Date: Wed, 26 Nov 2014 00:22:44 +0000 (UTC)
From: Sean R <seanr_13@yahoo.ca>
Subject: A Drink with a Stranger - 11

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-----
A Drink with a Stranger
By: Sean Roberts
-----

--
Chapter 11
--

Lane picked one of those places where a suit and tie were
required, and did not get drunk before going.  He did bring his
ID so they could order wine, though.

"What's the occasion?" Ellis asked after, with some of
Lane's prompting, they ordered the largest steaks on the menu.
Lane was feeling like he was too skinny, anyway.

"Do we need one?" Lane asked.

"I guess not."  In pretending not to be distracted, Lane
paid close attention to Ellis.  He fell even harder for him as
they spent the evening.  Lane thought about how humiliated Ellis
would ever be if he found out what Lane had done to him—in fact
what Lane was doing to him, right at that moment.  It was nine
o'clock—Finn should just be arriving at the school.

The plan was that Finn would park down the street and walk
through the soccer pitch to get to the school.  Whoever was
there watching would be in the parking lot, watching the front.
Tonight, Finn was going to wear the full ski mask, so that if
someone did see him, there would be no identification.  As long
as nobody figured out who he was, there would be nothing to
worry about.  At around half past nine, Lane excused himself to
use the little boy's room.  He checked his phone.  It was done.

Ellis insisted on paying the cheque.  They sat in Ellis'
car in Lane's driveway, in the back seat.  Ellis started to get
Lane undressed; Lane sat there.  He was going to let Ellis have
this one.  Ellis noticed that Lane was not participating.

"What's wrong?" Ellis said.

"Nothing.  I ... I just want to do what you want."  Ellis
gently pulled Lane's head downwards, between his legs.  Lane
licked his boyfriend, sending a spasm of pleasure through Ellis'
body.  Lane became hard himself as Ellis' moans directed him.

Lane's hair was dishevelled; his suit was stretched and
crumpled when he got home.  He shed the now ruined suit onto his
floor and sat at his laptop.  It was going to be an all-nighter.
He wrote an essay on Macbeth.

When he was finished, he sent an email back, requesting
previous writings in order to match the style.  Once that was
done, it was time for his morning swim.

--

Lane parked in Ellis' driveway and called him.

"I want to take you out for breakfast."  Ellis agreed, and
came outside with messy hair and a uniform thrown on hastily.
Lane did not ask him what happened, not right away.  He waited
until they had coffee.  "I'm really sorry I woke you up early,"
Lane said.

"You didn't.  I couldn't sleep."

"How come?"

"Can you keep a secret?"

"Of course."

"Alright.  Well, look.  You know how I'm trying to figure
out this whole assignment purchasing deal?  Well, I figured what
better way than to buy one and see who picks up the money.
Well, he was wearing a mask.  Or she.  Who knows?  How could I
have been so stupid?"

"How much did it cost you?" Lane asked.

"A grand."  Lane spit out his coffee.

"Fuck, Ellis."

"Well, yes and no.  Any kid our age who's a thousand
dollars richer is going to brag about it to someone.  Or buy
something stupid and flashy with it.  I'll get it figured out, I
think."  Filling Lane in on the plan may not have been such a
good idea, but it was the whole point of them spending so much
time together.  Ellis was serious—about this and about
everything else.  The way he dressed, the way he played soccer
and the way he wrote—there was a passion there which Lane
himself enjoyed.  He watched Ellis close his eyes when he sipped
his coffee, really savouring it.  Lane took a deep breath.  He
was falling in love.

"Well I was up studying all night.  I shouldn't have.  It
just got to that point where it was too late to stop.  Listen
Ellis; fuck school.  The house is going to be empty."

Ellis borrowed a pair of trunks and they swam away the
morning.  They showered together, cleaning certain parts of each
other very well while neglecting others.  They stayed naked and
burrowed into Lane's bed.  They held each other and slept.  It
was a deep, comfortable hypnotic sleep.  When they woke they
were stretched out in strange shapes; legs over each other,
hands on stomachs and hips.  Their hair, wet when they climbed
into bed, had been electrified almost into the troll style from
the 90s.  Ellis was much cuter than the trolls, Lane thought.
They smiled at each other.  Ellis made Lane cry out as he pulled
on him, much too hard.  Lane dug his fingers into Ellis' back as
he kissed his neck, his other hand ending up on Ellis' erection.

