You Are the Reason (5 page)

W
E
ENDED
up drunk again. I’m not sure how it happened. We chatted about nothing and everything—schools, work, football, religion, the weather, politics, the latest episode of
Under the Dome
. We got on like a house on fire, and I tried to ignore the attraction.

I tried to ignore those cherry red lips that I wanted to taste. I wanted to fluff her impossibly red hair. I wanted to make her laugh. I wanted to lean in and smell her. I
wanted
her.

It scared me shitless.

Maybe I wasn’t gay after all.

We stumbled into the car park and headed for my vehicle.

“D’ya wanna share a taxi?” Lee asked me.

“Nah,” I said. “I’m gonna sleep it off in my car.”

I pointed to the company van I had. It was white with its back windows painted over so no one could see inside. I’d chucked a mattress in there with a blanket and pillow. And a towel and some condoms. I was always hopeful.

“Cool,” Lee exclaimed. “You’re all set. Can I come in?”

I was hesitant. Did I want to have sex with a woman? No. The thought turned me off. But did I want to have sex with Lee? Hell, yes. I was half-hard in my pants already.

I searched for the keys, unlocked the rear, and held the door for her like the gentleman I pretended to be. She scrambled in on her knees, giving me a good view of her arse in her tight dress. God, I wished that arse were male.

I jumped in after her. Okay. It was more like a fumble because I misjudged the height of the bumper and kicked my shins on the tailgate. I cursed loudly. I was going to bruise from that one.

Lee giggled. “Shall I kiss it better?”

I chuckled and secured the door. Once it shut, the interior light went out, leaving us in the shadows. There was only a small illumination from the outside street lights coming in through the front windscreen.

I reached for her. There were no misunderstandings about what could and would happen in the back of the van. She was drunk but not unable to think for herself. I was encouraged by her enthusiasm as she grabbed for my head and brought her lips up to meet mine. We were kissing—really kissing. Tongues, teeth, lips, spit. It was my first kiss with a woman, and the first with anybody in a long time.

Gay backroom sex doesn’t always require mouth-on-mouth.

I pulled her onto my lap. She spread her legs and wrapped them around me as I leaned back against the wall of the van and fell into the sensation of lip-locking. It was good. It was hot. It was so good I wondered why I hadn’t done it more often.

We breathed heavily, sucking and biting gently on each other’s lips. I tried it all ways—gentle, hard, sloppy, erotic. I also admitted silently to myself that part of the fascination of Lee’s mouth was that I was trying to avoid the next step.

The grind.

Usually by this time I had my pants undone, or my partner’s pants undone. We would be cock to cock, trying to find friction and sensation on our dicks. But what Lee had… well, I was afraid. What did “it” do? How hard did I need to touch “it”? Did I need to rub, stroke, or pull “it”?

And breasts?

I tried to remember if Lee had breasts. I was gay. I usually didn’t notice things like that. I’m sure she had them, but how big were they, and—oh, shit—was I supposed to touch them?

I slid my hands up her body and explored with trepidation. I could feel her bra through her dress, but other than that, I could feel nothing. It just felt like padding.

Lee halted my exploration and pulled my hands down until they were cupping her butt. Oh, yes. Butt. I knew what to do with that.

I cupped the globes of her arse as we continued to kiss and pant, and squeezed gently.

“Oh, God. Yes. Oh, Dave.”

Lee was squirming on my lap, creating a friction that had me at full mast. I gripped her tightly and pulled her into my body. Her dress got all caught up between us, and I suddenly realized the advantages of feminine clothes—no zippers.

I chuckled and pulled her dress up over her bum so I could cup her butt without another layer of material between us. Her panties were cotton, and I slid my fingers under the edges so I was massaging flesh.

I wasn’t game to go lower and underneath. I needed to work up some more courage for that.

Lee grabbed at my shirt and began unbuttoning. Soon it was open, and she was running her delicate fingers through the hair on my chest and seeking out my nipples.

“Yes,” I groaned.

Oh, yes. Her blunt fingernails lightly scratched my skin, giving me a taste of pain. Exactly enough to heighten the pleasure. She kissed her way down my neck and chest as she fumbled with my belt and the opening to my jeans.

The zipper parted, and without hesitation, Lee lowered the material of my briefs and had my cock out in the open. Her kisses trailed down the center of my chest as she scooted back in the darkness. I lost my hold on her butt, but it didn’t register with me.

All I noticed was the bright red hair of the person sucking my dick like she wanted to inhale it.

“Yes,” I cried.

She moaned around the end of my cock and immediately started a rhythm that was as old as time itself. She knew how to tease too—fast, then slower. Bringing me to the edge before slowing again, so I didn’t hit that precipice too quickly.

Then, showing me that she knew a lot about men’s bodies, she pushed the material of my briefs aside the best she could, and wiggled two fingers in behind my ball sac, so she was lightly scraping the flesh of my perineum.

“Fuck,” I bellowed. “Shit. Do that again.”

She did, and I grabbed at her head, spearing my fingers into her hair as she found that primal rhythm once again. It was ecstasy and torture. Her mouth was wet and warm around my cock, while that fingernail scraped at the sensitive skin behind my balls, teasing with slight pain, but somehow skyrocketing my pleasure.

“I’m gonna come,” I warned.

Her response was to scrape again with her fingernail, and I lost it. Fire arched through my spine and centered in my balls. I felt tingling and numbness, then the endless feeling of coming and coming, spurting into her warm mouth and blowing my load. I roared out my pleasure and clutched her skull tightly.

