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“What’s up with my hands!?”
Jim Nashe was barely a paragraph into chapter two when Pozzi’s voice crashed through the bathroom door.
“Fuck, Jim. I’ve got fucking leprosy or something here!”
He had a choice on his hands. Stay, pretend he hadn’t heard, and keep reading his book, or venture into the bathroom.
“It looks like god-damn Wounded Knee in here!”
Bathroom it was.
He rapped on the door. “Let me in, then, will ya?” No sooner had he said it, but the door tripped over itself, hurled back on his hinges, and Jack Pozzi was trembling before him, a funny shade of grey, eyes blown out to twice their size.
“It’s bad, Jim. It’s real bad. I’m bleedin’.”
“Don’t get hysterical.”
“Hysterical? Please, you haven’t seen hysterical, my friend. I’ll sure as hell get hysterical when I get a hand on those big-wig fuckers. I swear if I’ve caught some kind of medieval Irish hand-AIDS from their old-timey boulders, I’m going to get so hysterical on them, they won’t know their asses from…”
“Quiet, let me take a look.” He grabbed Pozzi’s gesticulating hands and held them hard and fast.
“Hey, watch it… ow! Ouch! What are ya tryin’ to do to me?”
“Keep still.” Jim took a good look at Pozzi’s palms, turned his hands over, looked again, and then let his hands go. “They’re blisters.”
Jack Pozzi’s hands fell listlessly to his sides. He blinked, clearly disappointed he wasn’t worth more distress. He took a good, hard look at his palms – just like Jim had – as if he’d be able to find something Jim had missed. Something like golf-ball-sized buboes swelling out from his phalanges or pustules bubbling up from his metacarpal cartilage. They looked like blisters, he guessed. “I didn’t know blisters hurt like a motherfucker.”
“You’ve been working hard. More than you’ve probably ever worked in your life.”
“Hey, Mister Firefighter, I don’t need attitude.”
“It’s not attitude. It’s the truth. You’ve got hands like a baby. They’re getting used to manual labour.”
“How am I supposed to work tomorrow with these?” Jack cried.
“Give them here,” Jim said, one hand in Jack’s direction, the other twisting the faucets until the water was lukewarm.
“What are you—?”
“Just give them here.”
Pozzi did so without another word.
Handing over his own wounded hands, Jim took them with great care and guided them beneath the running water. Jack winced as the blood in the drain began to pinken. His fingers, cupped between the older man’s, twitched out their deadening pain until they softened. He watched, breathing shallowly, as Jim gathered water and smoothed it across the heel of Jack’s hand, where one long oval-shaped blood blister was weeping. The dirt of the day ran out, and away down the drain.
“Hold there,” Jim ordered, using his fingers to wipe the remaining blood away from the edges of the sink before twisting the faucet off and folding the hand towel around Pozzi’s hands, obediently still. Jim knew the skin would be tender, and so he, too, was tender as he pressed the towel into Pozzi’s palms, in-between his fingers, around his wrists.
Too tenderly, perhaps, for Pozzi, who broke away and chortled, “I thought you said you weren’t a fruit.” And Jim laughed with him, turning away, putting the hand towel back on the wall.
“There’s an ointment in the cabinet,” he said, gesturing loosely.
Pozzi opened the cabinet. “What is it I’m looking for?”
“White tube.”
“This one?”
“That’s toothpaste.”
“Jesus, Jim, help a guy out.”
“Second shelf down.”
Pozzi finally pulled out the correct tube. Jim gave a quiet sigh and a shake of the head. What would Jack do without him? He wouldn’t last a week. No wonder he found him half-blind staggering on the shoulder.
“I rub this on?”
Jack was a Mama’s boy that pushed his luck too far; Jim could smell it on his mewling breath.
“Yeah. Don’t need me to do that for you?”
“I think I got it.” He was ham-fisted about it, sure, but he applied the cream to the worst of the blisters. “I dunno how much more of this I’ve got in me, Jim. What is it, now? Day fourteen, and my own hands are falling apart.”
