The Holy Nite (BL)

2

I spend the afternoon on my bed, reading The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and listening to a mixed CD that my brother Luke made for me before buggering off for Sydney. It's mostly the kind of stuff I imagine he likes listening to when he's stoned, but despite this, or because of it, it's very mellow and nice.

If I wanted to study like I said I would, I could always start revising for my national economics exam in early January, but I need to recharge my batteries, he said, as people are wont to say.

Gabby and Rupert are having my least favorite friends of their around for dinner tonight.

Cousins.

As in, the Cousins family.

As in, their last name is Cousins.

Normally, that name is deeply intertwined with loathing and fear, but today, it's sort of makes me want to laugh. The thing is, that it's Christmas Eve and Gabby and Rupert are having the Cousins over. Tomorrow is Christmas Day, and Gabby and Rupert are having the cousins over. That's cousins as in they're Steven's cousins.

The funny part about it is that even though I've heard "the Cousins" and "the cousins" being said a billion times in the past few days, no one sees to see why it's funny.

When Gabby told me that the cousins were coming around for Christmas Day, I had a brief moment of panic, before she cleared up the situation. For some mysterious reason, it seems that Gabby and Rupert always know which set of cousins the other one is talking about and they show very little understanding of why it's confusing me. In the past few days, I've been trying to introduce the terms majuscule-cousins and miniscule-cousins to tell them apart, but to no avail.

The Cousins aren't really evil, I'm sure. It's just that they're so hysterical. They have a daughter in her early teens who treats me as if we're engaged to be married. I walked past her school once at the same time as the students were let out, and she practically jumped me. It took me half an hour to explain to a very aggressive mother to one of the other students that I wasn't her boyfriend, not really.

If this was the only problem I guess I wouldn't mind them so much, but Mrs Cousins has a tendency of also treating me like we're engaged to be married, up to the point of grabbing my buttocks in the kitchen once when she thought Mr. Cousins couldn't see her.

Which he could.

Then hell broke out.

This extreme situation has led to the for me quite extreme action of going out on my own.

Thing is, so far I've managed to make no friends who are actually from Leicester that still here over Christmas. Everyone I know has returned to their respectful homes.

But I need to get out, so I've no choice. And however socially awkward I might feel on my own in a bar, I'll be a helluva lot happier there than with the majuscule-cousins, that's for sure. I only have to survive dinner, and then I'm out.

.

To my own immense surprise, I do survive dinner with the majuscules. Just about's. It's not awful, just uncomfortable.

Still, when I put on my jacket and get out of the house, it's as if a weight has been lifted. I walk slowly through the mild early night, from the respectable area where Gabby and Rupert live to the city centre.

I know where I'm going. Same place I always go, though this will be the first time I'm there on my own. The club is described as "gay friendly," but in reality, it's as gay as it gets.

It takes me 20 minutes or so to get there, and when I've handled in my jacket and, more importantly, ordered my first drink, it doesn't feel too weird to be there alone. Most people seem to be on the prowl anyway, which is normally a quite a solitary activity. I blend in pretty well.

I finish my drink quickly, feeling like a bit of an alky. But hey, what the hell, it's Christmas. What better way to celebrate the birth of our saviour than to get thoroughly pissed?

With that thought, I decided to get another drink.

I lean over the bar, shutting my order at the bartender. It takes him no time to produce a mojito. I take it and sip happy at it. Yeah, this is what I need to get back to normal.

I walk up to a pillar by the edge of the dance floor, lean against it and take a few deep breaths. Suddenly, I hear a voice and feel a pair of lips almost, almost touching my ear.

"Hullo there!" The voice says excitedly. I turn toward it, and come face to face with James Arrowsmith.

When I first arrived at Leicester Uni in September, I signed up for an evening-class in Latin. Like everyone else in that class, I didn't do it as part of my degree – I did it because I was laboring under the misconception that I would enjoy it.

In reality, it was a most masochistic pursuit. I went there thrice before I dropped out. But for three Wednesday events in a row, I formed an odd sort of bond with the class wunderkind.

James Arrowsmith seems to have a natural affinity for the language, and from the very start, I spend more time focusing on the way his face would light up and his eyes sparkle when he he realised something, than I did learning what I was supported to learn.

James and I were the groups' most avid coffee drinkers. We'd get a ten-minute break in the middle of class, and whereas most other students went for a smoke, James and I went for a coffee.

I like to think that we have an understanding of sorts, but I don't know if that's reality or wishful thinking. I mean, if there was an understanding there, it was somehow sees I should've understood that he's gay.

Well, either way, that was ages ago, so I'm surprised he even remembers me.

"Hi," I reply, lifting my drink in a "cheers" sort of movement.

"I had no idea you battled for this side," he says, smiling like he's either just had a religious epiphany or like he's the Devil himself. "Because you do, right? You're not just a tourist?"

"No, no," I assure him, "I'm a permanent resident."

"Nice.." He gives me another dubious saint-or-Devil smile, making me take another sip from my drink just to put my perverted thoughts on hold.

For the blink of an eye, it would seem that I've actually managed to stop myself wondering what James looks like naked, what he likes to do in bed, if he's a top or a bottom.

But then he leans in close. This time his lips are definitely touching my ear as he asks if he can have the next dance.

It's such a cheesy line, so old-fashionably chivalrous, that it makes me laugh and nod. He grabs me by the arm, dragging me through the sea of bodies until we're somewhere in the epicentre of it all.

It seems a little calmer here than on the fringes, so I guess it's true what they say about the eye of the storm. James holds his drink in his right hand, but puts his left to my hip, pulling us close. I move against him, his high lodged softly between mine.

He looks into my eyes, and I realise how beautiful he really is. Even the green lights pulsating against his skin seem to work to his advantage. He moves in a little closet still. Wraps his left arm around my waist, his hand resting over my bottom for a moment, before sneaking down the back pocket of my jeans.

This close to him, I can smell the alcohol on his breath, the products in his hair, the clean sweat of his neck, the after-shave that is so memorable of the one I use that I'm willing to bet it's the same. He's hot in my arms, radiating, blazing.

I can feel a blush creeping up from beneath my collar towards my cheeks, and it has everything to do with James's body close to mine, and nothing to do with the heat of the dance floor. He drinks from his glass of beer, and as I follow it to his lips, I notice that he's blushing as well, he's flushed and glowing.

Once he's finished his drink, and we've been dancing for however long, he leans forward toward me, putting his lips to my ear again, and says, and says,

"Drink up!"

He pulls back, smiling at me. I must look as baffled as I feel, because he leans close again.

"Your drink" he species. "Finish it so we can leave."

He leans back again, his arm still around my waist, as if he's hanging off me.

"Where are we going?" Ask stupidly.

"Well.." He looks around, as if he's about to let me in on a secret. "I figured either my place or yours."

I laugh at him again. I can't help it; he makes it bubble up inside of me. I pull him to me, close, close, and now it's my lips against him. During the moment of impact before I've started talking, when my open mouth is just gently brushing against the delicious lobe of his ear, he holds his breath.

"I share," I tell him. He doesn't need to know the exact nature of my accommodation right now. Maybe later, God willing.

He turns his face so that we're almost cheek-to-cheek; mine ridded off three days growth only a few hours ago; his covered in short, soft, gold brown stubble.

"My place, then," he says. The hand still in my back pocket gives me a squeeze, and for a moment, I think how stupid it is that we didn't do this three months ago.

I only nod my consent, meeting his smile.

...