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The sun was barely up when Jackson let himself into my flat. He had a key, not that we ever talked about how that happened. I was still groggy from the night before and sore in the way that makes you smirk alone in bed. He dropped his gym bag by the door and kicked off his shoes like he owned the place.
"You awake?" he called out, but he already knew the answer.
I was naked under the sheets, scrolling aimlessly through some feed that didn't matter. He appeared in the doorway, shirtless and in sweatpants, his chest glistening like he'd just finished a jog or a porn shoot or both.
He stood there, scratching his jaw. "You gonna invite me in, or should I jerk off right here in the doorway like some perv?"
I pulled the sheets back just enough. "Since when do you need an invite?"
Jackson dropped the rest of his clothes with zero ceremony and climbed into bed like it was his. Like I was his. He kissed me, still tasting like coffee and toothpaste, and pressed his hard-on against my thigh. He leaned back and looked me over, brushing his fingertips down my cheek like he was checking for damage.
"You been thinking about me?" he asked, voice low.
I nodded and pulled him closer. His hand moved down my back, firm and familiar, like he was clocking in for work. He kissed me again, the kind of kiss that made time slow down and everything else dissolve.
We didn't speak much when we fucked. Words were for later, or never. This was the part that always made sense, sweat and groans, skin and friction, breath caught between our mouths.
Jackson slid on top, still kissing me, while artfully manoeuvring himself in place. He pushed inside me slowly, and I gasped like it was the first time all over again. After a couple of years, it still hadn't lost its edge. He stayed there for a second, buried deep, his eyes locked on mine like he wanted to say something but didn't quite know how. Then he kissed me, deep and hot, and started to move with that rhythm we always found, as if our bodies had memorised it through every morning like this one.
He never rushed. That was Jackson's way. He was meticulous and thoughtful, often taking considerable time to make sure you were number one.
He leaned in, kissed me, as he thrust deep and slow, while beginning to build up a little. Our chests pressed against each other's, my balls pressed in by his belly as he slowly fucked me. I stroked his chest as he fucked me, and traced lines down his chest, feeling that wonderful sensation as his dick slid in and out of me.
I loved that pain, which only lasted that first minute or two, but slowly began to turn to pleasure. The more his dick slid in, the more I opened up.
As he leaned down on top of me and kissed me, I reached around and pulled him tight into me. I wanted to feel our closeness.
He didn't last long, these days he very rarely did. Especially when it was just the two of us. He arched back, watching me. I saw that glint in his eyes as they slowly narrowed signifying he was about to shoot his load in me.
When he finally came, the low grunt that escaped him rumbled into my chest and stayed there. He collapsed on top of me, his breath soft and wet into my neck.
His dick was still in me, pulsing. I could feel his cum, as I had hundreds of times before.
"Fuck," he muttered.
I laughed. "Always."
"Your turn," he said, shifting to go down and suck me. It almost felt obligatory.
"Actually," I said, brushing his hair back from his face, "I can wait. I'd rather blow my load inside you."
He smiled, kissed me slow, and murmured, "Come join me."
He pulled on a pair of shorts and wandered off shirtless. I knew where he was going. I followed a moment later, tugging on my own shorts, and found him at the open window. The morning air slid past his shoulders as he passed me the joint without turning.
The city was barely awake. A few birds were starting their shift against a sky that hadn't decided if it was grey or blue. But we were up, already half-used and content. The light breeze was warm, indicating we were in for another great day.
"You been to see that guy from the sauna?" he asked.
"Nah."
"Why not?" He took a drag of the joint and put it in the ashtray.
"Because he wasn't you."
He nodded, slow and unreadable. That crooked smile flickered across his face and disappeared.
Jackson relit the joint and handed it back to me, his skin still warm from earlier. I let the smoke settle in my lungs and exhaled toward the skyline. The world outside looked calm enough. Inside, I didn't feel as calm.
We hadn't used labels in a long time. Not since that night in the steam room with the Brazilian guy whose name neither of us caught. We'd walked home in silence, hands loosely linked, not talking about what it meant. Since then, everything had shifted, even if we pretended it hadn't.
We used to have rules, or at least something resembling them. We were together, mostly. Other guys were allowed, but only if it was mutual. No sleepovers or breakfasts with others, or anything that meant something. No long looks or soft confessions. Just us, and whatever strange rhythm we'd fallen into. It was messy, but it worked. Until now.
Recently, that had begun to change, but we'd failed to discuss it.
Women however, we'd have to discuss that.
Jackson looked over at me, joint in one hand, eyes steady. "You ever think about what it'd be like if we just stopped? The fucking, the other guys, the rules. Just us?"
I didn't answer immediately. I kissed his shoulder instead, long and slow, like the reply might reveal itself if I gave it enough time.
I took the joint back and smoked some more. "Bit early for that kind of talk," I said. "Why don't we have drinks later and figure out where we're at once my brain's caught up."
He studied me. "Is there something I should be worried about?"
"I don't think so," I said. "But we should talk when I'm fully awake."
That's when my phone buzzed.
Helena.
