The Floating World Pt. 04

"Right. What are you going to inflict on me?" Adam asked.

Jesse stood next to him and flicked through the folders on his phone until he found what he was looking for. "This."

He set a song on to play, and glanced sideways at Adam to watch his reaction.

Adam gave him a sidelong glance. "The Doors?"

Jesse nodded. "You've heard of them, right?"

Adam managed to look annoyed and amused at the same time. "Yeah, I might have an album or two lying around."

Jesse set the phone down by the amp and turned back to Adam. He took the edges of Adam's robe and pulled him into the centre of the lounge. Adam let himself be pulled, taking halting steps, unsure what Jesse would do next.

"Kid, I can't go again with ten minutes' rest."

Fuck. Jesse had forgotten that. He really, really wanted to get fucked again. His erection had lost some steam, but it was still steaming.

But then... maybe Adam would let himself be fucked.

He pulled Adam to him, his hands wrapped in the cloth of the robe and Adam met his mouth. His kiss was softer than before, and Jesse knew it would take a lot to engage him again so soon.

He's never been fucked. He's not going to let you do that. He doesn't know how addictive it is. Yet.

Jesse sat quietly for a moment, then asked, "You smoke? Dope?"

Adam nodded. "Yeah, why not. It's been a while, but you're a bloody novelty, so why not?" He smiled, and it was one of his long, slow flashes on some long ago past.

"Dope was ok back then. Before it wasn't."

Jesse looked around for ashtrays, and realised there was no tell-tale trace of nicotine fingers, no smoke breath on Adam's mouth. "You mind if I step outside and smoke?"

Adam shrugged. "Yeah, just grab a saucer."

Jesse nodded. "Might help me relax enough to give you some time to ah... recover." He grinned.

Adam pointed to the bathroom. "Get clean and come back. And don't fucking lock yourself in there this time."

* * *

Every time Jesse approached sex, from what Adam could see, he came at it from a different direction. Ripping his heart out and then running from the tenderness he offered, then nearly impaling himself on Adam's cock just now. The kid was so visceral, and his words rang in his ears. We fuck. We just fuck. We always just fuck. Adam wondered what quality he possessed that fascinated Jesse so. He kept coming back to it.

You have something in you...

You have a story to tell... Well yes, several stories, but only...

His rumination was broken by Jesse shutting a cupboard door and running the tap in the kitchen. Glasses clinked together, and there he was, the ubiquitous bag over his shoulder, his hands full of glasses, flicking his long hair from his eyes.

Adam unlatched the door onto the small balcony, and Jesse placed all the things he carried onto a small table. He pulled out a deal bag and deftly rolled a joint, his fingers practiced and quick.

Adam pressed play on the phone and the familiar chords started, the bass run, the jangling keys, the marching snare.

I took a trip down to l'America To trade some beads for a pint of gold...

Jesse passed the joint to Adam, who took a long draw to the bottom of his lungs, sucking in the second toke, holding the smoke in.

I need someone who doesn't need me... I'm sure that someone is following me. "Your song, Jesse? Could be." Adam gazed across at Jesse, who he could see was intently following the lyrics, not knowing the songs like Adam knew the songs, intimately, as well as he knew the back of his hand.

"My sound track, this. Fucking Jim, such a stupid waste." He looked across to Jesse. "Promise me one thing." And saw a look of something flicker across Jesse's face. "No, nothing like that," leaving 'that' undefined, "just make it to your twenty-eighth birthday, OK?"

And then Adam turned in on himself, and the instinctive memory of the songs' lyrics and their primitive, thumping beats triggered an automatic swing of his foot. He looked up and saw Jesse watching him, and didn't give a fuck. This was the core of his wrought iron soul.

The rain began, and thunder broke in the distance, like a dog without a bone, an actor out on loan... a killer on the road.

"Ah fuck," whispered Adam, "take him by the hand, make him understand, gotta love your man..."

He reached out his hand to touch Jesse's arm, and his fingers just rested there, touching his skin. Adam's eye's were closed, his head slowly moving to the long beat of the song. And the storm passed.

"I always play this album in the wrong order," he said. "First side last."

He stood, and reached down for Jesse's hand, gesturing him to his feet.

"Shut the door."

Adam led the younger man across the lounge to the bedroom. Reaching his room, Adam stripped his dressing gown from his body and lay on the bed, his cock soft, still recuperating from Jesse's suck earlier on, and now lulled from the slow slide of the smoke. Jesse dropped his dressing gown to the floor, and touched Adam's back with the tips of his fingers, and it was an echo of Adam's claim in the cafe, in the car. Jesse was staking a claim on Adam's flesh.

