All That's Dark and Bright

*** A continuation of the Jesse and Will storyline. Byron tries to seduce Jesse, and Jesse discovers his jealous side. ***

Other stories with these characters include:

Lad With the Cock in his Mouth [Jesse discovers a taste for cock]

Jesse, it was Really Nothing [Jesse punishes his girlfriend for sleeping with his best mate]

Jesse's Charming Plan [Jesse decides to punish Will for seducing his girlfriend]

I might Share You [Will starts to push Jesse's boundaries]

Six Dead Poets [Will shares Jesse with the members of Oscar's club]

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Luce's voice floated up the stairs.

"Jesse, can you please stop masturbating and clean up?"

I rolled off the bed and sighed. Luce was in a foul mood. Her mother was coming to visit us from Dorset, and we were going to dinner with her. On a Friday night. The perfect night to be having dinner with a woman who thought I was the devil's spawn, and that her daughter should be dating someone more solid, more reliable. More like my best mate, Will.

My gay best mate, Will, who was currently in an undefined three-way polyamorous relationship with me and Luce. Well, with me.

Just because I looked like I could front Tokio Hotel, while Will looked like Tom Hardy and Jason Statham's illegitimate love child, didn't make him a better choice for her daughter. For a start, he smoked like a fucking cancer factory, and secondly, he only fucked men. Whereas I was in love with her daughter, and I only smoked after a few pints.

"No eyeliner!" Luce shouted from downstairs, and I rolled my eyes.

Luce generally had no problems with the way I dressed, but for her mother's visits, she chose my wardrobe.

I got to keep my black jeans, but she insisted I wore a long-sleeved dress shirt, and instead of my usual leather jacket, a fitted pea coat she'd bought me herself down at the vintage. She'd even laid out a scarf. A scarf.

I didn't even know why I was cleaning up. It wasn't as if her mother'd be coming into my room. Luce had her own room in the flat, but usually slept in mine, and as a consequence we always had one clean room we could pretend we lived in.

But I knew Luce was anxious, and she'd feel less anxious if she thought I was doing my part, so I cleaned off the main surfaces and put anything loose and non-food related into a drawer.

"Ten minutes!" She shouted up the stairs.

Just enough time for a shower and a shave.

On my way back to the bedroom in a towel, Luce came up the stairs.

She put her arms around me and crushed herself against me. "Please tell me it's over."

"Soon, love," I said, and kissed her. "Is she driving back tonight?"

She shook her head. "She's going to sleep in my room."

Oh.

"So, she'll be here tomorrow?"

Luce nodded, and I thought she was going to cry.

"Come on, Luce, we can get through this."

She held me tighter. "You don't understand," she said in a hoarse whisper. "Dad's getting remarried."

Her parents had been divorced for nearly four years, and for all that time her father had been with the same woman. The one he'd left Lucy's mother for. This was bad. Lucy's mother was not going to be in a good mood.

"Maybe I should get dressed before she turns up, yeah?" I suggested.

She let go of me and I headed into the bedroom. I finished dressing and put on some cologne. It was what Will called 'the cheap stuff', and I thought it would be perfect for Mrs Evans to inhale for the evening.

The bell rang, and Luce jogged back downstairs. I took a deep breath and let it out.

My long hair was brushed back behind my ears, and apart from my piercings, I could pass for a perfectly straight university student. From Camden.

"Jesse, mum's here!"

I wondered if Mrs Evans could hear the desperation in her daughter's voice.

I headed downstairs to join her and Mrs Evans—Dawn—for a lovely evening of being found wanting.

"Jesse, how lovely to see you!" Dawn lied, giving me a massively disappointed smile. Perhaps she'd hoped we'd broken up while she was on her way here.

"Lovely to see you too, Dawn," I said. "Would you like a cuppa before we head off?"

"I've just got to get my things," said Luce, and disappeared up to her room to, I assumed, take some deep breaths into a paper bag.

"Do you have any strawberry tea?" Dawn asked, as I led her through to the lounge.

"We always have fruits in the cupboard here," I said.

"Twining's Fruits? Yes, that's fine, thank you."

But I could tell she was disappointed I could accommodate her, as I set the kettle on.

"You look very nice today," said Dawn. Finally, a note of approval as she ran her gaze over me. I wished I'd worn eyeliner.

"This restaurant," she spoke to me from the lounge as she sat on the couch, "Does it have gluten free, do you know?"

