me. I’m not sorry, but I feel—’ He cuts himself off. He’s not talking about his feelings to Jacob. He’s not talking about his feelings to anyone. He refuses to be a whiny cunt. That isn’t him. That’s other people.

But Jacob only holds him tighter, and Marcus is grateful for that. After several minutes, he lets out a long breath and relaxes his shoulders slightly. He stretches out a bit, so he’s less small, and brings his face up to the same height as Jacob’s.

Jacob looks at him, and almost smiles, and then he’s kissing him again. Gently this time. More gently than he has any right to. More gently than he ever will again. This is the last time that Marcus will let anyone see him like this. He promises himself that. Then he kisses Jacob back, and doesn’t care that he’s crossed over into sweet, romantic fucking hand-holding territory. Doesn’t care that Jacob is running his fingers softly through his hair, stroking his back soothingly. Doesn’t care that this is the most intimate moment of his life, and won’t realise until much later how sad that really is.

They stay there for most of the day. For dinner, they share a pizza Marcus had in the freezer, after Jacob tells him in no uncertain terms that he will fucking force feed him if he doesn’t eat something of his own volition. Jacob never leaves Marcus’s room. Doesn’t even go out for a fag. He stays with him. They don’t really talk much. Mostly they sit on the bed, shoulders touching, watching mindless entertainment programmes on the iPlayer. Then, in between episodes of QI and Never Mind the Buzzcocks, they’ll kiss or get each other off, and it’s okay that Marcus is a little bit soft, a little bit needy, because no one can see but Jacob, and Marcus wonders when that happened, when that became okay.

Jacob stays the night, and Marcus wakes up at three, sweating and almost crying, from some fucked up dream in which his father bursts into the room, bigger than he ever was in life, foaming at the mouth and shouting abuse, trying to take Jacob away from him.

Jacob just pulls him closer, stroking his hair and telling him, ‘It’s okay, love, go back to sleep.’ And Marcus lets him get away with calling him ‘love’, just this once.

Marcus is a hard man, but just this once, just for today, it feels good not to have to be.

* * *

Marcus returns on Saturday afternoon and is wholly unsurprised when Jacob turns up on campus with a bottle of wine and curry take-away. Marcus doesn’t tell him he’s missed him, even though he has, and he doesn’t hug him or kiss him, even though there’s something inside him that really wants to. The funeral is over, and it’s nothing he wishes to think about or even remember. Marcus is done being vulnerable. It’s time to get back to normal.

’So, how did you dripping cunt rags get on without me this week?’ he asks, taking a sip of wine (it’s cheap red, from the bottom shelf at Asda, but he doesn’t really care).

‘I’ll have you know that I’m perfectly capable of running the paper without you, the Oncoming Shitstorm,’ Jacob tells him proudly. ‘You’re obsolete, mate. You can fucking retire.’

‘Yeah, yeah, quit jerking off and tell me how it went.’

‘Sami covered the debate for the SU election, I wrote a follow-up to last week’s piece about the porn, leading in nicely to an opinion piece of Fiona’s on Internet piracy, which I frankly thought would be way beyond her scope, but she did well. It’s possible Sami was whispering in her ear the whole time, but . . . Either way, we’ve got an edition coming out on Monday that just might not die a horrible death like some aborted test-tube baby.’

‘I’ll have to name you as my successor, it seems,’ says Marcus. ‘Now, finish your curry so we can fuck already. I’ve got the blue balls from fucking hell.’

Jacob puts his styrofoam container on the desk and takes Marcus’s wine glass from him, before straddling his lap. ‘As you command,’ he whispers.

Marcus grabs him by the hair and pulls his head back to expose his throat, and Jacob gasps and shudders, just as he should.

If it’s any different than usual, Marcus blames it on the two of them not having seen each other for days. If it’s a little harder and a little more desperate, it’s just because Marcus really needs to get off, and to be in charge again. And if the aftermath seems a little softer, a little sweeter, it’s all in their heads.

That’s his story, and he’s sticking to it.