Anniversary: An Old Friends Sequel

by


"He's not coming, Bodie."

Bodie frowned, but glanced at the clock on the wall. "Early yet."

"We've been here more than an hour and he hasn't shown up. He's not going to, Bodie."

"He will." Bodie said it, but Doyle noticed a certain lack of conviction and moved to reinforce his position.

"Look, I agreed to come here with you--on the first day off I've had in a fortnight--because you didn't want to come to a gay bar alone. You didn't want to have to fend them off all night. I've done my duty, Bodie."

"Don't go!" Bodie said, reaching out to take hold of Doyle's arm as if the other man were going to bolt immediately.

"Why not?"

"And leave me to these vultures?"

"What's Macklin spent all that time on you for, if you can't defend yourself?" Doyle picked up his pint and stared into it for a moment before taking a last drink. If he didn't go now, then Bodie would order another one, and he'd have to drink it, and would be here another half hour or more. The prospect didn't appeal to him.

"Don't mention Macklin. I can imagine what he'd say if he saw us now! Go on about it forever, he would. 3.7 and 4.5 in a gay bar." Bodie made the prediction after another quick glance around the place.

"Drink up, Bodie, and let's go. There's still time for a movie." Something. Anything to get out of here.

"Cobrinson said it was big. Really big. What are you going to say to Cowley if...." Bodie stopped because Doyle waved him silent, conceding defeat. He watched as his partner set the glass down with a thump and ordered another for each of them. He understood why Doyle was edgy. This place got to him, too. He just wasn't used to being eyed that way. Weighed, measured, undressed and invited--by masculine eyes.

"Look," Bodie said, "I understand how you...."

"I doubt it," Doyle snapped. He wasn't looking at Bodie, but kept his eyes on the glass the barman was filling for him, as if that were the only thing in the room which interested him. Anything rather than look over to the table where two rather familiar men sat.

"Look, I do. He'll be here soon, has to!" Bodie did rather sound as if he were trying to convince himself. He added, "Stay close, mate. Not only is the bloke in the dress staring at me, but so are those two at the table."

It would be rather stupid to try to convince a CI5 man that he was mistaken about being under surveillance. Bodie knew when someone was keeping a more-than-casual eye on him.

"You're a looker, Bodie--and you're with me. Broke a few hearts tonight, haven't we, sweetheart?"

As he thought it would, that caused Bodie to grin. Doyle took a swallow of his new drink and looked away. Yeah, Bodie was the best looking man in the room tonight, and he was with Doyle. Dream come true, wasn't it? Except that Bodie was as straight as straw.

Doyle, who had put aside a certain aspect of himself several years ago, was being sorely tried. He had managed, with only partial success, to ignore his partner's attractions during the years they had been partnered. By keeping a steady stream of young women in his life, by getting his end away at every opportunity, even if he was only lightly attracted to the woman, he had focused on the present and ignored the past.

Hard to do when your past--or at least two fine representatives of it--were seated only a few feet away. Hard not to remember how he had first experimented with Al, how they had been bolder and more inventive every night, until Al had picked his cherry one Saturday morning in that dreary bedsit they had been sharing. Memory of that moment came to him, as sharp as if it had been yesterday.

And strangest of all, that Al should be seated with Dave. Dave, his last fling with a man. He'd thought, when he became a policeman, that he would be able to juggle the two parts of his life, to bed both men and women, as he had been doing for a few years. Safe enough, maybe, if he kept it to one night stands. But then, Dave had been so...good. Friendly, nice, good in bed, and Doyle had lingered, going back once, and then again, and again, until he had realized that a choice had to be made. To continue with Dave or break it off hadn't been the only decision. He had to decide if he could go on dividing his evenings between men and women. To decide what career he wanted and what he was willing to do to get and keep it.

Reluctantly, he had picked the 'right' way, had said good-bye to Dave and become blatantly heterosexual. Funny how, when he had joined CI5, George Cowley had told him he would have to cut back on his social life. Cowley had told him, when he couldn't give the surname of the woman he had last bedded, that he expected a more responsible answer from an agent of CI5.

So, Doyle had been more discriminating in regards to his partners, got to know them better and even, once, considered marrying one of them. It had been Anne's boy-slim body, her coolness--and her love of sodomy--which had lured him. Doyle rather liked the back door approach to sex, and Anne--Anne was one of the few women he had ever bedded who actually seemed to prefer it. Of course, that was partly because she had a fear of pregnancy, he had decided, but he preferred to avoid that risk himself.

