Play It Safe (4 page)

Fergus could easily picture a hundred ways to “relax” amongst a few dozen naked men. None of those ways seemed very relaxing. “Have you been?”

Liam nodded. “A few times, when I could afford it. Tuesday is Pals Day, two for the price of one. I never invited you cos you were with Evan. Then you were with John. And in between, you were a miserable piece of human wreckage.”

This was true. But even if he’d been in a more sociable mood, Fergus would never have ventured into a glorified sex club. “You hook up with strangers there?”

“That’s the idea, aye,” Liam said, “but obviously you and John wouldn’t. You could make a day of it—sit in the sauna, eat lunch, have a wee dip in the Jacuzzi, get each other off in a private cabin, then have the tests. They’ve even got a sling room on the bottom floor, though I hear it’s closed for renovations just now.”

Fergus shook his head in disbelief. Only Liam would think of such an outrageous solution. A place like Club 212 wasn’t exactly a monument to monogamy.

But maybe that was the point. Maybe with a visit to a bathhouse, Fergus could prove his trust—prove that his aversion to barebacking wasn’t about
John
, not for a moment.

“If nothing else,” Liam said, “it’d be a good test. You can watch John in the midst of all those naked men. See if he seems disappointed to be stuck with you.”

Fergus stared at his friend. “Does it make life easier, being so cynical?”

“Well, yeah,” Liam said with a scoff. “That’s the whole point of cynicism.”

“Then you of all people should understand. Theoretically I believe in fidelity, that it should be the goal. What I don’t believe is that men are capable of it.”

Liam started to retort, then closed his mouth. “Fair point.” He nodded. “You’re a wise man, so you are.”

“Bollocks!” The old lady threw down her knitting, her needles clattering on the concrete floor. “He’s not wise, he’s an eejit!”

= = =

“Of course I don’t mind,” John said, following Robert round the bend of the market. “I respect a man who knows what he wants, even when it takes him forever to decide he wants it, and even if what he wants is a two-quid rubber ducky.”

They sidestepped the fleeing tobacconist without comment, then shifted farther out of the way of the pursuing police officers. Robert stopped when his toe hit a fallen five-pack box of Carltons.

John laid a gentle hand on his arm. “Gonnae no do it, mate.”

“It used to be my brand.” He looked around. “Are the polis away?”

“No, they’re right behind you, and if you pick up those smokes, you’ll be in for it.”

Slowly Robert lifted his right foot, stepped over the carton, then followed with his left foot. A teenage lad yelped in triumph at the sight of the smokes, which he quickly scooped up and absconded with.

Robert turned around. “There’s no cops behind me, John. You lied.”

“For your own good. Now let’s get that duck.”

John heard the toy peddler before he saw her. The wee wifey’s shrill voice echoed off the market’s low wooden ceilings.

“Don’t be such a fanny,” she was telling someone. “How long you gonnae wait? Until you’re one hundred percent sure?”

John rounded the corner and stopped when he saw that the person she was haranguing was Fergus.

“Let me tell you,” she said, “there’s no such thing.” She waved a finger at Fergus’s chin, which was easily a foot above her head. “A year’ll go by, then another, then another, and next thing you know you’ll be ninety-three, and those condoms won’t even hang onto your shriveled old tadgers.”

Frozen, Fergus stared down at her with wide eyes. John’s stomach sank. He’d tried so hard not to pressure his boyfriend, knowing he hated being pushed into decisions. After this, Fergus would surely shut down, and they’d never broach the subject again.

Finally Liam cleared his throat and stepped forward. “Sorry, but—how much for the ducks?”

“O
OH
,
WE
CAN
have a massage!” John looked up from his phone to smile at Fergus as they walked from the subway station toward the Club 212 sauna. “Or a sugar scrub. I’ve heard those are nice.” He checked his phone again, shading it from the late-afternoon sunlight. “They also do teeth whitening.”

“Do I need my teeth whitened?” Fergus felt insecure as it was at the thought of being naked in front of dozens of strange men.

“Smile for me.”

Fergus tried, but he knew it was more of a baring of the teeth.

“Nah, you’re good,” John said after a brief examination. “Maybe in a year or two.”

They stopped at a corner to wait for the traffic light. Fergus tried not to fidget with his shirt tail, or slip his hands into his jacket pockets, or do any of his other nervous tells.

