Depth
The Professor’s office was always cooler than Coach’s, and than the rest of The Gym. The wave of cool air hit Jem the second he opened her door.
He sighed. It was the perfect metaphor, really. The Professor always made him feel more calm, more reasonable. Coach always made him feel warm and loved.
“Are you on break?”
He shot her a cheeky smile. “Would I come up here if I wasn’t? What kind of terrible employee do you take me for?”
She didn’t reply. But she did push away from her desk and sit beside him on the couch. “I wasn’t aware you ever took your breaks, Jem.”
“Yeah. Well. I need you to tell me not to do something.”
“And you didn’t want Mac here when you talked to me.”
He crossed his arms. “If I’m supposed to be impressed you can read minds, I’m not. I already knew that.”
“You’re asking me, not Coach?”
“Coach says it’s complicated.”
She raised her eyebrows.
“And it is complicated. But if I ask him straight-out, he’ll tell me to go for it, because blah blah feelings.”
“That was a very Mac-like way of phrasing that.”
Jem ignored the comment. “And Lupe would tell me to go for it for different reasons, because she doesn’t really care about losing people the way I do.”
“You think?”
“Well. She wouldn’t want to lose you and Coach, but I think she’d walk away from everyone else here and not even miss us.” He smiled, to show it didn’t bother him. (It did, a little. But he understood, too.)
“I’m not so sure that’s true. I certainly think she wishes it were.” She tapped her watch. “Time is running out.”
Jem took a second to gather himself. The Professor wouldn’t tell anyone. Probably not even Coach, who sort of already knew. But there was commitment in voicing even the very worst of ideas, which this was. “It’s Mac. Or me. Or both of us. I made a rule that we don’t kiss in the house, but I…want to.”
Her eyes didn’t betray anything at all. “And?”
“He’s not gay. He doesn’t even know what he is, and until he came here he’d never had anything to do with guys that wasn’t fighting. With his fists. Like, he gets that those things are all connected, but still. He’s like…he’s a just-hatched chick. And what I want from him is…flight.”
“You think Mac doesn’t know how to kiss?”
“I think it wouldn’t stop there. If I let myself do that, it’d lead to other things. And he’s…he tries to be all standoffish, but you kiss him and he just sort of wants to fall into you.” He looked away. “This is such a bad idea.”
“Are you worried you would be taking advantage of him?”
“I mean…kind of. But no. I’m worried he’ll break my stupid heart.”
“Ah.” She shifted on the couch, turning just slightly more toward him. “That is always a risk, if you want to be in relationships. Why do you think Coach chooses not to?”
“You think it’s a choice? I just figured… I mean, he says he can’t.”
She waved a hand. “Coach is irrelevant. You, Jem, have chosen sporadically to involve yourself in relationships with men who didn’t know you very well, with whom you felt no special responsibility to be honest. Mac is different on both of those counts. Are you certain he’s the only one who has things to learn?”
Had he been standing, he would have staggered. As it was, he took a shaky breath and focused his gaze on the back of her monitor. “I didn’t say that.”
“No, but you were thinking it. If you don’t want to be his teacher in all things relationships, then don’t be. But that would mean coming at this with a fresh perspective, an open mind. Can you do that?”
“But it’s not… I mean, there is something to be said for having been around the block, Professor, don’t you think?”
“I think far too much is said about it. If people were more capable of approaching new situations without old baggage, I suspect they’d be far more satisfied.”
He frowned at her. “You speaking from experience?”
“There is no point in me approaching something new if the person I’m approaching can’t do the same thing. Most people don’t seem interested.”
The notion that the Professor might actually not be totally and completely aromantic had never entered Jem’s mind. She was a sexual voyeur, but in terms of…partnerships, relationships, he’d just assumed she hit the extreme disinterested end of the spectrum.
She was smiling, with just a little bit of challenge.
Jem, mindful of the time, straightened up. “But I don’t even know if he can feel anything for men. He doesn’t know. What if he can’t? God, it would hurt so much. It would hurt so much, Professor. I don’t want to feel like that.”
“It is a risk. But I’ve seen how he looks at you, how he looks at Coach. I don’t think it’s quite the cliff you’re making it out to be. Which isn’t the same as saying the two of you are capable of the exact same levels of feeling, Jem. And I think you should talk to Coach, but while I agree with your assessment of his response, it’s for different reasons.”
“I think if I said I was going to…do something, with Mac, he’d be a cheerleader.”
She shook her head. “None of us are free of the past. If my brother had risked what you’re contemplating risking, he might still be alive to tell us how Coach broke his heart. And he would have, don’t doubt.”
Jem sat silently, breathing hard, marveling as he always did when one of them shared a piece of their history with him. A rare gift from either of them, but far more rare from the Professor. He swallowed, knowing damn well if he teared up at their loss, she’d be annoyed. “But how can I…how can I be so sure he’s going to hurt me, and so sure I need to do it anyway? I didn’t think I’m this much of a masochist.”