Jim held out his own hand, thrusting it under Jack’s nose. “Take a look.” So, he did. The skin was darker than that on his face, sun-worn and work-worn, with dashes of hardened, white skin between each joint of his fingers. “They heal up, and when they heal up, they get stronger.” He bunched his hand into a fist. “See?”
Pozzi looked down at the sad little globules of ointment he’d peppered on himself. “I play poker. I don’t think people’ll trust me if I walk up to the table with hands like yours.”
“People don’t seem to trust you as is.”
“And besides!” Jack continued, with force, “It’ll mess with my shuffle.” He shrugged and screwed the cap back on the ointment, careful not to wipe away what was already there. “There was a guy I went to school with. Reed Fenton. I know what you’re thinking. Grade-A asshole, deep-throating a silver spoon so hard his parents sent him to my piece-of-shit high school to whip some manners into him. Sad thing is, he just ended up whipping everyone else. Literally, sometimes. I knew kids caught alone in the locker room with that jumped-up yuppie who couldn’t walk in a straight line for two months after. Anyway, I knew better than to get alone with the guy, so I went about my days mostly unscathed. And, besides, what could he touch me with? I was a cool guy in school, you know? Girls liked me, you could bum a cigarette off me if you needed it, you know, I had friends and shit… anyway. This guy, Reed Fenton, passed me one day at the lockers, came right up to me, right up in my face, and he puts his hands on me. Puts his hands on me and he says, ‘what are you gonna do?’. That’s what he says, ‘what are you gonna do, Poz?’ And I’m pushing him. I’m not pushing him too hard, but I don’t wanna cause a scene ‘cos the last thing I want is my Ma marching in coming to see the principal. So, I’m pushing him just a bit and he leans in real close so I can smell the Pepto-Bismol on the guy’s breath, and he says, he says to me, ‘what are you gonna do with those feminine hands of yours?’. Feminine hands!”
“Is that right?” Jim says. His brain was still catching up with Pozzi’s words, but the beat in conversation acted as his cue.
“I thought, if that’s all this fucker can level at me – feminine hands! – I can’t be doing too bad, can I? Feminine hands. And haven’t they served me well, these feminine hands. You know I could do a cascade shuffle before I could cook eggs? Feminine hands… they’re what give me my luck, Jim. I’m telling you. And you know what else? Girls like feminine hands, Jim, I gotta tell ya, they… they… oh fuck.”
“What?”
“Fuck.” Pozzi was getting agitated again. He was looking at his hands frantically, turning them over and over, then beginning to prod and press them, grip them into fists, wince, press them together, squirm. “How am I supposed to…?”
“Supposed to what?” Jim asked, making sure the lid to the ointment was screwed on tight before putting it back in the cabinet. He was only half-concerned for Jack and his blustering.
“How do I…?”
“Work tomorrow? Look, I’ll do all the heavy lifting. You deal with the soft stuff, dirt and string.”
“No! Jim!” His helpless tone managed to fix Jim’s attention. “How do I…” He widened his eyes by way of explanation. Nothing. He curled his fingers and waved his hand up and down, by way of further explanation. To this, Jim huffed a badly disguised chuckle. Jerk off.
“Ah, I see.” He led Pozzi back towards the couch. Or, rather, he moved back to the couch as Pozzi anxiously pursued him. “You don’t, my friend.”
“You’re fucking with me.”
“Well, you can, if you’re a masochist. But if you want those palms to heal up, and knowing the,” he cleared his throat, remembering his daily morning birdsong of wet, slapping flesh and bitten-back moans, “packed schedule you’re currently on, I suggest you practice abstinence for a while.”
“A while? How long?”
“A week? Two at most.”
“Two—! How do I OD on the ointment?”
“Very funny.”
“I don’t ask for much, God!” Pozzi was talking to the sky, now. “You fuckers make me work, day in, day out and now I can’t even jack off as a treat? This can’t get any worse.” He threw himself down on a kitchen stool in a fit of thwarted melodrama. Head in hands, he began to stew in self-pity.
