Demons

By John Rock

Demons is an anthology of ten short stories that insightfully explore, with wit and compassion, the existential challenges of life, relationships, and how the demons we all carry with us from childhood affect our ability to deal with them. From injustices of power and corruption to handling marriage breakdowns; from tensions in

• Language: English
• Publisher: John Rock
• Release date: Nov 24, 2018
• ISBN: 9780648438816

John Rock

John Rock AM is an Australian activist and author. He was awarded the Order of Australia in 2017 for his tireless human rights and international development work, particularly in the fight against HIV in developing countries. He is contentedly gay and lives in Sydney.

Book preview

DEMONS

Copyright © 2018 John Rock

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in any information or retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

ISBN: 978-0-6484388-0-9

For

All Humanity

We all have demons

I wish to add my thanks to my talented friend

Graeme Hindmarsh

for his creative design of the cover.

Table of Contents

Demons

More Hummous

Spilled Coffee

The Last Meal

Secrets And Lies

The Train

Trust You

Towards Dusk

Opposites Attract

The Beach

Demons

T

he light glinted

over his arms highlighting the gentle auburn hairs that extended onto the back of the hand of his clenched fist. They were strong arms, with pale freckled skin, the muscles visibly tensed as he tightened his grip on the bar. There was a slight grunt as he lifted the bar to chest height, held it a few moments and then released it. Tony’s gaze moved up from his arms to encompass a strong chest under a neat white tank top with blue edging, some distinctly more reddish hair curling over the stitching. He liked what he saw, fit but not overly pumped. He raised his eyes to his face. The man looked at him, now quite aware that he was being checked out, and gave him a broad smile. He had short sandy, slightly reddish hair, piercing blue eyes, a very well proportioned face and features, clean shaven with a full mouth and a slightly lopsided and very engaging smile. Tony estimated his age at early thirties. He was a good looking man, Tony thought, not particularly his type, but he found him rather sexy.

‘Feel good?’ asked Tony, trying to be about as ambiguous as he could.

‘I’m Sam’, he replied avoiding the question, ‘I don’t think I have seen you here before’.

‘I have been coming for a few weeks but not normally at this time. Oh, Tony, by the way.’

Sam looked at Tony a bit more intently. He was about his age, he assessed, sharp features, small frame, wiry, olive skin, brown eyes, black very short hair and a well groomed moustache, crowning in contrast what looked like three days of designer stubble. A sexy look, but he was a bit small for his taste.

‘This is a good time to come’, Sam said, ‘most people are at work this time of day, so it is quieter and you can always get on the machines you want. It suits me as I work very flexible hours. Added to which I prefer to exercise in the morning’.

Tony moved a bit closer and sat on one of the benches. ‘I do shift work, so I have to fit the gym in when I can. I recently moved here from Melbourne.’

‘How sensible!’ laughed Sam, ‘Actually I quite like going to Melbourne. I like Sircuit and the crowd there; they always seem friendlier somehow, though I prefer to live here.’

Sam waited for Tony’s response to mentioning Sircuit, just to make sure that his assumption that he was gay was indeed correct.

‘I went there a few times, but I tended to prefer the Laird’, he offered by way of confirmation.

‘So what brought you to Sydney?’

‘A kind of job transfer.’

Sam felt the answer was intentionally vague so he left it at that. He instinctively felt Tony was a bit guarded, maybe lonely or at least preoccupied.

‘I’m done, heading to the shower.’

‘Yes me too’, said Tony. He was not quite sure why he said that, given he had not really started his workout regime. It was a spur of the moment thing. It was just the thought of seeing Sam naked in the shower that suddenly appealed to him.

Sam was a bit surprised as Tony had not seemed to be there too long. It crossed his mind that there was nobody else around, and that maybe Tony had something else in mind. To be honest he was a bit curious too, and liked the thought of seeing Tony’s cock and arse, just out of curiosity.

They both stripped off and headed to the shower, initially both hiding their nakedness with a towel. They placed their towels on the hooks provided and stepped under adjacent showers and started the water running. They then both turned and faced each other. The men took in each other’s body. Sam was taller than Tony and had a broader build. He had a hairy chest and tummy, and despite his fairish skin, there was a definite but faint Speedo mark. His cock was average in length but very thick, with a reddish glans left uncovered by his circumcision. Tony was smooth, a tight defined body, slight of build, and a Mediterranean olive colour all over. His cock appeared a bit longer than Sam’s but that could have been because of the foreskin. He did not have the girth that Sam had.

