Date: Sun, 08 Dec 2002 23:22:33 +0800
From: paul sung <psun@hotmail.com>
Subject: Dear Enemy Part III

uring dinner, I tried not to look at him but it was difficult not to
with Brad sitting right there in front of me looking absolutely
scrumptious. It was really hard not to appreciate a great looking man at
my table even if he was the man who had practically spat at me four years
ago. Not to mention almost breaking my nose. Although he was an asshole,
no one could deny that he was major male eyecandy. If it was possible,
the years had improved him. Years of professional sports had given him
the added bulk and muscle that he hadn't had when he was younger, his
shoulders were wider, his sculpted biceps strained deliciously at the
sleeves.

And the man still did somehing absolutely wonderful with a pack of
noodles.

I knew him almost as well as I knew myself - or as well as he knew me. At
the moment, he was dead nervous that I might just reach over and bite his
head off. Gesturing to the heaping plate of noodles in between us, he
tried his best to break the ice. Although he had gotten over the idea
that I wouldn't just kick him out, his tone still held an undertone of
nerves. "How is it, Dermot?"

"It's fine." In reality it was wonderful especially since I'd been
subsisting on take-out for weeks but I certainly wasn't going to let him
know that. After all these years, I wasn't about to tell him that I would
enjoy feasting on his noodles - and anything else he would like to offer
me. The fact that I was still attracted to the gorgeous hunk of meat,
this perfect distillation of testosterone and genes irritated me, given
the fact that he had literally tossed our friendship into the garbage not
too long ago. It certainly wasn't the all-encompassing blinding hate that
I envisioned years ago.

The perfection of his smile, the charming dimple bracketing the smile
only caused me to glare at him. I didn't even want to risk thinking about
the rest of him.

"Uhh.. Dermot. What's wrong?"

"Nothing." Asshole. My sullen response was daunting and he searched
valiantly for a topic even as I continued eating.

Silence reigned for the next few moments as he struggled for something to
say. "You never read my letters, did you?"

Silently, without looking up from my plate, I pointed idly at the pile
sitting on the table. As if on cue, the pile teetered and slid on the
living room table. Wonderful. He messed up my life once - and now he was
messing up my table.

"It's here?" His smile was almost wistful when he saw the pile of letters
on the table. Standing, he crossed over to the table and rifled through
the first stack of letters. Picking a random letter out, he flicked it
open and turned to look at me. "You kept my letters?"

The spark of hope in his eyes annoyed me and I kept my answer curt. "My
mom kept it. I couldn't stop her."

A quick glance at the rest of the letters confirmed his suspicions. "You
never read any of them did you?"

"No. It would have been an insult to my intelligence."

Almost reverently, he shifted the pile back into several neat rows. That
was a change from his usual messy behaviour and I wondered blithely how
much he had changed in the past few years. That great butt of his
certainly hadn't. "But you didn't throw it away," he pointed out with a
soft smile.

It was the smile that got to me again. That quick flash of masculine
charm, so damnably sexy. All it did to me was make me irrationally nasty.
"The world's forests are disappearing. I was planning on recycling it."

"Ouch."

As Brad remained silent rifling through the letters after that exchange,
I kept my face trained on the plate instead of his cute ass. What was it
about that ass of his? It had been my first real inkling that my sexual
proclivities leaned that way - seeing Brad McKinley's tight
sixteen-year-old bubble butt wrapped in skintight denims. That amazing
ass had not only remained a fucking work of art, it had gotten better.
The result of almost a decade of high school and college athletics, it
was so hard, muscular that I imagined quarters could certainly bounce off
those taut cheeks. So much for the wear and tear of age.

Shaking himself from his private reverie, he looked up to catch me
staring - at least three feet down from his face at his butt. My face
flushed.

His blue eyes flashed, he grinned. "Like what you see?"

"Shut it. Aren't you gonna eat?"

"Yeah, I will." Pleased with my reaction, he returned to the dining
table, all affable again after managing to yank my chain yet again. "So
what have you been doing all this while?"

"Apart from dancing around shiny poles and seducing innocent yet virile
college boys?" I replied smoothly.

He gave me a cool glance. "Dermot."

It was easy getting a rise from him. One up for the home team. Taking a
quick bite of the noodles, I mumbled resentfully through my food. "Don't
tell me you don't already know. Didn't my mom send you regular
follow-ups? The Dermot Lee Kincaid Newsletter?"

His ears turned red. "You know about that."

"Yes." It certainly amazed me that he thought I was such an idiot. My
mother was the staunchest supporter of the Brad McKinley Fan Club and she
had regular support rallies for him each time I called home. It had
become almost a tagline for my mom - rather than a simple hello, it was
'Call Brad'. It had become a pain in the neck - especially since my
return and I knew that he must somehow be behind this wicked scheme.

