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" She ran out of reasons to stay inside. It was way too early but she couldn’t contain her excitement anymore. Putting a stray strand of hair back into the clasp she pushed the sliding doors to the garden open and carefully stepped barefoot over the rough tiles of the patio."
Josef put the book he had started reading down for a moment and rubbed a hand over his eyes. It had been a particularly trying day at work, several financial deals that seemed to be a sure thing had fallen through, and he had been dealing none stop with irate investors who were demanding answers as to why their ‘sure fire guaranteed investment returns’ were nowhere to be found.
“Yes indeed, the tar pits had seen a lot of action in the last sixteen hours or so.” Josef thought with a wry smile.
He picked the book back up again and tried to read a few more words. It was supposed to be a distraction, something completely light hearted and nondescript that he didn’t have to spend too much time thinking about. In actual fact it was boring him to tears and he hadn’t gotten more than three words into the next sentence before he placed it back down again for a final time.
He checked the clock on the wall in front of him. Mick was late, as usual, getting back from the blood bank. Josef wondered exactly what had held him up this time.
“No doubt an adorable little old lady’s, blind, retarded, sickeningly cute puppy dog had gotten trapped up a tree after fleeing in sheer terror from the evil clutches of their, now hysterical, hapless owner and Mick St John just had to step in and save the day.”
Josef rolled his eyes and chuckled to himself at the thought, noting to himself at the same time that one of these days he really did have to remember to buy Mick a white horse and a nice shiny coat of armour.
“Ah, speak of the devil” Josef announced with sarcastic breeze as he saw the front door open and Mick finally stepped through it ladened with shopping bags full of blood packages for the both of them. “What did you get me?” he asked then, grinning cheekily as he walked over to Mick and inspected the bag’s contents.
“AB negative, Josef.” Mick huffed and pulled the bag out of Josef’s prying reach. “Same as what I always get you.”
“Don’t be like that.” Josef snapped, and chided in response “I was only asking. I was going to offer you some.”
“Well I did get some for myself, Josef.” Mick rolled his eyes in mock exasperation, and then headed into the kitchen, adjoining the main lounge room, to pour two glasses of blood for the both of them.
“A positive no doubt?” Josef called out after him, laughing to himself and flopping back down on the couch, stretching catlike for a moment and then placing his legs out in front of him in a pose of affected nonchalance.
“Of course” Mick tossed back with his own brand of sarcastic breeze, and joined Josef on the couch, flopping down next to him and stretching his own legs out in a mirror image of Josef’s. “Anything decent on T.V?” Mick asked then, handing Josef his glass of blood and taking a quick sip of the crimson fluid from the glass in his own hand.
It had been a little over two years since they had started living together under the same roof. It had started out as no more than a temporary situation, or at least that is what they had both intended when Beth had finally broken up with Mick once and for all. Coming to the realisation and acceptance, at long last, that she was completely unable to deal with ageing whilst Mick remained eternally young, yet still not being able to take that final step and give up her own well guarded mortality.
Josef had invited Mick to stay with him after that, offering him a space away from the memories that permeated his apartment so that he could pick up the pieces of his life, sans Beth. Mick had gratefully accepted and whether by design or default, neither one of them was really sure, days had stretched into weeks, weeks had stretched into months and before Josef knew it he had found himself with a permanent lodger in residence.
Mick may have gotten over Beth in those two years, but Josef still had to wonder, more often than he cared to admit, exactly when he was going to get over Mick.
“Twenty six years, nine months, three weeks, two days, seven hours, 30 minutes and 28 seconds and you’re still expecting the miracle to occur” Josef scoffed to himself and mentally rolled his eyes.
Josef quickly pushed such thoughts to the back of his mind as he picked up the remote from the coffee table and pointed it at the large screen TV on the wall in front of them.
“Oh, now you see that’s just so unrealistic it’s not even funny.” Josef rolled his eyes and pointed to what he considered to be a completely implausible male on male sex scene that his channel clicking had landed on, unfolding on the screen in front of them.
“Why not?” Mick looked at Josef with what seemed to be genuine curiosity, and Josef rolled his eyes once again in response.
“What do you mean, ‘why not’?” Josef looked at Mick, his expression frustrated, as if he fully expected Mick to understand the implausibility of the scene they were watching.
“Stand up.” Josef commanded Mick then, standing up and reaching for Mick’s hand, pulling Mick to his feet with him. “Look, if I’m like this,” Josef manoeuvred their bodies into a replica of the position the two lovers on the screen currently found themselves in, “and you’re like this,” he pressed himself against Mick, trying to demonstrate the completely unrealistic nature of the position, “it’s not going to work, now is it?”
Mick went to kiss Josef then, as he always did. This had become an old and familiar routine. Once a month Josef would find some reason or another to place Mick in a not so innocently compromising position, and Mick would always respond by attempting to take things further. And every single time Josef would reject his advances. It was like watching two well trained fencers ply their trade, parry, thrust, withdraw, retreat.
At first Josef had assumed Mick’s responses to his thinly veiled advances were no more than a state of confusion bought about by the loss of the woman he loved, but now he wasn’t so sure. Even so he still wasn’t willing to actually let things go beyond a few basic back and forth dance steps, especially not when it was he who would be putting his heart on the line. Especially for something that may very well turn out to be no more than a “wham bam thank you Sam’ moment.
“I’m sorry.” Josef muttered under his breath, and took a step back, holding up a hand to stop any further advances from Mick.
“Yeah you’re always sorry, Josef.” Mick shook his head and rolled his eyes skyward for a moment, arms folded across his chest and stance challenging. “Still it makes me wonder why you even do it in the first place.”
When Josef refused to respond to the challenge, choosing instead to look down at the ground, over at the far side kitchen wall, at the clock above the T.V, anywhere but directly into Mick’s eyes, Mick finally relented in sheer frustration, and announced he was. “Going to the freezer for the night.”
“Mick, wait.” Josef called out after him, just as Mick had gotten halfway up the stairs leading to the separate, but adjoining, rooms where their respective freezers were housed.
“What?” Mick let out a reluctant sigh and turned back to face whatever Josef had decided to say to him.
“Nothing, just…” Josef hesitated for a moment, and then finished with a dismissive wave of a hand and a politely forced.” Don’t let the Vampires bite.”
“Well there’s not really much chance of that, now is there, Josef?” Mick scoffed and then offered Josef a mocking grin, before turning away a final time and recommencing his walk up the stairs.
Josef stood at the bottom of the staircase and watched Mick’s ascent, struggling with the urge to call out once more and then run up after him, watching the muscles in Mick’s back ripple slightly as Mick climbed the stairs in front of him.
Josef hesitated for a few moments more, before calling out the word, “Wait,” once more, and heading up the stairs after Mick. He caught up with Mick just as Mick reached the landing, and quickly swept him into his embrace.
“I’m probably going to end up regretting this, but what the hell.” Josef muttered hurriedly.
And then he kissed him.