I smiled my politest smile. "I'm sure it will," I said. "Most do now."

"But you haven't checked?"

I dropped my head and concentrated on making her tea.

"I haven't, no."

"Did Lucy not tell you I'm intolerant?" she said.

I didn't need Luce to tell me that.

"Never mind," she went on. "I can always get something on the way home."

I kept my smile in place and delivered her tea to her. "I'll just check on Lucy."

I headed for the stairs.

"Tell her she's the one who's supposed to wear the dress!" Dawn called after me. "She never wears dresses."

I reached the top of the stairs and wondered if Luce had a spare paper bag I could use.

I found her in my room, sitting on the side of the bed. She was in the same clothes she'd greeted her mother in; leggings with boots, a soft pale-pink tunic top, and a woollen cardigan coat that came down to her knees. Her red hair spilled over her shoulders in waves, framing the face I knew and loved. She was gorgeous.

I got onto my knees in front of her and hugged her.

"She's horrible," I whispered.

"I know," she said. She put her hand against my hair. "Did I tell you she's decided she's gluten intolerant now?"

I squeezed her waist tightly. "It's going to be okay, Luce. We've faced worse."

"It's nearly seven!" Dawn called up the stairs.

"She usually has tea at six," whispered Luce.

"Best we get on our way then."

I stood and offered her my hand, and she stood.

"Today is a good day to die."

She grinned and smacked my arm. "You're an idiot, you know that?"

"I love you, so, yeah." I grinned and she smacked me again.

I put my arm around her and gently propelled her towards the door. "Come on, love, mustn't keep your mum waiting."

Dawn sat with her handbag in her lap on the way to the restaurant, and accepted my help getting out of the cab. She was only in her fifties, but she had 'a bad hip', and it often played up. When I was around.

Luce and I had picked out a place we could afford, and that we thought Dawn might like, down by the river.

As we walked up to the counter, my phone buzzed.

"Table for three," Luce said to the host, and I pulled out my phone to check it as we were led to our table.

A text.

'I watched thee when the fever glazed thine eyes,

Yielding my couch and stretched me on the ground'

Poetry. Someone was sending me fucking poetry. Not a number my phone recognised. So, not Will.

"Jesse?" I realised Luce was speaking to me, and shoved my phone back into my pocket.

"Sorry, yes, just someone asking for my notes."

"Your notes?" Dawn asked politely.

"Lecture notes," I said.

Dawn liked to pretend that I was already graduated and unemployed and skiving off her daughter, whose computer science degree was, it was true, a safer bet than my journalism qualification would be.

"Oh, well, I hope it's all sorted," she said.

Because reading a text was how these things usually got resolved.

Thankfully the restaurant did have gluten free food on the menu, giving Dawn nothing more to complain about.

But as we ate, my phone buzzed in my pocket again and again. Finally, I excused myself and went to the bathroom.

'Whom did I seek around the tottering hall?

For thee. Whose safety first provide for? Thine.'

And then:

'Thus much and more; and yet thou lov'st me not,

And never wilt! Love dwells not in our Will.'

And then:

'Nor can I blame thee, though it be my lot

To strongly, wrongly, vainly love thee still.'

I sat in one of the two stalls provided while some guy pissed into the urinals, and wondered who the fuck was sending me poetry.

And then something occurred to me.

I Googled the lines.

It was fucking Byron. Byron the poet. Byron the dead poet.

Byron, his tongue hot in my mouth and his fingers lubing up my arse with his spit, preparing me for a fuck that'd never happened.

I got a kick of excitement at the thought he might be texting me.

It could still be a joke. Will's idea of a joke? I read the texts back and noted the capitalised, 'W' in the third text.

Love dwells not in our Will.

I debated calling Will to tell him Byron was texting me poetry, and then remembered how jealous he'd been that night in Room Three, when Byron and I had sucked and hand-fucked each other. Maybe I should think on this before I did anything.

I headed back to the table and took my seat.

My phone vibrated again. I pulled it out and turned it off, then slipped it back into my pocket.

As Luce and I paid the bill at the end of the evening, Dawn found another reason to give me her best disapproving look. Seeing her daughter and I split the bill, I saw her purse her lips. So did Luce.

"We're students Mum," she said. "Jesse can't cover all three of us."

I winced. I would have. I'd have found money from somewhere, but Luce wouldn't have it. She didn't believe in the 'man pays bills' philosophy of previous generations. Her mum... not so much.