"And all that time, you didn't say anything." He gave me a searching
look, those baby blues trying their best to decipher me. "I am amazed at
your restraint."

"My attorney told me that gagging my mom wasn't in my best interests."

He laughed. "There's that nasty sarcasm that we love."

"Look, chow mein aside, what are you up to?" Letting out a sigh, I stared
at him. "Why are you here?"

"I told you," Brad said carefully.

Much too carefully for my tastes. The way his eyes wandered got my
antenna rearing up. It started making me suspicious. No matter how much
he had changed, I doubted that he had managed to change this habit. He
could never tell a lie worth a damn while looking at me. "That's not the
reason. Don't give me that crap."

"It's not crap." Almost instantaneously, his voice lashed out even as his
jaw hardened in response. "That day you walked out, I was an utter idiot.
A fool. And you didn't give me a chance."

"A chance?" A flash of the past came to me and I could feel my hackles
rising in response. It was his face I saw again, the face he wore four
years ago, the anger, the fury, the utter disgust in those familiar blue
eyes. The fist that he raised against me, the sudden flex of that
muscular arm. And I could easily remember then, the feelings of betrayal
and humiliation that had filled me - so very soon after I thought I'd
achieved almost a dream. "A chance for what? To beat me up again? To call
me a dickslut? I am sorry but although I am obviously a depraved sex
maniac, I'm not much into sado-masochism - at least not that kind
anyway."

"Dammit! You never gave me a chance to explain!" In a second, he rose
from the table and slammed his hands on the table. The sound stunned me
and I looked up into his bright blue eyes. This time, there wasn't the
shame, the disgust - only remorse and a whole load of guilt. "That was a
mistake. I was stupid that day, Dermot. A fucked up asshole. I didn't
know what I was losing then."

My growing irritation surfaced. "A faggot buddy? Somebody to give
absolutely fabulous window treatments?"

"Stop that." Brad caught my hands and though I tried to pull away, he
used all his simian strength to hold on. "You're my best fr-"

"No," I replied flatly.

"My best friend. Almost a brother." He repeated forcefully. "The truest
friend I've ever had and I lost you over something so trivial. Don't make
me pay like that again."

"Having a wild fuck all night wasn't trivial for me." It was anything but
trivial. Although it had been marred by the events after, I could still
remember that one night. The heat. The skin. The flesh. My hands eagerly
unwrapping the perfect gift, tearing the Oxford shirt open, ripping into
his cotton pants, letting my hands run over his hard, naked body.

"Trivial?" Seeing the expression on my face, Brad released me and
returned to his seat. He looked up at me, his dark, handsome face an
unfathomable mask. "No, it certainly wasn't. Look, I know you hate me."

For the past few weeks, I had been wondering the same thing. But I
realized that the years had changed me somewhat and I could look back on
things differently based on my experiences after the incident. It would
be so easy to remain convinced that my love for him had turned inexorably
to hate. "I don't. No, I don't hate you, Brad. You hurt me terribly, a
right bastard, but I can't find it in myself to hate you. I cannot hate
someone who was so much a part of my life before."

My answer pleased him and he nodded in some relief. "I still want to make
it up to you."

I sighed. "Look, you don't have to do that. We might not be able to go
back to where we were but I don't hate you. Believe me, I don't spend my
time figuring out ways to humiliate you."

"Never?" He smiled ruefully, the edges of his blue eyes crinkling up.

"Well, in the beginning, I did have this nicely set up scenario of your
big dick being roasted over an open fire. But I stopped having that
pleasant dream years ago." Of course in my X-rated dreams I was busy
feasting on his hot dick even as he writhed in ecstasy but he certainly
didn't have to know that. No doubt he would be stunned at the amount of
whipped cream and lashes I'd used in my dreams.

He winced. "Nasty."

His expression had me smiling for once. "That's me. And you'd do well to
remember that."

"I never forgot you," Brad replied softly, his gaze intent on mine. For
some unfathomable reason, I felt uneasy and looked down at my plate, my
face flushing.

"You know, I tried to track you down but your mom stopped me," he said
conversationally.

This amazed me as my mom seemed to be pushing us together at every chance
she could get. "She did?"

He shrugged. "She said you weren't ready and frankly I was terrified."

"Terrified?"

"That you'd slam the door on my face."

"And break that pretty nose," I sneered in reply.

His hands lifted to briefly touch his nose. Like everything else about
him, it was perfect. "Don't touch the nose. It got me through college."

I smiled. Perhaps later I would tell him that I had managed to keep track
of his movements through my mother's calls. "Perhaps several months ago,
I would have slammed and locked the door. You caught me in a mellow
moment today."

"Yeah."

"And I was too damned hungry today."

He smiled. "That too."