Jack & Chris

Then there was Chris. He was the sweetest, nicest, loveliest guy you would ever meet. Everybody loved Chris. He and his boyfriend, Mark, became a part of our party set.

Chris is a handsome boy of Asian heritage, Mark is a handsome boy of Dutch heritage.

Jack and Chris were boyfriends too, to which Jack never really admitted. The beautiful Chris, we were all beguiled by him, so we all understood. 

Not that it was a secret exactly, the last year Jack lived with us, Chris was a regular inclusion on the couch midday Sunday. Dance music playing, the 5am kind of dance music. Jack and Chris would be in the corner of the couch in each other’s arms, having showered and changed, rubbing and caressing each other, looking balefully into each other’s eyes, for hours before retiring to J’s room not seen again till morning.

 “If ever I was to cross over,” Jack always said. “Chris would be the person I’d do it with.”

“At first retiring to Jack’s room was all innocent. We’d get into bed and cuddle until we fell asleep,” Chris said. “Jack and I fall asleep really quickly.” Chris never wanted to tell us the details, he said it was unnatural for his father and step father to want to know the gory details.

“I don’t want to know if he’s any good at it,” said Liam. “I just want to know if he’s happy.”

“I just want to know the truth,” I said. Jack had never really convinced me that the obviously love struck Chris wasn’t going to eventually put a move on his very own Tarzan? It didn’t add up.

Jack and Chris would be out on the weekends at the clubs hand in hand. Seemingly, only with eyes for each other. Chris certainly looked like he was in love, so did Jack, really.

Chris’ boyfriend kind of faded into the back ground. Chris would never really say that he’d split up from Mark, but Mark was also not really seen again.

While Chris was at our place, cuddled up with Jack. Or they were in Marie’s house together.

“Should I be worried about Jack?” Marie stopped me in the street one day.

“Why?” I asked.

“Chris sleeps over on the weekends,” said Marie. “He sleeps with Jack in Jack’s bed.”

“What would you be worried about?” I asked.

“Well.” Marie pulled a face. “You know?”

“No, no I don’t, that is why I asked.”

“What are they doing when they sleep together,” she said.

“Really?” I laughed.

Marie pulled a very stern face.

“Do you really want to know?” I asked.

“Yes, sure I do,” said Marie. “I don’t think it is strange that I want to know what’s going on when my son sleeps with a gay boy every weekend.”

“Well, then ask him,” I said. “If you really want to know.”

“And this has nothing to do with Chris,” said Marie. “If Jack was going to have a boyfriend,” she laughed nervously. “I’d want it to be Chris, he is lovely. But Jack is supposed to be straight.”

“What if they are having sex?” I asked. “What if they are banging each other’s brains out?”

Marie sighed loudly. “Well.” She took a big breath. She shook her head. “I’d just want to know if this is, um, a, um… is Jack gay?”

“Well, he doesn’t have to be,” I said. “Straight guys have sex with men all the time…”

“Don’t give me that, it ruins people’s lives…”

“Jack is single, Marie, he’s not effecting anyone’s life…”

“But, is it a good thing,” said Marie. “Isn’t he confusing himself?”

I shrugged. “Ask him.”

Marie focused her gaze on me. “Ask him? Yes, yes, of course you are right. Ask him.” The intensity disappeared out of her voice like a deflating balloon.

Chris coyly admitted one night when he and I had sat up smoking what seemed like an endless stream of joints, that while it started really beautifully, with Jack, and rather romantically, and it could quite likely have stayed that way was it not for him waking up to Jack’s near naked physical form.

One morning, after Chris rolled over in bed, and took Jack in his arms, with Jack taking Chris in his arms, they kissed. They had kissed before, but this morning the simple kiss turned really very passionate seemingly quite beyond either of their control.

Chris’ body rubbed up against Jack, and instead of the gesture dying away, Jack didn’t let go, or back down. Chris’ and Jack’s legs were entwined as their lips locked and they gently rubbed each other’s hard-ons together before they even realised what they were doing.

Jack’s hands rubbed down the sides of Chris’ torso, his fingers catching in the waistband of Chris’s trunks, 

Chris wasn’t even sure that Jack meant to slide Chris’ undies down his thighs. It just seemed like tender touching, like they had done many times. But suddenly Chris was naked in Jack’s arms. 

Chris shrugged and blushed.

“Well,” I said. “I think you two make a cute couple.”

“We’re not a couple,” said Chris.

I shrugged and smiled.