Queer as Muke

1.5.4 Now Approaching...The Line

"That's sexual harassment!" Calum says, shocked at what Michael's just told him about last night.

"Remind me to press charges," Michael tells him dryly, keeping his eyes on the road as they speed along in his Jeep. 

Calum's curious, "What does he look like?"

"The kind of guy who, if he wagged his dick in front of you, you wouldn't look twice, but if he dangled his account in front of you you might actually consider it..." Michael grips the steering wheel a little tighter as he says the words. This really doesn't sit right with him but he's mulled it over all night and can't see another way around it.

Calum's voice climbs quite a few notches, "You're kidding! You wouldn't actually do it? Would you?"

"Well considering some of the other things I've done..."

"Yeah but that was for fun, you've never done anything like this!" Calum can't believe that Michael's thinking about this.

Michael snorts, "You're so beautifully naive Cal, it's business. You fuck or you get fucked."

"Yeah, but which end are you on?"

~~~

"Luke?" Liz hops out of her car when she sees her son heading into school. She supposes that she should be grateful that he's still attending school at least although God only knows where he spent last night. "Honey, please. I thought you might like to come with me."

"Where? To see another shrink?" The scornful look Luke gives her tells he she's not going to be able to pull that stunt twice, not that she was going to. It's obvious that he's made up his mind, he was brutally honest about that. All she can do is try to contain the fallout.

"It's a surprise."

"I'm not interested." Luke turns away, heading up the steps on the path into school.

"Stop right there! Stop running from me because I'm not running from you!" She calls after him, Joy's words ringing in her ears about making sure that Luke knows he hasn't lost her. She gets a little hope when he turns around on the steps to look back at her. Looking directly at him, her face pleading, she decides to tell him her feelings as bluntly as he told her his.

"I'm still your mother and you're still my son and I still love you."

~~~

"What's this?" Calum asks, as Anna places a very large gift basket in his hands as he tries to sort out the new delivery of fake flowers into their display pots in aisle twenty.

"A get well basket!" she beams at him. "Paracetamol, hot water bottle, and everything else you need for a pulled muscle."

"That's really nice of you Anna."

"At KMart we guarantee your full money back if you're not completely satisfied!" She quotes, grinning at him.

A deep, vaguely familiar voice speaks behind Calum making him turn around a little too quickly for someone with a bad back, "I hope you won't be needing all that..."

"Oh! Hi!" Calum is a little surprised to see his chiropractor in his store, and he's just as tall and broad and sexy as yesterday.

"How's your neck?"

"It's still a little sore but much better, I think you did the trick." Calum wishes his dick wouldn't react quite so quick to this guy, he can feel it stirring in his pants again.

"Good to hear it."

"Uh, Anna this is Dr Jackson, the chiropractor you sent me to." Calum hopes that by introducing Anna his dick will get the message that this is very much neither the time nor the place.

Turning to Anna the Doctor turns on the charm, "Thanks for the referral Anna."

"Thanks for taking care of Cal," She shakes his hand in return. "Well, I should go and take care of my cash register, bye."

"She's cute."

"Yeah. What a co-incidence running into you here!" Calum moves the conversation off Anna, trying to find out if this really is a co-incidence.

"Well it's not really a co-incidence, you told me where you worked remember?"

He says it so nonchelantly that Calum instantly goes into rejected and resigned mode. "Oh. Yeah. Well, it's really nice of you to come all this way and see how I am."

"Nothing is more important than a patients health and wellbeing...and I also wanted to get a new screwdriver."

"Oh! Well, let me show you where the hardware department is. We have a complete line of tools, all at every day low prices." Calum finds he can't not flirt with the Doc and, to his satisfaction, the man actually seems to like it.

"And I wanted to ask if you'd like to have dinner with me?"

"Huh?" Calum stops dead in the middle of the aisle.

"Dinner? You know, where you sit at a table and eat food off a plate? So what do you say?"

"About what?"

"I think I just asked you out?"

"You mean you're?..." Calum asks quietly, not believing his luck.

The Doc nods back, "Yeah, I hope you are too?"

Calum nods and keeps his voice low, there are staff around every corner, "I have to be really careful, no-one here knows. How did you know?"

"You know that little problem you had in my office?"

"Yeah, but you said that happens to loads of people, even football players."

"Only the gay ones..."

~~~

"Luke, I so miss coming here with you." Liz reminisces as they enter her most treasured room of the art gallery, her eyes scanning the walls for her favourites, "Van Gogh's and Ruben's...you know, if it weren't for me you wouldn't be an artist."

She sees Luke's face and amends her statement, "I mean I encouraged you! After we're done do you want to go get some of that wonderful chocolate cake they do in the shop here, like we used to?"

"Yeah sure!" Luke smiles, he's not going to deny that it's nice to be with his Mum again when they're not arguing about where he's going or who he's with.

"Oh Luke look! My favourite! You remember?" Liz gazes at the mother and baby oil and canvas portrait that is her most absolute adored piece of art.

"No..." Luke's half listening to his Mum and half eyeing up a guy who's maybe a couple of years older than him with messy hair and a coral necklace on. He looks like he'd be more at home on a surf board, but Luke likes that he's wandering around an art gallery looking like he's still got sand in his hair.

"I fell in love with this when I was pregnant with you."

The guy catches Luke checking him out and turns, indicating for Luke to follow him...

"Mum, I've got to use the bathroom."

"Okay honey, I'll be right here," Liz says in a dreamy voice, falling in love with the portrait all over again. She walks backwards and finds a bench to sit on, right opposite the picture, only turning to look in the direction that Luke's gone in when she sits down.

She finds him disappearing around a corner at the end of the gallery, towards the toilets and looks away again, unsure but with a deeply uneasy feeling in her stomach about the man who's following him, seemingly at Luke's invitation going off the look her son just gave him.

As Liz tries to concentrate on the oil painting in front of her, looking at all the brushstrokes and colours that have always intrigued her, Luke gets pulled into a stall by his school tie, kissed on the neck and has his trousers unbuttoned, all in a few seconds. Reaching out for the stall door, he slams it shut and locks both of them in there, determined that this guy, whoever he is, fully appreciate the art that is his body.