When he’d asked John to go to the bathhouse, he’d hoped the answer would be no, that the invitation itself would be a sufficient sign of trust. Instead John had been delighted at the prospect of a new “adventure.”

“Listen to this review.” John thumbed his phone screen. “‘Friendly place. Got a nice wank off in the pool. Look forward to going again.’”

Fergus hoped John didn’t see him shudder.

“I know, sounds disgusting,” John said, “but I’m sure they put loads of chlorine in the water.”

“Brilliant,” Fergus muttered as the light changed. He stepped off the curb, but John caught his arm.

“We don’t have to do this if you don’t want.”

“I do want.” Fergus grimaced at his unconvincing tone. “Like you said, it’ll be an adventure.” He started across the road, moving faster now.
The sooner we get there, the sooner we can leave.

John’s footsteps thumped behind Fergus as he caught up. “Okay, but if it helps, please know I love every bit of you—the bold bits, the canny bits, and all the bits in between.”

He gave John another smile, this time a real one. “It does help.”

Fergus was relieved to see that the sauna’s side street was nearly empty. He’d heard weekday afternoons were the establishment’s quietest times, but he’d still worried there’d be an enormous queue outside. What if he saw a client of his firm, where they thought Fergus had taken the afternoon off for a doctor’s appointment?

A small plaque bearing the sauna’s name marked the ultra-discreet entrance. John pressed a button beside the door to be let in.

After riding the lift to the third floor, they found a polo-shirt-and-chinos-clad attendant with a name badge that read I’M ALAN AND I’M HERE TO HELP! The young man was friendly but polite, reminding Fergus of a hotel front-desk clerk. He took their money, had them sign a short waiver, then presented them each with a white towel, along with a key and numbered metal tag hanging from a rubber neck strap.

“Leave your clothes in the lockers through there.” Alan pointed to the door behind him. “Then have a shower, then…do whatever you fancy.” He started counting off on his fingers. “We’ve got a dry sauna, a steam room, a Jacuzzi, a darkroom, a lounge, a café—and of course private cabins, which can be made semi-private if you prefer.”

Semi-private. If they wanted to be watched—or joined.

Fergus unfolded his towel, which was smaller than he’d expected. “We wear these about the entire place? Nothing more?”

“Nothing more,” Alan said. “If you like, you can leave it off. But in the dry sauna, you need to keep it on whilst you’re on the seat, else you’ll burn your baws off. Don’t worry, there’s a sign reminding you.”

Fergus followed John into the empty locker area. “Have you been here before?”

“Nah, but a mate of mine from uni came for his birthday.” John checked his keychain tag, then opened one of the tangerine-colored lockers.

“What did he do?”

“Says he met a married man from Liverpool. Fucked like squirrels all night.” John stripped off his shirt and chucked it into the locker without folding it. “Loads of straight guys come to these places—ostensibly straight, at least.”

“Makes sense, I guess.” It did not make sense. Club 212 made Fergus feel such a prude. He was only three years older than John, but at moments like this they seemed to belong to different generations.

A thirty-something man with a mane of ginger-blond hair entered with a casual “Hiya.” Fergus turned his back to the newcomer to remove his clothes, wrapping the towel about his waist while his shirt was still on.

They had a quick shower in the next room—just the two of them, to Fergus’s relief. On their way out, John took his hand. “Gonnae no worry, love. We’ll stick together like glue. Or something sexier than glue. I know—we’ll stick together like the pages of an old porno magazine. Wait, is that worse than glue?”

Fergus longed to cling to John for reassurance, to never let him out of his sight. But if their love was to move forward, he needed to show John—and more importantly, himself—that he had faith.

“I’ve a better idea.” He drew his fingers down the side of John’s neck, in the way that always made him shiver. “Fancy a game of hide-and-seek?”

John’s eyes popped wide with glee. “Not It!” he shouted, as Fergus knew he would. “Close your eyes and count to twenty. No, sixty!”

Fergus took a deep breath and shut his eyes. “Go on, then.”

“See you soon.” John kissed him hard and quick, then released his hand.

Fergus steadied himself against the wall outside the shower room, counting silently. At the sound of footsteps, he opened his eyes and nodded to the shaggy-haired ginger from the locker area.

