Work Text:
This isn’t how Alex imagined his life going.
The part where he’s divorced at twenty-five is one thing, yeah. But the part where his whole body is shaking and his head might actually explode as he sinks his cock into the white out bliss of another guy’s body?
Totally unexpected.
... ... ...
He’d thought he was going to be with Lyla forever. Well, if he’s totally honest, he didn’t really think about it at all. They’d been together through high school and went to the same college, and all their other friends were getting engaged so it seemed like the next natural step in their relationship.
Alex had saved up from his restaurant job for six whole months to buy the ring. Proposed at the end of junior year and got married two weeks after graduation.
Signed his divorce papers only three years later. Nothing went wrong. It’s just that it was probably the wrong decision to begin with.
They met at a youth group at church when they were fourteen. Lyla was the girl all the boys wanted to date, so Alex wanted her too. Made sure he sat at the front of church when she was singing in the choir so they’d make eye contact. His mom thought he was just really getting into his faith. He was. He just had a little motivation.
They didn’t have sex before they were married. It drilled into them from as early as Alex could remember what sex was. Sex was for marriage. If you had sex before you were married you’d ruin yourself for your future spouse. You’d ruin your partner for their future spouse.
There were loopholes, of course, but Lyla did things properly, and she wanted to wait, and Alex did too. Yeah, it did kind of suck when the only relief he’d get was coming in his pants when they made out in Lyla’s dorm room when her roommate was out, but he did enjoy gossiping with her about which of their friends had been kicked off the worship rota because word had got out they were living together without being married.
Honestly, it was all kind of weird to Alex. That the minute you said ‘I do’ you were suddenly allowed to do things. All sorts of things. Their sex life was good. Or like, it was as good as Alex thought it could be. It’s not as if he had much to compare it to.
... ... ...
“Alright, love?”
The words sound like they’re being spoken from far away, but they do the job at slowly bringing Alex back into his body. He registers his knees dug into the mattress, the curl of long fingers around the back of his neck, the soft skin beneath his own hands.
He breathes out shakily and nods before he realises his forehead is pressed against someone else’s. Henry’s.
“Open your eyes. Let me see you.”
Alex does what he’s told, and gosh. The way Henry is looking at him. Bottom lip bitten red, cheeks flushed, expression triumphant and they’ve barely done anything.
“Alright?” Henry asks again, like he didn’t believe Alex the first time.
Yes. No. It’s just that everything Alex ever knew about sex and intimacy and the things his body was capable of feeling are being completely rearranged. Rewritten.
He exhales deliberately this time. “It’s just a lot.”
That makes Henry smile more, and his hand moves from Alex’s neck to grip the hair just above it. “Don’t worry,” he murmurs gently. “I’ve got you.”
He skates a hand down Alex’s back to press just above his ass, rolling his hips at the same time, and the sensation makes Alex whimper and press forward.
“That’s it. You know what to do.” Henry sets his teeth to the lobe of Alex’s ear. Undulates his hips again, levers Alex back and drags him back in again with one thigh.
Alex doesn’t want to be thinking about sex with Lyla right now, but he can’t help reasoning that the mechanics are the same, yet everything else feels different. The body beneath his is hard where Lyla’s had been soft, the thigh hooking itself around Alex’s hip is strong and muscled where Lyla’s had been smooth, the hands guiding him into an even rhythm are wide where Lyla’s had been small and delicate.
Alex didn’t know sex could feel this way, he didn’t know he could feel this way about sex, or sex with another person. Sex with a man.
He pulls back until just the head of his cock is inside Henry. Thrusts forward so Henry’s head tips back onto the pillow. Does it again. And again.
Henry doesn’t stop watching him, even when his mouth falls open obscenely. It makes Alex think of other things, things he didn’t let himself think of before, like pulling out and finishing on Henry’s tongue, or painting Henry’s chest with his release.