“It’s not masochism. It’s hope. You have a great well of hope at war with your reason.” She offered a half shrug and stood. “I can’t tell you not to kiss Mac, Jem. You might be surprised how frequently I’ve advocated in favor of kissing recently. I know I am. Get out of here.”
“Yes, Professor.”
He stepped out into the hallway at the exact moment Coach did.
Coach grinned. “Pep talk from the Professor?”
“I thought I knew what she was going to say. And then she said something else.”
“She likes doing that.” Coach glanced toward the staff door, then kissed his forehead. “Have a good shift.”
“Thanks.”
Walking away from Coach, knowing that he watched, wishing he’d say something real, something true, something that wasn’t career advice, was frustrating as hell. Jem turned his mind to The Gym and went to work.
* * *
By the end of shift it was over. The entire decision making process. Because now he’d talked to both Coach and the Professor, and neither one of them had told him that being with Mac was a terrible idea.
And he wanted it. So fucking badly. Every time they passed each other on the floor he wanted to have the right to touch, to kiss, to do any number of other things that wouldn’t be appropriate at work.
They’d keep it a secret. Because Mac didn’t need to be tarred with the brush they all used on Jem. And also because drama. The sudden flush of possessiveness shocked him, and more than anything he wanted to give in to it.
Would Mac constantly need to make the point that he wasn’t owned, that he was his own man? Jem didn’t think so. Jem thought Mac would take to being possessed in a way that would scare the hell out of him.
Be careful. Be so careful. He could do this. Coach had said, Take care of our boy. Jem could take care of Mac. If he was very, very good, he could take care of them both.
Of course, that was all assuming Mac was interested in doing more than cuddling.
Now that he’d decided, Jem felt like he was in free fall. Yes, this might be stupid. Yes, he would probably get his heart trampled. Yes, Lupe would laugh at him. But as long as he could keep his cool at work, and as long as Mac didn’t quit as he’d so frequently threatened to do, everything would be fine.
The house might be tricky if things blew up in their faces, but they could handle it. They were adults.
As he was thinking it, he spotted Mac huddling in the back corner of the pool room. Which was…a little strange.
“Hey.” He kept his voice low as he approached. “Shift’s over. You joining maintenance, or just hanging out for fun?”
“Sorry,” Mac mumbled.
“No need to apologize.” Jem touched his arm. “You okay?”
“Uh, yeah. Sure. Just another day at the office.” Except when Mac turned, it almost looked like he’d been crying. He avoided Jem’s gaze and led the way out the back door to the hallway, past the private rooms (all standing open while maintenance tore through, transforming them back into massage rooms for day shift). Jem wasn’t exactly shocked when Mac only paused to collect his cigarettes before going up to the roof. Jem followed.
He watched Mac suck down the first cigarette, pause, then light another. Once it was burning, Mac glanced over. “Some of these people are freaks.”
Jem checked an instinctive urge to look around for cameras. That wasn’t exactly the sentiment he wanted Coach hearing anyone on staff say, still less Mac.
And there was another weird thing: three days ago he’d been walking a high wire between them, jealous of Mac, desperate for Coach, sometimes the other way around, but now all that had disappeared. Because he’d decided to pursue…something with Mac, now he wasn’t jealous? He couldn’t decide if that made sense.
The door opened. Jem raised his eyebrows at Lupe and nodded toward Mac. “So, Mac’s about to tell me about a freaky client. You want in?”
“You know I do. What happened, sugar? I don’t remember seeing anything too wild on the floor today. You did stay on the floor, didn’t you?”
Mac blew smoke straight up into the sky. “We stared at each other. Me and this woman. That was it. Just fucking staring at each other. For forever, or at least that’s how it felt.” He shook his head. “What the fuck is wrong with a person that they come to a sex gym and stare at someone they could be fucking? I mean seriously.”
Sex gym, Jem thought, almost tempted to laugh. He’d never thought of it that way before. He pulled his mind away from the edge. “You mean Paula? I like her. I find it really kind of soothing to just sit and be in the moment with her like that.”
“Soothing? It’s fucking nuts!” Mac pulled out another cigarette, and only stayed still long enough for Lupe to hold her lighter to it. Then he spun around and stalked to the side of the roof that overlooked the vacant dirt lot next door.
The lots on all sides of the gym were empty. Jem had the sneaking suspicion that Coach and the Professor owned them and kept them that way.
“Hmm.” Lupe tapped ash into the wind. “Something has crawled up his butt in the last three hours. He was fine earlier.”
“You think he needs to be alone right now?”
She raised an eyebrow. “You have an idea?”
“Last few times he’s been weird about something he saw or did on the floor, we talked it out with Coach.”
“Oh, I don’t think you can ever go wrong with that plan. You want to prime the pump while I poke our newest staff member?”
