So, Where Do We Start

So, where do we start? I met Matt when he and I were employed to be barmen in a new bar opening up.

We were the barmen. We’d got the jobs through who we knew and not really what we knew. I was a friend of the owners PA. and was recommended by her. The owner trusted her judgement implicitly.

Matt was the son of the owner’s best friend, and the owner owed his best friend a favour.

We were both told to turn up by the owner midweek to help with the setup, and get familiar with the layout for the opening on that weekend.

There was also Mark who was going to be the third barmen, but Matt and I were going to be the main guys.

We hadn’t met before the Wednesday we were called in.

As it turned out, I was attracted to Matt the moment I met him. He was a good looking, masculine, guy who was funny, who seemed to like me.

“Hi.” Matt shook my hand with a firm handshake.

“Hi.” I shook his hand. It was warm. It felt good in my hand. I smiled, I felt it on my face.

He smiled. Dark hair. Blue eyes. I almost had to shake my head to snap myself from his gaze. 

But, we were busy. Everything was happening.

Steve the owner seemed to know who I was the moment I walked in, I guess, because Matt had got there before me and had, of course, introduced himself.

The bar was a mess, it was absolute pandemonium, all hands on deck, all systems go. Matt and I look at each other at one point.

“This is never going to open on Saturday,” said Matt.

“I know. Right?” I said to him.

We both smile conspiratorially.

But they pulled off a miracle, and it did open. Our first Saturday night was frantic, we learned everything on the job, we were crap at the beginning, but we got good at it quickly.

And even if I do say so myself, we were both handsome and appealing and we got away with a lot with charm alone.

The bar closed at midnight, because the owners didn’t want to work later than that, which was good. It was open Thursday to Sunday nights. Matt lived around the corner from me with his sister, Marta, in North Fitzroy, as it turned out, so we hung out a lot after work.

Matt was dating some girl when we started working together, but he split up with her pretty quickly after we started working in the bar together.

We wore black trousers and a white shirt and a black waistcoat changing into them before work and changing out of them after work. I used to perve on Matt in his jocks as he got changed. He always had a great arse. And thick thighs with just the right amount of hair on them. He caught me looking a few times, and he’d just kind of give me a look, followed by a quizzical kind of smile.

It started off by Matt driving me to his place and me walking home to my place, saving me a tram trip. But it only took two trips home to Matts place and he invited me in.

Then, pretty soon, Matt was saying to me.

“You coming over to my joint?” he’d ask after we finished.

“Yeah, sure,” I’d say.

Matt’s sister worked a job that required her to travel interstate a lot, so it was often just Matt and I back at his place in Batman Street, before I’d head home to my place around the corner.

Sometimes we’d smoke pot. Sometimes we’d suck on nitrous capsules. Mostly we’d drink coffee and eat and rave on and unwind from the bar before I’d head home.

We were both going to uni during the day, we were both in our last year.

I found I missed Matt on the nights the bar wasn’t open.

This went on for 6 months, until the end of the first semester, when the two of us went out drinking at a late night bar celebrating passing everything, celebrating we only had 6 months to go.

Matt’s sister was interstate when we rolled home to Matt’s place blind drunk. 

We were laughing and messing about. Really, I think we were just finding excuses to touch each other, we’d been very handsy for the last few hours.

We tripped over and fell about, as we walked into Matt’s lounge room. I flung myself onto Matt’s couch and as he tried to sit next to me, he kind of fell and landed on me.

“Oh, sorry, how drunk am I?” Matt said.

“You’re so pissed,” I remember exclaiming. I grabbed him with the intent of throwing him sideways onto the couch, but, my hands rapped around the muscles in his arms and squeezed, I remember thinking instantly he felt too good to let go of. His eyes met mine, and they burned through me, like they never had before.  

I could feel it deep down in that place that goes buzz when you suddenly lose gravity. I held his gaze, because I suddenly couldn't look away.

That thing happened when all of the rest of the world melted away, including our inhibitions and worries and the things that hold you back.

It was just Matt and I.

And suddenly, 6 months of unrequired love, er, desire, er call it what you want, and we just started kissing, no hesitation at all. 

We devoured each other there on the couch, no holding back. We suddenly couldn't get enough of each other.

He led me to his bedroom by the hand. We both collapsed into his bed, tearing each other’s clothes off. We didn’t stop, not for a moment, until we were fucking furiously on his bed. No condoms, barely any lube. We couldn't get inside each other far enough.

In the morning, Matt was snoring the sleep of the dead. I got up and got dressed and headed off to my place without waking him.

Yeah, sure, I wondered about what we had just done? I’d never done that before, the unsafe sex thing? With my straight work colleague too. Matt was very straight. He was my fantasy straight boy fuck, but was that a reason for unprotected sex? Well, you know, not so straight, when I think about him on his knees in front of me taking it, telling me how much he loved it, and how much he was always going to want it up his arse. Had I just fucked up a great relationship? What the hell was going to happen now?

Thursday night at work was the first time I saw him, or spoke to him. 

We were a little strange with each other, it was true. I’m not sure what you’d call it. I wanted him to say it was okay, that we were okay, but he was unusually quiet. I wanted to say the same thing to him, but I was nervous.

Then about 15 minutes into working, as he was preparing some drinks for a customer, he turned to me and said, “Why did you leave?”