He feels Henry’s hand move around and under him, then there are two slick fingers pressing at that place behind his balls, teasing at the place where the skin is puckered and sensitive, and oh, oh God, he can’t control his hips or his gasps and his whole body is hot and tight and it feels like he’s going to die—
“That’s it, Alex,” Henry murmurs again, lips pressed to Alex’s ear. “Give it to me, darling, you’re so good. My good boy.”
Alex screws his eyes shut and lets himself feel everything.
... ... ...
He meets Henry four months after his divorce.
He’s a newly minted New Yorker, having moved outside of Texas for the first time in his entire fucking life and into an apartment in Queens. All he can afford is an apartment the size of a shoebox in Queens, but he’s living on his own. He’s never lived on his own before. Sometimes it feels lonely, like when he gets to Sunday night and realises he’s not spoken to another soul for the whole weekend, but most of the time he loves it.
He misses coming home to someone. Misses the security of having someone to come home to. But he doesn’t miss Lyla.
He gets a job. Joins a gym. Wanders around the city in his free time and drinks coffee and eats bagels and gets lost more often than he’d like to admit. The city feels big and small all at once. Texas had felt like that too, in a different way.
It’s weirdly freeing being single for the first time in his adult life. People are suddenly not just people. They’re possibilities. They’ve got whole lives he doesn’t know about, and Alex could go up to any one of them and make himself a part of it. There’s nothing—no one—to stop him.
He gets kind of obsessed with people watching. He goes to get coffee and looks at people in line and the barista behind the counter. He looks at people on the street walking their dogs and texting and jogging. He wonders how they kiss. What their skin feels like. What they sound like when they—
“Hey, you wanna join?”
Alex jolts out of his daydream. It’s a Friday evening and he’s sitting in the park after work. There’s a guy at the fence of the basketball court. He’s shirtless. There’s sweat glistening on his chest.
“Oh, uh…”
It’s only then that Alex realises that he’d been staring. There’s a group of them playing a pickup game and it’s shirts versus skins. He shakes his head.
The guy shrugs. “Sure? Always room for another. Cesar’s been bombing lately so we could use some fresh muscle.”
Alex laughs even though he can feel his face growing hot. “Nah, I’m good. Thanks though.”
“Alright, man,” the guy says, shooting a grin at him. “We’re here every Friday after work if you ever fancy a game.”
Alex nods. “Cool. Thanks.”
The guy jogs back to the game and Alex watches him as he steals the ball and scores a basket. Watches the way the muscles in his back move under his skin.
Alex feels restless. He isn’t sure why.
On his walk back to his apartment he passes women in sundresses and guys in shirts unbuttoned down their chest. He gets home, gets in the shower, jerks off, then sits on his couch in a pair of sweats with a beer and panics about the fact he’s not realised that he’s not just been looking at women. He’s started looking at men, too.
Alex was Christian in the way that a lot of people who grew up in Texas were. Going to church was just a thing he did on Sundays and he hasn’t done so since he moved. He was straight because he didn’t consider he might be anything but, and he and Lyla were together so long that he never needed to give it any thought.
He’s thinking about it now.
He can’t stop thinking about it. Ever since that guy at the park he’s felt his heart speed up every time a man’s eyes even so much as linger on him. The barista at his local coffee shop slips him an extra cookie and Alex wonders what it means. A guy on the subway compliments his shirt and he spends the rest of the afternoon obsessing over it.
It’s just that… look, he knows he’s a good looking guy. Objectively, he’s attractive. People look at him. People of all genders. Always have. But before it didn’t matter because he was married. And now he’s not. So, like, he could be with someone of the same gender if he wanted to.
Does he want to?
Alex feels unsteady all the time, like he’s rethinking everything. The times he let his eyes linger a little too long on his teammates in the shower. The weird obsession he had as a teenager with one of his dad’s work colleagues who was younger and wore his collars loose all the time. The way his best friend was upset when he and Lyla got engaged and they haven’t really spoken since.
It all feels like it might add up to something, but Alex has no idea how to get there. Has no idea where to even start.