But she hadn't liked oral sex of any type, and their other interests had diverged. He'd been blind to their problems as he had indulged in a practice which hadn't been available for several years. Eventually, however, he had realized that there were major flaws with the relationship, and it would have died a slower death if she had not killed it rather suddenly in another way.

Too, she hadn't been able to deliver the one thing a man could get in a gay relationship which was hard to get anywhere else. Anne had seemed put off by the idea of using a dildo up Ray's arse, and had only done it once. Heaven knows why, she liked it up hers well enough. Doyle had never had that before, to be inside a woman while something vibrated inside her other orifice. Damnedest sensation, drove him wild--and Anne as well. There had been no one after Anne who had been as adventurous, as....

"...if you think so," Bodie said.

"'Cuse me?" Doyle came out of his memory to realize Bodie was speaking to him.

"I said let's stay until midnight and then we can go."

Doyle consulted his watch. An hour? "Boooodie," he began to complain, and then he decided it didn't matter. All that mattered was, he needed a pee. "Okay," he said. Bodie's smile of relief was huge, and Doyle was glad he'd agreed. Best mate, after all. "I've got to pee. You man the fort."

Bodie's arm reached out. "You'd leave me here alone?"

"If you come with me, who will watch for your grass? Don't worry about it, Bodie. If someone comes on to you, just give them a polite no and say you're waiting for a jealous boyfriend."

"Not worried for yourself?" Bodie asked. "I hear the gent's is fraught with peril in a place like this."

"I'll hit them with my handbag, Bodie."

"Maybe they won't touch. Just take a good look at what you have," Bodie suggested. The idea actually seemed to upset him.

"The jealousy won't kill them, Bodie." With a wink, he was gone.

Bodie was left by himself to look out over the room. It was a fairly quiet place. About a third of the men were in couples, the others were engaged in quiet mating rituals. Buying drinks, chatting, flirting. There was a juke box, and several men clustered around it, smoking and laughing.

The man dressed in women's clothing was gone, he noted. Good. The very idea of a man dressing up like that caused him to shiver. The two men at the table were talking, heads together, and then they glanced his way. To his consternation, they too got up and went towards the loo, taking their bottle of champagne.

Bodie was instantly uneasy. His imagination, working overtime ever since they arrived, now went into over-drive. He imagined them attacking Ray, hitting him over the head with the bottle and then...he swallowed, hard, able to think of several things which might happen to an unconscious man in such circumstances.

Ray, raped. Bent over the sink. On the floor. Two men, both of them taking a turn. His jaw clenched, and he looked over at the closed door. What stupid fears. There'd be sounds of a struggle if they jumped Ray. Ray was always careful. Ray would come out any minute....

Inside, Ray had used the urinal and was washing his hands when Daisy came out of the stall. She at once moved up to stand beside him.

"Hello, sailor," she said, batting her eyelashes at him in a way both artfully camp and sincerely flattering. "I'm Daisy. Haven't seen your handsome face about." She leaned closer. "How would you like to be sucked off?" she said, in a lower, more masculine voice. She said, almost at once, "I'm not on the game, you know. Just indulging in a little hobby."

"Sorry," Doyle said, and not because he wasn't tempted. Actually, he was. Thinking of Anne and the past had him a little excited, and even a quick blow job here had a modicum of attraction for him. "I'm taken."

"Yes, I've seen. He's a silly boy, isn't he? The jealous type. I've seen the way he looks around, as if he expects someone to leap up and snatch you away at any moment." Daisy looked him up and down, adding, "Not that I blame him, petal. You're worth it, I'm sure."

The door opened and two more men came in. Daisy looked them over, noting who it was and that they weren't available, and reluctantly, she left. The room was too small now, with all those big brutes in it.

"Ray!" Al reached forward to shake Doyle's hand, and Dave took it next.

"Al. Dave. I thought it was you, out there. Are you two together?" Doyle asked, looking from one to the other.

"Five years," Al said eyes on his lover. Dave was younger than he was, handsome, to his eyes, and he couldn't help a bit of possessive pride.

"Uh, did you..." Doyle began, but then couldn't decide exactly what to say.

"Know that we'd both had you?" Dave winked.