When I could finally breathe again, I realized she was resting her cheek against my thigh, breathing heavily.

“Lee?”

“Hmm?”

She wasn’t moving, just lying there. “Do you need me to… umm…?” I trailed off awkwardly, unsure how to say it, and even more unsure of how to do it.

“I came already. Thanks anyway.”

“Oh.” Mentally I was saying
Oh thank goodness.
Because I still didn’t know if I wanted to break my pussy-cherry and touch one. My eyelids were as heavy as concrete, and I was rapidly succumbing to sleep. “Do you… do you wanna have a sleepover in my van?”

“Mm-hmm.”

I took that as agreement and clumsily maneuvered her around until she was lying on the mattress instead of my lap. I straightened my clothes and grabbed the blanket and pillow. Lee was already asleep, curled on her side with her head pillowed on one hand. I pulled her dress down over her panties and slipped her shoes off her feet. She groaned, rubbed her bare toes against the sheet protecting the mattress, and drew up her knees.

I smiled. She reminded me of a kitten.

I spread the blanket out and crawled in next to her, appropriating the pillow for my use. Her back bowed into my chest, so I snuggled in, glad of the warmth once the sexual high had disappeared. In under a minute, I was asleep.

T
HE
ALARM
on my phone woke me the next morning. Although I felt like shit and I really needed another four hours of shut-eye, I always set my alarm for seven o’clock the morning after I slept in my car. I needed to get the van out before shoppers arrived to use the car park.

I groaned loudly and shut the alarm off. Then I sat up and looked around for Lee.

She was gone.

I groaned again and had vague memories of her whispering to me that she was leaving and would be getting a taxi home. I remembered her kissing my cheek and saying something about taking my phone number.

Phone number….

I looked at my phone and saw there were seven messages for me. Three drunken texts from Thor complaining about his girlfriend, one from my mother reminding me about my father’s birthday, one from Jake telling me that Maxine was missing me, one from a workmate that could’ve waited until Monday, and one from an unknown number. I pulled up the unknown and blinked several times before my hungover eyes would focus.

Hi Dave. This is Lee. Thanks for last night. Sorry I had to run. Call me?

I smiled and added her contact details without thinking about it. Then I froze.
What was I doing? G-A-Y? Girls Are Yucky? Are the bells ringing yet, Davo?

I looked back at the phone and realized my fingers were trembling. I scrolled through my messages again and pulled up the one from Jake. I hesitated over responding. It was 7:00 a.m. on a Sunday morning. But Jake had a baby now. He would probably be awake.

Hey Jake. You up?

By the time I was behind the wheel of the van, he’d replied.

Unfortunately yes. What’s up?

Can I drop by?

No probs. I’ll make us pancakes.

And coffee. I slept at The Tav. I’ll be there in ten minutes.

See you then.

M
AXINE
WAS
awake when I arrived. She was once again decked out in pink and lay in a bassinette in the middle of the kitchen, watching the ceiling light above her.

“Where’s Patrick?” I asked as I stared down at the little scrap of humanity that had become the center of my friend’s universe.

“Asleep,” grunted Jake. “We’re taking it in shifts, at the moment. Little Miss Maxine doesn’t like to sleep for more than two hours at a time.”

I stared at her as she waved the arm that she’d managed to free from her blanket. “I thought Patrick said she was sleeping for five hours at a stretch?”

Jake snorted. “That was last week. This week it’s, ‘Daddy, I’m hungry every two hours.’ You need to keep up with the program here, Davo. Don’t you know that women change their minds constantly?”

No. Not really.

As if he could sense my need to talk, Jake flipped a couple of pancakes onto a plate, shoved them under my nose, and said, “So what’s up?”

There was already coffee in the pot, so I poured us both a cup, sat down, and considered where to start. I was so mixed up inside. I guessed I should start at the beginning, and asked, “How did you know you were gay, Jake? How old were you?”

He stopped flipping his pancakes and thought about it for a minute. “I really don’t know, Davo. Magazines, I guess. There was so much shit in my life from raising my sisters, I didn’t really think about sex and girls and all. But I do remember jacking off in the toilet and thinking about guys. It was rather obvious to me I was gay.”

“So you never wanted to be with a girl?”

He had a considering look on his face. “I don’t think so. I remember my mum gave me a talking to when I was about thirteen. You know the one?
If you dare to get any girl pregnant before you’re eighteen, I’m gonna wallop you so hard you won’t be able to sit for a week
?” He placed his own plate on the table and sat next to me. “I remember laughing in her face, because I was the one who used to put condoms in my mum’s handbag each night, so she had one. The last thing we needed was another baby in the house.”

I choked on my coffee. “I think I had a bit more of a conventional upbringing than you, Jake. I was fifteen before my dad had the sex talk with me, and I never once gave a thought to whether my parents were practicing safe sex.”

Jake shrugged and laughed. “Oh, well. Each to his own I guess. But when Mum had her rare show of parental concern, I remember saying to her, ‘Don’t worry, Ma. I don’t like girls like that.’ Then she said, ‘Oh? You’re gay? Well, thank fuckin’ goodness. I don’t have to worry about grandchildren until Ellie gets her period.’ I remember thinking it sounded nice to be gay—not having to worry about kids. So I just always was. Gay, I mean. I never had to worry about what my parents would think, or anything.”