It was a tense drive back to the flat, with the promise of a long evening ahead of us. I sat in the front seat of the cab and pulled out my phone. As it vibrated back to life, I saw three more texts.

'So, we'll go no more a roving

So late into the night,

Though the heart be still as loving,

And the moon be still as bright.'

Then:

'For the sword outwears its sheath,

And the soul wears out the breast,

And the heart must pause to breathe,

And love itself have rest.'

And finally,

'Though the night was made for loving,

And the day returns too soon,

Yet we'll go no more a roving

By the light of the moon.'

Luce put her hand on the back of my seat.

"Everything okay?"

"Yeah," I said quietly. "I think someone's got the wrong number."

"Can I see?"

Fuck no.

"I just deleted the texts."

I knew that sounded suspicious, but it wasn't a conversation I could have in front of Dawn.

Back at the flat, Dawn declared herself tired and mercifully took herself off to bed.

"It's still early," I said to Luce. "We could go out if you like?"

She shook her head. "No, if mum wakes up and can't find me, she'll have a fit."

"Then, Netflix and chill?"

She grinned. "You okay 'chilling' with just a girl?"

I pulled her into my arms. "Don't you dare, Lucy Evans. Don't you dare suggest you're not enough for me."

Her smile fell. "But I'm not, am I? If I was, you wouldn't be fucking Will."

I gently let go of her, a prickle of discomfort down my spine.

"I didn't think you minded."

She shrugged. "It's not as if I have a choice, is it? You are what you are. And I love you, you know I do."

I swallowed. This felt bad. "Are we breaking up?"

"No!" she said, and I let out a breath of relief. "Jesus, no, Jess, I just... I just wonder..." she shrugged helplessly. "I wonder where it's going."

And in the back of my mind, I remembered Byron's fingers wet with spit, pushing inside me.

"Whatever you want, Luce, just tell me. I won't risk losing you."

She gave me a smile that held a hint of tears. "I know. That's why I try not to ask you for anything you can't give me."

She kissed me, and her lips were soft and warm and almost... almost enough.

As we headed up to the bedroom, I knew I had to find a way to let her know what she meant to me.

I took off my coat and she shed her cardigan, standing in front of me in her tunic, her leggings and her boots. She was breathtaking, and I knew she should be enough.

But she's not, is she? Because if she was, she's right, you wouldn't be fucking Will. And sucking off men in private clubs. And getting that kick in your stomach at the thought of Byron sending you poetry.

She stroked the hair back from my forehead. "Where are you?"

"Here," I said. "I'm right here."

I started unbuttoning my shirt and she took over, then slid her arms around me. She laid her head against my chest and sighed against me.

"I like your heartbeat."

"Thanks," I said, not knowing what the response was supposed to be to that. I stroked her hair and she stayed like that for an age, her cheek pressed to my skin.

When she pulled back, there was misery in her eyes.

"Your phone's going off."

Fuck. FUCK.

I pulled it out and she took it from me.

She read the text and then held the phone up so I could see it. The first line of the text was displayed on the locked screen.

"What is this?" she asked.

It read, 'And now, my Epic Renegade! what are ye at?'

"I don't know," I said. It was half-true. I didn't know for sure it was Byron. I was glad I hadn't put his name against the number.

"Then tell them to stop texting you," she said. She sounded hurt, and I could tell she didn't believe me when I said I didn't know who it was.

I took the phone from her and unlocked it. After a moment, I typed in, 'Not sure who this is, but you've got the wrong number'.

A moment later, the phone buzzed.

'So sorry, my dear boy, my mistake.'

I felt sick. I hadn't meant to reject him.

Luce looked at the text. "How do they know you're a boy?"

"How does anyone?" I joked.

She didn't smile.

"Look, if they text again, I'll block the number, okay?"

She nodded. Still not happy, but as always, willing to give me the benefit of the doubt.

"Come on, Luce, you're my girl."

She let me pull her tunic off over her head, and then sat on the bed to pull her boots off. She stripped off her leggings and stood in front of me in just her underwear.

"Take a picture of me," she whispered.

"What?"

"Take a picture of me. And if they text you again, send it to them. Cut out my face, obviously. But send it to them."

So if it was a guy, he'd know I was with a girl. And could I really blame her for wanting this mystery person to piss off and leave us alone? It wasn't fair. She'd agreed to me fucking Will—she hadn't agreed to anything else.