They smiled at each other. Sam started to soap his cock and Tony could see it was getting harder. He felt his own beginning to swell. Tony moved under Sam’s shower and put his hand on Sam’s cock, which responded by twitching. It was really hard now. Tony washed off the soap, knelt down and took Sam’s cock right down the back of his throat. Tony was good at this and within seconds he could hear Sam moaning. Tony stroked his own cock while working on Sam. Sam was holding Tony’s head and Tony could feel he was getting close. Suddenly Sam grunted and ejaculated down Tony’s throat. As he did so Tony quickened the pace of pumping his own cock and ejaculated on the floor of the shower. Tony waited for his contractions to stop, and then looked up at Sam with a wry smile.

‘Oh my god’, said Sam, ‘I was not expecting that today at the gym!’

They finished showering in silence and then got dressed. Sam did not have any pressing engagements and he sensed that Tony was at a bit of a loose end, a bit lost even.

‘Tony, have you got time for a coffee, there’s a great place a couple of doors up?’

‘Yes why not? Today is my day off.’

They packed their stuff into their bags and left the gym together without exchanging any conversation. Sam led the way into the cafe and headed for a table in the corner with nobody close by. He put his bag on the spare seat and asked Tony,

‘What would you like?’

‘A skinny flat while please, regular.’

Sam went to the counter and ordered two the same, paid for the coffees, and then returned with a stick with the number 3 on it.

While Sam was ordering at the counter Tony suddenly felt uneasy, a bit guilty and mystified by his own behaviour. He almost never acted on the spur of the moment. As Sam sat down Tony looked at him and smiled. Then he gave a small sigh.

‘You know, Sam, it was not just a job transfer that I came here for. Well actually I had to leave my job and find another one here. I came to be with my boy friend.’

Why was Tony telling Sam all of this? He was after all a complete stranger with a nice smile whom he had seduced and given a blow job in the shower. It was the smile, it inspired confidence and, perhaps he was imagining it, but he felt it was an indication of a nice person, someone he could talk to. He did not have anyone in Sydney he could talk to and things had been preying on his mind.

‘Oh, and so how is it working out?’

‘The job is okay I guess. Same as I was doing in Melbourne. Tele-helpdesk. It pays shit though.’

‘I meant the boyfriend actually. You seemed quite keen to suck me off!’

‘Oh, Ken, he is great. I wouldn’t normally do what I did, you just looked kind of sexy, and I guess the moment overcame me’. He gave a nervous smile and looked down.

‘Tony,’ Tony looked up, Sam looked at him in the eyes and said seriously, ‘I have a partner too, and I don’t normally do things like that either. We are gay. It happens.’

A very swarthy young man in his twenties, Middle Eastern in looks, rather striking, came over and placed their coffees on the table and took away the sign with the number 3 on it. Both Tony and Sam looked at him in appreciation as he walked away, and then looked at each other and laughed. It broke a bit of the tension.

‘So tell me about Ken’.

‘Ken is wonderful. I met him two years ago at a party in Melbourne. He took me back to his hotel and it started from there. He was coming to Melbourne every week for work and I spent holidays with him and in the end I decided to come up here to be with him. Well, he asked me, and even though I had some reservations, in the end I said yes. He is a few years older than me, four actually, a very masculine sort of man. Nobody would ever think he was gay. He has a very successful career, makes loads of money.’

Sam said, ‘In some ways it is not so different from my story. I am from Perth originally. My parents were Czech and they came here after the war and decided to settle in Perth, god knows why! Anyway, I was doing odd stuff in design and a bit of acting, and one night Kurt turned up at a rehearsal for some avant garde piece we were doing. His sister was married to one of the other actors. They came to pick him up and were going out for dinner. Kurt asked me if I wanted to join them. He was very much my type, taller than me, broad shoulders, almost a footy build, very self assured. I guessed he might have been close to 40. So I said yes. After dinner he simply said to his sister that he and I were going for a drink together, without even asking me, and goodnight! He flagged down a cab, turned to me and said ‘Your place?’ At the time I was renting a room in a rather seedy house in North Perth, but he didn’t seem to care. He stayed the night and well into the morning, he even cancelled an appointment he had.’

‘Sounds romantic in a Bohemian kind of way’, Tony commented.

Sam laughed. ‘Well it was very full on for a first encounter! He went back to Sydney but he had a project running in Perth at the time and so he was over once a month. Then the project finished and I did not see him for a year. We exchanged text messages from time to time. But I always kept thinking about him.’

‘What does he do?’ Tony interjected.