It’s not like he has anyone he can ask. Hey, do you think I might not be straight? If his friends weren’t all back in Texas wondering why the heck he moved to New York, they’re basically all people he and Lyla knew from church anyway. Not exactly the kind of people he wants to test-run a possible sexuality crisis on.
Maybe it doesn’t matter. It’s not like he has to do anything about it. Maybe he just likes looking at guys. It doesn’t mean he wants to kiss one, or be with one. People are hot and it’s fun to look at things that are attractive. Women and men.
Yeah. That’s fine. He can handle that reasoning.
And then he meets Henry.
... ... ...
Henry’s big.
Alex is into it.
Everything about him is big. He has broad shoulders and wide hands and legs so long that Alex has to crane his neck up to be kissed. It’s something he’s never had to consider before. It’s stupidly hot.
And then there’s his cock, too, which is… Well. Considering Alex has never touched another guy’s dick up until very recently, it’s kind of insane that he can’t keep his hands off Henry’s. He wants it in his mouth. He might even want it inside of him.
But right now, it’s in his hand, slick and hot and hard, and Alex is jerking Henry off and Henry rides Alex’s dick like a fucking pro. Seriously. Alex doesn’t know where to look—Henry’s cock, flushed and leaking where it’s held tight in Alex’s fist, or his own and the place where he’s buried inside Henry, or Henry’s face, which is positively sinful with the way his mouth opens around a moan.
“Is this good?”
He’s probably asked that too much. It’s just that this is all new to him, and okay, maybe there’s something there about being told that he’s doing good that he should think about in more detail.
Henry’s head drops down and he presses his hands to the pillow on either side of Alex’s head so he can bite at Alex’s mouth.
“It’s perfect, darling,” Henry breathes, still rocking back on Alex’s cock. “You’re doing so well. My perfect student.”
Alex moans. Doesn’t feel embarrassed when he comes only a short while later, because the look on Henry’s face is too gorgeous to comprehend. Henry lifts up, lets Alex slip from his body, laughs softly when Alex whines at the loss.
“Wait.” Alex grips at Henry’s hips. His cock hangs heavy and wet before Alex’s mouth. Alex can’t stop looking at it. He licks his lips.
Henry gets a hand in his hair, tilting it back so it rests on the pillow. Shuffles forward on his knees so the head of his cock presses against Alex’s bottom lip.
“Yes?”
Instead of answering, Alex opens his mouth.
... ... ...
Alex finds himself in a queer bar on a Thursday night. He’d stood outside for fifteen minutes before he worked up the nerve to even go in. It’s not that he’s worried about someone he knows seeing him there. He’s worried that the minute he steps inside the bartender will take one look at him and laugh and tell him to get his straight ass out of there.
Honestly, that might be a good thing. At least then maybe someone will just tell him.
But he walks in, sits down at the bar, orders a whiskey from a cute bartender with hot pink hair and… nothing happens. No alarm goes off, nobody looks at him like he’s violating a space. The beer is cold and the music is good and the bartender is a British dude who calls everyone by a different pet name and seems to know everyone’s business. A couple of hot guys smile flirtatiously at him as they order drinks, and it feels the same as when a hot girl flirts with him. Not that he’s had a girl flirt with him for years.
He finishes his drink and orders another. The music gets a little louder and people start dancing. The two guys who had smiled at him earlier are now making out against the wall, hands travelling along waists and slipping under shirts. Alex can’t stop watching them.
That could be him, if he wanted. He could find a man in this bar and kiss him. He could put his hands on his waist and feel his skin and be pressed into the wall just like that. The thought makes him feel dizzy. He sways on his stool, and a hand wraps around his arm to steady him.
“Woah,” a warm voice murmurs in his ear.
Alex turns and looks up, and… oh. If his attraction to men was purely theoretical before it is absolutely concrete now. Irrefutable. Undeniable.
The man currently with his hand on Alex’s arm is tall and broad-shouldered and soft-mouthed, and gosh, Alex has never felt the physical signs of attraction so strongly in his life. His mouth is dry. His heart speeds up. His face feels hot.
“Are you alright?” the man asks, and gosh, his accent.