Jem shot her a disgusted look. “Both of those things sounded dirty.”
“Like you wouldn’t prime Coach’s pump anytime.” She waved her cigarette. “Go. We’ll be down when we’re ready. Try not to miss us.”
He rolled his eyes.
Coach was in the kitchen, so Jem helped himself to a sandwich and half-listened to the usual end-of-shift debrief. Who did what to whom, and how, and where. A few notes about clients that people considered sharable with Coach there (a trial separation, someone’s son graduating from college, someone else’s son arrested). He took a shower, checked to make sure none of the gym laundry needed to be run through the machines, caught up with a couple of the folks on maintenance when they finished up as everyone else was leaving.
Mac and Lupe were still on the roof.
He tapped on Coach’s door when most of the staff had already gone home.
“This is a nice surprise.” Coach pushed back from his desk. “I was just about to settle in for some tape reviews.”
“Does that mean you’re busy? Or looking for a distraction?”
Coach smiled. “What d’you got?”
Prime the pump, right, except Jem didn’t want to waste time talking about Mac’s client. “I think I’m gonna change the rules.”
“Oh yeah?”
Jem moved in closer, leaning back against the desk. “I…really like him, Coach.”
“I completely understand that.”
“You, uh, got any words of wisdom for me?”
“No.” Coach reached out, and Jem let himself be drawn in, ran his hands along Coach’s head, down his neck. “No words of wisdom. But keep a little bit of yourself back, my Jem. I think he’s worthy of your affection, but don’t abandon yourself.”
“I wouldn’t. Come on.” He smiled, tried to make it lighter, but Coach remained serious.
“Have you fallen in love before?”
“Only with you.”
Coach shook his head. “You know that’s not the same.”
Which was kind of a screwy thing to say. Jem pulled back. “How do you know? How can you just…dismiss it like that? Maybe you aren’t interested, but that doesn’t mean I don’t feel, Coach. Jeez.”
“I’m sorry. That isn’t how I meant it. I meant…it’s different when there are two of you in the eye of the storm. You think you can harness it, control it, control how it happens, but there are things you can’t predict. Not even you, Jem.”
“So what are you saying? I thought you would…” Support me. Smile. Kiss me. Congratulate us.
“I’m sorry. God, I’m a terrible friend tonight. C’mere.”
Going in to Coach’s arms felt good. Jem tried to forget all of his reservations and just be there.
Coach sighed and kissed his forehead. “I care about you so much, you can’t imagine. Forgive me for wavering in my faith. Of course you should change the rules, if both of you want to. And if you need anything, you can talk to me. Always. You know that, right?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“Good. Are you settling in for the foreseeable future? And yes, a distraction would be welcome.”
“Mac had Paula for a client today.”
“Ah. I can’t imagine he took to that well.” Coach smiled. His usual smile, no hint of anything beneath it.
“He seemed upset. Genuinely.”
“Mac’s deepest fear, being seen. Also his deepest longing.” Coach tweaked his nose. “Bear that in mind and tread carefully, my boy. Let’s sit on the couch. I’m feeling old these days.”
They were getting caught up on a more frank version of the earlier kitchen debrief when Mac finally knocked on the door. Just Mac.
He hesitated before taking a seat on the facing couch, by himself. So predictable.
“No Lupe?”
“She, uh, said she didn’t want any part of therapy.” His eyes narrowed. “What therapy?”
Jem wanted to grab him and pull him until he was between them on one couch. Could he do that tomorrow, next week, if they decided to do more than this dance they’d been doing? He wasn’t sure yet. But maybe.
“Tell me about work.” Coach sat back, crossed his legs. Smiled.
“Oh, shut up. Plus, Jem already told you, right?”
“You don’t like Paula?”
Mac rolled his eyes. “She wanted to stare at me. Why did she do that? What was the fucking point?”
“Maybe it pleases her to stare at beautiful young people.”
“Well, it didn’t please her tonight,” Mac grumbled.
“No?”
“Dammit. I didn’t fucking sign up for this shit.”
“You signed up to please your clients. Are you saying you failed at that tonight, Mac?”
Mac swallowed and didn’t say anything.
“Hey.” Jem leaned forward. “Why don’t you sit with us?” Why don’t you let me kiss it better?
“You don’t have to treat me like I’m gonna fall apart.”
Tread lightly. “When I first got my level three I had this client who wanted me to stand very still, with a blindfold on, and ear plugs, while they did whatever they wanted.”
Coach shifted on the couch, subtly making room.
“So I did it, because it was what the client wanted, and because I thought it wasn’t that big a deal. I didn’t have my level four so they couldn’t do any form of bondage, so I figured I was fine.”
“You were just supposed to stand there, not moving?”
“Yeah. Doesn’t seem that hard, right?”
Mac, expression troubled, shook his head. “I don’t think I’d like that.”