‘He is an architect, senior partner in a very well respected firm. They are just branching out into Asia right now. Anyway, after a year I was at a loose end and work had dried up, and I called him. I don’t really know why when I think back. But I did, just out of the blue like that. He suggested I come over for a couple of weeks or so to just chill. If I didn’t mind sharing a bed with him! As if!’ Sam laughed. ‘That was two years ago and I never really went back to Perth!’

‘So, you are living with him?’ Tony enquired.

‘Yes. When I got here Kurt took a few days off and then he got really busy at work, coming home late. So I started to do things around the house that he had never found the time to attend to. His diet was shit because he was eating out or on the run. So I started to buy food and cook for us. I took the dog for proper walks. Travis! Can you imagine someone calling a dog Travis?’

‘Sounds very domestic,’ ventured Tony.

‘It gets worse’. Sam laughed. ‘Then there was a major fuck up with some huge project they were doing in China and it was decided that Kurt needed to go and fix it. He was terribly apologetic, and asked if I minded staying on a couple of weeks to look after Travis. I didn’t really have anything else to do and so I agreed. I didn’t know anyone in Sydney at the time so I tidied up the garden, cleaned all the kitchen shelves, scrubbed the fridge, went for long walks. But I can tell you I was so glad when he came back!’

‘So what about work?’

‘I had been doing some design work in Perth for a couple of wealthy oil barons. Interiors. But those projects had dried up. Kurt was tremendous company, for me fantastic sex, and I was happier than I had been in a long time. And I think he was too. He needed far more balance in his life, and I just slotted in. He asked me how I felt about moving in permanently.’

‘But what about money?’ Tony was not sure how to ask what was on his mind. Clearly Kurt had all the money in the relationship, just like Ken did in his own relationship. That was a major issue for Tony. He didn’t like that dynamic and was intrigued as to how Sam dealt with it.

‘We discussed that. I did not want to just be a house husband. We agreed that I would try and set up a design business in Sydney. Kurt had a few contacts. And he felt that as long as it brought me satisfaction it did not matter too much whether it made much money or not.’

‘So he is supporting you?’ Tony blurted out, and then regretted it and added, ‘Because Sam, Ken is really paying for both of us whenever we go out because I can’t afford it. And I just don’t like it. I would rather not go out, but he insists.’

Sam was beginning to realise what was going on in Tony’s mind.

‘He provides more financially in the relationship and I provide more in lots and lots of other ways. It is a partnership. Not everything is about money, Tony.’

‘I know that, but money and independence are linked.’ Tony was quite intense now.

‘Are independence and happiness linked? And independence from what? But before I comment on that, two things; let’s have another coffee, and then tell me more about Ken and your relationship with him.’

Tony got two more coffees and then started to talk about Ken.

‘Ken is different from anyone I had met before. He is kind, attentive, has a great sense of humour. He is very outgoing, unlike me I suppose. He is a partner in a start-up IT Company. They developed some specialised software used in encryption in banking and finance, and it took off. To be honest it is very technical and I don’t really understand it. I don’t know what he saw in me really. I guess he likes guys smaller than himself, dark and smooth, and I ticked his boxes. Sexually we are very compatible. One of the things I like about him is that despite looking so masculine, he likes me to fuck him.’

‘You live together?’

‘Well that is part of the problem. No. He wants me to move in with him. But I have all sorts of reservations. So I am renting a studio apartment that costs me a fortune. Back of Glebe. I sleep at his place weekends and maybe a couple of nights in the week.’

‘Yes renting is expensive in Sydney. Why not move in with him? What have you got to lose?’

‘My independence, a sense of who I am. As it is he pays all the bills when we go out. Two weeks ago the water pump went on my car, and I was short of money and he paid for it. I hate that. I feel like a rent boy. And I am not like that. If I move in I will be like the kept toy boy, except that I am only four years younger than he is.’

Sam put his head on one side and then said, ‘In the meantime you are finding it difficult to make ends meet, and you are not happy.’

‘If I could get another job that paid more it might be easier, but what could I do? Frankly these days I am lucky to have a job at all.’

Tony paused for a few seconds and then continued, ‘I told Ken I did not feel comfortable about him paying all the time when we go out to dinner and suggested he goes out with his friends and I will see him other nights. But he was not happy with that, he said he didn’t care about the cost and wanted me there with him, and in any case if I moved in and had no rent to pay I would have more spare cash to do things. So that has caused tension between us. I don’t want that either. I just wish he understood. Maybe if the tables were reversed he would.’

‘So let’s go back to independence for a minute’, said Sam, ‘What exactly are you afraid of losing?’

‘A sense of self, being responsible for myself, pulling my weight.’