This self-pity started off as a moment of beautiful respite. Jim picked up the book he had left tented on the coffee table. He finished chapter two. He finished chapter three. It was only halfway through chapter four that his soft heart began to twinge in his chest.
“Buck up, Jack. It’s not all bad.”
Jack was very quiet. It was so unlike him. Jim shifted on the depressed cushions, resting his book down again.
“I was kidding with the two weeks thing.”
Jack didn’t move. His body was buckled over the counter, both his hands pressed against his forehead, head curved down out of sight. Jim watched as the breath in his lungs began to sputter like a beat-up motor. His brain, again, took a second to catch up with Pozzi. He let out the first pathetic sob before Jim even registered that he might be upset, and he’d begun to sob into his own fist before Jim realised he was crying.
“Aw, jeez,” was all Jim managed to say at first. He had a daughter; tears were an old friend. He wasn’t scared of crying. But something about seeing Pozzi break down like this made him freeze up. He found it in himself to stand, but then he just swayed on the balls of his feet. “It’s alright.” He heard himself, these placid words of encouragement. They sounded as flat as they made him feel. And Pozzi continued to cry.
“It's so fucking lonely. It's so fucking hard. I just wanna go home. I wanna go home." His voice was paper-thin. He choked on his next sobs as they racked his body. "And now I’m crying off the god-damn ointment,” Jack gasped, gulping down his tears to get the words out.
“Shh.” Jim had reached Jack’s side now and had eased himself onto the stool next to him. He did so slowly, smoothly, like he was scared he would startle a wild animal. “Tears are naturally antibacterial, so.”
“Fuck off.”
He got a smile out of him. Stubbornly, but he was beginning to look like his Jack again.
“It’s not so bad,” Jim said, his voice low. His hand made a tentative path to Pozzi’s back and began to rub slow circles. "Shh."
He could feel the man’s ribs beneath the skin. This work could kill him. His body was so soft. So soft he could, and did, press an almost-imperceptible kiss on Jack’s shoulder, taking a moment to breathe him in: hair-gel and cigarette smoke. His body was warm; Jim hadn't realised how much he missed contact. He felt Jack’s shoulder twist, but not to move away, instead to strain into the touch. Jim’s hand on his back felt the bones shudder with the whine that caught in the back of his throat.
“Could you…?” was the unfinished plea that Jack let melt into the air. “It’s been so long.”
Jim felt his chest tighten impossibly. He had wanted Jack so badly. All it took was the younger man’s voice to reach that needy, breathless whine to make his neglected cock stir heavily in his pants. He expected to be jolted back into some cold, sterile present by the mosquito-trill of his alarm clock. “What do you want?” Jim asked. He needed him to say it. He needed words to make it real. “Tell me what you want.”
Jack’s tear-stained face twisted in an expression that Jim couldn’t tell from confusion or arousal. “I don’t know,” he breathed.
His body answered for him, hard and insistent when Jim’s hand reached his zipper. Jack couldn’t watch, only listen, as his zipper buzzed open. Jim made quick work of the button. “Oh, god, what are we doing?” Jim wasn’t interested in talking. He was still dealing with the wild animal. If he started talking, it might all come crashing down around him like a house of cards. Pozzi’s brain would catch up with him, and he’d dash off. Instead, he tugged at the man’s waistband, almost sending him flying off the stool. “Christ! Jim. You’re a strong guy, ain’tcha? Firefighters. They’re all strong guys, I bet. Is this what firefighters get up to off-duty?” He’s running his mouth off, now. “An old bitch’s cat falls outta the tree because the firefighters are too busy sucking each other o – oh!” Jack sighed in relief, arching his back luxuriously, as his half-hard penis was taken suddenly into Jim’s mouth.
It was only for one delicious moment, before Jim pulled away, jerking him roughly as he spoke, “You talk too much, Jack.”
Jack replied in a moan that was music to Jim’s ears, “Everyone’s got a tell, right?”
“That’s not your tell.” Jim discovered with a thrill that Jack’s head was particularly sensitive and, when he passed his thumb across it, Jack trembled like an animal in heat. “You’re silent when you play poker.”
“Who said I was talkin’ poker?”