Who pays the ferry man?

Who places golden coins on a dead man's eyes?

Jesse's prick was tight and hard, still hot from his earlier arousal. This time though, he had the sense to see that Adam was in his own world and he was being invited in, on Adam's terms, whatever those terms might be.

Adam lay on his back and opened his arms to Jesse, who lay down alongside him, his head on Adam's shoulder, and the music lulled them. A cold girl will kill you in a darkened room. Morrison's howl echoed the cry of the dogs earlier, and the driving pace began.

"This is why I play the album in the wrong order," Adam said, and Jesse began to understand this man whose heart he heard beating in his ear, its twenty beat stop and back-beat start setting its own pace against that of the song.

"Does your heart always do that?" Jesse whispered. "Stop. And then start?"

"As long as I've known myself," replied Adam.

Only later did Jesse wonder about that curious turn of phrase.

As the room fell to silence, Adam re-arranged himself on the bed, pulling one leg up so that Jesse's hot cock pressed up against his crotch, the weight of his slim waist pushing Adam's thighs wider. Adam lay with his head turned to one side, and Jesse placed his hot mouth onto Adam's throat, his teeth light against the flesh. Adam sighed, and relaxed some more. Jesse pushed against his body with an experimental pressure, uncertain of Adam's reaction but more certain of his own.

Jesse's cock was burning hot, the long thickening of his blood quick to return. Adam pushed himself against Jesse's body, opening himself wider under those slim hips, and his other leg spread wider, wider, and Jesse's weight was against his core. Adam slowly turned his head the other way, and as he turned he opened his eyes to see Jesse's face above his, looking down.

The smile he gave Jesse caught the younger man completely unprepared. Jesse was getting used to Adam's silent commentary, his unspoken but not malicious humour, his wry smiles and the still intensity of his gaze. Jesse had seen the chilling look Adam had given the Uber driver, but this look, this slow, slow lidded look, was new.

Jesse looked down at Adam's mouth, and it too was softer, more relaxed, his lips slightly parted. With a start, Jesse knew where he'd seen a look like that before - Gabriela, the girl his then-girlfriend, Luce, had introduced him to, almost five years ago now. The look Gabriela had given Luce, when she wanted to be taken...

Sweet fuck, this was something Jesse didn't expect, but it was confirmed when Adam placed his hands onto Jesse's ass, pulling the youth up against himself. Then lifting his thighs wider again and pulling them up to Jesse's waist. It was the unmistakable opening up and giving up that a woman gave a man when she wants to be loved long and deep.

Astonished, Jesse cupped Adam's face between the palms of his hands, and he held his gaze until the next time Adam opened his eyes. And again, there was that long slow blink, as if Adam was looking for some other presence in the room, but kept seeing Jesse.

"Fuck me slowly, Jesse, just fuck me slow."

Adam reached towards the side of the bed and managed to get his fingers onto the handle of the bedside table's drawer. But he was at the wrong angle, and couldn't open it.

"You get it." He gestured towards the drawer, and let his hand fall, like some languid thing.

Jesse pulled himself nearer the side of the bed, raising his head to see whatever it was. There wasn't much in the drawer, a couple of paper-backs with cardboard bookmarks, a dress watch on a metal band, and a bottle of lube. Jesse thought it best not to think too much on what the lube meant in terms of prior occupants of Adam's bed, but the meaning was clear.

"Warm it first, fucker." And it was a flash of the Adam he knew from earlier in the day, but somehow softer.

"Of course I'll warm it. Did you expect me not to?" Jesse replied, as he unscrewed the lid and squeezed a generous dollop onto the palm of his hand, covering it with his other palm to warm it.

"Wouldn't surprise me. Revenge. Your cold ass on the bathroom floor, cold lube on my asshole."

"There is that." Jesse laughed. "But I think I've been around you too long."

Even with his eyes closed, and Jesse not looking, Jesse just knew that Adam's eyebrow would be raised.

"Kindness. I'm being kind."

"For a change, huh?" Adam's voice was quiet. Christ, Jesse thought, is that affection I hear? This man is so unpredictable. Jesse pulled his fingers through the lube, coating them. He moved back so he could better access Adam's tight hole, then eased one finger in deep and the second, rotating them in the grip of Adam's ass. He felt the older man relax, and eased his fingers further in.