‘So it is nothing physical. You would still be free to have your own friends, wear what you wanted, change job if you want.’ ‘It’s not that sort of independence. It is more about how I feel. It is about paying my way, being responsible.’

Sam thought for a second and then he asked, ‘Tony, if Ken was earning the same as you, what then? Would there be a problem about living together then?’

‘I would feel different about it. Not about him but about the balance of the relationship.’

‘Do you love him?’ Sam asked.

‘Oh I don’t know what love is anymore! Do I ache to see him, worry that he might not want me, feel I could not live without him, look anxiously at the phone hoping he would call, like I used to when I was 19? No, but I feel complete with him. I love being with him, just spending time together. I love the sex. He is very affectionate and that is really important to me. Is that love as you approach middle age?’

Sam laughed. ‘I am not an expert on love, but probably. I feel much the same way about Kurt. I just feel that he is like the other part of me, that I am not complete without him.’

Sam looked at his watch. ‘Tony I have to go now but let’s continue this conversation. Will you be coming to the gym Friday?’

‘No, I have to work. But I have next Tuesday morning off.’

‘So do you want to meet here say at 10.30, does that work?’

‘Yes that works.’ Tony put it in the diary in his phone. ‘I have never talked about this to anyone, all the people I know here really are Ken’s friends or work colleagues. In fact I have never really enunciated it. Talking about it with you has helped me try and understand my own emotions a bit.’

Sam smiled. ‘It has made me think more about my relationship with Kurt too.’

The two men hugged and went their own ways.

Tony arrived first

and sat down at the same table as the previous week. There were a few more people in the cafe this morning, but the table was far enough away for them to talk comfortably without being overheard. He went to the counter and got himself a large flat white. When he saw Sam enter the cafe he got up, gave him a hug and asked him if he wanted a flat white too.

‘So, how was the weekend?’ Sam asked once they sat down.

‘Good, thanks. We went up to a friend’s place in the Blue Mountains. We ended up staying over on Saturday night. We all had a bit too much to drink but it was fun. You?’

‘Oh, Kurt had some work to do on Saturday so I took Travis on a long walk round Centennial Park, then came home and started on dinner for some old friends of Kurt who came round on Saturday night. Sunday I told Kurt what I planned for our next holiday. If I didn’t he wouldn’t bother to take one! So we spent some time planning that, and then I worked on a small work project in the afternoon while mister took a nap and suddenly the weekend was over.’

‘You know, I have been thinking following a few things you said last week’, said Tony. ‘The weekend was so good together. And I sometimes think that if I don’t move in with Ken our relationship will just fall apart, and I don’t want that to happen. But I just feel wrong about moving in and being like the wife or the kept man, or something like that.’

Sam sighed. ‘Tony, I think this is all about your world view.’ Tony looked down. There was a short pause in the conversation.

Sam continued, ‘Tell me about your parents, what were they like, what did they stand for?’

‘What did they stand for? That’s a hard one. I never ever thought about that. They were just ordinary people who got on with their lives. They weren’t involved in anything really, politics, religion, nothing. My dad was born in England into a lower middle class family and came here as a ten pound pom with his family in the sixties. My mother was Italian; that is where my olive skin comes from. She was born here. My father was from a Methodist family and my mother Catholic so they decided to abandon religion altogether to avoid conflicts. We were brought up more with working class values; nose down, bum up. My father was a good provider given that he did not earn a lot; he worked in maintenance for some engineering company. My mother took in sewing. We never had any luxuries but we always had food on the table and they encouraged us to get a good education.’

‘Us?’ Sam enquired.

‘My sister and me. She is two years older than me, married with two kids in Melbourne.’

‘How did your parents react to you being gay?’

‘Never talked about it. They must know, and my dad has made some snide comments, but I have always avoided the subject with them.’

‘So another reason why moving in with Ken might be hard?’ Sam suggested.

‘It would be easier being away from Melbourne’, said Tony a bit evasively.

‘It sounds to me as if your parents were down to earth people who got on with their lives, made their own way in the world, did not expect handouts, stood on their own feet, and brought up their kids to do the same’, commented Sam.

‘Pretty much, yes.’

Sam continued, ‘And I think that those values that our parents instill in us at a very early age are really hard to change. I believe that the messages we get when we are very small are almost integrated into us at an emotional level. We may later rationally challenge them and modify our behaviour, try to let our rational mind overrule our emotional reactions, but those emotional reactions are probably the first gut instinct we have before we overrule it, if we ever do!’

‘ Like in my case, my parents came from a European society at a time when there were