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Apparently one pizza wasn't enough, and apparently, none of the alcohol that I'd bought was good enough because Jackson arrived with a backpack full of fine alcohol. The top shelf shit I only drank when my dad or my boss paid for it.
"You're a high-earning mechanical engineer man, why do you drink such watered-down shit?" he said, bursting his way into my house and unloading his goods all over the counter. I closed the door behind him and stood by the fridge, with my arms folded.
"It's not shit, and it's not watered-down. In fact, it's good-quality Australian wine!" I stated matter-of-factly.
"Might as well enjoy your cash before your ex-wife drains your bank account." He paused, looking around for my glass, and went over to the coffee table in the lounge area to retrieve it the nearest in sight. "If there's one piece of advice I can give you, it's that women only get dirty after they leave you."
I laughed.
"My wife promised me filth!" he exclaimed as he filled my wine glass with his wine, which I noted was also an Australian wine, but I said nothing. He passed me my glass, and looked around for his. I quickly moved to the cabinet where wine glasses were and picked one out for him, after a quick inspection to ensure it was clean.
"They say they're bisexual, nibble on your ears and let you butt-fuck them, give amazing head like those girls in porn while you watch group-sex porn, then the minute that ring's on their finger, bam!" His palm hit the counter with a huge bang. Everything rattled.
His eyes slowly turned to me, and the sudden silence after his outburst was unnerving.
As though to punctuate his story, he said in a much lower voice -- not quite a whisper, "they're only into missionary, no back-door policy, no head, girls?" he gave me a wild-eyed crazy look, "why the fuck would I want to eat pussy honey?" as though imitating a woman.
I laughed.
"See the point I'm making?"
I nodded, but couldn't help myself. "Hello Jackson, nice to see you again."
He laughed. "Come here you big softie!" and took two steps forward and pulled me into a bear-hug.
It felt so good I almost cried.
We moved to the sofa instead, and Jackson picked up my neglected pizza and started eating it.
"This isn't the best pizza; you know that don't you?" he started. "The best pizza is..."
"...Mario and Pepe's, I know..." I cut him off.
He laughed. "Then why the fuck?"
I shrugged. "Mario and Pepe's is where..." I looked around.
His eyes widened and he nodded. "Ahhhh. I see."
We drank, and we talked. He ordered Mario and Pepe's from his app while I wasn't looking, and I didn't realise until they were at my door with pizza in hand, and asking for cash.
"What?" I looked over to Jackson who shrugged.
"Don't look at me," he said looking innocently, "I got the wine. Least you can do is pay for the pizza."
"You ordered pizza on your app and told them I'd pay in cash?" I stared in disbelief.
He shrugged again as though I was the one who was nuts.
The delivery girl at the door watched the interaction with interest, while holding the boxes in her hands. She seemed more amused than annoyed.
"You gonna let the better-quality pizza go cold?" he asked me, topping up his wine from the second bottle he'd opened.
"Luckily, I have cash in my wallet. But seriously, who pays in cash these days?" I gave her enough to leave a generous tip. The girl's eyes widened, and she thanked me twice before bowing away from the door.
Smiling, and shaking my head, I bought the two pizza boxes over to the lounge area and put them on the coffee table on top of the old, allegedly inferior pizza box.
"You're a card Jackson," I said, as I plopped down on my original seat.
"A card you're glad popped over, huh?" he said with a wink.
I shrugged, but did suddenly feel thankful for his company.
"Your having problems with your wife?" I asked him.
He nodded. "Yeah, been happening for a while. We argue a lot." He emphasised `a lot', and topped up both our wine glasses.
For the first time I noticed his stubble and the tinges of red in his eyes.
"You're not looking your usual self," I said, not meaning it the way it came out.
He scoffed, picked up his wine and said. "You're not exactly looking..." and he sniffed like a dog, "...or smelling too fresh yourself pal."
That made me laugh out loud.
"That bad huh?"
"To be fair you did warn me you were in a bad place. I just didn't realise you meant physically."
I laughed again, and raised an eyebrow. "When did you become such a bitch?" I asked with genuine interest.
He shrugged, drank more wine. "Guess it comes with bad sleep and a bitchy wife."
We talked for a while, and we laughed a lot. While Jackson was clearly bitter about his predicament, I liked that he turned it into humour and catty, but jovial remarks. While bitchy, he was funny.
When I woke up the next morning, with a hangover worse than any previous day, it was with Jackson's arm over my waist and a pillow clutched tightly to my stomach.
We were in my bed, but both dressed.
I recalled the conversation the previous night with Jackson convincing me that together we'd get through this. Being drunk, it was music to my ears, and I'd felt a bit of hope, though in the cold light of day, the return of sadness was inevitable, and that hope vanished along with the darkness.
I showered, dressed and went to make coffee, eyeing the lounge area and kitchen counter's mess with barely a glance, focusing on the machine and the coffee.
The shower went on, so I figured Jackson was awake. It made me smile. With him around, I felt a lot better about my situation. Less lonely, more likely to feel like there was a light at the end of the tunnel after all.
Then Jackson came out of the shower via the bedroom, drying his hair and stark naked.
"Jesus," I said, realising only weeks earlier I'd done the same to my wife. But I stared at Jackson's cock, which was easy to do given it was massive and swung like a pendulum.