"It's good, that's good," Adam said quietly, as if to himself. "Slowly, Jesse, take me slowly."

He opened his eyes. Jesse was above him, and Adam kept his eyes open as Jesse eased the head of his cock into Adam's tightness, and it was Jesse who closed his eyes in his concentration.

Jesse centred his weight onto the push, and his hot cock eased into Adam's welcoming asshole, held tight at first by his sphincter but then an easier slide as Adam pushed up against Jesse's hardness. Adam waited a moment for his ass to relax, breathing deeply then pushing again, till slowly Jesse's length was hard inside him.

With a long sigh of something huge, Jesse felt the man around him, under him, open up, as if all resistance was gone from Adam and all he wanted was to be filled with Jesse's heat. Adam wrapped his arms around Jesse's back in a tight embrace, and pulled the youth's weight down on to him. His hands ran through Jesse's silken smooth hair, then held the back of his head, before pulling Jesse's mouth down to his for a kiss.

"Yeah, that's good, that's...ahhh, yes."

And he began to move under Jesse, and the slide of Jesse's cock grew longer in him, and faster, and they found a rhythm and it became urgent and relentless, a faster fuck. Jesse fucked into Adam and was gripped and released, tight then let go, and they fucked. Jesse took both Adam's hands in his, and stretched them high above Adams head, and the stretch made Jesse fuck deeper into Adam's body, where he was gripped tighter.

"Fuck me, fuck me. Ahh. Fuck." Adam's words, whispered into Jesse's ear, were like some hidden secret, intimate on his breath, some new craving to be heard only by Jesse, and they fucked.

"I'm...I'm clo...sss." Jesse's breath hissed between his teeth, and his body swayed into Adam's heat, and...

"Ah yes, that's it, that's it..."

Jesse stopped moving, his body arched back to centre the length of him deep in Adam's body. With a single, final thrust, Jesse exploded in orgasm, shuddering deep into the man beneath him, this man who wanted a cock inside him. This man.

Ah, sweet fuck. These men.

* * *

Jesse pulled out as gently as possible, sensing this was a man who'd not had this experience before, someone he needed to be careful with. A man's first time could be traumatic or euphoric, and Jesse only wanted to be responsible for the latter.

There'd been a time when pain had been his thing, but he'd preferred to receive than give. Even though it always disappointed him when his partner was willing to indulge him too deeply in it. Another contradiction. Jesse sighed. Why couldn't life be simple?

He looked at the man stretched out on the bed and wasn't sure what to do with himself. It wasn't the same man who'd fucked him. It was as if someone else had inhabited him, someone more like—

Gabriela And Jesse hadn't fucked a woman now in years, not since what'd happened with Will and Luce, the pain he'd caused, and everything that'd followed.

He'd forgotten what it was like to be in the presence of a sated woman, the way their bodies moved with languid grace, their need for emotional closeness afterwards. Not just physical comfort, but a promise the fuck had meaning.

The same thing Adam had made him want, for the first time in... well, maybe forever.

And what had Adam meant by: "As long as I've known myself."? As if he really were two people?

He was saved from trying to decipher this odd duality, by Adam coming back into himself. Whatever feminine energy had been there was pushed back to at least-cohabitation status, even if it wasn't gone completely.

"You look surprised," said Adam, and his voice was his usual dry amusement, but gentle with it.

"Understatement," said Jesse. "I didn't think you'd let me. Not you."

"Who then? Who do you usually 'fuck', Jesse?"

"Who are you?" Jesse countered, not wanting the question just asked, not the implications, anyway.

"Do you really want to know?" Adam asked.

"I really want to know."

Adam raised an eyebrow. He pushed himself up and got off the bed.

"Any more of that weed left?"

Jesse nodded. "We only smoked half of it."

"Good. Grab a robe."

Jesse took Adam's, not questioning why he preferred it, and Adam put on the robe Jesse had been wearing without comment.

He led Jesse back out into the lounge and dropped down on the couch. Jesse handed what was left of the joint to him. Adam lit it and patted the couch beside him.

"Come on, lie down."

Jesse looked at him, his pulse suddenly thumping.

"Too close for you?" Adam said, dragging on the joint, and letting out a long stream of sweet-smelling smoke.

The music moved to the next playlist.

Close the door, light the light No, we won't be home tonight Led Zeppelin, No Quarter—one of Nate's favourite tracks.

"Kid, lie down, and let me at that hair of yours. Did you wash it?"