"And lost you?"' Al added. "Yes. In fact, every year on our anniversary, we toast your name," he said, and he lifted up the champagne. "To Ray Doyle. The first thing we ever had in common."

Doyle laughed. Al took a sip of the bottle, passed it to Dave, who took a sip, and who passed it to Doyle, who nodded at each of them and tipped his head back for a hearty swig.

"So," said Al as Doyle handed the bottle back. "Tell us about the new boyfriend."

"Yes," Dave added. "What's he have that we didn't? Besides lovely muscles, legs to die for, azure eyes and the face that launched a thousand ships?"

Doyle laughed again, delighted in that description of Bodie. Too bad he couldn't share it with him. His partner had a vain streak. Doyle also realized he had to be careful here, had to give just the right information to keep everyone out of trouble.

"We're here waiting for someone," he began.

"Work?" Al asked, his voice low even though there was no one to hear.

"Yeah. And...my partner's straight and doesn't know about my wild and misspent youth." He looked from one to the other, his concern showing that he hoped they'd keep his secrets.

"I'm sorry, Ray!" Dave said. "Must be like having your nose to the bakery window!"

"Rather," Doyle confessed. Then he added, in a voice suddenly fiercely intent, "I'm bloody jealous of the pair of you, you know."

The idea that Ray Doyle could be jealous of them caused the other two men to stare at him.

"Nine to five and a real lover to come home to at night," Doyle said, "is better than I have. Than I'll ever have." He'd been so sure, all those years ago, that he'd made the right decision, but now the sacrifices seemed bigger.

In sympathy, Al reached forward and gathered Ray to him, and Dave joined in a three-way hug. It was warm, the sort traded by friends, and yet he was very aware of both bodies. He remembered how the thick hair on Al's chest made swirling patterns, and the mole under Dave's left nipple that sometimes fooled you into taking the wrong nub into your teeth.

Behind them, the door opened, but none of them was aware of it until a hard voice demanded, "Get your hands off him." It was Bodie, one hand forward as he dropped into a fighter's stance. His face was black with anger, his eyes narrow, his teeth showing.

Al and Dave sprang back, startled, and Ray turned. "Don't get your knickers in a twist, Bodie," he said mildly. "I'd like you to meet a couple of old friends. Al here is one of the worst painters to ever pick up a brush," Doyle teased, "and this is Dave."

Bodie didn't acknowledge the introduction except to narrow his eyes even more, but gave Doyle an odd look and then abruptly turned and stomped out.

"Ooooh," Dave said, cattily, but then at once added sincerely, "I'm sorry, Ray."

"For what? He's the one with the bad manners." Ray was looking at the closed door as if he could see through it. "Besides, this was all his idea. Still, I suppose I should go."

"Here," Dave had pulled a scrap of paper from his pocket and the short yellow stub of a pencil. "Here's our number. Give us a call some time," he said as he passed the bit of paper over.

Doyle tucked it away and nodded. He turned to go, but then stopped and came back quickly. He grabbed Al and plastered a short but enthusiastic kiss on his lips, and then gave Dave one as well. "I'll call," he promised, and strode out the door.

"I'd love to be a fly on the wall tonight," Al said. Since he was there, he decided to use the urinal. Beside him, Dave took another sip from the bottle. The champagne was almost gone. Still, that meant they could go home, and the real celebration could begin. He handed the bottle to his lover and moved up to the urinal himself. For a few moments, the two streams of urine mingled, and then Dave was left to finish on his own.

"Let's go home," Dave suggested, his voice husky.

"Yes," Al agreed, and drained the last of the wine. They left, lifting a hand to the men at the bar. Only one of them waved back. The door closed behind them.

"Good friends of yours, are they?" Bodie asked, taking his nose out of his fresh beer.

Doyle shrugged. "Old friends. Haven't seen either of them in years."

"Uh-huh." Bodie managed to get all sorts of meanings into two syllables.

Bodie's attitude annoyed Doyle, but he kept his temper. "Just old friends, Bodie."

"Yeah. The kind you meet in a gay bar?"

"Doesn't mean anything, does it? You and I are in a gay bar, together, and it doesn't mean anything at all." Doyle's beer arrived and he took a deep drink. "Except," he added, "that you have unreliable grasses with kinky tastes. Bet he didn't want to meet with us at all. With our luck, he's outside with a movie camera, recording how two CI5 agents spent all night drinking in a gay bar."