“Will you kiss me?”
The words leave Alex’s mouth before he has a chance to even recognise their formation. It’s like a reflex.
The man’s eyes crinkle around a smile and he lets out a soft laugh. “Sorry?”
“Please.” He might be whimpering. He’s not sure. “I need you to kiss me.”
The man’s eyebrows raise slightly, but then he’s stepping closer. “Well. Since you asked so nicely.”
Alex is still seated, so he has to tip his head back, and the man brings a hand to Alex’s neck as he leans down, and—
Right. So Alex probably isn’t straight.
Alex doesn’t know how long they kiss for. Doesn’t even care. Forgets that they’re in a packed bar. Forgets anything but the feel of this man’s lips on his.
When they pull back, the man is watching Alex intently, hands still cupping Alex’s jaw. Alex realises his own are clutching the man’s shirt right at the dip of his waist. His mouth is red. Alex can’t stop staring at it. He did that.
“Jesus Christ, H, I know you’re a god amongst mortals but I’ve never seen you pull that fast!”
The man doesn’t even look up, just raises one hand and flips off that bartender, who cackles and dances off to serve someone else.
“How was that?”
Alex nods. He’s pretty sure he used to know a lot of words, in more than one language in fact, but he’s pretty sure his brain could be poured into a skillet and scrambled right about now.
The man smiles. His hand is still on Alex’s neck. “Would you like to come home with me?”
This is insane. Alex can’t go from kissing the first man he sees in a bar to going home with him. He should ease himself into this. He should stop to think about what this all means.
“Yeah,” Alex breathes. “I would.”
... ... ...
His name is Henry. He’s thirty-three. He’s an editor at a publishing house in Manhattan, and he was only in the bar because his best friend, who happens to be the pink-haired bartender, is also the owner and had left his phone at Henry’s place last night. He’s British. He’s gorgeous. He’s out.
He kisses Alex into the door as soon as it’s shut behind them. He’s so tall that Alex has to lean up on his toes and wrap his arms around Henry’s neck, and holy heck, the stretch is really doing it for him. He’s never been kissed like this before. Comprehensively. By someone who has clearly kissed a lot of other people and therefore knows how to do it really, really well.
Alex is so into this, which should be scary but weirdly isn’t. This is the first time he’s kissed anyone since Lyla, which takes his kiss-count up to a wild four.
The kissing is so, so good and Alex really doesn’t want to stop it, especially now that Henry’s hands are at the small of his back, slipping up his shirt, and wow, okay, a man’s hands on him feels incredible. But there’s a part of his brain that is absolutely freaking the fuck out about what is happening right now, and he can’t help but feel like he’s kind of leading Henry on in regards to his experience level.
“I need to tell you something,” Alex tries, as Henry moves his mouth to Alex’s neck as his fingers start to unbutton Alex’s shirt, which makes it really difficult to concentrate on basically anything other than how hard he is in his pants right now.
“I’m on PrEP,” Henry says between kisses. “Last test was three weeks ago.”
Oh, God.
“No, I—” Alex takes a breath. “I’ve never done this before.”
Henry’s lips suck a bruise into the skin his fingers just exposed. “Gone home with someone? Or gone home with a man?”
Alex can tell he’s joking, but…
“…Both?”
Henry’s fingers still. He straightens up and Alex really, really wants to avoid his eyes but doesn’t. Henry doesn’t look mad or freaked out. If anything he looks kind of amused.
“I should probably be concerned about being a straight man’s experiment, but truthfully I’m more intrigued about you never having had a one night stand before.”
Alex’s heart speeds up. “This might be an experiment.”
Henry’s eyes flash. “Well it wouldn’t be the first time. And I’ve found I don’t particularly mind, actually. There’s something thrilling about the opportunity to change a man’s entire perspective on sex and sexuality.”
Gosh, that’s… Henry doesn’t know how true that seemingly is for their current situation.