Of course.
Nothing like an ex-wife with surgical timing to send a crack straight through the moment.
I looked at the screen, sighed, and tossed the phone onto the outside table.
"She wants to get lunch," I muttered.
Jackson gave me a look I couldn't quite place. "Helena? You gonna go?"
"Maybe. She says she's mellowed, wants to catch up."
He arched a brow. "So did Chernobyl. Didn't mean you should take a picnic there."
I snorted and kissed him before he could say more. We left it alone after that. The energy shifted a little, subtle, like air pressure changing before a storm.
He had questions and I had no answers. It was really that simple.
That night, we went back to the sauna. We didn't fuck anyone else, nor did we talk a lot. We just sat side by side in the heat, bare thighs touching, still flushed from that morning. We were quiet but not disconnected. Watching the room, watching each other and enjoying a silence that felt normal.
Something had started to shift, and neither of us wanted to be the first to name it.
But we didn't have to. We were still in it, whatever this was.
Helena was already seated when I got there. Same cafe where we used to argue over brunch, back when poached eggs and cold cappuccinos were the biggest of our problems. She looked different, maybe freer, lighter somehow. Hair pulled back, less makeup, same sharp eyes.
She smiled when she saw me. A real smile, not one of those brittle ones she used to wear when we were falling apart.
"You look good," she said, appearing genuinely happy to see me. At least she saw me. I had missed that look she'd once reserved only for me.
"You look... different."
She nodded. "A lot's happened, I guess."
The first few minutes were filled with harmless small talk. Work, friends general stuff like the old times. She mentioned moving into her new flat and decorating it herself, casually mentioning a ladder I once bought her. Then she looked straight at me and said, "I read the messages."
I blinked. "What messages?"
She tilted her head, her eyes shifted slightly, like a darkness had descended somewhere deep behind them. "Between you and Jackson. Back then. When things were already weird between us. I found them on the laptop. Your iCloud sync was still on."
I didn't know what to say. I sat stunned. Of course I'd known. It had been obvious. My immediate response was to lie, something that had almost become a habit, but I calmed myself and did my best to think carefully.
"I was disgusted," she continued. "Not because you were with a man..." she paused, putting her head in her hands, pushing long, loose strands of blonde hair behind her ears. Then she cupped her mouth with her hands, a thing she used to do when she was stressed or unsure about something.
She continued. "... but because you lied to me while I was begging you to tell me the truth. I hated you. For a while."
I swallowed and nodded. It hurt, hearing it, even if I deserved it.
"But," she said, softening, "I got over it. Eventually. You were confused. I get that now. I just... I missed you... I missed..."
Again, her eyes were downcast. "I missed how you used to look at me."
There was nothing I could do but put my head in my hands. I wanted to sink into the earth and die. This was an accusation I hadn't been prepared for.
"I'm sorry. It was... a confusing... um... time." Words failed me.
She reached over and took one of my hands and brought it down to the table and clenched it tightly. "Shhh... it doesn't matter now. It's the past. I still care about you a great deal. I want us to have a friendship. If you're ready."
I felt tears threatening to burst out, but somehow pushed them back.
Instead I swallowed. It sounded a lot louder in my head.
Something shifted then. The light, maybe. Or the air between us. When she invited me to help her hang some prints in the new place, I jumped at the chance, especially as she'd offered friendship. It felt nostalgic, comfortable and familiar in a way that made me forget every warning sign.
At her place, it started innocently. A ladder, a few nails and a bottle of wine. Then we were sitting too close on the couch, laughing too long about something neither of us really found that funny. I looked at her, and she looked back. One moment too long.
The way she studied me again, that look I hadn't seen coming from her in a long time. The way her hazel eyes sparkled as though she was hiding a secret and couldn't wait to share it with me.
Then, somehow... we kissed. Stupidly. It wasn't soft at first, it was deliberate. Like someone opened up the floodgates. Or maybe somewhere, a starting gun fired to let us know we could 'go'.
She pulled my shirt off and I pulled hers off. Her bra, her jeans and her panties. We were on her couch, clothes off in seconds, limbs tangled, instantly comfortable just like it always was.
This was a lot of history, a closure we'd never had, loneliness and reconnection to a time we had both apparently yearned for.
I'd forgotten how much easier it was with a woman. The way I could lay on top of her and that was just that pleasure centre and my dick. Unlike with Jackson, I didn't have to navigate around and push his legs up. With Helena, I was already there. One moment I was on top, kissing like young, passionate lovers and the next, dick just slid it, like a ship sliding into a familiar port.
That feeling of being inside her vagina was incredible. So different and something I'd missed. We fucked, for quite some time. I licked her breasts, holding them firm in my hands as I licked her nipples.
It was impossible not to compare fucking her to fucking Jackson. She was so much softer, more delicate.
We both climaxed around the same time. It's like I remembered everything she loved, the half circles, the rigorous thrusts, arching my back and pushing my cock deep into her, then pulling out slightly and coming back in.
Afterwards, we didn't speak much. I dressed in silence while she stared out the window, legs curled beneath her, still naked.