“Why did I leave?”

Matt put the drinks on the bar.

“Yes. Why did you leave?”

Matt took the money and headed to the register.

I served my own customers. I prepared those drinks.

“I don’t know. I thought it would be weird if I didn’t.”

Matt served the next customers at the bar.

“And then you didn’t call?”

I put my customer’s drinks on the bar.

“I was waiting for you to call.”

My next customers wanted coffees. I went to the coffee machine.

“I was waiting for you to call,” said Matt.

I frothed the milk for the coffee as the coffees poured.

“I should have called,” I said.

Matt walked past me with drinks for his next customers.

“I should have called,” said Matt.

I put the coffees on the bar. I took their money to the register. I walked back to serve.

“Are we okay?” I asked.

Matt pulled stubbies of beer from the fridge.

“I’m okay,” said Matt. “Are you okay?”

Matt put the beers on the bar. My customer wanted two bloody Mary’s.

“Yes, I’m okay,” I said.

“All I wanted to know is that we’re okay,” said Matt.

Matt served his next customers. He made cocktails.

My next customers wanted cocktails too.

Matt looked at me with his cheeky smile. “I want to do it again.” 

“Pass me the Cointreau,” I said.

“Only if you say you want to do it again too.”

“I want to do it again,” I said.

Then Matt smiled at me, and the frown he’d been wearing since he arrived at work disappeared, as did all the tension in his face. And he looked at me, you know, in that way that, I have to admit, made my heart flutter and made me feel I was floating above the ground. We had a great night after that. I even slapped his arse at one point when we were in the cool room together. That felt good, feeling him in my hand like that.

Yeah, sure we went home that night and did it all again.

After that, our nights together after work, when Matt’s sister was interstate for work, Matt and I would have sex Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights at his place, every night after work for the rest of the year, before I went home to my place.

Eventually, Matt’s sister asked him what was going on with him and I.

“What? Nothing,” said Matt.

“Really? Nothing?” said Marta.

“No.”

“Oh, okay,” said Marta.

It was one Saturday morning, and the two of them continued making breakfast.

“I’d just woken up, said Matt. And I was bleary-eyed and I kind of panicked questioned her, where I probably should have just kept quiet.”

“You said nothing?” I asked.

“Yeah,” said Matt. “I guess.”

“You know it’s okay,” said Marta. “I like Josh, there’s no judgment. I was just being interested.”

“Okay,” said Matt.

“I think Josh is a nice boy,” said Marta.

“Yeah, he is,” said Matt.

“You two seem to be getting along really well,” said Marta.

“Yeah, we are,” said Matt.

“Like really well,” said Marta.”

“Yeah, sure,” said Matt.

“It seems like the two of you are inseparable,” said Marta. “Always hanging out, laughing, messing about, it seems really nice. And just kind of sudden.”

“Yeah, so? We are. It’s true,” said Matt.

“It’s nice that you have, ah…” Marta looked at Matt and smiled. “You know.” She smiled again. “A nice boyfriend.”

“Yeah, sure,” said Matt.

Marta shrugged. “That’s all.” She smiled.

“Well, um?” said Matt.

Marta looked at him as she buttered her toast.

“I guess.” Matt put milk in his coffee. “Er.”

Marta looked back down at her toast. “It’s okay.”

“Josh is,” said Matt.

Marta cut her toast, picked up one side. “Is what?” She took a bite of the toast in her hand.

“What you said,” said Matt.

“And?” I asked. I wanted to hear what he said about me, of course, I did.

“And what?” said Matt.

“What did you say next?”

“What?” Matt seemed unusually vague.

“To Marta? What did you say?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?

“Yeah, nothing.”

“What do you mean?” I even heard my voice’s pitch rise up.

“Let it go.”

“No, I want to know what you said?”

“Nothing.”

“How could you have said nothing from that point.”

Matt shrugged.

“Well?”

“I cried,” said Matt. "Okay."

“What?”

“I cried.”

“What?”

“I cried.

“You cried?”

“It just happened. I don’t know why? I guess it was the pressure releasing like the steam from a boiling kettle.” Matt smiled nervously. "It just burst out of me."

“Very poetic,” I said. “And what did Marta say?”

“She hugged me and told me it was alright,” said Matt. “Stupid really.”

I hugged Matt.

We had blood tests, of course. We went to my doctor like the cutest couple, well, in my mind anyway. I introduced Matt as my new boyfriend to my doctor. I sneaked a sideways look at Matt just after I said he was my boyfriend. Matt was serious, blood tests were serious, but he smiled just a little. My doctor didn’t even say anything when we told him that we’d been having unsafe sex. Well, I mean, he didn’t wag his finger at us. He did ask Matt his sexual history. Then we went and had tests. 

They were both negative, of course. I guess I shouldn't say, of course, because that is not always the case for two boys who have unsafe sex, but it was in Matt's and my case. We celebrated that night by cuddling on Matt’s couch and watching a late movie in each other’s arms, feeling a certain freedom that we didn't feel before. 

Marta came home late and we continued cuddling on the couch.

“Nice to see you Josh,” Marta said.

“Nice to see you too,” I said.

“I’m going to leave you two to it,” said Marta. “I’m tired and I’m heading straight to bed.”

“Good night,” said Matt.

“Good night,” I said.