Jesse nodded.

"I thought I heard the blow dryer before. Christ. You're a strange one."

Jesse laughed. He was the strange one?

But the thought of having his hair touched appealed, and he was still a little stoned from the weed they'd had before, and drowsy from his sexual release.

He lay on the couch, wrapped in Adam's robe and scent, and rested his head on Adam's lap.

Adam handed the joint to him and he sucked in the smoke, holding it in as he handed the joint back.

As Adam smoked, he dropped one hand to Jesse's hair, just resting his palm there for a time. Then, once the tension dropped out of Jesse's shoulders and the weed started its work, Adam began to comb his fingers through the boy's hair.

When was the last time you felt like this? Jesse asked himself.

If he hadn't been stoned and so warm and relaxed, he might have bolted from the apartment in that moment. But those fingers dragging against his scalp, releasing the fragrance of shampoo from his hair, were something he had no fight for.

"You want to know who I am," said Adam, his voice heavy and stoned. "You're not the first man whose cock I've touched, but it's not a frequent thing."

His fingers moved against Jesse's skull, and Jesse felt it as a kind of hypnosis, allowing Adam do anything to him that he wanted, just so long as he didn't stop the gentle action, soothing Jesse.

"None of them have been quite like you," he added. "Not like you."

His voice grew intimate as he leaned over Jesse, as if he might kiss him, but couldn't bend far enough down. And Jesse couldn't move, didn't want to move.

"I'll answer your question, but I want to know the answer to mine first. What happened in the bedroom?"

Jesse's eyes were half open, his tongue heavy in his mouth. He struggled to speak, and Adam stopped stroking his hair.

Jesse stared up at him, and Adam said, "Answer the question."

Jesse looked as if he might argue, but then his eyes flickered to Adam's hand resting against the arm of the couch (and not his hair), and he made words.

"A lot of things happened in the bedroom. I remembered things I hadn't thought about in a long time. Old lovers from when I was younger and... Nate."

Adam frowned. "Nate. Your brother, Nate, who had the music collection?"

Jesse nodded. "When we first met, I was twenty-three, visiting London to ask my dad for money to go abroad. Nate was the same age I am now. I... lied about being raised with him. I'm so fucking... ashamed. I met him in a bar by fluke and didn't know who he was. It was after things had ended, and I thought maybe he was somebody I might... get to know. But it turned out he was my brother."

Tears collected against Jesse's eyelashes.

"So's he your brother, or your stepbrother?" Adam asked. He rested his hand against Jesse's hair lightly, calming him, but not giving him an out to the rest of the story.

"Stepbrother. Our dad abandoned him when he was born."

So,Adam thought, 'daddy issues' after all. Or, stepbrother issues, perhaps.

Jesse interrupted his idle thought.

"He took care of me through a wild time in my life. And then he disappeared."

"I thought you said he died?"

Jesse shook his head. "There was a car accident. I was hurt, badly. Nate was in the car, but they never found his body."

Adam frowned now, deeply concerned.

"So, you have no idea what happened to him?

Jesse shook his head, tears trembling against the line of his lower lashes and spilling down.

Adam resumed stroking Jesse's hair. A strange story. He hadn't been expecting that.

"And you?" Jesse asked.

* * *

"And I," Adam sighed and paused, wondering if the kid was stoned enough to take his next words at face value.

He looked down into Jesse's glazed eyes and decided he was.

"You mentioned Alexandra before. The story with the car unravelling time. When was it mostly set?"

Mostly set? Jesse thought that a strange expression, but this man.... It somehow would not surprise him if Adam's initials were carved in the bar of Alexandra's club, or his signature was on the bottom of a framed photograph hung in the lobby. Of a fictional place.

"In the 1920s," Jesse replied. "She owned or ran a jazz club, like a speakeasy, during Prohibition.

"There was a daughter too. Grace." Jesse remembered. "And the narrator was a young guy, who met Alexandra for the first time in the club, but couldn't work out how she already knew him."

Adam was still for a long moment. Then tapped his fingers three times on the arm of the couch, as if he were checking things off. He took a long drag on the joint, then handed it to Jesse.

"It sounds fanciful to me, Jesse, just an intriguing piece of writing, surely?"

"But it sounded like you knew Alexandra, when I said her name before."

"I know an Alexandra, yes, but she could hardly be a woman from the 1920s now, could she? How old do you think I am? To know someone from the twenties and still be able to walk without a Zimmer frame?"