“Forgive me for the assumption that you were more promiscuous than you apparently are, but do you mind explaining how someone who looks like you has never taken anyone home for the night?” Henry asks with a teasing grin. “It’s just I’m struggling to understand how anyone would not take one look at you and want to get you into bed. And that’s without you begging so sweetly to be kissed.”
Well. Alex was hoping it wouldn't come up quite this early. Or at all, really.
“I was in a long-term relationship for… well, forever, basically.”
“Ah,” Henry says. “Broke up with your girlfriend and got curious about what it would be like to kiss a man?” It sounds so bad when Alex hears it out loud, but Henry’s smiling again, so he mustn’t mean it with any malice.
Alex swallows. Well. Here goes nothing.
“Divorced my wife and got curious about what it would be like to fuck a man.”
Henry’s eyebrows raise minutely for a moment, and Alex is already anticipating the question about how young he must have gotten married to already be divorced. But Henry just curls his fingers around Alex’s hips and reels him in slowly until their hips are pressed together. Alex’s breath catches.
“Well, then,” Henry murmurs, already looking at Alex’s mouth. “I had better give you an education.”
... ... ...
Alex wakes up to an empty bed.
“Henry?” he calls. There’s no answer.
Shit. He flops back onto the bed and presses the heels of his hands to his eyes. Has he committed some huge one-night-stand faux pas? Was he not meant to stay over? Alex had got the impression that Henry had wanted him to after he pulled him in by the waist and tucked himself around Alex after they’d finished. Maybe Alex was supposed to stay until Henry was asleep and then leave? Maybe Henry has just gone for a walk and expects Alex to have left by the time he gets home.
Before he can sink further into panic, the door opens, and there’s Henry, dressed in a soft grey t-shirt and a pair of comfortable pants. He’s got a cardboard tray with two to-go cups and a paper bag in his hand.
“Morning, love,” he says gently, settling on the bed and leaning down to drop a kiss to Alex’s lips. “I wasn’t sure if you were a coffee drinker in the morning, and I only have tea in, so I popped out to get some. There’s an americano and a latte, depending on your preference.”
Oh. Alex gathers the sheets around him, suddenly very aware that he is extremely naked and Henry is fully dressed. Henry hadn’t left. Henry hadn’t expected him to leave. Henry went to get two types of coffee because he wasn’t sure what Alex preferred.
“Americano is perfect,” Alex says.
Henry passes him the cup, and reveals he’s brought pastries as well.
“I wasn’t prepared for overnight company,” Henry says, pulling a pain au chocolat from the bag.
Alex’s anxiety spikes. “I’m sorry.”
Henry looks at him. “Whatever for?”
“For staying over.”
Henry tilts his head. “Did I give the impression I didn’t want you to stay over?”
Alex picks at the corner of his croissant. “I’m not exactly well-versed in hookup etiquette. On account of never having hooked up before.”
Henry puts his hand on Alex’s thigh. It’s warm. Comforting. It feels so good Alex wants to roll over and ask for more.
“When I invite a man into my bed I take it as a personal insult if he doesn’t pass out and sleep for eight hours after we’ve fucked.”
Well. Alex had slept like a baby.
“You don’t have to stay if you don’t want to,” Henry says. “I don’t want to keep you here if you’d prefer to be going.”
“No, I…” Alex shuffles closer so he’s almost leaning against Henry’s chest. “I want to stay.”
That seems to please Henry, because he tucks an arm around Alex to pull him closer and drops a kiss to the top of his head.
“So,” Henry says, a while later when they’re curled in bed after finishing their breakfast. Alex had been dozing off again on Henry’s chest. He’s just so comfortable. “Would it be alright if I asked why you haven’t had a one night stand before?”
“Got married straight out of college to the girl I’d dated since I was fourteen. Divorce was finalised four months ago.”
“Ah,” Henry says, running his fingers through Alex’s hair. It feels so good Alex finds his eyes closing involuntarily. “Hence the experiment?”
Something twists in Alex’s chest. “I don’t think it was an experiment. I mean, I’m not totally sure, but I’m pretty sure guys who think they’re straight don’t enjoy what we did last night the way I did.”