"I don't want to start anything again," she said, finally. "I just needed to know I could still feel something with you."
I nodded. "It's ok. I get it. I've been seeing someone."
"Jackson?"
"Yeah."
She was quiet for a moment, then asked the question that had been hanging over our heads for years. "'Are you gay?'"
"I don't know. Maybe. Maybe not."
"Figures," she said, and that was that.
"And you? Are you seeing anyone?"
She scoffed, then laughed, followed by a look that I remembered well. She said nothing more.
"I guess not," I surmised.
I kissed her tenderly before I left and asked her to call or message me anytime. We could see a movie, a drink, dinner, hang pictures up or anything else.
"It's been great to reconnect. I've missed you. And... I'm sorry, for what it's worth," I said.
She smiled, getting up to walk me to her door. "I miss you. We'll stay in touch."
Over the next few weeks, something in Jackson shifted. He started disappearing more. Texts became shorter. Sex became rarer. He moved into a new apartment and asked me to help. I did, even though I knew something was changing.
I didn't tell him about Helena, just because we hadn't had that conversation we'd alluded to weeks early.
Weeks turned to months, and I clocked that it had been about 2 months since Jackson and I had been together. Every other time it had been the sauna, or drinks, or dinner, or helping him set up his new apartment, which coincidentally wasn't too far from Helena's new one.
One night, Helena called. She sounded calm. Clear.
"Hey, I'm pretty sure I'm pregnant. It's yours."
The world stopped moving for a second. She said she didn't want anything from me, just wanted me to know. Even thought it was a bit early to tell, she was certain she was right and that she was going to keep it. I was the father, because there'd been nobody else.
It took me a couple of weeks to think it through, about what she wanted from me. I buried myself into work, and nothing else.
When Helena confirmed she was in fact pregnant, she also told me it was my choice how involved I wanted to be. But she didn't want a relationship with me as her partner. But I could be the father of our child.
I cried a lot because I realised it's what I wanted.
Randomly, as though something had shifted, Jackson came over one night and got into bed with me.
"You know you still didn't get to fuck me," he said, as though we were talking about the weather and months hadn't passed.
I didn't say anything. He'd caught me at the right time. I was horny and had been about to put some porn on and jack off.
Something had definitely changed between us. It wasn't cold, our passion was the same. The kissing was sensual, the way he looked at me, the way he sucked my dick, the way he licked my neck, played with my ears gently and the way he kissed my belly and ate me out.
It was a lack of deep connection we'd had since we'd pretty much met.
I fucked him, making him moan, sliding in and out.
"Oh! You're so good with your fucking! Love the way you do those circles!"
I don't know how I knew, as I fucked him, gave him the best fuck I'd ever given him, I had this certainty he'd been seeing someone.
I blew my load inside him as we both groaned and I felt him shoot his load at the same time.
We fell asleep with me on top of him, my face buried in his neck, my legs on either side of him. A position I'd gotten used to over the past couple of years.
Jackson found out a few days later. I didn't even have to say anything. We meet for breakfast before work one morning. He looked at me, eyes hollow and said, "It's her, isn't it?"
"What?"
"Helena. Something's changed. The past couple of months. You always tell me when you see her, but after she messaged you a few months ago, you didn't say anything and went quiet."
I paused, wondering why Jackson was such an overthinker early in the morning. I wasn't just blindsided, I was also not ready to lie to him.
"I'll tell you something that's happened, but you need to be up front with me too. You've been seeing someone."
He seemed taken aback, and leaned back, playing with his toast and lifting his coffee cup, realising it was empty.
"Yeah. A chick we met together sometime back. That Vietnamese one, Analysa. I like her a lot."
I nodded, not surprised but feeling something deep within me I didn't want to address there and then.
"Why didn't you tell me?"
He shrugged. "I don't know. I guess I didn't know when was the right time. I didn't know what we were anymore."
That was a fair point. What had we become? I didn't know anymore either.
"And you? You seeing Helena?"
I shook my head. "No, but she's pregnant."
His eyes widened and he stared, eyes filled with questions.
"Yes. It's mine, we haven't thought through all the details, but we've both agreed we don't want to be partners, but I will be the dad."
He nodded, and said nothing more. But I could see he was shocked. His face contorted, as though he had a lot to say, a lot to ask but eventually did what Jackson does best. He said nothing.
After that, the weeks began to roll into months and I got the occasional text message, but never any suggestion to meet or anything more than a simple check in.
Many months after Jackson and I stopped seeing each other, I went to the shopping centre to get some new shoes.
For some reason, I went upstairs and used the bathroom. The hole between two stalls was still there.
At the urinal, two good looking guys, mid twenties, both in professional attire were looking around furtively, as though it wasn't glaringly obvious they were masturbating together.
I didn't want to interrupt them, bathroom etiquette 101, so I went it into the stall and unzipped, and sat down.
I was hard right away as I could see someone on the other side moving.
When I looked through, I nearly laughed.
It was Jackson, masturbating. He looked through the hole and our eyes met, we both smiled.
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