Friends and Lovers

Chapter 3-2

They’d finished lunch, and Tom sat nursing another Coke and fiddling with his straw.

Jack looked at his watch. “Well, as pleasant as this was, it’s time to head back to the job.” He grinned at Tom. “I’ve got a new helper. He’s sixteen, and he’s a hard worker, but the men tend to tease him.”

“Oh?” Tom didn’t really care, but he’d feign interest in anything that kept Jack here long enough for Tom to gather his courage and ask his friend for help.

“The kid has the wildest mop of curls I’ve ever seen, and one of the men started calling him Ragg Mopp.”

Coke shot out of Tom’s nose, and he sputtered.

“Yeah.” Jack handed Tom a bunch of napkins so he could blot his face. “Mopp’s a good kid, though, and I don’t want those yahoos to scare him off.” Jack looked around the diner. “Looks like the lunch crowd has headed back to the office.”

“Uh…yeah.” Tom’s mouth was dry.

Just then, Kelly came up with the check.

“I’ve got this, Jack.”

“Thanks, buddy.”

“Was something wrong with your lunch, sugar?” Kelly asked as she removed Tom’s almost untouched plate. Jack’s, on the other hand, was cleaned down to the pattern.

“No. It was fine.” Tom offered a weak smile. “Guess my eyes were bigger than my stomach.” He could feel his friend’s blue eyes studying him, and he reached for another paper napkin and began shredding it.

Jack finished his beer. “Tom, I really have to get back to work. The men are going to think I’m having a little afternoon delight.” Once again there was a foam mustache over his upper lip, and he licked it off.

Tom swallowed and looked away.

“Tommy?” Jack placed his hand on the back of Tom’s restless fingers. “What’s up, buddy?”

He’d hoped his friend wouldn’t have picked up on his tension, but he should have known better. Jack was one of the sharpest tools in the shed.

This is it, he told himself, now or never. He was going to ask for something that could wreck a long-standing friendship. His palms were sweating, his heart was pounding so hard he wouldn’t be surprised to find he was on the verge of a heart attack. In addition, his mouth was so dry he could barely get the words out.

“I have a favor to ask you.”

“Sure thing.”

Tom was a little startled by his friend’s rapid agreement. In spite of their closeness, there had been a time when the fact that Tom was gay and Jack wasn’t had interfered with their friendship, but that time was long past. Still…

He drew in a breath, moistened his lips, and asked. “Will you have s*x with me?”

“What?”

“I…uh…I’d really like it if you’d consider…uh…fucking me?”

“You want me to what?”

The response wasn’t exactly unexpected—although to tell the truth, he hadn’t been certain what to expect—but at least it wasn’t a punch in the mouth.

“Come on, Jack.” Tom tried to lighten the atmosphere. “I know you’ve got 20/20 hearing.” When that didn’t work, when Jack simply continued to look bowled over, Tom sighed. “Don’t make me repeat myself.”

“But…but, Tom, I’m straight.”

“You’re also my best friend, Jack.” The last thing he’d wanted to do, the one thing he’d always regarded with utter contempt when he’d heard of a gay man doing it, was to hit on a straight man. He scowled as he thought of the reactions of his so-called friend when he’d asked if Cliff would help him out.

“Yeah, but…There have to be about a million guys who’d love to do you.” Jack wasn’t laughing. In fact, Tom wondered if his expression wasn’t kind of wistful.

“Maybe.” But they aren’t you. “But it would just be so they could brag they’d done the leather daddy. I’d never be able to trust them enough to give over control.” Tom was pleased to see Jack took that as the compliment he’d meant it as. He was also pleased to see Jack was starting to look intrigued by the proposition. “Look.” He pressed his point home. “You know me, you know I’m strictly a one-off kind of guy. It would just be the one time, I promise, and it would just be between us. You’ve been to my place plenty of times. No one will think anything of it.”

“No, but…Let me get this straight.” Jack smiled, and Tom was relieved. If Jack was relaxed enough to joke about it, if the pun was intended, then even if he said “no,” Tom knew their friendship would go on. “You want me to…to make love to you.”