Jem patted the couch in between himself and Coach. “Will you sit here? I want to cuddle. So I’m standing there, and I’d never been blindfolded by a client before. Coach, yes; clients, no.” As he continued the story he watched Mac’s face. He wanted to cuddle. He was probably worried about doing it in front of Coach, of taking their private closeness to The Gym. But this was important, and Jem needed to make sure that whatever else happened, they could be honest in this room. They could be true in this room.
“And I should have safeworded, because I knew I was freaking out, but I didn’t. Kept telling myself it would only be a few more minutes and I’d be fine.”
Mac finally moved, and his slide into Jem’s space was always the same smooth, nearly apologetic glide until he was aligned against Jem’s body, ready for an arm to wrap around him. If Jem misjudged the timing things could get awkward. It had happened twice now, and Mac always pulled away.
But here, on Coach’s couch, while Jem was still talking, he did it right. Arm outstretched, Mac leaning just a little.
“Then what?”
“Hmm?” He blinked down at Mac. “What?”
“Then what happened? You didn’t safeword because you thought it would only be a few more minutes and you could last that long and then…what? You sort of stopped talking.”
“Oh. Sorry. I got a little lost in thought.”
Coach snorted.
Jem shot him a glare. “Anyway, then I went up to the locker rooms and totally lost it. Like horrible, sobbing-in-the-shower lost it. And the worst part was that I couldn’t even figure out what had been so awful about it. The client was nice. The kink was mild and totally non-invasive. But I, like, couldn’t stop shaking. It was so bad I didn’t even have to justify coming here and knocking on the door. Because I couldn’t imagine getting in my car to drive home right then.”
“You used to justify coming here?” Coach asked. “You shouldn’t have bothered. You can always come here.”
“Well, I know you mean that, but I really can’t always come here, Coach. Or I’d be here every night.” More truth flung between them. Jem, carefully not looking at Coach, caught Mac’s nod in agreement. “You too?” he murmured, not that it would stop Coach from hearing.
“Just, it’s so contained here. I was glad when Lupe said you were already here. Though going home would have been okay, too.”
Was now the time to bring it up? Mac snuggled in closer, pulling his legs up. Jem tightened his arm. No. Later.
“I came here and cried all over Coach and he patted my head and told me that it was okay to be upset over a client, even if they didn’t do anything wrong. Was that how it was with Paula?”
“I couldn’t make it make sense. I thought if I could figure out why she wanted to stare at me, maybe that would help. But it made no sense.”
Coach’s hand dragged across Jem’s arm, then settled at Mac’s neck. “It’s different things for everyone. I’d rather be skull-fucked than be slapped in the face, even if it’s a light slap. That sensation feels wrong to me, and no amount of telling myself I should be okay with it makes a difference.”
“Wouldn’t want to be slapped, either. Or skull-fucked. I don’t think I could ever do that, Coach.”
“How many things have you done recently that you didn’t ever think you’d do?”
Mac grunted and pressed his head into Jem’s neck. “She wanted me to just sit there looking at her. Looking into her eyes. And I couldn’t. I kept looking away. And she was nice about it, even though I kept fucking up, but it was so fucking awful.”
“Jem, when you work with Paula, how does it make you feel?”
“I don’t know. Good, I guess. Sort of peaceful. Like if I can get into the moment of it, then it makes everything simpler. It’s just the two of us, and all I have to do is be.”
Coach smiled at him like he’d said something right. “We should teach Mac how to just be, don’t you think?”
Mac groaned. “No. I’m not fucking staring at you guys.”
“Of course you are. You knew that’s what you were coming in here for, Mac.” Coach’s fingers indented Mac’s skin where he squeezed. “Didn’t you?”
Jem expected Mac to curl in more, but instead he pushed away from them, stood up.
“What’s the fucking point? What is the fucking point of it? Like, was she getting off on looking at me? Did it turn her on? At least I could understand that. But I don’t think it did. She wasn’t turned on. She was just…fuck!” His hands were clenched into fists.
“You won’t always know what a client is getting out of the service you provide. Sometimes it’s a blowjob, but what they really want is connection. And you served that client well, Mac, both his stated need, and his deeper need.”
“That was easier. He was…he told me that’s what he wanted.”
“Paula told you she wanted to stare into your eyes and do nothing else.”
“But I don’t understand why.”
Coach shook his head. “Clients aren’t obligated to tell you why. But friendship is a little different. Come here.”
“I don’t want to stare into your eyes, Coach.”
“Because you’re afraid of all the love you’ll see there?”
Mac clenched his jaw and looked away.
“Ah, Mac, Mac.” Coach stood and took Mac’s face in his hands.
Jem didn’t know if he would have felt differently about this moment on any other day, but all he felt now was love, and desire, and hope that Coach could get Mac back from whatever edge he always went to.
“Just for a minute,” Coach said softly. “Just for a minute, let yourself be open to this. Let yourself feel it.”