I had no intention of ever sending pictures of my half-naked girlfriend to anyone, but I did as she asked and took the picture, making sure her face wasn't in the frame.

She checked it and grinned.

"Yeah," I said, "You are fucking hot, Lucy Evans, daughter of the gluten-intolerant beast of Broadwindsor."

"Shut the fuck up and get naked," she said with a grin.

We climbed into bed and I put my laptop on the side table so we could watch a movie. But as she lay curled against me, my whole body was primed for the buzz of my phone.

She pulled my arm across her and wound her fingers with mine.

"Are you still with me?"

I kissed her shoulder. "Always."

But we didn't make love that night. And we didn't fuck either.

I woke late the next morning after Luce had already gotten up to have breakfast with her mother, and as I always did, I checked my phone.

There was a text.

I unlocked the phone and checked it.

It read: 'Message received.'

I opened the conversation history. A text had been sent from my phone. Of Luce's face next to mine. Taken while I slept. Sent to Byron. No text. But the look in Luce's eyes was one hundred percent defiance. She was also giving the phone the middle finger.

She knew my lock code. I didn't hide anything from Luce. I hadn't meant to hide anything from her. I hadn't needed to until now.

But there was no way I could explain Will taking me to the society of poets who weren't alive anymore. I couldn't explain it myself. Couldn't explain what that experience had fed in me, or why I'd loved it, and why I wanted to do it again.

I got up and got dressed, knowing what I did next would make or break our relationship.

I had to stop fucking men. I had a girlfriend who meant everything to me.

Stop fucking everyone except Will.

Fuck.

While I didn't care if Luce had sex with women, I knew I'd hate it if she fucked another man. And Will was fast becoming more than just a random hook-up. Sex with him fed something in me that could only stay dormant so long.

I couldn't ask Luce to dominate me the way Will did. She wanted that from me. And as sweet and soft and beautiful as her body was, she would never be Will, with his pale blue eyes and his hungry mouth.

She'd never be able to give me that mix of fear and anticipation and deep, gritty fulfillment that came from Will silently pushing himself into me, the sense of achievement when I could take all of him, that raw and savage feeling of being owned by his cock.

I didn't question why I needed that. I didn't question why she needed that from me. I just knew I was always going to want Will to fuck me. Every time I saw him, every time I laid a hand against my lobon in the early hours of the morning while she slept beside me.

Fuck. I was so utterly fucked.

When I got downstairs, I found Will sitting at the table with Lucy and her mother.

Will was chatting with Dawn while he buttered toast, and she was giving him a look of affection I was fairly sure meant she was imagining him as her future son-in-law.

Lucy spotted me and looked relieved. "Morning."

"Morning all," I said. I sat down next to Will and snagged some cold toast from the rack. "What you doing here?"

He gave me an exasperated look. "You've forgotten, haven't you?"

"Yes?"

"We're supposed to be going climbing."

That seemed unlikely. I let Will drag me to the gym, but I drew the line at physical activities that might be considered 'sports'.

He gave me a look that said, 'Really? You don't remember?'

He turned to Mrs Evans. "I thought I'd introduce Jesse to indoor climbing. He keeps saying he wants to build up his upper body strength. It's a great way to do that."

Sure. Sit at my fucking table and imply I barely have the strength to hold a piece of toast. Prick.

"So yeah, when you're ready, we should take off," he said, tearing into another piece of toast.

Lucy gave me terrified eyes. "I thought you were here today. With Mum."

"Actually, I must be getting back," said Dawn. "I need to get home to Max. He does fret if I'm away too long."

Max was her cat, a tabby and white thing that hated me almost as much as its owner did. If you ever have a relative who won't leave you alone, get them a neurotic shelter cat to love. If that doesn't work, get them two.

"I can come climbing with you guys then," said Luce, and Will paused chewing.

I rested my head in my hand and took a bite of toast while I waited for him to think up an excuse.

"I can only bring a plus one," he said, after the briefest pause. "It's a closed session."

"Oh?" said Luce. "Which climbing centre?"

Her eyes challenged him.

"The Lyle Tate centre," he said, and Luce looked as if he'd slapped her.

I was pretty sure Lyle Tate was one of Will's mates, and Luce probably knew that. An admission he was lying. She could probably guess why.

"Right, well, I'll clear up. Jesse, you'd better go with Will," she said.