Chapter 1 - Radek
“It’s weird how you’re ginger all over but the hair on your forearms is black.”
“I guess,” Radek grunted, but that color difference was the last thing on his mind when Jan was six inches deep in him and nuzzling his long hair. Maybe they shouldn’t have smoked weed before sex. Oh well, you only live once.
“Fuck, you’re so sexy. Smell so good,” Jan groaned as his thrusts became harder, syncing with the rhythm of the loud music playing downstairs, but it was when Jan bit down on Radek’s neck that climax came within reach.
Radek moaned, writhing under his lover, and rolled his forehead against the bed as he reached to his dick to get himself off. The scratchy woollen blanket kept teasing his cockhead, but it was more agitating than arousing, and at this point he only wanted to finish.
A knock on the door made him stiffen, but it didn’t seem to bother Jan, who squeezed Radek’s hips with more force as he slammed home a few final times. He was coming? Really? The grunts confirmed it.
Radek’s brain was a tumble of paper clippings, and each contained a piece of distracting information. He wasn’t certain he was still aroused at this point.
Whoever was on the other side of the door, knocked again, and as Jan removed himself from Radek’s body, sliding his densely-tattooed arms around Radek’s freckled torso, it became clear it was time to cut this short.
Radek was bored.
“Who is it?” he called out, rolling to his back to look at the pale wooden panels covering the walls and the sloped ceiling of the attic bedroom.
“It’s Emil!” came from the other side. “But we can talk tomorrow if you’re bu—”
“No, no, wait a second!”
Jan frowned, stretching his firm body alongside Radek’s, but when he tried to anchor him in the narrow bed with his arm, Radek slid out of the embrace and grabbed his jeans off the floor. He pulled them onto his naked legs, because fuck knew where his underwear was.
Emil groaned. “I really can—”
“Coming!” Radek said, leaving the jeans unzipped.
“Did you though?” Jan whispered all too loudly.
Radek rolled his eyes at Jan as he opened the door. He’d invited Emil to the pre-Christmas party, but he’d lost hope about his friend taking the offer an hour ago.
Yet here he was.
“Emil!” he roared, stumbling straight into the broad arms. He buried his face in Emil’s thick black sweater and squeezed his waist with a low hum. “Long time no see!” he shouted when someone upped the volume of the pop music blaring in the living room downstairs.
Radek had spent most of his life between the forested hills of Dybukowo Valley, but the remote mountain village offered little in terms of entertainment, so he’d moved to Cracow at the earliest opportunity and never looked back. He returned several times a year to host loud parties at his family’s forest cabin. It used to be some communist dignitary’s second home, had four bedrooms, and was quite luxurious for a ‘cabin’, but when all of Radek’s friends descended on the place, the fit was still tight.
Many of them had never been anywhere so remote before, which was reason enough to endure the need to share beds, but the free booze and opportunities for skinny dipping in the nearby lake sealed the deal. In the winter, there was always ice skating or renting a sled to entice city rats.
Emil was a different matter altogether. Emil was local. A few years older than Radek and the village’s former black sheep, he’d been the friend/mentor Radek had desperately needed as a teenager. They’d gone to concerts together when Radek had been a baby metalhead dying to get out of Dybukowo, and most importantly, Emil had been his first sexual partner, so the sentiment was hard to beat.
Emil cocked his head and glanced inside the room. His cheeks and nose were still reddened from walking in the cold, so he must have just stepped across the threshold. “Hey, Jan.”
Jan gave Emil a short wave and lifted the blanket. “Hey. Invitation still stands, you know.”
Emil snorted and pushed back the waves of long dark hair that would have been the envy of every man at a Cradle of Filth concert. “I’m practically married.”
“To a former priest, so he knows everything there is to know about sacraments,” Radek teased, winking at Jan before turning back to Emil. He pulled out of the hug when it became clear Emil wasn’t going to squeeze him back and rested his hands on his hips, glancing at the handsome face. “Is he here?”
Emil shook his head with a smile, his eyes glinting as if just thinking about his man was making him happier than a squirrel with a nut. “No, not his scene. I just came by to give you these for Christmas.” He picked up a paper bag from the floor and opened it up for Radek to see what had to be bottles of homemade advocaat. The pale yellow of the liquor was making Radek drool in anticipation of sweetness. “But thanks for the offer, Jan,” Emil said over Radek’s shoulder. “Nice to know people other than Adam still wanna bone me.”
Jan laughed out loud and rubbed his short, pale hair. “What can I say? Got a thing for long hair.”
Radek frowned, his mind fuzzy, as if the pot and alcohol he’d consumed were only starting to kick in at full force. “And you don’t wanna stay this one time? He has you with him every night,” he said, taking hold of Emil’s hand.
Radek vividly remembered how those fingers had slipped into his hair and pulled just enough to cause pleasure not pain. Two years ago, when Radek had made his decision to move out of here final, Emil had been so available that Radek had taken his attention for granted. He’d never wanted to date Emil, but losing such a prominent fuckbuddy still hurt, especially that in his fantasies Emil eventually got fed up with his lonely existence in Dybukowo and joined Radek in Cracow. They could have become roommates and shared a life of fun and great sex. Two years on, Emil had not only stayed in this dump and somehow convinced a priest to shed his robes, but had also got elected the village head? What kind of mind-fuckery was that?
“Nah, not this time.” Emil pulled his hand away, but leaned closer to whisper, “get yourself a real boyfriend, and you’ll understand.”
Radek hummed, struggling to keep his smile from falling when the familiar scent of herbs Emil carried with him filled his nostrils. Emil never had time for him anymore. Everything was about Adam, and while Radek had been invited to visit their new home, what he wanted wasn’t a polite dinner for three but solo time with someone he used to consider his best friend. Emil was still a friend but… well, their relationship had changed when Radek had looked away for a few weeks too long.
And he wasn’t happy about it.
“Doesn’t he trust you to keep it in your pants around me? Is that it?” he asked, adding a bit of a chuckle at the end when Emil frowned.
“I’m sure you’ll have a good night without me, too. Visit us over Christmas, hm? We could take out the sled,” Emil said, patting Radek’s shoulder.
Despite standing there half-naked, long red hair sliding down his chest, the freckles Emil used to love so much on show, Radek couldn’t have felt more invisible. “Sure, I’ll see how things go with my mom.” He didn’t even bother inviting Emil for a New Year’s trip to Madeira, because he never left the village anymore, and a part of Radek resented him for it.