Henry’s lips press gently against his bare shoulder. Alex can feel his smile. “That is entirely possible, yes. There’s no rush to figure anything out. You don’t even have to figure things out if you don’t want to.”
Henry leans up on one arm and traces his fingers along Alex’s jaw. Alex leans into his touch. He can’t help it.
“But for the record,” Henry murmurs, “I enjoyed what we did last night too.”
“You did?” Alex doesn’t mean for it to come out needy and anxious. But, like, everything Henry did to him was so good. Henry’s experienced. He’s older. Alex has no fucking clue what he’s doing. Up until last night he’d never kissed a guy. Up until pretty recently he thought he’d stay married to one woman for the rest of his life.
Henry smiles. “Very much.”
“But I came so fast,” Alex blurts out. “And you had to show me how to touch you, and I didn’t know—”
“And you,” Henry says, leaning down to kiss the words from his mouth, “were an excellent student, with whom I am very interested in doing some more practical learning with.”
Alex’s heart might beat out of his chest. “Really?”
Henry hums, and kisses him again. It’s slow and warm and Alex nearly lets himself get lost in it. Nearly.
“But I’m divorced,” Alex says. “And I’m not as experienced as you, and I don’t even know what I am—”
“Darling,” Henry says, sliding his hand up Alex’s chest and letting it rest over his heart. “I’d just like to take you to dinner. Will you let me do that?”
This isn’t where he saw his life going. Okay, so he would have sex with a man. He has had sex with a man. But would he want to be in a relationship with one? Surely he should be getting out there. Playing the field. Sleeping with men and women and whoever else he wants to.
Henry smiles down at him.
“Yes,” Alex says. And then, “Please.”
... ... ...
Alex bites at his thumbnail, staring down at his phone.
“You’re concentrating very hard there, love,” Henry observes, passing Alex a glass of wine and settling on the sofa next to him. “Is it that woman pretending to be cats at a cat show again?”
Alex turns his phone around accusingly and shows Henry the screen. “Look.”
It’s a photo of Henry he’d taken earlier when they’d been for lunch and Henry wanted to stop and browse in a bookshop. Henry’s got his sunglasses pushed onto his head and he’s peering intently at the shelves, his tote bag casual over his shoulder, that little mole that drives Alex crazy on show where he’s in profile.
“Look how good you look,” Alex says, infuriated.
Henry takes a sip of his wine and puts his hand on Alex’s thigh, dragging Alex’s legs up onto his lap. “I’m not entirely sure why that has made you so angry.”
“I want to post it.”
Henry’s glass pauses on the way to his mouth. “Ah.”
Alex knows he gets it. They’ve been together for six months. They see each other every weekend. Alex stays over at Henry’s more than he stays at his own place. They’ve talked about moving in together soon. Alex thinks about what a wedding band would look like on Henry’s left hand.
It’s serious. He’s in love.
It’s not like it was with Lyla, which is probably stating the obvious, but sometimes he feels the need to point it out to himself. He’s grown. He’s growing. He’s learning about himself, the things that he likes and the things that he doesn’t, what he values and what is non-negotiable for him. It’s all the stuff he didn’t bother to do when he was with Lyla. He thought he’d always stay the same.
Henry gives him room to change.
Alex hasn’t posted anything about Henry on social media. He likes that things have been so private between them while they’ve been figuring out what it would be like to be together.
He won’t lie—he still has a lot of old church friends on social media. He wants to show off that his boyfriend is fucking hot and that people should be jealous. His family and all the important people know that he’s with Henry and they love him and support him, but…
“Tell me what you’re thinking, love,” Henry says.
Alex bites his lip. “People are going to think I got divorced because I’m gay.”
Henry tilts his head. “Did you?”
“No. We got divorced because we grew apart.” He takes a breath. “And I’m not gay. I’m bisexual.”
It’s the first time he’s said it out loud. It feels good. Better than he ever thought it would, actually.
Henry’s face breaks into a smile. “Well, then.”
Alex posts the photo.