Wearing only a smirk, a twinkle and holding a towel, he said, "what are we doing today?"
I turned around, ignoring the stirring in my pants, and set to make us both coffee.
Jackson sat on the other side of the counter, so I only had to stare at his perfectly formed hairy chest.
"I'm going to catch up on some work, while you..." I poured him coffee, and pushed a sugar container in his direction along with the milk, which he immediately pushed back my way, "...you can do whatever you like."
He nodded, as though considering my proposal. "Interesting," he said after a sip of his coffee, "and decent coffee," he took another sip, "but..." he put the coffee down while continuing to admire it, "I have a better suggestion."
I folded my arms and stared, not as intimidating as I'd hoped to be.
He sipped, looked around, then back at me with an award-winning smile. "Or...you and I have a nice breakfast, go for a run together, because..." he shifted his attention to my belly, "...well, all this sitting around drinking and eating takeaway isn't going to burn itself off..."
I did my best not to laugh, but it began in my chest, then Jackson started to laugh, and I couldn't control it anymore.
Soon, we were laughing just as we had done the previous night, only this time we weren't drunk.
Jackson went off and put his shirt and undies on and returned, then went to my fridge and opened it, and surveyed the contents. Luckily, a few too many wines a few nights earlier I'd gone on a spending spree and bought a bunch of groceries I expected would go off before I'd gotten around to using them.
He seemed happy as he began to pull out various items.
"What are you doing in my fridge?" I asked him.
"What do people usually do in fridges?" he asked me, quick as lightning, placing items on the counter, and rummaging through all my cupboards looking for things.
"You could ask me what you're looking for?" I said it as both a question and a statement.
"Hmmm?" he said absent-mindedly, as though absorbed, then, "and spoil the opportunity to go through all your cupboards?" he pulled out a fry pan, two saucepans, a cutting board and some knives. He held the sharpest knife I owned, pointed it at me and stepped forward. "I need space."
I took that as my only warning and jumped out of the way.
With Jackson in the kitchen, I grabbed my laptop, mumbled that I needed to finish something and sat where he'd previously sat naked and worked.
While he cooked, and delicious smells came out of my kitchen, I watched his perfect butt in his underpants.
If there was one thing that could definitely help me feel slightly better about my new-found reality, it was watching his tight arse making me breakfast.
Either he was really quick at making breakfast, or I'd been really absorbed in my work to have noticed the time. But I was thankful that I'd finished an email and a design I'd started the night before, and it also meant that I was free for the day, though it was the weekend, and I knew that Omar was more than happy with my progress.
In fact, the colleague I'd often gone drinking with, who incidentally liked a bit of gossip, whispered that Omar had several times remarked that I had been working around the clock to catch up and that I'd been a godsend to the company even before my recent troubles.
I kind of already knew this, but it was nice to hear it from other colleagues how valued I was. It did make all the hours I put in worth it.
And as Jackson eloquently put it, I earned the bucks, so I should start spending the money.
"Not that I'm agreeing to your ridiculous plan to hang out all day and do things together," I started as we dug into his delicious omelette, "but what are you suggesting beyond our run together?" I finished, licking my lips and considering complimenting his culinary skills.
He seemed to consider it for a few seconds. "After our run, we can go to see a movie, then there's a couple of new bars I'd like to go check out. Apparently fit, hot young girls go there and I'm feeling feisty."
I nearly choked on my food.
"Wait... what? Hang on...where's your wife?" I realised with him staying over at my house, his wife must be wondering where he was.
"Away at her parents for the weekend," he stated simply, and lifting up his empty coffee cup.
I nodded over to the coffee machine. "Press the big green `Start' button." When he raised an eyebrow at me, I realised it sounded more sarcastic than I'd meant it to, but I said nothing more.
"...and...hot young girls? Really? You'd cheat on your wife with a girl?" the idea of it seemed to shock me.
He shrugged. "She won't give me sex; you won't give me sex. What am I? A monk?" he poured coffee.
I decided not to compliment him on his delicious breakfast.
"Thanks for breakfast. Wow." I stared at him, then looked away, unsure what else to say.
He smiled and folded his arms.
"What?" I said.
"I'm kidding!" he said, with a big smirk.
"You are?" I asked with suspicion.
"Of course! Having sex with guys, and you is one thing, but with girls? That just feels like..."
"Cheating..." I finished, but realised how absurd it sounded.
"Precisely."
We both seemed to think about what we'd said.
"We're a bit fucked," I said. Jackson nodded, then laughed.
I did too.
"Totally screwed up. But..." he winked, and I laughed at that, "I'm glad I'm not the only one who is screwed up!"
We shared a look that made me realise we were a lot more alike than I'd ever figured.
And so that day, we jogged together, went shopping together, watched an average movie and then went on a pub crawl.
Having been married and out of the pub scene, we were both really happy to have a huge number of new bars to explore and like-minded company to explore them with.
I realised that night as I collapsed into bed that it was the first time that I hadn't tried once to either message or call Helena that day.
Did you like this update? Please forgive my hiatus. Life gets in the way sometimes.
Have you read the book `The Hole in the Door'? Please support my ongoing work - Fox.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Hole-Door-Fox-Emerson-ebook/dp/B08L55B38F