A Tender Heart (Story Suggestion)

 I've been putting these off a bit, waiting to see if I'd get a few more suggestions, but I figure a few more might trickle in over the rest of the month. If you have an idea for a story you'd like to see, comment here, or on the original post here! I'll have another sketch for you all this weekend too.

This week we have something a bit more...optimistic than I usually post, but I can be genuine I swear. This was based off a request by Rodney Talon.

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Every week, Jay told himself that he’d find something else to do, that he wouldn’t end up back here again, at the bar, on the bar stool--the same bar stool where he always sat, holding a sort of court, a  court he’d never asked for...but one he’d found himself ruling all the same. He could remember when he was younger--much younger at this point he supposed, how he’d seen men like he was now (not at this bar--this bar hadn’t existed then--the city had gone through a few cycles of gay bars since then, a musical chairs of bad decisions, like the rest of Jay’s life, he supposed) older men, miserable looking men, holding court with other miserable men, drinking too much...he’d never wanted to be like them, he couldn’t have imagined being one of them. They were gays, but failed gays in his mind (not that he could define it better than that, had you asked him back then, what it meant to fail as a gay, but that didn’t make it any less true.) Was he a failure? Maybe he was. Maybe there was no succeeding. Maybe this is just where you ended up, if the plague didn’t get you, if you never settled down with someone you mostly detested, and adopted (kids, cats or dogs were all fair game for family structure). What were you, if you were almost fifty, and still here?

He ordered another drink to push the hopelessness back for a while longer, and tried not to look too bitter at the young men, men in a time that seemed miles more open than the one he’d grown up in, all making the same mistakes he’d made...but then, what else was there? Maybe he’d lost track of the future, somewhere along the line. Maybe there had never been a chance for him Maybe--

“This seat taken?”

He looked over in surprise, too caught up in his usual loop of pointless despair to notice the man standing beside him--smiling. Smiling, of all things, and not a small smile, a broad, open smile, unguarded and just begging to be broken. He was not a man who had any business smiling like that--he was older than Jay was, by five years, if not ten. He wasn’t in perfect shape, he was just...there, asking Jay about the stool beside him, as though anyone sat at the bar if they were expecting company. “No,” he said, and turned back to himself, hoping that would be the end of it. Instead, much to his disdain, even that simple no was enough for the stranger to hang a conversation on, and as much as Jay hated it, he went along with it, and they started chatting.

He...was surprised by his own callousness. He wanted to hurt him, not because there was anything wrong with him, but because...because he couldn’t believe anyone existed who didn’t feel hurt, like he was. There had to be something in the man--some insecurity, some trauma, some anger, something Jay could tap into to drive a little knife into him, enough to get him to stop...but nothing seemed to work. He was unflappable, and it was driving him nuts, somehow, that the man could turn the cheek to every snide remark and insult, and just keep bantering like everything was...good. So he kept drinking--too much, more than he knew he should, enough that when he tried to leave, the bartender demanded his keys from him, humiliating him, and he trudged out, using the doorway for support, and pulled out his phone to call a ride.

“I can get you somewhere, if you want.” 

It was the older man. He’d left with him...and after all of this, what more could he want? Jay rounded on him, ready to lay into him, and instead, he found the large fellow inches from him--and before Jay could say anything the man pulled him into a hug. Tight, but not too tight. It lasted...a long time, in Jay’s mind, but he couldn’t remember the last time someone had held him like that...years at least, if ever.

“Come on, you’ll feel better soon.”

The man grabbed Jay by the hand and tugged him along the sidewalk, over to a car, and helped him in. The man didn’t ask for his address, and Jay realized he was taking him...home with him. It had been, at that point, a couple of months since Jay had fucked anyone, and after all of this, did the man really want to fuck him? Want to get fucked by him? He didn’t know, but he doubted he’d even be able to get hard, as drunk as he was. 

The man’s house was small, but well cared for. He helped Jay in the front door, and gave him another long hug, before helping Jay out of his coat, and then his shirt. Jay tried to be aggressive, tried to regain some kind of control over the situation, but while the man never...dominated him, he somehow deflected every attempt and turned it around on him, until Jay was on the bed, the man on top of him, feeling his furry belly resting heavily on the small of his back...and he realized, then, that he was enjoying himself. More than enjoying himself--he was...happy. He was happy, and he felt...good. He felt gay, and good, and that was a combination he hadn’t felt in such a long time, that he teared up as the man fucked him, pushed back, and let...it go.

He fell asleep in the man’s arms, still unsure of his name, after a few hours of intense pleasure in the older man’s gentle hands. The next morning, the bed was empty, but Jay couldn’t help but feel...different. Lighter, but he hadn’t lost weight, had he? Younger somehow, but he was still the same age, the same grey, the same aches...but everything just seemed easier. Something had changed, but there wasn’t a word for it. He followed his nose to the kitchen, where the older man was cooking breakfast for them both, and he sat down at the table, picking up their conversation from the night before, but this time, Jay found himself laughing, and smiling, and he caught sight of himself in the mirror, wielding that same, open, unguarded grin the older man had worn the night before. Then, after they’d eaten, the man drove him back to the bar, he got his car, and with one last, firm hug, they said their goodbyes...and he still, he realized, had no idea who the man was.

He never saw him again. He couldn’t trace his way back to the house, either, or find him on any app...but Jay didn’t need to see him again, after that. All he really wanted, was to tell him thank you--but the man knew, he was sure. He knew what a tender heart could do, if you were careful with it.