The smell inside all gay bars is foul. Piss, cum, alcohol, sweat—real atmospheric shit. Abby sits his happy ass on the bar counter. Mr. Parish owns the place, so he can get away with damn near anything. He gets free drinks, in turn he cruises all of San Fran inviting any God willing fag into this hellhole.
His legs dangle with feet kicking childishly, and a clear fizzy drink in clutch. He’s been sloshed. Eyeing up any young thing, telling them his girl “simply won’t know.”
Everyone knows she knows. They fuck him usually with some posessive vigor as if she won’t know. She knows. He tells her. He has to.
Madeline Mary has him on shock collar. She gets off on whoring her man out just to call him home and fuck the rest of his sense out of him.
Abby’s been raking his eyes over the crowd. Watching these faggy sardines grinding on each other, too drunk or too desperate to care who’s who. It’s unentertaining. It’s tired. He’s seen it before, that’s his life. Kissing, switching, sex, blowjob, kissing, sex, switch, on your knees, turn around, sex, kiss, switch, hand job, blow job, switch. Every night, same thing, different names. Who needs work when your living is everything you’d ever want.
With a sigh, he slides off the counter, boots hitting the sticky floor. He makes his way upstream, through the bodies, past the wet tongues and handsy hands. No one seems to give a shit they’re being shoved aside. Some grope his ass, some pay him a kiss, some shoot daggers. And he shrugs. Free from the crowd he pats down himself. Wallet, book, pencil, pen.
Finally to the bathrooms. Whether it’s the men’s or women’s, it doesn’t matter. They’re all the same. Covered with cum and half of them with carved out glory holes. Near never toilet paper. You don’t go here to shit and it’s obvious.
He slips into a stall with RECEIVING scrawled in lipstick across the chipped metal door. It clicks shut. He leans his back against it, head tipped, breath shaky.
For a moment, it’s quiet. Just the distant throb of synth and muffled bass. He reaches for Thompson’s Great Shark Hunt in his back pocket then-
That’s when the knock comes. Three soft taps.
“Occupied,” Abby rasps.
“Yeah, I can see that,” comes the reply. Smooth. Male. Got a little midwest twang. Abby’s eyes narrow. He unlatches the door an inch and peers out.
James Beau.
Leaning against the opposite wall, cigarette dangling from his lips, curls soft and wild like a halo circling his soft face. His eyes though, sharp, dark, amused. They meet Abby’s without flinching.
“Didn’t peg you to whore yourself in a stall.” Beau murmurs, exhaling smoke through his nose.
Abby smirks.
“Didn’t peg you to look for a whore in a stall.”
Beau shrugs, tapping ash to the tile.
“Needed a change of scenery.” He nods toward the stall. “Needed you, actually.”
That tugs something sharp in Abby’s chest. He pushes the door open wider, lets Beau step in. Too tight. Too close. They’re breathing the same air now—cigarettes, citrus, and the stale reek of the bar pressed between them.
“For what?” Abby asks. His voice softens to match the intimacy, his look speaks sex. Beau’s gaze flick down to Abby’s mouth, then back up.
“I’ve been eyeing you.” He points his finger, pushing into Abby. “I see how you move through campus, how you hold yourself, how you eye me.”
“I eye everyone.” He scoffs.
For a moment, neither moves. Just the soft hum of the music outside, the buzz of fluorescent lights above.
Then Abby says, low, “I’m sloshed.”
Beau smiles, “And I’m high as a kite.”
Abby’s fingers twitch. The vodka heat in his veins sparks something reckless. He presses Beau back, slow, not rough. Beau lets him. Lets Abby kiss him- messy, teeth clashing, desperate—and it’s good. It’s goddamn real.
When they break, breathless, Abby presses his forehead to Beau’s shoulder, words slurred against cotton and skin.
“I’m a mess.”
Beau’s hands trace his jaw, thumb brushing the corner of Abby’s mouth. “We’re both a mess.” He kisses him again, soft this time.
“Doesn’t mean we can’t try.”
Outside, the music swells.
Inside, two boys hold onto each other like it’s the only thing left worth doing.
Abby’s breath is ragged against Beau’s throat, lips still tasting of vodka and salt. His hands are everywhere—waist, back, hair—greedy, thoughtless, the way he always is when he’s been drinking too hard and thinking too much.
Beau lets it happen for a moment. Just a moment. The taste of Abby’s mouth, the press of his hips—it’s addictive, dangerous, alive in a way Beau hasn’t felt since.
Abby moans and gropes and hands near his shirt buttons but then-
But then Beau pulls back. Palms flat on Abby’s chest, not shoving—just enough to create distance.
“Wait,” Beau murmurs, voice hoarse. “What about her?”
Abby blinks, dazed. “Who?” Trying to play stupid. Hoping to get back.
Beau gives a soft, humorless laugh. “Your girlfriend, Abby. The one you’re always playing house with…” his hands circle, “fuckin uhhh- Madeline.” His eyes come back to search Abby’s, guarded. “She know you’re out here?”
For a second, Abby just stares at him. His face is flushed, hair sticking to his forehead, breath sweet with sugar and rotgut.
Then he snorts, tips his head back against the stall.
“She knows it all,” he says, voice flat. “I tell her everything. I hafta.” He swipes at his mouth with the back of his hand. “Ain’t like I’m hiding this.”
Beau doesn’t move. His hands stay right where they are, but his heart’s hammering.
“Does she care though?” Beau asks, quieter. “Or are you just convincing yourself she doesn’t?”
Abby flinches. The bravado slips, just a little. His mouth presses into a thin line.
“She don’t own me,” he mutters. “We got… an understanding. We’re not-” He trails off. “I’m not hers. Not all the way.”
Beau exhales, slow. The cigarette burns low between his fingers.
“Abby. I don’t-” He stops, swallows. “I’m not trying to fuck this up. But I’m not some dog to be played with when it’s convenient.”
Abby’s eyes sharpen. “You think that’s what this is? You think I’m using you?”
Beau’s voice is soft. Too soft. “I think you’re lonely,” he says. “And I think I’m lonely. And I think if we don’t slow the fuck down, we’re both gonna end up wrecked worse than we already are.”
The words hang there. Heavy.
Abby looks away. Jaw tight. He wipes his hands on his jeans like he’s trying to scrub something off- something that won’t come clean.
“I don’t know what I’m doing,” Abby whispers, giggling sickly.
Beau steps closer. Carefully this time. Gentle.
“I know,” he says.
For a long moment, they just stand there, pressed close, breath slowing.
Abby swallows hard. Nodding.
He nods again. Barely. “Okay.” He lets out one heavy sigh.
Beau brushes his knuckles along Abby’s jaw. Kisses him soft.
“Okay,” Beau echoes.
He wipes his mouth again, rough, like he’s trying to erase the kiss even as the ghost of it lingers on his lips.
“I should go,” Abby mutters, looking down at his shoes, hands eager to get away.
Beau’s brows knit.
“Abby-”
But Abby shakes his head, pushing past him, the stall door creaking on its rusted hinge.
“I can’t anymore. Not tonight.”
The words come out slurred but flat. Like a decision he already regrets. He doesn’t look back.
Beau exhales hard, leans his head back against the wall.
“Right,” he murmurs, more to himself than to Abby. “Of course.”