Jim was surprised at how silent his mind was. He’d thought about this for the last two weeks. He’d woken up more than once with a raging erection and Pozzi’s thick New Jersey accent saying filthy things in his head, thankful for the sounds of Pozzi’s pleasure in the next room if only to muffle the sound of his own orgasm. He’d thought of the myriad ways it could happen. Atop the wall they built together, triumphant and lustful. In the woods. Up against the fence. In Flower and Stone’s living room, on the chaise, with Pozzi face-down drooling into one of their floral cushions. On top of ‘The City of the World’, each snap of their hips sending another stupid fucking figure flying across the room, each sweaty, grasping embrace sending a roof cascading in, their frenzied fucking knocking down the winged angels of Stone’s whore mother and bastard father, and their mingled cum drowning the evil bastards where they stood. If they still stood. (The fantasy worked better before he stole the miniature).
There had been a hundred fantasies, but now there was the acrid taste of Pozzi’s cock, now fully erect, bumping unevenly against his tongue. Not all unpleasant, admittedly. He liked it when Jack gripped eager fingers in his hair. He felt an answering pulse down below. He latched on and gave a fervent suck.
“Oh, god, you’re good at that.” Jack squirmed. “Sure you’re not queer?”
What a thing to ask at a time like this.
He pulled away with a wet pop. Jack felt quivery when, looking down, he saw a sheen of saliva and pre-cum on his friend’s lips in the lowlight. It was almost enough to make him bust right then and there. “I’m not what you’re thinking of when you think queer.”
“I don’t know what you mean by – that!” Pozzi’s hips thrust a little too eagerly into Jim’s mouth when he took him back in, forcing Jim’s hands to hold him down. “Sorry, sorry, sorry… jeez, you got a mouth like a broad, Jim. How did you learn to do that?”
Jim hummed an answer, the vibrations sending Pozzi right to the edge in a moment. He doubled over, hands hastily palming Jim’s head, desperate for something to ground himself. Another gush of pre-cum daubed Jim's tongue. Jack gritted his teeth as he felt his orgasm blooming, shivery and sweet. “I’m really fucking close. It’s not gonna be long…”
This had turned out to be one of Jim’s more half-hearted blowjobs; he was lucky that his partner was practically bursting. He could tell from the way Jack’s breath had started to huff (he recognised it from those morning sessions). He pulled away again, this time to get a better look at Pozzi’s face. He had always wondered, listening like a pervert in the next room, what he looked like when he came. If this was the only time, a fact that was becoming likelier by the second, he at least wouldn’t miss this.
His slick hand, calloused and strong, worked quickly. Desperation took over. His fist became a blur on the man’s cock as Jack gave a series of increasingly anguished cries. He was leaking steadily now. Jack’s hand mindlessly flew up to his forehead, gripped in his own hair as he began to garble. “Yes, yes… feels so good… I can't hold it, oh… I’m gonna… come…” His eyes were screwed tight shut.
He went very still. Rigid. His brow furrowed in a look of intense concentration. His mouth opened, noiseless. Ecstasy blanked his delicate features. And then he spasmed, violently. His spine jerked. He made a sudden noise like he was in pain. He shuddered for a long moment. And then Jim’s hand was sprayed with warm muck.
Pozzi’s breathing was all Jim could hear, as he fought for it, urgently gulping down air until he could breathe normally again. “God…” he said, and not a word for him.
Jim wiped his hand clean on the corner of his shirt. He knew he would use it later, bury his face in it and make himself come violently and frantically and unrelentingly. But, for now, he wiped his hand clean and stood up.
“I guess I don’t need these hands,” Jack laughed, tucking his wilting cock back into his pants. His embarrassment hadn’t broken through, yet. His laugh was humourless, but it died pretty quick.
Jim had one hand on the minibar. “I’m having a drink. Want one?”
“Sure.”
He was relieved when he could pass Pozzi a can. If he could get him drunk enough to forget this ever happened, that would suit him just fine.
The worst of it was that Jack had looked so beautiful in orgasm. But what of it? Day fourteen. Thirty-six to go.