Strange Bedfellows in Progress

This is a preview of the new fourth section in Strange Bedfellows. The sections get longer as the relationship between the characters develops, but the early appeal of the first two chapters was in their "quick wank" nature—it was sex with a little bit of plot and character around the edges. Later sections were full of exposition and yammering and trying to avoid giving the hot neighbor a name. If I wrote this chapter right, this is a happy medium between the sexy sexy and the talkie talkie.

This might be the first time I have ever had to apologize to my next-door neighbor. Usually he’s the one being an ass, and I’m the one who locks him out and waits until he grovels to my satisfaction. Then I let him in for unparalleled rough make-up sex, because otherwise what's the point of an argument.

“Hey, I’m sorry,” I yell at the back door. Angus is intent on popping my eardrums, barking and lolloping through the screened porch and into the kitchen and back, which means my neighbor is close enough to hear me. “Look, man, I won’t do it again. Will you stop sulking like a child?”

That gets him out of the kitchen. “Sulking?” he asks incredulously. “I’m sulking because you slept with my boss and I don’t want to see your face afterwards?”

Okay, maybe that was a bad move on my part. Actually, I’m surprised he isn’t throwing me into a wall again.

He folds his arms. “How long have you been sleeping with him?”

I squirm. “Since the charity thing you made me come to.”

“A month ago?” he asks, incredulous.

I hang my head contritely. This is just for his sake—I never have to hang my head. “Yeah.”

“Go away, faggot. Show your punk-ass face and I’ll kick it in.”

“I said I’m sorry!” I yell as he slams the door closed. “At least you didn’t lose your job!”

I go home frustrated. The only reason I attempted a make-up in the first place is because I haven’t had real sex since my neighbor found out, and I’m starting to get that itch. Pounding out a couple of articles and cleaning my entire house doesn’t help. I'm going to get paid and I'm a little tired, but I'm still horny as hell.

“You know how much I hate that guy!” he had shouted at me, knocking my hand away when I tried to dab at the blood on his lip. “That guy” was nursing a sore jaw and some bruised ribs at the least. I hadn’t seen a fight like that since high school.

“With good reason,” I had replied with a shrug, “he’s a dick.”

“Then why the fuck did you have sex with him? Especially in the middle of a fucking work day?”

Had I come up with a reason then? Sure, I could claim that I don’t know what came over me. I’m not incredibly self-aware, I guess, or something like that. Certainly I hadn’t been completely honest, not with all the testosterone thickening the air. How could I have told the man who punched the man he found me under…The blond, polo shirt-wearing, dog-walking type turns me off. I don’t fuck all-American boys who care about baseball and love their families. Then men I fuck are idiots whose heads are too far up their own asses to care whether I’m around or not. I fuck men who never learn my last name. I fuck men who think that boyfriends are for pussies.

So that’s why. It’s because he gave me a birthday gift—or it’s because he found out when it was and remembered. Gross.  It’s because every time I pass a mirror I’m reminded of the discrepancy in our looks, which both depresses and embarrasses me. It’s because he genuinely likes people and being around them, which is exhausting.  It’s because when the man next door pops into my head all my pronouns morph into first person plural. It’s because I’m tired of waiting for the other fucking shoe to drop.

“Fine,” I mutter to no one like a crazy, and stalk upstairs to my bedroom.

What I do next is shameless and could land me in jail for indecent exposure. I grab a pair of his underwear from the drawer, pull my shirt off, open the blinds, turn on my light, and proceed to jack off with it. His lights are off, but if his drapes are open he can see me. I don’t face the window, but it’s obvious what I’m doing. I drop the boxers when I’m finished.

I don’t know if he knows exactly how long it takes for my dick to recover, but his timing is scarily good. There wasn’t even enough of a pause to feel ashamed of myself.

“You were desperate, huh?” He grins smugly, fingering the waistband of my jeans.

I slap his hand away, not because I don’t like it there, but because it’s what I do. “Don’t flatter yourself. I was just proving a point—when I want to get fucked, I get fucked.”

He raises a golden eyebrow. “Don’t kid yourself. If you had really wanted sex, you could have slept with my boss. Again.” He pauses for a second, and I find a million other places to look instead of at him. “You really like me, don’t you?”