Bodie went a bit pale. "It's not like that!"

"Together," Doyle went on. "Two careers on the line." Wouldn't that be one for the books. Shopped for doing what he hadn't dared really do!

"We're on the job!"

Doyle straightened, took another deep drink, and let the glass hit the wood of the bar with a deep thunk. "I'm not. I'm going home." Or he could go out. Find a woman to take the edge off. What he really needed was Daisy, he decided, with a grim smile. A woman to the undiscerning eye, and a man underneath.

"We were going to stay until midnight," Bodie protested.

"It's close enough. He's well over an hour late, Bodie. Goodbye."

"We came in my car," Bodie reminded him.

"Don't worry. I can find my way home."

"And leave me, the only straight bloke in the place?" Bodie tried to joke him out of it, while moving to block Doyle's exit by standing between Doyle and the door.

All at once, Doyle had enough of it. Of everything. He wanted to shock Bodie, he wanted to get out, he wanted....

"I've got news for you, Bodie. You always were the only straight bloke in the place." With that, he turned and strode out.

Behind him, Bodie dropped his glass. It shattered when it hit the floor, making a big noise and a bit of a mess. Bodie's head came up. He threw a bill at the barman to cover the damage and dashed out after his partner.

It was a foggy night, damp with the moisture in the air, and the lights took on strange white auras, while the shadows darkened. Doyle was nowhere to be seen. A quick check up the alley, street, and Bodie headed for his car. Starting it, he drove quickly around the block, then expanded his area of search to two blocks.

Bodie's heart was pounding, his teeth clenched, and for the first time in years he abused the clutch terribly as he miscalculated shifting the gears. There! There was Doyle, striding along, head down, hands in his pockets. Bodie slowed, rolled down the window.

"Ray!"

His partner did not even look up, and increased his pace.

"Ray! Get in!" Bodie opened the door on the passenger side and slowed more to match the speed of the other. "Ray! If you don't get in, I'm taking this matter to Cowley in the morning!"

Ray stopped. He seemed to look off into the distance for a long moment, and then he turned and slowly approached the car. "Are you threatening me, Mr Bodie?" The tone was cool, remote. "Since I know a few of your secrets, shall we trade enough of them to get us both fired?"

Bodie said, "Get in. I need to talk to you."

A car had come up behind, and the horn sounded impatiently. Doyle shrugged and climbed in. Bodie drove off quickly, keeping the speed up as if to make sure that Doyle couldn't change his mind and leap from the moving car.

"Your grass is going to be disappointed," was all Ray said.

Bodie just drove.

"That was my turn."

Bodie didn't make any attempt to backtrack.

"Bodie." Doyle's tone said he didn't want to argue or have to deal with silences and nonsense. "If you don't want to take me home, then let me out."

"My place. We'll talk."

"Nothing much to say, is there?"

"You did pretty much say it all, didn't you? You're gay!"

"I never said that."

Bodie turned his head, shocked into the response. "You said...."

"I'm bisexual, Bodie. I can go to bed with anyone I fancy, male or female."

"And which do you like best?" Bodie demanded.

"It's the person, Bodie. Not the sex."

"I've seen you with girls!"

"So? And you haven't seen me with men, because I'm not stupid, Bodie. I'll protect my arse--so to speak--when it's necessary. You don't have to worry about me causing you problems on the job. I haven't even been with a man in years."

"Years?"

"About five."

"When you joined CI5."

Doyle agreed in a tired voice, "Yeah, Bodie. When I joined CI5."

"So you're really more straight than gay."

"How do you figure that?"

Bodie said, "Could you leave sex alone completely for five years?"

"Probably not. Why?"

"You had to give up one or the other, and you chose to give up men." Bodie seemed proud of his logic, but it wasn't up to his usual standard.

"No, Bodie. I had a choice of half of everything, or everything--not either, or. And if I could have picked only one to keep, it would have been the men, not the women."

"Why!" Bodie seemed shocked.

Doyle shrugged. "I'm not sure. A back fuck isn't the same as a front fuck, so women give you two choices there. But a woman can't fuck me unless she uses a dildo, and they're just not the same."

Bodie wasn't unaffected by this frankness, Doyle noticed. The man's hands were turning white on the steering wheel.