He squeezed Ellis' foreskin before using his fingers to
pull it back, holding it tightly and squeezing the head.  He
moved his lips further down, onto Ellis' chest and stomach,
kissing every inch of the muscular boy's torso.  He pulled the
skin all the way down and licked the back of Ellis' head, over
the tip, making the boy groan.  He put his mouth over it and
Ellis' hips gyrated in response.  Ellis closed his eyes, his
hand entwined in Lane's hair and the other grasping the sheets.
Lane pulled his mouth away and stroked him, watching Ellis' come
fly straight into the air and come spattering back down.

Lane licked just a drop off Ellis' stomach, and then
touched the tip of his tongue to Ellis' lips.  Their hands found
each other as they kissed.  Lane rubbed his body against Ellis,
gasping for air as he came.  He collapsed onto the bed beside
Ellis and rested his head on Ellis' shoulder, his tongue darting
in and out like a lizard, licking drops of sweat from Ellis'
neck.  Lane closed his eyes and kissed Ellis' shoulder as he
heard the mail notification sound coming from his computer.  He
ignored it and drifted off again in Ellis' arms.  He woke up,
hours later, in an empty bed.  Ellis had left at some point, the
first thing he saw was his open laptop, logged into his second
email account.

Ellis did not answer his phone, respond to email or to text
messages.  Lane called Finn who also had not seen him.  Lane
knew that he was the last person who Ellis wanted to see, but
there was no choice.  He drove over to Ellis' house.

Ellis was sitting against his bed, wearing nothing but
pyjama bottoms.  His hair was still a mess from earlier in the
day, and his face was red and blotchy, like that of a child who
did not get dessert.  He was playing with the drawstrings of his
pants, twirling them around his fingers, then unwrapping them.
He was rocking slightly.  He turned to look at the intruder, his
fingers not stopping.

He looked at Lane with red eyes for a while, without saying
anything.  He looked back down at his fidgeting hands.  Lane
approached him slowly, and sat in front of him.

"Ellis," he said firmly.  Ellis looked up; again just for a
few moments; then back down at his hands.  It was as if he were
a broken toy.  Lane really fucked up this time.  Lane leaned
forward and took hold of Ellis' wrists.  He grasped them firmly
and looked into Ellis' eyes.

"Please ..." Ellis said.  He said it in a barely audible
whisper.  He went back to rocking.  His fingers were moving even
though Lane was restricting his hand movements.  Lane's
breathing quickened.  He was getting worried; this was a
situation he was not equipped to handle.  "Leave," Ellis said.
"Please fucking leave."

"No," Lane replied.  He let go of Ellis' wrists and looked
around the room.  There was a half empty bottle of water on the
desk.  "Not until you drink this."  Ellis did as he was told,
draining the bottle and tossing it to the side.  It helped.
Lane rubbed his knee; rubbed his naked arm and then went to sit
beside him.  He pulled Ellis' head onto his shoulder.  Ellis
started to cry again.

When he was done, Ellis told Lane not to move, and he left
his bedroom.  He came back a few minutes later, his hair
straightened and his face washed.

"You are a fucking asshole," he growled at Lane.  "It was
you.  The whole time it was you.  After what I told you; it was
you.  But you still talked to me, and touched me, and let me go
on a wild goose chase.  You made me spend a thousand dollars to
humiliate me."

"No—"

"Shut the fuck up, Lane.  I don't want to hear a damn thing
you have to say.  Do not ever speak to me again.  Don't ever
look at me again.  I'm resigning from the paper.  You can
fucking have it back.  It's what you wanted, anyway.  You can go
back to your solitary confinement in that fucking office.  You
can buy a thousand dollars worth of liquor to keep you company
while you help people cheat their way into college.  You're the
worst fucking person I've ever met, Lane."  Lane was shaking.
His heart was pounding.  He had been thinking about a way to
return the money, but this was not how Lane had wanted that to
happen.  It was supposed to be done secretly.  Everything Ellis
had just told him was undeniably true.

"You're right," Lane said.  "But before we talk about that,
I want to know that you're okay.  When I came in just now--"
"I am not okay, since you asked.  But that is one hundred per
cent your fault.  So please get the fuck out of my life."

