“Punk,” Chris says. “A punk bar. Like, punk music.”
JC winces. Chris laughs at him, and really, he sucks. He knows JC’d rather chill back somewhere dark or dance under pulsing lights. That punk stuff Chris likes, it just makes JC’s head hurt half the time, and the smoke, and those punk people, all ragged leather and scowls, dangerous, sneering at him like he’s too… something.
“My turn,” he says, sulkily. Chris is still chuckling, pleased with himself. JC gets an idea.
“Red silk,” he says, and smiles sweetly.
“Motherfuck,” Chris says.
** **
Chris looks uncomfortable, squirming with his back to cracked black concrete, delicious. JC tries not to watch him too obviously. Chris has cheated a little, covering up in his black leather jacket with all the rings. JC wants to push his fingers through a few of the metal rings and pull, but when he looks around the crowded room he sees more than one head turned in their direction.
“Take it off,” he tells Chris.
Chris wraps his arms around his middle. “Ha,” he says, calmly. “Get me a drink.”
JC looks at him. Chris frowns.
“You’d shit a brick if I took this off right now,” he says. JC smiles, licking his lips, and turns to push his way toward the bar. He can feel Chris’s eyes on him in the fractured light.
** **
JC shouts at the bartender over sudden pounding noise. Tattoos, piercings, candy-red mohawk, he looks like he’d rather kill JC and hide his body than serve him. He eyes JC up and down, clearly without recognition, then moves to thunk two bottles of beer onto the chipped formica counter in front of him. It’s not what JC ordered. Next to him at the bar, a chick in torn fishnet laughs shrilly.
Chris is so dead.
It takes him awhile to find Chris again in the fluctuating darkness. He has to skirt the edge of a huge mass of people all climbing on each other in front of the tiny stage. Bodies jostle him from all sides, making him lurch over the sticky floor, sprinkling beer from the bottles clutched between his fingers as he reaches for balance.
Chris is practically vibrating, alight with excitement, when JC locates him. He grins at JC, the edges of the leather jacket swinging wide. JC reaches out to pull one side closed.
“Shit beer,” Chris says, taking a bottle. JC’s fingers slide under the jacket for a minute, rubbing over slick, damp fabric, but when Chris smirks at him JC gives a sudden shove.
Chris hits the concrete wall hard. “Shit beer is fine,” he says, upending the bottle. Color flashes beneath the jacket. JC finds his hands clenching.
** **
Chris zips the jacket up, holding JC’s gaze, then heads out into the crowd. JC can hear him shouting along with the ragged boys on stage, can pick his voice out of a roar, always, anywhere. The jacket rides up as Chris throws his hands in the air, but soon he’s gone, lost in the pile. JC searches for him for a minute. Chris is probably right in the middle, happily insulting everyone he crashes into. JC settles for watching everybody else.
It’s chaotic, and violent, and surprisingly sensual. A man in tattered denim grabs up a girl who slams into him, swinging her around and around as she tosses her head and screams. Two guys with kohled eyes circle back-to-back, blockading everyone in their path with raised forearms, clearly a team. The whole crowd, JC realizes, is moving in waves, bodies heaving against one another and falling back, catching each other and releasing, tossing and crashing in the storm of noise.
After a while Chris appears in front of him, panting and sweaty, glowing. He raises one hand to the zipper of the jacket. JC stops breathing.
“Enjoying the view?” Chris nods off to the side. JC reluctantly drags his gaze away from Chris’s hand.
“What,” he says, leaning forward a bit.
“Look,” Chris says, and there’s something in his voice. Someone near them moans.
JC’s not sure what he’s hearing, can’t hear, can’t see into the dim corners of the bar around him. He wonders for a wild instant if the noise came from his own throat.
“Look,” Chris hisses.
Something’s moving rhythmically in the dark nook Chris points out. Someone. More than one someone. A flood of warmth fills JC as he realizes what’s happening next to them. He turns a gleeful face toward Chris.
“Love that stuff, don’t you,” Chris says, and unzips the jacket.
** **
This time JC gets the right beer and the bartender even grunts at him as he slams down the bottles. Chris is nowhere to be found. JC wanders back toward the dark nook, but it’s empty, no more show. He settles in to wait, watching the surging crowd again. Maybe he’ll give it a go himself one of these times.
Eventually Chris wades back out of the melee. Shocked, JC realizes the jacket’s gone. Gone, and all that time Chris was in the pit, glowing red and rumpled lace… he finds himself reaching out.
Chris laughs. “I told you. You should see the look on your face,” he says, and grabs for a beer. JC knocks his hand away. He’s drawn to Chris’s shoulder, slides fingers under the little ribbon strap and over solid muscle, pulls.
“Chris,” he says, helplessly.
“JC,” Chris says softly, stepping in closer.
Over his shoulder, JC can see faces in the crowd, bodies moving together, can see the bartender, chin in hand, elbow on the bar. They’re surrounded, people everywhere, and Chris’s eyes are warm and mocking. “Everyone can see,” JC says, curling a fist in the red silk over Chris’s chest.
“Lucky them,” Chris says, and he’s right. JC pushes his body against Chris’s body and his face into Chris’s neck.
** **
“Come on, baby. Let’s get out of here.”
“No, here. Right here,” JC gasps. Chris makes an amused, hungry sound.
“JC, baby. We’re going.” He kisses JC again. JC’s mouth is swollen, and his cock, and he can feel Chris hard against him under denim and silk. JC doesn’t want to lose the damp slide of Chris’s body against his. Chris starts to pull away, unknotting his hand from JC’s hair, and that’s it.
JC crowds Chris into the nook and pulses his hips in the way Chris loves, grinding against him roughly. “I said,” he begins, but loses his train of thought. Chris is making noise again, more hungry, less amused.
“Ok,” Chris says, finally. He works a hand between them to yank at his own fly. JC looks down.
More red silk and dark hair and Chris’s cock, rising up between them. JC wants to taste him, wants to rub his face all over, but Chris is yanking at his fly, too. He waits for the first electric thrill of Chris’s fingers, of Chris’s cock against his own, to push his hand down Chris’s pants to clutch his ass, to fuck Chris’s hand and Chris’s cock to the crazy beat around them, fast and wild.
He wants to see who’s looking at them, wants to watch them watching, but he’s blind in the storm. Chris in red is the only thing he can see.
** **
When JC is able to stop moving, to stop pushing his hips against Chris’s hips, he slides his hand from Chris’s pants and sighs.
“Dirty, nasty boy,” Chris whispers. JC tilts his head back against sticky concrete, watching people in the crowd writhing against each other, unbelievable. He smooths his hand across Chris’s back, loving the feel of Chris’s body under sweaty silk.
“Jazz bar,” he says, closing his eyes.
Chris bites him, hard. JC jerks against him, moaning suddenly, and Chris laughs into his neck and mutters, “burlap.”
some boy you are are
to wear my color red
to wear it very proudly
and wear it like a lady
lost rooms 