"You let men fuck you?"

"No, Bodie, I begged them to fuck me. It can be nice. And sometimes I fucked them. That's good, too. I'll tell you what the difference is," he said, as if just discovering it. "You run into more cooperation with gay men. Fewer professional virgins, and it costs less as well. If I'm in the mood to get my cock sucked, a man will usually do it, but a woman--you never know if it's going to be one of the things she just doesn't care to do. Women are more fastidious."

Bodie had nothing to say to that.

"On the other hand, I once went to bed with a woman who sat on me while she had a vibrating dildo up her arse, and one up mine. It was one of the most wonderful orgasms of my life," he said, reverently.

Bodie had not yet spoken. Doyle remembered the bragging sessions Bodie occasionally started, the things he had said he had done with women. He wondered if Bodie was silent because he had finally been bested in that area. Maybe. He let his lips turned up. Typical, that. Ray Doyle beats Bodie at something and he can't even brag about it to anyone else!

"I never had a 'best' man," Doyle went on. "Had some good at giving head, some with nice arses, some who could fuck like a dream--but I never found it all in one package." He thought about it for a moment and said, "Just as well. It's harder to settle down with a man. Probably break my heart if I found one that good."

"I don't understand." Bodie did sound upset. Rather lost.

"What's so hard to understand? It feels good, Bodie. So I do it."

"It can't feel that good."

"You'll never know," Doyle pointed out.

"Right," Bodie said.

Beside him, Doyle's ears pricked up. Bodie had not replied with his characteristic certainty. Bodie had, for just a tiny fraction of an instant--hesitated.

Doyle didn't give away, by any movement or look, that he knew Bodie hadn't reacted as expected. "Can't see you being that adventurous," Doyle said, deliberately choosing words he knew would set small barbs in Bodie's I'm-better-than-anybody ego.

"Adventurous? Is that what you call it?" Bodie mocked.

"It takes guts to be gay, Bodie. To be different. To go with what you like rather than what others insist you ought to like."

"To let a man fuck you?" Bodie asked, somewhat nastily.

"Yeah." Doyle picked up the challenge, flinging the word back with the same energy. "I've got what it takes and you don't."

"That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard you say--and you've said some stupid things," Bodie informed him.

"Look, I haven't had a man in years and won't as long as I'm in CI5. You don't have to worry about me embarrassing you in any way. You're the one who dragged me to a gay bar tonight, Bodie! So just let it drop. Pretend you never found out. I'll continue to steal your birds, and the only difference is, it will rankle a bit more, now."

"You'd like to think so," Bodie replied.

"And I won't go to any more gay bars with you. If your grass wants to meet you, it will have to be somewhere else."

Bodie made a sound which might have been agreement. Doyle waited a moment and asked, "Are you going to tell Cowley?"

There was a long silence, and then a sigh. "No."

"Thanks."

They drove in silence for a bit.

"Will you ask for a new partner?" Doyle spoke again, quietly.

"No!" Emphatically. Interesting. A tiny flame of hope sparked in Doyle's heart.

"Thanks," Doyle said again. Bodie drove on, and Doyle was content to wait and see what would happen. They would talk tonight, and would resolve nothing, but.... Doyle knew he was going to take the opportunity to sow tiny seeds. Ideas. The more Bodie talked about it, the more comfortable he would be with the subject. Bodie's curiosity would cause him to ask questions, and Doyle would answer them. Oh, he'd answer them. And maybe one day, Bodie, competitive, inventive, try-anything-once Bodie, would be tempted. Maybe he'd try something new. With his partner, a friend he could trust with an experiment of that type.

Maybe, one day, Doyle would be on his hands and knees with Bodie's big cock up his arse. He shook his head at the silly dream. Still....

If it ever happened, Doyle decided, he would send a case of champagne to Dave and Al. He noted the date, sure he would never forget it. This would be the day W.A.P. Bodie first considered going to bed with Raymond Doyle. He'd work the conversation around so that Bodie couldn't help but at least think of the idea. As for the rest, Doyle could wait. Wait until Bodie got used to the idea, wait until Bodie was the one who proposed they give it a try. Yeah. He could wait.

Mentally, he lifted a glass. To old friends.

Thanks.

-- THE END --

Originally published in Old Friends, Chained-to-the-Typewriter-Press, c.1994

Circuit Archive Logo Archive Home