“I can’t.”
“I know it feels that way, but it’s just like anything else.” Coach stroked Mac’s cheeks and Jem knew what he was about to say. His body flushed in anticipation of it, and in memory. “It’s just like kneeling here for Jem, letting him in. Relax your muscles, breathe deeply. All you have to do is let me in just like that.”
Mac didn’t move away. His chest rose and fell too fast to be true relaxation, but he stayed still, and Coach stayed still, and Jem, caught in the same web, afraid to move lest it disturb them, mirrored their stillness.
It was only maybe two minutes, or three, before Coach tilted Mac’s head forward to kiss his temple. “I owe you an apology. I started thinking about what I would have felt about Malcolm when I was twenty-two. My attitude the other day was flippant, and I’m sorry for that. You’re right to be on guard. You’re absolutely right to want to strike out. It’s how both of us grew up, and I should have reminded myself of that before I was so dismissive.”
Mac frowned. “I just don’t get why everyone likes him, and says he’s a dick.”
“Because those of us who have lived with fear but no longer do value the way he honors that fear.”
“How can you say that? He wanted me to be afraid. He fucking said so.”
Coach kissed Mac, lightly, keeping his face very close. “Yes. But he knows—I know, Lupe knows—that he will not hurt you. For him there is a high in causing fear while also providing safety. Look at me, honey.”
“God, don’t call me that. My mother calls me that.”
“What about ‘sweetheart’?” Another kiss and Jem’s breath quickened.
“Please don’t laugh at me,” Mac whispered.
“I’m not. You know I’m not.”
“I cried. When she was looking at me. I don’t even know why. She stared at me and I had to keep looking at her and then I was crying. On the floor. Not that anyone paid attention, but just…I don’t know why that happened, and I don’t want it to happen again.”
Oh, love. Jem bit his lip.
Coach pulled Mac into an embrace. “You like to watch the needle. She was a needle in a way you didn’t expect, that’s all. There’s no shame in crying.”
“Tell that to my brother. He used to go fucking nuts when I cried.”
“I don’t think you should ever introduce me to your brother, FYI. He and Lupe’s parents are on my no-contact list.”
Mac sighed. “I couldn’t stop it. And she kept looking at me. Watching me cry. God, it was so fucked up.”
“Sit down. Just for a few more minutes before the two of you go home.”
“Yeah, okay.” Mac crumpled into the couch, and Jem didn’t waste any time wrapping arms around him. He relaxed into the hug. “I feel so stupid. It was a nothing thing. The shit I thought would completely fuck me up on the floor hasn’t been nearly as hard as some of the shit I never even thought existed. Like that foot thing. Or this thing today.”
“Our clients are a never-ending source of surprise.” Coach sat close, and when he looked up, it was at Jem. “Sometimes so are our friends.”
An opening. Jem didn’t have to take it, but it was here, and Mac was in his arms. He brushed a kiss across the side of Mac’s face. “I’ve been thinking about something. Wanna hear it?”
“I don’t know. Does it involve me staring at you for five straight minutes?”
“It might, but it’s not mandatory.”
“Uh. Okay. Shoot.”
One last look at Coach, and this time his plea for support was answered. Coach nodded.
Jem inhaled. “I want to change the rules. Our rules.” Please say yes. Please, please say yes.
He’d expected Mac to stay still, the way he did when he wasn’t sure what to do. But instead he turned, in Jem’s arms, not pulling away. “You mean the house rules?”
“Yeah.” And Jem couldn’t have braced—he’d known that once he started, he couldn’t protect himself any more from what this was, what it had already been—but he was grateful to realize he didn’t need to.
Mac kissed him, and in that kiss there was an entire world of possibility. “But what about all that other stuff you said?”
“I can’t think about all that. This is what I want. If it’s what you want…”
“Yeah. I mean, if ‘this’ is kissing.” A flush took over Mac’s cheeks. “And maybe, like, more than that. But you mean at the house? Not just here?”
Jem nodded, mouth suddenly dry.
“But you said that we shouldn’t. Drama. And, uh, I’m not gay enough or something.”
He’d been so damn good, said all the right things, held back in all the right ways. Don’t fall for straight boys. Don’t fall for boys who can’t fall for you. And dammit, he hadn’t expected Mac to question him. “If you aren’t interested—”
“Please don’t be mad at me. I know something happened. I know something changed with you after Coach’s house. I thought you were pissed at me, except you kept treating me the same way you always do.” Mac dropped his eyes. “Maybe I can’t fall in love at all. I don’t want to hurt you.”
They stood at the edge of an abyss, the two of them standing on the crumbling rock, barely balanced to keep their feet. Jem looked at Coach over what seemed like a vast and increasing space.
