Dale

Dale lights a cigarette on the back porch. It's raining out, but only just. It's that misty, dewy sort of rain that isn't really worth wearing an umbrella in but leaves your clothes damp all day. He snaps the lighter closed and puts it in his sweater pocket, staring back into my living room through the screen door. He looks contemplative, taking a drag like he doesn't need to, letting the acrid blue-grey smoke drift out of his mouth of its own accord. Effortless.

When I come out of the kitchen with two beers, I'm thankful that he's finally taken to smoking on the porch. He used to do it in my living room, without regard to what we were doing, or who was there. It pissed me off having to tell him I didn't like it. He says I'm a hypocrite because I smoke pot in my bathroom. He doesn't argue, though. Just points it out, so I know.

I bring the beer out onto the porch, closing the screen behind my back. Dale turns to me slowly and smiles, tiny puffs of smoke drifting up from his hand and hair, diluted by the mist. He offers me a cigarette for the thousandth time, and I shake my head. I hold out the beer to him and he takes it.

"I've been thinking," he says, putting the smoke in his mouth and twisting off the beer cap, "about Christine."

He doesn't look at me directly when he says it, because he knows I won't smile.

"Why would you tell me that?"

"I don't know, I'm just thinking about her. She said all this fucked up shit yesterday, about us."

"About you and I?"

"No," he says, as if he hadn't considered it, "about me and her. About our relationship. About commitment."

"She doesn't know, does she?"

I put down my beer and step closer to him, putting my hand on his waist, moving it towards the front of his jeans.

"Fuck... No, she doesn't," he says, taking a sip and then another drag, still staring off into the horizon of my screen door. Never looking at me.

"Then what about?" I ask him, reaching down to stroke the zipper, pushing on it, feeling him start to wake up.

"I don't know. Her and I... I mean, I know she's messed around with other guys, at parties and stuff. She even made out with Chantelle at Steve's once, but that was just for his birthday, and everyone was drunk. Now, I guess, she wants to get serious. She says she's going to stop."

I start moving down to my knees as he's talking, listening to half of what he says, the three drinks I've already had working faster than usual. I unzip him and pull him out, hard and warm in the cool, damp air.

"I mean, I don't know what to do," he says, "normally I don't care about this stuff. But Christine is, I don't know, special. I guess that sounds kinda gay."

I look up at him, my hand around his dick. He smiles, just so.

"Dale, you are kinda gay. In fact, you're a fag, but I've been telling you this for years. I've been telling you this as long as we've been fucking behind the backs of every girlfriend you've had for the last eight years."

"Yeah, but Ellen didn't give a shit," he says.

"Ellen was a dyke."

Dale gives a nod of 'you're right about that' and stares off again, sucking on the last of the cigarette, then flicking it behind him. He's just noticed what I'm doing, and peers down at me. I get no look of recognition, but his eyes flicker as I take him in my mouth.

"Fuck. Ellen, I mean, that was cool," he says, "because she didn't give a shit. Now Christine does, and I think I like her. I mean, I think I'm supposed to. She keeps talking about houses and table settings and caterers and I don't know what it means."

I slide my tongue up the base of his cock and he leans against the porch fence. He takes another sip of his beer, still staring, still lost. His brain is not connected to anything below his shoulders, and his hips move on their own. I slide him out of my mouth and let him feel the chill rain before going down again. He pushes against my face, more insistent now.

"Last week she brought towels over to my apartment. Yellow towels. Martha Stewart brand or something. She took my towels away somewhere and now I have these fucking Martha Stewart towels in my bathroom."

I run my tongue across the tip of him inside my mouth, around and around, then thrust myself down on him, getting him wet. My hand moves up to the base and grabs him, firm, squeezing him while I play with my lips.

"The thing I hate is that the towels, they go with my wallpaper. Yesterday, she bought a shower curtain. She's taking over my bathroom."

My hand grabs his balls as I take as much of him as I can. He bucks towards me and he comes, hard, in my mouth. I swallow, lick him as clean as I can and stand up, and he's still hard. He kisses me, open-mouthed, tasting himself. He's all beer and cigarettes, musky and horrible. He tastes like the floor of a bar.

I pull back, looking at him. He's already put himself away and zipped up.

"You're a fag, Dale," I say, staring him in the eyes, "how many times do I have to suck you off before you admit it?"

"At least one more time," he replies, smiling through his ashtray.

"Want me to come over and fuck you on those towels?"

"I kind of do."

"You're a fag, Dale."

"I know."