Lane brooded in his room over a glass (it was more, but
who's counting?) of scotch before going downstairs, turning on
the television and laying on the couch like a naked woman in a
classical painting.  He flipped channels and increased the
volume periodically.  He had dinner with his family so they
would not ask him what was wrong, then he went back to the
television.  The noise kept him distracted until he finally fell
asleep.

His head was pounding when he woke up late the next
morning.  He told his parents he was not feeling well; they
called the school for him and let him sleep.  He drank some more
as soon as they left the house so he could fall asleep again.
He woke up again, hot in his day old clothes.  He looked at
himself in the mirror.  His skin sallow and his vampire eyes,
groggy and barely open, looking at himself.  Or some version of
himself that resembled a train wreck.  He looked around his
room.  There were things thrown everywhere; two empty bottles
lay leaking onto the carpet.  He picked them up quickly and
threw a towel over the spill.  It was two o'clock—he would have
some privacy for a while.  He started on the next journey.
Another bottle was always the best solution to a hangover.

His head was pounding even more.  His throat was dry and
his mouth tasted like stale vomit.  His forehead felt wet.  He
touched it.  It was thicker than sweat.  He squinted at his hand
and saw blood.  Then he heard the voices becoming slightly
louder.  He felt like groaning, but his throat was too dry.  He
shut his eyes again.

He felt himself being shaken awake, his name repeated over
again by three different people.

"Don't worry kiddo," one of the voices said.  "He's okay."
Lane forced himself to open his eyes and saw his brother.  There
were tears coming down Taylor's face.  Finn had an arm around
Taylor.

"Can you sit up?" he heard Ellis' voice say.  He must have
been still drunk; there was no way Ellis could be there.  He
felt a hand on his shoulder.  "Can you sit up?"  He had better
try.  Lane forced himself to sit up.  The room spun violently
and he was almost sick, but remembering that there were people
there, he managed to hold it in.  He felt a firm hand on his
shoulder, and another holding up his head.  "There we go," Ellis
said.  "Just take it easy there."  Ellis let go of his shoulder,
and he felt a warm, wet cloth wiping his forehead.  He mumbled
an explanation, got out of bed, pushed past Ellis and ran to the
bathroom to throw up.

He threw up a lot, and returned to his bedroom feeling only
very slightly better, though his head still felt like a bag of
bricks being hit repeatedly by a bag of bricks.  He sat on his
bed and looked up at the three of them.

"You okay?" Ellis said.

"I've been better," Lane said.  He buried his face into his
hands.

"Drink this," Ellis said, holding out a bottle of water.
Lane took it and started to sip it.

"There you go buddy," Finn said.  "He's okay.  So, Taylor,
why don't we go kick the ball around a bit?  Ellis will watch
him.  Won't you Ellis?"  Ellis looked at Taylor, smiled and
nodded his head.  Taylor had at least stopped crying.

"Your brother is unreal, you know that?" Ellis said.  "You
hit your head against your desk as you fell down.  At least
that's what we think—there was blood there.  He found you, and
the bottles.  And instead of telling your parents he called Finn
and I, because he didn't want you to get into trouble.  Then—"

"Ellis—"

"No, Lane.  You don't get to talk right now.  Then, while
we were waiting for you to wake up, he cleaned your room.  He
told your parents we were up here with you, and that the four of
us were hanging out, and then they ordered us pizza.  He made it
all seem completely normal so they wouldn't come and check on
you.  They decided to go out for dinner, which is a good thing,
because at least they aren't here to hear you throwing up.  What
the fuck are you doing Lane?"  Ellis moved his chair aside and
motioned towards the desk, where the whiskey bottles had been
lined up.  Lane had nothing to say.  "Well, here's what's going
to happen.  I'm going to have a little chat with your parents
when they get home.  I'm sure they'll find a nice place to send
you—"

"No.  Ellis.  Please, don't say anything to them," Lane
said groggily.  He sipped some more water.  "I'll stop.  I
promise.  I was just—I didn't know how to handle—please—"

"As you wish.  But make sure you do.  Because Taylor
deserves better from his brother."  There was a downside to
Ellis' seriousness.  It hurt more that Ellis was not yelling, or
sounding angry.  He was just explaining the situation to Lane.
The tears started to come down Lane's face.  He stared at the
ground, shaking.  He felt Ellis' hand rubbing his shoulder
before Ellis left and Lane really allowed himself to start
crying.