Coach looked back, steady and solid. He didn’t nod again, or smile. But Jem could take another breath, inhaling Coach’s solidity. He drew Mac’s face up. “Not like I’m not scared of that, but the alternative is trying to pretend I don’t feel what I feel. I want to be with you. Every time I pass you on the floor I want to touch you. And we can’t do that. But at home…I think we should.”
“With kissing?”
“Hell yes. Oh god, Mac, yes.” They both leaned in, as if sealing it, or affirming it, kissing to make a point. Or maybe just because.
It was different. Kissing Mac had been good since the first, but Jem gave in to it this time as he hadn’t before, closing his eyes, unlocking some room in his head that he’d kept tightly shuttered before.
Flying, soaring, falling and catching ourselves…
Their lips parted, but they were still close, achingly close.
“Do we have new rules now?” Mac whispered.
“Do we need them?”
He shook his head. “I’ve never…I don’t…”
Coach cleared his throat. He didn’t move forward, though Jem thought he would have been welcome. “Think of this as new, perfectly new, never been done before. Both of you.”
That message was for Jem. I’ve never felt this way before either. He wanted to say it, but he couldn’t quite make his mouth form the words.
“Is it supposed to be like…” Mac frowned, and even that was dear now, those small lines in his forehead. “Why is my heart pounding?”
“Maybe you’re excited.” Jem kissed him. “Should we go home?”
“Will we still…I mean, I guess we’re going to, uh, you know. Have sex. Like not here. But will we still cuddle? Not that I…that I…”
This finally clicked Jem’s usual bearings back into place. “Mac, of course we’ll cuddle. Oh my god. You’re so silly. We can even cuddle with wine now, though we don’t have to. Consider me your permanent cuddle buddy. And all the rest of it is…” Jem found Coach again, over Mac’s shoulder. “All the rest of it is stuff we can build in, or build up to, but that’s not what I’m proposing. I can get into your pants whenever I ask Coach nicely, you know? Changing the rules is about something else.”
Coach nodded, almost imperceptibly.
“Yeah. I mean I kind of thought that, but I wouldn’t have known how to say it. It’s, uh, it’s about I can kiss you at the house now, and I don’t have to worry it’ll hurt you.”
It wasn’t quite that simple, could never be that simple, but the perception there knocked Jem back.
Thankfully, Coach had no such problem. “More that if you hurt one another, then you share responsibility for fixing it.”
“I can do that. Share responsibility or whatever. Or I don’t know, maybe I just…I like you a lot. And I don’t know if I can love people, but Lupe says she can, so maybe it’s possible.”
It was sweet, and Jem kissed him, but his eyes caught Coach’s before Coach could shield his expression.
He looked sad. So fucking sad. Sad for Mac, or Lupe, or maybe for himself and Ryan. But for a moment Jem faltered, despite the flighty thing inside him that couldn’t wait to be at home, in his bedroom, with the right to say the things he usually held back.
Then Coach smiled and stood and clapped a hand on both of their backs. “You two have things to do elsewhere. And I should get back to work. I’ll see you guys before shift tonight.”
They stood. Coach stood. He kissed each of them on the forehead: a blessing, or a benediction. “Goodnight, my boys.”
“’Night, Coach,” Mac said.
Jem hesitated.
“You are such a beautiful, incredible man.” Coach kissed his forehead again. “I’ll see you later.”
“Bye, Coach.”
Whatever was up with Coach slipped from Jem’s mind as they made their way to the car. Mac’s car tonight. They might have talked on the way home, but they didn’t, and Jem found it suited him.
They were still standing at the edge of a precipice. Now he just had to get them to safety.
* * *
Mac was impossibly, gloriously awkward.
“I feel really dumb.” He stood in the center of Jem’s room, having only taken off his shoes downstairs before following Jem up.
Jem ignored the awkwardness, pulling off his shoes, shedding his pants. He went into his bathroom and washed his hands. When he returned, he stood in front of Mac and took a deep breath.
This. He’d been waiting for this all day. He’d been forcing himself not to imagine it since Mac had asked if he had a room for rent. And now here they were.
“You aren’t dumb. Nothing about you is dumb. Will you come to bed with me?”
“Isn’t that what we’re doing?”
Jem shook his head. “Right now, you’re going along with whatever I choose for us to do. I don’t want that. I want you to choose, too.”
“I’m afraid I won’t be good enough for you. I mean, you’ve been with more people, and you make them feel good, and I’m not sure I ever—” Mac faltered when Jem pulled off his shirt. His eyes traveled down Jem’s body, and Jem felt a stirring of relief. How straight are you? he’d asked. Not too straight. Not too straight at all.
“Will you come to bed with me? We don’t have to do anything we haven’t done before.”
“Are you joking?” Mac moved, suddenly, hands coming to rest on Jem’s sides, eyes boring into him. “I want to do everything. Right now. All day. With you.”
The relief, which had been a trickle before, was a full force river now, sweeping away doubt. Jem kissed the man in his room, not holding back, and was gratified when Mac gently guided him toward the bed.