That startled Tom. “Jack, you don’t need to pretty it up.” He’d told Jack what he wanted in simple Anglo-Saxon terms.

“Yeah, but y’know, Tom, I think I do.”

Tom shifted to hide his unexpected reaction to his friend’s words. Leather daddies were tough guys who didn’t melt when someone actually appeared to care for their feelings. “And?”

“And I’m honored…”

“But? Are you trying to let me down easy, Jack? If you’re not interested, just tell me. We’ve been friends for too long, and there won’t be any hard feelings.”

“No, I’m not letting you down. I…I want to do this for you.”

Tom closed his eyes in relief.

“The thing is, I’ve…uh…I’d like to ask for something in return?”

“You’re doing me a real favor, Jack. You know I’ll do whatever you want.” Tom gave him a wry grin. “I’ll even balance your books.”

Jack snorted, but then his smile became like a little boy’s. “I’ve heard you gay boys give the best head.”

“You want me to go down on you?”

“If…if it’s okay?” Jack’s hesitant expression made something in Tom’s chest twist. “Reba wouldn’t, and neither would Truvie, although it made sense after she ran off with a woman. As for Julie, she always made such a big deal of it I’d have to go out and buy her something special afterward—something expensive.”

Jack’s first wife was incidentally his first woman. She belonged to Jack’s daddy’s congregation, and once she had his ring on her finger, she’d insisted their love-making be limited to missionary position-fumbles in the dark on Saturday night, if she was feeling charitable. It had all come spilling out when Tom had taken Jack to a bar to get drunk during the divorce proceedings, when Jack’s entire family had lined themselves up against their son.

As for Julie, Tom had known from the get-go she was a gold-digger.

“Bitches. Well, not Truvie.” Tom didn’t bother trying to conceal his disdain for the other two women, but Jack’s second wife…She’d always struck him as sad, although she’d done her best to be a good wife to Jack for the short time they’d been married, as well as a decent stepmother to his two kids.

Jack watched Tom with that hopeful, puppy dog expression. How could he say no to that face? Especially since he loved giving and getting blowjobs.

“You’ve got it, buddy. I’ll give you a blowjob that will blow your mind.” He waggled his eyebrows and grinned salaciously, and was gratified to see how happy the thought made his friend.

“There’s one other thing, Tom.”

“Sure, Jack.”

“No kissing.”

“Whatever you say.” And he wasn’t disappointed, he told himself. He was getting what he wanted, and he had no intention of being greedy about it. This wasn’t a relationship, after all. “We won’t do anything you’re uncomfortable with, I promise.”

“Friday, then?”

“Yeah, that’ll be good. I’ll toss a salad, roast some potatoes, grill a couple of T-bones. I’ve got a new blues CD I think you’ll enjoy.”

“I’ll bring dessert.”

“That really isn’t necessary, Jack.” Tom reached for the straw, then realized it was too mangled to do its job, so instead, he raised the glass of soda to his lips.

Jack grinned at him, a lazy, affectionate grin that not many people got to see. “Sure it is, Tommy. You don’t want me to feel like a rent boy, do you?”

Tom choked on his Coke. “What do you know about rent boys, Jack?”

“Hey, I’m not completely computer illiterate—I’ve surfed the Net. Thanks for lunch, buddy.” He slid out of the booth and took some bills from his wallet. “I’ll get the tip.”

“Okay.”

Jack paused. “Oh, and just make sure you’ve got whipped cream, okay?”

Visions filled his mind’s eye of the stuff covering his n*****s, striping his c**k, just waiting to be licked off…“What…er…what did you have in mind?”

“It’s for your cheesecake. As I recall, you don’t like it with fruit, but you do like it with lots and lots of whipped cream.”

He ruffled Tom’s fair hair, laughing when Tom muttered, “Well, shoot.”

“What did you think I wanted it for?”

Tom lassoed his rampaging imagination. “You’re bringing cheesecake?”

“Yep.”

Tom grinned at him. “I’ll whip it myself.”