“Hello again.” The guy started to pass on his way to the shower, but then stopped and turned. Before Fergus could look away, eye contact was made.

Uh-oh.

“I’m with someone,” Fergus blurted.

The man looked around and shrugged, palms up. “He’s not here, is he?”

A memory sideswiped Fergus harder than a fullback’s tackle, a memory of waiting for Evan at a club one night last March. Half a dozen lads had approached Fergus to buy him a drink or ask him to dance. He’d told them all,
I’m with someone
, and they’d all replied just like this man—
He’s not here, is he?

And they were right. Evan never showed up that evening.

But that was Evan, this was John.

Crossing his arms, Fergus drew himself up to his full height and looked his fellow ginger in the eye. “I don’t need to see him to know he’s with me.”

Then he began his search.

The brightly lit room beside the shower area held a Jacuzzi big enough to fit the entire Warriors football team—including substitutes.

“Hiya!” said one of the three slim men within. All in their early twenties, they each sat on a different side of the pool, about ten feet from one another. The blond who’d just spoken looked relieved, as though Fergus’s entrance had just interrupted an awkward moment.

“Hello,” Fergus said. “I’m just passing through.”

“First time?” asked the Asian guy, sitting closest to the door. “Ours too. None of us knows each other. It’s kind of weird, yeah?” he added with a nervous laugh.

“Yeah.” Fergus examined the spare, industrial decor around him. The floors and walls were concrete, and the pair of oddly shaped white chairs in the corner were plastic. The non-porous materials made sense—no doubt the place was hosed down with cleaning solution twice a day, like the dog kennel where he’d worked as a teenager.

He moved on, past the door to the café (
Really? People EAT here?
) and down an empty corridor. The ceiling, he noticed, was rather stylish, with exposed pipes and metalworks. The shiny surfaces made the club feel clean, and the wide spaces between the ceiling fixtures made it feel open, less like a prison.

He reached the clear glass door of the dry sauna. Peering through, Fergus saw four middle-aged men lounging on the wooden benches within, all with their towels still tied. Apart from one guy’s hand wrapped another’s thigh, the scene looked more fraternal than porny.

Fergus returned the gents’ friendly waves, then moved on to descend the steel stairway, breathing easier now. This place wasn’t the seamy hellhole he’d imagined it to be.

Halfway down the stairs, his mind changed back again. The lights on the lower level were dimmer and redder, and the tranquilizing chillout music had switched to a throbbing dubstep that shook Fergus’s bones. As he stepped into a foyer that branched into two corridors, he realized this level even
smelled
different—of earth and sweat and…

Sex.

“Can I help you?” asked a deep voice.

In a shadowy alcove to Fergus’s right, another young man in a Club 212 polo shirt sat on a stool before a small podium, looking like a restaurant maître d’. Unlike the harmlessly cute front-desk clerk, this guy was beefy as a Highland bull, his frame filling the alcove and his hand dwarfing the pen he held poised above a clipboard.

“We’ve got an opening for a sugar scrub in five minutes.” The man gestured to the door behind him marked MASSAGE SUITE. “Only thirty quid on a Tuesday.”

“No…thank you.” Fergus considered asking the giant if he’d seen John, but that would be cheating.

“Steam sauna’s through there.” The man extended one sausage-thick finger toward the hallway to Fergus’s left.

Ah. That seemed a likely place to find John, given his love of hot water.

Fergus thanked the attendant, then hurried down the hall. Like the dry sauna upstairs, the steam room had a glass door, but a thick fog cloaked the interior. Swallowing his nerves, Fergus opened the door and entered.

When the steam parted, he stopped short.
What the—

Intellectually, he knew that this…creature consisted of more than one body. Its shifting limbs varied in length and skin tone. The sounds from its throats varied in pitch and volume. The hair on its eight (nine?) heads varied in color, length, and location.

But at first glance it seemed all one continuous form, writhing upon splayed white towels like a dying deer in a snowbank.

“Don’t just stand there, ya big ginger beauty,” slurred a voice to his left. “Come and join us.”

Fergus turned but avoided eye contact with the thin, dark-haired young man whose nipples were providing a feast for a middle-aged chubby guy—a guy whose hand was wrapped around the lad’s cock, pumping it with a graceless fury.