“We can take it slowly,” he offered breathlessly. “I don’t want to overwhelm you with my physical demands—”
Mac laughed. “Oh my god, shut up.” They kissed, and this time there was fire to it. This time Mac tumbled them down on the bed and kissed him before eventually pulling away. “I don’t know how to feel this way. I don’t know if it’s love or lust or just that I’m not afraid right now, which is the scariest thing I’ve ever felt in my life.”
“I make you feel safe?”
“God, I sound so stupid. Stop letting me talk.” Mac kissed him again, but this time Jem put a hand on his chest. Not quite to stop him, but to keep him from taking it deeper.
“Tell me I make you feel safe,” Jem whispered. “Come on.”
“From the first day. And I kept telling myself I didn’t know you, and that I couldn’t trust you, but you were so…” Mac shook his head. “Are you sure it’s okay that we do this? Are you positive?”
“Yeah. I’m positive.” It didn’t feel like a lie, in that moment, with Mac over him. Despite all the questions, despite that sad look on Coach’s face. “I’m so positive right now. Take off your shirt, Mac.”
Mac leaned up to obey and his tattoos—finally Jem’s to study, to stare at, to drag his finger across, then his tongue—were even more intriguing up close.
“This is my favorite.” He kissed the tornado. “You make me feel like this. Like I’m out of control.”
“What does Coach make you feel like?”
Jem smoothed over Mac’s skin, brushing through dark, incredibly soft chest hair. All contradictions. All harsh tones and soft edges. “Coach makes me feel safe, I guess. Like I’m all right. Or I will be all right.”
“So it’s sort of reversed. He makes me feel crazy, like I can’t keep myself together, I can’t even keep my thoughts in my head. But you make me feel like it’s all right. Even if I don’t know what I am.”
“You don’t have to.”
“Okay. But what do we do now?”
“I could touch you everywhere, for the rest of the night. That would seriously make me happy.”
Mac rolled his eyes. “Try again. Something that gets us off, maybe.”
“You think I can’t get you off with my hands?” Jem slid one down the back of Mac’s pants. “What were you saying?”
“No— I didn’t mean—” Mac, trying to evade Jem’s hand, collapsed into him, thrusting forward. “Ohhh, fuck…”
“Get these off, right now. I want you naked.” Jem swallowed more demands and added, “Please.”
“You can be toppy. I kind of like it when you’re toppy.”
And that was probably true—in the sense that Mac wasn’t lying—but it couldn’t be what tonight was about. “Maybe tomorrow. What I want right now more than anything is just to…play. Is that all right?”
“Play?” Mac shucked his pants and stood there in his jock, awkward again.
Jem sat up and tugged him in, kissing the tornado. “I think for you sex is acts, like you can separate it out to a blowjob, or a fuck, or a hand job, or whatever. I don’t want you to think of tonight as a list of acts. I want it to be an adventure.”
“An adventure,” Mac repeated, hands grazing Jem’s shoulders.
“You can do anything you want.” It was so much harder to say than Jem had imagined. “I want you to do anything.”
Mac’s breath caught. “I don’t know a whole lot of anything.”
“Yeah. But you can try, if you want. Anything you want.”
“There’s a…it’s not a big thing. But you sort of…played with my hair. And it felt so good. Like it made me feel so…cared for.”
Except Jem would have bet his house that what Mac meant to say there was loved. It was folly. It was far too soon. But he’d never been able to control how completely he fell, and in the moment, before he could think about it, Jem said, “I wanted you to feel my love for you so you wouldn’t doubt.”
“I felt it. Can I…try that? I don’t think I can make you feel that way, but I’d like to try.”
Jem ran his hands up Mac’s sides, around to his back, pressing his cheek against the tornado on his abdomen. “Yeah.” He held his breath.
The touch of Mac’s fingers, tentatively brushing over his hair, then digging a little deeper until they reached his scalp. He loved this sensation, which was why he’d thought to rub Mac’s head to distract him from the idea of someone sucking his toes.
Jem closed his eyes, letting Mac experiment. Letting him play. Feeling his movements grow slowly more confident, tracing the same patterns again and again, curling around Jem’s ears, sneaking down his neck. It was bliss, and surprising. He’d expected Mac to want to tick things off his list, to use Jem as a safe place to explore things he was afraid clients would want on the floor. But this was…a gift. A service Jem never would have asked for. One that was entirely for him and had nothing to do with The Gym at all.
Abruptly it was too much. He drew one of Mac’s hands to his lips. “Thank you. Feel free to do that any time.”
Mac exhaled. “It felt okay?”
“It felt amazing. You feel amazing.” Jem craned his neck to look up. “Any time. That’s why I want to change the rules. Every time I see you on the floor I want to touch you like this. Coming home to cuddle is great, and we still should, but I want this, too.”
