A second submission to the Winter Holidays contest. Thought I'd have another dabble in Gay Male, although it does slip from that category a little at the end of the piece. However, Lit being what it is, I think GM is the right place for it to find a home.
Competition entries are required to be stand-alone submissions, which this one is, but I do leave it at a point where you can ponder on what the new year has in store for James. There's scope for me to add scenes to this one -- although they won't be in the GM category, and as it stands at the moment I don't have any plans to do so.
Anyway, blah-blah-blah. I hope this scene meets with some approval out there. Feedback is appreciated. I hope I've spotted any errors in the text as I've gone over it [repeatedly]. If there are any glitches remaining, I can only apologise.
Thank you in advance for reading.
GA -- Ranong, Thailand -- 29th of November 2014.
He watches me. I know he's doing it. I can feel the weight of his stare. It's very unnerving, disturbing on a level I can't articulate. But it's always like this around him, has been for eighteen months. I just wonder how it can be that nobody notices my discomfit when we're all together. Being near him elicits so many complex emotions to deal with: lust, betrayal, all manner of clandestine urges. I'm repelled and drawn simultaneously. It's exquisite agony being so close, even though I despise the man -- or rather it's that I hate myself for being so weak.
However, as much as I loathe both of us for what we're doing, the secret we share fills me with corrupt delight.
Christmas Eve in the bosom of my family, nearly everyone I love is around me, the absentee exception being our son, who's abroad with his new wife. The tree is decked, lights flicking on and off to some random timing tweaked into their circuitry. My wife Clara is twittering on, as she does. She always has something to say, something or someone -- usually me -- to organise. Clara is one of life's micro-managers, which means every aspect of our lives is controlled to the last detail. This time it's about entertaining our son-in-law while she and our daughter are out at the carol service.
"Don't slope off to your study," Clara instructs me, emphatic. "Talk to Simon, don't bloody well abandon him."
Stern stuff indeed, my wife doesn't bandy profanity around, and the use of "bloody" is quite strong by her standards. She accompanies her warning with a look, peering over the rims of her spectacles like a severe and old-fashioned schoolmarm who'll slap my legs if I disobey.
If only she knew. Dear
God
but there'd be ructions! Carnage on an Olympic scale.
Still glaring at me, Clara adds, "We shouldn't be long. Two hours at most. We'll be back at around half-past midnight."
I avoid looking at Simon, my stomach lurching with self-loathing even as my dick thickens and swells.
Two hours is more than enough. It won't take a quarter of that time.
"Come on, mum," Cassandra is saying. Our daughter glances at her watch and then says to her husband, "The kids are asleep. Could you put their presents under the tree? The bag is in mum's room."
There's more from Cassandra to her husband, the woman is as bossy as her mother, but I'm not paying any attention, I'm in turmoil inside thinking about what's going to happen when the women leave.
My wife and our daughter jibber-jabber on about inconsequentials: vegetables that will need peeling tomorrow, the weight of the turkey and, "
Where-did-I-put-those-bloody-car-keys?
" as their voices recede down the long passage to the front door.
Then the door slams and all is silent in the house.
Simon and I are alone.
My throat works as I swallow heavily, throat dry as a crow's nest. Neither of us speaks for a full two minutes, not until the Mercedes headlights sweep the windows, the signal that Clara and Cassandra are driving away, the big car taking them down the long driveway to the gate, to the city, on towards the cathedral and
Silent Night
.
Of course it's Simon who breaks the silence. I can't bring myself to look at him when he says, "I'll just go up and take a shower, James. That drive down was hellish."
Simon has just only just arrived after being up in Newcastle for the past week. He works as a consultant chemical engineer for one of the big pharmaceuticals, a career that will earn him huge sums but which meant he had to undertake a nightmare journey home on Christmas Eve, eventually reaching the house at 10 p.m.
At Clara's insistence, with Simon away, our daughter and the children descended on us four days ago.
"It'll be Christmas come early," my wife had said. "Cassie can settle the little ones in and then we'll all be ready when Simon gets back. We can have a lovely time of it."
If Clara said it was so, then it normally was. Not that I minded at all, I had no objections, and it wouldn't have mattered much if I did -- my wife and daughter would poo-poo any dissent, overruling me was a common trait they shared. It was also Clara's idea for her and Cassandra to go to the carol service that night, her plan including me staying at home to look after Simon.
"You'll give me ten minutes..." Simon adds as he leaves the room. It's a command he's just issued, an order he expects me to comply with. "...I'll be ready and waiting, James."
Oh God, he knows he's got me with that statement. My cock hardens fully when I hear his silky voice telling me he'll be ready. I can picture it: the awful tumescence huge and swollen, the cock-head angry and the gnarled and knobbed shaft all criss-crossed with veins. Simon's gorgeous cock all primed and ready for me to suck.
As always, I murmur, "I can't, Simon. Please..."
But he just sniggers and walks out of the room, confident. He knows I'll be there at the allotted time. Indeed, I check my watch almost as soon as he's gone. My erection is tight inside my trousers, excited anticipation swelling my cock while the Christmas tree lights flicker and the scent of woodsmoke from a downdraught in the chimney tickles my nostrils.
***
I sip whisky and watch the flames dance in the grate as a log spits and a glowing ember flies, the quick firefly glow falling spent to the hearth, its arcing velocity abruptly halted by the fire-guard. The carpet remains unburnt, a conflagration is avoided, but I'm mindless to the sound and the potential for disaster contained by the wire-mesh screen, my mind instead filled with the moment it first happened. I've thought on it often since, sometimes losing an hour to pondering, and I'm still no wiser as to how Simon just seemed to
know
. After all, I didn't know it myself until the second I saw him so beautifully exhibited.