“I’m… I don’t think I’m good enough for you. You should be with someone better than me, someone who like…isn’t all screwed up in the head.”
Jem coaxed him down on the bed, and Mac came to lie beside him. “I don’t think it works that way. I don’t think there’s some kind of scale, and people earn the right to be with other people. There’s just interest, and desire, and a little bit of thrill. I want to be with people where all those things intersect.”
“That’s me and Coach, for sure.”
“Yeah. And Lupe, I guess, though she won’t let me near her.”
“Huh. But not the Professor?”
“Ugh. No. I love the Professor. But I don’t desire the Professor.”
Mac laughed. “What about clients?”
This was so not the direction Jem wanted the evening to take. But Mac didn’t ask a lot of questions, so when he did it only seemed right to answer them.
“There are a few. There’s a guy named Anthony who’s a real sweetheart. He’s sort of a submissive top, which is a pretty good fit. We have a couple who come in, and a lot of us love working with them, so when they pick me it’s kind of…nice. I don’t know. There are some clients I definitely look forward to, if they want my service.”
“I have one of those. From the other day. He wanted me to blow him, but I just sort of started doing it and he stopped me. He wanted me to go slower.”
Which seemed like something Mac would hate. Both being wrong the first time, and having to go slowly. But his voice was low and thoughtful.
“And I thought about how you make me feel, and how Coach makes me feel, and I just sort of…gave it to him. More than anyone in my entire life. I just tried to be what he needed in that moment, and obviously I was there because it was my job, but that wasn’t really why. He just seemed so sad to me, and I wanted to help.” He picked up his head. “I was never that guy. The guy who wanted to help. The guy who wanted to please other people. I couldn’t be. And now I feel like I hardly know myself, except I can afford food, and a place to live, and a bed—”
“That is not a bed.”
Mac smiled. “And you like me, which I don’t get, because I spent my whole life being a dick to everyone. Sometimes I think you’ll figure out I’m this horrible asshole and you’ll hate me, except I’m not even trying to hide that anymore. It’s more like…it’s like I spent all that time with Coach and he kind of peeled off my skin. It’s still me underneath, but I don’t totally recognize myself.”
“I do.”
“Yeah. And you like me. It’s so weird.” He swallowed. “It’s so weird I almost don’t believe it, except I know it’s true. But I still don’t quite believe it.”
“It’s different for me too. This. You.” There was no point in being less than honest. Jem met Mac’s gaze. “The Professor says I usually end up with guys who don’t know me, or maybe who I don’t let know me. You know, she said the same thing Coach said, about doing this like it’s the first time anyone’s ever done anything like it before. Maybe they’re right.”
“Well I actually haven’t done anything like this before, so that’s pretty much the only way I can do it.”
“Never?” He’d promised himself he wouldn’t ask questions, but he was damn curious. “Not with anyone?”
“What, lie in bed and talk? Fuck no.” Mac flopped backward. “But it’s different with you. I don’t exactly understand why. I thought it was because you were a guy, but I…don’t think that’s it.”
Jem’s heart beat faster, but he told himself to remain calm, and cool. This would not be a deep confession of love, not from Mac. And that was all right. He’d known that when he started.
“It’s more like the whole…shape of it is different. I was always really careful not to get involved with anyone I knew, or who knew the people I knew. And you know everyone who like…matters to me right now. Though I’m still pretty sure I’m going to wake up tomorrow on my friend’s couch.”
“Have you talked to her lately?”
Mac shook his head. “I don’t know what to say. I told her I found a place, and got a new job, but I can’t really tell her about it.”
“It’s isolating. The Gym.”
“Well, I guess I kind of like that part. Because it makes it easy to just disappear.”
Jem pushed up until he was on his side. He pressed a hand to Mac’s chest, and waited for Mac to look over, catching his breath to look him in the eye. “Should I worry that I’ll get up one morning and you’ll be gone?”
“Not like that. But it’s always been tempting. And anyway, there’s my mom. I think if it wasn’t for her, I would have gone away a long time ago.”
So much pain. Jem didn’t need to ask, and wouldn’t. They all had their pain, their sadness. Questions and answers wouldn’t help anyone. He pressed a kiss to Mac’s lips and laid his head down on Mac’s chest. “I’m glad you didn’t leave a long time ago.”
One arm came around him. “Me too.”
Jem had intended a grand seduction. Maybe to awe Mac a little with everything he could have now that they could do more than cuddle. He definitely didn’t mean for them to have a slightly depressing conversation which ended with Mac holding him, but that’s what they did.
When they woke up, later that day, he got to show Mac a little bit of what he’d meant to show him earlier. But he couldn’t quite forget Coach telling him he wouldn’t be able to control it, he wouldn’t be able to predict this thing.
That was good, right? It was probably good. Sex and love and play with Mac was definitely good. Jem told himself to stop making everything so dire and enjoy the moment.
It was nowhere near as easy as it should have been.